With a burst of adrenaline-induced strength, you toss Melissa towards the locker row, making her slide across the floor a good ten meters. "Hey, you son of a bitch!" you yell, getting between the gunman and Melissa. The futiristic gun in his hands begins to glow, charging for a parcticle beam that as far as you know could perforate a concrete wall.
The gunman tries to aim through your legs at Melissa's lying body as she takes out her high-heeled shoes and stumbles across the floor before getting back on her feet. Then, as you sidestep trying to give her time to run (your ancestral protective instincts have kicked in and you can't stop, even if you know you are going to die)...
He stops. What is visible of his face beneath a crude steel helmet and a pair of dark glasses is scarred by many a knife wound, and there's a large white patch in his unshaven chin where a bullet hit his jaw, years before. You hear Melissa get back on her feet and run away, and just then the gunman again tries to strike her down, hitting her in a foor. A high pitched scream and a thump.
The man dashes forward, and you attempt to tackle him. The impact of the helmet on your head almost knocks you down as you both fall on the ground. Surprisingly, the man lets his weapon go.
Within seconds, you are overpowered by sheer strenght and a will to kill. Now the madman is pinning you down with one hand, and removing his sunglasses with the other.
His right eye is a cyberpunk-ish contraption which looks just like a CCD camera objective. A yellow-and-grey circle of infected flesh is visible where plastic meets skin. With a whirr, it focuses on you.
His left eye has its pupil shrunk to a dot, showing a rage on the edge of sanity. It is vaguely familiar.
"Where is the vial?" the gunman screams in your nose.
"V...vial?"
"Melissa's vial. Did she take it already? Answer me!"
Feebly, you tell him it's in your pocket. His natural eye lets out a tear which falls on your cheek.
"I made it. I made it. Give it to me." he says, his voice much more calm, the killer instincts subsided by a relief worth ages. He lets you get back up, and raises his hand in the Vulcan salute.
"Who are you?" you ask.
"You. And don't tell me you don't buy it. You've read way too much sci-fi to refuse the idea." he replies, like it was everyday business.
"What is the vial? Where... when are you from?" you ask, still unsure of the situation -- something is telling you that this man is not lying, but anyhow, you'd better keep him from getting back his gun as long as possible.
"If you could see what this eye of yours has seen" he replies. You easily recognize the quote; that's straight Roy Batty, your favorite movie charachter since 1988. "That vial means doom for our planet. It contains a deadly virus, the Totentanz. It must be destroyed."
You take out the vial. It has a tiny label with some Latin words you cannot recognize, but 'virus' is not among those. Is this man lying? Does he want the vial for his own purposes?
Sat Jan 8 20:37:28 2000