REND

Amber Deen - Part 1

 

Amber Deen swallowed the last drop of saliva in her rapidly drying mouth. Her mind raced to think of an explanation that'd get her out of her current predicament. Her throat hurt as if a rock was lodged in it. Her skin felt clammy. And if she didn’t have makeup on right now, she'd probably look even paler than Erind.

Her palms were starting to sweat, so she tried to wipe them on the sides of her dress, disguising it as adjusting her skirt which hiked up when she climbed the glass wall surrounding the arena to help the mysterious woman with the wolf mask. She was careful not to get any blood from the self-inflicted wound on her arm on her white outfit.

Half a dozen burly armed men in black suits surrounded Amber, cradling guns that threateningly angled in her direction. They were led by a man she would've described as somber and unimposing were it not for his distinctive mustache, which she surmised was styled in an expensive barbershop. He introduced himself as Leandro, manager of the “evening’s festivities”, as he put it.

“Miss, there's no need to be distressed,” he said. “We had to pull you off the top of the barrier for your safety.” He narrowed his eyes. “Unless you wanted to join in the fight as well? That's something we can easily arrange.”

“No!” Amber said with more force than she intended. She relaxed her tone even as her heart raced. “I mean, I'm fine here outside the ring. Thank you.”

“And we do not allow interference in fights. It'd be highly unfair to previous participants who didn’t receive any help.”

Wasn’t it also unfair they released the gun-wielding giant monster to fight Madam Blanchette before her fight with the acid-spitting mutant was over? But Amber realized it was better not to argue. “I understand. I’ll keep that in mind. Terribly sorry for the disruption. Uh…I’m going now.” She tried to squeeze past the men but Leandro blocked her.

He smiled. “Even if our esteemed clientele don masks throughout the night—we value anonymity, after all—I do come to eventually recognize most of them. Something unavoidable in my line of work. And I think it's a hallmark of a good manager, wouldn’t you agree?”

Amber nodded hesitantly.

“Forgive me if I’m mistaken,” he said, “but I don’t think I've seen you before.”

“I…um.”

“Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself?”

There it was, as Amber dreaded. Deep gnawing pain in her left shoulder blade, as if someone was drilling straight into her bones. She breathed slowly, trying to keep her face from wincing while her muscles contracted in anxiety. Why does this always happen when I'm in a difficult situation? This was the most stressful state she had been in…forever.

No word from her Guardian Angel. It had stayed silent after it frantically repeated its advice to run away.

Which she ignored.

Amber's stomach churned as she considered the possibility that she might have passed a point of no return when she helped the woman she dubbed Madam Blanchette, whatever her true identity might be.

She glanced at Bianca. Should she call out to her for help?

The famous silver-haired celebrity stayed by the side of the enclosure and didn't follow Amber when the guards took her. Bianca was talking on her phone, an annoyed expression on her face, her eyes darting around the cavern but never looking in Amber’s direction. She might've already suspected Amber was a fake. And even if she hadn't yet, she'd eventually put two and two together once Leandro questioned her. Amber would just be digging her own grave even deeper by calling Bianca.

“Well?” Leandro said.

“I’d rather not tell you my name. You did say you value anonymity.”

“Yes. But we also do value the security of our patrons.” He walked up the stairs and beckoned the guards to follow him. “Let’s go to the interrogation room and get this over with.”

[Pretend you’re hurt.]

Amber’s eyes widened when she heard her Guardian Angel’s voice. She had trained herself not to show any reaction whenever it spoke, but she was just so relieved to hear it she nearly cried out in joy.

Pretend to be hurt? In what way?

The guards grabbed her arms and she understood.

“My arm!” Amber cried out. She forgot she injured herself when she gave Madame Blanchette her blood. The wound healed so quickly and she was preoccupied when she was accosted by the guards. “It hurts! Get your hands off me. I have a wound there.” Her arm was covered with blood, but if they examined it, they'd find that she was lying.

“Oh my gosh,” an annoyingly high-pitched female voice said. “That’s so cool.” They all turned. It was one of the patrons, a lady wearing an elegant, dark blue cocktail dress adorned with laces and feathers. She had feathers on the sides of her mask. “You really wounded yourself.” Her arm was linked with a guy in a designer tuxedo, presumably her boyfriend or husband. She kept on repeating “oh my gosh” as she chased after them, dragging the man with her.

If Leandro was surprised that someone interrupted them, he didn’t show it. “Excuse me, miss,” he started to say.

The woman ignored him. She reached out between the guards, pushing them out of the way, and unabashedly touched Amber’s blood-covered arm. “Yuck, that’s gross.” She pulled back her hand and checked her fingers. “Told you it was real blood,” she said to the man beside her.

“I honestly didn’t expect it to be real,” he said. “I thought it was mere theatrics.”

“This is awesome, I’m glad I came with you tonight,” she said. She spoke in a shrill voice. “I thought it was going to be boring as usual. Ugh. Just guys showing off in the arena with no real danger. Childish really. Tonight is actually fun. Blood and gore from both combatants, not just the poor mutants that always get bullied.”

“Awakens something primal inside us, doesn't it?” The man patted Leandro’s shoulder. “Nice work, I hope we have more of this next time.”

“We do our best,” Leandro said, without missing a stride. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to get this young miss to the infirmary.”

[Call attention to the screen] The Guardian Angel counseled.

“Hey! Look at the screen.” Amber wrested her arm from the guard and pointed up. She hadn’t paid any attention to what was happening to Madame Blanchette because she was in a tight spot herself. But now, she saw Madame Blanchette made a huge comeback in her fight and was already winning.

Not simply winning.

She was eating her opponent.

Madam Blanchette’s gorgeous body was morphing into a heavily muscled beast coated with red fur. She dug her claws deep into the head of the giant mutant, scooping out its eyes and eating it. The cameras zoomed in on the disgusting scene.

Amber, with her stomach already tied up in knots, held her breath and flexed her abdomen to stave off the rising urge to vomit. There were cries of horror and even cheering from the crowd.

At the corner of her mind popped the memory of Oberon telling them about the humongous red werewolf that rampaged in the docks. Didn’t he say that it was one of the mutants of the 2Ms that accidentally broke free?

Come to think of it…they only assumed that.

What if we were wrong?

“My, my, what do we have here,” Leandro said, turning his full attention to the screen. The mutant shot the wolf-woman with the bulky gun attached to its arm, but she tore away the gun with her teeth and claws. Severely injured and its weapon destroyed, the mutant lumbered away from the wolf-woman.

“Release more to fight her!” the woman with the feathered masked said. “Don’t let the round end, we want more.”

“Honey, calm down,” said her partner.

“They’re not going to beat her if they keep sending mutants one by one. Or better yet, how about we send those men who always fight the weak mutants as her next opponents?”

But Leandro wasn't listening to her. He took out his phone and scrolled through its screen. He was muttering “Wolf…red…” He frowned, gripping his phone tightly, breaking it. “Someone is ruining the evening’s festivities. I can’t have that.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes, of course.” Leandro quickly went back to all smiles, but he had a murderous glare that made the woman falter. “Now if you and the kind sir can move along. Are you going to watch by the sides of the arena? It might be better to stay at your table. How about Chapman here escorts you to your seats,” he said, referring to one of the guards. The couple reluctantly complied. Then Leandro pressed something on his collar and his voice boomed throughout the cavern, “Go down all of you! Secure Unit EM03 and capture the intruder.”

Guards that gathered around the perimeter of the pit immediately jumped down into it. The ground was several feet below, but they landed with ease, showing that they had at least some form of augs or maybe performance-enhancing drugs. Madame Blanchette, who was shedding her last traces of humanity and growing even larger to rival the mutant’s size, was oblivious to her increasing enemies.

[Say you don’t know what’s happening.]

That’s easy because she truly had no clue what was going on. “Huh? I had no…I had no idea,” she stammered. “Why is she turning…into that?”

“You,” Leandro said, pointing to a guard. “Go up and check what Boxer’s doing. He’s not responding to my calls. Probably drunk by the lounge.” He pointed to another. “And you. Alert the boys at the back in case we need more firepower.”

“I swear I don’t know who...or even what she is,” Amber said, almost pleading.

“Shut up,” he said harshly. “We’ll deal with you later. The rest of you take her away.” He stormed off down to the pit to lead his men. They had already started attacking the red beast with all sorts of weapons, but the beast didn’t mind them.

Madame Blanchette swatted the men away like they were annoying flies. The heavy gunfire wounded her, the camera showed her back bleeding, but it was only superficial. She grabbed one man, bit his head off, threw away the body, and then went back to eating the mutant. The upper body of the mutant was already gone, with only its impenetrable skin remaining like a sausage casing with its meat filling scraped off.

“What have I done?” Amber whispered.

A guard yanked her away from looking at the carnage on display. Her mind went back to attempting to escape.

Realizing she finally had to fight for her life, anxiety gripped her heart again. The gnawing pain on her shoulder returned. You have to do this, she screamed in her mind. She volunteered for this job, and she had considered the possibility of getting caught. Would she prefer getting tortured to fighting now?

Obviously not.

And they probably wouldn’t stop at hurting her anyway. She shuddered to think what other things they would do to make her talk.

Three guards left.

When Amber pulled her arm away from one of them, the grip wasn’t that strong. They may be stronger than normal humans because of enhancements but she was still stronger than them. From her discussions with the group, only a select few of the guards had enhancements or bioaugmentronics that could fight toe-to-toe with Adumbrae. Brute force should work if they weren’t expecting it. And she had her Guardian Angel on her side. She should just find the resolve to overcome her fear of being shot.

[Close your eyes. Wait for the explosion.]

Amber complied. The ground shook beneath her feet. Dust fell from the ceiling. An earthquake? There was murmuring from the people around them. Was this the explosion the Guardian Angel meant?

More shaking. The guards stopped walking and held Amber still. The lights flickered.

KABOOM! BOOM!

The ear-shattering blasts rocked the cavern. People screamed. Several smaller explosions followed. Amber could hear rocks dislodged from the ceiling, raining around them. Panicked footsteps everywhere, everyone running every which way. She feared there would be a cave-in.

[Now.]

Amber opened her eyes just as another set of explosions knocked out most of the lights, severely dimming the cavern. With her eyes already adjusted to the darkness, she had no problem accurately swinging her fist towards the jaw of the guard on her left. Her knuckles met bone. The guard’s jaws broke, deformed, crumbled. Red emergency lights switched on. The guard was on the floor, splatters of his blood and teeth beside him. Amber was momentarily shocked by what she did.

[Kick back.]

She obeyed without hesitation, swinging her leg backward with all her might, tearing her dress in the process. Her leg connected with the midsection of the other guard who raised his gun, about to shoot her. The man crumpled on the ground.

The last guard who was leading the way looked back and saw the fate of his fellows. Amber, listening to the promptings of her Guardian Angel, leaped into action and incapacitated the guard with a few blows. She clumsily beat up the guard, punching with her full strength.

She stood up. Her hands were shaking. Breathing raggedly. The blood of the guards coated her knuckles.

A gunshot from behind her!

Amber dropped down to the floor, covering her head. The bullet hit the ground a couple of feet to her left. She turned around, ready to fight, adrenaline swimming through her veins. The man who shot at her, one of the guards who came over after seeing her try to escape, was held by Xazary.

Xazary placed a finger on the man’s neck and a small jolt of electricity coursed through his body. He fell limp in Xazary’s arms and she let him fall to the ground.

Amber sighed in relief. “Xazary…uh...thanks” She wondered why the Guardian Angel didn’t warn her about this one. There was also no advice on what to do next. Hold on a minute, she thought. Why was Xazary helping her?

“Saved you on that one, Amber.” But it wasn’t Xazary who said that. Bianca popped up from behind her bodyguard. “Now you owe me,” she said.

“Bianca…er…thank you for the help,” said Amber even though it was actually Xazary who saved her.

“Imagine that. You're a BID agent?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re with the BID right? I helped you so maybe you could broker in a deal for me.” Bianca massaged her temples as if she had a headache. “I was so sure you were also a client of the Mark and Marc brothers. The powers and the connections—”

“I’m sorry but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Was this another trap? Amber was certain she'd lose against Xazary. Her only option was to run away. But they helped her. What was that about?

“Amnesty maybe? I’m still human after all. I know that counts a lot for you guys.” Bianca noticed Amber had a puzzled expression. “Come on, I already know the Bureau is attacking this place.”

“I’m not with the BID…”

Both of them stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

“Seriously?”

Amber decided it was a whole lot riskier to pretend to be from the BID so she nodded. “I’m not.” She frowned. “Wait, did you say they’re attacking this place?"

Bianca burst out laughing. “Oh, my fucking god! What group do you belong to then?” Amber opened her mouth to explain but Bianca immediately said, “On second thought, that can wait. And yes, this place is about to be a warzone.” She held out her hand and Xazary gave her a long black hair wig. “I’m pretty recognizable,” she explained to Amber, noticing her raised brow. “And don’t forget, I helped you. So that should count for something, whatever group you are from.”

“Okay,” Amber said. She didn’t know what else to say. What should she do next? Before she could consider her options, there was another explosion, this time by the entrance of the cavern, the one connected to the elevator from the club above.

Clouds of dust rolled out of the tunnel. Although the entrance was far from them, Amber could see what was going on because it was in an elevated position. Guards ran toward the mouth of the entrance, taking positions around it, preparing to attack. They turned over tables and used them as cover.

Out of the smoke came a man with formidable stature, broad shoulders, and height most likely nearing seven feet. He looked familiar, but Amber couldn’t quite place it. She was too far away to make out his face. Oddly, he was wearing only a simple office attire. Plain coat and tie over a dress shirt and pants. Dirt covered his clothes.

This man was from the Bureau? Amber expected someone more fearsome.

“They’re here,” Bianca said, adjusting her wig. “Do I look good, Xazary?”

“As always, Miss Bianca,” was Xazary’s monotone response.

Two more people emerged from the tunnel. And these were the fearsome ones.

One was a petite figure covered from head to toe in state-of-the-art ComExo armor, sleek and compact compared to the clunky ones worn by the guards here. Amber guessed she might be a woman. She wielded two swords with long, thin, wide rectangular blades. The contraption on her back that looked like a steel backpack unfolded itself, revealing two mechanical arms. Blades extended from each arm, bringing the total number of swords she wielded to four. Wires connected to the blades, charging them, making them glow bright blue which made them stand out from the harsh red lights illuminating the cavern.

The other was an inhumanly colossal man with disproportionately long and extremely thick arms that reminded Amber of sledgehammers, probably nine or ten feet tall if he stood straight up. But he was crouched down with his knuckles on the ground like a gorilla. He was also wearing a compact ComExos but with especially thick plates, almost like a human tank. Pistons stuck out of his forearms and back.

Amber looked around for possible exits. There was no way they were going back up to the club using the elevator. “Uh…should we escape?” she said, her voice slightly trembling.

Whichever side would win, the men of the 2Ms or the agents of the BID, Amber would be in trouble. She decided to stick with Bianca because the celebrity didn’t seem to be strictly on the side of the 2Ms.

The guards opened fire and lobbed explosives at the agents. Their ComExo units came forward, shooting their mounted missiles at the intruders. The BID agents were quickly covered in explosions, dust, rocks, and fire.

An amplified voice spoke, loud enough that Amber could hear it even though she was on the other end of the cavern. And it wasn’t Leandro making an announcement.

“Attention creatures that are illegally alive! By authority of the BID under the Panderton Act, this area is classified as a prime Adumbrae seeding hotspot. Given the number of inhuman creatures here, the BID raises Alert Level 1 for a potential Purple Bud formation.

“As such, to prevent further encroachment of extradimensional elements on US soil inimical to our citizenry, everyone here is slated for immediate execution.”

Amber gasped. “This is not good. We should escape now.”

“Wait a bit,” Bianca said.

“Why? Do you have a death wish?”

“No. But I’d like to see some…or maybe a lot…of these people die.”