SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Flight of the Raven

Who can you trust? Really, who? I thought I knew who I could trust. I had been with them for years actually, practically my whole life. The G.A security force was everything to me. It was everything I knew. I thought if there was anything or anyone worth trusting in this crazy mixed up world it was them. But within a matter of hours that proverbial rug of ignorance was pulled right out from under me and… ah, you know what? Why don’t I give you a little background info?

            It was a clear, warm cloudless night. Lights and colours flashed by in a dazzling blur, and the base of techno music was thrumming loudly in my ears, in my blood. We were doing over two hundred mph, what a rush.

“God Raven, do you have to go so fast?”

I barely heard her over the music and the wind, the latter whipping strands of shoulder length black hair into my face- the hair that determined my code name. I glanced over and saw her sitting up straight, hands gripping the edge of her seat. I chuckled to myself and turned back to the “road”.

“We have a job to do Butterfly, and needless to say, this whole mission is a bust if we don’t get there on time.”

“We wouldn’t be late if you hadn’t spent all that time on your hair,” she said through clenched teeth. “And then-get this-he decides to drive to the concert with the top down! And the wind just messes up his hair anyway!”

She was looking up into the night sky, talking to some invisible audience. I turned and flashed her my signature lopsided grin, the one that makes all the ladies swoon at my feet… or at least it will, as soon as I perfect it.

“C’mon Butterfly don’t tell me that you, a top officer of the G.A security force, have a fear of flying.”

“No, of course not!” she replied, indignant.

“Good.” I replied. I then pulled up and shot over the car in front of us. When I next looked over at Butterfly her eyes were squeezed shut and she was breathing hard.  There was a pause in the pounding base as the song ended and the next one began. In the silence I heard her mutter something to the effect of “reckless driving getting us killed” and “see how the mission goes then.”

“My poor little Butterfly,” I said “Don’t worry on the way back I’ll get us a nice ground vehicle ok?”

“I am not yours in any way, shape or form Raven,” she said coolly “And there is absolutely no reason to get a ground vehicle. I’m fine.”

I laughed to myself and continued to speed toward the amphitheater.

“Thank God for V.I.P parking!” I cried when I saw the place. There were thousands, thousands of cars, scooters, air boards- every kind of vehicle land or sky could be found in that parking lot. And it was swarming with people, who from up where I was looked like a lot of colourful moving dots. There was literally nowhere to park for at least a mile or more away from the theatre. But the Force had hooked us up with V.I.P tickets plus parking. Yeah, being a G.A had its perks. I smoothly brought the car up to the front of the amphitheater parking. I checked the tickets.

“Space 25 A,” I muttered aloud, and zoomed down to the crowd below. No sooner had I rolled up to the space than I was confronted by one of the many “guardian trolls” of the parking lot. A big, bald, dumb looking guy who seemed to think he had much more authority than he actually did.

“Hey this is reserved parking,” he growled. I showed him the tickets without even bothering to turn toward him, my eyes hidden beneath dark shades. He took forever to realize they were V.I.P tickets. I assumed this was because he was having trouble reading the big V- I- P that was printed there in bold letters. Ah well, the alphabet isn’t for all of us.

“Go on,” he finally said. I quickly parked in 25 A and got out. The parking lot was a buzz of excited voices. This was the concert of the decade after all, maybe the century. I’m pretty sure a lot of those people didn’t even have tickets, but would have been happy to sit in the parking lot and overhear the concert. I went over to Butterfly’s side, opened the door for her and offered her my hand. She shoved it away.

“You don’t always have to act like that you know Raven, like you’re better than everyone else.”

“Who’s acting?” I replied. She rolled her eyes and got out of the car.  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She wore a tight black leather dress that fit her in all the right places. Heh, I’d like to fit her in all the right places. But anyway, even though her dress was spray painted on what really caught me about her was her hair. It was pure white, a sharp contrast to her dark skin. She caught me staring.

“What,” she said flatly.

“You look really good,” I said

“Shut up Raven,” she huffed, and started toward the amphitheater. For as long as I live I will never truly understand girls. You insult them they get mad. You compliment them they get mad. What’s a guy supposed to do? I jogged a few steps to catch up with her.  My long leather jacked fanning out behind me, making me look really cool.

“Hey, what’d I do now?”

        Butterfly stopped and turned.

        “Look, I’m sorry, I’m just pissed off because we’re late, which, I will remind you again, is all because of you.”

“I see. Apology accepted.” I said with a nod. “Ok, so you’re all clear on our modus operandi right? Once we get inside we’ll go straight backstage and split up. You check her dressing room and I’ll check out their security. It‘s most likely an inside job.”

“Yeah, I’m all clear on what to do,” she confirmed.

“Alright well, hurry Butterfly, I can’t stand to be away from you for too long.” I gave her the signature smile, and wiggled my eyebrows a bit, to really make her want me. Butterfly sighed.

“You are so unprofessional. How did you manage to become a G.A officer? The same rank as me for that matter?”

Now as you may have noticed, there have been frequent references to the G.A security force and G.A officers. I think it’s time for some clarification.

G.A stands for Guardian Angel. I am an officer of the Guardian Angel security force, a group sanctioned by the government to protect society’s cherished celebrities. You see, in this day and age, with all the new advances in technology, the amount of criminal masterminds out there has skyrocketed.  Now what’s the usual motivation for criminal masterminds? Fame. So who do they take out? Someone famous of course. The tabloids were crammed with celebrity funerals and high profile court cases. The government soon found regular police just weren’t enough. They needed something people knew nothing about, and thus didn’t know how to plan against. And so the elite and top secret G.A security force was born. I like to think of myself as a “secret agent”. I got the term from these old movies from about fifty years ago, starring this guy Jake Bundy, or Jim Band, something like that. Anyway he was slick, and always got the girl. I like to think we have a lot of similar character traits. But anyway I’m losing track of things here. Right, the G.A security force. I became a member a long time ago. I was your typical street punk orphaned at the age of five, struck out on my own when I was ten. Let’s just say conditions at the orphanage were…unpleasant, and leave it at that. I don’t think I could have lasted long on the streets. A G.A officer found me and took me in, pretty nice of her actually. Sooner or later she had no choice but to show me to the Force. And since I knew about them, they either had to take me in or kill me. I’m really not sure what made them take me in. Maybe they liked the fact that I lived on the street. Maybe it made me seem tough. Whatever it was, from then on I went through grueling training to become a G.A officer. Much worse than anything a normal police officer has to go through.  A G.A has to be perfect- have perfectly honed bodies and reflexes, have excellent tactical reasoning- perfect. I met Butterfly about a week after coming to the Force’s compound. Her parents were both G.A’s, so she had been born into it. She hadn’t really been given a choice. Come to think of it, neither had I.

        And here I was, thirteen years later, on a mission to protect Anawen, the most famous female pop star on the planet- the world’s sweetheart. She was giving a huge concert today and it looked like the whole world was trying to pile into the amphitheatre. Yes security and the police were at the maximum. But honestly, what could they do against someone who was using a chemical serum that could turn him invisible? Or someone who had a machine that emitted sound waves that were fatal when heard? Oh these are just the tip of the iceberg! The things I’ve seen. We were tipped off by one of the lower ranking angels who had been going undercover as a bodyguard. Apparently Miss Anawen had received two strange phone calls. That was the thing with criminal masterminds. Their desire for fame tended to impair their judgment. But we also had to be careful. There was a reason the Force was sending not one, but two high ranking officers to investigate. It was possible that whoever called her was counting on the fact that we would underestimate them. It was very possible. The things I’ve seen. And as time had gone by criminals came to know us to a point. They knew we were out there. They just didn’t know who we were or what we were capable of. And that made them very cautious.   

Butterfly had gone off to find the dressing room. I really didn’t know how she planned to get in there. I was sure even V.I.P access couldn’t get her into Anawen’s dressing room, not with the phone calls that had come through. I didn’t doubt that she could though. There was a reason she was code named “Butterfly”. She was just as elusive and seemingly just as harmless. Seemingly.

I skulked around the dim back hallways of the amphitheatre until I spotted three big body guards talking together.

“Hey! What are you doing back here?” one of them challenged as they saw me coming towards them. I grinned what I felt to be my most charming of grins and showed them my ticket.

“V.I.P access” I said. The guy actually grunted, and turned away. But I wasn’t done with them yet.

“So you guys are body guards for Anawen’s concert? That has to be the sweetest job in the world!” That got their full attention. They had found someone who understood how cool they really were. Such simple minded creatures these bodyguards. It was oddly depressing.

“Yeah, her safety is in our hands,” said the one with platinum blond spikes.  After talking to them for a while, and implying subtle intelligence tests incorporated into the conversation, I decided these guys were actually as dumb as they seemed and it wasn’t just an act to throw people off. It wasn’t too likely that I was gonna get any help from them but sometimes clues are found in strange places.

“I had heard a rumor that Anawen was getting these messed up phone calls, is that true?” They glanced at each other indecisively, each looking to the other to come up with an answer, worst case of the blind leading the blind I’ve seen in a while. I took pity on them.

“Ah well it doesn’t matter. With you guys on the job she’s completely safe right?”

“Yeah, ain’t no maniac gonna get to Anawen while we’re around huh guys?”  They gave each other high fives.

“Alright well, I’ll leave you guys to do your job. I mean you’ve gotta be busy. It was good talkin’ to you guys,” I said, and left them to find my Butterfly.

I was near Anawen’s change room and Butterfly was no where in sight, so I called her. She picked up after two rings.

“Heeeey beautiful where are ya?”

“Ra-hmmph- I’m in the dressing room.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“I’m just doing the finishing touches on Anawen’s make-up. She is going on in 15 minutes you know.” Huh. So she had told them she was a make-up artist.

“….and they just let you in?”

“Yeah.”

 These were the people up against criminal geniuses. Surely now you can see the importance of our organization.

“Look darling I have to go I’m busy you know. But don’t worry I’ll take good care of Anawen. Not that she really needs my help she’s so naturally beautiful already. I’ll see you in the backstage lounge in fifteen minutes ok? Bye.”

        “Darling?” She played her part well. And I knew I would not be getting a “darling” out of her otherwise. So with nothing left to do, I went to the lounge to wait. You may have noticed that we hadn’t bothered to check out the stage itself. There was no possible way the stage could have been sabotaged, there were cameras all over the area. And the cameras were monitored by the regional police, who were much more competent than the backstage security.  In fact only an hour ago there had been a complete comb-through, under the watchful eye of the city’s chief of police.

Soon Butterfly came and joined me in the lounge.

“Butterfly darling,” I said, raising an eyebrow and grinning at her. She sat down next to me on the couch and although the lounge was empty save the two of us, she signed to me.

“Did you find anything?”

“No, you?” I signed back

“No. I’m beginning to worry.” Quite frankly so was I, although I couldn’t let my Butterfly see that. But now something was beginning to feel wrong about this mission. Something was…wrong…

The entire concert went on without a problem. And the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach only got worse and worse. Now that the concert was over, excited fans-who had also gotten their hands on V.I.P passes-were making their way into the lounge. There were about fifty of us in total. A guy with a headset popped his head around the doorway.

“Anawen will be here in about twenty minutes.”

Everyone in the room began to talk at once. When the guy left the doorway I thought I saw a shadow pass by after him. Now if I were anyone else I would have passed it off as my imagination. But as a G.A I knew better. I got up to leave and follow the shadow.

“What? Where are you going?” asked Butterfly. I gave her my best intense, “something’s-up” face and said, “I just need some fresh air is all.” She knew what I meant and got up to follow me.

We got into the hall in time to see the shadow dart around another corner. We ran after it in time to see it turning yet another corner.

“It looks like they’re heading towards the dressing room,” Butterfly panted while running.

“It’s go time,” I replied. But before we could turn the next corner there was a loud piercing screech-I’ll never forget it-and something flew past us at an unbelievable speed. I glanced at Butterfly then ran after the blur. She ran towards Anawen’s dressing room. I followed the shadow all the way down the corridor, but lost it once I came barreling out of the emergency exit. And I had to admit this trick was new to me. I would have to tell the Force about it when I got back.

I stood there for a while, trying to figure out what the hell was going on when from behind me I heard a shout.

“Hey! It’s him! He did it! I saw him on the camera!” I turned around and to my complete surprise I saw four policemen in their navy blue uniforms running straight for me. I had no choice but to run as I really didn’t want to find out what exactly I had done.  I let them chase me into the alley behind the amphitheater, activating a gravity field generator on my belt as I ran. Once I got to the alley I jumped as high as I could up onto the wall and started to climb. The soles of my shoes and my gloves stuck fast, holding me there. The police came rushing into the alley a second later. I froze.

“Hey where the hell did he go! Jacobs, Shira, you two double back. Me’n Garawicz will stay here and check things out.” I held my breath and waited as they looked around the alley. Luckily it didn’t occur to them to look up. I waited until they left before I started climbing again. I made it all the way to the top of the building next to the amphitheater and stopped to rest in the shadows. My head was reeling. In a matter of minutes I had seemed to become a fugitive, but for what crime I didn’t even know. There was one thing I was certain of though. This whole thing appeared to have been a set up. I had been framed.

What is it that made Raven so certain he had been set up? And what has he been framed for? Who framed him and why? What will become of Butterfly? All these questions will be answered in “Flight of the Raven, Pt 2”