(OOC: I use your pic for Lana below, but I am aware that she is not dressed in this outfit.)
Greg stirred, blinking his eyes open. His head was pounding. The last thing he remembered, he was face down in the stairwell, hands bent behind his back. He'd heard the sound and felt the cold steel of handcuffs ... and then a blast like an explosion. Only, there'd been no noise, except for the sound of bodies slamming against the wall. It was all very unclear in his muddled brain.
"You're safe," a soft, female voice reassured him. "Take it easy. You probably have a concussion. I had to--"
It was Lana Reed's voice. And by the time she went quiet, Greg's eyes had gained enough focus to allow him to see her and their surroundings. This was
not the well lit hallway of her uptown condominium. She must have seen the confusion in Greg's face because she began explaining where they were.
"What happened?" he asked, getting Lana's help in sitting up. Greg's entire body ached, far beyond his pounding head. He scanned their surroundings more and knew that where ever this place was, it wasn't
any where near Lana's most recent of residences. "How'd we get here?"
"I carried you here. Through the basement. Underground. Alleys. Even a sewer."
She was almost force feeding Greg water as he studied her expressions and listened to her voice for clues as to
what the hell was happening. Finally, his lips widened in a doubtful smile, and Greg said softly, "Bullshit. Fifteen blocks? Through the Underground?"
When he used that last word, Greg did so as a proper word. Capital City had been and was today like many cities across the nation, possessing neighborhoods that ran the gambit from very-well-off to poverty-stricken. But recent changes in Capital City -- changes for the bad -- had causes the former to get smaller and richer while the latter got larger and poorer. Every year, hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of normal folk found themselves out of work and on the street. Some were single individuals, but it was becoming more common for entire families to find themselves without money for food and shelter.
The Underground, with a capital "U", was where many of these people ended up. Basements, sewers, utility tunnels, abandoned or even still functioning subway stations, and every little passageway that connected them was being occupied -- sometimes long term -- by desperate people needing a place to hide away from the dangers of a society that didn't care about them. Greg knew, of course, that very often the horrors of the underground were even worse that what was above it. But where else were these people supposed to go? With the rise in poverty and desperation across the Capital came a rise in laws meant to keep such people out of the hair and eye sight of those with power and wealth.
It was ironic, Greg thought to himself as Lana began to explain about her childhood, that she herself had come from that very-well-off slice of the social pie but was now hiding down here where the scum of humanity lived. He hadn't gotten far enough into Lana's file to understand that while rich and comfortable, the Reeds has also been significant philanthropists before their deaths a handful of years earlier. It didn't surprise him when Lana got to the part about partying. He'd seen many children of the wealthy go down that path. Sometimes it was due to a trauma in their lives, but other times it was simply a path they chose as they stretched their legs.
When she began talking about committing crimes -- mostly for the excitement -- that didn't surprise Greg either. But when she got to the jewelry store robberies, that most certainly did. When the picture began to get clearer, he suddenly found himself asking, "The Aurora heist...? That was you?"
The FBI had been called in to help with a string of jewelry store robberies after the
Double C found itself stumped. Each of the thefts had the earmarks of being an inside job. But each of the stores was independently owned; they each used different gem merchants and supply vendors; each was protected by a different alarm company; they had no common employees; and they were serviced by armored cars from different companies taking their daily revenues to different banks. The security footage had shown a perp' coming into view after the stores had closed, more often than not setting off the motion detectors and subsequent alarms. After taking what he wanted -- or now, Greg realized, what
she wanted -- the thief then left camera view again and was never to be seen again.
The FBI had taken over the investigation after the fourth robbery when something new and unexplainable occurred. The thief -- Lana, by her own admission -- finished the job, then ...
took a seat! She dropped into a chair in a corner close to the door and simply waited for the police response. Greg hadn't been assigned to the case himself, but he'd heard about the footage. A few minutes into the search of the store, someone called out, "
She's still here!"
Greg was told it was like chickens running around with their heads cut off. The officers at the monitors kept telling those out in the store where she was being seen in the camera shots; and those searching the store kept telling those at the monitors that they were seeing things. It was, as Greg's great grandfather would have called it, akin to a Chinese fire drill. And then, to make things even more interesting, a pair of black SUVs with Federal plates but no other identifiers on them pulled up, and the men inside claimed jurisdiction, ordering every one else -- Double C and FBI alike -- off the premises.
"That was when the
men in black got on my trail," Lana told Greg, the concern obvious in her eyes. "I don't know who they are, but they want me."
She went on to explain about her ability to camouflage, giving Greg a demonstration. It was amazing! It was as if she had a cannon up her sleeve, except that she had no sleeves and there was no explosion, except that of the chair disintegrating into a hundred or so shards all across the needle room.
After she explained that that was how she'd overpowered what she was calling the MIBs, Greg asked, "Are they still alive...? I mean,
I am. So, I'm thinking that...?"
Lana reassured him that she hadn't killed anyone. He studied her for a moment. It was obvious that she was hurting. It was obvious that this wasn't the life she would choose if she had a chance to make such a decision. It was also obvious to Greg that Lana not only needed help but
wanted it, too. She could have left him there in that stairwell to deal with the MIBs and the charges of
Aiding and Abetting a Fugitive that would surely have come in short order. But she hadn't. She hadn't left him behind but had instead carried him over her shoulder through the Underground for fifteen blocks.
Greg chuckled, and when Lana asked what was humorous, he explained. "I still find it amazing that you could do that ... carry me all that way, I mean." Greg let his gaze drop to
Lana's body for a moment, studying her ...
ogling her, actually. He realized suddenly that he hadn't truly taken in her physical beauty until this moment. She was a very well put together young woman, yet, "I mean, I outweigh you by sixty, seventy pounds ... and it's not like you're a body builder or anything. Don't get me wrong, Miss Reed. I'm no male chauvinist pig, but ... really ... even with your, how did you phrase it ...
specialness...? You have to admit, it's hard to fathom."
He listened to Lana's reply, then asked, "So ... what now? You're a person of interest, a witness and a hero, actually, in a bank robbery. And now, you're the prime suspect in a string of jewelry store heists. Plus..." He smirked, chuckling, "...now you've assaulted two supposedly federal agents
and kidnapped a third. Theoretically, I should be putting cuffs on you and taking you in for questioning. But ... I figure if I try--" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "--I might find myself bouncing off that wall."
