The Prisoner sat, curled fetus-like in the furthermost corner of the dark stone cell.  She listened intently, studying the darkness, as if watching something human eyes couldn't  hope to see.  Something was wrong, or maybe time and consequences had finally taken their toll on her. It just seemed over the last few days as is all had grown quiet. Too quiet.  The sounds of the guards who stood beneath the small window of her cell and told crude jokes;  The streams of smoke that role from their breath  outside her tiny barred window as they fought back the harsh Russian winter with nicotine,  and vodka...  Gone.  The screams of protest from fellow prisoners, the banging of doors, the daily visitations to the crude torture chambers where they had drilled her for hours to no avail... Even the rats were strangely absent now...  The only thing which remained was a torturously rhythmic beating of dripping water which tore through her consciousness more than any other trial she had yet endured.

She had lost count of how long she had been there... Hours turned to days, days and nights blurred together into what could have been weeks or months. She didn't know or care anymore. What bothered her was the lack of activity. It had been days since someone, anyone had come into her cell, regardless of motive. Beatings, painfully intense and seemingly useless  interrogation, her body had been spared no mercy. Over time the torture had become so routine that her body and indeed her soul had become numb to it.  She had instead focused all of her will on keeping her other senses keen, waiting for the right moment to escape...

In her own strange way, she had even grown strangely fond of the interrogations.  She found their plight rather amusing, they spent hours drilling her for information under the premise that she was a MI6 mole, what they had was in fact much more valuable than any petty spy and they didn't even know it...  She took a strange sadistic pleasure in this thought... a fortune in diamonds dangling in their faces and they hope to make off with rhinestones.

After scrutinizing the situation for countless hours she had marked this sudden lack of activity as her chance to escape.  Although she had some trepidation about trying now, she couldn't allow this to continue any longer.  Raising herself on her hands and knees, she crawled along the stone  floor to the large iron cell door.  She pulled herself to a standing position and scraped at the small sliding window until her nails split and her fingers bled. finally the panel slid enough to allow her to grip it and slide it away.

As she stood tiptoed and peered at the scene beyond her she was taken aback by what she saw.  The bodies of  several guards littered the hallway,  a broken bottle of liquor and several packs of contraband American cigarettes lay beside an over-turned stool.  Thoughts raced through her head... "Can this be real, or is this just another mind game?  If it is real, what could have happened, and why has no one come to clean up the mess?"  She rubbed her eyes and tried to clear her mind... she then set about her business intent on the thought of one thing.  ESCAPE.

"Ok," she thought, "I've gotten myself out of worse situations than this before, I can get out of this."  She went to the corner of her cell where a small bucket had been placed to act as a commode. She overturned the bucket, disregarding the pool on the floor of the festering overflow which it had  held and stood upon it.  The extra few inches gave her the height she needed to reach out the window with one arm and barely touch two of the three door hinges... But how to remove them...   She scanned the darkness and found nothing save an old wooden bench... After a second glance out the window she used the remainder of her depleted strength to pound at the bench with her feet until the rotting wood splintered and broke.

Feeling around, she selected a piece which suited her needs and began work.   Several hours passed before she could remove both hinges.  That task completed she began to ponder the problem of the third hinge.  Satisfied there was no one around, she did the only thing she could do.

Mustering up every shred of anger, resentment and fury she had left, she let go in a fit of passion and rage unlike anything she had ever allowed herself before.  Screaming with all her lungs would allow her she kicked at the door envisioning everyone who had ever wronged her the past, father, lover, god and saviour all felt her wrath, like never before, and even though her body was weak and broken, the sound was awe-inspiring. The door fell to create an awesome crescendo, and then all fell silent.   As the dust settled, for the first time in her  28 years she allowed herself to shed a tear.

It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the brilliance of the dim twilight, once she had done so, she began searching the bodies which lay at her feet for what she needed for her upcoming journey.  The first body she came to wore the insignia of a KGB colonel.  "Strange," she thought, "this must have happened awfully abruptly for someone so high ranking to have been caught unawares."  She felt about his body and found a small handgun... "Well it's a start," she muttered in Russian. She contemplated his uniform but decided it wasn't nearly utilitarian enough for her purposes.  She held onto the gun and moved on to the next body, that of  a guard. His hand still gripped an Israeli-made uzi.  She tore it from his grip and looked it over expertly. "Hmm a little old, but still useful."      She turned then to the task of securing clothing.  His uniform, although  too large, was far more suited to her purposes so the began to strip him of his shoes, jacket and pants. Turning him over she noted the strange burn-type blast that seemed to have cut clear through his abdomen.  This perplexed her, being unlike any weapon she had ever encountered.  She reached down and fingered the wound which indeed seemed to be charred.  Whatever occurred here wasn't done by anyone or thing she'd ever encountered before.  That beyond anything she had yet seen bothered her the most.

Dressed in the somewhat charred and extremely baggy uniform she made some adjustments, slung the gun over her shoulder and headed towards the most logical exit.  Fuelled now by adrenaline and curiosity she took the stairs two at a time despite the pain from her protesting body.  She continued along a corridor to the foyer of the building,  side-stepping bodies which were strewn everywhere.  Whatever had gone on she thought, had caught them completely unawares.  It was then that she noted the third set of uniforms among the dead bodies.  Unlike the drab beige of the Russian army  and the camel coloured coats worn by the Komitet men, these men wore bright crimson jumpsuits  labelled with strange insignias. They wore full helmets which hid their faces, and held weapons unlike anything her government or any other superpower  had the technology to develop.

She bent down and picked up one of the guns.  She carefully appraised the weapon as she turned it over in her hands.  It  looked like some strange form automatic weapon.  Aiming it at the wall, she let off a shot.  A laser like beam shot from the weapon and seared the stone wall. Fascinated, she bent to closer examine the body of the man she'd taken it form.  It was rare that a government could so closely covet  a technological discovery and she wanted to know who had.  That was when she noticed a rip in the skin around the man's jawline.  Curious, she tore away at the skin revealing a moist dark scale beneath.  Startled, she recoiled, almost dropping the gun, in the process.  Steadying herself, she tore away more of the skin revealing the reptilian creature beneath... "That's it," she laughed sarcastically, "they've finally done it... they've pushed me over the edge, I've gone insane, I'm probably still locked away in one of their little rooms right now..."

"Keep yourself together," she thought, "This is too weird to be your imagination."   With that she took the laser weapon and walked out the door, her mission now twofold:  to find out what had happened, and to make someone pay for the betrayal which had led to her being there.
 

Part Two:
4 Weeks Later, Outside Los Angeles Resistance Headquarters

Upon leaving the Prison, she was surprised to have found the surrounding compound completely abandoned.  This did however greatly facilitate her finding a vehicle. She made her way to Leningrad where she had hoped to contact a colleague to arrange passage to US, unfortunately her colleague seemed to have disappeared. What she did find was quite unbelievable.

On the cover of every paper, every magazine, the topic of every newscast were the strange Red-clad invaders.  In the week it took her to find a contact who could secure her a  flight to the US, she sat in a seedy motel reading up on these Visitors, as they were called. What she learned was more  then her sceptical mind could  take in.  Seemingly an alien race had come under the preface of peace and good-will but was now waging a global war.  As she flipped through the paper she smiled grimly, "Well this should be good for business."

Finally she had flown into LA and now found herself here.  What she had been watching all night, seemed to be the underground hide-out of  a band of  resistance members. She needed a place to hide out, and re-establish contacts before she could continue business. She still had some matters to clear up in DC but from what she had seen she wasn't sure there was a company left to clear it with. In the meantime, she figured this was as good a place as any to start.  After a few hours of surveillance, she scrambled down the ditch and into the mouth of a tunnel.  She cocked her laser weapon and crept quietly towards the heart of the resistance headquarters.
 
 

"We've got company," Ham grunted as he drew his weapon. In a frenzy of blurred activity, the gun was kicked from his hand.  Elias hurled himself at the intruder in an attempt to tackle, but the intruder was already busy fighting off someone from behind.  With arms restrained from behind, the figure kicked out at Elias, catching him square in the jaw, he reeled in pain and doubled over clutching his jaw.  The third assailant kneed the figure in the spine and pushed it to the ground.  With the intruder restrained, Ham turned to the third assailant.  "'Bout time you showed up Gooder," he grinned morosely, "Now lets see what we've caught."  Mike knelt with his knee in the intruder's back while Elias pointed the visitor weapon.  The intruder was of slight build, and dressed in a  black hooded sweatshirt and well used cargo pants. Ham jerked the intruder's head back and ripped the hood off to reveal  the annoyed face of a young woman.

The woman smiled defiantly as the men lifted her to her feet and dragged her back to  where the others sat.  Elias shoved her roughly in a chair and bound her there. All the while she said nothing save a few choice curses in a language that only Ham recognized as Russian.  Ham was disquieted by the way she stared intently at him with a strange sparkle in her cold blue eyes.

Several minutes passed  before anyone said a  word.  The woman sat there, head held high,  eyes on fire, despite her dishevelled appearance.  Mike didn't say it but he couldn't help noticing that she really was quite beautiful, her shoulder-length black hair fell in matted curls around her pale, delicate  features.

Finally Julie broke the silence.  "Who are you, what do you want?"

The woman looked slowly at Julie and then spoke.  "My name is Jade O' Brian.  I want to join the resistance."   Elias grunted, "You have a strange way of showing it lady."  She smiled smugly at him and then towards Ham, "Your friend, Mr. Tyler has a strange way of welcoming guests...  especially former colleagues."  The group turned towards Ham in question, he seemed as perplexed as they did.  "You know this woman, Ham?" Mike questioned.  Before they could raise further questions he turned to them and said roughly, " I'll handle this."  By the look in his eyes, they took the hint and retreated.

Alone in the room with the girl he paced back and forth in silence, all the while he could feel the girl's eyes on him... finally he turned towards her.  "Who are you, and where did you learn to speak Russian?"  Jade smiled.  "I told you Mr. Tyler, my name is Jade O'Brian."  "This should mean something to me?" he hissed angrily.  As she answered he noticed she'd managed to free her hands from the ropes that bound them and was now leaning casually in her chair.  "No," she smiled coyly, "but the name HALO should..."  Ham's  eyebrow raised in surprise.
 

Part 3
Resistance headquarters later that evening.

"She's an assassin?" Mike repeated incredulously.  "So she claims... But we captured HALO a few years ago... although it always seemed as if it had been too easy..."  Ham's voice drifted off.  "So if she is who she claims to be, what makes her any different than any other crazed lunatic with a gun?"  Elias asked.  "HALO was the best in the business," Ham replied.  "Never been caught,"  Ham continued, perching on the corner of a table.   "No one was even positive HALO even existed.  Completely untraceable, no one knew what HALO  looked like, or how they operated.  All they knew was that if they put the word out, made the price available and HALO was interested, at some point the hit would be done and the money gone.  No alliances, no methods, no witnesses, perfect crimes."

Julie paced around the room.  "How do we know we can trust her... I mean why would she want to help us?"    Elias laughed sarcastically, "Maybe the lizards are bad for business."  Ham grinned smugly, slamming a clip into the bottom of a handgun he'd been fiddling with.  "That's what I intend to find out."  He stood up and marched towards the makeshift cell that held their captive.  Julie began to touch his shoulder in protest "Ham, wait...."  He shoved past and slammed the door.  She and the others exchanged looks of helplessness.
 
 

She looked at him bemused.  "You really shouldn't play with guns Mr. Tyler, unless you plan on making good on your threats."  Ham's  temper began to rise, his hand wavered a bit.  "Answer the question," he replied angrily.

"You know there's no way of proving that, but if I am, you've got a secret weapon against the Visitors.  Can you really afford to let that slip through your hands?"  Her overall lack of regard for her own safety disturbed Him.    Her smile faded and she gazed seriously into his eyes.  " You're waging war against people whose weapons  make starwars look like the battle of hastings, and you're fighting them with capguns and slingshots."  She paused while this sank in.  "With my help you can get access to weaponry unlike anything you've even dreamed of, and I can show you and your little friends how to use it properly."  Her tone suggested that she was offering Ham some sort of erotic enticement...  He had to admit that the offer was tempting on more than one level.

Ham  lowered the gun slightly.  "Before I agree, there are terms..."

"There always are..."   She muttered to herself.  Ham disregarded the comment and continued.  "Don't expect free reign of the place.  I don't trust you and you will be watched.  Julie's in charge, what she says goes.  Don't go striking off on your own.  If you do anything to jeopardize what we have here you will be eliminated... I'll see to it personally." She smirked.  "And finally, I still want to know how you know who I am."

At this she smiled and took one finger and carefully directed the gun away from her face until it hung at Ham's side.  Her smile was devious as she leaned towards him, as her words were icily matter of fact.    "July 15th, 1982,  you and  some friends at the State Dept. set a trap to snare an assassin.  You hired me to make an attempt at the president, with the intent to capture me... I hired someone else to make the attempt.  He unwitting fell right into your trap.  It was all rather amusing actually, watching from the neighbouring building as the secret service men captured what they thought was HALO...  They seemed so pleased with themselves... As if they really thought that it would be that easy?  I would have liked to have watched the interrogations... the look on his face as you drilled him over things he really didn't know anything about... The frustration of  the Langley boys as he seemingly refused to answer any of  their questions....  I don't like being screwed over Mr. Tyler... remember that...."   Ham stood silent as she stepped by him and walked out of the cell.
 

Part Four:
Resistance Headquarters One week later

Ham and Jade hovered over a crate of uzis that he had secured form an "unknown source".  Ham was admittedly impressed with Jade's weapons knowledge as she quickly examined and took stock of the resistance's waning supply.  Jade was on her knees with gun in hand scrutinizing ever minute detail.  Ham crouched behind her very aware of her closeness. He could smell the exotic scent of the sandalwood perfume that she had somehow managed to find in one of  the few shops that remained open in the city.  The scent was heady and alluring. This woman was unlike anything Ham had ever encountered before and the feelings that she aroused within him frustrated him.  Never before had he felt so helpless.  This woman was dangerous, and he instinctively distrusted her, but at the same time he was unable to resist the strange power she held over him.  How could someone so cold awaken the passions he'd spent so many years trying to bury within him?

Ham was roused from his thoughts by Jade's voice, authoritative and matter-of-fact. "Nice product... good workmanship... Is this all you have?"  She turned her head, and their gaze met, their lips barely an inch from each other's... They paused in awkward silence, and then their lips met.  The gun slipped from Jade's hands as Ham ran his hands over her bare shoulders and down her arms.  She shifted to face him and stared up at him, her eyes showed the conflict between confusion and invitation.   Ham's mind raced and he stood up, pulling quickly away.

"I'm sorry," he stammered  as he backed away.  She walked towards him.  Her stance seemed confrontational but her eyes told a different story.  "Don't be," she whispered as she kissed him, biting his lip as she pulled slowly away.  She then turned her attention to unbuttoning his shirt.   Ham abandoned his discomfort as his hands traced the contours of her slender body, seeking out what he knew lay beneath the confines of the tight tanktop she wore.   They stumbled clumsily over crates as they tore hungrily at each other's clothing.  Jade let out a low moan as Ham backed her against a wall.  They slid to the floor, limbs intertwined.
 

Part Five:
Later that day.

Jade watched as Juliet Parrish  studied the body of a dead visitor.   Finding specimens had been hard and Mike had taken a special risk to bring back a casualty of their latest raid.  This was therefore a particularly big privilege for both women, although neither one particularly cherished having to share it.   Julie  lifted a layer of skin with her scalpel and slipped it onto a slide.  As she did so she was painfully aware of Jade's presence as she hovered behind her, watching intently.   Jade could sense the tension she caused the other woman.  She wasn't sure why but she annoyed Julie, and for even more inexplicable reasons, she took delight in that fact.

Julie was not by nature a violent or easily angered woman, but in the week that Jade had been with her there had been numerous occasions where  she had been forced to make every possible effort not to wipe the smug expression off of  her impossibly beautiful face.  Besides Jade's  disregard for others, Julie found the amount of time that Ham had been spending with the woman somewhat disquieting.  There was something wrong that went beyond attitude, and the fact that Ham couldn't seem to see it made Julie worry even more.

As Julie began to lose herself in vengeful fantasies, Willie walked into the room and wandered over to a terrarium where they held several iguanas. "Can I feed them?" he asked timidly to Julie, breaking her concentration.  "Oh Willie, of course," she replied, a distracted softness in her voice, as she struggled to look like she'd been concentrating on work.

Jade eyed  Julie and then followed Willie to the tank.  She stood beside him  and examined his profile.  "You're one of them aren't you?" she asked suspiciously.  "Um, yes, I am a Visitor," he stammered.  "I am Willie, uh, nice to um meet you," he smiled awkwardly extending his hand. Jade took it, instead of shaking it, she held him tightly by the wrist as she used the nails on  her free hand to scrape off a layer of "human skin" that covered his scales.   Looking down at what remained, she slowly appraised it. "I've never seen a live one before, " she whispered
coldly. Julie looked up from her work and glared at Jade.  Jade smiled back sweetly in response.

Disturbed, Willie pulled his hand slowly away and started to leave.  Upon seeing this, Jade walked quickly around him and exited before he had a chance.   Realizing the girl had left, Julie turned to Willie.  "I'm so sorry Willie, please try to ignore her," she began tiredly.  Willie smiled glumly.  "She is very much like Diana," he replied.    Julie looked at him.  "You know what, Willie?  The more I think about it, the more I think you may be right." Wiping her hands off,  Julie walked out of the room without explanation, a certain purpose in her rapid footsteps.

As she stalked around the corner, Jade ran head-long into Mike and Ham.  The two men were clad in black and held assorted weapons.    Without a word, Jade fell into step with them, taking a gun  from Mike's arsenal as if it
was assumed she was included. "Another raid?" she asked, as they hurried towards the entrance to the headquarters.  "I prefer to call it an exercise in information gathering,"  Mike replied.  "One you're not invited to
participate in," Ham added gruffly.

Jade glared at Ham and continued to walk with them, checking over the weapon she held as she kept stride with Mike. "You're going up, aren't you?" she demanded, finally overtaking him and cornering him against a wall.  She used the butt of her weapon as incentive for him to answer.

"It doesn't matter," Mike replied, giving Ham a helpless glance over her shoulder.  "Ham's right, we're better off in small numbers; if something happens we'll need you here."

Jade laughed bitterly.  "That's a lie and you know it.  Tell the truth.  If anything's wrong it's the fact that you don't trust me.  Admit it."  Another helpless glance.

"Look, I may not know much about these "Visitors" of yours, but what I do know about weaponry, marksmanship and stealth, makes even your beloved Mister Tyler pale in comparison.... as much as his rough exterior and
titanic ego may have you believe to the contrary."   Mike couldn't stifle the slight smile that crossed his lips as Jade cut Ham down a notch...  He could see Ham's face redden a bit as Jade lowered the gun slightly.

"She's right," Mike conceded with a devilish glance at Tyler.  "She goes."
 
Ham grumbled something undecipherable under his breath as Jade smiled  coyly at him before strutting off ahead of them.

"Nice girlfriend you've got there,"  Mike chided in a whisper, his grin spreading.  "Shut up Gooder," Ham  muttered in reply.  Both men couldn't help but look on at her retreating form.
 

Part Six:
The Los Angeles Mothership

The  Shuttle glided effortlessly into place in the Mothership's vast docking bay.  As the doors began to hum and open, three black-clad intruders slipped silently out of their places of concealment and dove out the barely
open doors.  As they dropped to the floor, each team member did a roll, until they were re-grouped behind a cargo container.  With a single silent hand signal, one member shimmied across the floor, crouched down, weapon drawn,
until he had positioned himself in front of a large air conduit.  After several minutes of prying, the grille gave way, he eased it down, and after checking around, gave a subtle hand signal to those he knew were watching.  Not bothering to see if they followed, he climbed into the large ventilation shaft and crawled a good way down in order to conceal himself.  A moment later, the sound of two bodies climbing in, and the grille being settled into place confirmed that his partners had indeed seen the signal.

The three  waited a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dim light, before continuing. Jade tugged roughly at the cap she wore, until it finally came off.  Stuffing it into the leather jacket she wore, she turned to face the others.  "So now what?  I don't suppose either of you have any idea where we're going or what we're looking for?"
 
To Be Continued....
 

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