Crossfire (Book 1) (The Omega Group) (2 page)

After hours of nothing but the hum of the florescent lights
in the ceiling, Mirissa heard voices in what must have been a hallway outside
her room. People were walking toward her door and speaking in hushed tones.
About what, she didn’t know. For a moment there was silence, then came clicking
noises and the sound of air escaping as the door slowly eased out of the room.
It didn’t swing on hinges like all of the other doors Mirissa was accustomed
to. Instead, it pushed out in one piece and then slid completely away behind
the wall.
Nifty,
she thought.

The suits that walked through the door were definitely not
what Mirissa had been expecting. A leather-clad behemoth with more fingers than
teeth was more in line with her experiences. But not this pair of Park Avenue
Barbie and Ken look-alikes. The woman was several inches shorter than Mirissa’s
six feet and wore a simple blue blouse and black trousers with sensible shoes.
Her blond hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail that screamed “Don’t
mess with me!” Her partner looked a little softer, with short brown hair that
was receding a little at the crowns. About the same height as Mirissa, he wore
stylish slacks and a button-down shirt.

Walking into the room, they stood at the table, directly
across from where Mirissa sat, and dropped a manila folder in front of her.
Still no words, just the sound of the door sliding back into place and the
clicking sound of whatever locking mechanism it possessed engaging.

Mirissa eyed Barbie, then the folder, and then sat back with
her arms crossed over her chest. Two could play at this game.

With a smirk just forming at the corners of his mouth, Ken
spoke first. “Mirissa, my name is Ken Hodges, and this,” he motioned to Barbie,
“is Jackie Barns.”

“Thank God you didn’t say Barbie,” Mirissa mumbled.

 “Mirissa,” Ken started, “we brought you here because
we believe you are uniquely suited to our… organization, and we’d like to
discuss with you how your talents might be utilized on a grander scale.”

“What could you possibly know about me or my
talents
?”

This time it was Barbie, or Jackie. “Mirissa Colson, age
eighteen. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. Mother, Myrine, left when
you were seven years old and your father, Steve, raised you. An exceptional
student throughout your school career, although, according to your high school
guidance counselor, you showed a lack of social skills and didn’t participate
in extracurricular activities.”

“At age seven you began training in Tae Kwon Do. Two years
later you added Aikido, and Shotokan Karate two years after that. At age
thirteen you started training in the Keysi Fighting Method, and now you hold
black belts in all four.”

“Close,” Mirissa said. “I’m nineteen, not eighteen, and KFM
uses bracelets, not belts.”

“You have never been sick a day in your life,” Jackie
continued as if there hadn’t been any interruption, “and the physical exams you
underwent throughout your martial arts career showed your respiratory and
cardio vascular systems are extraordinarily efficient.”

Pointing at the file on the table, Ken said, “In short,
Mirissa, we know everything about you.”

Feeling more than a little unsettled by the amount of
information these two seemed to have, Mirissa opened the file in front of her.
What struck her first was the photo on the inside cover. Not the five by seven
school photo of her from her last year in high school, but the small wallet
size picture of her ring.

What do they know about my ring that would make them have
a picture of it in my file
?

As Mirissa flipped through the pages, she saw copies of her
high school transcripts (straight A’s, of course) and medical reports from her
family doctor detailing her unique abilities to metabolize oxygen and food into
incredibly high amounts of energy. Even at the tender age of seven, she’d had
the metabolism of a highly trained Olympic athlete. What made her system unique
were the large amounts of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, stored in her muscles
and her ability to break it down and re-synthesize it at an alarmingly quick
rate. In short, Mirissa’s body could create enough energy to allow her to go
full throttle and sustain it for as long as she required.

Along with the information on her, there were also pages on
her father. His old military files from his time as a Navy SEAL, and his medical
records. Nothing unusual there.

Then, when Mirissa turned to the last page of the folder,
she found a single sheet on her mother. Other than her picture and few vital
statistics, there wasn’t much. It would seem the investigative skills of these
people, whoever they were, weren’t as good as they thought.

It was then that Ken took his turn at speaking. “As you can
see, we have been watching you for quite some time. We are fully aware of your
abilities, your history, and your current
employment
, if you will.”

Mirissa’s thoughts whirled a mile a minute. How could anyone
know this much about her? And to what purpose? Were they going to arrest her
for something she’d done in the past year? Were they going to keep her locked
up to study her? What was their endgame?

Outwardly, Mirissa appeared relaxed and disinterested in her
surroundings. She looked bored, something she had trained herself to do in
unknown situations since she was thirteen. But the truth was quite the
opposite. Every sense Mirissa possessed was on high alert. She had sized up her
captors the moment they entered the room and had already chosen her moves to
incapacitate them when the time came. The question was, when would that be?
Even if she took them down now there would still be the problem of getting out
that unique door. She had to bide her time and wait for the right opportunity.

Ken continued, completely oblivious to Mirissa’s thoughts
and the serious danger he was in. “We represent a group of extraordinary
people, much like yourself, and would like for you to meet them. I can’t go
into too much detail before you have the proper clearance, but let’s just say
that these people have their own set of unique abilities and they use those
abilities for the greater good of all mankind.”

As Mirissa waited for him to continue, Barbie (the nickname
seemed to have stuck) walked over to the door, placed her right eye in front of
the scanner, and waited for it to open and slide behind the wall.

Now we’re getting somewhere
, Mirissa thought.
Twenty-five seconds to put the two of them on the floor and then she would be
out. But out to where? What was on the other side of that door? And how many
other people were out there? Best to wait, she thought, until she had a better
idea of where she was and what she was up against.

Ken grabbed the file from the desk and started toward the
door. “You coming?” he asked.

Well, duh
, Mirissa thought, as she slowly rose from
her chair. Sitting for so long had made her butt numb, but not to worry. She could
take out these two with a numb butt and both arms tied behind her back.

Once they were out of the room, Mirissa followed Ken and
Barbie down a long white corridor with no windows or artwork of any kind. Their
complete lack of decorating skills seemed to be a theme and was starting to get
on her nerves. At the end of the hall, Ken used another retinal scanner to open
another hidden door, and they entered an office that looked completely out of
place in this building. The walls were a warm coffee color and most were
covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves made of oak. The one empty wall held
two rows of photographs of people Mirissa didn’t know. Below each picture were
two sets of dates – one birth and one death. On the large oak desk sat a phone
and a computer set-up that NASA would envy. There were no papers or personal
items strewn across it as you might expect, but the sheer tidiness of the room
put Mirissa’s heart at rest. This was the kind of office that she would be
comfortable in, if she ever had an office, that is. The overly large leather
chair behind the desk was turned around, its back facing her, but she could
feel the strength and power it radiated.

When the chair spun around, Mirissa realized her mistake. It
wasn’t the chair that radiated power. It was its occupant.

Her mother stared straight at her.

Mirissa tried to take in her surroundings and make sense of
it all, but just couldn’t wrap her head around any of it. One minute she was in
her living room dressed in her prom gown, and the next she was standing in a
clearing in some woods wearing – what? A Xena Warrior Princess costume?

Dozens of women, all wearing similar costumes, were in the
midst of some sort of battle training. Off to her right stood a twenty-foot-tall
statue of a beautiful woman.

The stone woman wore a tunic that came down to her knees
along with a quiver of arrows strapped to her back. The statue sported a
hunting knife at its waist and in her hands, she held a bow with an arrow at
the ready. Her long, braided hair hung over her shoulder to her belt line. She
looked regal and powerful and more than a little intimidating.

“Welcome to Tritonia, Mirissa.”

The sound of the woman’s voice quickly brought Mirissa back
from her study of the statue and without thinking she took her fighting stance,
ready for whatever might come her way.

“Fear not, young warrior. No harm will come to you in this
place. This has always been, and will always be, your home.”

Although she had no reason to believe this stranger, Mirissa
found herself relaxing. Some part of her instinctively trusted this woman. She
had brown eyes, much like Mirissa’s, which showed kindness, and her
shoulder-length black hair perfectly framed her friendly face.

Mirissa thought back to what had happened in her living
room. The ring must have been laced with some kind of drug, causing her to have
hallucinations the caliber of which Hollywood would be proud. Mirissa focused
on slowing her breathing until she felt centered – something years of martial arts
training had taught her. When she had her mind settled and felt in complete
control, she opened her eyes, only to find the same woman staring back at her
with a smile on her face.

“Where am I?” Mirissa asked.

“That is a question that is not so easily answered. Right
now, your body is exactly where you last left it. It is only your consciousness
that has travelled here. This is the island of Tritonia, birth place of all
Amazon Warriors.”

Amazons? As in the mythical warrior women from two
thousand years ago? Those Amazons?

This wasn’t the first time Mirissa had heard that name. For
as long as she could remember, her classmates had made fun of her height. She’d
been a head taller than everyone else in her class since kindergarten,
including some of her teachers. Although most tall girls tried to hide their
height by slouching, Mirissa had never seen the point. She was always going to
be tall; she felt no need to add hunchbacked.

In the eighth grade, a particularly nasty girl name Cindy
Fossler had made it her life’s mission to destroy Mirissa’s confidence and had
given her the nickname “Mirissazon”, which had unfortunately stuck with her
throughout high school. At almost six feet tall by the time she was fifteen,
there was no hope of ever getting rid of that name.

As Mirissa looked around the clearing at the other women,
she noticed for the first time that she wasn’t the tallest person there. In
fact, every woman present, including the woman standing with her, was around
the same height as her. Wow, she was actually average height for the first time
in her life. She could get used to this.

“My name is Myrine and I am queen of the Amazons,” said her
self-appointed welcoming committee.

“That’s my mother’s name,” Mirissa said. “I don’t understand
what’s happening. How did I get here?”

“Did your guardian not explain this journey to you?” Myrine
asked with a slightly confused look on her face.

“Uh, well, I haven’t actually met my guardian yet,” said
Mirissa, feeling a little like she’d just gotten caught passing a note in
class.

Myrine let out a short breath, smiled, and said, “You are
very much like your mother. Walk with me and I will explain everything.”

As they walked out of the clearing, they passed the statue
that had captured Mirissa’s attention earlier. Myrine told her that is was a
statue of Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the Hunt.

“Amazons have worshipped Artemis for millennia,” she said.
“She is the reason that we exist, and she has blessed us with all of the
attributes we need to accomplish our task.”

After seeing the doubt in Mirissa’s eyes, Myrine stopped
walking and placed her hands on Mirissa’s shoulders. “There is much in the
world that is kept hidden. This place, for example, no longer exists in your
dimension. Tritonia was a large, beautiful island country off of Africa’s
northwest coast. The Amazon tribe lived and flourished there for hundreds of
years. Unfortunately, our beautiful home was destroyed almost two thousand
years ago during our volcano’s eruption. In your dimension, all that is left of
Tritonia is seven small islands you call the Canary Islands. Now, Amazons must
travel here in the same manner you have.”

Before Mirissa could open her mouth to let out the litany of
questions that were running through her head, Myrine simply walked away,
looking over her shoulder to ensure that Mirissa was following.

“Although history has many stories about the Amazons, the
truth has been kept well hidden. As with all ancient hidden truths, great tales
have been woven over the centuries that may have had a seed of truth in them,
but that seed grew into a mighty oak of lies. We were, and are, warriors. Our
tribe has only women, but not because we murdered our male children, as many tales
profess. We simply don’t have any male children. We have fought many battles
over the last two and a half millennia, but none of those battles were for
territory or riches. Our battles have always been to save mankind from the
demons that wish to destroy or enslave it.”

This was all too much for Mirissa to take. Ancient Amazon
warriors, demons bent on killing humanity, and, oh yeah, a Greek goddess. What
kind of drug was on that damned ring?

“OK,” Mirissa said. “This has been really interesting, in a
crazy sort of way, but right now I’d like to go back to my house and my father,
please.”

With an understanding smile, Myrine grasped Mirissa’s hand
and spoke with an authoritative tone. “This is not a choice that you can make,
Mirissa. It is a destiny that has already been written for you, as it was with
your mother and her mother before her. You cannot change your destiny. You must
embrace it.”

With that, Myrine was on her way again and Mirissa had no
choice but to follow. They were almost back at the clearing where they started
and, she thought, that would be her best chance at getting home.

The other women were still doing battle practice when they
returned but as Myrine and Mirissa entered the clearing everyone stopped to
look at them. A woman that appeared to be only a year or two older than Mirissa
came over to introduce herself.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Asteria. Why don’t you come practice
with me?”

“Sure. Why not?” Mirissa said. She’d had about all she could
take of talk right now and thought a little sparring might do her some good.
She hoped that it might help clear her head.

Asteria took her by the arm as they started toward the
center of the clearing. “How many black belts do you have?” she asked. “I’ve
got five, right now, but should have my sixth by the end of the year. Then I’ll
really be able to kick some Kakos butt! Oh, that’s right, you don’t know about
the Kakos yet. Not to worry, your Guardian will teach you everything you ever
wanted to know about Kakos, and a whole bunch you didn’t want to know. For now,
let’s have some fun.”

Mirissa didn’t know why, but she really liked Asteria, and
before she even had a chance to question her judgment, she was on the receiving
end of an expertly wielded roundhouse kick.

 
Oh, it’s on
.

This was amazing. Mirissa had never sparred like this in all
of the years she’d been training. Asteria stayed with her strike for strike,
blocking her punches and kicks quickly and easily. Her speed was astonishing,
going from a wheel kick to an elbow strike then a spinning back kick in the
time it took most of Mirissa’s opponents to just get into ready stance.

Round and round they went. Fists, feet and elbows in a
constant flurry of movement. Absorbed in the pure joy of giving everything she
had to a fight, Mirissa lost sight of Myrine.

********

Myrine walked over to the statue of Artemis, keeping her eye
on Mirissa.

“She will do well, Myrine.”

“Yes, I believe she will, but I am concerned that her
unusual upbringing will hinder her. She has been trained well and obviously has
the natural talent we hoped she would, but she has had no knowledge of who she
is and what lies ahead of her. Can we really expect her to be ready?”

“Are any of us ever truly ready when the time arises?
Mirissa’s destiny is a different one than our other Amazons and the upbringing
you speak of might just be exactly what she needs. Only time will tell, but as
of now we will give her everything she needs to succeed. Have you assigned her
an appropriate Guardian?”

Myrine allowed a smile to grace her lips. “Yes,” she said.
“I believe I have chosen her Guardian well, Artemis.”