Chapter 7

Prisoner on the Loose. Locals Beware!

Yesterday morning at 6:15, Ellie Linton was arrested from her home when a neighbor called the police after hearing threats to Homer Yannos's life. At midnight last night, three figures were spotted escaping the grounds and speed away before police could apprehend them. The whole area quickly went into lock down and roll call revealed that Ellie Linton, wanted for murder, has indeed escaped. At first glance, her cell appeared to be intact, but on closer inspection, it was found that the bars had been blown out and then super-glued back into place. This ingenious plan would have worked had two of the bars not fallen out. Traces of plastic explosive were found at the scene and police are now making inquiries. Ms Linton's house was checked early this morning and found to be empty. Neighbors say that they haven't seen any of the five children for three days and are now worried about their safety and whereabouts. If you have any information, please contact the police immediately. If you see Ms Linton, beware. She may be armed and has knowledge of firearms and explosives.

Fiona Walsh

I groaned, sinking further down in my chair. Great. Now I was a known fugitive! Just one more title to add to my generous collection. We were all at Fi's place and I was hiding from the kids. With everything going on, I'd been forced by Gavin to tell them about Lee, and now they were beyond panic. I felt so bad, I'd snuck off to the balcony to get some fresh air.

"Lee will be fine! You know that, don't you?" Fi appeared behind me, offering me a mug of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. I smiled and took it gratefully.

"Yeah, that's what everyone's been telling me." Fi sighed and sat on the arm of my chair, wrapping her arm around me. "I just hate not knowing. I know Lee can handle himself, but I don't like procedures; they leave no room for instinct. But if you don't follow them, no matter how much good you do, it always comes back to bite you in the ass!" Fi chuckled and hugged me tighter.

"I know. I know. But procedures stop panic. If everything were left up to instinct, well, people would just freeze, not knowing what to do. But we live in a world where procedures take too much importance. We just need to find balance." I was amazed. This was Fi as I'd never seen her before. "Come on." She tugged on my arm, pulling me into the house after her. "I think Bronte's up."

Bronte sat at the kitchen counter, her bowl of half eaten cereal now abandoned in the sink. "Oh, El! You're up!" Bronte didn't waste any time, quickly jumping into the story of her search for Lee. "Over the border, about 3 hour's drive into the city, there's a lab. No one really knows much about it and records show it wasn't there before the war. Something's defiantly going on there. We've been tracking their cars for days and all of them have come either close to or over the border. It's not much, but it's worth a shot."

"Well I'm in." Homer spoke up from his armchair by the fire. Quickly seconded by Fi, I shrugged.

"It's worth a shot."

At 7pm we piled into the car, and headed Wirrawee way to pick up Kevin. From there, we headed to towards the border, trying desperately to ignore Kevin's complaining. We arrived at the lab close to 9. "Alright, now we draw straws. Whoever draws the shortest gets to go drug the guards, and open the gates." Bronte pulled a handful of straws out of her backpack, and began shuffling them around behind her back. Homer and Kevin drew full length straws, Bronte and I drew medium length straws, while Fi drew the short straw. Poor Fi.

Fi got out of the car, and began walking towards the guards tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. Inside the booth we could see her flirting with the guards, laughing and pretending to have broken down. One of the guards reached under the table, grabbing what looked like a spare tire, when Fi punched him right in the nose and bashing his head into the table, the other reached for the walkie talkie and attempted to make an emergency call. I think Fi kicking him in the nuts might have slowed him down a bit, and then the chair smashed over his head might delay him even further.

After about 10 seconds, the gates opened and Fi came rushing out. "FI!" Bronte cried in frustration "You were meant to drug them! Not bash them up!" Fi laughed.

"Opps!" I think those karate lessons where beginning to pay off. We raced through the gates, not bothering to close them behind us. I'm sure the broken noses and concussions were enough of a hint someone had crossed. It took another two hours to reach the city, and another half an hour to find this damned place. The building we pulled up in front of was one story and made up of reflective glass panels, that seemed to glisten in the moonlight.

The gates in front of us where tall, spiky and had that general 'Get lost' attitude. How the hell were we meant to get through this thing? We all turned to Bronte in a mix of accusing and 'what now Einstein?' looks. Bronte smiled nervously and held up a pair of large silver keys. "Key's anyone?" Homer ran and unlocked the gate while Kevin covered him with the gun. The rest of us drove straight through.

We looked around trying to decide how to get in. I looked from the ground to the glass. "You know the saying 'People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? Should we test it out?" And without waiting for an answer I picked up a large pebble off the ground and threw it hard at one of the glass windows. It shattered with filling the air with a loud tinkling noise. "Anyone need an entrance?" without waiting for an answer, I climbed through the window.

The whole room was made of sterile, pristine white furniture and walls, with grey marble colored benches which were covered in beakers filled with bubbling liquids of different colours. Against the only solid wall were rows upon rows of cages. One contained a cow, four contained children and three contained adults. Right in the middle of it all, was Lee.