Alexis Gardner awoke to the sun shining through her hotel window, casting it's warm glow across the lower half of the bed, finally raising the temerature in the room just enough to arouse her from her sleep. She took a deep breath in and stretched her whole body, arching her back and pressing hard on the headboard with her palms. Keeping her arms locked, she worked them all the way around until they were back at her sides, yawning and giving her shoulders a nice rotation, then pulled the blanket over her face to block the sunlight from her still photosensitive eyes. She felt unusually well rested, but was still considering trying to catch a few more minutes sleep, wondering if she had the time. Time... Something wasn't right. Alexis sat straight up suddenly, overcome with panic. Damn, it's too bright outside! She thought, looking out the window at the hazy skyline, what time is it? Then the inevitable realization; "Shit! I've got to be late!" Alexis threw back the covers and pivoted ninety degrees on the bed, scooting out to the edge of the matress and placing her feet down on the carpet all in one swift motion. She picked up the alarm clock on the bedside table and looked down at the LCD screen. The face was dark, causing her to squint, trying to make out the time. Upon closer inspection she found that the clock face was not just dark, but blank. She blinked in disbelief, not sure what to think for a moment, I checked the damn thing when I went to bed last night, she rationalized, I set it myself! Still somewhat boggled at this turn of events, she shook the alarm fiercely in her hands, and when that failed to yeild any result, traced the cord back to the wall, only to find the clock was, indeed, still plugged in. Piece of shit, she thought, outraged at the thought of being looked down upon by her colleagues, and very possibly losing her job, through no fault of her own. Wait a minute, Alexis realized, I asked for a wake up call, maybe I've still got time. A second look outside at where the sun sat on the horizon quickly dashed any such hopes, though. Boy am I gonna give the manager here an earful, she thought, then, screw that, I'm gonna sue the shit out of them! What kind of place are they running here?
Alexis put those thoughts aside for a moment, though, forcing herself to focus on the most important matter at hand: She had flown half way across the country in order to make this sales pitch, and now she needed to see if there was any way at all to salvage this situation. She picked her watch up off the dresser to check the time but the hands were stopped at one minute past twelve. Great, shaking her head at the absurdity of the whole deal. I just changed the battery in this thing like last month, maybe the month before, but they should last a lot longer than that, right? She threw the watch hard into the corner of the room, barely missing a framed print on the wall and leaving a small indention in the sheetrock. She was beginning to feel the stress of the situation, but was trying hard not to let it affect her judgement. What would be the next logical step? Call Randy, try to explain all this... Maybe they would still listen to her pitch, maybe everything would be okay. Yeah, fuckin' right.
Alexis picked the phone up out of its cradle, immediately dialing the ten digits she had memorized that would get her in touch with Randy Simms, the marketing executive at the sportswear company she was supposed to pitch to probably about two hours ago. She lifted the phone to her ear and waited for that familiar sound that meant the phone was ringing on the other end. It took just a moment for her to realize that the line was entirely too quiet. She tapped the button in the phone cradle that hangs up, and still nothing. She repeated the process to no avail. "Damnit!" Alexis slammed the phone down in its cradle as hard as she could, and when it wasn't enough to alleviate the stress she continued to slam the reciever home five more times, until she was thouroughly convinced that it would never work again. She screamed a wordless scream of frustration, clenching her fists tight as she did.Just what in the holy hell was going on here? Power outage? She wondered, then, no. At least not completely, because if it was just the power then the phone would probably still work. Besides, she further explained to herself, I had the alarm set on my cell, too. The cell phone! Alexis glanced at the bedside table, and when she didn't spot her cell there she realized it must still be in her purse, and she would never have heard its alarm sound. She reached under the bed and dragged her purse out, dumping the contents out onto the hotel room floor rather than digging through. When she spotted the familiar silver shape she snatched it up and flipped it open, only to find the screen blank. She pressed and held the power button, but still nothing. Dropping the phone on the ground, she began to massage her temples in an attempt to ward off the migrane she could feel approaching. As much as it frusturated her, she couldn't honestly count herself very surprised when the cell phone followed suit with every other damned thing she was counting on this morning. Reaching out to the switch on the wall, she wasn't exactly shocked when the bedside lamps didn't illuminate either, after she flipped it to the on position. Completely out of curiousity she picked up the television remote, but it, too, seemed to have joined the ranks of inanimate objects on strike. Oh well, she thought, taking care to repack the important objects in her purse, like her cell phone, Taser, and wallet. If it's like this everywhere, maybe it's not as bad as I thought, but immediately Alexis realized that if it really was, then things could be far worse.
Not entirely sure what she should do, Alexis decided that at the very least she needed to get ready and leave. She grabbed the change of clothes from the closet and took them into the bathroom. Not expecting much, she tried the faucet and was so surprised that there was hot running water on tap, she had to run out to check her cell phone again. Unfortunately, she found the cell was still just as useless. Before she made her way back to the bathroom, however, something out the window caught her eye. The haze that she had seen lingering in the hills this morning seemed to be getting darker. and thicker. Now that she gave it a good look, it didn't look much like smog at all. Alexis placed both palms on the glass, unable to avert her eyes from the picture she had somehow missed just moments ago. The valley view outside her window was fast becoming obscured with thick black clouds of smoke. Lots of them. She couldn't tell from this high up what all was burning, but it had to be a lot of something. She scanned the horizon and found one obvious source; There was a trail of debris scratched into the landscape like a claw mark that must have stretched more than two blocks. Something had ripped a path right through the city. At the end of the gash, sticking out of a jumble of brick and steel that could only have been a mall or very fancy apartment complex, she spotted pieces of a long, white tube. The tube was uniform in shape, except for the jagged parts of it which had been torn to pieces. It was also dotted down the side with a single line of evenly spaced dark circles. She could still see flames licking the edges of the shaft in places where it looked as if it had been ripped apart by sheer force. Rising out of the jumble of rubble and steel was a long, thin fin. Only, fin wasn't really the word, Alexis told herself, more like... wing. A really long one, too. From a really big plane. Alexis decided that if she was going to shower and get dressed she had better hurry. She didn't know how long the hot water might last, but more importantly she wanted to get off of the 25th floor and out of this hotel as soon as possible. The fire and smoke frightened her terribly, but not anywhere near as badly as the lack of sirens. Foremost in her mind, for some reason, was wheather or not she still had a job.
There was no one present in the lobby, so Alexis kept her room key card. As sure as she was that she'd never be back this way, there was still the possibility that she might be forced to retreat here. Who knew what kind of a situation she might find outside. It was one thing to look down on it from well over two hundred feet in the sky, but that reality changed once you got down to ground level. She could see from the lobby that the city street was packed with cars, but none looked to be running. Looking down the line she couldn't see any accidents either, as if everyone had just decided to stop their cars at the same time and get out to walk. What a sight that would be, the million motorist march, she thought as she made her way through the lobby to the front entrance. Pushing the doors open, she was accosted by a toxic stench. She gagged at the smell, it was like someone was burning plastic, rubber, and motor oil all at once. That's most likely the case, the rational voice in the back of her mind told her. It took some willpower but she finally got used to the stench, though she kept stooping slightly out of habit, trying to avoid the thin haze of smoke that was everywhere. As the doors clicked shut behind her, Alexis wondered if they were locked, but didn't bother to check. If she really needed to come back to her hotel room, she doubted it would make much difference if she broke a window or door to get in. All the usual sounds of the city were gone. There were no cars running, no horns honking, no police or fire sirens blaring. No people. Creepy quiet, she told herself, and as if on cue, about a block away she heard the tinkle of broken glass.
Reaching into her purse Alexis made sure she could feel the familiar shape of her Taser X26c stun gun. It had been a gift from an ex boyfriend who didn't like the idea of her running around all these big cities completely defenseless. The truth was that she'd never given things like that a second thought until that bastard Greg had given her the thing, and now she was scared shitless without it. She wasn't entirely sure that the trade off was benificial to her. Until now. Alexis wrapped her hand around the handle, flipping the safety switch off with her thumb. Today Alexis was finally sure that having the Taser was worth the peace of mind it cost her. She decided to walk in the opposite direction of the breaking glass, out of principal, and was developing a short term game plan. Alexis didn't know the city, and she generally was driven everywhere she ever went. She decided that no matter what her plan was, she would need a map and a phone book for locations. Should be a gas station every few blocks or so in this city, Rational Ali explained to her, just keep going straight until you see one. She made it about two and a half blocks without hearing anything other than her own footsteps, when a sudden shuffling noise made her stop in her tracks. Suddenly a young man camerunning out of the alley ahead on her right, stumbling over his own feet and taking a spill onto his knees on the sidewalk.
"Please help!" The man shouted, turning his head toward her, "You gotta help ma'am, please!" Now he was getting to his feet and Alexis saw that he had blood on his hands and his shirt. He held his palms out as if in explaination, "he's hurt bad!" The young man turned and ran back into the alley, Alexis stayed frozen in place. "Help!" He shouted again from the alley and she found her motivation. When she rounded the corner she saw the young man bent over a huddled figure, lying on the ground. She picked up the pace and half jogged, half ran to the man on the ground. There was a lot of blood.
"What happened?" She bent over the man to check his pulse. There was none, or it was too weak for her to feel.
"He got stabbed." The young man said, matter-of-factly.
"Stabbed?" She asked franticly, even as she felt the young man's thumb on the side of her neck from behind. Not expecting the worst, Alexis didn't react quickly enough. His fingers closed over her windpipe in a violent grab, and even as she turned to face him, he still had a firm grip on her throat. He forced her out of her crouched position onto her knees by pushing down on her with the hand that had her throat.
"That's right, bitch. Stabbed." The young man pulled his hand out of his pocket to reveal a bloody hunting knife with a six inch blade. Alexis realized that she still had a grip on her Taser in the purse. Summoning every once of courage she could, she pulled the Taser out and leveled it at the man with the knife. His eyes widened. She pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The young man laughed, never loosening his grip even the slightest. "A shock gun! Holy shit, you were gonna shock me! Thank god rich bitches like you are afraid of guns!" The young man squeezed tighter on her throat and raised his knife. The blood loss from his choke hold was already fading her vision to black when she heard the gunshot.
Alexis gasped for air as the young man reliquished his death grip on her throat, stepping back from her. She fell forward, catching herself with her palms, feeling incredibly weak as the blood returned to her limbs and head. Soon she could see clearly again and looked up. the young man had let her go to look at whoever fired the gunshot, but remained facing her with the knife in his hand. There was a man at the alley's entrance with a pistol pointed upward in his left hand and a chunk of asphault in his right. He was looking directly at the two of them. "Get out of here," the new guy said, lowering his pistol at the young man. "Leave her alone."
"The fuck I will!" the young man stated, running toward the new guy with his knife raised. New guy didn't flinch. Instead, with more than fifty feet of distance between them still, he wound up with his right arm and let loose with the bit of asphault. The young man had no time to dodge, and the asphault struck him off center on his forehead, ricocheting into the wall with a sickeningly wet and hollow sound. The young man went down like a wet towel without even making a sound.
"Dangit!" the new guy shouted, sticking the pistol in his belt at the small of his back. He jogged up and got on one knee to check the young man's wrist for a pulse. After a few seconds he muttered, "Thank you Jesus," and got back up. He looked at Alexis and explained, "I thought that rock might be better than having to shoot someone. I was worried I killed him for a minute, there," then after a pause, "I pitch for the church team." He offered Alexis his hand, which she took, and then helped her to her feet.
"I wouldn't have minded a bit if he had died." She told him.
"I imagine not, but I'm not completely sure that I could handle it. I'm a very religious person, see, I don't think it's up to me to decide who lives or dies. I sure am glad that Jesus placed you in my path, though. Name's Paul."
"Like the Apostle?" She asked before she could realize that it might sound rude.
"Well, I suppose so, yeah," Paul laughed with a smile, "like the Apostle Paul. I'm not sure if he was a big softball player, though."
