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Chapter Preview : Adventure 01 – Rogue

New Arizona – July 28, 2499

            “Keep your eyes open,” Brad, leader of the Revheads street gang ordered the man he had put on to guard the door. “We’ve all heard the rumours and stories about this bitch. I don’t want to find out first-hand what she is really like,” he explained further.

            “The Fox won’t get passed me,” the small man with long dirty hair, chain and leather outfit and masked face said confidently. “She may be cunning, but I’m the best guard you have got,” he finished strongly.

Brad just gave him a long lingering look. His expression was not of confidence. He knew that he could trust his men to do their best, but he doubted that this small man would be a match for the determined mercenary who was coming after them. A man with the build of Sylvester Stallone and the rugged looks to match did not fear many people, but that was not when his gang had kidnapped the young teenage daughter of a wealthy businessman on the orders of the man behind their operations. He moved back into the entrance of the library building through the heavy double doors. The small man turned back around to watch the street of the New York section – the criminal heart of the new future world – of New Arizona.

The year was 2499. The Earth was now fully recovered from the nuclear holocaust that killed nearly everyone and everything on the planet. The nuclear holocaust had a cooling effect. A drastic, cooling effect. With a thick layer of smog and nuclear fall-out in the atmosphere, the sun’s rays were blocked. Temperatures dropped severely. Nothing survived in the sub-Arctic weather patterns on the surface of the planet. Those people, who survived the initial explosions, were forced into underground caves. All war and prejudice were forgotten. These now outdated concepts were replaced by the need to survive. While in those caves they created protection force fields. The force fields took years to create, but the people had time. The ageing process had been slowed thanks to the cold slowing the body’s metabolic rate. Instead of one year of ageing being twelve months, it was now eighty-four months (known as an Erayear). The years in the future remained three-hundred-and-sixty-five days long. Under the protection force fields, weather patterns could be controlled. City life soon returned to normal. Businesses were recreated.  Homes were rebuilt. Life returned to what it had been before the holocaust. As the protection force fields consumed a lot of energy, only a few were created. Cities, therefore, became huge metropolis’, covering hundreds of miles, instead of the tens of miles before the holocaust. One of these huge cities was New Arizona.

New Arizona was built and designed like the old map of the United States of America. The Washington and New York sections were on the East Side of the city. The Los Angeles and San Francisco sections were in the West. And, so on. Each section had been designed to look just like the old cities; even the weather in these sections was controlled.

On the rooftop of the building right next to the museum, a figure crouched down in the darkness. She was just high enough to peer over the top of the small wall around the edge of the building. This vantage-point had given her the perfect place to hear everything that had been said. She moved around the side of the building softly and quietly. Her movements were both graceful and purposeful at the same time. She had the plan in her mind and knew what needed to be done. Keeping down low, she inched across to the corner of the rooftop. Then, after a quick check on the surroundings, she placed her hands on the top of the wall and used it to give her the necessary support. She then swung herself off the roof. She dropped right down to land lightly right next to the man on guard. He was taken completely by surprise. The last thing he had expected was someone dropping from two storeys up. Fox smiled sweetly at him as the man turned his head to look right at her.

            “If you’re their best guard, then these guys are in real trouble,” she said in a cheeky tone of voice before she launched her attack on the man with little remorse.

The first thing she did was slam her right knee into his midriff. When he bent down in a reflex to that action, she grabbed his long hair, yanked his head back, and then slammed it down onto her left knee. That knocked the man back upright again. With one quick motion this time, she cracked his neck right around. It snapped easily. Fox let the body drop down to the ground before she moved to the doors. She listened at it for a short moment then slowly pushed it open to slip inside quietly.

In the main hall of the museum, the rest of the Revheads gang was all gathered around a burning oil drum that they had set up. The books that had once lined the walls had been replaced with graffiti. Brad sat in a large throne-like chair overlooking the rest of his gang, who were eating, drinking, making out with their partners, or tormenting the young girl, they had just kidnapped earlier that day. Most of them were either too drunk or did not care, to guard the main hall. Many considered that they did not need a guard with the man on the main doors. The young girl constantly pleaded with the men not to hurt her and to let her go. Her hands were gripping the rope that had been tied like a leash around her neck. But, they just continued to push her around between them like they were playing a game of pass-the-parcel. The young girl was crying her eyes out in her despair. The men were just laughing at that. Brad lounged back in his seat, enjoying watching the show of the girl in school uniform being pushed around by his men. His partner then came to stand right in front of him. She was dressed in a rather revealing combination of garter belt and bikini, with a leather jacket over the top. It displayed her stunning figure to perfection. Her long blonde hair just finished off the perfect picture of the femme fatale.

            “How much do you think daddy dearest is going to pay to get his little sweetheart back?” she asked in a very sexy sounding soft voice, as she turned to glance over her left shoulder at the scene playing out behind her.

            “He’s going to have to pay a king’s ransom, but by the time he gets that sort of money together, we’ll have brainwashed her into joining our little group,” Brad said with a wicked snigger.

            “What did the boss say we were to do with her?” the blonde woman asked with concern.

            “He just wanted us to distract his main competition, so he could carry out his plan. He did not care what we did with her, as long as we kept her out of the way,” Brad replied, then moved forward in his seat. “Bring our guest here,” he ordered firmly.

Two of his men roughly grabbed the young teenager’s arms and dragged her kicking and screaming across the museum towards the throne seat. The tears continued to stream down her face, as she was pulled right up to stand in front of the throne. Brad looked up and down the school uniform that the young girl was wearing. Her hands were still holding the rope that was now rubbing her skin red raw. Brad grabbed the front of her shirt. He was about to rip it apart when Fox got everyone’s attention.

A man, who had been in one of the corridors leading to the main hall, came flying through the open doorway. When he landed on the floor, he slid right across it for several feet, until he came to a stop, face down, just short of the burning drum. All of the gang watched the man sliding to a halt, then all turned to look towards the door he had just come from. None of them could believe what they saw coming through the open doorway. Fox was just shorter than six feet tall. She had a feminine figure enhanced by a well-trained musculature. It was the perfect fitness trainer’s body. And, with the looks resembling those of the actor Hudson Leick, the image created was one of beauty that hid her true character under a cloak of sexuality. Her hazel coloured eyes, surrounded by a dark eyeshade, went well with her bright red lipstick covered lips and long auburn coloured hair, which was tied up into a ponytail, with her hair waved back from her head to leave just a slight fringe down her forehead. She did not really need any make-up. She could easily have been mistaken for a pin-up and not the trained assassin she really was. The fact that she had a number of weapons to choose from on the gun belt around her waist was the only real indication of the power that she had. Fox did not like to flaunt her stunning looks, not after the rotten life that she had had up to this moment. Therefore, her appearance displayed the conflict in her character. It displayed her tomboy persona, along with displaying her very feminine figure. She wore all leather. Mini-skirt, shirt and jacket all matched in black. The jacket was one with a number of buckles and zips. A pair of motorbike boots, with zips and buckles on the sides, matched the jacket. Her legs were covered with a pair of black fishnet stockings, with a thin tight pattern, which made her legs look even sexier than they were without them. To finish off, she had a gold cross hanging down in-between her breasts and the wrist part of the old metal handcuffs around her right wrist. Brad rose to his feet slowly. His men pulled the young girl around and away, to give him a clear way through to the new visitor.

            “Let me guess, you’re the stripper we hired,” he said with a long snigger.

            “We can do this quickly or painfully,” Fox growled through gritted teeth. She did not like that kind of insult. “All of you know who I am and what I came for, so why don’t you just do yourselves a favour and give me the girl?” she finished while she looked towards the teenager being held firmly by the rope around her neck.

Brad just laughed. He started shaking his head from side to side, finding it hard to believe. To see a woman standing in the middle of at least twenty men, and demanding such action was amazing to him. He moved down from his throne, and then stood transfixed, as he stared, not just, at her stunning looks and her curving figure, but at the strange tattoo on the right side of her neck. This tattoo was the Chinese words for Eternal Devotion. That identification mark told him whom he was dealing with.

            “I take it that you’re the Fox,” Brad said after he had stopped laughing sharply. He then nodded his head at five of his men standing around the throne seat.

These men moved forward together. Fox started shaking her head. I guess it is going to have to be the painful way — she said to herself as she clicked into a martial arts stance. The stance looked comfortable on her. It had been trained into her for years. She stood right side facing, her knees slightly bent, with her right-hand flexing at waist height in front of her and her left hand flexing up at head height just next to her face. The men did not stop. They did not consider her a problem. All of them were built like bodybuilders, so they did not consider someone who looked like a catwalk model, to hold much of a threat.

The first man to attack rushed at her quickly. Fox quickly dispatched him with a left-footed swinging kick from left to right across his face. The next man came quickly after the first. Fox ducked under his swinging arm, and then spun away to the left side. The second man went flying right past her, and then had to slide to a halt to stop from going headfirst into the drum. After Fox rose to her feet, she knocked him passed the drum and onto the floor with a right-footed reverse rising kick to the back of his head. The third man to attack had a baseball bat in his hands. He swung the bat right at Fox’s head. Fox arched her back and went into a backwards gymnastic tumble. She used her upward flicked legs, to knock the bat right out of the man’s hands and up into the air. When she regained her feet, she reached up and caught the bat as it dropped. With a vicious blow, she slammed the end of the bar into the third man’s midriff, and then clubbed him across the shoulders. As he dropped face down to the floor, she swung the bat right across the face of the fourth man. Once he was flat on his back, Fox tossed the bat at the fifth man, making him catch it in reflex and distracting him completely. She then went down and swept his legs from under him with her right leg. Then as she rose to her feet, she brought out her laser gun out from behind her back.

She aimed the gun right at Brad’s forehead. “Any other man makes a move towards me and you’ll be picking up his brains off the walls,” Fox growled menacingly.

Brad held his arms high in the air, instructing his men to back off. All of the gang moved away slowly, going back to stand around the burning drum.

Larna watched them back away, and then turned her eyes back on to Brad. “Have you changed your mind?” she asked with a broad grin on her face.

Brad gulped deeply as he looked into the end of the high-powered laser gun pointing right at his forehead. Just to give him a show of her determination, Fox looked slowly to her right. With a swift movement, she turned the laser gun on to one of the gang and fired. He was sent flying backwards, with a burning laser wound in the middle of his chest. Fox quickly turned the gun back on to Brad. Before Brad could say anything, his girlfriend pushed the young teenager towards Fox.

            “Take her and get out of her. We don’t want any more trouble with you,” the blonde haired woman said anxiously.

Fox glared at her, and then grabbed the wrist of the young teenager. Slowly then backed away towards the door that she had come in through. The young girl was still crying. The noise she was making was starting to get on Fox’s nerves. Fox watched every single man closely, as they backed away, making sure that none of them tried anything. Some of the gang was still helping the five men that she had dispatched earlier. Before they went into the corridor, Fox fired at the burning drum.

            “Payback!” she called out, then spun around and started to run up the corridor, dragging the young girl along behind her.

The laser beam hit the burning drum, exploding it apart in a burst of flames. The flash fire engulfed the whole of the main hall. The teenager gave out a loud scream as the explosion rocked the whole building. The cries of the men and women inside the hall came echoing down the corridor, as they were burnt alive in the flash fire. Parts of the corridor started caving in. Huge lumps of concrete started crashing down into the path of the fleeing women. The young girl was getting frantic. Fox was as cool as ice, dragging her scared companion, through the falling masonry. Fox slammed her right shoulder into the double doors of the museum entrance, crashing through them to the outside as a plume of dust came bursting out of the corridor. This was followed by a burst of flames. Fox did not stop running or dragging the teenager. She went right across the street. The museum was ripped apart by the flames and explosions she had caused. Fox dropped down face down onto the ground, making sure that she covered the teenager to protect her. Parts of the museum were set right over the top of them. The explosions continued for several minutes. When they stopped, Larna rolled off the top of the teenager. The teenager moved up into a sitting position.

            “Thank you,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes and cheeks.

            “Don’t thank me, thank your father, he was the one who paid my fee,” Fox said coldly, before rising to her feet. Fox then started to look around swiftly as she heard the police sirens. She glanced down at the young girl. “They’ll help you get back to your father. I’ve got to go before they get here,” she explained briefly, and then started to run off up the street, knowing that she could not hang around for the police to arrive.

She did not get on with the police, especially as she was right near the top of their most wanted list. Two officers jumped out in front of her before she had got more than two hundred metres away. With reactions like lightning, Larna slid to a halt. Both officers had weapons pointing at her. That did not worry her; she had handled men with guns before. Larna swung her left leg across from a left to right direction, sweeping the gun out of the hand of the man on her right. She did the opposite move with her right foot. Both men were disarmed within seconds. Larna quickly did a right footed rising kick to the groin of the man on her right. When he bent down, Larna used his back as support. She planted both hands on his shoulders, to give her the chance to do a left footed flying kick into the chest of the second officer. Larna used the momentum of the kick to send her passed both officers. After overcoming that little obstacle, she sprinted on down the street. Suddenly the street was blocked off by a row of twenty police officers. All of them had their guns pointed at her. Larna slowed down, and then darted towards a little alley that would take her off at right angles to the police. She knew that the situation was desperate. All twenty officers fired at once. Before she got the chance to get into the cover of the alley, one of the stun beams hit her in-between the shoulder blades. At first, she thought that she had been killed. Her body lost all feeling. Her legs crumpled beneath her sending her crashing to the ground, paralysed from the neck down.

Larna turned her head as much as she could, to watch the police gather around her. The legs of a blue moulded plastic body suit, matched by black leather boots, stepped directly into her view. Between those legs, she could see the man who had hired her, quickly hurry his daughter away. It was clear that this man had used her grudge against the Revheads to set her up. The police were probably the ones that suggested that the old man uses her to free his daughter. That way, they could get rid of the biggest street gang and the best assassin come mercenary, that the criminals had access too. She worked her way up the body, pausing briefly at the man’s groin to admire the view, before working her way up to the man’s face. She did not recognise him.

            “That’s just like the accursed Blue Coats. Shoot an innocent person in their back, while they’re trying to avoid trouble,” she said with a grimace on her face. “I was just out for a morning jog,” she tried to bluff.

            “With a gun belt on. Nice try Fox,” the man replied with a broad grin on his face.

            “It seems that you’ve got me at a disadvantage,” Fox stated, referring to the fact that this man knew her name, but she did not know his.

            “Really, that’s odd, because I thought I had got you at more than just the one disadvantage,” the man observed before reaching down and grabbing hold of Larna’s jacket.

He lifted her up, holding her up off the ground a little. Larna desperately wanting to fight this person off, but her body would not respond. She hated to be in a position of such weakness. It had only happened twice before. Both times the ones responsible had paid a heavy price. She would have loved to smack this man in the groin with her boot to make him pay, but instead, she felt manacles being placed around her ankles and wrists. The one mistake that they were making was the fact that her wrists were in front of her. It left her with a chance. Once this was done, another laser beam hit her. This one removed the stun effects. The man dropped Larna to the ground, then, before she had the chance to react, kicked her viciously in the side. Larna curled up into a stunned ball, not so much feeling the pain, but wanting to give the officer the impression that she had.

            “I’ve got a mind to put in a complaint about you, Officer?” Larna growled using her martial arts training to help black out the pain that was shooting down her side now.

            “Commander!” the man corrected angrily. “My names Commander Tom Aspel,” he finished.

            “Commander?” Larna asked confused.

            “Commander of Police. As for the complaint, you’re not going to have the chance. You’ll not be able to communicate with anyone in New Arizona for the rest of your life,” Tom said with a smug grin on his face.

            “You can’t put me in Bostary for running down the street,” Larna exclaimed, still trying to convince them that she was just a jogger.

            “I can when that jogger is wanted for carrying firearms, killing twenty people, and when they have links with the biggest crime organisation in the New York sector and has been involved in three bank raids.”

            “And you think that I did all of that?” Larna asked, still acting the innocent.

            “The computer identifies you as Larna Fox. An assassin and a mercenary. The street’s best,” Tom stated after scanning Larna with a little handheld device about the size of a calculator. “This is a great day. We get you to eliminate the biggest gang in New Arizona and get the two best assassin’s the street gangs have got,” he finished, just before another large explosion sounded out from behind him.

So, I was right — Larna said to herself as she remembered the hypothesis she had come to in regards to the old man and the rescue of his daughter. Larna watched the building burning from her prone position on the ground. An evil glint of satisfaction was in her eye. It would have been the perfect day had she not been caught. An officer came running across to the Commander immediately now. Tom turned away from Larna briefly, while he dealt with the current situation facing them.

            “I want you to do a complete search of this place. Report to me the moment you have identified all of the bodies inside. I want to know that she destroyed all of them,” he demanded firmly.

            “Sir, the officers that you sent down to deal with the other matter, have come under heavy resistance from the man in question,” the officer reported, bringing a rather unhappy expression to Tom’s face.

Tom grabbed the vid-rad from the young officer’s hand. Radios were a lot different from the ones in the late twentieth century. They now had a screen so you can see the other person speaking to you. In this case, the person speaking was another officer.

            “We need help down here; it’s a bloody blood bath! Send help n—” the officer’s face slowly disappeared from the screen, his message cut short by three short blasts from a laser gun.

            “Get the teleporter disc,” Tom ordered as he turned sharply to an officer standing with him, his face now as white as a sheet.

The officer turned and placed what looked like a Frisbee down on the ground. Tom grabbed Larna’s hair and dragged her to the disc. Once Larna was standing on it, a force field went up around her to stop her moving. The officer in charge of the disc tapped in a number then pushed the transportation button. Larna disappeared from the street and reappeared almost instantly on a transportation platform in the Holding Cells underneath the police station. Two men greeted her the moment she appeared. They dragged her across to an open doorway. Larna bucked and struggled against the men as much as she could. She did not want to go down without a bloody good fight. It did little good. The men unfastened the manacles on her ankles and wrists, and then shoved her into a plain white cell as hard as they could. Larna spun around sharply. The two guards walked off with large grins on their faces. Larna felt the massive hatred for Blue Coats rising to new heights inside her heart as she stood right in the centre of the cell.

The doorway to the cell did appear to be wide open, though. There were no doors or bars blocking the way out. Larna started shaking her head — too easy — she said to herself as she slowly walked towards the doorway. She was within touching distance when she was stopped dead in her tracks.

            * Warning. Force field active. Force field active. * a computer synthesised voice warned suddenly. * The next transportation to Bostary will be in five hours. The next meal will be served in two hours. If you wish to terminate your life before transportation occurs, push the red button on the wall to your left. An invisible gas will be released into the room. Death will occur in seconds. * the computer continued, going on to explain the procedure and course of events that would follow.

I did not think it could have been as easy as just walking out the door — Larna thought while she stood close to the end of the cell before she glanced at the button. She nodded her head as she did so. I suppose that would be better than getting a damn bullet in the back — she thought, knowing that that would be her fate should she ever set foot inside the one and only prison this future world had. At least I managed to get my revenge Sensei — she thought as she started to walk towards the button.

Tom Aspel arrived outside the building where the officer on the vid-rad had been killed. Five more officers lay on the ground. Blood poured out of burning wounds in various parts of their bodies. The building was a complex of business offices. Tom walked through the doorway, and then picked his way through all the dead bodies. The entrance corridor was full of them. Civilians and police officers. The office that Tom wanted to find belonged to a man by the name of Gary Shaw. He was a very dangerous man, who was constantly on a power trip. He had no morals and is principals were based on evil concepts. He was the man behind the Revheads street gang. He wanted to build up a business empire that no one could destroy. Mainly through crime, but he did have his fingers in a lot of pies. The police could not prove that he was behind all of the criminal activity in the city, but they knew he was behind the majority of it. His mastermind of a brain was matched only by his cruelty. He would torture and destroyed anyone who got in his way. Unfortunately, his tries at creating this empire were not succeeding. His bizarre methods scared any possible business partners, and they close attention of the police, gave him little room to breathe. He had started to get into financial trouble. An officer came running down the corridor towards him. Tom stopped. The officer handed him a message recorder.

            “Sir, we found this in Shaw’s office. It’s addressed to you. I was told to get it to you as soon as possible,” the officer reported through his puffs and pants for air.

Tom snatched the device from the young officer’s hand sharply. He looked down at the screen. It flashed a — message waiting — message on the screen. Shaw had left a calling card it would seem — Tom said to himself — wonder what the bastard had to say for himself. The message machine recorded very much like a video, except that it was more advanced. It was like a Game-boy game machine, the mini-disc, about the size of a fifty-penny piece in British money, in the back of the machine, so the message could be played the moment the machine was found. Tom activated the message playback function.

            “Greetings Commander Aspel,” a well-tanned, George Clooney look-a-like said. “By now I guess you have found the destruction at my office building. And I guess that you have destroyed my power base in your city. Those Revheads always were stupid bastards. So, I’ve decided to do something about your interference. My contacts have told me of a very interesting project going on over at that top secret Laboratory the General Council has built out in the middle of the Ice Plains. It interested me greatly. So much so, that I’ve taken full advantage of the glorious opportunity. Power in the future means nothing. You can have all the power under the sun and still not be in full control of your destiny. But, in the past. In the great times before the nuclear explosion, when the criminal element could rule a city with double-dealings and corruption, now that would be the time to exploit my criminal brilliance. So, I’ve gone back in time. With my knowledge of the future, I can take full control of the past, leading it towards a glorious new future. My future,” Shaw explained the wicked smile still clear on his face. “Now, the office block that you’re standing in should tell you that I can beat any cop that you send up against me. And I doubt that you will find any willing volunteer for a suicide mission anyway. So, I suggest that you don’t even try it. Enjoy your life, while you still have one,” he finished before the screen went blank.

Tom lowered the message recorder slowly. Suddenly the ground started to shake. An Earthquake. There had not been an Earthquake since the holocaust turned the surface of the planet to ice. Tom supported himself against the nearest wall. He did not like this.

When the shaking stopped, Tom realised that he had to do something quickly. He walked across to the teleporter platform he had arrived on. These platforms were like the energizer in the ‘Star Trek’ films. Tom stepped onto the platform. Immediately a computer control panel rose from the front of the panel. Tom typed in the SC (Space Coordinates) for the police station. Teleportation could only be achieved from one platform to another or from a teleporter disc to another disc. There were no roads now. And very little transport resembling cars. Every building has a platform. Automatic sidewalks constantly moved like a conveyor belt that could be used as well. Tom appeared on the teleporter platform in the police station and quickly walked across to the history computer terminal. He sat down in the seat right in front of the screen.

            * Greetings Commander Aspel, what can I do for you today? * the computer asked in a synthesized voice.

            “I need some information on the man known as Gary Shaw. In particular, any reports of a man fitting his description, and going under that name, in the history files, starting from about 1985 onwards,” Tom demanded. “I’d like full incident reports of the events surrounding any sightings,” he added finally.

The history computer recorded every single event in the past, from the very simple to the very large, like the nuclear holocaust. Time was the enemy now. He had massive amounts of information to go through, including any reports of people matching Shaw’s description in the past. He had several cups of coffee ready because he had a feeling that this was going to take him a long time.

Tom sorted all of the information he found into one file, and then transferred it quickly to a portable handheld computer. While the information was being transferred, Tom pulled out a mobile communicator. This device was like a small mobile phone, except it housed a screen instead of just an ear and mouthpiece. He typed in the number for the White House. A few seconds later, the face of the second assistant to the president came up on the screen.

            “This is Commander Tom Aspel. I’ve got something very important to discuss with the president,” Tom said immediately.

            “I wondered how long it would take you to contact us. She has been expecting your call,” the second assistant replied in a rather agitated tone of voice. “I suggest that you come here right away, Commander,” the assistant said, almost at pains to say it.

Tom switched the communicator off before he left the terminal. After he collected the handheld computer, he walked back to the teleporter platform, keyed in the SC number for the White House on the control panel at the back of the platform, then returned to the centre of the platform. When he was stood still in the middle of the platform, the teleportation process was activated.

It was going dark when he appeared on the teleporter platform in the entrance hall to the White House. Tom stepped off the platform, and then quickly rushed towards the door of the conference room. He paused at the door to give a salute to the President and her assistants before he walked into the room. The three leaders of New Arizona were made up of two men and one woman. The woman was equivalent to the old president. She was in her early seventies and had silvery grey hair. She had a medium build and wore glasses. The men were much the same build as the woman, had the same coloured hair, and were the same age. Tom placed the message machine down on the desk.

            “I think you’d better listen to this,” he said, turning the machine to face his superiors.

            “We do not need to listen to that machine,” the President replied firmly. “We have already been contacted by the SAT Laboratory and told of the incident. The question is what we are going to do about it?” she finished firmly.

            “You know?” Commander asked rather surprised by this turn of events.

            “We contacted them about the Earthquake to find out what was going on. It turns out that a ripple in the Time Continuum caused it. A rippled caused by Shaw’s appearance. On checking the history computer we can see that he created a very powerful empire in the past, one which changed the events of the past,” the first assistant explained to answer Tom’s question.

            “What are you going to do about this, Commander?” the President asked sharply.

            “Well, on the message recorder, Shaw warned me not to send a cop after him and after what happened at his office block, I don’t really fancy sacrificing any of my men,” Tom started sternly.

            “Then what are you suggesting? That we just forget this,” the first assistant exclaimed in disbelief.

            “You do understand that these Earthquakes are going to get worse until they completely destroy us,” the second assistant explained sharply.

            “There is something that we can do, but it is a risky plan,” Tom stated reluctantly.

            “What?” the President asked firmly.

            “We have the perfect someone to send after Shaw. We are holding her in the Holding Cells, ready to be teleported into Bostary,” Tom pointed out. “Her name is Larna Fox,” he finished, again with reluctance.

Larna is tasked with going back through time. She goes, because it gives her the chance to get the revenge that she has been searching for, for years.