Infinite Horizons

The flickering light from the candle made shadows jump along the concrete walls and ceramic floor tiles of the old train station. They danced around the large room before disappearing down dark hallways, lending an eerie feeling to the area. Cassia, however, had long ceased to be affected by it. She sat in her socks on an old bench near the ticket booth, surrounded by documents and notes spread haphazardly. With a pencil to her lips, she sat unmoving, lost in thought.

Eventually she moved, standing up and stretching. She was neither short nor tall, with a lithe build. Her dark brown skin caused her short, shockingly silver, hair to stand out even more. Finished stretching, Cassia perched back on the bench. After a moment, though, she sighed and stood up again.

“I can’t get around it” she muttered to herself. “I need a Jumper.” She bent down and scattered some of the papers at her feet, pulling a single sheet out and peering at it. The center of the paper featured a seemingly crude drawing of a spaceship. Cassia nodded at it, folded it up, and stuffed it in her pocket. She began to straighten and organize the remaining documents, when the sound of a gong rang out loudly. Cassia was in motion before the echoes had died away. A quick somersault brought her to another bench, this one made into a bed. In seconds she had her shoes on and a sort of extendable baton held at the ready.

The station was silent for a moment. Cassia waited, hoping that the radar had only picked up a rodent of some sort. Just as she was beginning to relax, the gong sounded again, this time twice. The second checkpoint had been reached. Safest to assume it wasn’t a rodent. Cassia leapt forward and blew out the candle. Instantly the station was plunged into complete darkness. She waited a moment for her eyes to change. While she couldn’t see fully in the dark, she’d come across few people who had better nighttime vision. Odds were high that the intruder wasn’t on the list.

“Cassia…Cassia Moreng…” the voice came out of the darkness to her left, taunting. Cassia remained silent. She soon heard the sound of someone treading lightly. She set herself to move, and then paused to listen again. That was definitely two sets of footsteps. A smart ploy, to have one talk and keep her unaware of the second intruder. Cassia crept silently backwards until her back hit the station wall. She slowly followed the wall to the right, away from the man who had spoken and, she hoped, towards the silent one. The original voice spoke again.

“Cassia, no need for anyone to get hurt. Give it up and we can both win!” Cassia relaxed slightly. Bounty hunters were not to be feared as much as others who were likely hunting her. She stopped and listened. There were no sounds of footsteps. The bounty hunters had likely stopped to listen as well, since their initial ploy hadn’t worked. She continued to creep along the wall, and shortly the outline of a hunched man materialized out of the darkness. He was moving slowly along, and his current trajectory would take him just to the left of Cassia. She took a breath, and then sprinted.

The bounty hunter obviously saw Cassia right before she reached him, but it was too late. He half turned towards her and the baton caught him straight in the neck. There was a buzzing sound, and a strained gurgle, and the man hit the ground in a heap. Cassia danced two paces away, and then melted back to the wall. There was a loud crack and a chunk of the wall exploded at head height, pricking her face with tiny needles of pain. The second bounty hunter had been closer than she expected. Without thought, Cassia hit the ground and rolled to the side as another chunk of the wall was blasted apart. The man cursed, and then a ball of light appeared in his hand.

“I’m tired of hide and seek!” the man yelled, and rolled the ball in her direction. Cassia dodged to the outskirts of the glow from the orb as it rolled, but the man had already lit another one and rolled it in a new direction. Cassia watched as he lit a third, and then she suddenly leapt into action. She sprinted in the narrow shadow that was left between the two orbs and launched herself towards the bounty hunter. With another curse, he dropped the orb he was holding and yanked his weapon up at her. She felt her shoulder blaze with pain before she crashed into the bounty hunter, knocking them both to the ground. Cassia recovered first and rolled off the man, springing to her feet. She flicked her baton out, slipped around a wild punch, and cracked the man in the ribs. The baton buzzed again, and the man dropped back to the ground. He growled in pain as Cassia stepped up to him and seemed to be trying to speak before she buzzed him again, this time at the base of his neck, and he lost consciousness immediately.

Cassia faded back into the shadows as her shoulder stitched itself together and the room fell silent. She waited there for a few minutes, straining her ear to determine if there were any more intruders. Eventually the glowing orbs of light began to flicker out, and soon the entire room was in darkness once again. Cassia slowly made her way back to her benches, and relit her candle. She was surprised a bounty hunter had found her this quickly, and more than a little worried that others now knew where to find her. Bounty hunters weren’t the most forthcoming with their leads, but that didn’t mean the information didn’t spread between them anyway. She was going to have to relocate.

Moving quickly now, Cassia gathered up all of her notes and plans into an old brown bag. The candle and the bedding followed, and then she swung the bag over her shoulder. Taking a glance around the area, she nodded in satisfaction at the cleanliness and then headed to the train tracks at the back of the station. Suddenly she paused and rummaged around in her bag before pulling out a single sheet of paper. It was the spaceship again, and Cassia stared at it for a long moment.

“Now is as good as ever,” she whispered in the dark. Having made a decision, she stuffed the paper back in the bag and quickly moved to the tracks. In the middle of the main line was an elegant, if a little worn, stagecoach. Cassia opened the side door and slung her bag onto the bench seat. She hesitated again, though only briefly, then set herself and circled around to the rear of the stagecoach. She leaned her shoulder against the back, then pushed with all of her might. At first the heavy wooden vehicle didn’t budge, but Cassia continued to put her full weight into it, and eventually the wheels began to slowly roll forward. She pushed until the stagecoach was rolling along at a speed that forced her to trot, and then she leapt out from behind and sprinted up to the open door. With a leap, she pulled herself up inside and closed the door behind her. The stagecoach picked up speed slightly, and she was grateful for the small incline that the track appeared to be built on. Soon it was up to sprinting speed, and Cassia determined it would have to do.

She closed her eyes and fixed her destination in her mind’s eye. Almost immediately she felt the familiar feeling that came with jumping, as if she was about to fall off a cliff. Then suddenly her stomach flipped and she felt a brief moment of nausea. There was a loud popping noise and her setting changed. There was no easy transition, it simply went from being the train station to a cinder block wall that was rapidly approaching. Cassia braced herself, and the stagecoach smashed into it. The wall crumbled, and Cassia vaguely recognized the sound of wood cracking before a jagged chunk of wall punched her in the ribs. She gasped in pain, and then the stagecoach wheels broke and she was tossed out as if she had been bucked off a horse. Fortunately she landed on her feet, but unfortunately her momentum worked against her. There was a snap as her ankle rolled, and pain shot up her leg. Instinctively, Cassia dropped to a somersault to take pressure off her ankle, which only served to increase the pain in her side. She rolled up against a wall as the dust settled. She knew that haste was necessary but she needed to rest a moment to let her body recover.

Groaning, she moved herself to a sitting position as she felt her rib cage adjust slightly. Slowly the pain lessened there, but her ankle was taking significantly longer. She must have actually broken the bone. With a grimace, Cassia got to her feet. She didn’t have time to wait around for a bone to heal, so she’d have to deal with the pain until it did. She glanced around at her surroundings. The bars on one wall indicated she was in a prison cell, as planned. Blinking dust from her eyes, Cassia glanced around the cell for the occupant. She finally located a man huddled into a corner and staring at her.

“Hello,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. “I was looking for a woman named Melissa Promise Alfaro. Have I located the wrong cell?” The man appeared too shocked to respond, as he stared at her. A part of Cassia’s mind wondered why he wasn’t staring at the stagecoach, which she considered to obviously be the most incongruent object in the room. Then she realized that the man was staring at her shoulder, after which came the realization that her shoulder was hurting again. Frowning, she twisted to try to get a good view of it and saw blood trickling down her arm. Apparently a piece of wood had sliced open her bicep, and between her other injuries she hadn’t even noticed. Even as she looked, the blood slowed and then stopped, and then her skin started to seal up. Cassia turned back to the man.

“Good as new,” she said, with a half smile. “Pardon me, but I’m looking for a woman named Melissa Promise Alfaro.”