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A Man With A Plan And A Girl With An Attitude!

Steve Lander was one of the best. He had been a professional assassin for almost ten years now and had 63 confirmed kills. He was, in his opinion, the best there was at what he did. As he adjusted the scope on his rifle he decided that this would be one of his easiest assignments. He had long ago gotten over his reservations about killing women and had killed plenty of people in their sleep. As he watched the beautiful brunette sleeping, her back to the large bay window that he would have to shot through, he felt a small bit of regret over killing someone so good looking. But still, a job was a job! And, with what he was getting paid for this job, he could buy women better looking than her.

Finally he eased the safety on the rifle back and tensed his finger to pull the trigger. He started his short countdown. A habit that had even earned him the nickname, Countdown. When you had been around as long as he had you built up a reputation. Especially if you were good! And, as far as he was concerned, he was the best!

Unfortunately for him, Kelly White was better!

Just as he reached ‘two’ he heard a gun cock right beside his head. Slowly he turned his head and looked up into the face of the person that he had been hired to kill!

"Hi, there, big boy! What say ya drop the gun and then you can tell me who wants me dead this time?" She said to him with a smile on her face.

Quickly Steve spun around and brought his gun up so it was pointed at Kelly’s head. By the time he got off a shot she had already disappeared from his line of sight. For a split second he wondered where she had gone. Suddenly the barrel of her gun cracked into his nose, causing him to fall back and to drop his rifle.

"What the hell are you doing? I think you broke my friggin nose you psycho!"

"Yeah, well, that’s a lot nicer than what you wanted to do to me, so quit your whining." She told him as she pointed the gun back into his face, the barrel now stained with blood. "Now, like I said, who wants me dead?"

"I don’t know."

"Look, thanks to you, this has been a pretty crappy night and I’m not in the mood to be lied to! Now, tell me who sent you!" With that the young brunette re-aimed the pistol so that it was pointed at his crotch. "Or you’re gonna find yourself with a bigger problem than just a broken nose."

For a second the assassin looked her up and down as if to gauge how serious she was. Finally he said, "I’m telling you: I seriously don’t know who’s after you. Someone anonymously sent me an e-mail and offered me $100,000 to kill you. Normally I don’t take jobs anonymously but they paid me $50,000 in advance so I figured, what the hell. It’s honestly nothing personal on my part."

"Gee thanks, that’s really comforting." She replied with a snide look on her face. "Now its time for you to go to sleep!"

With that she squeezed the trigger on the gun. A thick gas came out of the tip, which enveloped Steve and put him to sleep within a few seconds. Kelly placed the gun back in its holster on her hip and pulled the mouthpiece of her headset into position. The headset was designed to be practically invisible. It was specially painted so that it would blend in with her hair and it was extremely slim and compact.

"Hey, Microchip, you get all that?" Kelly asked into the small mouthpiece speaker.

"Yes Kelly, I did ‘get all that’, thank you." Replied a small voice from her headphone speakers.

"So, what do ya make of it? You think this guys telling the truth?"

"Possibly." The voice anserwed with some hesitation, "Why don’t you bring him back to headquarters so that we can question him further."

"Why don’t you send a pickup team to come get him! I’m not coming in until I take a hot shower and change my clothes!"

"Now Kelly, really. You know how I hate to use the pickup teams unless I have to. You remembered what happened the time we sent one to pick up Jake Rizzo."

"Okay, 1: that was an isolated incident and, 2: I don’t care!" she practically yelled the last part into the mike, which caused Microchip to shake his head in resignation. He knew there was no talking to her once she got like this. "You’re not the one that’s been sitting in the bushes all day waiting for this guy to make his move. Not to mention the fact that these camouflage clothes are tres ugly! And I want to get that stupid dummy out of my bed!"

"Very well. But I shall expect you within half an hour. Try not to be late again."

"Oh, don’t worry, I won’t be!"

45 minutes later Kelly finally walked down the ramp into the headquarters mainframe, which she usually just called ‘The Pit’. Partly because you had to walk down to get to it and partly because she knew that it bugged the hell out of Microchip. She was dressed in a black leather body suit and had tied her hair back.

"I know, I know, I’m late! But it’s really not my fault! Traffic was really heavy and was just moving at a snails pace!" she explained as soon as she saw Microchip glaring at her.

"Kelly, you own one of the fastest cars in the world, its two o’clock in the morning and you’re really not a very good liar." He said as he turned his gaze back to the computer screen in front of him. "Besides that, I already checked the video recorder on your car and saw that the drive here only took you 2.3 minutes to get here. And that’s approximately a minute faster than it usually takes you and well in excess of normal posted speed limits."

"Now, on to more serious matters." He started, before Kelly could say anything in response. Pictures started to appear on the large computer screen as he punched buttons. "The man that you apprehended was Steve Lander. He’s been an assassin for hire for close to ten years now and has a file as long as your arm. Luckily for him, the authority’s could never pin anything on him."

"Sounds like he’s pretty good!" Kelly commented as she studied some of the files that had come up on the screen. "If we knew about him how come we never took him out ourselves?"

"He wasn’t important enough. He had never crossed our path and we had other things to take care of."

"You mean we let this guy get away with murder after murder and did nothing to stop him? That’s kind of cold, isn’t it?"

Microchip cleared his throat before he responded. "My dear, as I have explained to you in the past, we are not the police. We have to look at things on a much bigger scale. All right?" He waited for a second until Kelly noted in resigned agreement. "Now, to get back to what I was saying: he really was telling the truth when he told you that he didn’t know who hired him. We backtracked the e-mail that was sent to him and found a website with your picture and information about you. Needless to say, I wiped it out, but before I did I backtracked it to its home source."

"So you know who wants me dead?" Kelly asked, growing impatient from having to listen to another one of Microchip’s long-winded explanations.

"Maybe." Microchip responded simply. His hands moving quickly, he called up another picture on the big computer screen, its image replacing that of Steve Lander. "This gentleman is Jesse Xander."

"You mean that rich environmentalist that they always show on Inside Edition?" Kelly interrupted, recognizing the name and picture once she put the two of them together.

"Yes. I can’t imagine why he would want you dead but that’s where we traced the signal back to."

"Is there a possibility that someone else used his computers to try to set him up?"

"Actually, I had already considered that possibility. The signal was fairly easy to backtrack which makes me think that this could be a set up. Or a trap. In either case, we’ll soon have all the answers."

"Yeah? How?" Kelly asked, as she studied the new files that had come up on the screen.

"You’ll be flying to their corporate headquarters in Denver to check it out. A prep team is readying the chopper and will be ready to leave within 15-minutes."

"I’ll get my gear ready."

An hour later Kelly found herself alone and clinging to the side of an 80 story office building. Well, not quite alone.

"Hey, Microchip! You still there?" She yelled, straining to be heard over the roaring wind. Their connection had suddenly been cut off mid-transmission a few seconds ago.

For a few more long seconds there was silence. Kelly started to get worried. It wasn’t like she couldn’t handle it on her own. It was just that, and she would never admit to him, she had gotten used having Microchip there and depended on him.

Finally his gravely voice came through, "Sorry about that Kelly. We momentarily got cut off for some reason."

"Any idea why?" She asked, trying not to let him hear the relief in her voice.

"I’m not really sure." He answered with some hesitation. Microchip hated to admit that he didn’t know something. "It was most likely the weather or possibly a problem with the headset. I’ll run a full diagnostic check on it when you return. Now, have you reached the specified window yet?"

"Yeah! I just used the first of the two compounds on it. I’m just waiting for it to dry now."

"Very good. Continue."

"Did you get back that criminal history check that you did on Xander yet?" Kelly asked as she waited impatiently for the solution to dry.

"Yes. Nothing useful in it however. A few speeding tickets and a few minor arrests for picketing. Certainly nothing even close to murder."

"Hold on. It’s dry now. I’m gonna go ahead with the other one now."

"Proceed."

Kelly pulled a short plastic tube from her belt and pointed it at the window. Depressing the small button on the side, a fine mist sprayed out of the tip. The mist struck the glass and within a few seconds the glass that she had sprayed dissolved into nothingness right before her eyes.

"No matter how many times I see that it’s still cool as hell." Kelly said out loud.

"Yes, and no matter how many times you see it I still have to hear you say that. Now, please, proceed into the building. Just because the sun doesn’t rise for two more hours doesn’t mean it’s still not risky."

"Yes, sir, Microchip sir!" Kelly replied in mock salute, to which Microchips only response was a small, exasperated sigh.

Carefully, Kelly swung herself around and jumped into the room. It was a small dark room with a desk, computer, and a few pieces of furniture. Kelly took a second to remove the suction cups and heavy jacket that she had been wearing before she did anything else.

"Okay, ‘Chip, I’m in. Now what?" Kelly said softly into the mike.

"Is there a computer in the office?"

"Yeah, there’s a small one. Looks like a Pentium I think."

"Good. I want you to access it and download all of the files onto the disks that you have with you."

"Got it!"

Kelly booted up the computer and started to download the system files first. As she did she quickly scanned some of the files as well. "Holy, crap! There’s a ton of stuff here! So much for them just being set up by someone else. Okay Microchip, I’ve got them all! What now?"

"If you walk out the door you should find yourself in a long hallway. If you go all the way to the end of it you should find a large pair of doors that lead into Jesse…. office. Once there … want…. to…files…."

"Microchip? Microchip, you still there?" There was silence from the other end of the line. "Crap! The connection must have messed up again." Kelly said out loud to herself. "Well, I know he wanted me to find Xander’s office, so I’ll just head there and wait for the connection to kick back in."

Quietly creeping across the still dark office, her infra red contact lenses being the only reason she could still see, she headed towards the door. Her gloved hand wrapped around the handle, she slowly twisted it and pulled the door open. When the door was partway open she looked through.

She didn’t see an empty hallway.

Instead, she saw a large room, practically a warehouse. And instead of being empty it was full of probably hundreds of computers. There were also dozens of people running around doing different things. And standing directly in front of her, about a meter or two away and flanked by two large bodyguards, was the man whose picture she had seen earlier, Jesse Xander!

"Hello, Kelly." He said with a large smile on his face. "Welcome…. to Earth Corp!"

"So, looks like this was a trap." Kelly stated matter of factly, trying not to show just how rattled she was.

"Yes, my dear, I’m afraid it was." Admitted Xander, who was still smiling. "Sorry about tricking you like that but…well, I’m sure you understand. I didn’t want to risk an unplanned encounter. You’re just to much of a risk to my long term plans."

"Is that why you sent Lander after me?" Kelly asking, now just trying to stall. She couldn’t figure out why he still hadn’t heard anything from Microchip. Surely he must have figured out a way to punch a signal through the interference by now?

"Ah, Lander. Actually, my dear, he was nothing more than bait. I knew that you would no problem stopping him and that he would tell you about our little website. I also knew that it would be child’s play for Microchip to backtrack the signal. Once he shut down the site that was my signal that you would be on your way. And, just like a good little pawn, here you are!" He really seemed to enjoy explaining himself to Kelly, which wasn’t really a surprise. Most every ‘villain’ that she had ever gone up against loved the chance to brag about how smart they were. Suddenly Xander interrupted her thought’s, "By the way, in case you’re wondering, the reason you haven’t heard from Microchip is because we’re blocking your signal. Just thought you’d like to know."

"Thanks for the info." Kelly replied coldly. God, she thought to herself, this guy had really done his homework. "So is this the part where you explain your master plan to me?"

"Ah, yes, that usually is how the game is played isn’t it? Well I suppose there’s no harm in showing you the big picture. Please, walk with me Kelly."

No matter what it sounded like, Kelly knew that it wasn’t a request. For a second she considered making her move then and there but decided that she would wait and see just what he was up to. Nothing wrong with having a little bit of extra information. But only as long as she watched carefully for him to make his move. They walked across the room together until they finally ended up on the far side of the massive warehouse-like room in front of a large computer screen. This one was probably twice the size of the one they had in headquarters. Microchip would have loved it.

For the entire walk across the room Kelly could feel the eyes of Xanders bodyguards watching her every step. Apparently they were smart enough not to trust her but didn’t want to make the boss mad. That would make it harder once she made her move. She had been hoping that they were both as dumb as they looked.

Turning her attention away from her thoughts of the bodyguards, she saw that Xander was quickly punching commands into a keyboard that was situated on a podium in front of him.

"Look at this, my dear." Xander told her, his hand indicating the large screen. "Everyday around the world thousands of tons of waste are created. And instead of mankind trying to come up with a workable solution, what do they do?"

" They bury it and keep on reproducing!" Jesse Xander bellowed in answer to his own question. "Every year people make more and more children who grow up and create more and more waste!"

"Yeah no kidding! What’s your point?"

"My point, young Kelly, is that our world cannot sustain as many people or as much waste are we are creating! We are killing our planet! And I’m no longer going to stand by and watch it happen!"

"So, exactly what are you planning on doing?" Kelly asked, "Hold another demonstration?"

"Do not mock me, young one. You won’t like the results." Xander threatened, his smile disappearing for the first time. It quickly reappeared though, "But, no! The time for demonstrations is long past! What I plan to do….well I don’t exactly understand all of the technical details, to be honest. But this is what it boils down to: I plan to not only wipe out all of the world’s waste but at the same time wipe out half the world’s population!"

"You’re going to kill over two billion people? You’re f***ing crazy!" Kelly yelled in outrage, unable to stop herself.

"Well I don’t know the exact numbers, these things are hard to nail down to an exact number, but they tell me it’ll be about 2.5 billion. Of course, anyone in this building will be quite safe from it. As for people on the outside, well, it kills at random so they’ll just have to take their chances!" Xander explained matter of factly. "And as for being crazy, well, I’m afraid not. Some would say it is a fine line between madness and genius, but believe me: I am quite sane. Unfortunately the rest of the world is not! That’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to save the world!"

"When are you planning on all this happening?"

"Well, everything will be ready to go in a little under 48 hours but I’m afraid you won’t be around to see any of that." Once again the smile disappeared from his face and was replaced with one of what almost appeared to be sadness.

"And why is that?" Kelly asked cautiously. As soon as she asked she felt someone kick her in the back. She hadn’t been expecting it and she fell hard, the wind getting knocked out of her. Then she felt a strong pair of hands grab onto her hair and yank her head back. She found herself looking up into the face of Jesse Xander, who had crouched down in front of her.

"Because, my dear, you’ll be dead." He told her simply, a dark demented smile on his face. Then he pulled back and punched her hard across the side of her head.

Then she felt a big boot kick her hard in the stomach. She could taste blood and wondered if she had broken a rib or two. Then a barrage of blows continued to rain down on her from all sides at once. She lost count of how many times she had been hit and had to fight to hold back the tears and stay conscious. Finally it stopped all at once.

She could hear Xanders voice off in the distance, "Take her elsewhere and finish her off. I don’t want to bloody up the control room."

Kelly felt herself being hoisted up onto someone’s shoulder and them walking. Finally clearing some of the cobwebs away, Kelly opened her eyes to see where they were going. She saw that they were in a narrow hallway. She also saw that it had been one of Xanders bodyguards that was carrying her and that the other one was walking behind them. She was pretty sure they thought that she was out of it so she had to act now. She silently hoped that there were no others that she couldn’t see.

She used all her strength to launch herself off the back of the guy that was carrying her so that she sent herself flying shoulder first into the guy that was walking behind them. The two of them went down hard, with Kelly landing on top. She quickly jumped up and delivered a hard kick into the guy’s jaw so that he would stay down.

Not even taking a moment to catch her breath, Kelly spun around to face the other gun just in time for her to take a hard shot to the gut. Then, quicker than she would have given him credit for being able to move, he gave her a hard shot under the chin, which caused her to fall back.

"You’re gonna pay for that." Promised the large man as he loomed over her. "I’m gonna bust up that pretty little face of yours!"

Going on pure adrenaline, Kelly quickly grabbed her gun out of its holster and started to swing it around so that it was pointing at the man. Before she could get it all the way around though, the man brought his large foot around and kicked the gun from her hand. As part of her watched the gun slid across the floor, another part of her acted on instinct and swung her foot around so that it took the mans feet out from under him. After standing up she quickly came back down and dropped an elbow into his head, knocking him out as well.

After she took a second to catch her breath and try to feel out where some of her internal injures were, she stood back up and retrieved her gun. As she slid it back into its holster, she quickly formulated a plan of attack. She had lost her headset when they had been beating her up so she couldn’t try to contact Microchip again. That meant that she was on her own.

For a second she considered escaping and returning later with backup. That’s probably what Microchip would have wanted her to do, but she hated to leave a job unfinished.

She started to slowly jog back down the hallway but then realized that, considering the shape that she was in, in would probably be better if she walked. Finally she came to the door that led back into the control room.

After taking a second to catch her breath, she turned around and kicked the door open. She stood in the doorframe for a second, trying not to show how much pain she was in.

"Hello boys, guess who’s back!"

For a second there was dead silence as everyone was still in shock. "Get her!" Xander finally yelled, sparking everyone into action.

Immediately, half a dozen men and women came running at her. Luckily for her though, they were programmers and hadn’t been trained to fight. Apparently Xander had been confidant that his two bodyguards would be enough. His mistake.

Kelly fought them off as best she could. It seemed like every time she took one of them down another one would pop right up to take his place. She could see that Xander was growing more and more agitated.

"Would someone please just kill her!" pleaded Xander.

Kelly, though, just kept fighting. Taking only the occasional, glancing blow she managed to keep on top of it. She had just gotten hit by one of those occasional blows when she spotted Xanders two bodyguards heading through the door. She thought to herself that she should have used her gas gun on them. Oh well, she thought, too late now. But even as she thought that she realized that there was no way that she could take on all these people and those bodyguards at the same time. She knew that the only thing she could do was to go after Xander himself.

Ducking through the mob of people, Kelly jumped up onto a console. From there she did a flip up into the air which brought her down right next to Xander. As soon as he realized what she was doing, he tried to make a run for it. Unfortunately for him, Kelly grabbed onto the collar of his shirt.

As she pulled him closer to herself, Kelly took her gun back out of its holster and aimed it at his head. As soon as she did the oncoming mob stopped dead in their tracks.

"Now that’s what I like to see." Kelly told them as she slowly inched her way towards one of the computer consoles. Before anyone could react she pulled one of the disks out of her belt and put it in the computers disk drive.

"Go ahead and shot her you morons! Everyone knows that Kelly White isn’t a killer! She will not shot me!" Xander told them, calling her bluff.

"I wouldn’t be to sure of that!" Kelly quickly said before anyone did anything. "You’d be surprised at what I’m willing to do when my own neck’s on the line."

"Besides that," She added, "The disk that I just put into your computer contains the most powerful computer virus in existence! If I press this button, all your hard work goes down the drain!"

"So what! We can just fix it. Now that we know what to do it’ll only take us a few extra weeks!" Xander said, once again calling her bluff.

For long seconds they all just stood there, not knowing who to believe. She was considering making a run for it, as it looked as though the mob wasn’t buying her bluff, thanks to Xander.

Suddenly all of the doors went flying open and dozen of men in black came pouring through the doors. At first Kelly thought that Xander had called reinforcements. But as they started to point their weapons at the mob of peoples Kelly realized that Microchip must have called a back up squad in for her.

One of the men came over to her and, after saluting her, took Xander into custody.

"Well Kelly, it appears as though you’ve won this round." He said as he was being cuffed. "But don’t worry about me, darling. I shall return."

"Yeah I’m sure you will." Kelly started to turn away then turned back when she remembered something. "Oh yeah, by the way, this is for that sucker punch!"

And with that she brought her knee up and nailed him in the crotch.

"Kelly White?" She heard a stern voice from behind her ask.

"Yeah, that’s me."

"There’s a helicopter waiting outside to take to bake to headquarters. There’s a doctor on board to look you over." He told her as he eyed her many injuries.

"Thanks. I’ll head there now."

As she walked across the room Kelly spotted her headset laying on the floor. Picking it up she saw that there were a few spattering of blood on it. They must have been hers from when they were beating her. She gently placed it back on her head and spoke into it.

"Hey, Microchip! Can you hear me yet?" Her voice sounded tired even herself.

"Kelly!" Microchip exclaimed, showing the most amount of shock in his voice that Kelly had ever heard. "Thank goodness you’re all right! When we lost contact I was….concerned for your safety. I take it the backup got there in time then?"

"Barely! But yeah, they made it."

"Are you returning to headquarters now?"

"Yeah. I should be there within half an hour." Kelly replied, looking forward to getting back. Even if it was only to ‘The Pit’. "And, ‘Chip?"

"Yes, Kelly?"

"Leave the light on for me."