Chapter Five
By LiannaSky9
"Y'all talkin about me behind my back again?"
Cyberbeast and the Gray Zombie turned to see a young woman in shorts and a
Hawaiian-print tube top smiling broadly at them. She took off her huge oval
sunglasses and regarded them, amused.
"Honestly, you'd think I was Linda Blair, the way you two talk."
"You --" Zombie started, gaping.
"Lianna?" Cyberbeast said in disbelief.
"The one and only." She tossed her blonde hair, then laughed. "Now if
you'd kindly tell Mr. Zombie to retrieve his jaw from the deck?"
"What the hell are you doing dressed like that?" Zombie demanded.
"You expected me to wear that awful black business suit of mine? Please.
If a girl can't let her hair down on a cruise in a tropical ocean..." She
laughed again.
Cyberbeast couldn't reconcile this happy, lively young woman with the Lianna
Skywalker he knew. The CIA's expert in the paranormal was normally the
sharpest, coldest person you could want to avoid working with. Brilliant,
with an exemplary record, she was a credit to the agency -- and impossible
to get along with. She wasn't intentionally cruel (at least, he didn't think
so) but she focused with fierce intensity on the objective, always ready to
destroy whatever or whoever slowed her down.
"But why, in God's name -- " Zombie started again.
Lianna's smile disappeared. Her eyes narrowed and suddenly Cyberbeast saw
the woman he remembered, the woman whose only emotions were fury or fear.
"I was brought here to keep *you* in line." She stepped closer to Zombie,
who backed away until he struck the deck railing. Her eyes, warm and blue
as the sea just a minute before, were steel. "I know the Bureau values...
*recklessness* in its agents, but if you try any of your shit on this
mission I will personally tear you a new asshole. Got it?"
Zombie gulped. "Uh... yeah..."
"Good." She turned away and grinned at Cyberbeast, innocent and young again
-- save for the eyes, which hadn't changed. He watched her walk away. Even
though she was a quarter his size, she still intimidated him.
"God, she's insane," Zombie said from behind him. "How the hell are we
going to stand a mission with the Agency's top psychotic?"
"You've had your problems, too." Cyberbeast gave Zombie a disapproving look
-- quite effective with the cybernetic eye. "Remember the Veronica Smythe
scandal?"
"I was set up!"
"And that woman's closet they found you in? Wasn't she a key witness?"
"How the hell did you -- I mean --" Zombie growled with frustration. "All
right, so I like women. It's not a sin. But *that* woman --"
Lanz, who had arrived quietly behind Cyberbeast while Zombie raved, laughed.
"You just don't like her because she won't sleep with you."
"And don't you even start with me!" Zombie stalked away.
-------------------------
Lianna stood at the prow of the ship, looking out over the water. She felt
vaguely like the dumb quiff in that movie about the boat -- as if she really
wanted to have some pig-faced teenybopper actor holding her up.
What she felt much more concretely was a sensation that this mission would
either make her career -- or end her life.
The boat's engines stopped.
"Land ho!" a voice shouted. She turned to see the ship's captain waving
frantically. "Everybody into the shuttle!"
"That's the XIG-Mobile," Dr. Xigeous muttered, mincing past her. She sighed
and followed him.
-------------------------
"I am *not* sitting next to her," Gray Zombie declared.
"Don't be a child," Lianna said. "I don't have cooties."
"Shut up!"
Cyberbeast stood up. In the cramped shuttle, he seemed twice his already
imposing size. "Sit down," he said simply. No threat, no display of force
-- but Gray Zombie's face blanched to match his name, and he nearly broke
his leg in his haste to sit down.
Lianna patted his leg and smiled innocently. "This isn't so bad, is it?"
Zombie groaned and hid his head in his hands.
The other passengers followed suit as the shuttle rattled, jerked back, and
then careened off into the ether.
"Goddammit, Xigeous!" Lianna shouted. "Where'd you get this piece of tin,
the five-and-dime?"
"It's -- the -- XIG -- mobile!" Dr. Xigeous shouted, his teeth rattling.
Lanzman, sitting on Lianna's other side, gripped her arm with panicky
tightness. "Don't distract him!" he hissed. "He's a bad enough driver when
he's paying full attention!"
"Right," she whispered. The shuttle wrenched under them and she buried her
face against Lanzman's shoulder. "I don't wanna die..."
"There, there," Lanzman said, patting her head awkwardly. Cyberbeast
couldn't help noticing the rather daffy grin on his face.
"Hold on! Hold on!" Dr. Xigeous shouted. The shuttle spun sickeningly.
Gray Zombie and Lanzman screamed in perfect soprano harmony. Lianna
trembled, white as salt. Even Cyberbeast felt sick.
The shuttle crashed, and everything went black.
-------------------------
"Whoops," Dr. Xigeous said. The cabin lights went on again. "Hit the
switch with my elbow."
"You scream like a woman," Gray Zombie said to Lanzman with a nervous laugh.
"Actually, I believe you were a fifth interval higher than he was,"
Cyberbeast said with a smile.
Lianna looked up. "Are we dead yet?"
"Quite the opposite." Dr. Xigeous smirked at them, having recovered his
pompous posture. "We have arrived."
