London Wild

by V. E. Shearman

  ‘I’m not sure I like this lifestyle,’ Kitty commented, as the car suddenly turning had caused her to knock her head on the passenger door window. It was a small bump that probably wouldn’t even result in a bruise, but she fingered the area unhappily.

  ‘Me neither,’ February called back, her mind clearly on other things right now. She flipped the toggle for the automatic collision sensors off, and while she was at it, she flipped another to turn on the vehicle’s sirens.

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ Kitty asked, noticing what she was doing.

  ‘The ground pursuit is nearly on us. It’ll be less dangerous for us than if the army have set up a roadblock. With that on we’d just come to a stop, and we can’t allow them to take us alive. If we die in a pileup, it’d be better than what they might have planned for us. I put the sirens on as an afterthought; no would-be hero is likely to try and stop us if we look as if we’re the ones doing the chasing. Shame the hovercopter has us lit up like criminals, but it may help a little.’

  Kitty nodded hopefully. ‘I-I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘I hope I do,’ was February’s remark.

  A minute or two heading in this direction and they saw their first pursuit car. It was approaching from the other direction and when it saw them, it spun itself sideways across the road. February had to drive on the pavement to avoid a collision. She demolished part of someone’s garden wall and dented the side of her patrol car. The front wheel on that side now rubbed against part of the damaged section of the car, making a constant irritating screeching noise. She managed to correct her steering quickly enough to get them past otherwise unscathed. The hovercopter followed right on her tail, and the patrol car that had tried to block their way was right behind them within seconds, sirens blazing.

  ‘Looks like I turned the collision sensors off just in time,’ February commented as they passed the patrol car. She seemed calm, but her face was covered with sweat from worry and concentration.

  Kitty nodded back, her own face a little paler than usual.

  ‘I have to admit,’ February said after another minute, ‘if I can’t find a way to lose that hovercopter, I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this.’

  They passed another patrol car a minute later. This one, though, drove straight past them and then turned around to continue pursuit.

  The first pursuit vehicle was sticking right behind them and seemed to be closing the gap. February was sure they were going to try and ram her off the road. She waited until the right moment and jerked the wheel right over. The pursuit car missed and headed off the road itself, but the driver in that car was experienced, and he corrected his steering before he collided with anything. A moment later he was coming up close on February’s rear again.

  ‘What can we do?’ Kitty cried in near-panic.

  February reached blindly in front of Kitty and pulled a small lever hidden under the dashboard, activating a holographic console. ‘This is an army pursuit vehicle; it comes equipped with two forward-firing laser cannons and a single one to the rear. Use the one to the rear and try and stop those pursuing us. If you get the opportunity and if the guns will aim high enough, try and deal with that hovercopter too.’

  ‘Shoot at them!’ Kitty seemed horrified at the idea.

  ‘It’s them or us,’ February replied simply.

  ‘But I couldn’t kill anyone,’ Kitty said.

  ‘Nor will you,’ February replied, exasperated. ‘These patrol cars are reinforced, laser-resistant. You wouldn’t be able to do them any real damage, but you might be able to put them off their pursuit.’

  ‘I can’t. I-I’m sorry, but I just can’t,’ Kitty replied almost tearfully. ‘What if putting them off causes them to crash? I couldn’t allow myself to be the cause of another’s death.’

  ‘Then don’t,’ February replied; she didn’t seem angry and spoke in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way. ‘You asked what we could do, and at the moment I am open for suggestions. Chances are they wouldn’t have worked anyway, not unless I poke around in the computer again.’ A short pause. ‘And even if they had worked, it’s unlikely you’d have made any real difference in their pursuit.’

  February turned into another side road going parallel to the main thoroughfare they had passed through earlier. Another patrol car joined the pursuit right behind them, heading in from that thoroughfare.

  The hovercopter overtook them and seemed to come down low. It hovered over the road and took up the entire width of the road, hovering at a height where the hovercopter’s skids would act as a makeshift roadblock.

  ‘Duck,’ February told Kitty, and then she gunned the engine. There was no going back, even though she knew that the hovercopter’s skids were likely to be tougher than the material of the car they were driving.

  With one bone-shuddering crash, the hovercopter’s skids ripped off the top of the patrol car, and it hung loosely from one corner. It trailed behind them and scraped noisily along the road behind their vehicle. It also obscured February’s view of her pursuers, and hopefully their view of her.

  In return for losing their roof, the skid that they had hit was only slightly dented, and it didn’t look as if the collision had done it any serious damage.

  ‘We’re sitting ducks,’ February told her passenger insistently. ‘Use the laser rifles; you must try to chase them away, if only with warning shots.’ She reached out and grabbed the nearest laser rifle, moving it towards Kitty as if urging her to take it.

  ‘At least we can get out of the vehicle now,’ Kitty replied. She didn’t make any reach for the laser rifle.

  Without their laser-resistant roof, it would have been only too easy for the hovercopter to move overhead again and cut them to pieces with its lasers. Plus, there was less splash damage with lasers than missiles.

  However, perhaps it was the fact that the hovercopter belonged to the police, and this wasn’t really their fight. Perhaps the collision had damaged the hovercopter more than February had thought. Perhaps the pilot of the hovercopter was worried about all the paperwork involved in explaining a dent in one of its skids. Well, whatever reason the pilot had for ending the pursuit there, he rose above the nearest houses and disappeared slowly into the distance.

  Kitty sighed with relief as February took her hand off the laser rifle again and concentrated on the road.

  ‘You think they’ll give up the chase?’ Kitty peered behind her, but the remains of the roof blocked her vision of the pursuers.

  ‘I think things are beginning to look up for us,’ February replied, though her voice was still filled with worry. ‘But we aren’t out of this yet. There are still vehicles pursuing us, and the army might send in their own chopper next.’

  The weight of the roof finally seemed to be too much for the one support that was still holding it, and after another few twists and turns it broke loose. The pursuing cars passed over it with a metallic crunch as they closed on their prey.

  ‘Keep your head down,’ February commented, not turning to look as she spoke. ‘With no laserproof roofing, one of the pursuers might try his luck.’

  As if on cue, the front-facing laser cannons on the lead pursuit vehicle emerged from their housings and fired. Two blasts hit the laser-resistant body of the car February was driving, making her feel as if they had just been kicked. Fortunately most of the blasts went wide, though, hitting the road just behind them or to their sides.

  February put her foot to the floor to try and gain a little distance on the lead pursuit car, but the damaged wheel complained with an earsplitting squeal and held them back. The lead pursuit car kept up easily and moved almost bumper-to-bumper, their laser cannons no longer firing because they were too close to hit anything other than the laser-resistant bodywork. She inched her way slowly across the road, and the driver of the lead pursuit vehicle, seeing an opportunity to overtake her and maybe block the road ahead, started to do just that.

  Then February suddenly hit the
brakes, bringing her vehicle to a dead stop while the pursuit car went shooting on past.

  ‘Inertial dampeners can be so useful,’ February said, half to herself. She turned her wheel fully to the left and took the nearby turning before flooring it again.

  The first two patrol cars went shooting by the entrance to this road; the third followed them, and it wouldn’t be long before the first two turned round and were in pursuit again. But they had a fair lead on their pursuers now, and there was nothing to stop them bailing out.

  February immediately took the next turning and then another turning after that so that they lost sight of the one remaining pursuit car. She then pulled the car to a stop. This road went on for a lot longer, but there was a small footpath not far off linking it to the next. The footpath was why February had chosen to stop here.

  ‘This patrol vehicle has a tracking device on it,’ February told Kitty quickly. ‘It won’t take them long to find us. We have to get out now and get away while we have the chance.’

  Kitty nodded and tried to open the passenger side door, evidently forgetting for a moment that it would still be locked. The top of the door was covered with broken glass where the roof of the vehicle had been ripped off. Kitty climbed out clumsily, cutting her hand on a jagged edge.

  February would have to leave the car in much the same way, but first she needed to gather her booty from the vehicle’s arsenal compartment. She threw the keys to Kitty. ‘Grab the corpse from the back of the car, would you? The back should still open.’

  ‘Corpse?’ Kitty said, horrified, as she caught the keys. ‘A dead person?’

  ‘I killed him earlier,’ February said exasperatedly; time was counting down. ‘He’s my dinner. Now please, we don’t have long.’ She could hear the sirens getting closer again and was already looking around for the pursuers to catch up.

  It was clear from her reaction that Kitty couldn’t bear the thought of having to handle a corpse. She even closed her eyes for a second as if trying to chase it from her mind. When she opened her eyes again, February sat half-turned in the driver’s seat of the vehicle, staring at her accusingly.

  ‘Throw me back the keys; I’ll get it,’ she said impatiently.

  Kitty sighed with relief and obeyed. She tossed February back the keys.

  ‘You grab the laser rifles and the bombs from the stash between our seats. Then…’ February pointed down the footpath between the roads. ‘…head down there and wait for me.’

  Kitty obeyed willingly, probably keen to do something to help which didn’t involve having to carry bodies about. She climbed back into the car the same way she had gotten out, careful not to injure herself this time, and she gathered the two laser rifles and the bombs. She then climbed out again and turned to head down the footpath as quick as her visibly shaking legs would allow her to.

  ‘Hold on,’ February stopped her. ‘Give me one of those bombs; I think I’ll leave our pursuers a little parting gift.’

  The sound of sirens was getting very loud now; they could only be in the next street. The pursuers had taken longer than February had expected; maybe they had been lying in wait for her to come out and, realizing the vehicle was no longer moving, they had finally decided to come in. Then again, it had been less than a full minute since they had stopped; perhaps it just seemed longer.

  Kitty obediently chucked one of the bombs to her new friend and then followed it with the trigger. She then headed off along the short path to the neighboring row of houses.

  February had had to reach to catch the first part of the bomb, but the second part was thrown more on target. She quickly checked that the bomb and the trigger matched, then opened the rear storage area of the patrol car and removed the corpse, replacing it with the bomb. She then threw the corpse over her shoulder as if he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes, and she turned around to face the direction the patrol cars were approaching from, watching for any movement.

  There they were; the three cars that had been following her so closely had been followed by a fourth. They had probably seen her, but then she had wanted then to see her.

  She turned and headed down the footpath after Kitty as the passenger of the lead car appeared to be preparing to fire on her again. The footpath would be too narrow for the patrol cars to follow, so if the police wanted to follow further they’d have to do it on foot too.

  February met Kitty at the far end of the footpath, just before it entered the neighboring road. She placed the body carefully on the ground and looked back along the alley toward their patrol car.

  ‘What now?’ asked Kitty; she actually seemed to be a little out of breath, but surely the weapons couldn’t be that heavy.

  ‘Now we have to convince them we aren’t worth chasing further. I could sit here with a laser rifle and stop them coming down the alley, but there are other ways round here and we’d be stuck trying to hold them off.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Kitty asked. She seemed a little lost and more than slightly worried.

  February revealed the small box that controlled the explosive charge she had placed in the car. ‘With luck they’ll think twice about following us.’

  She pressed the detonate button. The resultant explosion was a lot more violent than February had even expected. Had there not been houses between her, Kitty and the explosion, they might also have been victims of the blast. As it was, anyone within about a hundred yards of the bomb was killed instantly. Then for maybe another two hundred yards beyond that, the area with strewn with debris from the patrol cars. The houses surrounding the explosion were all damaged in some way. Most lost all of their windows. Some houses as far away as a mile from the explosion also lost a window or two, despite the fact that those same windows had been reinforced to protect them from possible Herbaht attack.

  February seemed stunned. She chucked the box on the ground and looked back along the alleyway. There was a loud whistling in her ears, and it was a few moments until she realized Kitty was talking to her.

  ‘Will that stop them following?’ Kitty seemed to be shouting.

  The whistling seemed to be refusing to go away. She stared blankly at Kitty for a moment, and Kitty repeated the question. February assumed Kitty was shouting because she too had a whistling in her ears.

  ‘I’d be surprised if any of them survived that!’ February answered, also loudly, loud enough so that she could hear the comment herself.

  ‘You killed them all?’ Kitty yelled. The effort of being heard seemed to be drowning her emotions.

  ‘I think so. I hadn’t meant to. I just meant to put them off chasing us,’ February shouted back. ‘Though I won’t shed any tears for them. It means they won’t be following us. Mustn’t assume, though; they might have all survived for all I know.’

  Kitty nodded. She appeared to be a little upset at their potential loss.

  ‘Now, hand me a rifle, grab the body and let’s go,’ February called. The whistling was finally beginning to subside a little.

  ‘Me, take the body!’ Kitty cried. ‘I thought you were going to carry the body, assuming there has to be any body at all.’

  ‘Unless you want to be the one to kill any other soldiers or police we might come across,’ February said, ‘you carry him, and when we get home I’ll share him with you.’

  Perhaps that wasn’t the best way to engage Kitty’s enthusiasm; nevertheless, she checked the charge of the laser rifles and handed the one with more power to February. She then shouldered the second one, and after putting it off as long as she could, she lifted up the body of the soldier. Her face turned a little bit green with nausea beneath her stripes, and she began to sing a popular song to herself as if trying to take her mind off of what she was doing.

  ‘Come on,’ said February, and she led the way along the street, away from the footpath to the adjoining road. ‘These lasers also carry tracking devices, so we’ll have to find somewhere with a little bit of light and remove them.’

  ‘We could leave them
here,’ said Kitty hopefully.

  February shook her head. ‘We need them for defense. What if the army should catch up with us again?’

  Kitty dutifully followed February along the street. She had a haunted look on her face.

  February stopped them in front of someone’s house and looked around. ‘This one might do us,’ she said, keeping her eyes more on the street than on the house that stood before them. The whistling in her ears seemed to have dissipated a little more and was now no more than a whooshing sound, like a waterfall.

  ‘This one?’ Kitty commented. She had a confused expression on her face.

  February pointed at the vehicle parked in the road. ‘I know this model; I think I can probably override its security lockout, and we won’t need to walk any further. I’m sure you’ll be glad to get the body out of your hands and into the back of this car.’

  Kitty nodded.

  There was a slight twitch of a curtain in a broken window of the house behind the car. No doubt the owner had come to see what was happening and, upon seeing who was outside his house, decided not to get involved. It might have been a good idea to keep an eye on the house, just in case the owner had a weapon. But February couldn’t watch the house and break the car’s security lock, and chances were that Kitty wouldn’t do anything to defend them if she was given the task.

  She decided to ignore it as best she could; this car shouldn’t take long to get into. Indeed, a second or two was all it took for February to open the driver’s side door of the vehicle and hop in. She opened the passenger door immediately so that Kitty could join her.

  ‘What about…?’ Kitty jiggled the corpse a little to show what she meant, all the time looking away so that she didn’t have to see it for herself.

  ‘Put him on the back seat,’ February replied calmly. ‘Don’t worry about blood stains; we won’t be keeping this car for long.’

  ‘Blood stains?’ Kitty exclaimed. Well, it was dark and she probably hadn’t been able to get a good look at just how cut up the body was, especially as she couldn’t even bring herself to even look at the body. She seemed to hesitate before putting him on the back seat, as if she had gotten used to the idea of carrying him about on her back. Her face actually turned slightly white when she finally let go of the body and found herself staring right at that dead face.