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Chapter 1: The Perfectionist
Macy checked the rounds in her pistol again, the third time in an hour. She only had three shots
left, and only three targets to take out. An average day in the life of an expert huntress in 2037, in
world full of odd creatures. Today she was after three very odd ones indeed. The green gruesome
things stood seven feet tall, hunched over, and looked somewhat like decaying werewolves. Her
mission was to take out all three and survive. With three silver rounds, things were going to be difficult,
at best.
The first one was standing in front of her, and it didn’t seem to see her. Surely it could smell her,
but it seemed confused and disoriented. Almost too late, she realized that she was being set up. The
flash of movement to her left confirmed it, and she jumped high as the second of the beasts dove under
her at knee level. She shot it in the chest, the specialized silver wound destroying its heart and leaving it
dead in a growing pool of purplish liquid. The first one had disappeared from view, but she knew
where it had gone. The large crate to her right was the only good cover within any distance for a
creature of that size. A few seconds later she was standing on top of the crate, and the first one was
lying in its own pool of purple. Now all she had to do was find and kill the last one, with a single bullet.
Macy had noticed the metal staircase leading up into the catwalks of the warehouse when she first had
entered, but she hadn’t been able to safely get to it without leaving herself open for attack. The way
seemed to be clear now, and she ran for the stairs, hoping to get above the third one, the one she had
come to think of as the “boss”. That’s how these types of creatures seemed to always work, the
younger less experienced ones were sent to try to take you out, and then the big boys would come
after you. Just once, she’d like to get the big guy, and have it all be over. Ah well.
The climb was relatively easy, and she made it to the top of the rickety stairs without incident.
There was only one way to go, so she made her way to the left, constantly looking around for signs of
her quarry. She reached a point where the catwalk ended, and turned slowly around, searching for the
third creature. Macy didn’t have long to look, as it was standing on the catwalk behind her. It growled
and crouched down, and she took a quick shot for its heart. For the first time in her life, Macy was
slightly afraid. The bullet had gone through the chest cavity, and the creature had jerked, but he hadn’t
fallen, hadn’t stopped growling. It moved forward, and she quickly made a gesture with her hands.
Reality froze, and she removed the helmet of her Virtual Reality suit to look at her trainer and
boyfriend, Gallron.
“Is this really a necessary exercise? I don’t think it would keep coming after I blew that large of a
hole in its chest.”
“The goal is to test your quick thinking skills, not your adeptness with a gun. That’s what we use
the shooting range for. There are multiple ways to kill the thing, we just want to see how fast your mind
comes up with one and how creative it is. Now back to the exercise with you.”
“Okay, but I think it’s stupid.”
Macy pulled the helmet back on and resumed the program. The creature still was looking at her
with a murderous rage in its eyes, and she was going to have to come up with a plan quickly. She
reached down to her belt and found a bottle of lighter fluid, a piece of string, and a butane lighter.
‘Perfect’ she thought to herself. She quickly ran the string through the nozzle of the bottle, and waited
for the thing to pounce. It crouched low, and she lit the string on fire. As it dove toward her, she
ducked and threw the bottle, fire and all, into the things mouth. It went over her and down to the
ground below, exploding on the way as the fluid caught fire inside its mouth. A score popped up in
front of her. “4092: Congratulations, a new record for this exercise. Macy Harper will be in the Hall of
Fame for the Abomination test.” She flipped up the helmet again.
“Woohoo! Another record! That makes a perfect run today!”
“You’ve still got one more test to take. It’s the hardest one. In fact, if you get the record score,
I’ll take you out to a special spot for lunch today.”
“You’re on! Let’s get to it.”
She pulled on the helmet once again, and waited as the next program loaded. In mid-air the
words appeared, brilliant against the background. She said them out-loud, dedicating everything to
memory as it came up.
“Welcome to the Great Swamps of Florida. Your mission today is to discover the origin and
intent of several creatures that have mysteriously appeared in the swamps. Nothing has been proven,
but recently a dozen disappearances have been blamed upon these creatures. We believe them to be
carnivores, hunting down people who get to close. If so, they must be destroyed. If not, they should be
studied and relocated if possible. One in particular, however, needs to be put down. Description: 50 ft.
long, basically alligator shaped, purple in color. Purple? Okay, whatever. The following is a list of
contacts that claim to have seen the creatures or live near the swamps where there have been sightings.
Investigate the problem, and use your best judgment to take care of it.
“Well, that sounds easy enough. Let’s see, I’ll go see this old man first, he’s the closest to the
swamp according to the map.”
Ten minutes later, she laughed as her score popped up in front of her. “12000: Congratulations,
you’ve set the high score for the Purple People Eater’s test. Macy Harper will be in the Hall of Fame
for this test.” She removed the helmet, gloves, boots and other equipment before jumping up from the
seat she was in.
“Ha! I knew I’d do it! Perfection all the way through. Now, about that lunch you owe me…”
“I know, I know. Now tell me, how did you figure out that the old man was the key to it all? I
know we left some clues, but it takes most cadets an hour to run through this one!”
“Well, purple is my favorite color, so I figured you designed the program or had a lot of input on
it. Then the guy had the little purple alligator statue in his bookcase, I could see the part of the alligator
tattoo on his arm, and the purple eyes summed it all up for me.”
“So I had a little too much to do on this one. I’ll not the make the same mistake again, that’s for
sure.”
“Of course you will. You love designing these things as much as I hate having to run through
them. You’ll just have to be a little less predictable, or leave less hints for the cadets to find.”
“I’ll remember that. Ready to go to lunch, superstar, or do we have to do something else before
we sneak out of the office again?”
"Nope, I filed all my paperwork for the day an hour ago. Let's go hop into the new car I finally got..."
"New car? So all the requistion forms I filled out finally paid off for you, huh?"
"Forms you filled out? I filled out nine copies of the appropriate forms to ensure that I'd get my car."
"I filled out sixteen this week! I guess with twenty-five forms in triplicate circulating around, they couldn't really ignore them, huh? So, where are we going for lunch anyway?"
"A very special place. Come on, the car's out in my parking place. They traded cars with me this morning."
They walked out of the office hand in hand, and made their way across the parking lot to the car in question. A candy apple red convertible was sitting in Gallron's space, shiny and new looking. Macy hopped in without bothering to open the door. Gallron walked around the car and opened his door without commenting. He had grown used to her nonchalant ways long before and he loved them. There wasn't much that she could do to surprise him any longer. But he still had a few things up his sleeves for his fiance.
Back to the Echo of My Mind
On to the Mage Page that started it all, the stories of Macy's Grandmother
