I still have an hour and fifteen minutes, I'M TECHNICALLY ON TIME. It's getting down to the nitty gritty here, only two more chapters after this and then it's sequel time. Also, not sure if said this already, but once I start posting the sequel, I'm going back to weekly updates instead of twice a week. I graduate highshool in May(oh god that's two months away, I don't wanna be an adult yet), and I've got a lot of stuff for school to do, so I'm starting to get more pinched for time, so I want to spread out my updates a little bit so I still have reserve chapters and don't have to put this on hiatus again(since the last one was like a year long).
Also, if you're gonna tell me you haven't been just waiting to see Ema and Salem go savage, you ar g.
Holiday paced back and forth, wishing the jump jet could move even faster, but she knew that, even with Six behind the wheel, it could only go so fast. A few minutes ago, the girl she had been speaking to had been cut off mid sentence, and Holiday had drawn the conclusion that the phone she had been talking on had died. Holiday doubted that she would hang up on her when the Doctor was trying to help her keep the other girl alive.
"Rebecca."
Six didn't say anything else, but he didn't really need to. He'd been trying to get her to be still for the past thirty minutes to little avail. She slid into one of the chairs, but was back on her feet again within five minutes like she was every time the green suited man had said something.
"There's still no word from him, and now that we've lost contact with the first lead we've had in weeks...what if we're being played?!"
Six sighed. He'd spent the time listening to every conspiracy theory the woman had, this having already been one of them. The thought had crossed his mind as well, but something told him that wasn't the case. Six wasn't a fortune teller, but his instincts were rarely wrong, and they were telling him that, while the one who had called Holiday might have their own agenda, they were telling the truth about Rex and the people who needed help. Of course, he knew there was chance that he was wrong, that these were just some people who were trying to use Providence as a cleanup crew. But he also trusted Rex, and that the teen wouldn't have fallen for something like that. He'd been trained better, and Six had faith in the EVO boy.
He was surprised that the silence managed to last the next fifteen minutes, long enough that the landscape became barren desert instead of city lights and paved roads. The ex mercenary switched off the gray jump jet's cloaking, allowing the night to keep the aircraft hidden, and turned on the radar, setting it to search for strong heat signatures.
Holiday had come to sit in the cockpit with him, watching the instruments with a near obsessive focus. "We're close, we're so close…"
A few minutes later, a massive blip came up, showing a cluster of large, warm bodies less than a quarter mile away. He switched on the searchlight and a bright beam lit up the ground, sweeping back and forth.
"Six! Over there!"
(*)
"Look there!"
Heads swiveled as they all followed where another on the gingers, Chelsea, pointed. No one could see much, but a bright beam moving back and forth over the ground. The girl began to wave her arms, several of the others quickly joining her. "Hey, over here! We're here!"
As if it could hear her, the spotlight moved closer and closer until they were suddenly blinded by it. A moment later, it switched off and the world was shrouded in black once more as their eyes adjusted.
The ship threw a considerable amount of sand into the air as it landed, a bay style door sliding open a moment later. A woman with black hair tied back in a bun ran down the slope, followed by a tall man wearing a green suit.
Willow was the first to come forward, figuring she was the best candidate if this was the woman she had been talking to. "Are you Doctor Holiday?"
"Yes. Are you the one I was speaking to?" she replied, and Willow nodded.
"I'm sorry about the call being cut off, the phone died." she said, leading her over to where Alice was. She had done her best to care for her after the line had dropped, but she still seemed to be in and out of consciousness.
"I assumed as much. Where is the person I was talking to previously?" Holiday asked, kneeling beside the girl.
"He went back inside. Told me to tell you sorry, that you told him to stay put, but there are more people in there and he went to go get them." Willow replied. "Said we just needed to wait for you guys to show up, that a babysitter wasn't going to help anyone."
Holiday pushed aside her annoyance at the boy, as he was the one she needed to talk to. Another woman, looking close to her in age with a wild mess of orange curls, approached her. She introduced herself, speaking with a distinct Scottish accent. "Hello, I'm Charlotte."
"Holiday. Do you know what's going on?" she asked, not looking at her much as she worked on the sick girl.
"Not likely to the extent you want to know, but I can fill you on with what I know. Right now, though, a couple of the young ones need help." she said, gesturing to Kira, where Six was standing as a man with dark hair speaking to him.
"Right, let's get everyone on board first." she said, sliding her arms beneath the frail looking teen. Looking around, it was going to be a tight squeeze. The jet wasn't exactly small, but just the captives alone put the count up to eighteen, not including the ones still inside the facility.
She moved quickly, carrying the worryingly lightweight girl to one of the two sick beds equipped on the craft. Thank god there weren't more sick ones, she hoped. Six was a few steps behind her with the other girl. "What's wrong with her?"
"Not sure, but she's too hot." he said, pushing off the vinyl mattress and laying her directly onto the cool metal. "One of the others told me it has to do with the experimentation, so it could be anything."
"Great. Give her a general physical and I'll see what I can do." she said, then looked over at Willow and Charlie. "You two seem to have some kind of leadership over them, see if you can get everyone aboard without making too much of a ruckus. It's going to be a tight fit, but we aren't going anywhere without Rex."
Willow gave her a curious look. "The Hispanic one?"
"You've met him?"
"Yeah, he's one of the ones who helped get me out. Him and this other girl who might have been Hispanic, too. Had the same tan skin and hair, but her eyes were green." she replied.
So he was with that strange girl. "Is he alright? Was he hurt or anything?"
Willow shrugged. "No, not since we split off. Kinda a smartass if you ask me, didn't really take it as seriously as you'd think he should."
"He's fine." In honestly, though, she was relieved. Thus far, everything she'd been told had been true, but they weren't out of the water yet.
Now she needed Rex to be the one to come through that door.
(*)
"I literally do not know how Rioter can always do this."
"First of all he keeps his mouth shut. Second, he understands the concept of stealth." Ema said dryly.
"At least you aren't the one crawling around in an air conditioning duct with wet clothes." Rex whispered.
"True, true. I bet they aren't the only thing that's-"
"Finish that sentence and I will not hesitate to shove you out the next vent and leave you down here to rot." Kateri said flatly, fighting to keep her teeth from chattering.
"Alright, damn Arrow, can I not have a little fun in a life and death situation?"
"Not at my expense, no."
"Killjoy."
"Please shut the hell up." Ema hissed. "Fight when we're not crawling in the air vent of a hidden building full of people who want to kill us."
Blissful silence. The tiny blond climbed up a vertical shaft, clearing to the next floor that was empty. After pausing for a moment to listen for anyone who might come walking by, she planted a firm kick to the cover, the metal grate flying off the wall and over the carpet.
"Okay, we've got about twenty minutes before the system locks down." Ema said. "After that, this place is a fortress and I believe the failsafes will kick in after that."
"Failsafes? I don't remember you saying anything about failsafes." Salem said.
"I didn't know they were there until I started picking around in the system from the bottom tiers, I'm pretty sure there's people here that don't even know about it. The lower half is riddled with explosives. Once they detonate, everything in those bottom chambers would be vaporized in an instant and the top half would collapse in on itself, burying whoever survived the blast alive."
"Oh, just that. Right, no big deal." the pyro said. "And here I thought the only thing to worry about was being locked in with a bunch of failed, unstable experiments trying to kill you."
"You still do, the explosion only triggers an hour after they're released. Time to either put them back and shut it off, if I hadn't overridden it, or destroy them before they get loose." Ema said. Her phone let out a shrill beeping, and, upon looking to see what it was, the girl let out an uncharacteristic string of swears that made Salem proud. "They reset the security system, we're on the cameras."
"What? I thought you shut them out?" Salem said, taking off after Ema, who'd begun to run.
"Not from everything, that would take too long. I had set the cameras to a blank loop and left them alone, assuming that we'd be out before someone realized they were on one. I normally wouldn't do something like that, but we were pushed for too much time. The only thing they've got is a visual, but they can still-"
Loud alarms began to blare and red lights flashed on the corners of the hallways. Doors began to slide shut and lock, but those weren't an issue.
"Ema, talk to me, the hell is happening?" Kateri said, her voice a low shout over the sirens.
"Something else I didn't disable was the manual security." she answered, absolutely seething that she'd been cocky enough with her abilities that she hadn't felt the need to, taking priority over other things in place of it.
"So what are they doing?" Rex asked, eyes darting around.
Then, loud squealing noises not unlike metal being shredded was heard over the alarms.
"My guess? They're letting out the guard dogs." she said, turning and beginning to run again, only to be stopped short when four security guards approached with rifles in hand. The group turned only to see more. "Oh, this is not good."
"You think?" Salem said, then made a gagging noise. "Ugh, the fuck is that smell."
Ema looked rather repulsed as well, and, a moment later, Rex didn't look too hot, either. "Whoa, don't feel too good."
"Like that?" one of the guards sneered. "It's a little insurance policy against freaks like you."
"It's like anti-EVO spray, nasty shit." Ema murmured, hand drifting towards her pocket. She'd managed to get her entire hand into it before one of them before anyone said anything.
"Hey, hands where I can see them!"
A sly grin spread over her face. "Be careful what you wish for."
Faster than one would think the hacker could move, Ema whipped out a slingshot and sent four of the little flash poppers flying at the guards in front of her. Salem reacted a split second later, going straight into the theatrics and sending a column of flame at them from the end of her gun.
"Whoa, Salem, ease up!" Kateri yelled. "We need oxygen too!"
The fire cut off, but the auburnette didn't get a chance to say anything, the guards on the other side having opened fire on them. Rex's mechanical hands sprang to life immediately, shielding the group.
"We have to move, they won't stay down long." Salem said, then glanced at Yiska. The man looked terrified, but wasn't breaking down or anything. She yanked out a shock stick. "Here, take this. Button there is on, works like a cattle prod."
He swallowed and nodded, taking the device.
"Move on three." Kateri said, bow already in hand with three of the razor tipped arrows nocked at once. "One, two, three!"
They leapt over the guards who were trying to get up. Salem slammed her foot into one of their heads as she ran by, jamming the still hot end of her gun into his neck. Her father managed to shock another, but the other two were still getting to their feet. Rex did his best to run backwards, keeping them shielded from the hail of bullets.
"Anybody got a plan? Plans are good!" the Latino yelled, managing to smack back a couple of them, but more kept coming. Were there that many before? He wasn't sure.
"Elevator is easiest, but we're cornered in a box." Ema said, running through possible exit strategies. "I'm not sure where the EVOs are, but it's saying that the doors are open, so any route has the potential to have them there."
"Can't you see where they are?" Salem asked, turning and shooting back at the guards. There was a cry of pain and one of them fell to the ground, blood gushing from their thigh.
"I'd have to hack back into the cameras and sensors, they locked me out with the reset and we don't have time for that." she said.
"Oh boy, trapped in the last few levels of this stupid fucking lab with a bunch of trigger happy idiots on one side and a bunch of fucked up EVOs trying to kill you on the other. This day is going well." Salem ground out, firing her gun again.
An arrow flew past Rex's ear, much closer for comfort than the EVO teen would have liked. Not that he didn't trust Kateri's aim, but he could feel the wind from the shot was a less than pleasant sensation in the situation. The carbon fiber shaft slipped through the tiny gap in the metal of his machines, burying itself in the shoulder of another guard, whose entire arm immediately went limp.
"Gah-!" Ema stopped in her tracks as the ominous shadow of one of the EVOs appeared at the end of the hall, blocking thier path. "Rock meet hard place."
It has little form outside of a blob that looked like it was eating someone, with several arm-like appendages sticking out at random.
The group was stuck at a standstill, with the guards closing in on one side and the EVO beginning to move towards them on the other.
Yiska looked down at the shock stick in his hands. "I do not believe this will be helpful right now."
"That would be a no." Ema said, moving to stand near the man. In the current situation, both she and Kateri's father were pretty useless compared to experiences fighters like Salem, Kateri and Rex.
The pinging of bullets against Rex's Smack Hands then cut off, which was more concerning to them than anything. If they weren't shooting, they had a better idea.
That better idea reared it's ugly head when Rex's back arched as electricity danced over his body, the orange metal falling away. Two of them held, what looked like, tasers on steroids, holding them to the metal. Ema and Salem both winced as loud static crackled over the comms where the Latino's overloaded and fried.
Kateri moved to grab him, but one of the guards was faster, holding the dazed boy firmly with a knife pressed to his throat. "Ah ah ah, little girl, that's not a smart move."
Her eyes locked with Rex's, the Latino keeping as still as he could to keep the guard from deciding that he was too much trouble to hold down and making Filet'o Rex. Instead she stepped back, pulling back an arrow and aiming it at the guard. "Let him go."
"Now why would I do that." he said, shoving the knife closer when she raised her bow, but it didn't break the skin yet.
"Me for him. Let him go, let them all go, and I'll stay." she said without hesitation.
"Kateri, no!" Rex's eyes widened, trying to jerk forward only to be wrenched back again.
"Kateri…? Are you Elrich's little lapdog?" he said, and the archer could immediately see the regret in Rex's eyes for having said her name.
"Elrich? Have you been getting mixed up with that woman?" her father spoke from behind her, his voice low.
"Be quiet, Yiska, this isn't the place." she said harshly, hoping that she could at least keep her father's identity safe.
"Save it, girlie, a lot of people know about your little hopeless cause to get Mommy and Daddy back. Suck enough dick with the higher ups and maybe, just maybe, the little girl can have a family again." Another ugly sneer. "Sorry, sweetheart, but that's not how things work around here. You're just another tool running off of empty hope."
Honestly, she was barely paying attention to him, but to Rex. He'd moved so that his arms were up by the guard's, hands hovering by his arm. She knew the Latino could throw him off, and easily, but the other guards would have him swarmed in an instant, probably killing him. He was lightly tapping on his shoulder, pointedly glancing up at the man holding him.
"Do it." Ema said quietly, almost to the point she couldn't hear her. "It'll be okay, we'll be okay. If you do, we can get you out."
"But-"
"Take the shot."
Tears ran down her cheeks as she let her arrow fly.
Time slowed down as it shot forward, light reflecting off the cold steel edge, artificial feathers ruffling lightly from the air current.
Rex didn't even flinch when it went through his shoulder and into the heart of the man holding the knife.
The knife clattered to the floor and Rex lurched forward out of his grasp, the arrow sliding through the wound with a sickening squelch before coming cleanly out the other side, blood instantly beginning to saturate his shirt.
He watched Ema's pupils shrink to almost nothing, losing their intelligent gleam and becoming something entirely primal. A loud snarl sounded beside her as Salem's face twisted to one of an animal out for blood.
Kateri whirled around and sent three more arrows flying into the EVO behind them, having kept back a bit because of the smell that the guards were saturated with. Ema and Salem also did not seem to want to be anywhere near it, going after the EVO.
Rex stood with his plasma shields out, once again, keeping them from being hit by the bullets. He watched as Ema dropped to all fours, moving forward with inhuman speed as she went to attack. Salem dropped her gun, remaining on two legs, but looking equally as murderous.
"Move, now, they're buying us time." Kateri said, turning and shooting one of her two remaining chloroform arrows at the guards behind them. The group ran forward, following the archer. "They should stay away from us, but keep your distance just in case. They don't know my father well enough and you smell like blood."
"Great, your friends do want to kill me. I thought you said they wouldn't." he griped.
"I also didn't ever think you'd be the reason they'd be like that." she said, skidding to a stop when she turned down another hallway to find another EVO. This one walked on six legs and had several large spikes sticking out if its back. It seemed to move rather slowly, but she quickly found out otherwise when she tried to run past it and it snapped at her, hissing at her and revealing three rows of tiny, very sharp teeth. "Goddamnit, just one break."
"Pretty sure this is that karma you were talking about." Rex said, two massive axes forming around his hands. He ran at the EVO, swinging one of them as he leapt up at it.
"Just shut up and kill it." she muttered, knowing Rex couldn't hear her. "Papa, do not try to fight them."
"I am not a helpless man!" Yiska said.
"No, but you're out of shape from being locked up for six years-" she cut off to dodge another snapping from it's jaws, shooting an arrow through its neck. "-and the fact you're not the one who's been trained for this!"
"Where would you get such training?" he asked, giving the girl a pointed look.
"I'll answer that later, now is not the time!"
Finally, after several minutes of grappling, Rex managed to just slice its entire body in half. He had been trying not to kill it, but it had quickly become evident that he didn't have a choice. "Okay, Smiles is down, let's go now before something finds us, or worse, your friends."
"Um…" Yiska pointed further down, where three more EVOs were waiting. They weren't much bigger than a German Shepard dog, but their legs were long and powerful with hooked claws that held them onto the walls with ease. Long, whiplike tongues dripped in a yellow green saliva that they decided to treat a poisonous(better safe than going into shock, after all).
"Um, nevermind, I'll take Smiles back."
(*)
"That should be everyone."
Holiday nodded at the long haired auburnette. Willow and Charlie had managed to get everyone inside the jump jet, and in pretty decent time given the circumstances. Most of them were lined up along the walls, The older man Joe sitting on the mat that had been on Kira's cot with the second blind woman, the other Noelle. Jordan continued to pace restlessly, but everyone else was seated against the walls as out of the way as they could be.
She would have gone in after them at this point, but no one had seen the boy leave. He had apparently just stated we was going to return back inside, and then just vanished without a trace.
"Now we just need Rex and whoever is left. Do you know when they're supposed to come up?" Holiday had been asking the girl for information, for the most part. Despite the fact she looked no older than Rex, the girl was very observant and seemed to have the best idea of what was going on. She has handling the stress very well, though Holiday got the feeling that she was just blocking out a lot of anxiety.
Willow shook her head. "No, I only know that they were delayed in coming with us, from something else they needed to do. Also, one of the others that had been captive stayed behind as well, the girl's father."
"Her father?" Holiday looked confused. "Why would her father have been down there? Unless…"
Oh.
"So that's why you're doing this." she mused. "And that's why he helped you."
She looked out the door at the dark desert night.
"I hope it was worth it."
Hm, worth it indeed? I guess you're gonna have to wait until the end...or possibly longer, who knows? (I do)
I'll see you all on Thursday with the next chapter. Tell me, do you guys want me to post the last chapter this weekend so I can just go ahead and start posting the sequel next Tuesday, or would y'all rather I keep with my schedule and wait the extra week?
Please drop a review and tell me what you think, I love feedback!