by A. G. Taylor
“Stolen from criminals who didn’t own them in the first place,” Daniel assured her. “No one of any worth will miss them. You’re stronger than all of us. Just get this truck out of here. Keep heading to Melbourne…”
His eyes began to close.
“Dad!” she cried. It was the first time she’d called him that in eight years and the word seemed to bring him back momentarily.
He smiled as Robert rushed to her side. “You two have to look after yourselves now. Take those diamonds and start a new life. Do some good with them…”
His voice trailed away and he was gone into a sleep he wouldn’t be waking from any time soon. Silence fell in the truck.
Finally, Sarah stepped back, aware of them all looking at her. Daniel was gone – she took a deep breath and wiped a tear from her eye.
“Put your seat belts on,” she ordered. “We’ve got to get moving again. Are you ready, Nestor?”
In the driver’s seat, the Colombian boy nodded. Robert started strapping Daniel in place in the bed while the others took their seats. Sarah gave his shoulder a squeeze.
He’s going to be okay. We’ll find a cure.
Robert nodded silently as Sarah moved to sit at Nestor’s side. Taking a deep breath, he turned the key in the ignition once more and the massive engine roared into life. This time Nestor found the balance between the clutch and the accelerator as the truck moved forwards. The uneven road caused the wheel to jerk first right and then left as the vehicle picked up speed. He almost stalled again when he changed gears so he decided to leave it in second, even though it meant that the truck was crawling along at a fraction of the pace they’d made with Daniel in control. At least they were on their way.
Good work! Sarah encouraged. Just keep us moving…
* * *
The desert seemed to stretch on for ever and they travelled another hour before the sandy track turned unexpectedly into a tarmac road. This made the going considerably easier. Although he was clearly exhausted, Nestor pushed the truck onwards. Sarah felt a wave of fatigue spread over her and she had to struggle to keep her own eyes open.
Eventually the truck crawled past the first buildings of a town located on the edge of the desert. The headlamps illuminated a sign on the side of the road.
“Esperinka,” Nestor read as they passed the sign, peering through the windscreen.
“Population 2150,” Sarah added as they moved up the high street.
Nestor pulled the vehicle to a halt. The shops that lined the streets were in complete darkness and there was no evidence of life.
“Then where is everyone?” Robert asked.
Nestor shrugged and turned off the engine, thankful to have some kind of a break from the driving.
“Probably all evacuated,” he said, easing himself out of the driver’s seat and moving back to lie on one of the fold-down beds that lined the side of the cab. “Or maybe they’re hiding, afraid. They might think we’re HIDRA.”
“Yeah,” added Robert. “We’re driving one of their trucks.”
Sarah slumped in her seat. Exhaustion swept over her. Towards the rear of the truck she saw that Wei was awake and sitting up while Louise gave him a sip of water from a bottle. Somehow they’d made it out of the base, but how far they’d managed to travel was unclear in the night. It could have been fifty kilometres or only twenty. She looked round to ask Nestor, but saw that he was already deep in sleep.
Her eyes closed involuntarily for a second and she had to fight to stay awake once more, trying to push herself up off the chair. She knew she couldn’t afford to sleep. They had to get further away…
Someone placed a blanket over her as she lay on the chair. She tried to protest.
It’s okay, Sarah. You rest and we’ll keep watch…
It was Robert’s voice in her head. She could hear the concern in his tone.
Finally, too tired to argue, she gave in and slept.
28
Rachel stood in the centre of the dome and watched her engineering team trying to shore up the fallen section. Work was progressing quickly and she estimated the dome would be secure again within the hour. She looked in the direction of the building that had housed Sarah and thought of Mandy lying asleep at her station. She wondered how much longer she had before Colonel Moss’s spy woke up and raised the alarm.
A warning siren seemed to answer her question, except it came from the direction of the lab. What now? It was the building containing Major Bright. She set off towards the sound of the siren at a run.
When Rachel reached the lab, she found that most of it was gone. The observation window had been broken and the equipment smashed. The dentist’s chair was nowhere to be seen and the back wall was missing, as were the other scientists who had been assisting with the experiment. Rachel hoped they’d made it to safety before the lab was damaged, but she had a bad feeling not much had escaped the destruction. Colonel Moss stood in the entrance, looking at Major Bright, who was motionless in the centre of the room, staring straight ahead, a strange half-smile on his face.
Colonel Moss grabbed her arm as she entered.
“He destroyed the lab!” he hissed, pulling her close. “He looks weird.”
Rachel freed herself from his grip and took a cautious step into the ruined laboratory.
“Major Bright, can you hear me?” she asked, eyeing the nearest exit as she did so – she knew there was no predicting what was going to happen next.
Bright’s eyes snapped into focus and he turned to face her. Rachel had the strangest feeling that he was seeing straight into her thoughts. It wasn’t a nice sensation.
“You were with them…” he said softly. “I can see it… You helped Daniel Williams and the children escape… You’ve drugged two of our people…”
Rachel backed away as Colonel Moss stepped into the room.
“Well, it looks like it’s going to be a whole lot harder to keep secrets from now on, Dr. Andersen,” he said with grim satisfaction. He beckoned over two of his soldiers. “Put her in a cell. I’ll question her later.”
“Major Bright is unstable,” she protested as the soldiers grabbed her arms. “You can’t control him Colonel…”
“Get this traitor out of my sight,” Moss spat in response.
As Rachel was led away, Colonel Moss turned back to Major Bright.
“Where are they?” he demanded. “Can you see them?”
Bright closed his eyes and swayed on the spot for a moment.
“To the east,” he said finally. “Less than forty klicks. Hiding in a town.”
A grin split Colonel Moss’s face for the first time in days.
“How do you feel, Major?” he asked.
Bright opened his eyes and stared into the distance.
“Like I could take on the world, Colonel.”
* * *
They’d come to a ghost town.
If Esperinka ever really had a population of 2150, it was gone now. Every building, every shop was deserted. The doors of businesses on the high street stood open, as if the people had left before they had time to lock up.
“Where do you think everyone went?” Sarah asked as she stood next to Nestor in the middle of the road, looking around the spookily quiet scene.
“Maybe they were evacuated,” he replied, sounding unconvinced. “Or…”
“Or what?” Sarah pressed as his voice trailed away. Robert appeared from the truck and started running up and down the street, peering in shop windows.
Thousands of sleepers have passed through the HIDRA base since the meteorite hit, Nestor replied, directing his thoughts to Sarah alone, mainly so Robert couldn’t hear. But there were too many even for Moss’s men to handle. I’ve seen sleepers packed into huge storage crates, like large versions of the caskets. I’ve seen the inside of one of those crates. It’s scary. People kept in racks like tins of food. Waiting to be relocated by Moss.
Sarah felt a shiver run down her spine, despite the warmth of the day. She
thought about Daniel, lying asleep in the truck. She wouldn’t let HIDRA put him in storage like a piece of meat.
“We should get out of here,” she said, walking back to the truck.
Using the vehicle’s onboard GPS system, she managed to work out that they were still about sixty kilometres west of the border with Victoria – the neighbouring state. The edge of the quarantine zone was marked there as a thick red line across the map. It didn’t look too far, but they were still in the HIDRA-controlled area. She turned on the radio and found static on every station save one: a recorded message that played over and over again.
“You are in a quarantine zone. If it is safe to do so, make your way to the nearest HIDRA checkpoint for aid and medical assistance. Otherwise, stay in your home and await evacuation. For your own safety, do not try to leave the quarantine zone. Repeat, do not leave the quarantine zone. This is an official HIDRA broadcast. You are in a quarantine zone…”
She turned off the radio.
“Hey, do you hear that?” Robert cried, running over and pointing up the high street.
Nestor and Sarah listened carefully. A low humming sound grew from the north. A helicopter approaching.
Quick, get in the truck! Sarah ordered the others. Nestor, get us moving!
Nestor checked they had Louise and Wei on board before jumping into the driver’s seat. He turned the key and pumped the accelerator. The engine turned over once, sending a judder through the truck. Then it died. Nestor turned the key again and again with the same result.
Robert stuck his head out of the open door of the cab.
“It’s getting closer!” he cried. “They’re looking for us!”
“Yes, I know!” Nestor replied through gritted teeth as he tried firing the engine once more. He looked round at Sarah. “What are we going to do?”
Sarah scanned the deserted high street through the windscreen. The road was built on a slight incline. Reaching down, she released the handbrake of the truck.
The massive machine began to roll forward, ever so slowly.
“We’re going to drive out of here,” she told Nestor, pointing ahead down the street. “But first we’ve got to get moving. You’ll have to get out and push, all of you.”
Nestor nodded, grasping her plan immediately. He jumped out of the driver’s seat and ushered the others out onto the street while Sarah took his place at the wheel.
I hope you know what you’re doing, he said as he went through the door and ran to the back of the truck.
So do I, Sarah thought back.
Even with the four others pushing, the truck made painfully slow progress down the street for almost a minute. Sarah wished that Daniel was awake to put a little muscle into the effort. But then they hit the part of the road which sloped downwards more steeply.
Now the truck moved quicker, generating more speed as its own weight began to add to the forward momentum. The numbers on the speedometer began to tick upwards. Sarah turned the key again. The engine turned over, threatening to spring into life this time. Then it spluttered and died. Sarah slammed her fist onto the wheel.
“Where are we going?” shouted Wei, who was running closest to the cab door.
“I’ll tell you when we get there!” Sarah shouted back, a little irritably. Her sixth sense began to send her a mental image of the impending danger: a sleek, black helicopter moving through the sky in their direction. In the cockpit, two sets of eyes scanned the countryside for them.
The truck was really moving now, so she tried starting the engine again, with the same result. Through the windscreen she saw that they were fast running out of shops. The end of the high street was basically the end of the town. Once they were out in the open they would be even easier for the searchers to spot. A new idea occurred to her.
Sarah scanned the last few buildings lining the street as they approached. A dentist’s office. A grocery store. A florist’s with a large, open window at the front. Perfect.
Watch out! she sent to the others urgently. Get away from the truck!
Sensing them scatter, Sarah turned the wheel hard to the right, sending the truck on a collision course with the glass front of the florist. The vehicle mounted the pavement and smashed through the window, ploughing into the building, scattering tables and shelves in its path. She slammed on the brakes at the last possible second to avoid hitting the back wall of the shop.
“Wow!” cried Robert from the smashed front of the shop as Sarah jumped out of the cab. “That was mad!”
“Don’t just stand there, get inside!” she ordered the others.
They piled into the shop, stepping over broken glass, wood and bricks. Something in the roof groaned and Sarah looked up, worrying that the damage she’d caused with the truck might cause a collapse. Thankfully, the noise stopped and the building held up.
Nestor ran to the front of the shop. He reached up to the top of the window and pulled down a metal roller screen. It came down stiffly, but got stuck halfway.
Help me!
All of them ran to the screen, pulling down on the bottom. With a screech of metal, it went down fully. The interior of the building was thrown into a half-darkness relieved only by rays of light streaming in through slits in the metal. Sarah put her face close to one of the gaps, looking out onto the high street and motioning for the others to be quiet as she did so.
For a moment the high street was silent.
Then a strong gust of wind sent dust and dead leaves flying along the pavements in its wake. The buzzing of the helicopter engine grew louder, causing the whole screen to vibrate.
The machine appeared, flying up the street alarmingly close to the ground. It was smaller than Sarah had expected, but she saw machine guns mounted on either side of the cockpit. The helicopter was only large enough to seat two and she made out a pair of mirror-masks scanning the town. The masks they wore were the same, but she noted that their suits seemed slimmer, more lightweight than those she had seen at the base. Combat models.
Sarah became aware of Louise standing at her side, staring intently through one of the slats at the machine. She started to raise her hand with the same intense look on her face she’d had when she broke the mirrors at the HIDRA base.
Louise, what are you doing? Sarah demanded, placing a hand on her arm.
I can stop them, she replied, eyes fixed on the helicopter. I can make it crash. I feel it.
No, Sarah ordered. More of them will come. Besides, do you really want to hurt the people in that machine?
When Louise looked round at her, Sarah saw tears in her eyes.
They said they could make my dad better, she explained, throwing her arms around Sarah. But they took him away somewhere. They just wanted to get my power.
Sarah stroked a hand through her hair and gave her shoulder a squeeze. She felt the anger coursing through the younger girl. It almost scared her.
It’s okay, we’ll get to the city and find your dad, Sarah told her. I promise.
Louise thought about this for a moment and once again Sarah could sense the turmoil in her mind. Finally, Louise nodded and rubbed away the tears.
Okay, Sarah.
Sarah smiled and turned her attention back to the screen.
The droning sound of another helicopter joined the first and a second machine appeared at the other end of the street. The two helicopters faced one another, their black and gold Special Forces colours making them look like two giant wasps. Some kind of silent communication seemed to be going on between the machines. After half a minute, they floated up and turned in opposite directions to continue their search.
Sarah’s senses told her that their pursuers had been fooled for the time being and passed on, but she and the others still waited an hour before they risked moving out into the street again.
Now what are we going to do? Nestor asked. The screen door of the florist’s was jammed down, trapping the useless truck inside.
Sarah weighed the options in her mind. Find another ve
hicle that worked. Hide somewhere in the town and hope that somebody found them before HIDRA. Give up… She thought about Daniel lying in the back of the truck. He needed medical attention now the fall virus had put him into a coma – the kind that HIDRA could easily provide. Maybe it would be for the best if the helicopters did find them.
She became aware of the others standing around, waiting for her to say something. Nestor. Louise. Wei. Robert. They stood in a little semicircle by the side of the road, each looking tired and unwashed in the morning light.
They need me to tell them what’s next, Sarah realized, feeling the weight of their expectation. Somehow she’d become their leader. She thought for a moment before speaking, remembering her conversation with Louise in the shop.
“We fight,” she said.
The others looked at one another.
“If we run, we’ll never escape those helicopters,” she explained. “So we’re going to make a stand here.”
Wei gave a laugh.
“What, fight HIDRA?” he said. “All their soldiers and machines?”
“We did it before,” Robert shot back at him, defending his sister. “They’re afraid of us. I could tell back at the base.”
“Me too,” agreed Louise. “We can do it.”
They all looked at Nestor, who had yet to speak. He shook his head.
“They’re too strong,” he said quietly. “There’s too many of them.”
“Please, Nestor,” Sarah said. “We can do it. It’s either that or give up now. Because we’ll never make it otherwise.”
He met her eyes, suddenly defiant.
I’m never going back to that base.
Sarah smiled and nodded. She sensed the resolve in the others.
“Okay,” she said. “We don’t know how long we’ve got, so we’d better get to work.”
29
The first job was to search the buildings around the high street and find a safe place for Daniel.
In the end, they settled on an apartment above a shop selling tourist souvenirs and pieces of local art. It took the combined strength of Sarah, Nestor, Robert and Wei to carry him out of the truck, across the street and up the stairs to the bed they’d found. Louise held doors open for them. Along the way they dropped him a couple of times and one of his hands dragged along the ground for a little while before they noticed, but generally Daniel made it in one piece.