Memories

May 12, 2285

Terra Firma (formerly Earth)

New York City

Impulse Tower

The black butterfly glasses were not a prescription, she wouldn’t be wearing them in thirty years around Tim’s cabinet table. Alestra didn’t need the glasses to see, but they flickered red around the edges of the lenses. She received them as a Jet Setter, the best of the best of Terra Firma’s special forces. Among them, she was the best, until she defected. This was her last mission on the planet. Moving close to the white, sterile, dimly lit wall, an alarm started blaring around her.

Oh shit, guess it’s not a stealth mission anymore. She shrugged, then faced the wall. Pulling up the hood on her maxi dress over her golden braid, she pushed as close to the wall as possible. She clicked a button in her sleeve, the black dress flickered for a moment then simulated the wall she was pressed against, making her nearly invisible. Moments later, a group of mundane security guards rushed down the hall. Even six inches away from her, they didn’t notice her. The dress was worth the money.

Turning her head away from the wall, she saw the outlines of the security guards in her glasses turning the corner. She pressed the button on her sleeve and the dress turned black again. She sprinted, in her six-inch heels, down the hall in the other direction. In the glasses she saw the path, a green line, leading her to her target. They were an augmented reality overlay, they have contacts that do the same thing, but she didn’t like putting things in her eyes. A red warning twinkled at the bottom of her lenses.

“Halt! Stay where you are!” She spun around to see three security guards in fully mechanical armor suits staring at her with their weapons drawn. Standing six feet four inches tall, she held her hands up, “Where did you all come from?” Looking into her glasses, she studied a readout of their weapons and other combat related equipment. The security guard pointed to the wall next to them, and she looked at it. After staring at it for a couple of seconds, the glasses noticed a section of the wall that moved, apparently silently, to reveal a hidden hallway.

She looked back at the security guards in front of her, and some green and red points were lighting up on them in her glasses. Good. The tactical assessment program works on these suits. I’ve never seen them before. Most of the red lights were on their fronts and higher on their bodies, the green lights indicated on their backs and legs. Slow and poor balance? Piece of cake.

“So, what do you all do for fun around here?” The security guards all looked confused, and their muscles relaxed slightly, showing an instant response in the stances of the suits. The green lights turned brighter until they finally blinked. She lunged forward with super human speed.

The humans, and subsequently the suits, couldn’t respond quick enough. Less than a second later, all the guards had been tripped and thrown to the ground. She pulled out a small metal rod. With one quick motion, she pressed an electrical charge to all three suits and forced them into life support only mode. The suits started glowing red in all the joints. If the new suits were anything like the old versions, they wouldn’t be able to get up until someone rescued them. She darted up the hall, leaving the stranded security guards to file their reports and request help.

Back in stealth mode, she followed the green path laid out virtually before her. Five hundred feet down the hall, the digital pathway turned yellow and she slowed down. Putting her hood back up and clicking the button, she vanished. As she moved closer, she turned a corner, her pathway turned red. It led to a door guarded on each side by large people wearing light clothing and carrying swords and wearing sunglasses even in the extremely low light of this particular hallway. Ugh, Jet Setters. They said I was in for a fight, I wonder what’s worth all this. These new combatants had the same augmented reality overlay she did. She looked a moment closer and saw a man and a woman that she herself trained. The guards turned and saw her before she could act. They rushed her with the same super human speed she had. Pulling down her hood, her glasses went from stealth to combat mode and starting giving her frantic tactical analysis. The Jet Setters both pulled out their swords, and she pulled out two hidden Japanese style short swords, blocking them as she dodged between them. Trying to strike them in the back, they had already turned around with their large swords ready to block. Another alarm went off in the system as one of the Jet Setters tapped her wristband. “We will make you regret betraying us,” she said.

This alarm identified exactly where Alestra was. Alestra knew more power suited and Jet Setter guards would be coming soon.

Well, it’s either complete the mission or die. I’ve got to be quick about it. That thought passing through her head was just enough to put her a nanosecond behind the male Jet Setter. She blocked the female, but a large red warning came down at an angle across her vision, she knew couldn’t move fast enough to avoid it. “Too late,” he taunted. She pushed back to where the sword was coming from. The Jet Setter opened a large gash on her back as she threw her weight backward. “Really? Who said I was trying to avoid it?” Alestra responded. The gash went a little deeper because of it, but the bit of extra force added just enough resistance to slow him down just enough.

Alestra clicked a button on her wristband and the mode changed in her glasses. The frantic tactical warnings were muted, and she dashed along the path. She forced her way through the metal door, moving with so quickly that she broke the latch and lock.

She saw the label in a split second as she broke in. Memory Core Storage? Why break into this room? With the Jet Setters in pursuit, she had less than a second to find what she needed, it wasn’t quick enough. She spun around and blocked attacks from both the Jet Setters.

That’s when she saw it. Two small disks glowing green thanks to her glasses on a shelf next to the door. She jumped over the two Jet Setters as they swung again, missing her because they didn’t predict where she was going. She grabbed the small disks and pocketed them. Alestra made the mistake of reading the labels as she pocketed them, ’Timothy Li?’ ‘Samatha Knudsen?’ a small bit of confusion reached across her mind. Less than a second later, a warning popped up, and both Jet Setters landed blows as she missed the blocks. The female got her in the left leg and the male got her in the right arm.

She winced in pain. Using the moment, she crumpled to the ground, which they didn’t expect for such small hits; the gambit let her escape between them again. Clicking her wristband again, everything turned over to flee mode, her dress gave her the appearance of moving slower than she actually did. Her glasses resolved the most efficient path out of the building. She dashed back through the door out into the hall.

Moving faster than her brain wanted to, with pain arching though her back and a couple of limbs, she darted down hall after all to a circular staircase. It was round and had an empty column in the middle. This will give me a leg up, she tapped the toe right foot twice into the ground as the two Jet Setters came in after her. Little rocket boosters popped out of her high heels powered her up ten flights of stairs in a matter of moments. She looked down to see the Jet Setters, despite their speed, only one flight up having to follow the stairs.

Bursting though a hidden one-way door in the lobby level, she popped out by a coffee shop, starling all the customers. She ducked into the crowd, flipping everything to stealth mode. She pulled her hood up and the dress changed into a floral pattern, the hood gave an optical illusion of the head of an older woman with gray hair. Quickly falling anonymous into the crowd, Alestra moved slowly. Two text warnings popped up in her glasses, ‘blood trail’ and ‘blood loss’ Shit! I have to move. She picked up the pace a bit as she was halfway across the lobby of this old tower. This tower was outliving its useful life. However, based on a government decree by the first Emperor of Terra Firma, it was “the best tower” in the entire world. That’s when it was renamed to Impulse Tower, its old name was Trump Tower.

The Jet Setters, rushed out of the door. It took them less than a moment to find the blood trail she was leaving. Alestra trained these two, she knew them, so even that one moment gave her enough time to change back to flee mode. She sprinted out of the building into the smog filled streets of New York and jumped into an idling hover van on the street.

The van tore off into the air. “Well, I’m a little beaten up, but I did it.” She produced the two data disks for the person sitting in the back of the van. “Good job Ylena. Xavix wants you to deliver them personally. I’ll patch you up, you’ll meet him in orbit around Saturn. Then you will start your new life, away from this planet.”