AMIRA

by Matthew Betley

  No TDSP classes were held after 5 PM for the purpose of providing the students the opportunity to rehearse and train in the evenings until 11 PM. Each student had a badge that provided electronic swipe access to the facility. The instructors urged the students to stick to the 11 PM cut-off time, but it wasn’t a rarity to find a student or two somewhere in the facility at 2 AM. Youth, energy, and ambition were a potent cocktail for combating the normal need for sleep.

  Shouts from outside the theater interrupted her near-meditative state. A dull thump followed, as if something had struck a wall in the main lobby. Her sense of calm was replaced with alarm, a sixth sense she was convinced she’d inherited from her father. The only other person in here tonight is Susan, but she’s in Gildenhorn across the lobby.

  The Clarice was constructed by an architect whose guiding principle had been to configure the facility as if several Tetris pieces had been haphazardly arranged during construction, with hallways, rooms, and exits jutting off the facility at all angles. The four front doors emptied into the multi-storied main lobby, the Grand Pavilion, which led up a lengthy three-tiered, wide staircase to the upper pavilion. Skylights and support beams lined the ceiling and created the airy, spacious central area of the Clarice with the four main theaters situated off the long, ascending space. The Kay Theater was the first one on the right and closest to the main entrance. The Gildenhorn, where Susan trained, was further up and to the left, the second theater on the other side. It was possible there were other students practicing deep in the maze of the facility, but it was a Friday night, and while the other members of TDSP might be dedicated, unlike Amira and Susan, they also chose to engage in the typical college experience, which included the local bars and Greek party lifestyle on the weekends.

  Susan Li was Amira’s closest friend and confidante at the University of Maryland. They’d become inseparable since Freshman year and shared an off-campus apartment. Susan’s parents had immigrated to the US from China when she was five, and she barely remembered her homeland. Her father was some kind of engineer, and her mother a mathematician, the combination which explained Susan’s “secondary degree” in bioengineering. Amira had no idea what that entailed, but like she’d told Susan, who breezed through classes with an endless supply of 4.0s and no effort, it didn’t sound easy. Different upbringings and goals aside, they shared a passion for dance, and the fact that Susan was five-foot-four, lithe, and petite, while Amira was a lean, ripped five-foot-eight made the two quite the pair at first sight.

  After a brief moment of silence, there was a second thud, followed by a short scream that cut-off abruptly.

  Amira’s internal alarm erupted into action, her only thought, Something’s wrong with Susan. Her concern for her best friend outweighed her sense of personal security. She raised herself out of the splits, and like the graceful and powerful athlete that she was, she leapt off the stage, landed on the carpeted aisle below, and sprinted up the aisle, disappearing under the balcony seating. She ran as if floating up the inclined aisle towards the back of the theater and the orchestra-level exit.

  Within seconds, she reached the set of double doors, paused, and tried to quiet her mind and control her breathing. The right rear door opened directly onto the grand pavilion, and if she emerged too quickly, she’d reveal her presence to whoever was outside. She didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t want to make herself vulnerable without gathering more information. The most informed decisions are always the best ones, her father’s voice reminded her. And then her mother’s voice, Amara’s Voice of Reason, as Amira called it: Just be careful, honey. Be smart.

  The shouts grew louder, the voice of an angry male drowning out all others. He’s speaking Chinese. Is her dad here?

  Amira slowly pressed the bar across the right door and waited as the internal mechanism released, freeing the door. She pushed outward, slowly exposing a sliver of view to the scene outside.

  Susan was being dragged against her will by two men towards the front doors, her ballet shoes providing little traction against the carpeted lobby. She leaned backwards, as if trying to brace herself, but the men were too strong and pulled her forwards.

  Your time is now, Princess, her father’s voice spoke insider her head, and her mind accepted the truth of it. Her father had reminded her at various times throughout her life that all people were tested at some point on their journeys through life. For some, it came early; for others, later. It was in those moments that life-altering decisions were made, for better or worse. Many survived and endured, while others failed and died. It was the way of life and would never change. Her father was convinced of it.

  Be true. Always, her mind replied, and Amira leapt into action before the men could react. She pressed the door open and slipped through, accelerating as she moved. Her bare feet softened her footfalls as she covered the thirty feet to Susan’s abductors. Like onstage, she floated across the floor, but instead of focusing on grace, she channeled all of her strength into pure power, mixed with anger and outrage at the two men who threatened her best friend.

  Less than five feet away, the men halted, suddenly aware over the sounds of Susan’s protestations of the movement behind them. The man holding Susan’s left arm turned his head just in time to see the force of the young woman swarm down upon him.

  Amira launched herself into the air, her right leg extended with her right foot angled at ninety degrees in the perfect flying sidekick position. The bottom of her foot struck the man in the small of his back, driving the breath from his lungs and violently propelling him forward as he reflexively released his grip on Susan’s arm. As Amira landed on her feet, the man crashed into a couch for waiting guests and flipped head over heels over the back.

  Amira turned to the second man and ignored Susan’s stunned look of surprise at her sudden appearance. “Let her go. Now.”

  Susan’s second abductor, a Chinese male in his thirties with brown eyes and longish hair, as if trying to blend in on a college campus, released Susan’s right arm, stepped back, and smiled. He stood a few inches taller than Amira, and his body language exuded confidence, even in the face of the sudden attack that had temporarily incapacitated his partner.

  He’s dangerous. The smile says it all, Amira’s father warned.

  “I don’t know who you are, but Ms. Li is coming with us. You’re meddling in affairs that don’t concern you. I applaud your effort to save your friend, and I’m going to give you one chance to walk away. I hope for your sake, you take it.”

  “He’s right, Amira,” Susan said, defeated acceptance and concern for her friend evident in her voice.

  She’s trying to protect you, not save herself. You need to do it for her. Amira smiled at her friend, and a sense of calm washed over her, similar to the way she felt in the seconds before she performed onstage. Except this stage is a battlefield. “No. He’s not,” Amira said defiantly, and sprang forward before either Susan or the man could respond.

  She slid forward and feinted a strike to his face with her left hand. He recoiled, turned to his left as he slid backward, and brought his right arm inward as if to deflect the punch…exactly as Amira had hoped.

  In addition to Kung Fu in college, she’d been training with her father to box since she was ten. As a female fighter, there was only so much power she could wield, but she made up for it with blinding speed that her father told her could’ve made her a professional fighter if dance hadn’t been her passion.

  Amira slipped to her right, lowered her center of gravity, and delivered four powerful blows to the man’s left side. The punches doubled him over, but he still lifted his arm to ward off additional attacks. Amira seamless shifted tactics, grabbed his wrist with both hands, swept her left leg forward into his left foot, and pulled the arm straight back in a wristlock. The combination of momentum and control as he lost his balance and footing resulted in Amira pulling him to the ground while maintaining tension on his wrist.

  From Susan’s vantage
point, one moment the man who’d been in charge and threatened her and her family was standing there, the next moment, Amira had him on the ground with such speed and violence Susan was stunned at her friend’s aggression. She’s some kind of warrior. My God.

  Amira felt a surge of something primal, a sense of satisfaction at the knowledge she’d just physically bested two men who’d tried to abduct her friend, her roommate. She felt no fear, only the calm, now with the addition of a sense of purpose, as if she were made for this moment. She welcomed the feeling, powerful in its strength and resolve. This is what it truly feels like to win. But now, you need to end it and get Susan out of here.

  Amira leaned over her captive, his arm locked-out under her control. “You didn’t hear me the first time, but I think you hear me now.” There was a menace to her voice, a tone not even Amira recognized. She felt as if some force controlled her actions, as if she were possessed by another being. She looked up at Susan as she torqued the man’s wrist. He exhaled sharply in pain. “Where’s your cell? Mine’s in the theater. I left it on stage when I heard the commotion. We need to call 9-11 and get out of here.”

  Susan shook herself from her reverie at her friend’s actions and shrugged the teal backpack off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor behind her. She turned, bent down, opened the small compartment in the front, and retrieved the Samsung flip phone her parents had purchased for her.

  The man in Amira’s grasp finally spoke, gritting his teeth in pain. “It’s impressive, your skills, I mean that, but this is only going to end one way. Let me go, now, and I let you go. This is your last chance.”

  Amira considered for a moment, and then applied more pressure, ignoring his threat. “Susan, call the police. Now.”

  As her friend dialed for help, Amira knew it’d be several minutes before the College Park Police Department arrived. Her father had warned her that like most police departments, there were only a handful of officers on duty during any given shift. If something happened to her, she’d be on her own initially. Fortunately, her father had prepared her for an eventuality she’d hoped would never come. As with most things, her father had been right once again.

  “My name is Susan Li, and there’s been an attempted kidnapping at The Clarice Smith Center on campus. My friend and I are here, and two men just attacked us. Send help, now!” she implored the 9-11 operator.

  Amira looked up at the main entrance, which consisted of a main set of glass double doors and an additional glass door on each side, and panic set in for the first time since the confrontation had commenced. Two more men were illuminated outside, moving towards the front doors. Both were Chinese, but unlike the two men inside, both held black pistols. Amira’s sense of preservation catapulted her into action.

  “We have to move! Two men with guns are coming!” She hoped the 9-11 operator heard her, but it was irrelevant. She knew they were on their own. She felt a flash of rage and looked down, only to see the man she’d subdued smiling at her. Go to hell, she thought, released his wrist, and struck him in the chin as hard as she could with a right across. The downward force of the punch snapped his head to the right, and he fell to the carpet.

  Amira turned, grabbed Susan’s hand, pulled her into motion, and fled back into the heart of the lobby.

  The two friends reached the first tier of steps when the double set of doors crashed open behind them. Amira released Susan’s hand and bounded up the first three steps when gunshots roared through the enormous space, reverberating off the angles and surfaces of the lobby. The shots struck the theater wall to their right, well over their heads, and Amira realized they were warning shots. They can’t kill us. They need Susan alive.

  Susan screamed in terror, and Amira risked a glimpse backwards. The two men had reached their fallen friends, weapons pointed in the direction of the fleeing girls. The man Amira had knocked to the ground was on his feet, even as the two newcomers moved past him.

  “I told you…not to run. What happens next…is all on you,” he said in between breaths as he rubbed the left side of his face.

  Amira reached the top of the stairs first, with Susan a split-second behind her. “Follow me,” Amira said, and ducked down a short corridor to the right just past the Kay Theater. This is really bad, at least for you. They obviously needed Susan alive, but Amira was expendable. In fact, she was now the only witness to the crime, and like her father always told her about witnesses after years of investigating homicides in DC, the bad guys didn’t like to leave them alive.

  Chapter 2

  The Kogod Theater was a small, multi-purpose theater without permanent seating. Instead, due to its theatrical lighting, it often served as the location for small theatrical performances, workshops, receptions, and even seated dinners. What made the Kogod unique was that it was literally a giant sound-proof box lined with black curtains across each wall. As a result, the students had appropriately nicknamed it the Black Box, often shortened to just the Box. When the doors were closed and the lighting off, it created an environment of pure, pitch, blackness.

  Amira loved the theater for that reason alone. She’d spent hours in the dark, tuning her senses to detect the most minute changes around her. Her logic was simple – if she could move fluidly in the dark, she’d be that much more proficient in the light. It was a principle one of her early karate instructors had utilized, blindfolding the students once every other week to test their situational awareness as the sensei tried to touch them without being detected. Amira was proud of the fact that he’d never succeeded once with her.

  Inside the Box, Amira turned and pulled the black curtains over the door, eliminating the glow of the exit sign above the entrance. “That should disorient anyone who comes in behind us. They’ll have to fight the curtains and the dark. Come on. Let’s get out of here. We can use the sliding door.”

  In the rear corner of the Black Box was a corrugated, tracked door that slid upwards to reveal the entrance to the enormous prop area that spanned the length of the Kogod and the Cafritz Foundation Theater next door. Through the prop area, they could exit into the back wing on the east side of the facility, where multiple exit doors awaited.

  “Are you okay? Do you have any idea what this is about?” Amira asked. “Talk while we move, as we only have seconds before one of these bastards comes in here.”

  “Look at you,” Susan replied. “My own personal savior. I had no idea my roommate was such a badass.”

  “Hey, I’m the daughter of a DC cop. What did you expect? And I had to come to your rescue. You pay half the rent on the apartment,” Amira quipped, attempting to lighten the severity of the situation.

  The two girls had traversed two thirds of the space when more gunshots rang out from the lobby. They froze as a scream rose into the lobby, followed by one more shot that cut it off.

  “That’s not good. At all. Let’s get out of here.”

  They reached the corrugated door, and Amira bent down, released the floor latch, and pulled up. She’d done this simple act countless times in the dark before. What’s one more time? A wash of light emitted into the Black Box from the prop area, eerily illuminating the large space in a warm glow, the direct light slicing across their legs.

  “It has to do with my parents. They told me I had to come with them, that my parents were in danger. I initially believed them, until they refused to let me call them, and that’s when I knew something was wrong.”

  “Good instincts,” Amira said as she pulled the door upwards and held it in place. “Whoever these guys are, they’re not the good guys. Let’s go. You first.”

  Susan slid under the door, stood up on the other side, and grabbed the bottom of the door. “Your turn.”

  Before Amira could respond, more shots rang out from the lobby, and the door to the theater opened. Two men, including the one she’d subdued with a wristlock, burst into the theater through the curtains. So much for disorienting and delaying them.

  The man she’d struck instantly
saw her and raised his pistol. Amira’s mind raced, but there was only one option. “Drop it and run! NOW!” Amira shouted with such fierce command that Susan released her grip on the door.

  As the door slammed to the floor, the man fired, the muzzle flash highlighting his face like a ghoul’s mask on Halloween. The round struck the corrugated door, and sparks flashed from the impact, but Amira was already moving to her right, deeper into the darkness.

  Trapped with two men who wanted to kill her and kidnap Susan, her twenty-year-old mind reached a conclusion that would’ve caused most people to crumble in the face of mortal peril – she had to incapacitate or kill them both, or she would die. She knew what her father would tell her to do, demand of her, given the situation. I won’t let you down, Daddy.

  Chapter 3

  Get your breathing under control, or you’re dead. She’d accepted her situation – kill or be killed – but she had no weapons, other than her bare hands. You have to close the distance and disarm and incapacitate him, one way or another. Consider this on-the-job training. Beats a college internship.

  As calm as her outward movements were, the terror threatened to consume her. It was a suffocating, overwhelming sensation, the living embodiment of paralyzing nightmares in which she was stalked by a nameless, faceless being, a thing that moved with malevolent purpose. She fought the terror and moved to her right as her eyes and ears adjusted to the blackness.

  Shoes scuffed the floor thirty or forty feet away. The exact distance was hard to pinpoint, since the Black Box was fifty-three-feet long and fifty-three-feet wide with a ceiling nearly thirty-feet tall. She placed one foot in front of the other and moved towards the sound. The darkness is your weapon. Use it. Her father, once again encouraging her to do the improbable, no matter how daunting.