Mars Colony – Year 2691
Caroline Masters sat in her apartment, unaware of the events that were taking place around her mother, just a few blocks away from the apartment complex. Caroline was busy playing her favourite VR game—the Enforcer. The game surrounded a person in a false, computer generated hologram world, where they took on the presence of one of the characters in the game, either one of the good guys or the bad guys. Caroline always liked to play the same character. A woman, with fire in her eyes, who could take on the world and win. If gave Caroline a sense of empowerment, something that life in the Colony did not subscribe. The windows of the apartment gave a clear view out over the colony buildings. It also displayed the red sky high above them. An invisible protection force field made sure that the air was good enough to breathe. It protected them against the harsh elements on Mars. Caroline was just about getting used to looking at the red sky. She had not known any different, apart from the blue sky and the white fluffy clouds in the VR game.
Caroline’s mother, Marcia, was a dancer at a cheap and nasty club, but it was the only work that she could find. She had very little education, so the only real asset that she had was her very fit looking body. She used to be a professional dancer, on a stage production, but those days had long since past. That was before they had even come up to this Colony. The year, according to the Earth calendar was 2691. They had been up in this colony some one hundred and forty Chronoyears, twenty Erayears. Marcia had seen a lot of changes, not least in this club. The club was in the middle of being taken over by a rival gang. A gang that did not do business in a very user-friendly manner. Her gut was telling her to quit while she still had a life. But, then her daughter came first, and if degrading herself in this manner was the only way that she could feed her kid, then that was what she would have to do. The club was lit up like a big Christmas tree, with bright flashing neon lights that would give anyone a thumping headache. The whole of the front of the club was glass, darkened glass so you could see out, but not in. Marcia was used to the smoky atmosphere, which would have choked anyone new to the place. People were laughing and shouting, basically having the time of their lives. The members of the club were drinking, smoking drugs, having sex, dancing, and doing everything that they normally did right in front of her. It was an orgy of good time. Marcia was on a tiny little stage. There was a collar around her, which had a long chain attached to the back. The chain was attached to the wall. It was for decoration, not for restraint. The chain allowed her to just reach the side of the stage. Her dancing comrades were locked inside metal cages that kept going up and down from floor to ceiling. Marcia was half way through her routine, when two strangers walked in through the front entrance. She had never seen anyone dressed like this pair. One was wearing an all leather outfit, while the other looked like he was just wearing a pair of underwear. The man was huge. His muscular build was unlike anything Marcia had ever seen. She was instantly attracted to this big hulk of a man, even though she did not know why. Not wanting to break her rhythm, she continued to gyrate and swing her hips in her sexy dance. Like the barmen and barmaids, she was completely naked, although some of them did wearing clear plastic overalls.
One man saw the female stranger standing in the door and started to waddle over to her. He started to grab at her. The male stranger grabbed the man’s jacket after only a couple of seconds. He swung the man around and pushed him back into the club. The female held the male back and said something, which Marcia could not quite make out. When ten men rose to their feet Marcia knew that this was going to lead to trouble. She fumbled with the clasp of the chain at the back of her collar, but she could not release it. Marcia knew trouble when she saw it, as the ten men all picked up various weapons on their way to the two strangers. Snooker cues to broken bottles were being wielded as weapons. After a brief conversation, all hell broke loose. The strangers split up, each taking on a group of men on their own. During this confusion, one of the other dancers helped Marcia get the chain off the back of the collar. The chain was still attached when the male stranger came flying right next to her feet. He smiled up at her, making her heart melt, made a wise crack, before he was yanked away by the gang again. Finally the chain was unfastened and the two women made their escape through a back stage entrance. Marcia thanked her friend for the help as they rushed out of the back door of the club.
The pair of them ran out into the alley to find that the rest of the dancers were all being attacked by the gang that were about to take over the club. Marcia and her friend stopped dead in their tracks. The leader of the new gang, a brutally evil man by the name of Trax, stood with his hands in the side pockets of a long, black raincoat. His black leather boots splattered with the blood of the other dancers, who were being beaten and raped by the rest of his gang. Two men, his closest gang members, Maxwell and Travis flanked him. They were just as bad as Trax, but they just followed his orders. Trax lifted his shades off his eyes, revealing the long scar that ran down the left side of his face.
“Ladies, you all seem to be in such a hurry to welcome your new bosses to the club. I suppose you have to find out sooner or later that we won’t be requiring our services. If it’s sooner, I can live with that.” Trax paused to look at the scene in the alley, “My men certainly can.” he finished over the tortured screams of the dancers.
Trax simply nodded his head. Marcia darted off up the alley, survival instincts taking over her body. Her friend did not get the chance to run. She was grabbed by Travis, roughly thrown against the side of the alley, before being pinned on the ground and raped just like the other dancers. Marcia listened as her friend’s screams echoed down the alley, getting further and further away as she ran. She was running for her life, knowing that Maxwell was chasing after her. Marcia did not have a clue where she was running. All she knew was that she had to get away. Find some place to hide. The thundering footsteps of Maxwell’s boots behind her, drove her on and on down the alley. The screams getting quieter and quieter now, until they finally died away all together. Now all Marcia could hear was her own labouring panting and the heavy boots of her chaser.
The colony was, basically, a network of alleyways. One lead into another. Which lead into another. Then another. The maze of alleys could easily get a person lost at the best of times. But, when that person was a terrified woman, running for her life from a crazed psychopath, then the alleys became a prison. Marcia soon lost her way. She found herself going into darker, dirtier alleys, alleys that she would never have known existed if she were not being chased. The fact that she was being caught, did not help to ease the terribly lost sensation waving over her thoughts. All Marcia could think of was her daughter. She could see her, sitting at home now, wondering where her mother had got too. Tears started streaming down Marcia’s cheeks as another alley came and went. Her heart then sank. Maxwell had managed to circle right around her. He was standing in front of her blocking off the alley. She spun around. Trax was standing right behind her. Marcia sank down on to her knees, begging Trax not to kill her. Trax, lifted his right hand out of his coat pocket, to flick the cigarette in his mouth out. The butt hit Marcia in the face. She flinched away, as if the butt was a heavy punch to the face. Trax started shaking his head.
“I cannot let you live Marcia Masters. You saw the rape and carnage of your fellow dancers.”
“I won’t tell a soul.” Marcia pleaded, desperately trying to reach the heart of a man who had no heart.
Trax did not make a move. But, Maxwell did. Before Marcia knew what was happening, Maxwell grabbed her from behind, lifted her off her knees, before slicing his tiny knife right across her throat, from ear to ear. Marcia gagged as the blood started spurting out from the knife wound. She slumped into a heap on the concrete ground. Her eyes looked up at Trax, who was joined by Maxwell after a few moments. The two men spat at her, before turning away into the darkness. Marcia held out her arm, pleading for them to help her. She tried to drag herself down the alley after them, but the life was slipping away from her. Instead of the alley, she started to see a bright white light ahead of her. The tunnel of white was very pulling. Her body tried one last time to pull itself along the ground, before finally slumping motionless.
Security patrols, the colony police department, gathered around the back of the club. The gang had reported the incident in the alleyway, the moment they had dealt with the strangers that had been inside. Now that the strangers had been directed to another club, the gang could concentrate on telling the patrol’s everything that they knew about what had happened. They knew very little. But, the security patrols, with the aid of digital re-enactment technology, could visualise the events, given traces left by the suspects in the area. All of the men could not believe what they were seeing through the view screen, as gangs of men at a time were ravaging women. They were interviewing the gang that had been the owners of the club. The men were not saying a word, even though the women had been their employees, and sometimes lovers. The security patrol’s job changed from finding out what had happened, to cleaning up the mess left behind. Bodies were scattered all around the alley. All were naked. Blood was staining the alley a strange red, which did not seem to wipe away. None of them had ever seen anything like the carnage that this alley had shown them. For the first time, it seemed clear that there was going to be a blood bath in the colony.
In another part of the colony, other security patrol officers were gathering in a damp, dark alley, which looked like it was part of hell itself. It stank. The odour made the officers eyes water it was so sharp. Marcia’s was face down in the alley. Her arm was outstretched, remaining in the same position as it had been when she had blacked out. Blood was staining the alley, just like outside the nightclub. The patrol officers stood around, staring down at the naked body in front of them. The man that had found the body had covered her with a blanket. One of them, the senior officer in the group, a man by the name of SP Marx looked around to his comrades. Marx was a middle aged, tall and slender man. His blue moulded plastic bodysuit made his build look a lot bigger than it actually was. On his head was a blue flat-topped cap, with a tiny eye visor on the front, which went down just over his eyes. A tiny microphone came down from the side to just in front of the mouth. An earpiece was in his right ear. On his wrist was a tiny computer, which was connected to the central computer database on the colony. The wrist computers also had a warping device that could whisk them away to any part of the colony that they wanted. Marx watched his men closely. Half of the group was, in fact, women. They looked quite horrified by the scene in front of them. Even in his numerous years in this colony, he had never witnessed anything as brutal as the slaying of this woman.
“Does anyone have an idea as to who this woman is?” he asked.
“I ran a DNA trace and a coding lock on her when I arrived. According to the compbase, her name is Marcia Masters. She was working in the cheapest nightclub in the colony. It appears that she had a disagreement with the new owners of the club.”
“Some disagreement.” one of the others commented.
“It’s a wonder she got this far, considering the others were all slaughtered right in the alley behind the club.” one said, then realised that he had just given away the fact that he must have known the club that Marcia worked at.
“Has she got any family?” Marx asked, after coughing to clear the air of the previous statement.
“According to the records, her husband died several years ago. She does have a teenage daughter.”
Marx sighed. He hated this part of the job. Going and telling the family about a death was not the easiest thing he ever had to do. But, when that member of the family was just a teenage girl, who was now all alone in this colony, he could not stand it. He got the address off his junior officer, then gave them the order to take her to the hospital, before activating his colony transporter and warping over to the correct address.
The apartment block was the standard living quarters for all of the colony residents. It was only four storeys high, but housed a good one hundred apartments. Marx looked down at the address on his computer read out, before slipping in through the open front entrance. The young woman who opened the door was nothing like her mother. Marcia had blonde hair. This young woman had long flowing red hair, as red as the hottest fire. Her face was like a dot the dot puzzle, covered with freckles, but not so as to make her unattractive. It was far from it. Even at the tender age of fourteen, she was a very attractive looking young woman. She was wearing a pair of jean shorts, with a tight fitting white tee shirt on the top. Her red hair was loose and sent cascading red lines across the white tee shirt. Caroline looked up and down at the man in the security patrol uniform outside her door.
“If you’ve come to see my mother, then she isn’t back from work yet.”
“No sweet heart, I’ve come to see you about your mother. My names SP Marx, do you mind if I come inside.”
Caroline stepped aside, letting Marx walk into the apartment. It was just like his apartment. The same bland white decor and the hard plastic furniture, which was surprising comfortable to sit on. The simple three-roomed apartment, which had the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom and bathroom combined. Caroline moved into the living room after Marx. She held a certain authority about her, even in her young adulthood. Caroline stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, in an expression urging Marx to explain. Marx finished looking around the room. He noticed the VR game on the floor, but paid little more attention to it.
“I’ve got some bad news for you.” Marx said, wondering how he should approach actually breaking the news to Caroline.
“Don’t tell me, you’ve arrested her.” Caroline said with a sigh.
“I’m afraid that it’s a little worse than that. All the dancers at the nightclub where she was working have been slaughtered, and I’m sorry to have to tell you that your mother was one of them.”
Caroline could not believe the news. She started shaking her head, the tears welling up behind her stare. Her eyes went down to the floor of the apartment. She caught sight of the VR game through the tears. Marx could see that she was taking the news badly, which was what had he expected. He moved to comfort her, but before he could get close, Caroline span away and ran out of her apartment. Marx went to run after her, but she was too quick for him. She had gone before he got to the door. Marx instantly entered into the compbase that she was missing, before walking out of the apartment, closing the door and making sure that it was locked. In her emotional state, there was no telling what Caroline was going to do. He had to find her, before she did anything crazy.
Caroline stood in the dark shadows opposite the front entrance to the dance club where she knew her mother had worked. Her mind telling her not to let these bastards get away with killing her mother, not the fact that she was going to be on her own for the rest of her life. The fact that her mother had died, had not yet sunk through to her heart. Caroline lent up against the wall beside her, her hands stuffed into a small jacket that she had grabbed on her way out of the apartment. According to the street talk that she had heard and picked up on, the new owner of the club, a man called Trax, had killed the dancers. Caroline had never heard of that man before, but she was sure that she would hear of him soon. A man came out of the front doors of the club. She had been waiting there an hour for anything to happen. The computer terminal on her right wrist told her that that man was Trax. Caroline pulled her jacket collar up around her face, then stepped out into the street to follow after him. She thought that she was playing the good little detective, but Trax was immediately aware that he was being followed. He was a criminal when all said and done. He did not stay out of the police’s touch, without being able to tell that he had a tail on him. He started to lead Caroline on a merry trip through the darkness, dampest alleyways that he knew about. It was not a tactic to lose her, because he liked the look of her. No, this tactic was to get her disorientated, as well as to tire her out. After an hour of walking, he made his way back to his hideout. A big smile came on his face when he noticed that Caroline was still sticking with him. He walked inside the old apartment block, which he had taken over, without glancing behind him. Caroline sprinted up to the entrance, not wanting to lose her man. She went inside without a care in the world. Her rage was driving her on, right into a trap.
Caroline caught up with Trax on the third floor. The whole floor had been blown to make one large room. Trax was standing right in the middle of the room, staring at an old fashioned bed surrounded by a curtain, which could have gone all the way around the bed, but was at the moment only half closed. Caroline moved into the room behind her target.
“You killed my mother you bastard!” she cried out tearfully.
Trax turned around slowly. Caroline held the baseball bat strongly in her hand. Her grip intensified as Trax turned to face her. She had found the bat on one of the lower floors. Realising that she had no weapon, she thought that the bat was the perfect answer. Trax smiled.
“Well aren’t you the sexy little thing.” he said with an evil growl to his tone.
“You won’t think I’m sweet when I ram your teeth down your throat.” Caroline screamed hysterically.
“I don’t think you’re even going to get close bitch.” Trax said, his tone turning more menacing.
Caroline lifted the bat up to try and swing it around. It was grabbed above her head from behind. The bat was pulled out of her grip before she knew what was happening. As the wooden bat clunked down on to the concrete floor several times, two pairs of hands roughly grabbed Caroline’s arms and pinned them painfully behind her back. Caroline turned her head from side to side, frantically trying to see who it was that was holding her. It was Maxwell and Travis. Caroline tried to kick and scream, but any attempts by her to escape, were halted by a sharp yank on her arms. Trax came to stand up really close to her.
“You made a mistake trying to chase after me bitch.” he said through gritted teeth, then smacked Caroline hard across the face.
Caroline was knocked out instantly. She slumped down in-between the two men holding her. Trax smiled at his two men.
“It seems that we’ve got ourselves a little play thing for a couple of days. Strip the whore, then tie her to the bed.”
Maxwell and Travis grinned wide. They started ripped Caroline’s clothes away from her body, enjoying every moment as if they were opening some sort of Christmas present. When the defenceless Caroline was completely naked, the brutes dragged her across to the bed and tied her down to it in their favourite manner. Her ankles were tied to the bottom corners so her legs were wide apart. Her wrists were tied underneath her body, then the rope was pulled down and tied to the bottom of the bed. The end result was that Caroline’s legs were painfully held wide open to the sides and she could not pull herself up the bed to close them. She lay, motionless, and completely helpless. Maxwell threw an old blanket over the top of her naked body, then moved back to the table that Trax had set up. Trax was dealing out hands of cards. The smile on his face was as wide as the Grand Canyon. Maxwell slipped down on to the empty seat, while the cards were being flicked around the top of the table.
“The winner of the first hand gets to go first.” Trax said with a wicked laugh. “The winner of each hand then gets to have a go.” he finished, as he lifted the cards from the table.
Trax won the first hand. He placed the cards down on to the table, removed his jacket, dropped it down on to the chair, then moved to the bed. He pulled the curtain right around them, so no one could see what he was doing to Caroline. He slowly paced around the bed, undressing as he moved. When he was naked, he positioned himself in-between Caroline’s opened legs. Caroline stirred when she felt the weight on top of her. She screamed when she saw Trax right on top of her. A scream of pain followed as Trax brutally pushed himself into her. Tears streamed down Caroline’s face. Trax viciously punched her across the face, first from left to right, then right to left.
“You can scream all you want whore. They ain’t no one going to come to your rescue.” Trax growled, punching Caroline across the face three more times as he continued to rape her.
Caroline let out piercing cries of pain as the rape and beating continued for more than ten minutes. When Trax was finished, he casually dropped the blanket back over Caroline’s bruised and battered body, before getting dressed and returning to the game. Caroline lay on the bed, unable to move, her legs covered in blood from the brutal attack, and her face battered black and blue. Her senses started to waver. But, she was soon aware of another man coming close to the bed.
All three men soon won hands. Their reward was ten minutes with the whore on the bed as they called her. Caroline was beaten about the face and raped, everytime she was assaulted by a different man each time. The attacks went on all night. Finally in the early hours of the morning, the men were too drunk, or too tired to carry on. Caroline was given a break from the attacks, but the pain did not. Her insides felt like they had been pulled inside out. Her vision was blurred. Her mouth was full of blood. Her body ached from being in the same position for hours. Her right eye was closed, thanks to the beating. She felt weak. She felt dirty. She was forced to lie in her own blood, which was seeping out from in-between her legs. She had been virgin before the brutal first attack by Trax. Later that day she was untied from the bed. Maxwell pulled her across to an old bucket on the floor. She found it very hard to walk, given the pain from between her legs. Her legs felt like rubber, but she used the bucket, without privacy. Maxwell leered at her the whole time. when she was retied to the bed, they tied a noose around her that this time. It made it even harder for her to find a movement, without the rope cutting into her throat. The end of the rope was tied to the top of the bed. That night was the same as her first night. Beatings and rapes by all three men in ten minute intervals. Caroline blacked out after the first attack that night. But the attacks continued. When the men became tired of her, they took her to a dark, damp alleyway far away from both the club and the apartment block. Maxwell sliced her throat from ear to ear, just as he had done with Caroline’s mother, then the three of them left the bleeding and battered young girl to die in the dark damp alley.
Marx came sprinting into the medical facility like a bat out of hell. He headed straight for the emergency room, dodging in and out of patients and nurses like he was a racing car driver working his way through back markers. An old doctor stopped him before he had even got close to the doors of the ward. Marx pulled out his identity card, waving it at the Doctor with a quick flick of the wrist.
“I understand you have Caroline Masters here. Is she all right?” Marx asked urgently.
“Caroline is extremely lucky to be alive. If the patrol officer hadn’t found her when she did, that young woman would be dead right now. Minutes more was all it would have taken.” the doctor said, with dread in his tone.
“I need to speak to her.” Marx said insistently.
“She’s in a coma. I wish I could have done more for the poor girl, but as the last medical lab was destroyed and all the earth medical equipment, which would have restored her health to perfection, was destroyed with it, I was lucky to save what I did.”
“I do need to see her doc.” Marx pushed.
“You’ve got no idea what that poor girl has been through in the past four days since she disappeared have you?” the doctor asked, his tone now turning more hostile. When Marx shrugged his shoulders, the doctor decided to fill in the blanks, “That girl has been viciously beaten to a pulp. Her face is a mess. She’s been raped so many times that we had to do a vasectomy on the poor girl. The result is she will never have children. She’s lost her right eye, we had to replace that with a cybernetic one. They left her to die with her throat cut from ear to ear. We just managed to save her voice. Whoever the bastards were that attacked this girl, they want castrating.” the doctor yelled, hardly able to keep his cool anymore.
Marx sank down on to the nearest chair, unable to accept what this man had just told him. That girl had been so full of life, now, if she came out of the coma, what kind of life would she face. The doctor sat down next to Marx. Marx stared at the doors to the emergency ward.
“She’s lost her mother, now she’s been assaulting like that. There is no justice doc.” he said, tears almost coming to his eyes.
The doctor was about to say something when a nurse came bursting in through the doors of the ward.
“Doctor, the young woman has come around.” she said, astonishment in her tone of voice.
The two men sprang to their feet and rushed inside the emergency ward. Caroline was tossing and turning on the bed that she was on. Straps held her down, but even they were straining against her violent struggled. She was screaming out the same words time and time again at the top of her voice—Eliminate the bad guys. The Doctor stared at Marx, who returned the stare with equal intensity. They had a problem.
Red Justice is a woman with a mission. She’s a good guy who dishes out her own form of justice on people that she believes have broken her rules of life. Now she is after the Fox.