The Elsewhere Files

Count Down - Mission One

The camera sees a blood splattered and dirty, beat-up Kiera lower a pistol, clicking the safety on. Lying bloody on the floor at Kiera’s feet is a very battered and bloody looking Major Crowe. Just beyond him is a freshly bleeding corpse, an axe dropped from the body's nerveless fingers. Even on the floor, Major Crowe has a clear military air even though his attire is torn and stained.

[Crowe]: “That was a very good chance to get rid of me.” His voice is soft and low, cautious.

[Kiera]: “Don’t think I didn’t notice that Jareth. I get the opportunity to, I will kill you. But it looks like it’ll have to wait for another day. No more bullets.”Her voice is dry and sarcastic. She drops her pistol to the floor and limps over to the man who has been her jailor and tormentor for the last ten months. Her body was harder now, marked up and scarred; no longer the same woman she used to be. Jareth holds a bloody hand up and she helps haul him to his feet. She tucks his arm over her shoulder and he leans on her as they stagger away from the corpse.

Jareth leans heavily on Kiera, his head resting briefly against hers.

[Jareth]: “Thank you Kiera. But when I report this, I’m going to make it so that I rescued you.” Voice is plain, too tired sounding for sarcasm.

[Kiera]: laughing softly ”Of course Major; wouldn’t have it any other way.”

They stagger to an SUV and climb in, driving off towards a busier road in the distance. “Where to now?”

[Jareth]: "I'm pretty sure that Nguyen is expecting us to bail him out of jail right about now."

[Kiera]: laughing tiredly "Right, forgot about Nugget." Camera follows as they drive into the city and walk into a police station to find Captain Nguyen sitting with two MPs and General Wilson standing next to him.

[Nguyen]: looks up, agitated "Did it work?" Scene freezes.

[Kiera-as-narrator]: "The plan was simple. Nguyen was going to blow up the two epicenters. It was supposed to make the big one implode as the little one explodes and contain some of the damage. But to do that, Major Crowe and I had to run a distraction. So I was bait."

Camera opens on Kiera and the Major in bed together. They're both panting, but while the Major has his eyes closed, Kiera's are open and while he's unguarded, she swiftly handcuffs him to the headboard.

[Crowe]: "What the hell?"

[Kiera]: "I need you alive more than I need you as a body guard. They'll find you in the morning." Kiera quickly dresses as the Major tries to argue her out of leaving. She doesn't acknowledge anything he says and he's yelling after her as she leaves. The scene fades out and opens on Kiera running down a street, looking a little paniced and Barry Hoover wearing his own face chases after her.

“But things didn’t go as planned.”

Scene sees Captain Nguyen following the map to find the church Kiera had marked off. What Kiera didn’t know though, was that the old, decrepit church was right next door to a museum and there was no way that he could set off any kind of explosion without hurting dozens of innocents and risking destroying priceless historical artifacts.

Scene switches to see the Major still hand cuffed to the bed. He’s calmly picking the lock and free apparently moments after Kiera took off. He dresses quickly, arming with every weapon available to him and follows after the fleeing woman. 

Scene switches back to see Kiera run down an alleyway and start climbing a short apartment building's fire escape route. Barry Hoover enters the alley as Kiera reaches the top and disappears from view. Following afterher, Barry quickly chases up the same fire escape, face motled with rage.