Esperanza Ortega; Wanted for Murder, Theft.

[Pryce]

Kingston/Carban/Donnovan Residence
Rexford, Los Angeles
0631 Local time

As the door opened a young woman stepped through quickly, nearly crashing into Ortega; she started in

surprise, lightly spilling coffee from the cup she clutched tightly. "Oh, excuse me!" she said quickly. Taking a second to notice Ortega, there was a flash of recognition and she asked; "Esperanza?"



"Hello, Vanessa." Ortega replied. She remembered her now. Vanessa Donnovan had been, only a year before, "employed" in a brothel run by a thoroughly unpleasant pirate syndicate; employed, of course, meaning she was a forced sex slave who had been treated quite harshly since she was taken during a hijacking several years before. Ortega had rescued her, and several like her, as the quite unintended result of a visit to the station where the brothel operated. Looking at her now, there was very little trace of the jaded whore Ortega had first met.



At initial glance a rather cute brunette, Vanessa stood several centimetres taller than Ortega, a well proportioned figure with a full bust and curvy hips, unblemished creamy white skin, and a pair of startlingly deep green eyes. Her hair was cut rather short, perhaps done for work rather than cosmetic reasons, and she was dressed rather conservatively, a dark brown dress that traveled down to her ankles ,a pair of equally brown flats, and finished by a snugly fitted, and starkly white labcoat. She looked quite the part of a young intern of a research firm; but there was a certain cold look in those eyes, a look that betrayed a hint of her former life, of a woman who had seen and done far more than her young age and appearance would suggest. It was a look similar to that which Ortega normally wore, albeit for different reasons.



"Listen, " Vanessa said, "Can we meet later? I'm awful late for work! Sorry!" She frowned and stepped pass Ortega, starting down the hallway. Ortega actually felt a little hurt by the abrupt reception. Ortega kept pace, and replied; "It's kind of important Vanessa, how about I ride with you?" Vanessa nodded without comment as they reached the nearest lift.


<span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%][color=#FFFF00]Resident Vehicle Parking


As they walked out of the lift, Ortega was relating the substance of her meeting with Allie, back on Manhattan earlier in the week."Do you have any idea where they went? Or why they went?" Ortega asked.



Vanessa shook her head. "Not at all. Doctor Morris went into the conference room with Doctor Pryce, Rene, and Denise, and the day after they did, two of the ships left and never came back. They didn't say anything to the assistants or the interns." Vanessa frowned, and Ortega could see she felt betrayed by the departure. "They were so kind to us, helping us get off the drugs, and finding each of us a way to start fresh.I couldn't believe that they could just leave....leave us like that." She glanced at Ortega as they neared her car.



The doors opened on the Dartanyan 220VE Hovercar, an economical single engine, low atmo four passenger vehicle. This one was a fairly appealing shade of dark red,and it was clean, though that was the about the nicest things that could be said about it. This was about a '12 model year, right before the safety recall of another of its models, and the resulting lawsuits, that had eventually bankrupted the company. The car had a reputation of being dirt cheap, energy efficient, and easy to maintain; but also that of needing frequent maintainance, and a certainty of fatalities if it was in a crash.



"Allie was pretty worried about you Vanessa. Tell me about your work." Ortega got into the car with Vanessa.


Vanessa started the vehicle and avoided Ortegas' eyes "I can't talk about that." As the car warmed up a holoscreen appeared in front of them, showing a panoramic view of the garage outside the now enclosed shell of the car.A slightly thinner image ran across each side of them, showing outside the vehicle from each direction. After a moment they lifted off and headed slowly out of the the garage, Vanessa drumming her fingers on the console all the while. "Come on, come on!" She muttered.


"Sure you can." Ortega said gently."Tell me about what you're ...."


"You don't understand!" Vanessa interrupted; "I got a warning okay? For talking about confidential research to people outside. They knew, they knew everything. I can't talk about it. If I get dismissed, without a reference, all of this, everything I've worked so hard for, it won't last... I'll lose it and I won't have anything!" Her face had changed, the mask faded, and a very real fear permeated the car. She wiped her eyes and whispered; "I don't want to go back to what I was." The car reached the exit to the garage and awaited instructions. Ortega noticed that they were right outside the pad where she had initially arrived. The small blue vehicle remained parked where it had landed, probably another visitor.



Ortega considered her next approach carefully, her words coming out quietly as they sat in the unmoving car.
"Vanessa. I can tell you from experience, that keeping quiet while something wrong is happening is often just as bad as the thing itself. If you don't speak out when you can, they'll just keep doing what they're doing, and people could die." Ortega caught Vanessas' eye."Trust me, you will never forgive yourself if that happens and you could have stopped it."

Vanessa nodded silently.


A movement caught Ortegas' attention and she looked forward. An automated delivery lorry, nearly four times larger then the Dartanyan, was already halfway across the pad, and was picking up speed as it rushed towards them. A collision alert beeped in the car, and it veered to the right, striking the side of the entranceway, then ricocheted at an angle, now laying across the entrance to the garage. The oncoming missile adjusted course to match them as Vanessa sat in shock, staring to her right as the thing bore down on them. Ortega shouted the command to turn off the autonav, but the car of course would only respond to Vanessa herself. Ortega yelled "Vanessa, drive us back inside!"

There was an endless instant when Ortega saw Vanessa move to do exactly that, and the side view composed entirely of the lorry, when the lorry hit them at its maximum possible speed.

---

Feedback