Checkmate

[Ran Yoko]

CHECKMATE

 

They had used her. They had found her, almost dead, on a battlefield, taken her to their lab, attached that blasted metal arm to her to replace her missing right arm, and made her into an assassin. Made her kill for fifty years without letting her age, and now they had a bounty on her head, wanting her dead!

Well, she had killed everyone who knew about her, except for the man who had started it all, Walter Kingsbury.

She piloted the small spacecraft closer to the spacestation and smiled grimly. She shoved the throttle forward to maximum for the booster rockets, then placed her hand on the brake release. She exhaled, then yanked back on it.

With a blast, the spacecraft shot forward at a tremendous speed. Within seconds, it crashed through the glass windows and steel walls and through the observation deck. She could dimly hear the alarms going off and the sounds of the guards through the hull of her craft.

She pulled on the handle for releasing the lock on the emergancy exit chute. With a click, it opened marginally. She pulled it open and dropped both a tear gas grenade and a smoke bomb out into the hall. She shoved it closed just in time for a bullet to ricochet off it. Within seconds, all of the guards were coughing and crying.

She put her gas mask on and dropped out the chute. The second her feet touched the floor, she ran to where she knew Kingsbury would be.

She reached the door and hit the button to open it. The door slid open and she stepped in, focusing on the man seated behind the desk across the room. She quietly hit the lock button and the door locked.

"Yes, what is it? I'm very busy," Kingsbury said, not bothering to look up.

She tossed the gas mask to the side as she gave the mental command for her metal arm to restructure itself into the gun. That finished, she said in a low voice, "Oh, I think you know."

He looked up. A look of fear flashed across his face briefly before he schooled it into a look of surprise and welcome.

"Why, Rook!" he said, standing up and holding his arms out. "This is a pleasant surprise. How have you been?"

"Cut it out," Rook answered, pointing her gun-arm at him. "We both know why I'm here, so let's drop the innocent act, shall we? Why did you put a bounty on my head?"

Kingsbury sighed. "Because you have outlived your purpose. There is no opposition now. The last of it disappeared with you, five years ago. We still heard of people seeing you though, so we knew you must be alive yet. But we couldn't afford to have you running loose, so. . ."

"But," Rook said, "have you heard from any of your 'friends' in the past three months?"

"No," Kingsbury answered. "And all of the data from the ALRS was wiped from their computers or if it was on paper, it was burned. I figured it was you doing it, so I went ahead and called one of your old friends."

A large knife was suddenly thrust through Rook's left shoulder. She swore, spinning around as the knife was yanked out. A man hung from the ceiling, the knife part of his metal left arm.

Three bullets shot from her gun-arm, hitting him. He swung to and fro for a moment, then collapsed to the floor in a heap. Rook spun again to see Kingsbury running towards the door opening in the wall.

"I'll see you in Hell, old man!" Rook shouted as she shot another bullet. It went through Kingsbury's head, dropping him in an instant. She walked over and emptied all the rest of the round into him.

Staggering slightly, she made her way over to Kingsbury's computer and accessed the mainframe. She typed in a command.

'Activate self-destruct program.'

PLEASE VERIFY COMMAND.

'Activate self-destruct program.'

PLEASE VERIFY PASSWORD.

'w-a-l-t-e-r.'

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

Rook swore. "What's the password now!?"

"M-y-p-a-w-n." The man who had been lying on the floor pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the wall. "He changed the password after the first sightings of you. I must say, it's nice to see you again, Rook."

"I thought you had died a couple years ago, Bishop," Rook said, typing in 'm-y-p-a-w-n'.

PASSWORD CONFIRMED. SET TIME LIMIT.

'30 minutes.'

CONFIRMED.

On every computer screen in the spacestation showed the same message that played over the intercom. "Attention all personnel and passengers. This spacestation will self-destruct in 30 minutes. Please evacuate in the escape pods in hangers D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5. This is not a drill. I repeat. . ."

Rook found the file she wanted and opened it. At the top of the screen read, "Info on the ALRS(Artificial Limb ReplacementS)". She pulled a disc off of the chain and inserted the disc into the copying hard drive.

DISC IN COPY HARD DRIVE. SELECT AMOUNT OF DATA TO COPY.

Rook tapped a few more keys.

COPY ALL DATA?

'Yes.'

CONFIRMED. STANDBY.

At almost the same time the copying was done, the intercom said, "25 minutes until self-destruction."

Rook crooked her right arm and slid a bullet into a small space that appeared. She straightened her arm and listened to the bullet slide into the chamber. She typed in a new command.

DELETE ALL DATA?

'Yes.'

CONFIRMED.

Rook set the disc on the desk and set the muzzle of the gun-arm against the disc. She fired, shattering the disc into tiny fragments.

"20 minutes until self-destruction."

Somehow, she made her way to the wall that Bishop leaned against and slumped down. She sighed, rummaging slowly in her pocket with her metal hand. She found a crumpled pack of cigarettes and offered it to Bishop. He took one, then lit Rook's cigarette then his own.

"Know of any other places that has data?" Rook asked after blowing out smoke.

"If you thought I did, would we be sitting here smoking?"

"Good point."

"15 minutes until self-destruction.

"You could still get out if you wanted to, Bishop."

"What, and outlive you? Not happening."

They lit new cigarettes as the intercom blared out, "10 minutes until self-destruction."

"So what happened to Queen and Knight?" Rook asked.

"Queen died on a mission, and Knight was killed as soon as he got back from one. Tried to warn the fool, but he didn't seem to care."

"Maybe Kingsbury was right," she said musingly. "Maybe we have outlived our purpose. He probably just wanted to get his death over and done with."

"Still an idiot."

"5 minutes until self-destruction."

"Remember those chess games we would play?" Bishop asked.

"Yeah."

"We never quite finished that one, because you got sent on a mission. And you didn't come back. . ."

"That's right. But you know how it would have ended." Rook glanced over at Bishop, but his head was slumped on his chest, a thin trail of smoke still drifting upward from his cigarette. She smiled and leaned back, closing her eyes.

"Checkmate." The word slipped from between her lips as she fell over onto his shoulder.

"10 seconds. 9, 8, 7, 6. . ."

"I loved you." The words escaped on her last breath.

The spacestation exploded.

~FINIS~

 

wrote this a while back. wanted to try and write something with a sci-fi feel to it. my mom complained that I needed to flesh it out and add some background. but for me, it's just one of those stories that I only have so much information with it. I kind of mentally talk to my characters when I write stories. when I tried to add some more, Rook and Bishop refused to tell me any more, and did a coup d'etat. so, here is the story in it's entirety. hope you enjoyed part of it at least.

Edited August 6, 2008 by Sora Hikari