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As Bradley stepped out from the building he shivered. The dry weather had finally broken and the rain fell now in long sheets, cutting the vision low. Wishing he'd brought a heavier coat, he ran over to the waiting limousine. The door was opened for him by a slender figure wearing the chauffeur's outfit. He climbed in and made himself comfortable in the wide back seat; reaching to the decanter, he poured himself out a generous measure of brown liquid. He watched the driver open their door and climb into the driver's side. He hit a button on the control panel and the opaque screen slid smoothly up, obscuring the view between the two compartments.
He waited for the familiar throb as the engine started, and the acceleration as the vehicle pulled away, before reaching into his pocket and retrieving a small, white square. He placed this against the back of his neck and finally relaxed as the substance in the patch entered his system.
He gave it a few seconds and then gulped down his drink. Reaching over, he opened his briefcase and removed the small laptop computer from inside. He opened it and booted it up as the car slid to a stop. Bradley reached over to flick on the entertainment system and a screen slid up in front of him, bursting into life with a news broadcast.
"Traffic today has reached an all time high when roads were blocked by two gangs opening fire on passing cars. The fire-fight has currently escalated, with enforcers bringing in another forty officers when the gangs started using anti-personnel grenades. A spokesperson said earlier that they should have the groups involved rounded up in less than an hour, but with the current situation-five officers down and the group holding several hostages-it looks as though this is going to last a lot longer than anyone wants. This is Robert Kelly, LNBC."
The screen changed to show an advert and Bradley moved over to look out of the one-way mirrored glass of the window. He could already see long lines of traffic around the limo. He sat back and poured himself another drink and took a sip. He was running late.
Just then the car lurched slightly and pulled off to the left, moving down a side alley. Bradley was slightly relieved by this show of initiative by his driver; he had to be on time for this meeting with the representative of Bold Industries. This meeting was crucial to the relationship between the two corporations-he just wished he hadn't agreed to do be the one to go to them, he worked for Internal for God's sake.
The screen beeped and he looked down at the monitor on his small computer. The information he needed scrolled before his eyes as he read about corporate take-overs and how quickly this corporation had grown in the last ten years. It was quite amazing how it seemed to take on businesses, take them over and then seem to be much greater than the sum of the parts.
After some time of looking at this data, Bradley looked down at his watch and saw that he had only twenty minutes to get to Soho, location of Bold's headquarters. He quickly glanced out of the window to see how far they had got. To his surprise the buildings around the vehicle were not the ones he expected. This place was obviously derelict and not the false façades of the Soho district. The car rolled to a stop on a piece of scrubland in the lee of a large burned-out warehouse.
Bradley reached over and tapped the button he had used before and the screen retracted downwards.
"What's going on?" he asked the uniformed person in the driver's seat.
The driver turned to look back into the rear compartment. Bradley found himself face to face with a stunning female visage. It looked him up and down.
"If you look under your seat," the soft female voice floated toward him, "you may find out."
The female then turned away and the screen slid back into place. Bradley pressed the button to open it up again but there was no response. He heard the click of the front door opening and the slamming sound as it was shut again. This was definitely wrong. Shifting forward, he looked down between his own legs underneath the seat he was sitting on. Staring back at him was a package that he hadn't noticed on his entry to the car. It didn't look like much, no heavy wiring or flashing lights, but it was obviously a bomb. It looked a very professional job.
It then struck Bradley what situation he was in and the panic hit him. He dove for the door but whoever had put this in here with him had locked it. Then he thought about his options. Could he stop the bomb? Probably not, was the answer to that. He then thought about breaking the glass. Drawing his ankle-holstered pistol, he fired it at the side window. The pain tore into his left shoulder at the exact moment he remembered that the glass was bulletproof. What a fool he had been: now he couldn't use his arm.
As she walked away from the motionless limo she removing the cap and jacket to reveal a black cat suit and shoulder-length, black hair. She discarded the unrequired uniform, retrieving a small black device from the pocket. Holding her arm just behind her, towards the car, she extended a finger. At the same moment as when she brought the finger down on the device, the limousine erupted into a shower of fire and scrap, causing a wind that blew the black hair into her face. Dropping the device on the floor she disappeared into the pouring rain.
Paul Taylor, 10/11/00
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