Meet Abby Banks VOLUMES: 1-3

by J. A. Cipriano

  “What is this?” I asked Morris who wasn’t even looking at me as we hurtled off into the distance.

  “Ever seen Willy Wonka?” he asked, glancing at me over the shoulder and smiling at me. “This is like that, but I have more buttons.”

  “And let me guess, we’re going to meet Flash and Bang in their chocolate factory?” I said, getting to my feet and barely resisting the urge to slam Morris’s stupid face into the nonexistent wall.

  “No, we’re heading to the ruins of Knossos. You know, where the palace of the Minoans is.” He shrugged. “It’s where the entrance to Bang’s secret lair is located.”

  “He’s located in some ruins?” I arched an eyebrow at him in disbelief.

  “Not just any ruins. He’s beneath them, in the labyrinth.” Morris smirked. “The rumors of that being myth were something he helped perpetrate. Rest assured, the labyrinth exists. If you head down into the center, there’s a trapdoor that leads into them.”

  “Is the Minotaur real too?” I asked because I couldn’t help myself. I mean I was in Greece going to the labyrinth. The Minotaur being real wouldn’t exactly shock me at this point. Then again…

  “No,” he said with a sigh. “Although I wish he was. Then we could just wait for him to eat Bang.”

  “So why does Bang have a secret base beneath a cultural landmark?” I shook my head. “That seems a little farfetched.”

  “He actually owns the ruins through a series of back channels. Who do you think funds the digs now? The government? Ha. They’re broke.” Morris chuckled. “I’d be surprised if they had two euros to rub together.”

  “Still…” I murmured.

  “No one is going to blow up a cultural landmark, Abby.” He paused and stared at me. “Well, most people wouldn’t.” He looked pointedly at me. “Some do it on purpose, but I don’t think they count. Anyone who purposely blows up thousands of years of history is a special kind of crazy, no matter the reason. ”

  I sighed and looked away from him. Evidently, being away from Raul the Spanish drug dealing Greek was just the thing to get Morris’s spirits up. I wasn’t sure I liked the change.

  Instead of rising to his bait, I sat down and watched the countryside roll by because it wasn’t like I’d ever had a helicopter ride over Crete before. It was strangely pretty from up here, though the island wasn’t all beachy like I’d expected islands to be. Still, no one was shooting at me so I was going to take a minute and relax because when this ride was over, I was going to confront a dangerous mercenary on his home turf. Maybe I could insult his mother while I was at it, you know, for effect.

  13

  We had walked up to the ruins because our brief flyover had revealed one teensy weensy little problem. The goddamn place was crawling with machinegun toting whackos who probably wanted to blast me into tiny pieces or at the very least, riddle me with bullets. By we, I meant me. Morris was hanging back for reasons he hadn’t quite explained although I was pretty sure it was mostly because he was a huge coward. I didn’t have any proof of this per se, but he definitely gave me that vibe.

  I snarled to myself as I recalled his stupid voice. “I’m not a field agent,” he’d said. The smugness in his voice had made me want to jam my hand down his throat and rip out his still beating heart. I hadn’t because I’m not that kind of girl, but for just that one tiny moment, I wanted to be.

  I shook away the thought as I stared through the leaves of a rather large tree overhanging the chain link fence around the ruins. It didn’t exactly seem like the most secure place, but I think Morris may have had a point. No one was going to attack the labyrinth… well no one but me. Apparently, attacking famous landmarks was in my genes. Woo hoo.

  As the closest guard neared my position, I shut my eyes and counted to ten, hoping it would make my heart stop hammering in my chest. Even though I was a badass who had taken on a tank singlehandedly, I still wasn’t used to being a badass. Maybe that would change one day, but today wasn’t it. I was nothing but a tangle of nerves inside.

  My eyes snapped open as the guard passed under me. I dropped silently from the tree, allowing my mind to slip into that place it did when I let my skills take over. My thighs slid onto the man’s shoulders as I squeezed as hard as I could, cutting off his air supply with my legs. He crumpled to the ground beneath our impact, and I held him against the stone until he stopped moving. I stood, glanced around to make sure no one had seen us. Confident no one had, I relieved him of his weapon before dragging him over to a bench and kicking him beneath it.

  It wasn’t ideal, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t matter in a few minutes anyway. I made my way up the corridor where ships used to come up for tax collection because taxes existed even in one of the world’s oldest civilizations. Thankfully, no one saw me as I reached the central corridor and leaned over the balcony. The tunnel to the labyrinth was supposed to be in the queen’s room, which was down like three flights of stairs. Big. Open. Stairs.

  I cursed under my breath as I swung my legs over the edge, attaching my grappling hook to the rock, and hoping it wouldn’t crumble, let myself go. I zipped downward, thankful I didn’t have to spend much time in the open, and also that there weren’t as many guards as I’d initially expected. Then again, it was a national landmark, how many gun-wielding whackos could reasonably be stationed out front?

  My feet touched down, and I unhooked the grappling hook from the loop on my belt before letting go of it. The cord shot up into the air before disappearing from view as I tossed a look to my right and left. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I made my way inside, hoping there wouldn’t be any earthquakes because I was pretty sure if there were some, I’d be trapped beneath a billion tons of stone. That didn’t exactly seem like it would be a fun time.

  It took me only a few moments to find the spot with the trapdoor. It was situated between two statues of creatures that looked like wingless gryphons, which seemed sad to me. In the stories I’d read back in school, gryphons were supposed to fly, not be grounded. Then again, it wasn’t like they were real.

  “What are you doing here?” asked a voice form behind me and a flashlight beam must have been flashed at me because I saw my outline lit up in the shadows in front of me. “We’re not open yet.”

  “Oh, my bad,” I said in my best stupid teenager voice, which admittedly wasn’t that much different from my normal voice. “I thought you were open. The guy at the gate let me in.”

  “Turn around,” the guy commanded. The sound of his boots on the stone filled my ears as he came closer.

  I spun, using one hand to shield my eyes from his flashlight so I wouldn’t go blind while flinging my machine gun underhand at him. It struck him in the arms as he tried to cover up, and I took that moment to leap across the space between us. My heels smacked into his knees with a crunch that made me feel bad for him as I grabbed his shirt by the collar and drove my forehead into his nose. The sound of breaking bone filled my ears as he stumbled backward onto the rock.

  He was dressed in khaki pants and a blue polo that said “expedition tours” on it and a sinking feeling filled my gut as the possibility I’d just horrible maimed some normal guy filled my brain. No… no, surely he was just in disguise. Still, as I frisked his unconscious body, I found nothing that let me believe he was, you know, a bad guy.

  I could almost hear the ghost of the first man I’d killed whispering in my ear, telling me how horrible I was, but instead of giving in to it, I opted to compartmentalize. If Raul could do it, so could I. Besides, I needed to find Bang’s hideout, and either way, this guy was in my way, right? Right?

  I swallowed and slowly backed up. I must have taken more steps than I realized because the next thing I knew, my shoulder blades were touching the cold stone. I sighed, resting my hands on the gryphons though I didn’t know why and felt the sudden urge to explain myself to them.

  “I’ll send him some flowers,” I whispered like it would make any difference and forced myself to turn away
from the downed tour guide. I knelt down next to the trapdoor and slipped my knife under the crack on the left like Morris had told me about. There was a soft click, and the door slid open to reveal some rickety stone stairs with all sorts of plants clinging to them. The air coming from within smelled of rot and mustiness. It made me think it hadn’t been opened in years, which was strange. This should have been a well-used passageway if it was the only entrance to Bang’s secret underground lair, but it sure didn’t seem that way.

  I turned and grabbed the flashlight from the fallen guide along with my stolen machinegun and went back toward the passage. The light beam illuminated the stairs, which made them seem, if anything, less inviting. I shivered, trying to ignore the spiders’ webs clinging to practically every surface and put my right foot on the first step, testing its weight.

  When I didn’t immediately fall to my doom, I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. Then I made my way down. When I was about fifteen feet below the surface of the earth, the trapdoor overhead slid shut with a loud wham that made me jump. I spun, playing my flashlight across the now closed trapdoor and resisted the urge to cry. Barely.

  “It’s okay,” I murmured to myself. “I mean I’m only trapped beneath a three thousand year old stone tomb heading into the labyrinth to confront a psycho mercenary. You know, assuming everything I’ve been told is on the up and up.”

  I gritted my teeth together and slowly turned back around and continued my journey. Part of me was worried someone might see my flashlight and shoot me or worse, but I was hoping my suit would be able to ward off such an attack. It hadn’t failed me yet, anyway.

  By the time, I reached the landing, my legs were throbbing from exertion, and I was pretty sure I had blisters on my feet the size of France, despite my boots being rather comfortable. I shoved down the pain, somewhat surprised I could even do it because I was a wimp at heart.

  Corridors split off in every direction, and as far as I could tell, it looked like no one had been down here, well, ever. I glanced back at the stairs, suddenly wishing I had an unusually large ball of twine. I lamented it only for a few minutes, I swear. Then I made my way forward looking for a footprint or really anything that could tell me where to go. I wasn’t quite sure how much truth there was to the minotaur story, but I was reasonably sure getting lost in a huge underground maze would likely turn out horrible.

  “I probably should have stayed with Raul,” I grumbled, kneeling down and studying the ground. No sooner had I done so when I got the sense someone was watching me. I whirled around but saw no one.

  Something skittered across the ground behind me, and I shut my eyes, willing myself not to scream even though I hated dark alleys. After a quick three count, I opened them and turned back around slowly. There was nothing there.

  I let out an explosive breath and sighed. “I don’t suppose you can look for residual heat signatures or something?” I asked my suit, not really expecting much of a response. The suit swarmed over me, covering my face in an instant and displaying a layout of the area I was staring at filled with colored dots. A legend to my left displayed the temperatures associated with each color, and I smirked in spite of myself.

  “You’re awesome,” I murmured to my suit as I headed toward the right passageway because it had the most heat. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but something warm appeared to have gone through there. Hopefully it wasn’t gigantic and bull shaped.

  As I made my way to the right, something brushed against my legs, reminding me of an overly friendly cat, but when I looked down, there was nothing there. Which was good. If there had been, my heart would have just exploded in my chest. As it was, it took me a couple moments to situate myself.

  Clearly, I was having issues with that whole nerves of steel thing and part of me wished Bang would just come out and start shooting at me. Then I could snap into superspy mode, and I wouldn’t be afraid of monsters. Wandering around in the dark in an ancient maze was making my mind play tricks on me. That was way not fun.

  After a few minutes of weaving through passageways following the heat trail, I was thoroughly lost. Thankfully, I came to something that didn’t look even vaguely Minoan. A steel door about twelve feet tall was set into the stone. Since I knew the Minoans only had bronze, this had to have been installed after they’d left. Was this where Bang was? I sure hoped so…

  I put my ear to the door, listening for sounds but heard nothing from the other side. I wasn’t sure if that was good or not, especially since I didn’t see a keypad or door handle. So how did the thing open up?

  I contemplated it for a moment, wishing I had a grenade or some C4 though I wasn’t sure I’d have used those things if I’d had them. I was much more likely to cause a cave in than not if I blew something up down here. Besides, the idea of blowing up a several thousand year old piece of history sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Instead, I traced my hands along the edge of the frame as far as I could reach but felt only the cold kiss of steel and stone. I even tried using my knife along the edge like I’d done with the trapdoor, but that didn’t work either.

  “Well this sucks,” I mumbled, pacing back and forth in front of the door as I glared at it. I was pretty sure it’d be able to withstand my angry stare so I didn’t have high hopes of opening it that way. For all I knew, Bang had some sort of remote door opener thing on his person. I threw one last look around the room, wondering briefly if there was a place I could hide and wait for the door to open. Unfortunately, the ten by ten square foot space was pretty much empty.

  I wondered if that was on purpose.

  14

  I waited outside that stupid door for over an hour. I knew because there was a little clock in the top right corner of my HUD counting the seconds. I’d looked at the room with all manner of sensors as well but nothing particularly interesting had been revealed either. This was why I was heading back toward the surface. Well that and I was pretty tired of sitting alone in the dark by myself beneath a billion pounds of stone.

  Thankfully, my suit had recorded the directions I’d taken to get here, otherwise I’d have been hopelessly lost. Still, there was something about the whole thing rubbing me the wrong way. Yes, there was clearly something down here beyond the door, and while I couldn’t get it open and peek inside, I was starting to think this may have been a wild goose chase.

  Why? Because Morris wasn’t here. He’d been pretty quick to steal me away from Raul and then, at the last second, let me come down here alone with no information as to how to open the magic door, nor what I’d find down here either. It made me think he was getting me out of the way. It bugged me because if there was only one way in or out of this maze, and it was through the trapdoor I’d come through to get down here. Why hadn’t we just staked it out and waited there?

  Not to mention, it was ridiculous to think there’d be a military base beneath these ruins. There was one way in and out, how were they going to carry equipment through a tiny trap door?

  Either way, I was on my way back to the exit so I could find Morris and ask him those very questions. I was just about to the trapdoor when a loud scraping sound behind me made my heart leap into my throat. I whirled around, hands tucked into fists as I scanned the room with my night vision. A very tiny mouse stared back at me.

  It stood there on its hind legs and regarded me curiously before turning and scampering away. I felt myself blush as I turned back toward the exit. Had I really been scared by a mouse? Seriously? Some superspy I was.

  I walked up to the exit and pressed my knife into the spot. There was a grinding noise, and the trapdoor opened to reveal sunlight in the distance. Otherwise the room beyond was empty. No unconscious guide. I stepped out, not even having to blink as my suit adjusted to the light.

  “You’d think there’d be more guards or something,” I said aloud although I wasn’t quite sure why. As I made my way back out of the temple, my suit changing into a pair of khaki shorts and a blue “Sparta!” t-shirt. See, I was givin
g it culture.

  A moment later, I found myself amid a throng of tourists all snapping photos as tour guides yammered on about Minoan bulls and artwork. One even went so far as to say the Labyrinth was made up and people who believed in it were stupid.

  I fought the urge to correct her because either she’d think I was crazy or wind up being some kind of assassin sent to root out people who journeyed into its depths. It only took me a few minutes to reach the spot where Morris was supposed to be, but instead of finding him, I found nothing. It didn’t even look like he’d ever been there because the grass where I remembered him standing was unbroken and normal looking.

  “Suit, replay my last conversation with Morris.” As I said the words, an image of Morris appeared in front of me, yammering on about how I should go into the labyrinth and find Bang. I knelt down by his holographic feet and checked the grass. It seemed okay, but as I touched the spot, it felt different, though I couldn’t say how exactly.

  Something struck me in the back of the head. I fell forward, smacking into the grass as my vision went all sorts of blurry. My suit covered me in an instant as a heavy weight settled on my back, pinning me to the ground.

  “Well, if it isn’t Abby, um what do you like to be called, Banks or de la Mancha?” the gruff voice of Bang asked, and I could tell he was shifting his weight on top of me.

  “Banks is good,” I wheezed, trying to figure out how he’d managed to sneak up on me.

  “Okay,” he replied, and I felt him press something against the back of my neck. The coldness of it was startling. “I bet you’re relying on that super suit to save you. But do you know why no one uses them? Aside from the brain cancer thing?”

  “No,” I replied, trying to get my hands under myself so I could launch myself at him, rescue the director, and save my father. The moment I moved, he kicked me hard in the ribs. The blow rocked me, and for the first time in a while, I was scared.