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‘What’s that?’ Xavier asked.
‘Daylight?’ Sam said.
About fifty metres ahead there was a large, ragged round hole blasted through the ceiling, through which several zip lines hung down.
‘Must be where the Enterprise came in,’ Sam said. Behind them, the gunfire died down a little as the opposing forces reassessed their strategy.
‘Are we still inside the zoo grounds?’ Sam whispered.
‘We’d have to be—it’s massive,’ Xavier said.
‘Then how about we try climbing their ropes to get out of here?’ Sam suggested.
‘They’ll pick us off,’ Xavier said. ‘And anyway, you ever tried to climb a rope without the right equipment?’
Sam had, and it was virtually impossible.
‘We need a way out,’ Sam said. They were nearly at the blown-out hole above.
The gunfire behind them abruptly ended. Either Hans and his men had been killed or they’d run.
‘Ha!’ Xavier said, fumbling about on the controls in front of him.
‘Ha?’ Sam turned from Xavier to the front as he thought he heard a crashing sound ahead. ‘Oh, man—the conveyor ends soon!’
‘Do you trust me?’ Xavier said.
‘Xav, we’re going to tip off the end of the conveyor up ahead, so I think we’re going to have to make a grab for those ropes.’
‘Sam, do you trust me?’ Xavier repeated.
‘Yeah …’
‘Then buckle up,’ Xavier said coolly.
‘What? You want to strap in for the crashlanding ahead?’ Sam’s head was spinning, trying to work out what to do. They’d jump out of the plane and straight into the waiting arms of the Enterprise.
‘No,’ Xavier said, clipping on his four-point harness as Sam did the same. ‘But I don’t want to be thrown from the seat as we pass through that hole.’
‘Thrown from the seat as we—what?’ Sam stammered.
Out the corner of his eye, a shadow moved towards them. The mask came into view and Sam knew they had not outrun Xavier’s nightmare. Solaris raised his arm and pointed at Xavier.
Before Sam could yell out, Xavier reached over to grab two yellow handles—and pulled on each simultaneously. What happened next was a blur.
36
SAM
Sam hung on and screamed. Fire raced towards them as they shot into the air, missing the ragged edge of the blast hole in the ceiling by mere millimetres, and then rocketed through into the daylight above.
‘Arrrgghh!’ Sam shouted.
‘Yeeeee-haaaaaaaa!’ Xavier cried.
They flew upwards and high into the sky, for what seemed like hundreds of metres—then there was a BANG! behind them and a parachute was deployed.
‘Holy cr—’
‘Arrrgghh!’ Xavier screamed, a belated reaction to their precarious situation.
Below them, the immense grounds of Berlin Zoo spread out like a tourist map, people milling about like tiny ants. With the massive silk parachute above them, the ejection seat swayed gently with the breeze, the smell of the rocket propellant filling the air as they fell gently towards the ground below.
‘So that’s what it feels like to be shot out of a cannon,’ Sam said, holding onto the edges of the seat harness.
‘I wish I’d filmed that …’ Xavier murmured, laughing nervously.
‘Ah, Xav, any way to steer this thing?’ Sam asked, looking over the edge as they dropped towards an enclosure with a couple of large trees in the middle and a high wall all around. I didn’t think I had a problem with heights but …
‘Steer?’ Xavier asked.
‘We’re headed for an enclosure,’ Sam said, hearing now the screams and yells of people below as they finally became aware of the drama that had been unfolding beneath their feet.
A flash of orange and black slinking through the foliage below kicked their collective deja vu into full flight.
‘It’s the tiger enclosure!’ Xavier shouted. ‘Quick, lean to the right!’
They both did so, but it was no use. The harness had them strapped in tight.
CLICK.
Xavier hit the clip and the harness unbuckled, and they shifted way to the right of the seat to the point of—
‘Argh!’ Xavier slipped off and Sam lunged, grabbing his friend’s wrist with one hand and the harness shoulder strap with the other. Screams from onlookers rippled out like a wave below them.
Xavier was dangling, hanging on only by an arm-in-arm wrist lock with Sam.
The shift of their weight caused the ejection seat to tip and tilt wildly, their trajectory veering away from the enclosure.
‘Xavier, watch out!’ Sam called out. ‘We’re gonna land!’
They overshot the tiger enclosure, the paved ground below looming up fast as—
RIP!
Sam looked up, horrified to see that the silk canopy above had torn with the sudden change of weight pulling on one side of the para cords.
They were dropping too fast.
Xavier looked up at Sam, wide-eyed, and in unison their arms slid apart as they struggled to keep hold of each other.
Sam saw Xavier land some ten metres below, feet first into a huge lagoon in another enclosure. He swiftly broke the surface of the green water and swam for shore—then towards a ladder set into the lagoon’s outer wall as a hippopotamus started charging for him.
‘SAM!’
Sam heard his name but couldn’t see who was calling him, then his eyes locked onto the black figure of Solaris.
Solaris stood below, waiting with an air of inevitability. An insistent alarm rang out across the zoo as bystanders scattered, running from the scene as Solaris threw fire in every direction.
Are those Enterprise Agents with him?
Sam twisted in his seat, trying to work out what he was seeing.
WHOOSH!
One blast of Solaris’ fire weapon and the parachute was in tatters, sending Sam tumbling towards the ground.
And then the fire came again and again, flames shooting so close Sam could feel the searing heat scorching his body. Parts of the chair were on fire. The heat was intense.
‘Get away from me!’ Sam shouted but his voice was whipped away by the pounding wind. He plummeted through the air, strapped into the ejection seat that was twisting and turning and burning as it fell.
No, not this way.
Please.
Despair washed over Sam as he fell. He curled his body inwards, making himself small, blocking out the flames and the rushing wind, and him.
He crashed to earth in a crunch of steel and leather, and rolled painfully across the ground. He struggled to move, and felt a shadow fall across his face. All he could hear was Solaris’ rasping breath. He saw the masked face come closer …
This is it. My nightmares have finally come true.
7 BILLION LIVES ARE IN DANGER.
13 STRANGERS WITH TERRIFYING NIGHTMARES.
1 ENEMY WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO DESTROY US ALL.
MY NAME IS SAM.
I AM ONE OF THE LAST THIRTEEN.
OUR BATTLE CONTINUES …
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