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Chapter 4

Bodyguard

It was morning when I woke up; somehow in a bed. Sitting upright I looked out the window to see that we were in a town, thought I didn't recognize it; not surprising seeing as I had only left Florida once or twice. Claire was sitting on a bench near the front of the bus, staring out of the window at the sky. I was once again surprised by her powers of observation as, without even looking at me, she said, "Good you're awake, get ready to go, we have a lot to get done today."

I got out of the bed and realized something strange; I was still wearing my suit, but it should have been dirty from yesterday. This one was spotless, and even freshly ironed. The only thing I wasn't wearing was my shoes, which were at the foot of my bed. "How do you do these kinds of things?" I asked her; she simply smiled and walked off the bus.

Getting outside I had to shield my eyes from the light, showing how long I had been asleep. When my eyes had adjusted Claire was leaning on the bus, to the right of me, waiting patiently for me to go over to her. When I had reached her she tossed me something shiny and small. I was surprised that I could catch it when I could barely see it, but my arm almost had a mind of its own, and snatched it out of the air with lightning fast precision.

Looking down at the object I discovered it was a pair of keys; the kind that would go to a very expensive car. Taking a glance and Claire, I shot her a questioning look; she just nodded in the direction of a very new looking Porsche. I gave her a very weird look and said, "Where did you get that thing?" She just smiled and walked over to in, opening the door to the passenger side and getting in.

'Does she seriously expect me to drive her places?' I thought silently to myself. Or at least that was what I was thinking; what I was doing on the other hand was getting into a car that one only dreams of driving. Climbing into the driver's seat I started the car up and looked over to Claire, wondering where I was going.

"Follow her." She pointed to a limo that was two cars away from us. I looked over at Claire suspiciously but did as I was told; she would most likely tell me what I needed to know when the time came. True to what she had always done, she opened her mouth and told me the details. "The person in the car is linked to the government organization that tried to capture me. They are known as Taia, but it doesn't seem to be an anagram for anything." It's as if she knew every question I was going to ask before I did.

"They are very dangerous; utilizing modern technology to perform experiments on any Angels they capture, attempting to recreate the core for human-kind. They see us as monsters, and by that definition we live as long as they allow us. I'm hoping that they aren't going to the building I'm thinking of or else things might get bad." It was quite a lot of information to take in at one time, but most of it made sense.

"Why would it be bad?" I asked her, careful not to get to distracted and lose our target. She simply shook her head saying, "Let us hope it does not come to the point that you need to know." With that she opened up the glove compartment in front of her, and took out a rather large handgun; it appeared as if it was custom made. She looked down at it and repeated, "Let us hope it does not come to that."

After following the limo for about half an hour it stopped outside of a large, official looking, building; then started going forwards again. I was about to go after it, but Claire simply put her hand on my shoulder and said, "This is our stop, get out very slowly, and try to blend in. You are wearing that suit for a reason; you are to play the part of my bodyguard. Here." She handed me a pair of very dark sunglasses; I assumed they were to hide my eyes. After I had put them on she opened up my jacket and slipped the strange gun into my inner pocket.

"I thought that if they left it wouldn't come to this? And why would I need a gun; don't I have powers or something?" I asked her quietly as we were getting out of the car. She simply kept walking towards the building, looking back to tell me to hurry up. She walked right up to the front desk and said to the secretary, "I have a meeting with Mr. Alda." The secretary looked at Claire unconvinced and started to type some things into the computer in front of her. When she looked back up she said something I didn't think would be said. "He will see you now Mrs. Bryce."

If you could see through my glasses you would have noticed my confused look. What was with the name, or was it simply a lie? I didn't get much time to consider; Claire started moving towards a corridor full of elevators, pushing the down button when she got there.

When the elevator reached the ground floor we stepped into it and Claire hit the button for the top floor. When the doors finally closed Claire turned to me, and started to talk. "I do apologize, but it's easier to talk about things of this matter when we are alone. To answer your question, no you do not have powers. It has only been a week since the seed was planted in your body; and while it may have altered your physical structure you still have some time before your brain has been reconfigured to use the power at your disposal. And even then the power must be awaked with high levels of stress."

I was confused so I asked, "Altered physically? You mean the eyes?" She simply nodded her head in denial. "That is not all that has been changed. Your body structure has gone though heavy modifications; such as denser bones and thicker muscles. Your reflexes are also heightened, allowing you do easily surpass any human at your level of power. The gun has been designed to go right though the thick muscle and dense bones of a Guardian or Angel."

Nodding in understanding, both what she said, and what she had just hinted at. Our target was somebody like herself. "An Angel huh. And I am here in case something goes wrong?" She nodded, muttering "Not 'if, but 'when'." I wanted to ask her what she meant but I looked up at the meter and noticed that we were only two floors away from the top. I tried to prepare myself mentally, but nothing could have made me ready for what happened next.

As the doors opened up I noticed something very odd; the entire top floor was a giant, artificial, forest. Everywhere I looked there were exotic plants of all kinds; from fern looking plants to giant trees that bore strange, colorful fruits. Even some of the leaves looked as if they had been painted, the colors not seeming normal in nature. I gawked at its size, completely ignoring the fact that there was a desk sitting in the middle of a nearby clearing. That's when I heard his voice; a voice that boomed out in an uncontrolled way, making me shiver down to my very bones. "Claire! It has been too long, far too long."

I turned to the man, taking in his features. He was relatively short, with well groomed gray hair; on both his head and face. But it was what I noticed next that was a shock, his eyes, the exact same eyes as Claire. I immediately knew that this was the Angel that she had hinted at.

Claire was not as kind in her response to the man, whom I assumed was Mr. Alda. "Not long enough my brother. I did not come for small talk, but merely to sort out the past. I know you sold me out to save your own skin. What did you get? I'm going to guess your own freedom, and you know how my guesses are almost always on the mark." Her voice was laced with a tone of hate I had yet to hear, and I was glad that it wasn't being aimed at me.

Then I smelled something strange, it was the kind of smell you find right before a lighting strike. Claire reached over and pulled me closer to her by my arm. I was about to ask her what that was all about when a flash of light streaked by my head; right in the place I was standing! It came from behind so I looked back at the elevator, where a rather dark skinned woman with long, black hair that was perfectly curled. She was wearing a business suit similar to my own, with a patch on her shoulder with 'Taia' on it.

"So that young boy is your guardian then? Figures, you always liked them young." Mr. Alda said out to Claire. It made me angry being talked about, but Claire simply silenced me, saying,"You will get your chance at him, but for now your main concern is his guardian." She was right; if that Alda guy was an Angel then he couldn't hurt us.

"Hmp, how long has that boy had a seed in his heart? Doesn't even seem like he could pose a threat, if he can't do anything special. Matilda make his death long and drawn out, would make it easier to capture my sister if she was in a state of depression." The woman, Matilda, nodded and started to run towards me; hands crackling with electricity.

Battle instincts that I didn't even know I had kicked in, making me roll to the side right before she struck the ground I had been standing on, an explosion of lightning erupting from that spot. I had to avoid getting hit by those hands, so I did what came naturally to me, ran into the forest of exotic plants. It didn't stop the woman from following me, trees and bushes to the sides of my igniting as lightning bolts missed by hair fractions.

I was eventually chased back out into the open, listening to the laughter of Alda. "This one doesn't have an ounce of any willpower does he? Running, running; is that all he's good at?" he commented. He pissed me off to no bounds, but I didn't have time to say anything in my defense; his guardian was in hot pursuit of me. I glanced at Claire, who simply stared at me. 'No not me, my pocket!' I thought to myself, remembering the gun.

I was reaching for it when I tripped over a large rock. Matilda took this as a chance to finish me, and pounce directly at me. Quicker than even I thought I could move, I pulled out the gun and fired. The bullet connected, directly into her right arm, and the thing had enough power that it launched her twenty feet away from me.

The gray haired man was just as surprised as his guardian, and showed it by yelling at Claire. "Guns?! Guns aren't part of a fair fight! I thought you lived by a code of honor." Claire smiled and said, "I'd say that it makes it a little more even then throwing my pet into combat with nothing but his own fists."

That statement simply made Alda more furious. "Matilda, get back up right now. Finish them at the source!" he screamed at his subordinate. She staggered to her feet, gripping her arm which was almost blown in half by the shell, and started to walk unsteadily towards Claire. Claire grinned and mouthed something to me. "Kill him."

I sat there watching Matilda slowly gain speed as she closed in on Claire, prepared to kill her. I lifted my arm, my body almost working on its own accord, and aimed the gun directly at Mr. Alda's head. I felt myself hesitate to pull the trigger, but was snapped back into reality when I saw how quickly death was approaching Claire. Without thinking I pulled the trigger, the shock of the recoil throwing the gun from my hand. It didn't matter though, the bullet sailed directly at my target, and all he was able to do was slightly look in my direction before it impacted into him.

His body flew backwards as his life was taken from him, his limbs rag dolling in the air before he hit the ground. Matilda halted where she was and stared at his body for a minute. Then she simply fell to the ground onto her knees, and let out an ear piercing scream as he body started to light up with electricity. It looked as if she was going to explode with energy, when suddenly a gunshot rang out; Matilda's body crumpling forwards.

I looked around for the shooter, but when I couldn't find him I stood up, and ran over to Claire; grabbed her by the hand and started to drag her towards the elevator. Getting in I quickly started jabbing the first floor button as fast as I could, still panicking. Claire stared at me until the doors closed. It was on the way down that I felt the full effect of what just transpired. "I....I just....killed someone." I said shakily. And then I remembered every detail of his death, the blood splatter that was released, the way his body flew backwards. I vomited right there in the elevator, horrified of what I had just done.

After a minute I looked for something to wipe my mouth off with; only to be handed a handkerchief by Claire. While I was wiping the vomit off of my mouth Claire said, "He was the first man you had to kill, but he will not be the last. It only gets easier from here on out." I wanted to argue with her, tell her that she was wrong; that I'd never kill again! But I couldn't, the words never came. We just stood there in silence, waiting for the elevator to reach ground level.

We were nearing the ground floor when Claire spoke up next. "I will wait for you; wait until you have the strength to save me. Until then think hard to everything you done. And I want you to remember this; sometimes mercy is more than letting something live, but often putting it out of its misery." I was confused about what she was saying, but never got a chance to ask. As the doors to the elevator opened up to the ground level, a dart flew directly into Claire's neck. After a moment she crumpled to the floor.

I looked to see where the dart had come from, and I wasn't prepared for what I saw. It was Bill. He was standing there inside of the lobby, some thirty men all in matching suits with 'TAIA' patches on. What was going on, why Bill was doing this. I took a step towards him to ask but he pulled the trigger again, sending a similar dart into my neck. The world got dark as I fell forwards; completely blacking out when I hit the ground. The last thing I heard before silence was Bill saying, "Get them out of here, we have much work to catch up on."