by T. C. Edge
50
I spare a glance behind us as we set out sights on the inner districts of the western quarter, pulling the gas mask from my face and stuffing it into the inner pocket of my jacket. From the two trucks, the prisoners pour, galloping off in various directions to escape the incoming force of guards.
Others will have no time to escape, backup now mere seconds away. Already I can hear the screaming sirens of distant of vehicles as they spin around corners, closing in on the trucks.
I turn my eyes back and see Zander scooting left, zipping off into the darkness of an alley and off the wider road we’re on. Drum circles after him, panting hard, his heavy body finding it difficult to corner at such speed.
I stay right next to him, guiding him into the shadows. Zander stops quickly, and slips in behind a large refuse bin. He reaches out and pulls Drum straight down as he comes, dragging him right up against the wall as I do the same.
“Stay down, don’t make a sound,” he hisses.
Seconds later, the end of the alley we just ran down begins to light up red, and the bright lights of two Con-Cop cars begin to glow. Keeping close to the wall, I hear one pass straight by, rushing through towards the site of the fight at the end of the street.
The second, however, starts to slow, and the red lights fixed to its front grow brighter. None of us make a sound as the engine hums gently, the vehicle crawling forward slowly as a new spotlight begins searching the alley.
Zander’s body tenses once more, preparing itself for a fight. As he’s about to rush back out of cover, I take his arm and he looks to me with an intense stare. His hazel eyes seem to glow brighter than ever.
I shake my head and mouth: “Wait.”
My instincts prove right. After a few more seconds, the spotlight fades out and the car hums a little louder, moving off down the road.
As soon as it’s done so, Zander whispers: “Up,” and we stand to our feet once more.
We continue to the end of the alley, which leads into another wider road. Utilising his more seasoned and battle-tested abilities, Zander quickly scans the scene ahead and determines our onward route.
As he does so, more cars shout their song, alarms rising up from all angles across the northern districts of the western quarter. Those who arrived first at the scene will no doubt have raised the state of alert even higher.
“They’ll be sending out their full force to hunt down the fugitives,” says Zander. “Freeing them might just have been a good idea after all. They’ll help to draw off the attention from us.”
As he speaks, another Con-Cop car comes surging from the top of the street. We slide back into the safety of the side-road as it roars past.
“So where do we go?” I ask, my voice hurrying.
“We need to get to the underlands. They’ll be setting up a street-level perimeter to catch any stragglers. It’s critical we get to the northern quarter immediately.”
I look to Drum, who appears completely lost. Zander spares him a glance, taking in his size.
“He’s too big for some of the passages,” he says. “We’ll have to take more dangerous routes.”
“Dangerous? What do you mean by that?”
“The Consortium have been sending more of their men down into the underlands in recent days. With an attack like this, on one of their prisoner convoys to the REEF, you can bet that they’ll be sending men down there right now.”
“Stalkers?” I whisper, the clear concern in my voice drawing a ripple of fear to Drum’s confused eyes.
“Hopefully we’ll get lucky,” says Zander. “So far, they’ve had little fortune in finding our secret passages into the north. But around here, the networks are easier to discover. There’s an acid rain shelter nearby with an entrance, just east of here a few blocks away. That’s our way in. Follow me.”
Once more, he quickly peruses the nearby network of streets before leading us on. The wailing of sirens grows louder, and from above the tops of buildings the red flashing glow of the patrol cars lights up in the darkness.
The streetlights here are dim, and the buildings smaller and more sparsely populated. It affords us the chance to skip through between cover without the threat of being seen.
The darkness, however, is a hindrance to Drum if not for my brother and me. Our eyes work through the shroud of night without interference, the gloomy cut-throughs and alleys between larger streets doing nothing to cool our step.
Drum has no such gifts, his eyes struggling to adjust to the murk. His pace, too, is slow, serving to keep us from utilising our Dasher powers. I stick close to him as we work our way to the shelter, desperately trying to escape the net that’s being gradually closed around us.
I can sense Zander getting frustrated. He doesn’t know Drum, and he doesn’t care about Drum. His mind is set only on seeing me free from this, setting me back on track so that I can get on with my mission.
If I should be discovered tonight, the chance to carry it out will be gone. And now, with Drum having no choice but to turn away from his old life, and begin one in the shadows, my desire to complete my assignment has bloomed.
I will do it. I must do it. I’ll see us all free.
But first, we need to get through this night, battle to the other side and live to fight another day. I know that this is nothing but a taste of what’s to come. A minor skirmish in the face of a far larger battle looming on the distant horizon.
Yet for me, it’s a good start. A chance to see what Zander can do, to see the true extent of his hybrid power. Power that, when I’m fully ready, will surge through me as well, just as it does him.
As we go, every so often Zander’s pace goes beyond what any normal human is capable of. I suppose it’s just habit from spending his life fighting and running from Stalkers. Being in a chase like this, without being able to fully utilise his gifts, must be difficult.
So he starts to flood away, his body zipping on in a fashion that only my eyes can see. Running next to me, Drum gasps at the sight, before Zander remembers himself and slow his pace again, his body forming once again before our eyes.
“He’s a Dasher?!” asks Drum in surprise. “Why are you friends with an Enhanced?”
His words pant out, but I have no time to explain right now.
“I’ll tell you everything later,” is all I say.
Soon, we’re nearing the shelter, Zander hissing to us that it’s just over on the next street on the corner of a square. Once more, he waits and watches and scans the world ahead, making sure the coast is clear.
Once satisfied, we burst across a more brightly lit street, our path drawing us closer to the populous districts to the east of the quarter. Drum lumbers along, his heavy legs now growing slow, lungs begging for air as he tries to keep pace.
“Come on!” calls Zander, a little way ahead, turning his eyes to the square. “It’s right here. Quick!”
Half staggering now, I hook Drum’s giant arm over my back, and try my best to prop him up as we go. It only serves to drain my own energy, his arm alone feeling like it must weigh as much as me.
Zander comes zipping back, drawing up a cloud of dust from the street as he screeches in beside us. He picks up Drum’s other arm and, as a three, we surge onwards across the final stretch.
There’s no time for sneaking now. The shelter lies ahead, tantalisingly close. We cross the square and reach it, and Zander stretches out and grips the door.
“Damn it,” he growls. “It’s locked.”
“But they’re never locked…” I say.
It’s true. The shelters are intended only for public safety in the event of a sudden deluge of acid rain. I’ve never seen one locked.
Zander pulls out his pulse rifle once more, hidden in a holster behind his jacket. Its grip has been retracted, and the weapon shut down to allow him to run more swiftly. He doesn’t bother extending the handle, but merely presses his thumb on its underside to bring it back to life.
It takes a mere split second
before he’s aiming at the lock and shooting it out.
“They must be locking them to stop us Nameless sneaking about,” says Zander as he does so, the pulse round glowing bright blue and blazing a gaping hole through the door handle.
He quickly kicks forward and the door swings open.
“Nameless?” asks Drum. “You’re…part of the Nameless.”
Zander passes his gaze over Drum but doesn’t answer.
“Come on. Inside,” he says, stepping into the darkness as he fixes his rifle back to its holster.
“Go on Drum, go inside.”
Drum’s bushy brows close in on one another as he looks at me.
“You’re not taking me to the Nameless are you? What’s going on, Brie?”
“There’s no time to explain!” says Zander impatiently. “Do you want to live or do you want to die? If the former, get your ass inside. RIGHT NOW!”
A measure of anger crawls onto Drum’s face. A flash of what I saw the other night, when he sat mourning the deaths of his friends. There must be a streak of it in the depths of him that I never knew of, one that can be lethal when stoked to the surface.
“Drum, listen to him. He’s trying to save your life,” I say.
He bows his head, turning meek once more, and ducks into the darkness. As he clanks down the metal steps, the pounding of his feet echoing into the deserted square, I hear the faintest shuffle of movement behind me.
Still standing on the threshold to the shelter, I turn, and feel the breath in my lungs stolen away.
They’ve found us.
Standing ahead of me, on the other side of the square, I see a squad of Con-Cops pouring in, more than a dozen of them spreading from various angles. All hold weapons to their shoulders, pointing them directly at me as I stand by the door at the top of the stairs.
“Hold it right there…” comes a growling voice.
For a few seconds I feel like I’ve been zapped with an immobiliser, my feet planting themselves firmly to the concrete floor. My face remains hidden beneath my hood, the shadows sufficient to shield my identity even without my mask.
As I stare out, a voice whispers from the darkness behind me.
“Get in the shelter, Brie,” says Zander calmly. “When I say run, turn and get down here. Got it?”
I nod my head.
“OK. RUN!”
His voice growls out, and I spin on the spot and throw myself into the shelter. Immediately, the sound of pulse rounds come hissing and fizzing from across the square, connecting with the opening and sending sparks and bits of concrete and brick flying.
I tumble in and clatter down the steps, falling into a mound of flesh that turns out to be Drum’s arms. As he sets me to my feet, Zander’s voice comes from the back of the room, and I look to see the secret door opening up with its usual puff of dust.
He surges towards Drum and grabs his meaty arm, dragging him through the narrow slot. It’s barely big enough for him, his wide shoulders having to turn sideways to get inside. I follow behind and into the pitch black, and immediately hear the sound of the Con-Cops raging down the stairs.
I get a sense of déjà vu as Zander begins pushing the door shut, my mind turning back to the first time we met, when those Stalkers chased us through the tunnels.
How fast things have gone since then. How my life has changed…
This door’s heavier, though, than the usual ones we find in these shelters, and doesn’t close so quickly. Drum adds his strength, lumbering forward and sending his weight into it. It slams hard, just as our pursuers begin to flood down into the shelter, the blue and red flames of their pulse rounds lighting the interior up as they come.
The door is just enough to hold back the blasts. But it won’t be for long. Without a word Zander grabs Drum again and begins surging away into the darkness, leading him on.
“I can’t see!” calls the giant, holding his hands out in front of him like a blind man might.
“I can, don’t worry,” says Zander. “I’ll guide you. Trust me.”
The tunnel isn’t as narrow as others, and quickly grows wider as we go. Zander would have likely chosen it for that very reason, forced to take this route due to Drum’s size.
The Con-Cops will be through at any moment, and though they can’t see in the dark, they’re sure to have torches. That suspicion is confirmed mere moments later when a loud boom sounds in the distance and several lights begin to shine down the passageway.
The path quickly concludes in a low but wide cavern. I hear the flowing sound of water, faint and somewhere in the wall. It must be the river, working its way from the north and down through the western quarter to the south.
It gives me some bearing of where we are, the grand underground garden and waterfall not too far away.
Rushing to the centre of the wide cavern, I notice several different passages leading out. Some are small and narrow, others larger, most leading to dead-ends and only a few providing onward travel through this subterranean maze. A place that few could navigate without getting lost.
My brother is one of them, and he comes to a stop now, turning his eyes down the entrance we just passed through. Then his eyes fix on mine, keen and glimmering in the darkness.
“We have to split,” he says. “I can’t risk them finding you. You’re too important. Let me draw them off…”
“No! What about Drum…he can’t even see down here!”
“I’ll keep him safe, I promise. Brie, I don’t have time to argue.”
His eyes turn to a tight passage, one that Drum could never fit through.
“That’s your path. Go down it and you’ll come right out near the waterfall. Follow the sound of the river. You know the way from there. Get yourself back to the academy, and keep safe. I’ll be in contact…here,” he says, touching his fingers to my temple.
“No. I’ll come with you! I need to protect Drum!”
“BRIE!” he growls, tightening his voice so my name doesn’t flow down the tunnels. “Listen to me now, and do as I say. If we stay together they may catch us all. You have to go.”
The sound of the Con-Cops grows louder. Voices ring across the walls. Lights flash into the cavern, our enemy growing ever closer.
Zander fixes me with one final look. I turn from him to Drum, trying his best to see anything as he blinks and feels about with his hands.
I turn back to Zander.
“Keep him safe,” I say. “Remember our deal.”
He nods, and quickly pulls me in, kissing my forehead.
“Now go,” he says.
I take a step back. Then two.
And with one final effort, I tear my eyes away.
51
I reach the tight opening to the passage and squeeze my body straight through. Ahead of me, the confines of the shaft look to remain narrow for some distance, a major benefit during a chase.
Before continuing, I turn and look to see Drum’s vast trunk enter another passage on the other side of the cave. Zander stays right behind him, pushing him on and turning his eyes back to see how close the pursuers are.
I can hear them now, the shuffling of dozens of feet as they scamper through the shadows, their torches lighting brighter as they reach the entrance to the multi-exited cavern.
I slink back, but find it hard to turn away until Zander and Drum have all but disappeared. Voices call from the Con-Cops, wondering which passage to take. They spread out and begin aiming their lights down them, stopping to listen for the sound of movement.
Before they reach my passage, I manage to move deeper and around a corner, hiding myself from view.
“The big one couldn’t fit down there,” I hear one say.
Immediately, they move onto the next one.
But even to my ears, the slapping of heavy feet is still audible, Drum’s nickname coming back to haunt him.
Echoing from the passage my allies took, the plodding stamp of footsteps against rock can be heard. Immediately, the Con-Cops determi
ne which route to take, and begin surging down it.
Keep him safe, Zander. Don’t you dare let him die.
I turn and set my eyes back onto the passage ahead, moving silently now and at less of a rush. As I go, the trickling of flowing water begins to grow louder, coming from somewhere to the right above me.
Moving down at a slight angle, the tunnel eases around to the right, jagged walls tightening in places and causing me to slow my step. I duck and weave my way through, and all the while the familiar sound of the crashing waterfall begins to grow clearer in the otherwise deathly silence.
Soon enough, the end of the passage comes into view, my Hawk-eyes peering through the darkness and sighting the cavern I’ve grown to know in recent days.
I emerge into it from an exit I never knew existed, nothing more than a wide crack in the rock set a few metres up from the cavern floor. I drop down into the cave and land with a thump of my feet.
My eyes take in the interior. To my right, the river bursts forth from the gap in the rock, turning to a waterfall before landing in the large pool of frothing, icy cool water below.
To my left, the grand cavern stretches, itself with a number of exits, most of which I’ve never explored. Some I have, such as that which Zander took me down, leading to the little, quiet cave with the two boulders in the middle. The place where we sat and he first began to open up the pathways in my mind, train me to use my powers of mental manipulation.
Those powers have been slower to manifest. Not like my eyes and vision. Not like my body and muscles and hastily improving speed.
Other than my ability to communicate with Zander telepathically, I’ve never yet been able to read a mind or manipulate thoughts. Watching Zander this evening, wiping the memory of that man with such ease, I grow excited at the prospect of what’s to come.
Yet those powers need training. And so far, they’re yet to be properly tested.
And if I’m to complete my mission, I’m going to need to master them pretty quick.
