The Jazz had one arm supporting her busted ribs while the other was used to support herself against an office wall. She had instinctively busted the lights when she and the corporate guard crashed down the door. The door was smashed. Light from the hallway and moonlight peeking through the window wall at her back was seeping in, making shadow cover scarce. Every ragged breath she took reminded her of the cracked ribs. She fell down to one knee, holding her ribs tighter as she searched the darkness for the corporate guard. There was no sign of him in the dot shrouded room. She heard judex sirens blasting outside below on ground level along with the ever present waves of the sound which parted the two bridge-locked corporate buildings and saw (though she could not hear it through its whisper nacelles) a judex VTO Seeker heliplane's searchlights blaze through other offices in search of her. She heard the armed judex honors running down the hallway to the opened door in the distance—she had to get out of this tiny room. She searched again for the corporate guard but could not find him. She had no idea which room she was in, if there was more light, more time, then maybe she could see if this was one of the hot ones . . .

With both hands, she pulled her black double-cloak around her and got up in a running dashed for the door.

From the right of her, the master thief heard the guard come charging out of the deep shadows. His incredibly huge arms were open to closeline, the same move he performed on her before. But the Jazz saw that the guard wasn't coming for her a second later. He was running to the door—he was going to reach it before she did.

The Jazz begain to run faster, but the guard was already at the door and the self-styled swashbuckler and master thief could not mach his speed with her busted ribs as they were. She didn't stop though. If she was trapped in this room it will be over. The Jazz threw open her double-cloak and leapt towards the guard who both outmatched her in strength and size.

The guard, considering this as one of the flamboyantly shrouded thief's few options, was ready for move. He held out his hand and caught the Jazz in midfall by her neck. The sudden halting of the Jazz's fall caused her body to fall out ahead of her, her legs sprawled and swung up arching her like an arrow in the guard's hand, head to the ground. Using the momentum of his opponent's sudden halting, he un-ceremoniously shot her down on the tiled floor headfirst. The Jazz hit the floor hard, hearing a small snap like it was miles away. Black spots clouded her vision a second later. She bounced then slid and was sure something was broken. Instinctively, her hands went to her neck, trying to soothe it. She couldn't breath right and the spots wouldn't go away. Gasping, the Jazz retreated back into the darkend corner of the office. The guard stayed at the door and smiled.


-
The lights in the hallway began to dim off and on as judex honors begain to load and cock their A-12 Maim assault rifles and check the ammunition clips of their sidearms displayed on their small, side-mounted LCD screens, and wait. They had donned auto-setting, three-second delay Eagle-Eye night-scope goggles in view of the flickering hallway lights. There were two four manned units of judex honors, the World Governs policerary force, standing at both ends of the hall the Jazz was on. There were four honors posted at every exit, stairwell and elevator. The building men and judex honors at Controls waited to activate the building's sercurity steel sliding doors. They all waited for the order to come and take out the threat.


--
Amazingly, the Jazz found nothing broken. Her back was sore and her ribs had hurt so much that her whole chest had gone numb. She still couldn't breath right. And she was tired. The adrenaline rush gave out long ago. She was dead now, she knew it. There was no way out. The only question was how many she could take with her before she goes.

It sounded good sure, but she knew it was false bravo; she was not a fighter. Her fields layed in subterfuge and speed. Again, she thinks if all this is needed just for her. Did they think her that dangerous? She suddenly wished she was.

She heard the judex honors come marching down the hall, and saw the hallway's lights black out for a second—she used the momentary lapse of shadows—the darkness and the pain that racked her body and her basic instinct for survival as her weapon. The Jazz flew out of the darkness, screaming at the guard, running into a hand launched somersault, tucking in her body. She unfolded, using the momentum of her decent to fall down on top of the guard, inclosing him in her double-cloak and momentarily knocking him off-balance. The Jazz's momentum pushed her and the guard out into the hall. He was still in the double-cloak when the Jazz cracked his skull against the hallway wall with the the force of the impact.

She crouched low, her wide-rimmed gloved hand against the wall for support. She was gasping for breath again when she saw the two units of armed judex honors to the right and left of her. They were no more than ten feet away, their A-12 Maim assault rifles raised; the laser-light scope beads showered her head as if she had an outbreak.

The Jazz stood erect slowly, looking at nothing but the wall, raising her gloved hands high. The guard's body fell out of her double-cloak and slumped to the ground between her parted feet, lifeless and eyes rolled up in their sockets.

The Jazz stood visably shaking through the honors' night scope goggles. Her shivers sent a steady stream of ripples running through her black double-cloak. Her mouth moved slowly, as if counting—

The Seeker heliplane's searchlights broke the darkness suddenly as it sweeped the room, its powerful strobe lights delaying the three-second auto-focus to six.

It was enough. The Jazz was gone.

The two heads of the twin units looked at eachother, both silently asking and silently answering that there was no way she could have gotten past either of them. A selected pointman ran to the door, holding position.

The Seeker crewman confirmed the flash movement in the room, then lost sight of it behind some office furniture. The units moved in the room in formation. Someone in Controls shuttered the window wall, cutting the light from the moon casting the room in total darkness. The unit heads had got their orders: shoot only at the head, leave the body untouched. They relayed the orders to their men in hand code.

They fanned out, but found nothing save for the office furniture which they checked thoroughly. The Jazz was not in the room.

Controls relayed it to be a hot room. That somewhere there was an emergency excape tunnle leading to the other side of the sound or into the heart of Boom City itself or even the CEO's mansion. Controls didn't have the location. Only the CEO himself had that in case of terrorist attact. And he couldn't be reached. He was away in Hawaii.

The Jazz was gone.


---
She exited the tunnle leading directly into the basement of her house. She stripped herself of her suit, breaking a new record. She shrouded herself in a towel and shot up the stairs, ducking pass the mansion's servants with trained ease. She made it into her room and shot to her bed, shaking and deathly pale. What the hell did daddy get his hands on that required judex protection? She didn't know and she was too sick and hurt to care; she didn't even want to look at the strange object laying in the center of her cast asided suit that had nearly cost her life . . .

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