The Death of Jan Doyle

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Death? Jan Doyle?

(Set in the year 21??)

Kamikazi rain. It hurtled from the black sky and smashed itself against the window.

She turns away now - she has waited long enough. Vigilante was dead. Fred was dead. Engle has got serious problems with his personality.

She lets her mind wander now, as she cleans her gun. She thinks of the other members of Vigilante. Clustered in small groups, trying to survive. Without any organisation now, the Aliens will soon find them and convert them back to the mindless civilian life. Those that are immune to the drugs will be taken away for biological experiments. Those that escape will soon die anyway - without the cryotubes and organ replacement, rapid aging will destroy them.

Jan Doyle intends to go down fighting. The rain seems to be intent on erroding the house down. The wind howls like a banshee. It's very poetic. In the background, Engle snores from under his Kevlar robes. Jan walks over and kicks him to wake him. A startled Engle wakes up suddenly and falls over, smashing his head on a box. "C'mon, get up." Jan utters, barely moving her mouth at all "It's time to go."

Jan walks over to the table, picks up a few clips, shoves them in the bag she's carrying and walks outside with a semi conscious Engle following behind like a lost sheep.
"Hurry up will you?" Jan asserts giving Engle a quick tug.

They continue down the street with the rain pelting down. It had immediately soaked Jan's hair, turning it into a collection of of rats tails attatched to her head. A huge explosion briefly makes day seem to come early, night returns with tiny splinters of their home falling to the ground with the silence of snow.
"Lummocks!" Engle stuttered as he picked himself up from the litter-strewn gutter.

"I guess we got out just in time." Jan said blankly, walking on down the pavement.

"You blew up our house!" Engle shouted dismayed.

"Hurry up." She hissed impatiently.

Engle stared at the raging fire, reflected in the shimmering water. The rain falling now seemed to be in a huge column above the fire, as if desperately trying to extinguish the fire below it.
The echoes of rumbled around in the moist air, looking for a place to rest.

"C'mon." Jan said gently "We've got work to do."

"What work?" Engle replied wringing out his soaked robes.

"Oh, stuff." Jan said, throwing back her hair with one pale hand. "Things to do. That type of work."

"My favourite type." Engle grunted sarcastically and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder, limping to catch up with the determined Jan.

Behind them, their next door neighbour wondered what the noise was about then went back to sleep.

Chapter 2

They stood gazing at the magnificent structure of the Aliens' stronghold. The lights shimmered in the rain. Two guards stood at the gate. Adrenaline started to pump in Jan's body.
Her breathing deepened and was visible for a distance in front of her. The freezing rain was no longer felt by her skin; she was now oblivious to her suroundings. Her mind was set on one thing and one thing only.
"Jan?" said Engle "Are we gonna stand here all night or what?"

"Huh?" replied Jan, jerking back into the real world.

"Are we going in or what?"

"We've got to get past those guards."

"How?"

"Like this." she pulled out a grenade and launched it at the guard post. A Flash. A bang. Destruction. Death. The two guards anihilated by this extremely powerful grenade.

"That wasn't very covert was it?" said Engle recovering from his crouched position and removing his hands from around his ears.

There were shouts from beyond the bublous perimiter wall. The gate burst open and a group of XATG members rushed out, their black armour shimmering in the firey remains. Jan pushed Engle behind a cluster of trashcans.

The leader appeared to be a long blonde haired woman who was bossing everyone around. With a click of her fingers, a group of heavily armed men trotted off to scout the area. She proded the dead guards' limp bodies with her foot and shouted at someone to drag them away.
Jan stared at her and tried to get into her mind - to see what made her tick. She looked uncomfortable in that thick armour, but an evil intelligence seemed to glitter in her face. Their eyes met and locked. Jan panicked as the womans eyes pierced through her and she raised her gun ready.

"Jan!" Engle hissed "Bandits at 5 O'Clock!"

She span around and fired blindly. Two XATGs hit the wall as .45 ACPs silently peppered their faces. The woman shouted and fired a shot into the air.

"Shit!" Jan cried and kicked away at the trashcans which crashed and splashed down the street.

A group of XATG members rushed after her. Engle remained crouched behind a trashcan. The woman seemed to have gone. To Englebert, the coast was clear. He stood with relief. He turened to get the hell out of there. What confronted him then, was not what he wanted to see. The blonde haired woman and two XATG members stood in his path.
"Seize him." The woman ordered.

Jan continued down the street. Still being pursued. She spotted an alleyway and made a dive toward it. The dark cover it afforded her pleased her. She readied her gun in the shadows, hoping they had no night vision. The XATGs appeared.. failing to notice her. She let rip on full auto. They fell and scattered down the alley.
Cliclclickclick. Time to reload. The old clip clattered to the ground, she popped in another clip then teeth clenched, she made her way round the alleyway.

Behind her, the two XATGs staggered, back up again, their armour merely dented by the .45 ACPs. Jan's gun was old and the bullet design was older.

"That bitch is dead!" spat one of them, the other had picked up one of the bullets.

"Armour piercers!" he laughed "And the calibre's not even metric! Why's she got an old piece like that?" Suddenly a blade was accross his neck. The other guard began to draw his weapon but too late - the blade was impaled at the base of his neck.

"Because," Jan said "it has sentimental value, you turd." She kicked at the dead body, making sure it was fully dead.

She picked up one of the guard's guns, then set out toward the stronghold. She looked for Engle as she arrived back where they were. She shouted him. He was nowhere to be found. She searched around, found part of his torn robe. "Bastards!" she thought.

The building seemed to have no edge - its twisting walls disappeared into the blackness. A neon stream of lights marked the entrance and perimeter fence. They shimmered and hazed in the rain.

Rain mixed with sweat masked Jan's face as she ducked and weaved from crate to crate - avoiding the security camera's piercing red stare. Her original plan was to burst into the main gates with the guard's weapon (which was large, heavy and looked like it could scare the willies out of Arnold Swarzenegger) and shoot at everyone in sight.
Unfortunately, her intelligence got the better of her. She eventually chose a more covert method.

She fired the gun at some fuel barrels near the main gate. Guards rushed to the explosion. The diversion allowed her into the stronghold.

Chapter 3 - Inside

Jan moved around the bulbous organic corridors, eyes sensitive to any movement. She scanned the area, her eyes searching for the slightest anomaly in her surroundings. She spotted nothing. She continued, seemingly unnoticed, negotiating the twisty tunnels, eventually reaching the biological testing room. She grasped the door handle with a sweaty wet hand glancing both ways and went in.
What can only be described as a vision of hell met her eyes inside. The rows of what were probably people now unrecognisably mutilated by these experiments made her bile rise in her throat. She steadied herself. Allowed the shock to fade. But then a bigger shock came. Her eyes fixed and widenened, her mouth gaped, her hands dropped. She saw Fred.

He was now only half alive, his body had been horribly experimented upon. There was barely anything of him left but she could tell her husband instantly. Sometimes a bond is forged that can never be broken.
"FRED!" She shouted and ran to her beloved, her emotions overflowing "How could they do this.. My god I love you so much." the tears that had well in her eyes now attempting their best imitation of the weather outside.

This reunion was shattered by gunfire and in the doorway stood the blonde woman, surrounded by aliens.
"She was the cause of the disturbance outside. Take her alive if possible." the woman ordered.

Jan burst into action as the aliens moved toward her, all sentiment now eradicated from her body. The bullets from her gun sprayed everywhere, making little impact on the advancing foe. The woman had gone she noticed in the melee, the door was uncovered. She had her chance. It was time to make a break for it.
Diving accross the room, over tables of mutilated bodies, ducking gunfire she headed toward her exit.
She had to get out to put a stop to all of this, get some time to plan a bit more. At the door she readied a grenade only for it to be knocked from her hand before priming. She turned and faced a familiar blonde figure. A spray shot from her armour into Jan's face. Jan fell.

Chapter 4 - The End

Jan's body lay on a table with various metallic implements going into and out of her body. A lazy tear trickled from the corner of her eye and onto the table.

The End

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A very depressing end for Jan. But why should stories end happily? I think it's a shame though that Jan's best story results in her death. Maybe we should write another more serious one. - Derek