Trisha unlatched the winch at the front of her jeep and slid under Chris' vehicle to clamp the winch's hook onto the other car's front axle.
Chris' jeep was passing the twenty-five-degree mark, and the tilting seemed to be speeding up. Terry's added weight began to push the car hack even faster. He jumped off and returned to Trisha as Chris and Owen's vehicle began slowly pulling at Trisha's.
Back in the driver's seat, she jammed the shift into reverse and floored it. Grinding pavement the whole way, she tried to pull both vehicles backward, but it was too late, as Chris' jeep slipped over the edge. Still the cable held, with Chris' tires touching the side of the parking garage. Trisha had to keep spinning her tires in reverse to prevent the other car from dropping the fourteen stories down to street level.
"What happened back there?!" Chris demanded over his transmitter.
"Terry threw some grenades out!" Trisha replied.
"Well it worked for Beech!" Terry protested.
"Beech knew what he was doing!" shouted Chris.
This was nuts. An entire regiment of Roston's men were probably waiting for them on the street below, the very street that Chris and Owen were dangling over. There was no way to get down from the top of the garage. And if she took her foot off the accelerator, Chris, Owen, and Mae-and now she and Terry too, thanks to the winch cable-would plummet fourteen stories to their deaths.
"Terry, get out of the jeep"
All right, all right, let's think our way out of this... " Chris said, faking the best calm he could muster.
"Maybe you could climb up the cable, Beech," Terry suggested, ignoring Trisha's request.
Trisha heard a door open below. Rapid-fire gunshots followed that sound from the street below, and the door slammed shut.
His jeep lurched with the motion, and dropped another meter, dragging Trisha's jeep that much closer to the edge.
"No good," Owen replied, his voice garbled amid the hail of gunshots, which didn't stop.
Trisha stared straight ahead out over the edge of the parking garage, where bullets were spraying upward even now. So there was no way down, and no way to pull the other jeep back up-they were too evenly matched in weight....
"Trish?" shouted Chris. "I need to tell you some-"
"There's no way out!" said Terry. "We either die by falling over the edge, or we die when Roston's men break through the rubble behind us...
"Trisha!" Chris shouted again.
There was a building on the other side of the street, a skyscraper about a dozen stories taller than the parking garage. It had a patchwork pattern of vertical and horizontal cement beams, with large plate-glass windows in between.
"If only there was a way ..." she mused.
"Trisha Merriday.!"Chris screamed.
She blinked, her eyes wide. "What?"
"I need to tell you I'm in love with you!"
"It's okay, we're going to-wait, you what?" Trisha's foot came off the accelerator, and the car slid forward while the other jeep began to descend. Both Terry and Chris let out a simultaneous yelp.
Trisha snapped out of it and pressed on the accelerator, moving the truck backward again. But it only moved a few feet this time.
"Wow .. " she heard Mae say through Chris' earpiece in her childlike tone, and she knew the girl wasn't talking about their predicament. She was marveling at Chris' revelation.
Terry ripped the earpiece out of his ear and screamed into it. "Chris, I know I told you to tell her, but could you have picked a worse time?!"
"You said to do it before we die!"' Chris bellowed from below the ledge.
Owen cut in with, "Let's all just try to calm-"
"I meant in a nice, quiet private moment. Not literally as we're dying!" Terry yelled back.
Everybody shut up!" Trisha screamed.
Without knowing it, she had been holding her breath, and she now let it out with a shudder. She glanced in the rearview mirror and thought of the soldiers that were approaching.
Trisha took another deep breath and let it out slowly. The tires of her jeep squeaked in protest against the strain their treads were being asked to bear. She had only a second to analyze the situation.
If she remembered right, no more than forty feet separated the parking garage and the building across the street, the road between them spanning two lanes. They were more than ten stories up atop the garage, and the building across the way had a lot more levels than that. And it was made up of a grid of perfectly square, plate-glass windows at least ten feet wide and nearly as high.
Calculating the combined weight of the two jeeps, she leveled her gaze directly ahead.
"What's happening up there?" asked Chris.
"Oh man ... she's got that look on her Face...." Terry said, shaking his head nervously.
Without warning, Trisha committed to a mad, desperate act, and mashed clown on the accelerator until it touched the floor. The gear shift was still in reverse, so the tires threw up a howling protest of black smoke, grinding against the garage's pavement like an electric sander. She managed to make a bit of purchase on the cement, and backed up as far as the winch and its dangling cargo would allow, backing up an additional twenty feet from the ledge ahead. She could almost see the front grille of Chris' jeep when her tires could go no further and despite going full-bore in reverse, they began sliding towards the ledge.
At that moment, Trisha popped the shift out of reverse and into forward, while at the same time, she turned on the winch, causing it to recoil, reeling in Chris' jeep. The jeep's transmission objected loudly until the tires, which had been fighting against the weight of Chris' jeep, suddenly catapulted forward.
Trisha's jeep picked up momentum, accelerating to high speed in a matter of seconds, racing toward the roof's edge. Meanwhile, the other jeep remained more or less in place, hanging but pressed up against the side of the building.
Praying hard under her breath, Trisha locked her eyes onto one of the square plate glass windows several stories below, trying to will her jeep far enough forward....
As they neared the edge, Terry shouted in a panic, "Trish!?"
As the two jeeps came just five or ten feet shy of touching nose-tonose, Trisha's jeep ran straight off the roof's edge, and dragged Chris' jeep along with it. The weight was far too great, as she'd expected, so before they'd made it halfway across, both vehicles began to plunge towards the soldiers waiting in the street below.
But there was just enough thrust from Trisha's jeep to propel both vehicles at a diagonal angle toward the skyscraper. Both jeeps, still tethered to one another at their front bumpers, smashed into the side of the skyscraper, shattering glass and crunching the vehicles. Trisha's jeep embedded itself nose-first deep enough into one of the square cement gaps in the building that it managed to cling to its newfound moorings, settling inside a finely-furnished office with a terrible crash of glass and metal. Chris' vehicle slammed top first into a plate-glass window one story below where Trisha had come to rest, so that the chassis stuck out of the side of the building, while the cab was just inside it.
Chris felt a cut across his forehead and blood pouring down beside one ear, but he was alive, and he was awake. That was all that mattered. He and his seat were reared completely vertical, putting him on his back, not unlike the position he'd been in many times during a rocket launch. Only the window in front of him was mostly dark, staring into the beams and pipes and ducts of the skyscraper.
Beside him, Owen was bleeding as well, but also conscious. Mae showed no signs of life in the backseat, save the tiny rise and fall of her chest.
Chris and Owen, thinking the same thing, untangled themselves enough to rear back and kick the windshield free from the jeep. They had an escape.
Gunfire shattered the air- no doubt the work of the soldiers on the ground-and ricocheted off the underside of the jeep, which was fully exposed to the outside, .
"I've got her, go on," said Owen, reaching into the back seat to carefully lift Mae.
As Chris began to climb up the empty windshield frame, he heard the awful sound of metal grinding against metal, and the truck began to slide.
"Move!" he screamed, squeezing through where the windshield used to be. He landed on cracked floor tiles which gave a little under his weight. He spun in place and laid facedown on the floor. "Give her to me! Get out of there, hurry!"
As the jeep continued to slide, Chris could only hope that the winch rope from the other jeep would hold long enough ... and that the others were conscious and able to get out of their jeep as well, before...
Owen lifted Mae up high enough that Chris was able to get a hold on her arms. She sagged heavily and did not wake, and Chris held on tight. The jeep continued its slow slide...
Owen's mighty frame pushed himself up high enough through the windshield to grab onto a two-by-four sticking out from between the floor and the ceiling of the next level below, but with only one hand.
His face and Chris' were only separated by the length of Owen's arms, but the two men clung tight to their respective handholds. The jeep suddenly broke free around them, sliding down and away, and leaving a jeep-sized hole in the building through which Owen and Mae dangled. Half a second after their jeep fell, Trisha's jeep was dragged behind it by the cable, all but a black blur falling just inches from where Owen and Mae were suspended.
More shots were fired from the street below just before there was a tremendous crash, and Owen scrambled to climb up to safety fast, while Chris strained every muscle in his body to pull in Mae's unconscious form.
Barely holding onto consciousness, Chris led the way down flight after flight of stairs inside the skyscraper. Owen carried Mae right behind him, with Trish and Terry pulling up the rear. Terry held his gun at the ready, as did Owen, who only required one hand to carry Mae over his shoulder.
Blood ran from cuts in all five of them, some deeper than others. No one said a word as they ran, but a common feeling was shared by all-that they were approaching the end of their journey. Whether by Roston's hand or not, they were simply too exhausted and hurt to keep this up.
Nearing the bottom floor, Chris could already hear the telltale footfalls of Roston's soldiers entering the building just below.
Chris' weary mind flashed with thoughts, ideas. If they could reach a side street-not the one Roston's men had blocked off-there might be some parked cars there.... They might have a chance if they could hot-wire one of them. But they would have to evade all of the soldiers first....
They reached the bottom floor and gathered at the exit door.
"Terry, Owen, lay down some cover fire when I open this door. I'll take Mae," he ordered.
Owen handed her off, even though Chris knew his friend was internally questioning the move, given how much Chris was bleeding and on the verge of passing out. Trisha joined him without a word, taking up as much of the slack with Mae's limp body as she could handle.
The bottom floor was a wide open lobby with comfortable winghack chairs and expensive-looking wooden tables and furnishings. It left them with few places for cover. Still, they had no option. They needed out. Outside, a dozen or so of Roston's soldiers were sprinting for the lobby.
With Owen and Terry firing their automatic rifles, Chris spotted a desirable side-street exit and led Trisha toward it with a half run. His head was cloudy and throbbing, and he dreamed of staggering onto a comfortable bed and falling asleep.
They were almost at the door, ignoring the intense gunfight raging behind them, when a bloodcurdling sound emerged above the cacophony.
Terry, screaming.
Chris stopped and spun. Terry was on the floor, clutching his leg. His gun was hanging freely from its strap, and Owen was crouched behind an upturned table, too far away to reach him amid all the shooting.
"Put her down, put her down!" Chris yelled at Trisha. The two of them lowered her to the ground, and Trisha knelt over her, trying to protect the girl from stray bullets with her own body.
The world seemed to lag into slow motion as Chris ran toward Terry, his mind racing back to just over a week ago when the Ares was crashing.... Terry had fallen and needed their help, but Chris was the one who refused to let the others go to him. Now here he was, risking all of their necks to do that very same thing.
When he reached Terry, he found his friend still awake but bearing down in pain. The bullet had pierced his thigh, but it looked to have gone clean through. He grabbed Terry by both hands and dragged him behind cover. He looked back at Trisha, who was being held aloft by the throat by one of Roston's soldiers.
The man was shouting something in her face, and he had a rough, growling voice. A voice that Chris remembered from the Lake Charles bridge.
With his last remaining strength, he pitched Terry over his shoulder and ran for Trisha. But his legs were moving through molasses and it was taking too long.
He was only halfway there when Owen caught up with the big man holding Trisha up, and clocked him across the hack of the head.
Chris saw that he was near a plate-glass window, and he grabbed the gun still hanging from Terry's neck and riddled it with bullets until it collapsed.
"Beech, let's go!" he shouted over the chaos.
Owen helped Trisha to her feet who, thankfully, was able to stand under her own power-and it was after he and Terry had hopped out onto the sidewalk that it registered with him that Mae was no longer lying at Trisha's feet.
There was no time to consider. They had to run, and he was carrying Terry and ready to pass out....
Owen and Trisha emerged from the building not far from where he stood, and Chris saw now that they were on a lesser-used street behind the skyscraper. Roston's men hadn't made it down here yet, though that was sure to change any second.
A black jeep roared down the street and slammed on its brakes, right beside Burke.
Chris was so, so tired, his spirit broken. But he would not be captured without a fight. He raised his gun.
"Have to run for it, it's-"
The driver's door of the jeep opened and out stepped a tall man with a braided ponytail.... Deeper within the jeep sat a short, eggshaped man with prematurely white, mussed-up hair and a bushy mustache.
`-you!" cried Burke, his foggy brain needing a moment to catch up with what he was seeing.
He recognized these men. He'd seen them before.
On Mars.
The man with the ponytail opened his mouth to say something, but Chris shuddered-no, it wasn't him, it was the world that shuddered-and abruptly he was wading in an endless sea of water.
But this wasn't water the way he knew it. At the point where his feet dipped lowest, it was ice cold, and his toes were frozen and frostbitten almost instantly. The water around his chest where he was treading was warmer, but it tossed to and fro ferociously, throwing him about like a rag doll. Above the surface, the sky was not blue; it was orange, and the air was blisteringly hot. It felt like fire to his lungs as he breathed in.
This was the void's doing again, he knew, and he waited for the world as he knew it to return. But minutes passed and nothing happened. He was trapped here in this peculiar and dangerous place. He wouldn't be able to survive here for long. The water's turbulence increased, flinging him back and forth and tugging him under the water. It was bitter cold down there, and the frostbite was quickly spreading to his feet and up his ankles. But when he broke through above the surface, he could barely breathe the air. It was like trying to inhale at the rim of an erupting volcano.
He spun around as best he could, but there was no land in sight. There was nothing, merely this endless frozen sea that went on forever in all directions, and the starless, pitiless atmosphere above, which might as well have been made of brimstone.
The conflicting sensations were overpowering him, and he was still groggy from the crash and the gunfight, though that felt like a different lifetime now, here in this desolate place.
All alone.
The air and sky and ocean seemed to twin
kle, and he was back on solid ground again, outside the skyscraper in downtown Houston. He was sopping wet, his lungs were on fire, and his feet badly frozen-so much so that he couldn't feel them and so collapsed to his knees.
He felt a hand tuck under his armpit and help him up. Deliriously, he swiveled his head and looked into the spectacled eyes of the tall man with the ponytail-who had become just as wet as Chris was.
"Get in, come on! Hurry!"
SEVENTEEN
Mae awoke flat on her back in what at first glance looked like some kind of lobby. She didn't feel like getting up, so she rolled onto her side and looked around. She was still downtown, but she couldn't tell where. And the lobby, on second glance, was demolished, evidently destroyed in some kind of fight.
How much time had passed while she slept?
And more important, where were the others?
There were people milling about. A lot of them. Had Chris and Trisha and Terry and Owen done it? Had they found a way to bring everyone back? Was it over? Were these regular people who had been taken away but now returned?
A man stepped into her view, towering over her. A tall man, wearing a gray camouflage uniform. She focused on his folded arms, his violent expression, and she recognized him. It was Major Griffin, the one who'd pursued them throughout Houston. He was sweating and his face was red, though she thought this was more the result of anger than exertion.
He picked up his gigantic boot and placed it on the side of her head, mashing it down to the ground. Mae was forced to keep her head still, turned to one side.
"Who are you?" he asked, his words coming out slowly, utterly devoid of humor or compassion.
Mae thought for a moment and then smirked to herself.
"I'm the fly in the ointment," she replied, her voice strong.
"That's an understatement, girl," snarled Griffin. "We've been keeping an eye on you, and we're all wondering what your part is in this."
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