Beauty

“I told you to grab the bag and go!”

“Forget about it! We can’t go back!”

“Shit-! They’re right behind us!”

“Shit! Look out!”

Two armed robbers flee the scene of their latest robbery, each of them armed with a stikzap, fashioned out of recycled waste. As they run down the back alleyways of Bonham City, they are pursued by a response team consisting of two Hanks Profilers and three centurions. Cornering the robbers in a fenced in alley, the centurions open their chambers, firing bolts at the two culprits. Jumping behind two barrels, they withstand incoming laser fire, waiting for their chance to strike.

A Hanks Profiler descends on them and when they poke at it with their stikzaps, it explodes in a ball of flame. Shrapnel is sent flying through the alley, leaving no remains of the robbers. The centurions set their eyes to inspect, and scan the area for a heart shaped locket, made entirely of solid gold. Some viscera is plastered to the walls and ground near the blast zone, but apparently nothing else remains. The consensus is made by the centurions nonverbally that the locket has been destroyed. The remaining Hanks Profiler inspects the area and finds no signs of life. It sends out a lightspeed call to Network Centurion, alerting the entire system of what has transpired.

Before the centurions can even reload their zapguns, four more of them and two more Hanks Profilers are on the scene. Wrist-to-wrist contact transfers all data of the crime to each individual responding centurion and the Hanks Profilers were alerted with the rest of the Network. For a few moments the lot of them stands over the scene making sure that they have met all regulations, before departing back into the night.

At the mouth of the alleyway and peeking beyond a corner, a young girl named Beauty gazes in total shock; largely innocent to violence of any kind, she stands petrified. A total of seven centurions and three Hanks Profilers pile out onto the sidewalk and knock the girl over. From her hand drops a small brown bag that is subsequently trampled by the lawmen. “No!” She cries, but a centurion just stares back at her and tells her to go home. When she had dropped the bag, it was at least half full with air, but now it was as flat as the street it fell on. As soon as the group clears the bag, she runs over to pry it off the street, opening it up to see what is inside.

A shiny golden necklace emerges from the bag, drawing the attention of a single centurion who orders the rest of the group remain. “You, infant!” He yells at her, “Hand it over.” And yanking the necklace from her hand he determines whether it is the necklace they were searching for. When he notices that the necklace had no locket, he throws it to the ground, orders the girl to pick it up. As he laughs and walks away, Beauty dumps the rest of the bag into her hand and outcomes a flattened gold locket. Whisking the bobble into her pocket with the rest of the necklace, she runs down the street in the direction of her home.

Hasty with fear and heart beating fast, her feet do not seem to keep up with the urge she has to return home. She runs so fast that she even trips over a dreamer in the streets, dream-pipe in hand. Awakening from his hallucination, he barely manages to open his mouth before Beauty is long gone. Now coming to her door, she tumbles to her feet and cries for her mama. She tells her mama exactly what happened and tells her exactly what she has, sobbing in between each word. When she is done, her mama gets up, shuts the door in her face and turns off the light.

Now more frightened and confused than ever, she sits outside crying, begging for her mama to open up the door. "GET OUT!" Her mama screamed at her from inside the house, and this made Beauty cry even louder. All of a sudden thundering out the door - as if in response - Pa screams and points at her. "GET OUT! GET OUT YOU NASTY CRIMINAL!" He screams, and she starts running as fast as she can. "WE DON'T WANT YOU HERE!"

Beauty runs for her life, she runs for her freedom, she runs for her home, but she is running to the street. With thoughts racing back in forth in her mind, she asks herself if she is not broken. Running past bright signs made of plasma with the words, "HERE TO SAVE - NETWORK CENTURION," on them she feels as though she does not know who to believe. Stopping to catch her breath and look around, she just keeps crying, "Mama!" and, "Pa!"

Spotting the neutral light of an electric bulb in the near distance, she wanders into an abandoned building as a storm creeps over the horizon. Lightning flashes throughout the sky just before the loud crack of thunder is heard, and Beauty makes quick to the entrance. Ducking into a patch of overgrowth that hides a hole in the wall, she emerges on the other side in a dark room where she can hear the faint sound of a leaky pipe. Perhaps feeling too exhausted to go on, she drops to a patch of floor and falls to sleep.

When she is awaken by the sun, a sliver of sunlight pierces through a crack in the ceiling to fall on her face. Peeking through the hole she came in, she feels as though the day is calling. For a brief moment before the long life of hardship ahead of her, she forgets about the pain of the last night and forgets why she is where she is. Leaving her resting place, she steps outside to see the sun.