G.E.N.I.

Somewhere in the Dark Future….

On a lonely two-lane blacktop, miles from the wild of the city streets, the rain pours down in a heavy drizzle. A lonely girl runs down the shoulder, an orphan at 17. Her hooded is soaked from the rain. Her jeans are ripped and her faced is scratched from running through woods trying to escape her nightmare.  As she runs down this road, headlights from a car come up from the distance behind her. She looks back and panics at the sight and dashes in to the nearby woods and hides before she is seen. The car drives passed her totally unaware of her existence. She begins to walk down the road until she reaches a curve in the road.

The Road continues down the slop of the hill she has been walking on. The rain has finally stopped. She looks down the hill at the scope of the world in front of her. Down the hill off in the near distance is the coast that she could see sparkling in the night.  She jumps the guard rail and proceeds down the hill. As she goes down the hill, she begins to make out what looks like part of an old freeway overpass still standing, with flickers of light dancing around it and various types of beat up vehicles near by. She quietly creeps up behind bushes and trees until she reaches a group sitting around campfire. She can feel the warmth of the fire from her hiding spot. 

She watches the group of about 6 people around the fire sitting on lawn chairs. As she watches she hears her stomach growl. She looks down at her stomach and clasps it wit her hand, when she looks up the crowd is staring in her direction. She ducks behind a tree in fear. “It’s ok,” she hears a voice call out. She looks back from behind the tree and sees someone motioning her to come to them. She musters up her courage and walks out from behind the tree and heads towards the group. As she gets closer she begins to see the group from the light of the fire.

The man motioning to her looks like some kind of Native American. He is dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, with work boots. He has long silver and black hair, and wears an eagle feather tied to a braid on his right side. He motions her to sit and a young man about her age gets out of his chair and offers it to her and leaves, so she sits. The young man who gave up his chair comes back with a paper plate of food and hands it to her. She takes the food and stutters a “Thank You,” the young man smiles at her and sits down on a stump. She begins to eat the food. The Native American introduces himself as Red Eagle. He tells a tale of the nomad life they are forced to lead through misfortune and tragedy, he asks her name, she looks up at Red Eagle still not sure if she can trust these people, “Julie Sour” is what she replies. Red Eagle smiles, and reassures her that she is safe here.

After she finishes eating a young woman about her age extends her hand and says “I’m Angie, come with me,” she takes her hand and is led over to an RV, and they go in. Inside the RV Angie points to the bathroom and says “Get undressed,” The girl goes in and closes the door and gets undressed. Angie knocks on the door and opens it, Angie hands her a pile of clothes and says “put these on,” She dresses in black jeans, black shirt and leather jacket and puts on some combat boots. Before she opens the door of the bathroom she puts the device in the inside pocket of her leather jacket. When she steps out of the bathroom Angie is waiting with a pair of scissors and a bottle of black hair dye.

Angie dyes her blonde locks jet black and hacks her hair into a bob. While she is being made over Angie and Julie talk about why they are helping her. Angie replies “It’s what we do.”

She looks into a mirror and asses her new look, Angie goes into the bathroom, takes her clothes and puts them in an incinerator, she doesn’t recognize herself. Angie smiles “What do ya think?” Julie Smiles, and plays with her hair. They exit the RV and head back to the campfire. As they head back the sound of sirens can be heard in the distance getting closer. She panics, but Angie reassures her, “Stay Calm,” and grabs her hand. By the time they get to the campfire and sit down Red Eagle is talking with the authorities.  After a few minutes the man Red Eagle was talking to gets into a black SUV and drives off.

Red Eagle comes back to the campfire and sits down. “They say you murdered your parents,” he pulls out a cigarette and lights it.  Julie jumps out of her seat “THAT’S A LIE!” “They killed my parents.”

“Why?” red eagle asks, Julie reaches into her leather jacket and pulls out the device. And tells the story of what happened earlier that night.

Flashback: A log cabin in the middle of the woods sits alone in the darkness. Inside the cabin a family consisting of a mother, father, and teenage daughter occupy the cabin. The daughter is laying on the couch in next to the big window in the front room listening to her audio player spacing out looking through the window, completely ignoring her parents. The father still wearing his white shirt and tie is in the dinning room pacing nervously with his phone in his hand waiting for a call. He is always within arms reach of a light pistol on the table. The mother is sitting on a chair at the table with jeans and a t shirt on; his suit jacket is draped over the back of the chair. She is glancing back and forth between her husband and the gun. She looks over at her daughter who staring out the window, she never really has ever seen the stars as brilliant as this. Then one catches her eye, it started as a pinpoint and has begun to move and get larger.  The mother looks back at her husband who is now smoking, she is about to speak, but her daughter interrupts with, “What’s that?” and points out the window.

Both parents go over to the window to investigate, they see the speck move and get larger. Realizing what it is, the father pulls his family away from the window and tells them to head for the back door.

The quiet peaceful night is disturbed by a low hum as a black Aerodyne Vehicle (AV) descends from the night, and quietly hovers near the cabin.

He runs over to the table and grabs the gun, he reaches into the inside pocket of his coat and pulls out what looks like a high tech cell phone, and heads to the back door putting his coat on the way. They get to the back door; the mother looks through the infrared peephole and sees several armed men moving to the door.  The Mother looks at her husband with fear in her eyes and asks “what do we do now?”

Just then a voice could be heard on a loud speaker “You have ten seconds to hand over the device!”

“The cellar,” he says quietly, he glances down at his daughters’ audio player and takes it from her hands, he gives her the device, “Guard this with your life,” he tells her. She glances down at the device, while pushes her to his wife “take her” he says to his wife, then he shouts “I’m coming out!” and heads to the front door.

The mother and daughter hurry to a side room and the mom pushes her thumb against a small metal plate on the door jam, and a passage way opens up in the floor leading down some wooden stairs. The daughter runs down the stairs.  A loud is heard as the armed men break down the back door. She looks back and watches her mother take hand off the plate and rushes the guards as the passage door slide closed.

Julie runs down the stairs and under the front porch where she watches quietly. She watches her father holding her cell phone up walking over to a man in a suit.  Moments later her mom is being forcibly moved behind him. She can’t make out the conversation, but she watches her father hand over her phone to him. Then the man shoots her mother and then her father. Then he speaks into his headset. He heads back to the AV and motions his hand in a circle to get the armed men back inside the AV. The Av powers up its vertical lift and takes off into the night. Julie stays there for a few moments stunned and what she witnessed.

She gets out from under the house and goes over to her parents lying on the grass. She falls to her knees and streams of tears fall from her eyes. As she cries she looks up and a heavy drizzle begins to fall on them.  Then she hears the sound of the rain falling on her fathers’ gun nearby. She looks around and finds it lying in the grass near his hand.  She picks it up and holds it in her hands. Then she hears the sound of sirens coming closer. She looks up and sees the red and blue flashing coming up the dirt road to the cabin. She gets up and runs into the woods, dropping the gun along the way.

“Then I ran until I got here.” Julie finishes.

The group sits quietly while her tale of woe is told with passion, anger and despair.

Red Eagle finally speaks; “I dreamt of you, sour girl”

Red Eagles Dream: Red Eagle was a young man riding a horse in full Native American garb. He was hunting a deer. He was about to fire his bow at the deer when a girl with a sadly sour face ran in front of the deer allowing it to escape. He looked at the girl who looked very much like Julie and she pointed up and to the right. When Red Eagle looked there he saw the freeway overpass where they are camped now. When he turned back she was gone, and he woke up.

Everyone around the campfire sat quietly listening. When he finished he got up and walked over to Julie and hugged her. She wrapped her arms around him and cried, “You are safe here,” He says to her. She continues to cry, “My parents, my family” are the only words she can muster. “We are your family now”

“Everyone here has lost someone dear,” he says as he waves his hand over the crowd and she sees tears from there eyes. “But we don’t seek revenge, only Justice.”

“I want Justice!” She says coldly as the tears stop from her eyes.