They shot at her as she fell from the roof of the 80 story building in downtown New Tokyo. Her hair fluttered in the wind and she relaxed her mind.

She was ready for death; there was nothing here for her. She waited for the sweet cold unknown. The ground rushed up to greet her in a stony embrace and she could hear ricochets of falling bullets as she hit the cement pavement with a sickening crack.


* * *


Denise, a nurse, combed the patient’s hair. Without warning she sat bolt upright, startling her.

Her eyes shot open and looked around, confused. Medical equipment beeped and hummed and the bright ceiling lights forced her to look around with slitted eyes. She leveled her gaze at her.

Denise was scared. She knew who she was, and what she did. She managed to step away slowly toward the wall with the door. She slammed the door console hard sending the alarm into spasms. Instantly the woman leapt off the exam table and bolted out the door without a second glance her way.


* * *


She ran through the halls as big guys in white uniforms ran after her, precious seconds away from catching her. They didn’t call after her, not a word, and she thought that strange. She didn’t know where she was. She couldn’t understand why she was running. One part of herself wanted to stop and ask the men if they could tell her who she was, the other part of her; the part of her that was dominant and frightening, wanted to run. She didn’t know what was going on, but when the woman hit the alarm the other part of her, the cold part of her, took over. So she ran.

She could somehow sense the armoured men coming down the hall ahead of her before she could see them. She looked at the guns they had, but it didn’t register to her that they were after her until they shot her way. Little tan balls came whistling her way, right past her legs. They shot at her again and missed again.

She was going to run right into them. There was no where else to go. Then she saw the door to the left; stairs, it said. She shoved at the door and it gave easily; she was up one flight of stairs before the door could hit the doorframe.

She flew up the stairs, clamouring just one flight of stairs ahead of her pursuers. She looked back at where they were trying to shoot and could see the pellet-balls grow into big globs of tan goo as they hit the walls.

Suddenly there were no more stairs, just a grey door with a cross bar handle. She hit the door running, pushing it open with the full brunt of her shoulder. She found herself running across the graveled roof of a high rise building surrounded by other high rises.

She came to a stop about eight feet from the edge of the roof. She didn’t want to look down. She was too afraid. Somehow she knew that she was 80 stories up. Information flooded her brain and left just as quick. It told her there was nothing below but concrete sidewalk. She had no where to go now. She was trapped.

“Angel…” came the voice. Behind her, she realized. “Turn around Angel. Just turn around slow so we can talk.”

Angel? Was that her name? She couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t she remember? She turned. A tall man in a suit held a lab coat draped over one arm. He had graying hair and a full, well trimmed beard. He seemed relaxed, but his behaviour spoke of an underlying tension and discomfort.

“Angel. Listen to me, Angel. You don’t know who you are, do you? You’re trying to remember but you can’t figure it out.”

Angel looked at the tall man and shook her head no.

“Angel… You were in an accident. You were on a bus and it was bombed by terrorists. Do you remember?”

Angel’s mind seemed to click at that point and she could remember the back of a another woman's head, her hair long and dark. The blue plastic seat of the bus was hard and uncomfortable under her added weight. The bus driver swore as he tried to call up the bus dispatch on the radio. Then she smelled burning and heard an explosion and felt the intense heat, then she couldn’t see anything. It was a complete blank after that.

“You remember the explosion, don’t you Angel?”

Angel nodded.

“Angel, the explosion sent you through the window. You were thrown from the bus before you could get hurt by the explosion. You were thrown into a stand of trees, cracking your skull when the gas tank exploded. We saved your life, Angel, but you suffered brain damage and were in a coma.”

“…A coma?” angel asked. “How long…”

The tall man sighed. “Seven years, Angel. We waited seven years for you to wake up.”

“Seven years…” Angel breathed.

“I know that it’s a long time Angel. I know how you…”

“No.” said Angel. “You’re lying.” She didn’t know how she knew, but Angel was sure that the man wasn’t telling the truth. It wasn’t a complete lie either, he knew. Something the man said was a lie, and Angel wanted to know. It seemed that the part of her that ran, the cold part that wasn’t her, was telling her that the man was lying. Not with words, but just making Angel feel uncomfortable when the man spoke certain things.

The tall man moved slightly away and Angel saw him look to her left. She turned instantly and caught the security guard in the throat with a kick before she had a chance to think. Then she followed with kicking the man on her other side in the knee cap. The man grunted and dropped a small black metal box. The cold part of Angel said/indicated that it was a weapon of some sort.

The tall man looked surprised and frightened before he regained his composure. He scrambled for words:

“Angel…” he smiled. “It was a dirty trick, but we were afraid you’d try to hurt yourself. You’re confused and aggressive. We had to be careful. Come, Angel. Come with us back downstairs.” he almost pleaded.

Angel looked down at the box on the ground and began seriously doubting the tall man’s promises and explanations. She bent down and picked up the dull metal cube, turning it around in her hands; the smooth, brushed metal and the recessed buttons on one side. She pressed the larger of the buttons and two electric prongs snaked out.

Angel looked coldly at the tall man. A doctor, she supposed. The doctor looked as if he was about to break and run.

Part of her wanted to believe. Pleaded and begged for what the doctor was saying to be true. But the other part of her had already made up its mind and Angel was powerless to stop that part of herself when it was dominant.

She placed her thumb on the other, smaller button and fired. The doctor went down immediately, with the sound of an electric discharge as an arc of lightning hit him from the electron prongs of the device. At that instant Angel jumped over the side of the building, leaving the guards to shoot at air.


* * *


They shot at her as she fell from the roof of the 80 story building in downtown New Tokyo. Her hair fluttered in the wind and she relaxed her mind.

She was ready for death; for the sweet cold unknown. The ground rushed up to greet her in a stony embrace and she closed her eyes to the sounds of the whistling air and ricochets of falling bullets as she hit the cement pavement with a sickening crack.

Was this death? Angel wondered. Was this the darkness that was all enfolding?

She heard cars and people talking and new that somehow, she was still alive. She opened her eyes and saw the group of people around her. They had been staring and they stared even harder in disbelief as Angel got to her feet and went to start running, when for the first time, she realized that she only had a hospital gown on.

She grabbed a big onlooker by the jacket sleeves and nailed him in the forehead with her own brow, slipping the jacket off the man by the sleeves as he fell to the ground unconscious. Then Angel was running again, trying to distance herself from the crowd as two armed security agents burst out the lobby. She slipped the jacket on as she ducked into an alleyway.

She didn’t want to chance a glance around the corner but she didn’t have to as the cold part of herself indicated that the guards were coming her way. Angel could sense one guard back up against the other side of the corner of the wall, and the other move in just behind him. Angel had no where to go. So she stopped trying to fight the cold presence in her mind and let it do what it wanted.

Angel crouched low to the ground and waited, and jumped at the gun barrel when it began inching around the corner of the wall. She grabbed the gun and snapped it backward so hard that the man fired into his own face. Before the body could fall Angel shoved it onto the man behind, pinning him to the wall with the dead weight. Angel squeezed the trigger of the first man’s gun and put a hole through the second’s skull.

It was only after she dragged both guards into the alley out of sight of the street that she didn’t hear any gun retorts when the guards died. She looked down at the guns. Each was equipped with a miniature silencer. She got the distinct feeling, probably from her other self that these weren’t available to civilians.

As she stripped the corpses of their clothes she thought of the past forty minutes, and finally realized the wetness of on her face. Tears. In the last ten minutes she had become something totally not herself. She had never killed anyone before. She always thought that it would be a lot harder than it had been. But then again, it had been her other self that had done it. She knew this, and it was logical, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of remorse now that she was controlling her own body again. She was horrified at her other self, who seemed to have no emotional response to the killings at all. Horrified and frightened. She concentrated on her other self and recoiled. She couldn’t feel anything but cold calculations. Her other self found it acceptable to kill people when it came to preserving itself and its freedom.

She was done and had somehow unconsciously searched for devices planted on the clothes. She had found 7 of them. She looked in the fourth shoe and around the sole. She grabbed the sole and tore it of the shoe, and found an eighth tracking device.

Frustrated and still confused, she put on a pair of pants and the still intact shoes and a shirt under the jacket. She found the voluminous pockets of the jacket accommodated the pistols quite nicely.

Finally, some luck. She thought.


* * *


She made her way to the downtown area, where she hoped she’d be able to get an idea of where she was. She knew she was still on Mars, she could tell from the red dust in the sky. But just exactly where on Mars is what she wanted to know.

And how to get out of this situation. That too.