by T. C. Edge
Zander speaks again.
“I’m someone who’s here to help. Step out of the truck. We don’t have much time…”
I hear a stamping sound, and the truck rocks, and the clinking of chains rattles. Then, a light blast from Zander’s pulse rifle fills the air with a colouring of blue. The chains are discarded, thrown to one side.
“What’s going on?!” asks Drum again. “I don’t understand…”
“It’ll become clear soon. I’m the friend of a friend.”
As Drum asks: “What friend,” Zander appears around the side of the vehicle. Drum trails behind him, his clothes tattered and torn and skin dirty. His face carries a haunted look, a cocktail of confusion and fear etched across it.
Yet mine flows with a smile, hidden behind my mask, and I feel a slight dampening in my eyes as I see his gigantic frame stomp into view. When he sees me, his confusion momentarily grows, and then his bountiful lips bursts open as I slide the gas mask up to my forehead to reveal my face,
“Br…” he starts
He’s cut off immediately by Zander, whose hand rises quickly to his mouth.
“Shhhh. Don’t speak. We need to go, right NOW!”
I can see the intensity in him growing by the second. Someone will surely have seen and heard the brief firefight. Soon, they’ll be coming for us.
As Zander’s hand slips from Drum’s lips, I immediately rush in and take his hand, whispering: “We’re getting you out of here,” as I do.
Zander starts moving east, the sprawling expanse of the western quarter spread out before us. I drag Drum along, but then feel myself stop, the whimpering calls of ‘help us’ leaking from the back of the truck.
“What about the others?” I ask.
My brother turns.
A terrible fate awaits all of them. Some may deserve it, but I’d imagine most will not. What sort of person would I be, would Zander be, to leave them chained up like beasts?
“We can’t just leave them,” I say. “We have to set them free…”
“We don’t have time,” rumbles Zander. “Back-up will be here any second.”
“We have to. I won’t leave them to be taken to the REEF!”
I turn and begin moving back, forcing Zander to follow.
“Come back,” he growls. “We can’t risk it!”
I don’t listen.
Pulling the hood of my jacket right over my head to shield my eyes, and my gas mask back down to cover the rest of my face, I quickly rush towards the rear of the truck.
I peer inside, and see a mess of cowering bodies, some bowed in fear, others attempting to tear away the chains that bind them to their cell. I take one look and know it will take a while to free them all.
Zander appears beside me.
“Get the other truck open,” I tell him.
“We have to go!” he barks, grabbing my arm.
I pull it away, and repeat my order.
He knows I won’t budge.
He shakes his head violently and lets out a grunt of frustration, before moving quickly to the rear truck.
As he works to unlock it, I move between the downed guards, quickly checking their belts and jacket and pockets for keys. I have no luck with the first two. The third, however, yields what I’m looking for.
As Drum hovers nearby, looking slightly dazed and confused and holding his hand to his mouth to shield it from the septic mist, I rush back to the truck and throw the keys inside. The nearest man, working feverishly and yet fruitlessly to free himself, grabs them.
He looks up at me.
“Who are you?” he coughs, peering through bloodshot eyes.
“I’m no one,” I tell him. “Now get yourselves out of here. And don’t go home or they’ll catch you. You’re on your own now.”
I rush to the rear vehicle, and find Zander inside, coaxing people out. Using his pulse rifle, he begins shooting out chains and roaring at the prisoners to run as soon as they’re released.
It’s taking too long, a couple dozen of them all chained up in the darkness. I rush over to the remaining guards – those that had been transporting the second truck – and search for another set of keys.
I reach one of them, and rifle through his clothes, pulling aside his jacket to reveal his belt. The keys hang off it. I snatch them away and prepare to turn back to the truck.
But something draws my eye.
The man’s inner forearm, face down in the dirt, exudes a flashing red glow around its border. I grab his limp wrist and pull his arm up, and a dart of alarm surges through me.
On the interface of his inner arm, I see a map, displaying the streets around the outer rim of the western quarter. The streets we’re on.
Above it, two words flash red.
BACKUP REQUESTED.
He must have called for help before Zander attacked…
I look back to the truck, and then to Drum, standing nearby and watching silently. And when my eyes turn back down to the interface, the words suddenly begin to blink and change, and I stand immediately to my feet.
BACKUP INCOMING. ETA: ONE MINUTE.
I charge to the truck, chuck the keys inside, and find Zander turning to me.
“They’re coming! Right now!” I call. “We have to go!”
They’re the words he’s wanted to hear.
Springing from the truck, he begins shooting off into the night, waving his hand for us to follow. And with my fingers gripped again to Drum’s hand, we disappear from the street in a flash, leaving a host of several dozen prisoners to fend for themselves.
50
I spare a glance behind us as we set our 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 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 she
lter. 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.