Meet the Crew, Part 1: Maya

On the 68th floor of the Aman apartment building, located in the southern hemisphere of Myst I, a tense situation was taking place. A mercenary group of twenty men and women armed with K5X's all had their rifles pointed at a dark-armored woman with equally dark hair and striking green eyes. Even with the mask covering half her face, it was easy to tell she was very attractive.

Slightly behind this group was a grizzled man with a military haircut and a scar on his throat, seemingly indicating he survived having his throat cut open once. This grizzled man was pointing a laser pistol – the Vega SM, which packed quite a punch – at a woman with tears streaming down her cheeks, a gag in her mouth, and rope tying her hands behind her back in a chair.

This woman was also fairly attractive, with long red hair, freckles on her cheeks, and eyes a slightly darker shade of green than the masked woman. Judging by what little remained of her clothes, she came from an extremely well-off family as well. To the back of the grizzled man was a large window that made up the entire wall. Behind the masked woman was the room's only door. T

he masked woman was directly in the center of this room, about a hundred and fifty feet away from the mercenaries. The room was surprisingly spacious, about three hundred feet from end to end. Other than a table with scattered cards and poker chips on it, surrounded by chairs, and a few scattered couches here and there with coffee tables, the room was bare. It seemed this apartment wasn't the base of the mercenaries, merely a temporary hideout.

"You might as well release her. That's the only way you'll get out of here alive," the masked woman said. An imperceptible tendril of thought spread out from her, worming its way into the minds of all the armed men and women. Not even a split second after, three of the mercenary team dropped their weapons and fled, screaming at the top of their lungs.

The mysterious woman let them go. Another five started trembling at the same time the other group fled, and started opening fire on their teammates out of nowhere, screaming various things like "you stole my beer, you fucker!" "It's your fault Reggie died!" and the woman's personal favorite, "I know you sold my teddy for drugs, Daniel!"

The ensuing chaos resulted in the five attackers dead, along with seven of the other members, plus another two that shot themselves in fear. With that, only a scant few of four were left, including the grizzled man. After the scuffle, the grizzled man placed his left hand over the cauterized hole in his right shoulder, with his gun hand moving from the captive girl's head to the mysterious woman. The other three did the same.

"Kill this bitch!" the grizzled man shouted, a hint of madness glinting in his eyes. The four opened fire on the masked woman, but all the lasers they shot her way stopped midair about three inches from her face, hitting some invisible wall.

The masked woman, who was none other than Maya, pulled her Jenghang H-6's from their holsters around her hips. The mercenaries switched their guns to full auto, unloading several lasers in the span of a few seconds, none of which hit her. She moved forward about fifty feet and shot each survivor once in the head, except the grizzled man.

"I see even a twitch out of you, and I burn her brains out, love," the man said.

The edges of Maya's eyes crinkled. Obviously, she was smiling underneath her mask. "With what gun?" She asked.

The man's gun crumpled and twisted, the barrel going from a cylinder to a mangled sphere with no opening. The man watched this process, which took less than a second, with palpable fear showing on his face.

"A Prodigy…" he whispered in horror. Suddenly this whole farce made sense. Then he folded like a sack of potatoes, a hole burned halfway into the side of his head.

Maya holstered her guns, walked over to the captive girl and cut her free. She made sure to use her Prodigy power to keep the girl calm. The freckled girl, Sarah, looked at Maya inquisitively.

"Thanks. Did my dad send you?" the girl asked. "He always was adamant about never paying criminals, even if he had to pay twice as much to get rid of them." Indeed, this girl's father, Henry Klen, had very strict beliefs on how to handle criminals and terrorists.

He was famous for responding to every terrorist threat with extreme and lethal force and to every ransom with an assassin or hit squad he paid anywhere from twice to four times as much. His reputation was so well-known that only the extremely confident and extremely stupid tried to mess with him.

"I was hired by your father, yes. If you'll follow me, I'll take you back to him," Maya told her.

"Gladly. I want to put this whole nasty business behind me as soon as possible."

Maya led Sarah out of the room and into an elevator. A short wait later, they arrived at the roof of the Aman apartment building, where Maya's Shadow Jumper was parked.

They boarded the ship via the extended ramp, then Maya started the engines. "Make yourself comfortable. We have a three-hour ride ahead of us," she told Sarah. Sarah took the advice to heart, sitting in the lounge area and turning on the TV.

Three hours later, they arrived at Mystar. Maya steered the Shadow Jumper toward the direction of Henry Klen's mansion. Alighting on the massive landing pad inside the fence (which was about twelve feet high and topped with razor wire), the two ladies disembarked and headed toward the massive home.

About four hundred feet from the massive double doors leading into the mansion, they stopped at a much more reasonable fence with a small tollbooth-like building. Inside was a very tired-looking man with dark hair and a short beard. When he saw Sarah, his expression eased somewhat. "Ah, Sarah. Welcome back," he said.

"Hello, Jeremy. I'm on my way to let father know I'm safe."

"Alright. He should be in his study right now."

After Sarah gave a quick thanks to Jeremy, she and Maya went to the aforementioned study. Like Jeremy had told them, Henry Klen was there, sitting on a nice leather chair next to a crackling fire, looking at something on a tablet he held in his hands.

At the noise, he looked up. "Sarah, you're back! Wonderful." He tapped a few times on his tablet, then a *bing* came from Maya's Ex Ear. Pressing the button on it, she found that Henry had deposited the agreed-upon payment into the Styx bank account. "Well done, assassin. I'll be sure to use your services again in the future," he told Maya.

Nodding, Maya left the mansion and entered her Shadow Jumper, ready to head home.