Anna Navarre


			Anna Navarre ‘How interesting, Anna’s schematic!’. Jaime Reyes sat back on his chair as the colourful diagram filled his digital view screen. He had never examined the full version until now but he had needed to gain access to the more detailed version after noticing some recent problems in her bioaxial nodes that had been hampering Anna’s movement. Jaime leaned forward as he noticed something about the diagram that seemed strange. Nano-synaptic blockers were present in Anna’s schematic within the brain region dedicated to memory and this was the first time that Jaime had actually seen the mechanism actually used in an agent. As far as he’d known, the item never left the prototype stage because of difficulties in terms of efficiency – the damn things kept jamming and stopped functioning. Usually the nanites would block the synapses thus stopping those neurotransmitters dedicated to triggering certain memories from ever completing their function. But problems in early development had meant that memories would sometimes seep through when the nanites stopped functioning. They had been working on a back up electrical system in this sort of event, which would automatically block the memory and cause temporary amnesia while the system kicked back into action but that was the last he had heard about it. And then there had been the ethical issues. Jaime frowned. Maybe there was more to Anna than people knew. ----- The female mech sat on the lounge in the rest room slowly sipping a soft drink, her glimmering eyes seemed to be off on some distant thought. She was an amazing specimen – her body was finely toned and muscular, yet distinctively feminine at the same time. Her face was stern yet attractive but the metal implants on her face and her body seemed like ugly scars on what could have been an attractive female physique. ‘I must talk to Manderley about JC. I was very impressed by his work in our latest mission; he might actually be able to replace that tin of bolts Gunthar as my partner after all’. She took another slow sip from the can, seemed to enjoy the sweet taste, letting the liquid swirl in our mouth. ‘That JC, I wonder how old he is. He doesn’t seem that young and he really is attractive’. ----- The nanites started to jam. They were not in the correct sequence and couldn’t reposition themselves to block the neurotransmitter that seemed to be flooding into the synapse and crossing over to the other side. It would take a while for them to unblock but they slowly started to jostle into position again. ----- Anna’s eyes froze in horror at her own thoughts. ‘What am I thinking, that was very strange! Her eyebrows wrinkled as she concentrated but her mind seemed to be a haze – it was as if she couldn’t concentrate. It was the same as when she received messages in her infolink except that had always been in the background but this time her whole mind was clouding over. ‘My little jackrabbit, that’s what you are! Always running around with so much energy. God I love you so much Anna’. The voice was so familiar. It was female but soft and seemed to ooze with love and it echoed in her head. Anna placed her drink on a nearby table and sat back on her chair closing her eyes. She saw her face and there was no mistaking it now. An attractive young lady with long golden locks and deep blue eyes looked lovingly at her. She couldn’t feel the ground, the lady had lifted her up and was holding her up in the air and she could feel the soft summer breeze on her skin. ‘Come on mummy, let me go, I want to go play!’ Anna thought to herself. ‘I never get enough time to play and soon they will make me go to bed again!’ ‘Hey she’s mine Mommy!’ Anna felt herself grabbed briskly yet gently from her mother’s grasp into the strong arms of a tall muscular man. He looked into her eyes and she felt herself melt away as his chocolate brown eyes gazed at her. He lifted her up in the air much higher that her mother could and she felt the rays of the sun on her skin as she was lifted above the shades of the trees in the garden. The warmth of the sun, the coolness of the breeze, and she was in her father’s arms. She was in the safest place in the world. ‘Hey give her back; I can’t reach up that far! Mum playfully swiped at Dad who kept Anna held up far above her reach and then she gave up and started walking back inside the house. ‘Jonah!’ The scream startled her father who turned swiftly, lowering Anna from the air but keeping her tight in her grasp. His wife was standing at the back entrance of the house and three men dressed in back suits were facing her. Their skin was pale and unearthly and they each carried firearms of some kind in their gloved hands. ‘What do you people want?’ He glanced back and forth along the line of men trying to fathom any expression or reaction from them. Nothing. And then finally one of them spoke in a robotic monochrome voice. ‘I apologise for what we must do here. But we will take care of your daughter, that we promise’. The man then raised his pistol in the air and shot his wife in the head. Anna sat there in her father’s arms watching and listening as she heard the quiet puff from the silencer pistol and then her mother crumple to the floor. ‘What’s wrong with mommy?’ she asked dad. But dad’s face had become deathly pale. She had no idea what happened next, one second she was in his fathers arms, the next he swung her around him like a sack of potatoes so she was behind him. And she couldn’t see a thing except the two pistols that he kept fastened behind his back. He dropped to a knee and grabbed both pistols with lightning fast speed and aimed at the men. Loud explosions. They hurt her ears so much; she felt tears well up in her eyes. What’s wrong with mommy, what’s happening?’ But she stopped herself from crying; she had to be strong. She peered around her the huge wall that was her father’s back and saw that his father was firing his pistol at the men. One of them was already lying crumpled next to his mother; the other seemed hurt as he also fell to the floor. But her dad wasn’t fast enough to take on three men at the same time. Poof. The silencer shot again. And then she could see past her father again because he lay on his side no longer managing to protect her. His eyes rolled towards her as she looked at her dad’s face and he once again looked into her eyes. ‘Remember Anna…’ His eyes rolled to the side and became lifeless. Anna stared back at her father not seeming to move or react in anyway. Then she felt herself lifted into the air again, this time by the man in black, the one that had killed her dad. His skin was cold and metallic as was his voice. ‘Don’t worry Anna, this will be over soon’. She couldn’t feel the sun anymore or the cool summer breeze. Anna felt something wet along her cheek and she felt a salty taste in her mouth. She suddenly opened her eyes and realised she had been crying. The mech lady sat at the couch and produced a tissue and dabbed at her face. Then with lightning fast speed she produced a pistol out of nowhere and fired at her nearby soft drink can which exploded and spilled the drink across the room. All she felt was rage. Her muscles were tensed, she felt the adrenalin pump around her body. The pistols in her hands felt like extensions of her body and her fingers rubbed along the trigger, shaking slightly. ‘ ‘Manderley. Oh Manderley. You will die a slow death, yes you will. Who else would have been responsible for this? Ahh yes, Simons. His nanoaugmentations are newer that mine but I will ambush him when he arrives later today – he won’t have a chance. That pile of bolts Gunthar won’t go against me and maybe my JC will help me. He seems like a good soul and if only he knew. Maybe his parents were murdered too?’ Her mind filled with thoughts but she could only think of one right now. She was going to level this place and anyone that stood in her way. And Manderley was going to suffer. She stood up and walked calmly to the door leading out of lounge area and past a soldier sitting at one of the conference room tables. ‘Hello Anna, how are..’ It was the last words he spoke. It was lightning fast; there was absolutely no question about that. She didn’t even break a stride and with one swift motion of her left arm she destroyed the camera in the room and with another swift motion of her right, she nailed the soldier in the head with a pistol. And walked straight out of the room. Manderley started at the view screen. The conference room camera seemed to have blown and he quickly rewound to see an image of Anna shooting it with her pistol. He quickly opened his info link to her. ‘Anna what’s going on, why did you blow the conference room camera?’ ‘Sorry sir, target practice. I’m guessing you want to see me in your office, I am already on my way’. ‘That is coming out of your salary Anna, and yes get your ass over here right now’. The female mech turned the corner out of the conference room and continued to stride into the office when suddenly she seemed to stumble for a moment. Her mind started to haze and she couldn’t think where she was going. All she could see was white, a white haze of some sort. ----- The nanites were finally in position and the neurotransmitter was blocked across the synapse again. A message was quickly sent to another team of nanites – the one responsible for the amnesia emergency system, which quickly initiated, shocking that part of Anna’s brain. ----- ‘JC, I must tell Manderley about JC of course, he has a lot of potential’ She noticed she had her guns in her hands. ‘Odd’. She placed them back in their holsters and strode into Manderley’s room. She never realised what Manderley was barking about in terms of not using the headquarter cameras for target practice and she firmly denied every killing any soldier in the conference area. She finished her conversation about JC and left the office shaking her head. And then she realised that she had no idea what she had been doing for the last 30 minutes. ----- Manderley looked through his archives trying to clear the mess of emails and messages up on his system. He quickly glanced at the one currently on his view screen and deleted it. - Mr Manderley We are working on acquiring the target Anna Navarre for our latest augmentation project following our discussions earlier. After scanning numerous children, this young girl from Moscow has attracted our attention from the mass of DNA and genetic records due to the amazing physical and mental potential. The normal routine will be followed and she will not be aware of anything that will take place and as far as she will be concerned, we will be her guardians. We will engineer and begin Phase 1 and keep you informed. Of course some time will pass as we pass through Phase 2 but it was felt necessary to keep you informed since you will be looking after her well being in Phase 3, in the not so distant future. - Walton Simons. The message cleared from his screen as he moved onto the next one. ‘What a tedious job’ he thought to himself.