Mary

by Derek D. Bass
August 5, 1997
 

"Put the knife down."

Mary stopped running and turned toward the man speaking to her, her long knife firmly in hand. The delicate kris blade, still slick with blood, shone grimly under the dim florescent lights of the botany lab. She glanced about quickly, searching for an escape from her lost sanctum. Every door, every window showed nothing but the promise of more Technocratic agents, weapons drawn. Behind them, she could see all the research she and her friends had done being burned. Four years of painstaking work on the harmful effects of radiation on desert ecosystems, lost. The government wanted to build a nuclear dump site near here, and it looked like they would get their wish, one way or another. In the corner, Harold's body lay, crumpled and twisted. Mary knew that Michael's death wouldn't bring Harold, or any of the others back, but she could not have allowed Michael's treachery to go unrewarded. He brought this down upon them, sold them out for his 30 pieces of silver. She didn’t know what they had offered him for bringing them here. It didn’t matter. It was his blood that now stained her knife.

"Put the knife down," the man repeated, "and you will not be harmed."

"Not harmed! Like Emily, like Damon, like Harold wasn't harmed!"

"Resistance is not tolerated," the man suited in black offered flatly, as if in explanation. The uniformed men and HIT-Marks flanking him seemed to confirm this. His words caused images to form in Mary's mind, pictures of her friends and how she had discovered them, broken and torn. Despair washed over her; her knife began to slip from her grasp. In turmoil, Mary looked inside herself. She saw Emily, carefully tending her herb garden; Damon, green eyes brimming with life; and Harold, poor Harold, the Ethermage who wanted nothing more than to putter with his dear plants. Their strength now fueled her. She hurled her blade at the HIT-Mark to her left, twisting the knife's pattern until its density increased a thousand-fold. Through blurring waves of Paradox, Mary saw the knife strike the cyborg in the chest and drive straight into the floor, splitting the HIT-Mark from sternum to groin. Lasers and machine-gun fire opened up all around her, forcing her to drop behind the counters she was standing near. Startled cries erupted as the laboratory's plant-life began grabbing whoever was nearby. Again, Paradox twisted her stomach in a knot. Mary grimaced at the new pain, and a sudden thunderstorm exploded in the confines of the small lab. The orderly force of Technocrats quickly disintegrated into random bursts of gunfire echoing through the small room. Drenched to the skin and curled up into a fetal position, Mary felt the knot in her guts tighten still further. Blinded by pain, she looked to the Goddess for guidance. Despite her agony, Mary smiled, and the pain became a trembling force inside her, growing in intensity with every second. Within moments, the room began shaking, as the consequences of her efforts began to manifest themselves. Mary smiled, and her friends were around her again. Mary smiled, and let go...

*** "...reports tonight of a massive earthquake centered in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The 7.6 magnitude temblor struck in an area not previously thought to be seismologically active. Scientists are scrambling to explain how this fault line went unnoticed for so long. There were no fatalities connected to the quake, which destroyed five buildings, described by authorities as an abandoned research center. In a related story, government officials have announced an end to plans to build a low-level radioactive waste containment facility in the Mojave Desert, just ten miles from the epicenter of today's earthquake. In other news..." ***

1997 Derek D. Bass
 

Return to Drifting Paradigms...