The Nazi douchebag regains his balance before I do and thrusts his sword toward my face. I fall backwards, avoiding the tip of the blade by mere inches and somehow, someway landing flat on my back on the wobbly left wing. I could have just as easily slipped off. I’ve had a lot of bad luck throughout my chaotic life, but instances like this remind me that I’ve been blessed with a ton of good luck, too.
The Nazi raises his ginormous armored foot and prepares to bring it crashing down on top of my face. I take that opportunity to hit the third button on my blade handle, the one that heats my sword into a red-hot saber capable of slicing through metal. I then proceed to swing my sword through the Nazi’s raised foot. The heated blade easily severs the Nazi’s foot from his ankle. Blood shoots out of the Nazi’s hacked off leg and splatters all over my face and chest.
The Nazi howls in excruciating agony as he hops around on the wing with one foot. I push myself up, hold my red-hot sword over my head, and swing it directly toward the Nazi’s neck. His helmeted head flies off and plummets out of view. The Nazi’s headless body instantly collapses and topples off of the wing, flipping around as it plummets toward the Earth.
I press a button on the handle of my sword, causing the bloodied blade to retract. I then leap back into the rear of our car with my shell-shocked cousins. Both of them stare at me in wide-eyed wonder and horror, simultaneously impressed with how easily I dispatched a highly formidable foe while also feeling understandably queasy at watching a man get his fucking head lopped off.
Continuing to release an unrelenting stream of bullets toward our multiple pursuers, Boom Boom glares at me over the top of her visor and says, “Way to traumatize the children, Lance.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they weren’t already traumatized by all the Nazi’s you’ve been blasting in the head,” I snap, a bit annoyed at Boom Boom’s blatant hypocrisy. I mean, seriously, how is chopping off someone’s head any worse than blowing their brains out?
I spin around and fire off several bolts of lightning, taking out one of the armored vehicles and inadvertently sending it crashing into a skyscraper apartment complex. This results in yet another thunderous explosion that rattles my eardrums. I sure hope we’re not killing a bunch of civilians during our brutal sky-rise firefight, but I have a sinking feeling that’s exactly what’s happening.
I’m just about to unleash another bombardment of electricity when a blinding spotlight blasts me in the face, temporarily blinding me. I hold my hands over my eyes until the light swings out of my retinas. It’s now illuminating one of the Nazi tanks.
I peer up into the sky and feel my heart jump at the sight of a police helicopter flying overhead. Speaking through a microphone, the pilot of the chopper shouts, “You are all under arrest! Surrender now or face lethal retaliation!”
One of the Nazi’s responds by thrusting his flamethrower out of his tank’s window and pointing it up at the helicopter. A scorching barrage of fire is ejected from the flamethrower and completely engulfs the helicopter. I cringe at the piercing, agonizing screams emanating from the pilot’s microphone. The chopper spirals out of control and crashes into another skyscraper, exploding in a blinding fireball. The resulting concussive blast jangles our car and pretty much every vehicle and building for miles.
“Fucking useless po-po,” Krystal mutters under her breath as she continues weaving us through a crossfire of tranquilizer darts and streams of fire intended to contain us in one isolated spot.
By now we’ve entered a heavy aerial traffic stream. Cars are zooming past us like crazy, trying to avoid us and the phalanx of Nazi’s attempting to blow us out of the sky. Three flashing police cruisers pull up behind the Nazi’s. Several police officers lean out of their windows and fire at the back of the Nazi’s tanks. The Nazi’s respond in kind, firing machine guns (NOT filled with tranquilizer darts) and flamethrowers. All three police cars plummet to the ground, consumed by flames and riddled with bullets.
“Damn, good thing those racist crackers want us alive,” Krystal remarks, watching the carnage behind us in her rearview mirror. I would have to agree with her; if the Nazi’s wanted us dead, we already would have been.
Two more police helicopters appear, along with several more flashing cruisers. I begin to feel confident that we’re actually going to escape (I mean, seriously, are the Nazi’s going to kill all the cops in Sanctuary 7?) when an officer bellows into his microphone, “The mayor has ordered us to stand down! I repeat, all units are to stand down!”
I groan as the remaining cruisers and helicopters follow orders and abort their short-lived chase.
“Are you flipping kidding me?!” Boom Boom screams in outrage, her face glowing orange from the muzzle flashes generated by her machine gun.
Six armored Nazi tanks continue barreling after us as Krystal astonishingly continues to effortlessly weave in and out of heavy traffic streams. While Krystal is actually trying to avoid from crashing into other cars, the Nazi’s have no such qualms. Their armored tanks plow through flying convertibles and sports cars like they’re made out of paper mache. Dozens of innocent people are thrown from their crumpled cars and hurtle toward their deaths, screaming the entire way. Far too many innocent people have died today. We need to end this sky-rise massacre, now.
“We’re going to have to fly over the wall,” I shout over the rat-a-tat-a-tat of Boom Boom’s machine gun.
Boom Boom stops firing long enough to scream at me, “What?! Are you crazy?! No one’s ever gotten over the wall without being blown to smithereens! In case you’ve forgotten, the walls are covered with laser canons and machine gun nests! They fire indiscriminately, incinerating anyone who attempts to fly over the barrier! We’d be better off fighting an army of Nazi’s. At least then we have a small chance for survival. If we fly over the wall, we have none!”
Boom Boom’s right, of course. Well, mostly right. The only way in and out of Sanctuary 7 is through the few select tunnels that connect us to the outside world. But the tunnels always have a backlog of traffic. It would probably take us close to an hour to get through, which obviously ain’t gonna fly if we have dozens of Nazi’s chasing after us. And even if the tunnels were free of traffic, the mayor probably ordered the guards to detain us if we attempted to leave. That’s why my radical proposal is our only chance. While it is true dozens of laser cannons and machine gun nests will be firing at us, I have faith in Krystal’s abilities as a pilot to evade the crossfire. And we’re not the only ones the ‘wall’ will be attempting to bring down. The Nazi’s will be right behind us. And since they are much bigger targets, the laser cannons and machine guns will be focused almost exclusively on them, allowing us to slip away undetected. At least, in theory. There is a chance that the machine gun nests will obliterate all of us. But I don’t like to get all hung up on technicalities.
I quickly rehash my rationale behind flying over the Sanctuary 7 wall with Boom Boom and Krystal. Boom Boom continues hollering about how it’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever come up with, which is saying a lot. (Her words, not mine.) Krystal, however, grins at me in the rearview mirror and says, “Great idea, Lance. Let’s do it!”
“Wait, do what?!” Boom Boom shrieks.
Krystal responds by slamming on the accelerator, causing us all to lurch back in our seats. We rocket about another thousand feet into the air, until we’re hovering well above the 1,000-foot high concrete wall encircling the sanctuary. Then, after taking a deep breath and whispering a quiet prayer, Krystal zooms overtop the heavily-fortified wall.
Time seems to slow to a crawl as we do what up until now has been deemed impossible. Dozens of laser cannons and machine guns fire on us, narrowly missing us by mere centimeters. Krystal spirals high into the sky, causing us all to clutch our seatbelts to prevent from flying out of the car. To further increase our odds of survival, Krystal presses a button on the dashboard that ejects dozens of flares from the trunk. This confuses some of the wall’s defenses, causing a majority of the cannons and
machine guns to focus on the flares. That buys us all the time we need, because a few seconds later the six armored tanks stupidly fly over the wall and continue their pursuit.
My theory on what would occur if we breached the Sanctuary 7 wall turns out to be uncannily accurate. All the laser cannons and machine guns focus their attention on the Nazi’s, allowing us to slip away unnoticed.
I turn around and watch with glee as the Nazi’s get kicked in the ass by karma. For you see, the Nazi’s made a grave miscalculation. While their heavily armored, bulky flying tanks are effective at deflecting bullets, they’re no match for red-hot lasers. And because the tanks are so massive, they make for excellent targets. The Nazi’s are almost instantly obliterated as the dozens of laser-cannons jutting out of Sanctuary 7’s near-impregnable walls blast them out of the sky one by one. By the time the last of the Nazi’s are annihilated, we are well out of the wall’s range. We have just become the first people in history to fly overtop Sanctuary 7’s heavily fortified barricade and live to tell the tale.
Boom Boom, Krystal, and the kids start hooting and hollering, deliriously ecstatic over our death-defying escape from the jaws of death. I crack a smile as Harpoon hugs me around my waist and shouts, “We did it, Lance! Omigosh, that was like sooo freaking exciting! I totally want to be a bounty hunter now!”
Boom Boom grimaces at Harpoon’s proclamation, but unlike earlier, she doesn’t delve into a tongue-lashing. After all, it’s kind of hard to get mad at someone when you’ve just gone through a near-death experience with them.
Boom Boom reaches into the back and hugs Blade and Harpoon to her bosom. Kissing them on their blood-stained foreheads she says, “I am so proud of you two. You were extraordinarily brave.”
Krystal blurts out, “Why you so proud of them? They didn’t do jack shit! I was the one who saved all your asses with my amazing flying skills! You all should be kissing my ass!”
Boom Boom bursts out laughing. It’s one of her first genuine laughs in many months. At the risk of sounding corny, it’s one of the most glorious sounds to greet my battered eardrums in quite some time. Boom Boom looks stunning even when she’s covered in grime and blood (which seems to happen to us quite a lot) but she’s absolutely breath-taking when she’s in a good mood and she’s flashing her gorgeous, mesmerizing smile. That’s the Boom Boom I fell in love with all those years ago… the one that I still love. I wish she would laugh and smile more often.
Boom Boom gives Krystal a hug and kisses her on the forehead as well. “You were amazing, too, Krystal. We all owe you our lives.”
Krystal pretends to be disgusted and shoves Boom Boom away, but I can tell she secretly appreciates the kudos.
I express my gratitude as well by giving her a hug from behind and patting her lop-sided wig. “You’re the greatest, Krystal. I don’t know where we would all be without you.”
“You’d all be dead,” Krystal says gruffly. “Now get the fuck off my wig! You’re messing it up!”
“I think the wind already did that, but okay,” I reply, plopping down in the back seat. I suddenly realize that my feet feel wet. I glance down and groan at the sight of the pool of blood that has accumulated on the floor. My shoes are partially submerged in it. Talk about gross.
We decide to keep flying for another half hour or so, just to make sure no one is following us. Once we’ve decided the coast is clear, Krystal slows the car down to a leisurely pace while we decide what to do next. Since we have no idea where we’re going, there’s no sense in continuing to fly at a breakneck speed.
“What should we do now that we’re essentially homeless?” Boom Boom asks, lifting her visor so she can see me without the interference of a faint red screen constantly flashing news bulletins in front of her overworked retinas.
“All I know is we can never go back to Sanctuary 7. To do so would be a death sentence.”
I’m unable to hide the bitterness in my voice. Sanctuary 7 was where I felt the safest. It was my one refuge from this crazy, topsy-turvy world. And in the blink of an eye my ‘fortress of solitude’ was taken away from me. I’m so insanely pissed that I’d seriously consider sneaking back into the sanctuary and assassinating the mayor if I didn’t have a bunch of other stuff to tend to (namely getting the kids to a safe location and apprehending Blackbird).
“There are other places we can go,” Boom Boom says, pulling her visor back down over her eyes so she can presumably start scanning the web for apartment vacancies in the surrounding sanctuary cities.
I cock an eyebrow when I notice Boom Boom biting her bottom lip. That’s always a precursor to her saying something she knows will piss me off.
“What?” I ask bluntly. It’s best to get everything out in the open now while we’ve agreed to an unspoken truce. Lord knows we’ll probably be back at each other’s throats in the coming days (or hours, more likely).
Boom Boom takes a deep breath and says, while still staring off into cyberspace, “I think we should consider delaying our mission to Antarctica. I feel like we’re rushing things, that we’re not taking this mission as seriously as we need to in order to make it a success. Maybe we should wait a few days. You know, stay with the kids and celebrate Christmas together.”
I shake my head and say, “No Boom Boom, we need to strike now. We’ve already discussed this dozens of times. This is our last, best shot to snatch Blackbird. His men are going to be shit-faced on Christmas morning. We’ll be able to drop onto his ship and pick him up without firing a single shot.”
“Lance is right,” Krystal says, still piloting the car. “We need to stay with the plan.”
Boom Boom sighs irritably and grumbles, “I know, I just wish we had more time to prepare. And what about the kids? What are we supposed to do with them? We can’t very well take them with us to Antarctica!”
Krystal flaps her wrist and says, “Sure we can. Hell, they can probably help us. You saw how awesome they were with those Nazi assholes.”
“Yeah Boom Boom, let us come with you guys!” Blade shouts excitedly. “We can help!”
“Can we, Boom Boom?” Harpoon pleads, flashing her big ‘puppy dog’ eyes. “Plleeasssee?!!”
Boom Boom crosses her arms and says, “Absolutely not. It’s way too dangerous.”
“Uh, hello! We just nearly got blown out of the sky by a bunch of Nazi’s,” Blade points out. “Nothing even comes close to being as dangerous as that!”
“They are right,” I say. I immediately change tact when Boom Boom growls and flashes me the look of death. I’m definitely not eager to get back on Boom Boom’s bad side.
“Er, on second thought, maybe Boom Boom’s right. Maybe the kids shouldn’t tag along.”
“Sorry guys,” I add when I notice Blade and Harpoon glaring at me.
“You’re a little punk-ass bitch, Lance,” Krystal blurts out, causing Blade and Harpoon to laugh uproariously. Even Boom Boom cracks a smile.
Boom Boom, Krystal and I proceed to go through the short list of friends and acquaintances we can rely on to watch the kids while we’re gone. And when I say it’s a short list, I ain’t kidding. There’s only two people on it, and they both live together! Talk about having limited options.
The people I’m referring to are Grenade and his wife, Audrey, a bounty hunting couple who used to help Dagger out whenever he needed assistance taking down an uber-dangerous crime lord or gangbanger. Grenade is a rough, crass, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-never kind of guy who was one of America’s most feared bounty hunters during his heyday. He also did some special-forces work for the military when he was younger. Black-ops shit. He retired a few years ago (the guy’s getting up there in age, at least 58 or 59 if I remember correctly), but he still strikes fear in even the most hardened criminals. He has these glowing robotic eyes that make him look like a demon, and a cyborg left arm that can crush skulls as if they were aluminum cans. He also has all these epic scars running up and down his rugged face, and long, stringy gray hair that only add
s to his menacing aura. Oh, and did I mention the guy is 6’5’’ and nearly 300 pounds? Yeah, he’s definitely not someone you want to mess with. But Grenade can also be an incredibly loyal friend once you get to know him. He was Dagger’s mentor, and he loved my uncle like a son. Which means he loves me, Krystal, and Boom Boom like we’re his grandchildren. He actually is Blade and Harpoon’s godfather, but we haven’t talked to him or his awesome wife, Audrey, in quite a while. Audrey is a bit younger than Grenade, in her mid-forties or so, and pretty smoking hot if I do say so myself. She did a little bounty hunting work in her day, but nowhere close to the extent of Grenade and Dagger... or us, for that matter.
The last time we saw Grenade and Audrey was a couple months after Dagger died. They stopped by a couple times to check on us. At one point they even asked us all to come live with them in their condo in Sanctuary 32, a couple hundred miles to the west of Hudson Bay. But we ended up declining their offer. For one, their condo isn’t nearly big enough for eight people (at the time Krystal’s grandmother was still alive), and more importantly, Boom Boom and I wanted Blade and Harpoon to continue living as normal a life as possible. We didn’t want to uproot them from their school, their home, and all their friends. They had a hard enough time getting over their dad’s murder. The last thing they needed was a whole new alien setting they weren’t familiar or comfortable with.
World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2) Page 10