Cardamine, cardamine, everybody wants cardamine.

[jxie93]

Lana clearly reacted badly to the slaps Ray gave her. She was annoyed but could do little about it, since she just came about from suffering a rather violent blow to her head. She opened her eyes slowly and could only just make out the figure of Ray under the starry night sky.

She tried to rise, but all it did was send a sharp pain up her head. Lana groaned and moved her hand to the area, then was shocked to see it come back with patches of red. She ignored Ray for the moment and tried to right herself again. The man gently caught and helped her to sit up straight, for which she was glad.

"C'mon Bonnie," Ray said impatiently, "I know you're tougher than that. Listen, we gotta get outta here fast or we'll be done for."

"Yeah yeah, just gimme a moment to think,' Lana answered weakly, her head still felt like it was about to split.

With some effort, Lana tried to recall all that had happened in the past few hours. It was supposed to be a straight forward operation - go in, grab the package, come out alive and get paid. But everything has gone uncontrollably wrong from the moment the power facility turned out to be a secret research lab. Then they were chased by pirates which blew each other up - okay, that was lucky - Lana thought. Now they have the entire LAPD sea patrol force on them...

"We have to get rid of all evidence", Lana thought and relayed the same message to her partner, "dump everything."

As Ray began to gather their equipment and throw them out into the sea one by one, Lana thought hard again to come up with an escape plan. Her headache was starting to ease up and she was beginning to regain her quick wits. Suddenly, she remembered those remote explosives still strapped to their boat's vital parts.

"That's it."

"What?" Ray was confused by that remark, he just finished removing his armour and disposing it in the dark waters.

"We put the boat on auto-pilot then swim," Lana explained confidently, "then blow it up when they get close for cover."

"What are you, crazy?" Ray retorted, "we're swimming, in mid-winter, during the night?"

Lana replied sarcastically, "well you're welcome to stay and try to explain what happened back there to the police, since you're so good with your words."

"Fine, but you're paying for my equipment."

"You must be naive to think you could hide the value of that package from me," Lana said, "but I'll talk to you about that later."

Having regained her strength and awareness now, Lana pushed herself up and swiftly removed her amour. Then she flung it into the waters below, along with her sidearm, leaving only her knife. She picked out the remote detonator from her back and threw the rest into the sea too. Without further words, she walked to the side and dove into the freezing, wintery seas of Planet Los Angeles.

For some seconds, Lana's entire body was in shock due to the sudden change of temperature. Her warmth was brutally robbed from her and her muscles felt like they were going to seize up. Lana clenched her teeth and began to swim, at the same time her nerve endings began to go numb due to the extreme temperature. Then she heard a splash from behind, Ray was catching up.

As the two got to some 50 metres from their boat, the police boats sped by with sirens blaring and lights flashing. Lana and Ray abandoned their ship not far from the shore so Lana hoped they could get to land before freezing to death. After 15 minutes of intense, energy draining swimming in the waters cold as ice, the two were relieved to find themselves amongst some large rocks near the shore. Luckily, they swum to a shore in the poorer areas and away from the city lights - where no one would even lay an eye on a pair of soaked swimmers in a winter night.

By the time they reached the shore, Lana was exhausted beyond her own belief. She looked across and saw their speed boat about to be boarded by the police. She quickly reached for her detonator and pressed hard on the control. With a confirming beep, the speed boat went up in a spectacular explosion, showering nearby police boats with its broken body.

Lana on the verge of hypothermia, combined with the earlier head trauma and extreme exhaustion. She had no word and she felt tired. She laid on the beach and slowly closed her eyes.

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