Generation X

Chapter One - 0015's Failed Mission

            She silently stepped onto the roof, the child still sleeping in her arms. Her body didn’t even ache after the fifty-story building she’d climbed with the kid cradled to her body, and her legs were barely protesting. Yet as she looked out at the city while standing on the roof, she felt a certain tiredness come over her.

            She couldn’t wait for this mission to end. She didn't know why this was the mission assigned to her, but she wanted it to end. Something felt wrong about the set-up.

            She shrugged those thoughts aside. Complete concentration in every second of the mission was vital.

            Fumbling with the communicator in her ear, .0015 carried the child with her right arm, and turned the unit on.

            “0015 reporting. Stage two completed. Requesting for stage three, please.

            She waited for the response, but there was none. She went through the stages in her mind.

            Stage one: The drugging of the child, with the help of spiked milk and a nanny-bot which spent its time reprogramming itself instead of watching its charge. She had no part whatsoever in that stage, but in stage two (abducting the child from his parents’ apartment), she was the primary--and only-- agent. The job had been amazingly easy, but she knew that it was worth billions. 

            She wondered why, but brushed the thought from her mind. She repeated the request for the instructions for the next stage, glancing nervously around her as she shielded both her and the child from a passing glider with her black jacket, stepping out of the way of the swathes of light from the glider. She was fairly sure that the glider was not one with a thermal seeker but she still covered both the child and herself with the thermal inverter jacket.

            Still, there was silence on the other end of the comm unit. It must be Radley at the desk today, she thought irritably. It was only Radley who left missions like these and went for espresso breaks. Why had they assigned Radley to an important job such as this? She hefted the child in her arms, and he uttered a mewl of discomfort. She cursed to herself.

            As if things weren’t already uncomfortable, rain started falling from the bruised black sky, acidic rain that sizzled as they hit the pig-iron surfaces of the city’s buildings. She ducked beneath an air duct and cursed again. The acrid smell of acid rain hit her nostrils, and she knew that the child would wake from his drugged sleep as soon as the smell penetrated his sense of smell. She fought down a slight sense of panic as the sounds of metal umbrellas being popped up was magnified across the city’s buildings and people.

            “Requesting stage three, please. Rain is falling on the location. Requesting--”

            “All right, all right, I’m--crunch--right there.” Bingo, Halcyon thought as the nasal whine that was Radley’s signature came over the comm unit.

            “Let’s see... 0015, stage... is it three?”

            She grit her teeth. “Yes, sir.” The child jerked his arm against her side, and she made a shh-ing sound to calm him down. He settled back into the warmth of her arms, but she knew the smell of the rain would wake him up soon. Just let me have the damned stage three, Radley, she thought as she tried to block her nose from the fumes the rain exuded. She covered the child’s nose with the sleeve of the jacket, and in one moment, the sky was lit up by a patrol hover.

            “Sir, stage three, please!” She couldn’t keep the urgency from her voice anymore--panic was already welling up inside her. If the hover found them....