by Brandon Mull
As the minutes passed, Cole grappled with a mix of boredom and anxiety. There was no way to know how long they would wait for the transfer vehicle. They had gotten into position well ahead of schedule in case it came early. If the vehicle showed up late, the wait could drag on for hours. And of course, if the patrolmen transferring Joe took another route, there would be no rescue attempt. Everything depended on the vehicle coming down this section of Flag Street on the way to the holding area.
After some time, a fly started buzzing around near him. Cole swatted at it, but the tiny insect dodged his swings. The communicator came to life without warning. “It’s a go,” a hushed voice said. “Target confirmed. It’s a go.”
Flustered, Cole grabbed the canister of freeze-foam and ran the few steps to the edge of the roof overlooking the magroad. Below him, traffic flowed along like normal, levcars darting and weaving. Cole released the safety on the foam gun.
Suddenly all the levcars along one section of the street dropped to the magroad in a grating discord of metallic screeches. Sparks flew and undercarriages howled as the wheel-less cars ground to a halt, jostling against one another before groaning to a stop. Forge had come through as planned—an entire block of the magroad had been deactivated.
Cole squeezed the trigger, and the foam gun bucked in his hands as a high-pressure jet of freeze-foam streaked down to the road. Upon striking the surface of the magroad, the focused stream swelled into smooth drifts of foam. Cole kept his finger on the trigger, pouring on more foam until a white, puffy wall took shape.
From the top of the building, Cole felt somewhat removed from the chaos below. People down on the street were pointing and shouting to each other. To the left of his wall, where the magroad remained functional, levcars coasted to a halt. That section of the road swiftly became a tightly packed parking lot, creating an enormous backup as new levcars continued to arrive. Within seconds of Cole starting to form his wall, Trickster and Roulette shot into view on their warboards, weaving between the grounded levcars.
The wall of foam took shape quickly. Not more than fifteen seconds could have passed before the foamy barricade was complete, perhaps a little sloppier and wider than necessary. Looking up Flag Street, Cole could see the second barrier Jace had created swelling above the grounded levcars like heaps of whipped cream.
Checking the gauge on his canister, Cole found he had used a little more than 60 percent of the freeze-foam. Not bad, since the big job was done. Next he had to protect the area from incoming patrolmen.
A hasty survey up and down the street revealed no threats at the moment. Nobody was exiting the grounded levcars. Along with taking out the magroad, Forge had promised that he would lock down all of the affected vehicles. Cole noticed that none of the grounded vehicles had overturned or flipped onto their sides. Apparently they were designed to fall flat in emergencies.
Trickster and Roulette stopped at a black vehicle in the midst of the other grounded levcars. It looked a little larger than the other cars. Forge had wondered whether City Patrol would use an official prison transport vehicle or hide Joe inside an ordinary levcar. Apparently they had opted for the armored version.
Trickster hopped down from his warboard and used a handheld canister to spray a side window. Roulette stayed on her warboard, trapgun ready. Trickster repeatedly banged a short, black rod against the window he had sprayed.
“It’s not working,” Trickster said over the communicator. “This is some kind of high-grade crystal.”
“Outlaw, move in,” Googol’s voice ordered.
“So soon?” Forge’s voice asked.
“Speed is everything today,” Googol answered.
The yellow robot rushed into view, dashing between the grounded levcars like a running back. Remembering to check the area, Cole saw a pair of patrolmen racing down the far side of Flag Street on foot, trapguns in hand. His attention had been on Outlaw and the others, so the patrolmen were already closer than he should have allowed. As they neared the creamy barrier Cole had raised, he fired freeze-foam, shooting a little ahead of them at first, but guiding the stream into them.
Googol had assured him that although freeze-foam became solid when it hardened, the porous substance allowed enough airflow for those trapped inside of it to breathe. Cole piled a generous mound over his targets. They flailed a bit, but the foam soon hardened, ending their movements.
Cole checked the gauge on the canister and found he hadn’t quite used 70 percent of the freeze-foam yet. Scanning the street, he saw no other patrolmen approaching.
Outlaw reached Joe’s transport vehicle and started pounding one of the darkly tinted windows with a large drill attached to his arm. The drill whined, the pitch changing with each impact. With every blow, the black vehicle slid sideways until it pressed up against a neighboring levcar.
“The window keeps holding,” Trickster said over the communicator.
“It’s weakening,” Outlaw said. “Almost there.”
His blows sped up, the drill screaming as his robotic arm worked like a piston. Finally the window shattered.
Googol whistled softly over the communicator. “I’d like to know how they bonded that crystal.”
Outlaw staggered back, coated in black sludge. Trickster fired his trapgun into the car and then flopped backward to the street, his entire upper body sheathed in quicktar as well. It looked like he had been dipped in molten chocolate. His legs jerked and kicked. Wherever the black covered, Trickster remained still as a statue.
Roulette sprang past the broken window, firing into the car. She leaped by it a second time, shooting again. Then she peered into the window. Nobody returned fire.
Extending one arm, Roulette sprayed Outlaw with a pinkish mist, and the tarlike sludge melted off the robot. Outlaw then bathed Trickster with a similar mist, and the black stuff drained away from him as well. Outlaw approached the levcar again and reached through the broken window. After a moment grasping and wrangling, the robot reached deeper and then pulled Joe out of the window. Dressed all in pale blue denim, Joe had some freeze-foam clinging to him, and appeared to be unconscious. Outlaw sprayed him with lavender mist, and the foam dissipated.
More patrolmen were coming—not just along Flag Street, but down some of the alleys across the way. Cole shot freeze-foam at the patrolmen on Flag Street, but they did a better job this time diving for cover among the many levcars stuck at a standstill. Changing tactics, Cole sealed up the mouths of the alleys across the way before the oncoming patrolmen could emerge. If he couldn’t trap them, at least he could slow them.
“Target acquired,” Roulette said over the communicator. “Our stun gas knocked him out, but Outlaw is reviving him.”
“Good work,” Googol said. “Get out of there. Abandon all posts. City Patrol is closing in from all quarters. Local building security is being notified as well. Move, people.”
The gauge showed that Cole had used more than 90 percent of his freeze-foam. Down below, Outlaw had draped Joe over one shoulder and was running away. Roulette and Trickster fled in opposite directions on their warboards. Patrolmen were climbing the barriers in the alleys and approaching the larger barricade on Flag Street.
“Jace, drop off the south side of your building and head east,” Forge said over the communicator. “Cole, your best bet is to go west off the back of your building and keep heading west. Hurry.”
A rooftop hatch opened forty feet away from Cole, and a man with a trapgun hurried out. By his uniform, he appeared to be a security guard rather than a member of City Patrol. When the man spotted Cole, he raised his trapgun to fire, but Cole let loose a long burst of freeze-foam.
At the relatively close range, the high-pressure stream knocked the guard off his feet. Cole buried the man beneath a creamy mass of foam, feeling a little like he was using a fire hose to snuff out a candle. Then he covered up the three nearest hatches as well, usi
ng up the last of the foam.
Crouching, Cole hit the self-destruct button on the freeze-foam canister as he had been instructed to do and picked up the warboard. He sprinted across the roof of the food-processing plant to the side opposite the street, the battle suit allowing him to move in swift, bounding strides.
He paused at the edge of the roof. A narrow greenbelt with a walkway separated this building from the next one. Thanks to the availability of levcars, Cole had yet to see a building in Zeropolis with a parking lot. Only the green spaces and walkways throughout the city kept the buildings from being constructed directly adjacent to one another.
Cole had accessed the roof of the plant from back here and knew the short route to the point where he and Roulette had come aboveground. The greenbelt looked clear, so he jumped down, his battle suit helping him land on the lawn without difficulty, though his boots left impressions an inch or two deep.
Tapping a button on his wrist, Cole issued the command “Board on” and dropped the warboard. Instead of landing on the grass, it hovered just over a foot in the air, still and stable. There had to be metal under the turf somewhere.
Stepping onto the board, Cole felt the magnetics take hold of him, sealing his feet in place and stabilizing his posture. He tilted forward and used his forefinger to press the accelerator built into the palm of his glove. The warboard surged forward, and magnetics kept Cole in a comfortable forward crouch. Air rushed over him as he leaned forward a little more, his finger firmly on the accelerator.
Cole tilted to one side, and the warboard banked, turning onto a walkway heading west. A good distance down the walkway, three men dressed in black gear tromped around a corner. Their outfits were similar to what the patrolmen wore, but with more padding and armor, as if they might be members of an elite unit. Did City Patrol have a SWAT team?
As the men knelt and raised trapguns, Cole slowed and leaned hard to the side, U-turning abruptly to head back toward the greenbelt. Something whizzed past him close enough for the wind of it to tickle his cheek. Up ahead, a sticky mass of gray webs appeared where the projectile landed.
Crouching low, Cole avoided the webs and turned hard at the end of the walkway to zoom along the greenbelt. The elite patrolmen had been pretty far away and on foot. It would take them some time to get into position for another shot.
“Jace, veer north, patrolmen are cutting off your eastward escape,” Forge advised over the communicator.
Cole pressed the button to talk. “Where were you for me?”
“I told you to go west,” Forge said.
“I did and three guys almost took me out,” Cole complained, glancing over his shoulder. He guided his warboard to keep trees between himself and the mouth of the walkway.
“I don’t have City Patrol west of you for some distance,” Forge said.
“How do you know?” Cole asked.
“We’re overhearing their comms and I hacked into their tracking program,” Forge replied.
“These guys looked a little different,” Cole said. “All in black. Extra armor.”
“You may have run into Enforcers,” Googol said urgently. “Stay well away from them.”
“Jace, head west up the next walkway,” Forge said. “It’s getting ugly north and east of you. Looks like you’ll have to cross Flag. Cole, try the next westward walkway. If those Enforcers saw you head north, you need to take some turns.”
Cole fought the temptation to panic. It sounded like lots of patrolmen were converging on the area. Forge and Googol both had a flustered edge to their voices. He was going fast on the warboard but knew that wouldn’t help him if he got hit by a bunch of webs or drenched in quicktar. He had a couple of the smaller freeze-foam tubes, but those were only for emergencies. If he resorted to fighting, he was going to get caught. His best chance was to run.
Heeding Forge’s advice, Cole started to turn onto the next westward walkway but pulled out when he saw another trio of Enforcers running toward him. He left the walkway behind before they could shoot at him, continuing north along the greenbelt.
“More Enforcers on that walkway,” Cole reported into his communicator.
“You’ve seen too many,” Googol said. “That means there are many more Enforcers that you haven’t seen. It’s a major operation.”
“Slow down, Cole,” Forge said. “If you keep going north, you’ll reach a big mob of patrolmen.”
“I’m running out of options,” Cole said.
“I’m clear,” Trickster reported. “Underground and unfollowed.”
“Me too,” Roulette said. “Need me to go back for them?”
“Negative, Roulette,” Forge said. “By the time you found them it would be over. Cole, Trickster said you’re good with the battle suit. It opens up options. You can take to the rooftops and escape by jumping. If you ditch the warboard, I can destroy it remotely. Your call.”
Cole decelerated. The building to his west had a low enough roof to jump up to. The battle suit wouldn’t let him travel as quickly as with the warboard, but it would enable him to move like he used to with the Jumping Sword. If the walkways were getting sealed off, it might be his best option.
“I’m in trouble,” Jace said. “Enforcers.”
“He’s just east of you, Cole,” Forge said. “With Enforcers on both sides and behind you, now might be a good time to hit the rooftops.”
Jace screamed briefly and went silent.
“Jace?” Cole asked. “Jace?”
Speeding up, Cole peered down the next eastward walkway. It ran between two buildings on the way to Flag Street. About a hundred yards down the walkway, a figure leaned against a wall encased in freeze-foam. Two Enforcers approached Jace, who lay motionless on the ground, looking like a statue of himself dipped in dark chocolate. His warboard idled nearby.
Cole hesitated. For his own survival, the safest bet was to jump onto the roof of the nearest building and run like mad. Even then, his odds of escape might not be great. If he tried to help Jace, they would both probably end up imprisoned.
But no way could he leave Jace behind. The Enforcers were facing away from him as they approached his friend. After readying a freeze-foam tube in one hand, Cole leaned forward on his warboard and hit the accelerator.
CHAPTER
16
DRONE
By the time the Enforcers turned to face Cole, it was too late for them to act. Approaching them rapidly, he pressed the button on the silver tube, and freeze-foam enveloped one and then the next. He emptied the tube onto them to make sure they were both totally stuck.
“Jace got hit by quicktar,” Cole said into the communicator.
“Use the mister on your left arm,” Forge responded.
Cole knew he had antidotes to quicktar, the fake webs, and the freeze-foam but wasn’t sure which button to press. “How?”
“Hold out your arm,” Forge said.
Cole did, and pink spray spurted from the brace on his wrist. The black tar smeared off of Jace wherever the mist touched him.
“It was faster to trigger it remotely,” Forge explained. “You had to hit three buttons in sequence to activate the mist.”
Jace gasped and slapped at the tar over his face. Cole soaked his face with the mist. Still blind from the tar and the antidote, Jace reached for his own silver tube.
“No!” Cole shouted. “It’s Cole!”
Jace looked up at him, and the rage left his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“You needed help,” Cole said. “Could you breathe?”
“Barely,” Jace said. “That goop got up my nose. A little air seeped through.”
“Get to the rooftops,” Forge urged. “Patrolmen are closing in. Probably more Enforcers, too.”
Cole stopped spraying Jace. Tapping a button on his wrist, he commanded, “Board off.”
The warboa
rd dropped to the ground, and the magnetic connection disappeared. Cole stepped away from the warboard as patrolmen appeared at one end of the walkway and Enforcers at the other.
“Jump,” Cole told Jace.
The building on one side was eight stories tall, the other four. Cole sprang with all his might and soared up past the four-story roof. He was aware of trapguns firing below him, but nothing hit him, and he landed comfortably atop the building. Jace arrived beside him.
“We left the boards,” Cole said into his communicator.
“I’ll destroy them the noisiest way possible,” Forge said. “Add a little confusion.”
Cole heard explosions down below but didn’t risk glancing over the side. A glimpse of his warboard going up in smoke wasn’t worth a face full of tar.
“We have to split up,” Jace said. “Two targets will be harder to track. Go like mad, Cole. Get reckless. It’s do or die.”
“What directions?” Cole asked.
“The east is flooded with patrolmen,” Jace said, talking into his communicator. “I’ll go northwest. Cole will go southwest.”
“Sounds like your best bet,” Forge answered. “Hurry.”
Cole took off running toward the southwest corner of the building, his speed augmented by the battle suit. Jace ran for the northwest corner. “Thanks, Cole,” Jace said over the communicator, his tone a little shy.
“Any time,” Cole replied. He felt like he did a good job making the response sound casual and brave.
The corner of the building came up fast. Since he was already four floors up, Cole didn’t want to jump up too much, or the battle suit might not be able to handle the landing. Plus, if he jumped high, he might make himself more of a target.
