PROLOGUE "Ready?" "No." "Too bad. We're going in." He gave me one of those arrogant smirks as his hands switched the safety off the gun. I gulped, doing the same. "Here goes nothing." ~~~~~~~~ Confused? Well so am I. I had no idea I would end up like this when I first came. Little ol' me on vacation. TO HELL!!! How could an innocent trip back to Hong Kong get so screwed!?! Not, I lost my luggage boohoo-screwed or paying a thousand dollars because your luggage was over weight, huh, I wish. No, this is much, much worse. Maybe I should start at the beginning.....oh, by the way, my name's Nova. I know, it's kinda strange, but hey, blame my kooky parents! Anyway, it's Nova. Nova Gong. Don't even start. I punched the lights out of anyone who teased me about the name, and believe me, there were a lot of bloodied noses back then. Heh heh. Where was I? Oh yeah. Okay, so me and my two best friends, Dana and Scully, I know, creeeeepy. Has to be some really freaky coincidence huh? We don't know, but it's sure as hell funny. Well, we had been planning a trip together for months! And everything, down to the slightest luxurious detail was made. Dana liked to be organised. I mean to some extent we're all organised, but she arranges her pencils at work! We tease her to be the neat freak and stuff like that. We love her for it too, but. Everything was set. I got the vacation time off work, I work for a computer company and it's sooooooo utterly boring so my part time hobby is hacking into stuff. Nothing major yet, alibis for some cousins to skip school and stuff. But the temptation's always there and that fact I know I how to do it almost got me fired twice for daydreaming. Big deal. We were packed, two suitcases, one empty and one full, y'know for souvenirs, and a nice all essential JAG backpack for me. Five for Scully, I know don't what she brought, and one suitcase with vacuumed sealed cases inside for Dana's. Organised or what? I think she brought a mini vacuum to reseal them too. The flight was first class all the way as we had saved like, forever for this trip. At least it was for me. I don't save in general, so it pained me deeply to not buy those lovely new hi fi speakers with surround sound and.....ahem. Sorry. I got carried away there. Any hoo, the enduring eighteen hour flight was okay, I, a freak considered by some, namely my friends, adore air-food. It could be the way the pack it in those cute little sections or my tradition love for preserved foods, but hey, they're nice. Every thing was a-ok until we reached the Hong Kong airport. Apparently there was some kind of mob scare. We didn't know this at the time of course. To us it was a useless waste of time, something to do with customs. Partly right there, but useless it wasn't. Some people were staring at us. I didn't know why, we were attractive yes, and me and Dana are both Asian from mainland China, but she doesn't speak Cantonese. Scully actually knew how to speak, sorta, but it comes out with a heavy Australian accent so it's barely decipherable anyway. She's Australian if you can't tell. But that couldn't be the reason some of the other passengers were staring at us. It wasn't that uncommon to see an Aussie in Hong Kong. It was a major business centre after all. So we waited. And waited. And waited until we could've died from boredom, tiredness or hunger. Whichever you choose, until finally we were at the gates. By now we were not the most attentive of people, so we just dropped bags and trunks onto that x-ray thingy as well as all metallic items per say. It was inevitable that I yawned. "What's going on?" I asked in Chinese at the operating clerk. He just ignored me. I don't take to being ignored, so I asked a little louder, "What's happening?!" He looked up, looking annoyed, then replied in Chinese, "Nothing miss. Don't worry about it." I glared. Nothing!?! Nothing!!? That's why we've been waiting for almost four hours!?! Dana obviously saw my look and pulled me away, much to my frustration. She drew me aside. "Nova, I asked. There were reports of illegal imports so they had to search everyone thoroughly." She reasoned. "Then why didn't he just tell me that?" I muttered under my breathe. She shrugged. "Not everyone can like you y'know." I narrowed my eyes at her. "What's in the back pack?" It was one of the security guards. I unslung the bag, handing it over. He ran across it with one of those metal detector things and frowned. "What's this made of?" He asked in Chinese. I shrugged. "Don't know." I answered back. My fashion mystic bag was silveryish in places so that could've blocked their sensors. It would sure as hell explain why it was so bloody heavy if it contained metal. "We need to see what's inside." The guy, much to my fury, threw it back to a bunch of other guys seated behind a closed counter. I would've grabbed it back if it wasn't for Dana's hand clenching my arm. We could hear them laughing as the contents was flung out. I gritted my teeth. I'd spent two hours packing that! Scully grabbed my other arm. After five minutes of looking through my things they handed back my bulging backpack where every thing was just stuffed back in .And then that security guy had the nerve of grinning at me! "Everything seems to be fine. You can go." He waved us off in dismissal. "Thanks a lot." I said through gritted teeth, glaring death glares at them. "Let's go." whispered Scully also glaring. We grabbed our bags, taking a taxi to our prearranged five-star hotel. Okay. I admit, things doesn't sound as bad as I said before but they just get better and better. I'm being sarcastic of course. When we did get to the hotel, and get this! They said we didn't have any reservations! Dana chucked a fit. A good kind of course. She can be very persuasive when she's pissed. The kind that fights with money not fists. Or it could've been the fact she threatened to cut the manager's balls off. So we got granted a two bedroom, not our prearranged three, so there had to be sharing rules. After groggily deciding that we take turns sleeping on the fold out couch all of us slept like the dead as jet lag weighed us all down. Morning was horrendous. Unpacking, dressing.......mess. A whole lot of it. By noon we could finally go out and do the most eagerly awaited thing for all of us. Shopping. It was logical for us to split up right? I had my tastes and they had theirs. We agreed for the international meeting place, MacDonalds. Simple? Wrong. I was walking along the streets of the city, looking at the merchandise unavailable in good ol' Oz when I noticed something strange. "Huh?" I had suddenly noticed what looked like a black car following me. "Okay. Why are they following me?" So sue me, I talk to myself. I began to run. I don't know why, it was just something you do when you're being followed. The car kept after me. I quickly thought over if I had anything guys in black cars wanted. Nope. Well maybe except one............ I ran faster. By now you would've guessed I was in panic. More like gut wrenching fear. *Shit!* That was pretty much all I thought as one of the tinted black windows opened. What came out made me into the faster runner in the history of the Earth. A gun. I screamed, bolting down the street. There were no other people. *I'll die and nobody would hear me!!!!!* It must've been God's hand that I tripped as the first bullet whizzed past the empty space that contained my head a second ago. I freaked. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!" I was shocked to find out the person who screamed was me. Who would've guessed my lungs were so good? I tripped again. This time falling, as bullets flashed past me left and right. *I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!!!* I tried to get up, only to have my legs collapse under me. I looked around in pure terror. It was like the barrel of that gun was about to swallow me. Every thing was in slow motion. I heard rather than saw the bullet coming. Kinda like a screeching noise. Screeching? Suddenly I was grabbed and pulled upright and was moving very fast. I saw the road, yet my legs weren't moving. I think I did the only thing I could do then. I blacked out. |