Sidney's Escape

by Nirina Stone

  She remembers the look of the lady they’d met in the desert. Tall, skinny. She didn’t really pay her much attention given that they were just going to barter with her and move on. Besides, didn’t Gideon say she’s his ‘ally’? Isn’t ally just another word for ‘friend’?

  Well, what sort of friend would do such a thing? “This is all your fault!” Sidney says as she points her index finger at him. “You brought her to us. You did this!”

  He steps back and says, “You’re right.” He keeps his voice calm though she shakes and keeps approaching him, barely keeping herself from throwing herself at him to throw punches. That won’t get her anywhere though a small part of her says it would feel good to get the aggression out. Still, she holds her ground.

  “Look,” he says. “Soon as you’re safe in the Red Dome, I’ll go there, to The Field. I’ll bring him back.”

  “No,” she yells before he’s done speaking. She doesn’t care about getting to the Red Dome—the Red Dome will always be there. “I need to know he’s okay. We need to go get him now.”

  “It’s not safe for you—”

  “If you won’t help me, Gideon, I’ll go after him myself. I’m not scared.”

  “You can’t just go after that lot. You won’t find their base, anyway.”

  “I’ll track them. I know how!” She ignores the doubt in her voice. “Or you can not help me and leave me to die out there, looking for him.” For all she knows, he’d be all right with that.

  “The Field—where they are,” he says, “it’s not a place for a child.”

  Finally, heat burns her face as her voice rises again. “I am not a child!”

  She watches him step back again, calculating. As his brows lower, she expects this is the part where he decides arguing with her will get him nowhere. Nayne used to tell her she was “Stubborn as a thirsty mozzie in summer,” whatever that meant.

  It takes less than twenty minutes for them to pack everything up, though Sidney had wanted to just—go. Then they’re heading South West, further away from the Red Dome, but she knows there’s no way she wants to go there without knowing Henry’s okay.

  They hardly speak, just stop every now and then for a quick sip of water.

  After hearing rustles and squeals from her knapsack, she releases Lashes from her pack, to play in the red earth beside them. Surprisingly, the little thing keeps up quite well as they head to ‘The Field’, which turns out to be just over an hour walk away.

  They start towards the side of a dune, where they’re walking down an incline. Underground, of course, she thinks, as she watches the space decrease in size the further down they walk. This has to be against Allendian law, she thinks as they round a dark corner, hearing unmistakable voices of a mass of people. The thought of more than three or four people causes her to pause. She knows Gideon’s right—this is probably not the place for a kid. Still, she keeps forward until they come across a mess hall.

  A handful of people sit around tables, boisterous and dressed much like Ariadne had. In another corner, they’re throwing knives and daggers at a large target on the red wall, twenty feet ahead of them.

  Gideon stops and whispers, “Henry’s right there, look.”

  He’s closer to them than the rest of the party. He stands aside, his arms crossed in front of him as he watches them, and he leans his right shoulder into the wall. If she didn’t know it was him, she’d think he was just another one of the raiders, maybe even guarding the entrance hall for them. She thought they’d find him dead, or at the very least shackled to something, a prisoner. Not like this, though. Not just one of them. She wants to run up to him, but Gideon, pushes her back with his arm. “Wait,” he says, loud enough for Henry to hear them and turn his head.

  Chapter Fifty Six

  Henry

  IT ONLY TAKES HIM A second to reach them. What is Gideon thinking, bringing her here?

  “What are you two doing here?” he hisses. He twists them both around by the shoulders and pushes them back up the ramp.

  But Sidney’s too swift of course. She swivels right back around. “We came to save you,” she says, her voice suddenly tiny in this space. They’re ten feet away from the entrance to the Field, and he means to push them all the way out. “But you don’t look like you need saving,” Gideon adds.

  Henry stops, wanting more than anything to just run with them and keep running but, looking at Sidney’s small form and big wide eyes, he knows what he has to do.

  “I came with them willingly, Sidney,” he says, not making eye contact with Gideon. The old man will know enough to understand what he’s doing, he reckons. If anything, he thinks the old man is allied with everyone in The Field. Not just with Ariadne as a traveler.

  “Now you need to leave,” he says, pushing them again. “You’re so close to the Red Dome. Go there. Now. You’re safe, there.” Forget me, he wants to tell her. Just forget me and keep going.

  When she turns around to face him again, he turns to Gideon. “Do whatever you need to get her out of here, old man. You know what she’d face in here. This is no place for a—”

  “Hey!” A voice booms through the tunnel. “Hybrid, who gave ya permission to move away from the entrance, mate.”

  It’s Ariadne. Henry turns to face her, keeping Sidney behind him as much as she’d allow.

  He hurries to say, “They came here to—” he intends to finish the sentence with “to say goodbye to me,” but of course Sidney has to pipe in before he can.

  “Why did you take him?” she spits at Ariadne. “What do you want with him?”

  Ariadne’s laughter echoes through the tunnel behind them. “What do we NOT want with him, child?”

  Her green eyes land on Henry. “What’s going on here really, mate? Did you reckon you’d get away?”

  “Not at all,” he rushes. “I was sending them away. Like I promised you before, I’m staying. I’m not running. I’d never....”

  “That’s enough,” Ariadne says, then she calls around two of her people. Two muscled six-foot-four men. Henry steps to the side as they move in closer. He knows they will forcibly move the visitors out. Ariadne promised him they wouldn’t be harmed as long as he cooperates, and cooperate fully he will. Still, holding his hands to his ears does nothing to stifle the screams and curses Sidney throws at him as one of Ariadne’s captains throws her form over his shoulder and steadily walks up the ramp with her. Gideon simply holds his hands up in the air towards the other captain, and walks up the ramp willingly.

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  Sidney

  THE TWO MONSTER MEN chatter away as they walk up the ramp, ignoring Sidney’s yells and screams like she’s not even there. Gideon walks quietly behind her, his eyes on her as he attempts to shush her but she’s not having any of it. Seeing Henry like that confused her though—he wasn’t acting at all like a prisoner, not wanting to escape. What was that about? Finally, she stills on the Monster-man’s shoulder—they should be at the outer entrance soon, anyway, she reckons.

  Then what? If she moves past them to run down the ramp, they’d simply do this again. Maybe she can just keep running down the ramp until it tires them out and they let her stay with Henry.

  Gideon watches her face, and as if he knows exactly what she’s planning, he shakes his head ‘no’. She rolls her eyes away from him. Useless dude, she thinks. He’s supposed to be a scientist. Can’t he just “science” his way out of this one, or something? And what was wrong with Henry? And why did they call him Hybrid? Sometimes, she thinks, seriously, I wish I was just an adult already so I can understand all these things that they just seem to know. So I’m not left in the dark so much.

  The Monster-man finally places her on the ground, right outside the outer entrance, where she spots Lashes hiding out behind a bright red bush. She didn’t notice that Lashes didn’t follow them all the way down, but now questions how the animal would know to stay out of sight.

  Gideon mutters something to the men that Sidne
y doesn’t catch. Then, one of them says back, “What would we want another mouth to feed for?” He points down at her. “Look at her—all scrawny.”

  She narrows her eyes at him and he sneers back as the other Monster-man bursts out laughing, turns, and starts down the ramp again like he was merely taking a small break.

  As she sees his big form walk away from the corner of her eye, she stares at the other Monster-man until he too turns. Then she frowns at Gideon. Dawn broke while they were down there, and he shields his eyes from the oncoming sun. Then he notices her looking at him.

  “He’s fine,” he reassures her. “You saw him—he’ll be okay.”

  None of this makes any sense to her but the fight in her is gone. Somehow, she’s lost Henry out here. “Besides,” Gideon says, “we should get you to the dome now. It’s open.”

  “What will happen now?” she says as she turns to face the sun as well.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve met anyone who had the flu,” Gideon says. “But they’ll have the medicine now to cure you. They’ll just check your blood for viral signs, process it to see which specific strain you carry and then give you the cure. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it. So—let’s go.”

  “Wait—”

  A gruff voice behind them. Sidney stills, as Gideon freezes in place beside her. Then they both turn slowly. One of the monster men, she sees, is smoking something, making fumes billow up into the air. She thought he’d walked down the tunnel with the other Monster-man but he’s been standing in the shadows instead.

  He points his hand at her. “She has the flu?”

  Sidney steps back, wondering if that means he’ll hurt her. Though this ‘flu’ is an invisible thing she’s never even noticed what the difference is between her and others—

  Still, it is the bane of her existence.

  When Gideon doesn’t reply right away, the man says it again, a bit louder this time. Then he looks straight at Gideon. “You should have mentioned it sooner, mate,” he says. “We would have given you a hero’s welcome. Let’s talk.”

  He makes a move as if to walk back through the tunnel but when Gideon still doesn’t budge, he cocks his head to the side and says, “You not looking to negotiate are you?” He pronounces the word ‘nego-seeee-ate’ and she instinctively thinks it’s wrong. Besides, what’s there to negotiate?

  Gideon finally speaks as he moves closer to Sidney, slightly in front of her as if to protect her from the man. She doesn’t understand what’s going on but a hunch tells her there’s no way the old scientist would win a fight against this dude. From what she can see, he’s basically built like four or five Gideons.

  “There’s nothing to negotiate,” Gideon finally growls, as he moves his arm back and slightly pushes Sidney so she stands right behind him. Usually, she’d push back. She doesn’t like being made to stand there like some kid.

  Right now, watching the way Monster-man’s attention darts to her and back to Gideon again, she’s relieved that at least this is farther away from him. She can surely outrun someone built that big.

  Then, Monster-man smiles. “Oh this is cute,” he says though it doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s cute at all. “D’you reckon you’d just keep her to yourself then? There are many more of us, you know. You know us, mate. We always take hold of what we want. It’s inevitable.”

  Still, Gideon doesn’t budge. When Monster-man puts out his smoking stick thing then raises his hand towards his face mask, meaning to press a button on the side, that’s when Gideon jumps into movement.

  And movement isn’t quite the right word, she thinks as she steps back a couple more steps. First he drops down so low, she thinks he’s fallen, but he brings his right leg around so fast, she hardly sees it. When Monster-man crashes on his back with a loud grunt, his arms thrown out to the sides, it finally hits her what Gideon did.

  Then, without so much as a breath, Gideon wraps his legs around the man’s thick neck while he holds his flailing arms up, beside him. She doesn’t know if she should move, given that Monster-man’s legs are now jumping around in the air. She reckons it’s best to stay right where she is. Two minutes later, the barrel of a man stills.

  Gideon keeps his legs twisted around Monster-man’s neck for another minute after that.

  Finally, he lets go at the same time Sidney lets out a long breath.

  She realizes that the entire time he did that, he was urging her to run but she found her legs incapable of moving.

  “Why didn’t you run?” he says, slightly out of breath.

  “I just—” what? Didn’t want to leave you behind to die? She can see now how well he can take care of himself. Still, that was unexpected.

  “I didn’t want you to see that,” he says, pointing behind him, then taking a long sip of water, before offering her the rest. “But nothing to be done about it now.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone—die.”

  He simply says, “We have to move him.”

  He has Sidney carry one of the man’s heavy legs while he grabs the other, and they drag his body around the side of the entrance. Then Gideon throws as much red sand over him as he can, effectively camouflaging him to look like another mound of dust.

  Then he turns to Sidney, making sure she finishes the rest of the water. “It won’t be long before they find him and realize what’s happened here. You ready to run?”

  FORTY MINUTES OF STEADY running later, Lashes right beside them, Sid finally sees the Red Dome for the first time. Though—it’s not so much a dome as simply a tall city in the distance, rising with buildings tall enough to touch the sky. From here, the layout does resemble that of the Blue Dome, but the buildings are several stories higher.

  Where she expected a glass monstrosity hovering above the city, all she sees is nothing but bright Allendian sky. “Where’s the dome?” she asks between breaths.

  “Destroyed,” he huffs, “a long time ago. They’re protected by a forcefield now. Far more efficient anyway.”

  Far nicer to look at too, she thinks.

  Then they hasten their pace from a steady run to full-out sprinting. For in the near distance behind them is the unmistakable growl of several bike’s engines in pursuit.

  Chapter Fifty Eight

  Henry

  HE HEADS BACK INTO the entry to The Field, his heart hammering. They’ll be okay, he tells himself. She’ll be okay. If there’s only one thing in the world he knows, it’s that the kid will be able to take care of herself. Besides which, the Red Dome is much closer now. Once they get there, she’ll be safe. Safer than when she was in the Blue Dome, being hunted.

  Gideon won’t let anything happen to her.

  “Hybrid,” Ariadne yells to him from across the room. “Get over here. We’ve got your schedule. You ready to fight for your supper, mate?”

  Her laughter echoes again and he’s suddenly irritated with her boisterous voice. Somehow, he thinks, I’ll find a way to kill you. When I manage a plan to get out of here, you’ll be one of the first to die.

  He keeps his features flat as he walks across to where she stands with the others.

  Chapter Fifty Nine

  Sidney

  “RUN FASTER!” GIDEON yells at her though he’s behind her now. She wants to grab him by the arm and pull him along but she knows that will only slow her down. Still, they’re so close to the Red Dome. The Red City, she corrects in her mind. There is no actual dome.

  The engines behind them are getting closer and closer, and she knows there’s no way they’ll make it there on time. What will they do to them?

  She’s sure the dead Monster-man wasn’t able to tell the others that she had the flu—though she’s still not sure why that was such a big deal to him anyway—but they’re here to avenge their captain and now they’re riding around and around her and Gideon in circles so tight, amber dust rises into the air, covering them. She can hear them now but can’t see—she can only guess ther
e are maybe five or six bikes, and they keep revving around them in circles it’s like they’ll never stop.

  If the purpose of this exercise is to attempt to intimidate, Sidney’s heart tells her they’re winning.

  Then finally, as if all under the same thought, all the engines turn off and they come to a skid, still in a loose circle around her and Gideon. She sees that the man’s usually stark white head is covered in a thick layer of dust. He wipes the goggles on his mask and stares back at her. “You okay?” he asks. His voice seems muffled now, as her ears still adjust to the sudden silence after the roaring bikes. She nods.

  “When I tell you to,” he says so quietly only she can hear. “You’ll need to run straight towards those two pillars there.” His eyes dart right, towards the Red Dome. “You run and you don’t stop and you don’t even look back.”

  She’s suddenly worried about him. Sure, he brought down Monster-man, but there’s five of them here—all smaller than Monster-man, but still dangerous. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m delivering you to the Red,” he says.

  She doesn’t like the sound of that. She doesn’t like his implication—or the tone of a distinct goodbye on his voice.

  Far too many people have been putting her life ahead of theirs, she decides. First Nayne, then Petra. Who knows what sort of ‘negotiations’ Henry made to stay at The Field to spare her and now Gideon intends on sacrificing himself here, for her? Why? And more importantly, how can she stop this from happening?

  “You hear me?” he says when she doesn’t respond. “You run when I say.”

  “You run with me,” she insists.

  “Of course,” Gideon says, but she doesn’t believe him.

  Then he reaches into his front pocket quickly, presses something and yells at her to run at the same moment he turns towards the pillars and breaks into a sprint.

  She doesn’t hesitate, but is surprised to hear mutterings behind them. She expects that, any second now, the bikes will roar to life and pursue them again. Instead, nothing but silence from the machines. Then, yells and roars as the raiders break into a run behind them. She speeds up, hearing Gideon right beside her, but they’re too late.