A Modern Beauty: Part One

PROLOUGE

Prologue

Kevin peeked slowly around the corner until he could see the whole of the giant room, and reached up to his ear to activate his com system. “I’ve got her,” he whispered. “In the back chamber of corridor nine, violet section, as suspected.”

             “Copy that.” replied James, on the other side of the line. “Hold there until I can get you a team of reinforcements.”

            “Copy that.” Kevin released the com as he put his hand back on his gun, then leaned back into the corridor. He shivered, and pulled his jacket closer around him in a futile attempt to dispel the natural cold that came simply from being in the steel catacombs.

            The steel catacombs were a huge maze of tunnels that lead underground for miles. Most of them ended in large plain rooms with unpredictable wiring problems. Nobody had ever succeeded in mapping all of them, but the first few levels had been assigned colors and numbers. After that, the government had stopped trying due to losing too many people to madness.

Kevin shivered again, and turned his mind back to the task at hand. Inside the room was their quarry: a little girl with long, jet black hair and violet highlights. On the outside she might look like the perfect sweet little angel, helpless and lost, but Kevin knew otherwise. He knew that she was the most powerful, most dangerous thing that the world had ever seen, and that if she caught them sneaking up on her, they were all dead men.

“Kevin, where is she now?”

Jumping a little bit at the sound of James’ voice, he replied. “At the desk on the other side of the room, with her back to the entrance. It looks like,” Kevin paused to peek around the corner again, but then stopped.

“Kevin?” James asked. “Kevin, what is it?”

“She’s gone.” He whispered, and immediately entered the room to search, but could see no other way out.

“What? Is there another exit?”

“Negative.”

“Are you sure? She can’t have just disappeared, not even her powers are strong enough to do that.”                                                                                        

“Maybe her abilities have mutated again?” Kevin guessed.

“Oh gosh, for the sake of all of our lives, I hope not.” James voice was beginning to static.

“Why would that…” but then it dawned on Kevin. If her powers had mutated again, then they didn’t know the extent of her powers, and she could sneak up on them anywhere. Kevin tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out. He got it on the second try. ”I’m retreating.”

“Okay,

“I’ll send a team of reinforcements to your position.” It broke up a little more this time, but Kevin continued.

“Copy that.” Kevin left his com running and listened to sounds of static and James muttering as he ran down the hallway out of the room, turned left on to a side corridor, and took the only turns he could until reaching a dead end, and then slowed.

The only light back here came from the little bit that managed to escape down this corridor from the outside, and the faint glow of his mobile clipped to the front of his jacket. He sighed, and was about to turn around when he caught sight if a small shape in the corner.

Hesitantly, Kevin walked towards the figure, but pulled back as he realized it was the little girl with the black hair, and she was sobbing.

He reached up slowly to his ear. “James,” he whispered “I’ve found her.”