Story Without A Name

         Damaged by the underlying lattice structure overheating event, the pre-fabricated pillow couch density tester lay in the administrators sub-office undisturbed. In the 48 hours that passed since Rodney Mettenstone arrived in the complex, 62 false alarms occurred and during lunchtime the meatballs had been presented stale.
         Freelance Market Undersecretary Milanda Protogamino bolted for the courtyard. She was waiting for him to show up. Vic had promised to be there on this day, at this hour, at the place they had first met. The non-woven fabric combiner was something that could not be overlooked, and she indeed needed to have the design plans for it immediately.
         Victor Hammersmith was the inventor of FabFuse®, the material that allowed all fabrics for any application to be combined without any additional adhesive or weaving process. QuadStel Laboratories, Inc. kept this a secret for the past 2 years, and Milanda was the gateway out of this mess. They would both lose their jobs, but at the same time would be richer than either could have imagined before.
         Under a party cloudy sky, 78 degrees Fahrenheit, and 56% humidity, the two traded papers and discussed their plans.
         Later that day, they had driven onto the local highway in an indistinct Nissan, passed the city, and stopped where the land cleared from all the buildings, towers, and roads. At the edge of the regional cellular and internet network, they could not be tracked, at least so Victor had said. It was a risk that had to be taken. There were no options out.
         The sky could implode in a foggy orange red ball of fire at any second, take the air away with it, and crack the ground to a thousand feet. This was the one and only chance. With buttons pressed and notebook closed, they drove back.

         Later that night, at the local bar, Milanda sat and drank a martini. She was dressed indistinctly and had on an unmarked baseball cap. Still, several men eyed her. Not sure if it was a universal phenomenon, but in her social experiments, Milanda Protogamino saw very little difference in the number men who noticed her whether she was dressed down and somewhat provocative, or if she dressed casual. Now in her thirties, a night out was an event that didn’t bring much unease, but tonight was different. The exchange took place at the edge of the tracking networks, but the satellites were up there. If someone was looking for her and Vic, they could have easily found them. Their pictures could be circulating through every government office. Any one of these men could be a secret agent ready to take her out.
         Lots of men had taken her out, but she usually came through unscathed – usually. There seemed to be a connection between her and attracting bar men, although Milanda never considered herself a player or even good at the game. She didn’t get what men found so attractive in her, and it was FabFuse® in which she felt that she needed to prove her capacity to the world. This was something that Milanda could use to really make a difference, to change with world for the better. Yet, so many were against it, and were willing to go at all lengths to stop her. True, a lot of people out there were against the project, but Milanda found it hard to rationalize whether they were actually out everywhere to get her, or some of the most volatile stuff was just in her head. Why couldn’t she be like all the other bar fly’s – wasn’t sleeping with the male regulars enough? FabFuse®, FabFuse® - it just kept echoing in her head.
         The gentleman in the polo with the slick hair chatted her up. Whatever it was what guys said to her in a noisy bar when they were interested in her being a part of their evening plan was the exact repertoire this dude played out. Milanda wasn’t at all alarmed when he reached for his pocket. It was when he did the reverse that struck an uneasy connection. As he started to withdraw a dark cylindrical object, she decided to politely excuse herself. That was when his actions accelerated in speed, and the object was directed toward her. As Milanda stood up he had caused her to tilt downward; she swung around on one foot, pushing him back a few inches; then kicked him hard between the legs. His weapon of choice (she assumed it was a weapon) dropped on the floor and rolled. Milanda instinctively grabbed it. The long, cylindrical object had a metallic end with speckled-port pattern, almost like a razor. It was featureless, dark, except for tab switch midway and a button on the other end. Switching it either way and pressing the button, it did nothing – no sparks or anything. Suddenly she felt something from behind; oh yeah, there was a guy trying to take her out, now she remembered. The alcohol enhanced her curiosity in the device. But as he grabbed her by the waist, Miranda swung her arm back, striking the gentleman in the behind. She pressed her thumb against the button.
         There was a lot of commotion, at least on the floor. Though not seemingly occupied by anybody at this point, Miranda felt people around her. She opened her eyes, her hearing became more acute, and she realized she was on the bar floor. Disgust was her first impression; it was wet, sticky, gritty, smelly, and a bunch of other things she couldn’t even identify.
         “Miss, are you alright.”
         “She could not respond, it was too dangerous. Realizing she had probably been shocked herself as the electricity went from the assailants’ body into hers, Milanda stumbled up. The weapon was still in her hand. She staggered through the bar, losing track of who was either following or noticing her other than her newfound, yet shocked, companion, and went directly to her corvette in the parking lot outside. Under a cloudless night sky, Miranda flung the weapon into the cup holder and sped off.
         Late on a Friday night was the most unlikely time somebody would expect anyone to be at the office. That was the current philosophy of Victor Hammersmith. Some last minute enhancements to the FabFuse® database needed to be accomplished, as were some security measures that he did not believe IT to have been totally honest in their undertaking. Throughout the duration of the project, attitudes of dishonesty, repression, and conspiracy prevailed. Victor wondered if all inventors faced this kind of hardship. It wasn’t like FabFuse® was some kind of world-shattering, provocative, potentially insulting invention. From a marketing perspective, yes, but it was really only another solution in a world of constant innovations. He hoped Milanda was safe and hopefully somewhere that was not going to give away her secrets and get her killed.
         Victor had heard some rustling. It came from somewhere within or behind the walls. Wishing it to be coming from the servers or inside the HVAC system, he carried on with his work. He delved into concentration through the lattice of the network hierarchies, file maps, and database elements. Someone was there. By the time the door crashed down and men surrounded him, he was too stunned. The only thing he caught a glimpse of was the wide pen-like object being pressed against his chest, but by then it was too late.
         From a speed of nearly 120 miles per hour, the red corvette screeched to an abrupt halt in the middle of the desert. Sliding off the road and running over a small cactus, the automobile’s engine cut off. Its female occupant reached into a bag, removed a small bottle, and force fed the male occupant some sort of potent alcoholic substance.
         “Okay wake up, buddy,” she insisted, knowing that the potent alcoholic substance should wake him up from the shock and then he should tell the truth about what was going on. He asserted that he was on the team that was trying, or in progress of, as he put it, to put an end to the evil fabric experiment. The reference to FabFuse® seemed to be oddly uncertain for someone who was working so hard to put an end to it. Milanda reactivated the car, crossed the road, and kept going. The bumpy ride on the desert landscape wouldn’t last too long. Too drunk and stupored to respond, the other occupant sat there silently as the corvette’s top rolled over them.
         Back on concrete, the vehicle accelerated to an even greater speed than before. An unmarked but large warehouse-type building came into view, and filled more of the view with each passing second, with no slack in pace. Milanda made a quick adjustment in her angular trajectory, and the sliding metal and glass hanger-like door became an unknowing target. Milanda considered jumping out of the car, but she really did want to see what it was like to crash through a giant warehouse door from inside the car. It probably was part of her adventurous spirit.
Milanda braced herself for the crash and felt the adrenaline blowing through her. The other guy just grunted with the impact. They were suddenly inside the building, pulling along pieces of metal that sparked on the concrete floor. The corvette made a ¾ spin and came to a stop. There were people on the outside end. She suddenly recognized the familiar face of Victor Hammersmith, even though he was tied up to a chair and gagged. Three other people were there as well, obviously the enemies and well equipped. What was she going to do?
         It suddenly dawned on her whether it was worth risking her life to save the man. It wasn’t that he did anything wrong, but it wasn’t as if she was attracted to him either. He was a just another temporary coworker in her world, but also was a temporary coworker in her world, which in its sense, was quite an important matter in terms of freelance networking. The passion of the greater cause was behind it. But now Milanda was a sitting duck in a broken convertible surrounded by wall debris and 3 men approaching with weapons.
         Doing what seemed like the only plausible thing to do, Milanda shoved the half-conscious man next to her, since she couldn’t pull him out over the seat, and climbed over. She had the shock device and pushed the man who was now sitting at the edge of the door. As Milanda climbed over she was able to get behind him and form a threatening stance. It also put some distance between her and the other guys who where on the other side of the car.
         “Don’t move,” she screamed, with a resonance and volume unexpectedly high, “I’ll… shock him.” The last part came out a little hesitantly, since she did not know if the device could actually kill. Victor was now alone, tied and gagged on a chair, mumbling things loudly, but the utterances were absorbed by the thick cloth stuffed in his mouth.
         The men sort of held back; this guy must have been important to them. Slowly they advanced still. Their leader was a bald guy with a goatee in leather jacket. He was muscular but also most certainly had his share of McDonald’s.
         “What do you want?” Milanda scowled. The words echoed subtly in the cavernous room.
         Oddly, the man didn’t answer. His stance was halfway between ‘you already know so why are you asking’ and ‘it doesn’t matter, my only mission now is to approach you like this’. The other guys held back. Milanda continued to hold up the other guy, who was making a desperate attempt to hold under his own weight and struggle with her. She held the little weapon at his side. Suddenly, she felt another jolt. Everything became blurry and disorienting; Milanda didn’t know if she was being attacked, but then it passed and she had realized that she had mistakenly discharged the weapon. The shock passed from the man into her body, once again, but as she let go of the button she had not realized she had pressed in the first place. The other guy fell to the floor, which she realized was to her benefit since it would be easier to run away now.
         Maybe not. As she stood there, considering about charging the big guy marching toward her, the other two held out similar weapons. As she started to back, one of them fired. These could apparently discharge through the air. Milanda suddenly noticed also the gun on her new opponents’ side. He was indeed large enough for her to be briefly sheltered by the others’ blasts, according to her estimates. Doing only what she thought someone in her situation would do, she charged the man and slammed him in the chest with the device. He grabbed her hair and her arm. Milanda grasped the gun on the side. He tried to struggle with that to, but as when she shocked her companion down, she discharged the gun before she realized it. This dude was dumb if he didn’t have the safety on.
When she looked around him she could tell that one of the other guys was down. The other was trying to both attend to him and stay on top of the situation at the same time, but their game plan had certainly been disrupted. A kick in the knee was enough to get her free but the guy was quick. Milanda felt herself roll over on the ground and stumble up. The large man now moved much more abruptly, and she had little time to react. Milanda strided awkwardly in a zig-zag fashion. It was better to do that in this sort of situation; it made it harder to catch or shoot her, but she also didn’t know exactly what to do. The gleaming red corvette with the shards of metal and glass in the room afforded some possibilities. Ducking around the rear, Milanda assumed she could chuck herself inside into the opposing door from where her assailants were attacking. The breaking of automotive glass and whizzing of laser energy from the two remaining members of her opposition made this idea somewhat unidealistic. At least one tire burst as it was struck. The car lurched downward at an angle, then there was the sound of something getting hit, possibly rupturing. Then a fluid began flowing from beneath the vehicle. At the smell of gasoline, Milanda ducked and sprinted as fast as she could. She was alongside a container when the car exploded, not far enough behind for comfort, but the shock itself propelled her toward the back of this object.
         The sounds of the blast echoed continuously through the room. By the time Milanda emerged from behind a stack of containers, the car flames had diminished a bit, but the entire vehicle still continued to burn. Hunching down, she carefully treaded behind and out to where she could see what was going on. This was just in time to see two individuals at a blasted open section of wall. The larger one had a body over his shoulder. Milanda didn’t know whether the guy she shot had died or was still alive. The bad guys had escaped.
         The tied up and gagged Victor Hammersmith lay in between the car and the same edge of the building the men escaped. A piece of plywood had landed on top of him after the man and the chair had been knocked over, possibly saving his life.
         “Who were those guys?” he asked, shaken by the ordeal, after Milanda untied him.
         “I don’t know. That son-of-a.. tried to kill me in the bar. This is what we get for FabFuse®”
         “One way or the other, we have to get to the bottom of it. They knew where we were. They’re gonna know where we’re gonna be,” Victor said as he stumbled to his feet, a tone showing how dazed he really was. Victor pointed to a piece of paper or a card on the floor. Before he said anything, Milanda caught sight of it and picked it up.
         “Some sort of security code or ID. You’d think they’d have a logo,” she said.
         “Let’s get it back to Data Operations, have Alexandro look at it.” The out of breath corporate inventor glanced over at the burning vehicle.
         “We’re at the Meridian Systems’ Warehouse on 54 and Larson. We need a ride back to the lab,” Milanda said almost immediately, speaking into her handheld communication device. She’d certainly fill in the details later.
         Back at QuadStel, Milanda and Victor were led by Alexandro Bennington to a small, secluded office. There were charts and graphs on the walls and many papers on the desk, seemingly organized to the computer geeks’ precise means of haphazard organization. Alexandro took the card they had found and started typing.
         Milanda’s nerves tightened. Being a freelance marketer, she was not familiar with the ideals of invention, and never dreamed that she’d get into this much heat for being part of the project.
         “So you guys are definitely on Le Moguls’ list,” said Alexandro, the pride of his hacking abilities sounding in his voice.
         “Who are these people?” asked Victor.
         “I’ve seen their databases before. But it appears they are not after FabFuse®; it doesn’t appear anywhere on their Records of Intention. The two of you, however, appear on the record as well as the Target Scenario Planner and Seek and Eliminate database. The problem with this group, they are incredibly tech saavy, but their hit lists contain no record of why they are seeking out their targets. My source file on this group indicates that their databases nearly always contain extensive summaries of their targets’ history, but there is always a lack of reason of intention. These guys just seem to pick a name out of a book and seek ‘em out.”
         “You mean there’s no reason for them to be hunting us down?”
         “No ma’am,” the geek said sympathetically.
         “But he said something to me, like they want to stop the evil fabric experiment… in the car after I first shocked him.”
         “They do extensive research on their targets, but the targets are chosen beforehand. They have no interest in FabFuse®.”
         “You mean they just saw me in a phonebook? Le Mogoo… or whatever, they just would have seen me anyway?”
         “Maybe, maybe not. They have access to many databases and records. It is hard to say where they saw your name, but that is irrelevant now.
         “Shit,” Milanda steamed.
         At the same time, Victor said, “So, you’re saying that these guys know about FabFuse®, but that is not why they are after us?”
“That is correct. Unfortunately, there’s no way to stop them. They are incredibly tech saavy, and all I can do is print you out a copy of their intention file, but it only prognosticates out to a week or two. Beyond that, if you survive, if we survive, it’s all a game of survival.”
         “We?” Victor and Milanda replied, a little out of synch.
         “Yes. Their site monitoring system already detected my entry into their files. I am already on their list. We must leave here immediately.
         “Where do we go,” asked Milanda.
         “As far as we can, and as soon as we can.”
         Milanda’s wave of panic got a second wind. She couldn’t just leave. This was all too sudden. But it seemed that what should have been a short work project between her and Victor was going to be stretched out longer than each had imagined. She had the sense, and Victor Hammersmith in his many years of experience, seemed to sense that this adventure was just beginning. There was no way out, except to lose, and that meant certain death.
         “We must go, now,” said Alexandro.