Chapter 1 - From Darkness to Light

Atlanta, GA
9/4/2001
9:15 am

"No! No more! 'Telsa Spencer screamed.

Attention was on her.

It didn't mater. In fact, nothing mattered now. A projecting matrix of vivid and painful images in her mind refused to cease: the pestering calls from bill collectors, the partial garnishment of her checks, the sexual harassment from her boss, the near-to-death beatings from her recent ex-boyfriend. Beads of sweat broke across the bridge of her slender nose. She stood there, center the lobby of First Union Bank, feeling as if her head was spinnn.

"I'm sick of this!" her voice boomed.

Bank tellers to the right of her didn't move, nor did the customer service reps along the adjacent wall, sitting behind knee-high cubicles. But the bald head young man, poised at the Aisle-1 Teller, was moving. A part of him magnified in her eyes --- the opening and half closing of his deformed right hand.

He's nervous, a voice whispered in her mind. Kill him, whispered another. Telsa stamped a foot in frustration. "Stop it!" She drooped her head. "Please," her voice became a whisper. "Just let me be."

Won't happen, a voice said. The money, then kill them.

A flood gate of tears fell from her eyes.

A simple protocol was carried out in every Federal bank: In the event of a robbery, do not hinder the process. No mask. No gun. No bomb. No demand.

No longer crying, eyes bone-dry, what had been tears was now fierceness. And she saw the alarm on the man's face. The look in his almond-brown eyes that appeared to say "Something isn't right."

Maybe it was his nerves, she considered. She remained focused on the deformed hand. Opening. Half closing. Opening. Half closing.

The door to the vault opened.

The young man's head turned in the direction of the sound. Telsa's face hardened. A fair-skinned woman exited: A bank manager.

In graceful strides the woman came from behind the teller-counter and entered the lobby.

Underneath the pleated hem of her sky-blue business skirt were smooth and stockingless legs --- shifting like unweathered pistons. Long, straight hair shielded a side of the face as she spoke softly into a palm-size cordless phone. No smile. No frown. Something between the two.

The woman was clueless of what was happening, clueless with two large money bags swinging like heavy pendulums from the left hand.

Telsa lost motor control.

Her lips parted.

She reached into her leather messenger bag.

The tossed it aside.

"Get down!" Telsa shouted, weilding an AK-47 assault pistol.

"Down!"

The bank manager stood rigid. Her eyes were wide. Her mind seemed to have shut down. Telsa locked aim onto the woman's face.

Telsa spoke between clenched teeth. "Down!"

The bank manager dropped onto her stomach.

Kill them, voices advised her. Got to kill them.

Like civil war frontmen, Telsa charged forward and seized a handful of the woman's hair, then yanked.

"Oh, Gawd!" the woman cried. "Please!"

"Shut up, damnit! Shut - " Telsa yanked again, dragging the woman a bit forward.

Kill her, Telsa! Kill everyone of them!

The room seemed to be spinning, Images were blurring. A muscle in her neck spasmed.

Someone moved at her right.

She spun and took aim.

Screams erupted.

She fired.

Her hearing and vision returned, her body unthawed from the coldness of her unbleeding heart, her volatile mind converted to something else --- someone else.

Telsa focused on the young man sprawled on the floor. If he'd remained standing, seconds earlier, when he'd attempted to run, several skull-crushing slugs would have drove through hard bone and parked in the center-most portion of his brain. But he lay on the tiled floor, eyes glued on her, breath fogging glossy floor tile.

Kill him and get the money.

Telsa looked away. She found her own image staring back from an overhead mirror on the far, back wall. Sadness radiated from her clothing: the generic hole-laden tennis shoes, the brown, form-fitting khaki pants, and the grundgy, off-white pull-over hoody.

Her fuzzy, French-bun hair do and her bright-caramel skin complexion reaped of year-long famine. Her eyes, ebony like marbles inscribed with life-long defeat.

Telsa looked away with disdain, then said. "Give me the phone."

She aimed at the young man. "You, you bastard!"

Scrambling to his feet, he hustled up the floored phone beside the bank manager then handed it over. His hand was trembling.

"She'll call you later." Telsa said stiffly into the receiver, then discommed.

Caution in his every movement, the young man slowly moved backward. Telsa gazed into his eyes, trying to ascertain the language of his body and the aura in which it gave off.

I don't like him. Kill him.

"Stop moving, damnit!"

Kill him!

Telsa slowly shook her head.

Kill him!

"NO!" she screamed. "get out of my head! GET OUT!"

Telsa suddenly calmed and said, "Open the curtains."

What are you doing?

The young man found the drawstring to the curtains and pulled. Morning light showered through floor-to-ceiling window panes --- highlighting most of the lobby.

"Sit up," said Telsa.

The bank manager complied, tucking her knees into her chest and then wrapping thin arms around the shins.

Arrest lights on, Telsa stared at the window. An entourage of police cruisers were ranked outside in the parking lot. One officer leaned on the hood of the squad car and steadied a rifle's aim --- at her.

You idiot! Close the curtains!

"No! Get away from the window!"

The young man stepped aside.

The phone rung.

Telsa answered.

"How can we work this out?" a man said calmly. "Talk to me."

Tell him to clear the lot.

"We can't," Telsa answered. "No deals. No negotiations. Everyone dies."

What?!

"Think about what you're saying. What's your name?"

"Telsa."

"Telsa," the man continued. "Listen to me. I'm the guy with the red ball cap on, next to the guy with the rifle."

She saw him.

He continues: "See me? Now listen to me. If you shoot someone . . . you'll be killed."

Listen to him!

Telsa emphasized every word. " So . . . will . . . they."

"Wait!"

She dropped the phone, aimed at the bank manager's face, then shot her.

The window panes shattered. Telsa staggered to the side, released an incidental short burst into the ceiling, then fell over.

Occupants of the bank raced for the exit.

Telsa couldn't move her shoulder. The damn thing burned as though volcanic lava were inside it. Her vision blurred, her mouth went dry, her heart rate became as though it were a single hammer like pounce against the chest.

Tears spilled from an eye. Fatigue enveloped her small frame. All she could think of was how the Atlanta Police Department had cheated her. Why couldn't they see that? Why couldn't they see that more people would've been hurt and killed?

Telsa rest a side of her face to the floor and cried.

From somewhere outside the bank she listened to an officer shout "Get inside! Secure the bank! Go! Go! Go!"