The Rogue Agent

by Shiloh White

  ✽✽✽

  The explosion sent a shock wave through the building, forcing me to the ground face-first.

  Which might not have been a bad thing, since glass shards and other sharp objects ricocheted out of the bathroom and flew into the hallway.

  Then the school's shaking and rumbling got more violent. Lockers were tipping over now. The water fountain pipes burst, sending streams down the main hall floor. Chunks of the ceiling were cracking and falling above head.

  “Lucy! Where are you?!”

  Lieutenant Hollister? Where was she calling from? I pulled my face away from the ground, and looked around. There, up ahead! She was running now, the pain in her foot taking an obvious second place to being buried alive in a high school—a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone.

  “I'm back here!” I shouted, rising to my feet to catch up to her. Lieutenant Hollister turned around and saw me, and stopped running. She yelled something into her earpiece, and then gestured at me to get moving. I ran down the hall, jumping over two lockers that fell straight into the middle of the walkway and around a stream of water before I made it to where she was.

  “What's happening?” I asked, finally reaching the Lieutenant. “Why's the school falling apart?”

  “Unfortunately, for the times you're not lucky enough to get out at the same time you win,” Lieutenant Hollister explained, “the Depression Zones do fall apart after the Agent has been defeated.” Then she turned and yelled into her earpiece. “Dart, do you copy? We need a TransPort out of here, now!” There was a pause where she said nothing, and then she cursed.

  “What did Dart say?” I asked when I saw another locker coming unhinged in front of me. I jumped back and ran wide out of its way to avoid it.

  “It was mostly static, but Dart said something about problems back at base.” Lieutenant Hollister yelled, skirting around a chunk of fallen rooftop and running alongside me as best as she could manage.

  “Problems? What problems?” I asked.

  “I don't know,” Lieutenant Hollister said, “but we can't help until we get out of here. Right now, we're on our own.”

  “How are we going to escape?” I asked, looking up ahead at the front door. We were closer than I thought. Then I tried not to slip, as I ran through wet and broken remains of a water fountain.

  “The TransPorts are programmed to bring us out if—” Lieutenant Hollister started to say, but a big rumbling sound from behind us made her stop talking. We turned around and saw the back of the ceiling beginning to crumble down, more of it falling as it got closer. Then all of a sudden, the rumbling sound travelled to the front entrance. A giant pile of it slammed down in front of us, blocking the doorway. If I was standing any closer it, I would've been crushed.

  “What now?” I asked Lieutenant Hollister, looking around at the wreckage of this school. “Are we trapped in here?”

  “No. Follow me.” she said calmly. She pointed upward, showing the pile of rubble opened up a hole in the roof. She started up the pile, and I climbed quickly behind her. At one point I must have overtaken her, because I didn't see her above me once I reached the top. Then I heard something below me.

  “AAH!” it was Lieutenant Hollister crying out. I looked back at her, and she had her foot stuck underneath some rubble. I climbed back down carefully, watching the ceiling of the building. From this angle, I could see the top and the bottom of the ceiling and the cracks spreading throughout all of it.

  “You need to hurry up and get out!” Lieutenant Hollister shouted at me. I wanted to argue that I wasn’t going to leave. Fear got the better of my ability to speak, so I just concentrated on lugging her foot out of the wreckage. After a few hard yanks, the two of us shook it free (YES!), but now we had a new problem. The rubble loosened around her foot, but it also caused me to lose my balance. I slipped and started to get caught up in the chunks coming down.

  “Lucy!” Lieutenant Hollister reached for my arm. I flailed around, trying to regain my balance and catch her hand at the same time. Luckily for me, her footing was more stable. She was able to catch me and pull me back up.

  I righted myself and the two of us continued the climb up, the rumbling growing more and more as we climbed. Bigger chunks fell the further we got, throwing up more piles of rubble and dust.

  Suddenly, the sound of a huge creak filled the building. It was immediately followed by a loud rumble that rose from behind us.

  I didn’t even have to turn around to know what it was.

  The school was coming down.

  28. I Joyride Right Into My Living Room

  If you have the chance to avoid falling with piles of brick and metal rushing down on top of you in your lifetime, I advise you to take it. We tumbled forward in a brick and metal avalanche, the occasional brick pelting my back, and everything rumbling around me at an eardrum-bursting level. I remember thinking at one moment, as clumps of rubble blocked my line of vision to the pavement closing in, This is it, Lucy. You're never going to make it past high school.

  How's that for depressing?

  “Lucy!” Lieutenant Hollister yelled next to me.

  “What?”

  “When we hit the ground, we need to keep moving, or the falling rubble will crush us!” she explained nice and loud. Even while taking part in a giant avalanche of building, her voice still projected strong. I nodded to show I understood, and looked down. The pavement was coming up quickly now. It'd be here in a few of those alligator seconds.

  You know, like:

  One alligator...

  I looked over at Lieutenant Hollister. Her eyes were focused on the ground. There was no avoiding it. It was either move or splat, and I'd only get one shot.

  Two alligator...

  My body started to tense up. I tried to convince myself to relax. No plans to go splat today…Gotta save Chloe.

  My legs started to feel less like jelly and more like legs again.

  Three alligator...wait for it...

  NOW!

  I threw my right arm forward as hard as I could to propel the rest of my body's weight into a forward roll. I succeeded, taking the momentum and running with it. Literally. But I initially hit the ground pretty hard on my shoulder. Definitely wasn’t going to feel good for a while.

  I kept running, almost out the school gate now when I realized Lieutenant Hollister wasn't behind me. I turned around and saw her out in the grass by what used to be the school's front entrance. I ran over as she was rising to her feet.

  “Lieutenant!” I shouted as I ran. I got there in time to see her stand up, and spit blood into the grass. She definitely took more of a fall than just a shoulder. Her ripped pant leg (and boot) was all torn up now, showing her injured foot. I winced. It looked much worse than before, with cuts and a huge purple lump the size of a plum on the back of her heel where she'd been stabbed.

  “Stop moving!” I tried to convince her, but she wouldn't listen. She started limping over to where I was standing. I didn't say anything; staring at her injuries, and wondering how she was moving. How was I even moving? Falling off a building, I knew I should've been in more pain than I felt right now. Then I noticed my arm. The blue painted question mark on my arm had spread all over my body, coating me in a thin case of blue paint. However, as quickly as I noticed it, it shrank up and disappeared completely. I wasn't sure if I imagined it or not, but I swear I felt dizzy after it was gone.

  “We need to run. Now!” Lieutenant Hollister slurred, sounding angry. I wasn't sure if it was at me, or if she'd even seen it, but I decided asking about the paint could wait until we were safe. I ran over to her, and put her arm over my shoulder, shifting our weight again. I wasn't sure of the crazy urgency until I realized even though the school had fallen, the rumbling had not stopped. The Zone was still coming down, like she explained before. We shoved down the sidewalk at a speed no high-school-girl-and-injured-police-lieutenant duo could imagine, dodging holes that cracked open underneath us. One opened up right as I stepped forward
and I almost fell in.

  “WHOA!” I shouted. I threw all my weight backwards and fell onto my bottom, dragging Lieutenant Hollister with me to avoid the hole.

  “How exactly are we going to get out of here, again?” I asked, nearing my wit's end. After spontaneously taking on a Depression Officer and a metal-lanche, I was ready to have a plan for escape.

  “If we get back to the Zone's start,” Lieutenant Hollister said, “the TransPorts are programmed to awake the ones inside it.”

  I looked down the street and my heart sank. My home was still another three blocks from where we stood.

  “There's no way we can run there in time.” I said, turning to Lieutenant Hollister. To my surprise, the face I got in return wasn’t panic or distress. Instead, a malevolent grin slowly spread onto her face. She pointed up ahead to clue me in.

  “I hope you know how to drive then.”

  ✽✽✽

  Now, if you have the chance to joyride a school bus in your lifetime, make sure that you definitely take it.

  The big yellow school bus that the Fragment drove was still crash-parked in the side of the school wall. I pulled Lieutenant Hollister to her feet, watching her swallow down pain I knew I couldn't handle.

  I found myself wishing I could've shared my healing paint power Handle thing with her. She didn't deserve the pain she got here. It was my fault in the first place. But I didn't even know how it appeared in the first place. If I was going to do anything to help her now, getting out of here was a good start.

  I leaned Lieutenant Hollister next to the door, and then went to work prying the entrance all the way open. All the while, the ground underneath and around us started to rumble. We needed to get out of here now. There was no time to –KRSH! The rubble around the bus doorway gave way.

  “Finally!” I said triumphantly as the door latch released and I pulled it open. Lieutenant Hollister hobbled up the steps and onto the bus.

  I was close behind when the ground split open underneath my feet. It cracked apart, spewing up cement and asphalt from...down below somewhere. The gap grew, separating the Lieutenant and the bus from where I was standing until it was at least three feet and still growing.

  “Hurry!” I heard Lieutenant Hollister shout from the bus. The gap was quickly extending to four feet now, and the ground in front of me was shifting higher. It was now or never. I ran and jumped, stretching out my arms to reach the bus as the ground disappeared below me.

  But it was too far. My feet didn't clear enough to reach the bus. Instead, my hands gripped the bottom step to the bus entrance. I yelled for help, but all that came out was “HRMPH-AGH!” from trying to keep myself from letting go.

  Luckily, Lieutenant Hollister had me covered. She hooked one arm around a support bar hanging from the nearest chair and the other reaching down to help me. I threw my arm up to her and she used the momentum to pull us both up. We collapsed on the floor of the bus for a moment, something I never planned to do in a million years. Easily on my top five dirtiest places ever. But dirt wasn't an issue right now. Getting out alive was.

  As if to illustrate my point, the ground rumbled again, shaking everything around me down to the breath in my lungs.

  “We need to hurry. Can you drive this thing?” Lieutenant Hollister asked as we rose to our feet. I sat in the driver's seat and examined everything up front, familiar and foreign.

  “I know how to drive an automatic,” I turned and said, only somewhat sure of myself, “but a couple of these levers and buttons are a little confusing.” Although, it did ease my worries a little to find the key left in the ignition. Lieutenant Hollister staggered over to one of the seats and said, “Well, it's either going to be death by bus crash or by Depression Zone, so take your pick.”

  The choices did not make me eager to “take my pick.” Nonetheless, Depression Zone still sounded like a worse way to go. I turned the key and the bus roared to life.

  “Hang on then,” I warned her, “because we're probably gonna crash.” Lieutenant Hollister nodded and promptly put her hands on the seat in front of her. I faced the front windshield, all the rubble from when the Fragment crashed it staring me in the face, and used a lever I figured was for changing gears to put the bus in reverse. With uncomfortable pushes of the acceleration peddle, I managed to jolt us free and face the bus towards my house, at the end of the street. Then I pushed hard on the pedal and drove like the safest madwoman I could, watching the street break apart and turn to grayness behind me.

  Before long, we were just two blocks down from my house. I started to push on the brakes when I realized something that made my heart sink.

  “Uhh...” I started to say, trying to tell the Lieutenant my predicament. I looked in the rear view mirror for her eyes.

  “What's going on?” she asked, facing the back window and watching the Depression Zone fall apart behind us.

  “The brakes are broken.” I told her, watching as the distance between us and my house quickly disappeared. Only a block away now. “We are definitely gonna crash.” I said hopelessly, racking my brain for a way out of this predicament. Nothing came to mind.

  “Maybe that's not a bad thing,” Lieutenant Hollister said from her seat. “If we time it right, we can use your house as a way to ease the impact.”

  “You mean like, using it as a cushion?” I asked, instinctively turning around for an answer. Lieutenant Hollister nodded slowly, keeping her eyes fixed out the front windshield.

  “How are we going to do that? The house isn't exactly the softest choice around.”

  “The same way we handled the Fragment: wait for my timing, then make a hard left turn. If you don't, then—” Lieutenant Hollister explained, enunciating every word clearly.

  “I got it,” I said, my eyes forward. Her message was clear: no room for screw ups this time. Otherwise, the broken down Depression Zone would have bits and pieces of us floating around with it. “Your timing.”

  We were only a block away from my house now, and closing.

  “Okay, wait for it,” Lieutenant Hollister said, her voice eerily calm. I tried not to let it freak me out. Instead, I primed both my hands to get ready for a left turn, but a bus's steering wheel was bigger than a normal car. I bumped the wheel while crossing my left hand over my right and the bus swerved as we zoomed into the cul-de-sac.

  “Sorry!” I yelled, hoping there was less panic in my voice than it sounded like. I quickly righted our path, and hoped that I didn't just seal our fate. We were mere seconds away from the house now. I wanted to turn; hop out of the car; something. But I stayed the course. Although, I did glance back at Lieutenant Hollister more times than I could count before she finally shouted, “NOW! LEFT TURN NOW!” louder than I'd ever heard her yell. My body moved the second she yelled, yanking the wheel as hard as I could to the left. There was a loud SKKRRRRRRCH and then everything went quiet.

  We were airborne now; the bus was beginning to flip. I felt weightless as everything tilted to the right. However, just as I began to float out of my seat; CRASH!

  We collided with the front of my house. Instead of floating, I was thrown from my seat into a bus window. I hit the ground with an OOMF and lied there for what could've been five seconds or five hours. To the left of me, I heard a shout, and a bang coming from the back side of the bus. I did my best to stand up and stay conscious at the same time, which was not an easy feat, to see what was going on. Lieutenant Hollister was using her good—err, her better foot to kick against the back emergency door.

  That's not good, I thought. It must have jammed stuck when we made impact. Inconveniently, the other door was on the side of the bus now meshed into the garage door.

  Lieutenant Hollister kicked the door again with a “HAH!”, and it burst open. “Come on, we need to go!” she said, jumping out the door and running towards the house. I wanted to respond with “I'm coming!” but it came out as an unintelligent mumble. Regardless of how shook up I was, I forced one foot after the other until I was
out of the bus.

  I stood in the grass, gawking at everything around me. Everything past the sidewalk in front of my house was broken apart and suspended in grayness. Down the street, I could just barely see the remains of the school grounds. Just then, the sidewalk started to crack and fall away too. I was out of time.

  I ran up the lawn to the front door, each step breaking the ground underneath me. I was a few steps away when the front porch collapsed in front of me. It crumbled away into nothingness, revealing not but grayness behind it.

  “Uhh…” I looked up at Lieutenant Hollister for an answer.

  “Jump!” she yelled.

  Duh. Why didn’t I think of that?

  She held out her hands to me from in the house. I ran up to the last piece of solid ground I could and then I leapt through the air. Lieutenant Hollister caught my arms in midair and pulled me inside. We both rolled past the entryway and into the house. Don't ask me why, but as soon as I got up, I ran back to the door and shut it closed.

  Then I followed Lieutenant Hollister over to the kitchen, and saw her sitting at the table. I followed her example. “What now?” I asked, hearing the panic rise up in my voice.

  “Close your eyes and wait,” she said. “The TransPorts will do their thing.” Okay. I closed my eyes and waited….and waited. And waited some more, until I realized I was tapping my finger on the kitchen table. Nothing was happening yet. I opened my eyes, still sitting in my house. But across from me, the Lieutenant was nowhere to be seen. I stayed in my seat waiting, despite every instinct I had to go look for her. Did she get out? I wondered if Dart was able to help her. What did he have so much trouble with over there in the first place? Plus, if he did get Lieutenant Hollister out of here, why was I still stuck?

  A huge rumble cut off my mental ramblings. The whole house shook, and I could see the rooms cracking apart around me. The entryway broke apart; the living room separated from the kitchen; it was coming down around me. In between the cracks, I could see the grayness of the Dust filtering through. My heart skipped a beat. I shut my eyes again, holding my breath and muttering “come on, come on.” All at once, I got chills that spread everywhere. My entire body felt really cold. Is that what it felt like out in the Dust?