Drabble Day – Letter

Hello!

I stumbled upon an old paragraph I wrote up for I-can’t-remember-what. I decided to rework it into a drabble.

Remember how it works?

• Read the prompt and find your angle.
• Write a drabble (100 words story, give or take five words).
• Post a direct link to your drabble in the comments (or, if you don’t have a blog, just go ahead and post your drabble in the comments).
• In the post on your blog, make sure to link back to this post.

Today’s prompt is: Letter!

My drabble:

The envelope had no address but my own, written in snaky letters.  It contained a single sheet of paper where the curves read: “You shouldn’t have touched me…”
I felt the poison coursing through my veins as the story of my life smashed reality to smithereens.  My casual oh-so-boring thirtyish years opened for scrutiny and each memory taunted me: “Herein lies the whos and whys that eluded you.”
Could I figure out my murder before my conscience sank six feet under? Why would I not try? I probably couldn’t stop death but curiosity was way behind to kill this cat.

Awesome writerly week to all of you!

Strings of Retaliation – 9b – Saskia

<< 9a – Saskia

I composed myself a calm and conquering attitude before I walked back into my office where Saskia sat, shoulders straight and jaw clenched, surrounded by guards. Her cheek was split open. It hadn’t been when I left.
There hadn’t been guards moaning on the ground either.
“What happened?” I hammered both words.
“She tried to make a break for it,” the chief of the guard replied with a shrug and the rising pitch of the man who profited from the perfect excuse to do whatever he pleased. Or maybe he meant to sound like I was dumb for asking.
With a growl of annoyance, I grabbed Saskia’s bag from my coffee table, picked a silver bead by the safe end and threw it to Saskia’s forehead. She fell like a rock, sound asleep.
“There!” I replied to everyone’s surprised look. “Is this manageable enough for you to stop damaging company property?”
“Yes boss!” The guard who replied seemed eager to move up in the world.
“Absolutely, Miss Beyer!” The chief said, sending a double dose of hateful looks toward the insubordinate speaker. “A brilliant idea.”
Fake humility looked good on him and I would have said so if the phone hadn’t rang, rekindling everyone’s surprise: no one used non-implanted phones anymore. I smiled and picked up the receiver.
“Dear Miss Beyer,” Gabriel said with a very formal tone, “the team is readying for an exchange. If you would be so kind to inform us of your designated driver, we’ll upload him with the instructions.”
“Driver?”
A guard stepped forward to give me his Merrilyn ID.
“Badge number 23408-HY095,” I read to Gabriel.
“Excellent. You can entrust us with the last details and rest after this trying experience.”
He was asking me not to participate to the drop. The guards probably wouldn’t agree with my presence either.
I could bite their heads off, but my hands-on presence during the transfer would spark unnecessary questions.
“Thank you. I will.”
A few minutes after I hung up, a truck’s door closed on Saskia and a armoured car’s on me. As per company protocol, any menace triggered my emergency relocation to a secret bunker until both my house and my office had been swept. The guards enjoyed their temporary power over me and the FBI would appreciate it as well. First, it turned the debugging of my house from annoyance to ‘Thank God we did that’ moment. Secondly, the heavy guard prevented me from meddling with Saskia’s treatment.
It pissed me off that ‘Queen Lorelei’ wasn’t the kind of person to pass her nerves on a punching bag. Even if I could justify some sort of anger for my official persona, she still wouldn’t go berserk like I wanted to.
No. Instead, after a long ride behind blacked out windows, a robot/maid forced me into the bathroom where a bubble bath waited for me.
“I’m also programmed with a variety of massage techniques,” it said as it closed door on me. “Anything you need to relax, just ask!”
A HUMAN maid would already be an improvement.
I locked up behind the robot and paced the gigantic bathroom. I wanted out of this outrageously cozy bunker. Its very existence drove me nuts; so many people didn’t have the bare necessities and my emergency back-ups were underground manors. This one was most likely the robotics district’s bunker.
‘Cause why have one when you can have three!
“’Cause that’s what you’re really mad about,” Vexx’s voice in my head made me jump. For once, I didn’t mind that he hacked my chip.
Is this safe? I thought. A Merrilyn safe house had at least as many countermeasure as the office.
“It’s not too risky.”
I didn’t like what his answer implied.
“They’re not bringing Saskia back to the base,” Vexx said, diving straight into what I feared was worth the risk of contacting me. “From what I gathered, they have no intention of letting you interact with her.”
Of course, they don’t.
To avoid suspicion or a destructive outburst of anger, I took off my clothes and leaned in the bath.
“I may have bugged Gabriel’s jacket to circumvent this, though.”
I caught a chuckle before it escaped my mouth.
Big risk. Good job.
“They’ve confirmed she’s a SSW.”
Sister of the Silicon Womb?
“Correct. Apparently, she doesn’t have a lot of free radicals in her blood making her a new model, artificially matured.”
My jaw dropped, then clenched. The files I read detailed Merrilyn Tech’s animal experiment with growth hormones. Apparently, Special Projects hadn’t entered the result of human testing in the mainframe.
Small oversight.
“Not the first time info is missing from their files.”
Makes you wonder what else we’re missing.
“We, maybe. The FBI? I’m not so sure. Listen to this.”
A couple of beeps announced that Vexx patched the bug through to me.
“We’ll establish her model at the lab,” an unknown voice was saying inside an unmarked van somewhere.
Model? What about the make you self-righteous prick! She’s a human being!
One of my nails broke on the bath’s edge; I was squeezing it so hard.
“Based on her estimated age, I would say she’s a seventh generation,” the voice continued.
“Remotely programmed for a mission,” Gabriel uncertainly added.
You’re a dead man!
“To her, it’s just an impulse to act on.”
Thoughts rushed into my brain faster than I could track. A couple of beep announced the disconnection of the bug.
“Think that’s enough for now. Breathe. The jumble of thoughts really hurts my ears.”
The FBI has an asset in Special Projects.
“And probably elsewhere. They’ve been infiltrating Merrilyn Tech for years.”
Gabriel is concealing information about my siblings.
“As much as I would like to say otherwise, it’s not surprising.”
Saskia is a human being on remote control. And the someone pushing her buttons wants me dead.
“I doubt it can be anyone but a Merrilyn Tech employee.”
A needle in a haystack.
I think I’ll tan Gabriel’s ass first.
“I’ll have a location ready whenever you get home.”
Your bug’s a tracker too?
“Yes. They’re heading toward the robotics district.”
I couldn’t catch the chuckle this time.

Next chapter on next Tuesday!

Strings of Retaliation – 9a – Saskia

<< 8b – Show

The assassin stood stiff, and not ‘Gosh there’s a plasma gun pointed at my head’ stiff. Her left side was angled toward me which could have read like a way to face both me and Gail. But her right arm, the one that led most of her attacks so far, was half hidden by her body and bent slightly to bring her hand close to her hip. Since Gail almost dislocated that arm’s shoulder a few seconds before, whatever the assassin had hidden in her belt was worth the pain of keeping a hand close to it.
We knew security was coming and each second increased the tension. The alarm may be silent but the assassin’s entrance through the window triggered it for sure. She would try to escape. No doubt about that either.
The elevator bell rang. Gail relaxed.
Huge mistake.
The assassin lunged and stuck a bead to Gail’s neck.
Saskia!
As my bodyguard hit the floor, the assassin rushed toward me.
Why would she — Reflexes slammed the bottom of my pistol on Saskia’s forehead before I overcame my surprise.
Security stormed in while my opponent stumbled backward under the shock.
“No killing!” I ordered.
In the blink of an eye, the guns were down and the guards wrestle the assassin to the ground.
I knew her. We never met but we were part of the same underground circles. Her and her beads had a reputation rivalling my own, as far as efficient killing was concerned. By all logic, she should have gone for the window.
I would have.
She chose to take a last shot at me even if it condemned her. Why? She couldn’t possibly hate me that much!
“Miss Beyer,” the chief of the guard repeated, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m okay.” The flow of thoughts in my head probably made me look as if I was in shock. What a joke!
“What should we do with her?”
Right to the other cluster of questions buzzing in the back of my head. Saskia tried to kill me. She may have killed Gail — though I couldn’t really hold that against her. I had a chance to break her out of whatever ties she had with Merrilyn — if she had any — or learn about my other enemies.
I hope she’s a crazy sister. I had enough forces stacked against me as it was.
Either way, letting Merrilyn have her wasn’t an option. I couldn’t bring her home without risking Vexx’s security and my own.
That left the FBI.
“She’s a Merrilyn Special Project.”
“You wish!” Saskia spat. The closest guard backhanded her.
“Hey!” I barked. “What part of ‘Special Project’, don’t you get?”
The guard opened his mouth but a glare from his chief shut it.
I nodded. Though I wasn’t sure Saskia was indeed a sister, the label saved her life and would justify my secrecy; access to Special Project information was strictly limited.
“We’ll transport her to a drop site and another team will take it from there.”
I hoped Gabriel could set up a believable transfer in a jiffy. I hated the idea of putting Saskia in prison but I was running out of options and time.
Prison!
“Call off the cops. We’re keeping this one internally.”
“Understood.”
“What about Gail?” My cover necessitated some show of concern. Or maybe it didn’t; I had no clue if my father went for the ‘understanding’ or ‘scary’ type of management. Anyways, she did help me survive Saskia’s attack, which was more than a little insulting but deserved some thanks.
Saskia scoffed. “I only kill my prey.”
“She’s breathing,” a guard confirmed. He plucked the silver bead off Gail’s neck to examine it. “I’ll transport her to the infirmary.”
Seems like every building I spend time in as one of those.
“Good.”
I left the guards to themselves and headed to my private loft at the other end of the vestibule. Calling Gabriel from Merrilyn’s only landline, which I had installed in my office since I didn’t have a phone chip in my head, was unthinkable. I pulled the FBI-approved cell phone out of my purse and dialled one of the emergency numbers.
“Vibes Limousine Services, this is Ariel. How may I help, Miss Beyer?”
Merrilyn Tech had everything in place to trace every call, even if my line was encrypted. Unfortunately, calling a limousine company would look weird in the current situation. But then again, I had warned the guards I would use my own personal resources so as long as everything else went without a hitch, they would chalk this up to the mystery that I was.
“I have a peculiar request. Can I speak to your manager?”
“Sure. Just one moment.”
“Lorelei, are you okay?” Gabriel said a few seconds later. He sounded really worried.
“I’m fine.” There was more relief in my voice than I intended. “Someone tried to kill me.” And came too close to success. I would have to train harder. “I think she’s a sister of the silicon womb.”
“From the same project as you, you mean?”
“Yes. She’s alive.” I said before he asked. The FBI would want her either way. A chill ran down my spine and I almost hung up.
“And at Merrilyn?” His elocution had slowed. He was in “full throttle planning” mode.
“I told the guard she was a special project and that another team would take over.”
“Nice.” His voice changed tone as he talked to ‘the outside’ instead of concentrating on the chip in his head: “Vexx, can you route one of ours calls through a Merrilyn number?” Beat. Contrary to the hold phones, I couldn’t hear the reply unless Gabriel repeated it in his head. “We want our team to look like a Merrilyn secret op.”
Jitters triggered an annoying foot tapping motion along with a flow of unwanted thoughts. The more this conversation went on, the less I liked the idea of giving Saskia up.
And why is Vexx with Gabriel? Whether they met up at the FBI base or at my manor, why would one man be needed at the other’s place?
“Good.” Gabriel’s voice refocused on my call and so did my thoughts. “I’ll ring in your office with a location for the meet.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“You’re sure you’re alright?”
I let him have it too easy, didn’t I?
“A few bruises. It’ll be good for the press. I’ll give you hell about how to handle my sister once I can afford to raise my voice without blowing my cover.”
Gabriel chuckled and hung up.

9b – Saskia >>

Strings of Retaliation – 8b – Show

<< 8a – Show

Though we had a friendlier start than I expected, I hated Cy by the end of the second hour. I liked the idea of contrasting old school acrobatics with next-gen technological accessories and props, but the way the tour manager developed his concept from there disgusted me. All the blame for my disappointment belonged to me; his mandate was to sell Merrilyn Technology and I should have remembered that.
“A girl struck by tragedy struggles to find her place in the world.”
The total lack of subtlety disqualified the premise for the title of metaphor. My first acrobatics would involve aerial contortions, ropes, floor work, anything bounding and limited in range that evoked struggle and danger.
“As she follows the lead of technology, she finds freedom.”
Translation: “As she gives in to her robot love interest, she starts flying around on trampolines, trapezes and whatnots.” And my trusted mechanical frog pet would accompany me throughout the trials.
“Our take on Gemini Cricket and Cinderella coming into her own!”
Each idea sparked homicidal thoughts. Each paternal encouragement and compliments both soothed me and worried me; I couldn’t know if Cy acted under order from Ben but I certainly didn’t need a replacement controlling, backstabbing, violent-death-deserving father figure. My brain dry heaved while my body faked an excitement that matched Cy’s.
At last, he stepped out of my office after the sun set.
“There are emergency emails —” Gail managed to say before my double doors slammed shut in her face. I hoped she would go home like most people already did so I could leave without talking to her.
I shut off the cameras and slouched in my chair.
I never slouched.
Better get to those emails while I still can. Either my brain would implode or Ben would busy me out of my own emergencies.
Seconds after my computer hologram lit up, a faint noise drew my attention to the farthest edge of my window wall. My eyes caught a flash of blueish light but my brain doubted the information. I rounded my desk to take a closer look.
Stupid move.
With a loud bang, the window’s corner fractured. The black-clad person hanging outside peeled the plasma-proof glass off its frame far enough to slip in. I dived behind a couch. A plasma bullet melted the top right off and blew up one of the product displays.
“Huh!?” A woman. She sounded surprised she missed. Not good.
“Smart entrance but you’re messing with the wrong girl.”
“So they all say.”
The voice came from a few feet closer. I rolled a bit further but made sure to stay out of her sight. When she fired a predictable bullet through the couch, I vaulted over the mini-bar. It had been reinforced so she would have to come within close combat range.
My eyes spotted a red ladybug under the counter. My instincts screamed. I jumped back over the bar as it exploded behind me. My assailant didn’t expect that and, with a mix of luck and training, I landed and kicked her gun away.
Controlled blast in the stronghold. That’s what I would have done, I thought as her hands closed around my throat. I broke her nose before she broke my neck. She stumbled backward for about a step and then dodged a plasma bullet. I spun in a defensive stance. My office’s door weres busted open and Gail stormed in with two pistols, ready to annihilate the threat to my security.
“Don’t!”
A second shot muffled my order. The intruder dodged it and swiped my feet in the same fluid movement. My back hit the floor and the assassin pulled me to her, using me as a human shield. Her hold was a tough one to break but she couldn’t stand without exposing herself to Gail. Unfortunately, she could also kill me in the blink of an eye.
I should have kept that from happening. A year ago, she would have been dead before my secretary came to my rescue.
Gail waited for her moments to fire again.
“She’s company property,” I yelled.
Gail hesitated but dropped her guns. She closed her fists and bent her knees; she would take her chance at close combat.
“You,” I said to the assassin. Darn, how could I phrase it without betraying myself? “I’m not your enemy.”
Generic negotiation catch phrases. I should just facepalm myself into unconsciousness and let them duke it out.
Very fainting-damsel-in-distress-y.
“Right, you’re the innocent queen of an evil empire.” The assassin constricted.
Gail lunged.
I was the middle woman.
With a fury-powered push, I broke the crazy entanglement. The assassin hit me square on the jaw. Gail bruised a couple of my attacker’s ribs with a foot I was too stunned to deviate. The assassin rolled onto her feet and unfolded toward me. Her shoulder buried itself in my middle, barely slowed by Gail grabbing her midair. I blocked the assassin’s arm and realized she had pulled a knife out of her extensible Kevlar suit. Noticing the knife too, Gail landed a precise punch on the assassin’s shoulder.
The articulation clacked. The knife clicked. The world spun.
After her goodbye punch to my face, the assassin refocused her attention on Gail. The two women clung and each other’s throat, ignoring me; I wasn’t the biggest threat.
Wrong time for an ego crisis.
Or not.
I spotted Gail’s guns and made a run for them.
“Enough!” I barked. Firmly in my crosshairs, the women froze. “Let go! Now!”
They pulled away from each other. The assassin’s eyes traveled between my gun and Gail. Her knee bent in preparation.
I fired a shot to graze her suit so she wouldn’t try anything.
Gail’s eyes crucified me while her eyebrows creased in question. She expected me to side with her, but she worked at Merrilyn Tech long enough to know she didn’t know everything.
“Let’s breath for a beat, shall we?”

9a – Saskia >>

Strings of Retaliation – 8a – Show

<< 7b – Report 05122513

When the middle of the week arrived, I had met everyone worth meeting on the West Coast. Like a queen on her thrown, I sat and they flocked, their hands full of gold and their mouths fraught with requests. Gail followed me everywhere I went, keeping me informed of my upcoming meetings and alterations to my schedule as they were relayed to her communication chip by my assistants. I thought about calling her ‘Mom’ but her secondary duty as bodyguard combined to the way she watched my office’s door from behind her desk made me wonder if ‘Cerberus’ was a more appropriate nickname.
At least, my public appearances for this week were over.
“We should celebrate!” Vexx announced with an enthusiasm I failed to understand. He had been waiting in my office for my day to end. “Here, look at this.”
Grinning, he put Frogster on my desk. The frog poked me with its tongue.
“I don’t need a buggy frog,” I growled.
Vexx frowned and spun Frogster toward him. “Double O Seven.”
With the light whistle of sliding metal, Frogster’s flexible throat contracted and split down the middle. The halves spun with increasing speed. Croaking the James Bond theme song, Frogster flew to the mini-bar.
I rolled my eyes.
“Wait for it.”
After landing, the propeller morphed again into an improvised necktie, which Frogster readjusted before he grabbed a bottle of dry gin with his tongue.
A minute later, Vexx delivered me a martini. Shaken, not stirred.
I shook my head but smiled. “You’re crazy.”
Then, slow clapping resounded behind me.
I jinxed it, didn’t I?
Only showbiz people would dare slow clap outside of a movie.
“That was great! Does it know any other tricks?” Cy walked in with Ben.
I should close the door and shut off the cameras every time I entered my office. And I definitely shouldn’t let Cy know how Frogster was more of a James Bond than it seemed.
My tour manager bowed to take a closer look at the mechanical frog. It immediately started mixing a third martini.
“We should use it for the show.” Ben tapped the mini-computer on his wrist and the holograph displayed a few pie charts. “90% of the population associates your name with ‘tragedy’. A significant chunk finds you unrelatable and cold. Classics for a business woman. Men think you’re hot which we should definitely leverage. Women pity you. That’s bad for the share price.”
The assault of statistics sickened me. I put my martini down before my reflex to go for alcohol in periods of stress kicked in.
“We’ll turn the tide.” Cy patted Ben’s shoulder. “Quirky, approchable, humorous.” He picked up Frogster. “Done!”
Gail peeked into the office long enough to say: “Her schedule has been rearranged.”
The plan for tomorrow had been to let me dig into the company’s paperpwork. I turned my frown from angry to interrogative by cocking one eyebrow.
“Cy’s in town all day tomorrow,” Ben explained.
“How grand!” I clapped, as girlier women did to show excitement.
“The schedule to kick off your tour is pretty agressive,” Cy continued.
It didn’t surprise me; Ben wouldn’t leave me any time to look into the management of the company. I wouldn’t put it past him to use the schedule he overcharged as an argument against me: “Look how busy she is! She couldn’t possibly manage the company on top of that!”
I did my best to remain cordial for the rest of the encounter and punched my frustration deep into a sandbag when I got home. My head hit the pillow early so I would be full strenght for the encounter on the next day.
Cy arrived in my office at precisely eight o’clock. Gail stopped him by the door to offer coffee or any beverage of his choice. He asked for tea.
“I’m so glad we could manage some time by ourselves,” he said after kissing my cheeks in salutation. “Ben is well-intentioned but he can’t grasp the key to a successful tour.”
He’s trying to win me over!
“And what would that be?” I smiled.
“The soul of the artist.” His voice dropped lower to create mystery. I cocked an eyebrow and a glimmer crossed his eye. “Today, we learn about each other and figure out where our style meets to create the show.”
He leaned back, craddling his tea. Habit and experience relaxed his shoulder but stiffened mine; we couldn’t possibly have something in common. Hell, he couldn’t have something to share with the hundreds of artists he planned tours for.
Won’t be the first time you dive in a world of fake.
“Why don’t we start with your hobbies? Anything we can use for a show?”
Oh my!
I sipped my coffee to buy some time. Hobbies? I used to spend time training for, planning and executing assassinations. Such a shocking show ought to spill some ink, though it wouldn’t serve Ben’s objective to make me more relatable.
Please, may I have a volonteer? Preferably a dirty rich tech guy. Can you confirm that these swords are real?
“Any particular skills?”
Killing people popped into my mind again and I cursed at my counterproductive brain.
Cy looked at me with an encouraging smile but the stiffeness of his lips’ corner belied his patience. “You can just pick something your like and get the implants you need to do it,” Cy prompted.
My brain shrieked.
“I’m an acrobat.” Same skill set, different application, that ought to do it.
“Really?” Cy sounded genuinely impressed. “I never had an acrobat before. Most people go for singing.”
“An easy, unremarkable choice.”
“And you can do it without implants?”
“Yes.”
Cy sipped his tea as he pondered the implication of my talent. “That’s good… Pure… Old school…” His eyes glazed as he dived into his thoughts. He probably browsed through his memory chip for inspiration of some sort. “We could make it a theme. Contrast it with how high tech your company is.”
I could almost hear his brain crunch the data.
He pointed the holograph of my computer. “May I?”
I nodded. He placed two fingers on the bone behind his ear and tapped some Morse code. The holograph lit up with a wireless loading indicator. Seconds later, a simulation beamed straight from Cy’s mind showed me performing aerial contortions in a metallic-looking drape. The stage mixed old clockwork pieces with high tech holographs and machinery. A Lady Gaga song played – a song with disturbingly fitting lyrics.
“I’m a sucker for turn of the millenium music,” Cy explained.
I shook my head in disbelief. Now that I thought about it, his looks could be an hommage to the pop star’s fashion sense.
“We have that in common.”

8b – Show >>