This story is based on the popular video game Mirror's Edge. The theme of the game is quite similar to the TV show Dark Angel starring Jessica Alba. It basically takes place in an Orwellian police state. The government tries very hard to censor the spread of ideas and information it considers to be dangerous. This has led to a crackdown on communications. Citizens wishing to avoid the heavy hand of big brother employ "runners" to deliver packages and information. These runners are athletic youth who risk their lives every day in their job. Because it is often impractical to travel on the street level, these runners are often forced to travel throughout the city by rooftops. They climb ladders, slide down cables, run up walls, and jump from building to building to reach their destination while avoiding the pursuing police. The game (and this story) focus on a runner named Faith - a young and sexy runner with a fiery attitude.
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Faith's mind was spinning with the many calculations she was busy performing. She had to judge the accuracy of the cops who were firing their pistols at her after chasing her up a flight of stairs to the roof. She had to measure the distance to the edge of the building and calculate how much momentum she could build up before she reached the edge. She also had to perform some mental geometry, as it was likely that she would have to kick off from the billboard protruding over the edge of the other building in order to make the distance, and she had to be sure that she kicked off at the correct angle. She would also need to immediately roll behind the electric generator immediately after landing so as not to make an easy target for the bullets that she was busy dodging. None of this was new to her though. This was her job and she was good at it.
Faith certainly had the body of a runner. She was young, probably not much older than 18. She wore a black tank top, tan cargo pants, and red sneakers. She had short black hair and brown eyes that glowed with an indomitable passion. She was Caucasian, but she did appear to have some Oriental physical features, probably inherited from her Filipino grandmother. She had an odd tattoo on her right arm that resembled a bar code. She was not a virgin, having had sex with a lifelong friend before he went on a dangerous mission from which he did not return. She was not exactly an innocent naive girl, but she certainly was not a common slut, unlike many of the young women of the city. She had dreamed of finding a perfect romance as a little girl, but she soon became disillusioned with the worthless men of the city. She had yet to meet a man she could respect. She experimented with being a lesbian, but she didn't go any further than kissing a fellow female runner before deciding that it just wasn't for her.
Anyway, back to the exciting chase scene. Faith leaps forward off the building, uses her left foot to push off of the billboard, and performs a perfect roll upon landing that puts her safely behind the electric generator. She then kicks open a rooftop door and makes her way down a flight of stairs before bursting into a hallway. Her decisions are not without a purpose. Although she was running from the police, she also knew that there was a clandestine observation post run by her organization of this floor of this building. Because of its clandestine nature, she knew that she would not be putting it in any danger by running from the cops here. She burst through an office door to find an empty office, with a solitary figure standing in the middle.
The man was dressed in a business suit, and had a pair of rectangular sunglasses and a fedora. He was not a regular cop. In his hand, he was holding a peculiar badge. He was with the secret police.
"Hello, Faith. You can call me Mark."
Normally, Faith would have planted her heel in his face, threw him to the floor, and demanded answers from him, but there was something about him that stopped her in her tracks. The man continued speaking.
"You are going to leave this building in my custody. It will be much better for you than it would be if the cops out there were to catch you."
Faith knew that if the regular law enforcement were to arrest her, she would likely be tortured for information, then shipped off to some secret prison until the state decided to execute her for treason. She wondered how the secret police could be any better than the regular police. She knew it was a false choice though. She could easily escape this man, but why then did she feel no instinct to run or fight? The man seemed to read her thoughts.
"Of course, you could probably easily escape from me right now, but I think you are curious about what happened to your observation post, and you are curious about me. I can't say much now, but I can promise that you won't regret coming with me. You will be taken as my prisoner, but this is something you will want to do."
Against her better instincts, Faith turned around and crossed her wrists behind her back to allow Mark to place handcuffs on her. She allowed herself to be led into an elevator, down several hallways, through the front door of the office building, and into the back of a black van. She did not speak to Mark or to any of the paramilitary forces riding in the back of the van with them. She knew that there was nothing to be said at the moment. She didn't feel like she was captured, or that she had failed. She didn't feel like any ordinary prisoner either. She felt like his prisoner. She felt apprehensive about what this day would bring for her, and rumors of gruesome torture by the government flashed through her mind, but she felt strangely at ease.
When the van stopped, Mark grabbed Faith by the arm and led her through the front door of a nondescript building. Mark led Faith to an empty room with bare walls where he handed her off to a man in a white uniform.
"Jim, I apprehended a runner. I patted her down, but she still may be concealing something. I want you to search her... thoroughly. Confiscate her clothes and any other property, but there is no need to give her an inmate jumpsuit when you're done. I want to make sure she isn't able to try anything sneaky. Inmate! You had better cooperate and not give this man any trouble. You don't want to know what happens to uncooperative inmates."
