“Just saying that was much worse is all,” Perry shrugged. “There was an arena with our names on it.”
“Ah, you’re trying to cheer me up,” Blake nodded.
“Well, you looked a little down,” Perry said.
Thinking back to Tellen, it was because they were human and the so-called enemy of the Lishk that they were on a fast track to be killed in a fashion deemed the most entertaining. On Tellen, the humans were not the best of fighters, where the Lishk were well-suited to the hunt, so pitting humans against a Lishk often resulted in the humans’ gory deaths. They had managed to convince the Lishk king to allow them to be emissaries to the human governors in an attempt to heal the long rift that had been between them. Between Blake, Perry, and the other woman who was with them at the time, they had managed to get the species to start talking about peace and cooperation, especially when Blake had shown them what they could offer each other. It was a difficult situation like this one since they were also locked up in the Lishk dungeon, but unlike that situation, the three of them had remained together and intact. Michelle, by contrast, was gone.
Blake sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Losing anyone is disheartening,” he said. “As long as she was his prisoner, we knew for certain that we had a chance to get her back, but I don’t know what’s beyond that phasing barrier. Hypothetically, everyone is still alive in there, but we don’t know in what state. We can see them, but we also don’t know what they’ll be like when they come out.”
“You’re afraid she’ll be hurt somehow?” Perry asked. Blake leaned forward again and rested his elbows on his knees, looking back to the floor.
“Afraid she won’t come out at all,” he admitted.
“But the others in there,” Perry began, but Blake interrupted.
“We know there were people in there when it was activated,” Blake said looking up at Perry, “and everyone hopes they’re fine. They seem to be all right in some capacity. But what we don’t know is their true state and what happens to those who venture in there now and disappear.
“Yes, we saw her looking out, but what does that mean? To make this worse, we aren’t part of this world, and we already know it affects us differently. We don’t know if the phasing out will be different as well. If we’re lucky, she’ll be fine. I don’t want to consider the ‘if not.’”
“Meh, it’ll be fine,” Perry shrugged. They sat in silence, not knowing what to say next. The base was quiet at this hour, and they could hear soldiers walking around outside their door, and there was apparently someone patrolling the grounds immediately outside the window of their cell, as they could hear someone shuffling fairly close to the building.
“Hey,” a voice whispered. Blake got up and walked to the window. He looked across the lawn and roads and whoever was there was not in the window’s path.
“Yes?” Blake responded. “And what can I do for you?” He was not sure what else he could say to the disembodied voice.
“You ready to bust out of there?” the voice asked. Blake was surprised. On the one hand, of course he was ready to get out of the cell and move onto whatever had to happen next, but on the other, each forward step had only taken them backwards on Keersh.
“Have we met?” Blake asked.
“It’s Hector,” the voice said. “I took you to Keppler’s.”
“Yeah, sorry about what happened to him,” Blake said.
“I heard,” Hector said. “That’s when I also heard you were locked up here.”
Blake remembered Hector as one of the pair of soldiers who had easily escorted Blake, Perry, and Michelle off the base and to Point Light, where they had lost Michelle to Halloway, and he and Perry had begun their wild goose chase to shut down the power. Hector had been left behind, still unconscious from the blast that had knocked them all out for a time. At least he could identify which side was trying to take them this time.
“So, do you have a plan or something?” Blake asked, knowing that they would not just fit through the bars, and it would not be so easy to walk in and get them. Halloway would have an army on them in seconds.
“Stand away from the wall,” Hector said. Blake immediately moved back against the door, crouched and covered his ears. He looked at Perry who only regarded him with curiosity.
“What’s going on?” Perry asked.
“Someone says ‘Stand away from the wall,’ and I assume they’re going to violently remove it,” Blake said. Perry nodded, and followed Blake’s lead on the floor next to him. Instead of an explosion, there was a muffled thud followed by a hole-shaped section of the outer wall collapsing into dust. Blake and Perry uncovered their ears and looked at the hole, noticing that the rest of the room was not only undamaged, but debris from the wall had barely touched the bed next to it.
“That was cool,” Perry commented as Hector popped his head around the edge of the hole.
“Compression bomb,” he said, noting the wonder in their expressions. “Come on!”
With no other options, Blake and Perry jumped through the new hole in the wall and followed Hector to a vehicle parked in a bare patch of land just off the main road with several other vehicles. Hector’s was very similar in design to a sport utility vehicle with wide tires and wheel base, engine under a low hood in the front, four doors and plenty of interior room, but unlike any SUV on Earth, the doors were similar to the gull-wing style and opened upward. Inside, there was seating for six in individual swiveling chairs, except the driver’s, with an aisle through the middle from front to back. Facing to the front, the driver sat on the right side of the vehicle but instead of pedals and a steering wheel, there was a single stick coming up from the floor directly in front of the seat, which Hector straddled, and a lever mounted to the floor on the left side of the seat which a pair of thumb buttons.
Blake looked back to their former cell and found that their escape had not gone unnoticed. Several soldiers were examining the hole while others were running across the lawn after them. They pulled their doors shut, and Hector pressed a button to lock them.
“Time to go,” Blake urged.
“Hang on,” Hector said and pressed one of the buttons on the side of the left hand control lever, which lit up an indicator on the dashboard, before pressing it forward. The vehicle lunged into reverse and Hector used the stick in front of his seat to steer the vehicle around so he could drive forward out of the parking area. Moving the lever back to its home position, the vehicle slid to a stop. Hector pressed one of the left hand buttons again, and a different indicator lit up. He pressed the lever forward again, and the vehicle shot forward onto the road.
Hector used the large stick to steer onto the main road, driving on the left side, and pressed the accelerator forward increasing his speed as he aimed directly for the main gate out of town. Soldiers cleared the road and watched powerlessly as Hector barreled toward the gate clearly intending to ram his way out.
Perry glanced behind them and said, “We’ve got a couple on our tail.”
Blake turned and saw that two vehicles similar to Hector’s but more military in their markings had joined them on the road.
“Brace yourself,” Hector warned them. Blake looked forward, saw how close the fence was, and braced for impact, praying the momentum of the vehicle would overcome the strength of the fence. They slammed into the gate with a sharp jolt, and though it damaged the front of the vehicle, it threw the gate clean from its hinges. The road ahead was clear as far as they could see, but behind them, the two pursuers were able to close the gap thanks to the loss of motion caused by the fence impact.
“How were you hoping to shake them?” Perry asked.
“Luck mostly,” Hector said with a shrug. “I didn’t have a lot of time to formulate a plan.”
“Understandable,” Blake said. “Luck can get us part of the way, I imagine.”
“But not completely,” Perry said, his eyes fixed out the rear window. “They’re gaining.”
Hector pushe
d the accelerator lever forward, but though the engine revved up a bit, their speed remained constant. Hector grimaced, “I’m afraid hitting that fence didn’t do us any favors.”
“Defenses?” Blake asked hopefully.
“Nothing directly lethal,” Hector admitted.
“Anything works,” Perry said. “Where is it?”
“Behind the back seats,” Hector said pointing back with a thumb over his shoulder. Perry crawled down the vehicle’s center aisle to the rear where he found a metal case just wide enough to span the aisle as he bridged it across the rear seats. He opened it to find two top-loading, compressed-air rifles with two clear clips of colored balls. Perry looked dumbfounded, and even Blake had to admit that the parallels between this world and many of the creations of Earth were downright eerie.
“Are these paintball guns?” he asked, turning to Hector.
“We like to call them diversionary weaponry,” Hector said sounding a bit amused. “They’re inconspicuous to buy, non-lethal, and completely legal to tote around anywhere. They really hurt if they hit you, and happen to be extremely useful in allowing escape from people chasing you on wheels.”
“How?” Perry asked incredulously. “You can’t shoot their tires out.”
“Windshields, Perry,” Blake said pulling one of the rifles out of the case and loading the clip. “You cover their windshields with the paint.”
“Bit of a warning, though,” Hector said. “You stick your head out there, and they won’t be as non-lethal. Not to mention unappreciative of the new paint job you’ll be offering.”
A few shots rang out from behind them, and Blake and Perry instinctively ducked. Perry chuckled. “Ever think about how pointless it is to duck from a gunshot in a car?”
“I try not to, actually,” Blake said. Perry attached the cartridge to the top of the rifle and gripped the handle. Worry crossed his face when his finger failed to find purchase on a trigger, and he looked down at it, wide-eyed.
“How do you fire this thing?” he asked.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a gun,” Hector said disbelieving.
“Of course I have,” Perry said, “but they look a little different where I come from.”
“The trigger should be under your thumb,” Hector said. Perry flipped the rifle over to look at the grip where his thumb was situated, but Blake pointed out the mechanism at the rear of the weapon. The trigger was actually two pieces. A small piece at the top served as the safety switch that one would flip upward only a fraction of an inch before the actual firing mechanism would depress. This explained why none of the weapons they had seen had no finger trigger; it was under their thumbs. Perry nodded his understanding, so Blake moved to the passenger side window and Perry to the driver’s side and opened them.
“Stay as steady as you can,” Blake told Hector.
“Will do,” Hector nodded as they leaned out the windows and took aim. Blake and Perry fired several shots at their pursuers, and it took a couple of misses to get the hang of the thumb trigger. Blake was very proficient with a firearm, but everything he had fired from basic gunpowder projectile to energy weapon had a forefinger activated firing mechanism. Activating it with his thumb was a little weird, but he got it honed in on the vehicle directly behind them. As soon as he got one to splatter on the windshield, he noticed Perry had also worked out how to fire it accurately as two more splatters hit the windshield. They made several more direct hits, but the vehicle did not slow down at all.
A soldier leaned out of the passenger side drawing his more lethal pistol, and Blake and Perry ducked back inside as the soldier fired several rounds, two of them hitting the rear of Hector’s vehicle.
“Hang on!” Hector called out suddenly, and Blake barely had a moment to notice a curve to the right immediately ahead of them before Hector took it tossing Perry across the interior to Blake’s side, almost landing on top of him.
“Sorry,” Perry said immediately, but Blake shook his head as it was clearly not his fault.
“Sorry about that,” Hector said.
“A little more warning, if possible,” Blake asked.
“If I have it.”
Blake and Perry moved back to their windows and leaned back out, taking aim at the lead vehicle still pursuing despite the windshield being almost completely covered in paint. Blake and Perry fired and further obscured the driver’s view until he was forced to lean out his window to see. The soldier leaned out again to take aim at them, but this time, Blake was confident enough with his aim to fire at the soldier, hitting him in the face. Dropping his pistol, the soldier ducked back in just as Perry took a shot at the driver and hit him as well. The vehicle swerved as the driver tried to balance the pain of the hit, the blindness of the paint, and maintaining control of his vehicle. The vehicle finally ran off the road into the open land bordering the road and spun out causing a cloud of dust to encircle it before it came to a stop. It was not over yet, however, as the second vehicle passed the wounded first to close in behind them. This time, it appeared they were going to be more aggressive with their approach. Blake leaned back in.
“Do you have any more speed to give, Hector?” Blake asked hopefully.
“Not a bit,” Hector said regretfully. “Worse than that, I think I’m losing power, but what we have we should be able to maintain.”
“They’re just about on us,” Perry said. Without a second thought, Blake moved to the window to see if they could take this one down as well, but as soon as he stuck his head out the window, an automatic weapon ripped across the back and side of the vehicle. Blake ducked back inside, and he and Perry huddled close to the floor. Bullets tore through the soft metal and broke the rear window, two of the side windows, and put a couple of holes in the front as well as hitting the seats, but miraculously missing all of them. Though the front windshield had two holes where bullets had torn through it, the glass remained largely intact, only showing shatter marks where the holes were.
“That’s not good,” Blake commented looking up at Perry. He sat up cautiously and saw their pursuers had moved into the right lane beside them and were matching their speed. He glanced forward and saw another vehicle approaching them, also in the right lane. Their pursuers paid it no mind, and despite the approaching vehicle blaring its horn, the soldiers forced it off the road.
Blake moved across the vehicle and fired a couple of shots onto the closed side windows of their pursuers’ vehicle. Undaunted, their pursuers rammed into the side of them, scraping the two vehicles together. Hector struggled with the steering column to keep them on the road.
“Little help?” Hector said.
“Come on, Perry,” Blake said, and between the two of them, they blanketed the windows of their pursuers’ vehicle in paint. Their pursuers rammed into the side of them again, however, throwing Blake and Perry from the windows and causing their tortured engine to grind under the pressure. The pursuers pulled away again, and Blake barely got a look out the window to see they had rolled their window down and the automatic weapon was taking aim.
“Get down!” Blake said, and the weapon ripped through the side of the vehicle, the bullets passing over Blake and Perry, but Hector cried out in pain.
“Hector, what happened?” Blake called out.
“It’s ok,” Hector said. “I took one in the arm, but I’ll live.”
Blake jumped up and noticed the window was still open. He fired a shot and caught the gunman in the back, causing him to lurch in surprise and pain. He could just see the driver across the vehicle through the open window, and without a further thought, took aim and hit the driver in the side of the head. The driver jerked the steering in surprise causing him to lose control. Hector avoided them, and their pursuers’ vehicle whipped sideways until the forward motion got the better of them and the vehicle rolled several times sideways along the road until it finally came to a crumpled stop.
Blake took his eyes from the wreck out the broken rear window, and they all breath
ed a sigh of relief at their narrow escape. Blake and Perry put their thumb safeties back on, unloaded their weapons, and placed them back in the case that had been knocked to the floor and taken a bullet of its own during the chase. Blake moved to the passenger seat next to Hector and regarded Hector’s bleeding right arm.
“Are you all right?” Blake asked. “Really?”
“It hurts, if that’s what you’re asking,” Hector said, “but I’ll be fine. Just need to get it bandaged up until we can get the bullet out.”
“Do you have anything in here we can do it with?” Blake asked.
“What? Are you a doctor too?” Hector scoffed.
“I do have some medical training,” Blake said. “At the very least, I can remove a bullet and make sure the wound doesn’t get infected.”
Hector regarded Blake with a level of distrust, but finally shook his head with a sigh. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
“Well, you can’t exactly go to a hospital, can you?” Blake said.
“No, I don’t suppose so,” Hector acknowledged. Blake paused for a moment before moving on to what was really on his mind and had been since they had left Halloway’s base.
“I do want to thank you for getting us out of there,” Blake said, and Hector simply nodded, “but if you’ll forgive me for asking: why?”
“Gerard believed in you,” Hector answered without hesitation, “and I know you did what you could to help. The lights in Carburast went out. We could not have done that without you.”
“That didn’t fix the problem though,” Perry noted.
“I know that too,” Hector sighed.
“We can’t just run away from it, you know,” Perry said. “Our friend was lost in there.”
“You’re not the only one to lost people in there,” Hector said. “Gerard and Dorin? They’re only the latest in a long line of lost people.”
“We’re not running, are we?” Blake asked, knowing that there would be little point in rescuing them if the only plan had been to run away.
“No,” Hector confirmed. “Gerard had hung all his hopes on shutting that plant down, and it didn’t work. I don’t know what to do now. I never really knew what to do before. Gerard was our leader. The visionary, you might say. He had studied Carburast ever since it went down, but ended up down the wrong road. I don’t know much about it at all.”
City Of Phase Page 15
