SHOOTING GALLERY

She strained.

She was having trouble remembering.

She had been walking downtown. Right. Going to meet Stanley at the Eastside Cafe for lunch. Or someone.

And then, suddenly..

She was kneeling on some cold hard surface.

There had been something, a voice behind her?

It was dark. Pitch black.

Something thudded.

Oh god.

I’ve been snatched by some psycho. He’s got me trussed up in his damn torture dungeon!

Only..

She wasn’t trussed... was she?. She was kneeling, yes, but her arms were free. She twitched them in various directions

But then why was she blindfolded?

Her hands seemed stuck in place, but she jerked them up, touching tentatively at her face.

No blindfold.

Imblind! blindblind..

No. Yes. Her fingers stroked in confusion. Her eyes were closed.

She pried them open, dropped her fingers away.

Concrete. Drab. A torture dungeon after all.

Only..

No. Not a dungeon at least. Sunlight streamed in from somewhere.

She was kneeling, her back to a wall. On the floor tight around her, there was a small neat square, done in lines of white paint. Paint? Again, she had to force her fingers to reach out, touch it.

Yes. Cool soothing white paint. Nothing unusual about it at all. She slid along the inside edge, all the way to the corner.

Why did she feel such a reluctance to..

Thud.

She looked down at her body. Tanned and brown, maybe a little pudgy, but not badly shaped at all. Same as always. Except that it was wearing underwear, and nothing else. Her usual white cotton bra and panties.

She forced her head to rise, forced her eyes to look beyond The Square.

An empty warehouse? Some sort of industrial space, anyway. Stained bare walls, reaching up high to a bank of windows, the source of the sunlight; she could see a strip of bright blue sky.

There were other women there.

She.. Zeta, the woman in the bra and panties remembered that she called herself Zeta Mendoza... stared at her fellow.. what? captives?

She counted. Twenty.. twenty two of them, besides herself. All young or at least youngish, but otherwise a wild assortment of skin colors and body types. . A tall thin blonde. A busty woman with lots of jet-black curls. An Indian, maybe, the country not a cowboys-and. Like her, they were all in their underwear (mostly plain, but one or two just-barely-wearing bits of silk.) Like her, they were each kneeling, back to one of the two longer walls, each inside her own white box. Their hands were resting on their thighs, upside down, fingers pointing vaguely upward.

Thud.

Their heads were all raised, as if they were awake, but their eyes were all closed, their faces expressionless. Apart from the slow rise and fall of their breathing, none of them moved. For some reason, Zeta’s eyes were drawn especially to those fingers...

She looked down at her own hands.

They were resting in the same position on her thighs.

She gave a little squeak and ripped them free, curled them against her chest.

She looked at the woman kneeling next to her. (There was only one, to her right. To her left was an empty white square. Only two empty squares left..) A black woman, very black, with a wide frizz of hair, equally dark, except here and there, there were strands of pure white.

Like the lines..

“Hsst!” Zeta’s whisper came out rusty, like a seldom-used gate. “Hey! Where are we?”

No reaction. Not a twinge.

She started to speak more loudly to the other women, but some primal poke came from the back of her mind.

shuddup! keep quiet! watch out!

Thud.

For the first time, she really heard the sound. Only it was something she felt in her bones rather than through her ears. A vast metal hammer, pounding on.. more metal?

gotta get out gottagetout!

She strained.

Her legs wouldn’t move. They just twitched. She uncurled her hands, placed them against the floor.

Pushed.

“eeergh!”

Slowly, slowly, she breaking free of.. whatever it was.

Thud.

It’s getting closer..

She teetered on the brink of a panic attack; she’d had a couple, but not since those twenty-hour days when she was completing her nurse’s training. She clamped down.

Breath. Slow. Careful. In. Out.

Relax..

“No!” Only a little louder. “No!”

Back to pushing. Pushing against the neat white lines..

Thud.

i don’t have enough time.

Unwillingly, she looked down the rows of women again. If she was the latest..

They were all young, or youngish, yes, but.. the further down the row..

The first woman, the last woman..

Her underwear was looking a little.. faded.

Her silky straight hair reached to her waist, and was as white as the lines.

So cool and soothing...

Thud. Bang.

Zeta was suddenly very glad the woman’s eyes were closed. She stomach tried to turn over, and she was also glad she hadn’t made that lunch appointment.

It would be so easy..

Just let her hands slide back into place.

Close her eyes..

Watch the delicious white lines intersect..

“No.”

Thud. Clang.

Back to straining.

Clunk.

It slowly occurred to her that these new sounds were coming from someplace else, closer by. Coming in through her ears.

There was a tall narrow door she hadn’t noticed before, a metal thing tinged with rust, and now it began to slide open, a tortured protesting inch at a time. She watched in frozen suspense. Shreek. Shreek. Shreeeek. Beyond was nothing but darkness. But.. ordinary darkness. Abandoned-warehouse darkness. Not like..

She turned her head and confirmed it, though there was no real need. Yes. There was a door at the other end of the room, much much bigger. Not so rusty. And when it opened..

Thud.

She turned back to the first door. Was there a shape there now in that frame, darker darkness? Yes. It stood for a long moment, then stepped forward.

Somehow, an incredulous laugh bubbled from Zeta’s lips. It was another woman, and she was wearing..

What was she wearing?

It was some sort of costume, colored a gaudy silver, with matching boots and gloves, leaving the wearer’s arms and legs bare. On her head was a helmet, again silver, with a pink-colored visor and a pair of dainty antenna poking out at matching angles. Tubes curled behind her shoulders. Strapped to one side of her waist was a holster, and in the holster was.. something.. even more bright and shiny.

I’ve gone mad. Or maybe this is all a dream.

Zeta reached up and pinched herself. Ow. Strange how freely her hand moved all of a sudden.

The woman in the suit stood at the edge of the room, staring intently at the floor.

Thud.

They both looked at The Other Door. Zeta just for a moment, then back. The newcomer gave it the same scrutiny she’d given the floor.

“Get out!” Zeta hissed the words and realized that there was a whole mixture of emotion behind them. Concern, fear, anger.. jealousy?!

The silver woman didn’t hear or ignored her, but resumed her examination of the floor. Then she drew the shiny object from its holster.

It was a gun, of course, straight out one of those stupid Tales of the Confederation movies her brothers watched when they were all kids. The sight of it twisted Zeta’s stomach into further knots. It was beautiful and horrible all at once. Its wielder pointed it intently at.. nothing in particular, a random spot on the floor, adjusted the aim a fraction of an inch, and

Fired.

The sparks whizzed cheerfully down the barrel, accompanied with a cheery sort of wooot woot noise. Even as Zeta started laughing again, something

Snapped

Violently, sending her tumbling to the floor, sprawling across the white lines.

Only they weren’t white anymore, but a dirty faded gray. She stared at them from her new position, from behind the spilled strands of brown hair. They had always been that way, of course. And there were others streaked uselessly across the floor, off towards where all the other women were still kneeling.

THUD.

Very close now.

The silver woman walked down the floor, almost casually, the gun in her hand, but hanging at her side. The sound of her heels were very loud.

Some of the other women began to stir, opening their eyes and looking around. Most of them appeared confused, but one, the First One, she wasn’t confused at all, she was up, and yes, her eyes were white and horrible, and she was coming at the silver woman, a swirling blur-

look out!

yes! get interfering wench!

Only one of those thoughts came from Zeta’s head, and she wasn’t entirely sure which it was.

Zap!

The gun-wielder didn’t even look in the attacker’s direction. The First flew backwards almost as fast as she had leaped, and thudded painfully against the wall. As she slid down to the ground..

She was attractive enough, but quite ordinary-looking, except that she had a lot of gray dust in her long brown hair. From her sprawl on the floor, she blinked at the shooter, and then at her own hands, like she had never seen them.

The silver woman turned a knob or something on the side of the gun.

THUD.

The Other Door slid open. The Only Door. Beyond it was the true blackness. Zetathrall’s body was already on the floor, but it now arranged itself in the proper position. On her belly. In worship. Her Master, Her Owner, was gracing her with His presence, filling the darkness, filling the doorway top to bottom, side to side, his glorious stench filling her nostrils. The Lines would be rewoven, and the interloper would fill one of the remaining-

zap.

A tiny, insignificant sound, and He laughed, laughed with all of his thralls’ throats. Laughed and laughed and...

Slowly trailed off in puzzlement.

Zeta lifted her head. He was still there, massive, overwhelming, glowing, and she still craved him...

But the silver woman was still there, too. A sharp spark standing out distinct amidst his fire. Standing.. casually. She gave the gun a twirl, and slapped it back into her holster.

He looked down at his chest, all of his eyes bubbling.

What was left of his chest. Most of it had been replaced with a very large hole. He roared, another complex combination, surprise, rage, disbelief, and even, yes, a bit of childish petulance. Flames spewed, white and blinding, and his various remnants were falling into the hole, which went down and down, almost all the way to forever.

Almost. As far away as it was, the impact when it finally came was massive, a howling wind that blew out the windows and sent pigeons scattering for blocks.

And then the hole caved in on itself and there was nothing left but a ringing silence. (The ringing, Zeta dimly realized, was from a multitude of alarms blaring outside, car alarms and burglar alarms, and God knew what else..)

She saw now what the monster had really looked like, and she retched noisily. She wasn’t the only one.

When she had control enough to take an interest in her surroundings again, the silver woman was scraping at a small burnt spot on the floor with the pointed toe of her boot. Finally, apparently satisfied, she turned to go. None of the other women appeared to be coherent enough to even notice, but Zeta managed to push herself up off the floor.

“Wait! Who.. what.. what was that?!”

The silver woman paused, looked down at her from benevolent but Olympian heights.

“Don’t worry, miss. The situation has been dealt with.”

“But.. I... Who are you?”

The woman gave a salute with only just possibly a hint of mockery.

“Galactic Patrolwoman Second Class Amber St. Clair, at your service.”

“How did you.. where..”

“I received a report of a disturbance in the area, and I investigated.”

She turned to go, turned back with a speculative expression that made Zeta nervous.

“You did well, you know. As well as you could under the circumstances.” She reached at her belt, the other side of her belt, where there was, Zeta noticed for the first time, a small storage pouch. ‘Amber’ fiddled with it for a moment, as if confused by the opening mechanism, and extracted something, a silvery disc twice the size of quarter, which she handed to Zeta. It seemed to buzz slightly. Handle with care. The uncompromising lettering ran in circles:

WHITE KNIGHT COSTUME SHOP
142 PARAGON AVENUE
CUSTOMER RECOMMENDATION
HALF OFF ONE COSTUME RENTAL

She slowly turned the disc over; on the other side was a single shape, not the chess-piece she was half-expecting, but a multi-pointed star, bright and shining. She touched the center with her thumb, and the buzzing was stronger.

“The Patrol is always looking for new talent.”

Zeta looked up, and opened her mouth, not at all sure what was going to come out.

“I don’t think I could go around shooting people all the time. Even people like.. well...”

Amber.. Patrolwoman St. Clair.. nodded.

“Perhaps not. It’s definitely not for everybody.” She then quirked an eyebrow. “But who says we don’t need doctors, too?”

“But I’m just a-”

“Healers, then. Speaking of which..” She gestured at all the other women, who were beginning to show signs of coming back to life. None of them looked seriously injured, but at the very least there were lots of cuts and bruises..

Zeta rose slowly to her feet. The remains of the box were under her bare soles. She turned the disc in her fingers, and then scuffed angrily, scattering the paint further. She tucked the disc into her bra, and turned to help the black woman up. More emphatic sirens were sounding now from various directions, getting closer.

Their clothes and purses and stuff were mercifully all heaped in a pile in the corner.

It was quite a while before Zeta thought to wonder what a Galactic Patrolwoman First Class would be like, and when she did, there were a lot of people milling around, and none of them were wearing space helmets...