Fall is part three of Zeta Disconnect
18 January 2007, 1506 GMT / Washington D.C., USA
A chill wind wrapped around the Capitol Building as Emily stepped out onto the time-worn steps. It was already dark, and the usual bustle of the sidewalk below was calm. There was one other person on the stairs with her.
“Hello, Emily” he said to her, “Isn’t it a nice night?”
“It’s a little chilly,” She said, pulling her coat closer against her slight form, and looking over at the man. She recognized him as the new assistant to the one of the Rhode Island Senators. She couldn’t remember which. He had just started at the beginning of the year. She pushed a stray lock of bright orange hair away from her fair, sparsely freckled face “I wouldn’t think you’d be accustomed to the cold, where you come from, Jonathan.”
The man smiled. It was hard to tell under his bushy black moustache, but she could see it in his dark eyes. “It’s not hot all of the time in Australia,” he told her. “I like the occasional chilly evening.” Emily didn’t know much about Australian fashion, but she was pretty sure that walrus moustaches hadn’t been in fashion anywhere for at least fifty years.
“Are you settling into Washington okay?”
“Well enough.” He said, still smiling, “Space is a premium, and I’m having trouble finding an affordable apartment, but the city itself is much like Sydney.”
“Oh really?” she raised one slim eyebrow along with the question.
“Well, the air in Sydney is a bit easier to breath, the roads are a bit quieter, the sky is blue instead of gray, the architecture is more interesting, and the people there are much nicer, but other than that…”
She laughed, “Oh, is that all?”
His expression was mock serious, “The cities are practically sisters.”
Laughing, Emily turned and headed down the stairs. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonathan”
“Definitely,” he said, still smiling.
She sent a little wave over her shoulder when she got to the bottom. The cab she called had just pulled into the circle. Pulling her coat tighter, she took a brisk pace across the yard. At the sidewalk, she recognized the yellow cab. She glanced into the window at the driver, and smiled. “Hi, Jakob.” She said plesantly as she opened the door, and swung herself into the back-seat. As she did, she glanced back at the Capitol steps. Jonathan was already gone. Perhaps he didn’t like the chilly night as well as he had let on.
“Hullo, Miss Emily. Any stops tonight?” Jakob half-turned in his seat to talk to her. There were only five or six drivers out for his company at this time of night, and she was familiar with all of them by now. Jakob’s accent was thick, but understandable. She wasn’t sure where he was from, but his speech always reminded her of a German Hollywood villain.
“Not today,” she answered, “just take me to my apartment.”
“Okay,” he said, cheerily. Jakob flipped the switch on his meter, and pulled away from the building.
Emily sat in silence for a moment, then leaned forward to speak to the cabbie, “Jakob, have you ever been to Sydney?”
“ Australia?” he said it like she had asked if he’d been to mars, “I see posters, and television program. Beautiful city. Never have I been there.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, “You are going on trip with Senator, Miss Emily?”
Emily was taken aback, but realized quickly that Jakob was talking about a political trip. “I doubt the senator would have much reason to visit Sydney, but perhaps I will visit someday. It seems interesting.”
“It is interesting you want!” Jakob spoke to her emphatically in the rear-view mirror, “You visit Tokyo. This is most interesting city in the world!” He smiled at her.
“You’ve been to Tokyo?”
“Several times, yes. Very interesting city. Strange people, strange buildings.”
“Do you speak Japanese?”
Jakob laughed, a surprisingly high-pitched laugh for a man of his size, “No. I learn English to visit Tokyo.”
Emily laughed with him.
Her laugh was cut short when the cab swerved sharply to avoid a black SUV speeding past them. Jakob honked his horn, and shouted through the windshield, “Oberarsch!”
He looked as if he was about to shout something else, when he was interrupted by a sharp jolt from behind. Worried, Emily looked back through the rear window. A second black SUV had struck the cab, and was now pushing it along the road. She could feel and hear the cab’s breaks, as she barely swallowed a scream. Another jolt, and the cab stopped moving. The first SUV had stopped suddenly, and the three vehicles were now pressed together in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. After the clamor of the previous few moments the silence was strangely comforting. Emily looked quickly around. Jakob was lying on his side across the front seats. There was blood under and around his unmoving form. She could see that he hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt, and as she leaned forward to try to help him, her head swam, and she had to lean back again to stop it.
Emily watched, feeling helpless, as two men in what looked like black wetsuits climbed from each of the SUVs. One of them walked directly toward her car door. Her vision was blurred, and her head was still foggy. She was no longer able to keep in the scream that had been welling up inside of her.
The door of the cab was opened, and she was dragged still screaming out of the car onto the street. One of the men drew a gun from behind his back, and pointed it down at her. Even through her fog she could see where he was aiming. He wasn’t aiming at her head or at her chest. He was aiming right at her womb. She knew it was true. Through the screaming and the struggling, she couldn’t help but wonder: How does he know? How could he know? I haven’t even told the Senator yet. I haven’t told anyone yet.
The next moment, her world was filled with the sound of a gunshot. She stopped screaming, closed her eyes forcefully, and felt a stabbing, hot pain on the right side of her abdomen. 
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