The Fall

Prologue

The air was crisp and cold. Snowflakes hung in the grey air, too lazy to fall down. So went a usual day in the Soviet Union.

The power plant had been abandoned for a long time. Dust and rust gathered with the years of rejection. It was secluded and quiet. The only sound that could be heard was the soft compression of metal under a quiet shoe. A shadow flitted through the hallways, quiet as could be.

In case of emergency: Redirect

The words that had appeared in the coding for less than a second had stayed in her mind. Well, then again, everything did. But that phrase, with redirect the only one not in Russian, perplexed her. Had she translated that wrong? With everything in the coding being random, why did those five words make sense? But more importantly, why did an old abandoned warehouse have a console with a monitor locking it closed?

The shadow drew closer to the center of the building, staying in the darkness. A room towards the middle had light within, and the shadow silently approached.

Voices could be heard inside. Gruff russian orders. KGB. Always the KGB. An american voice, that of a woman, could be heard as well. "...please... what is the point of this?"

The woman was pretty, and fit right into the current American standard of beauty. She was tied up and immobile, with a blondfold and could only talk to her slavic captors. "I don't understand... why did you kidnap me?"

The leader of the Russians glanced over at her as he worked. "The daughter of ze american president vill always be wualuable to us. I thought you would know that," he told her in accented english.

The woman fell silent amd continued straining against her bonds. The Russians formed a small huddle to the side, leaving the entrance unguarded.

"Vere is eet?" One whispered. "Ve leaked ze location hourz ago!"

"How vill vee get the randsom?"

"An agent of the CIA zhould be here veery soon... any seecond-"

"Remember ze west!"

"Ah!"

One of the guards grabbed a vest from the corner, typed in a code, and put it over the girl's head. She immediately panicked. "What's that?! What!"

"Just a... fail safe. In case your friend decides to be... uncooperative."

It was right at that moment that several things happened at once.The captured girl couldn't see anything. First came the whizzing sound of some sort of projectile. Then yells in Russian. More whizzes. And then all was silent except for the beeping on the vest.

There was a brief moment where no one seemed to move, then the blindfold. The girl now was able to see her rescuer.

Her face immediately lit up. "Janet!"

The other woman shushed her, examining the vest. "Later. What is this?"

The girl shrugged. "I don't know! They said it was a fail safe, in case-"

Janet examined the vest. It didn't take a genius to relize that it was a bomb. An active one.

"Hold still. This'll only take a second."

Janet found the controk box and peek inside. It was a classic choice... red, blue, or green. One would neutralize the bomb, the others... well, Janet was a positive thinker. She would pick correctly.

The bomb had no visible timer. It could go off at any moment, so time was not on their side. Janet looked at the three colors, then closed her eyes.

Everything she'd seen, everything she knew, it all flashed before her. Names, dates, information... but nothing was surfacing. What kind of bomb even was this? The choice seemed random...

In case of emergency: Redirect

Emergency: redirect

Redirect.

Red.

RED.

"Janet!"

A fifteen year old girl was suddenly pulled back into reality. The dark haired man and the older informant were looking at her expectantly. The quiet atmosphere of the cafe differed greatly from where Janet had been imagining herself.

Her boss raised an eyebrow. "Janet? The code, please."

Janet nodded, taking the tablet from the informant. "Right..." that's the whole reason she'd been brought here, right? She was the only one that could definitely remember such a long number. Writing it down was out of the question. Janet had to enter it directly into the system for maximum security.

Her fingers moved quickly and the code was quickly accepted. She smiled and gave the tablet back to the informant. "Sorry, I was daydreaming."

The informant took the tablet and nodded approvingly before looking back at her boss. "Amazing, Mr. Johan... did you train her to remember things like that?"

Johan shook his head. "She was born this way. I've trained her in other fields, however. And her brother too."

Janet glanced outside the cafe and spotted her twin brother standing guard. The two of them were young for agents... but special circumstances had lead to the two siblings being able to travel and train with Travis Johan.

The informant wabed his hand dismissively. "I'm not talking about the brother. He can't do the thing. I'm talking about Janet! MI6 could really use someone like her."

"Well," Johan replied, leaning back in his seat. "As long as I work for the CIA, she does too. That won't ever change."

The two kept arguing, but Janet wasn't interested. She stared past her brother at a van parked not too far away. Something about it was familiar...

"Stay here!" Travis yelled. "Hide in the garage... these guys make bombs, so don't touch anything!"

It was more than familiar. It was memory. A former mission... a former foe.

A man was walking towards the cafe, something clutched in his hand. Janet's brother saw him and rushed towards the attacker. Before he could get too close, however, the object was thrown to the door of the cafe...

The next thing she knew, screams rang out. Smoke gagged Janet's throat and everything was white. How close had the bomb been?

She opened her eyes, moving one finger at a time. Yep. All good. She sat up, her head screaming in protest. Her hands were slick with... blood? Janet ignored it and grabbed the overturned table to stand up. She vaguely saw that the informant was dead? Janet didn't know. She didn't want to know. She refused to look at the door.

A hand grabbes her shoulder. Janet started but quickly realized that it was just Johan.

"Janet... at least you're alive. I'm sorry..."

Everything suddenly made sense.

"I'm not talking about the brother..."

Travis knew this would happen. And he put Janet's only brother on watch...

He wasn't important.

He was...

"He can't do the thing!"

Expendable.

Janet lashed out suddenly and without warning. Travis stumbled back, unprepared.

"You knew!"

The girl who didn't know her own strength kept lashing out. Travis fell.

"And you didn't care!"

Travis raised his arm, trying to get her to stop. She did.

"Janet! Wait, Ja-"

He looked up, and relized that he was alone with two dead bodies and a crowd of confused cafe-goers.

Janet was gone.