Dangerous Intelligence
Chapter Five: Sighted and Unseen
Well, the titles isn't THAT good, but I liked it well enough. I wanted to use SOMETHING about being seen. So. Enjoy Chapter Five, where things get REALLY interesting. ^_^
Lucas, eating his microwave dinner of rice and chicken, was still confused about Adrian's unexplained exit from the diner. Not only had Lucas had to pay the bill, but Adrian didn't show up for afternoon classes, and the school was forced to send the vice-principal to watch the kids.
A faint clink sounded from outside. Still chewing a mouthful of chicken, Lucas sipped his water and headed to the window, looking down at the street. To his surprise, a skylight in the roof of the bank was broken. Groping blindly, unable to look away from the scene, he grabbed his phone and dialed the police. Operator? Someone is robbing the bank. Which one? Uhm...Meridiana General. Yes ma'am, five minutes. Lucas hung up the phone and dashed from his apartment to the stairs, heading down to wait for the police.
Cybersix had not enjoyed this robbery (then again, had she enjoyed the other?). The neighborhood was far too familiar, and her fingers had been shaking as she opened the vaults James had dictated. She'd had to make use of several plastic bags that had been on the floor, and she quickly filled them with the amount of money James had requested.
Now that she'd gotten in, it would be easy to open the doors on the street level and dart out. She would have leaped back through the skylight, but the frame could barely accomodate her thin figure. Cybersix highly doubted that it would hold the bags of money she was now carrying.
Bags in her right hand, she shoved open the doors to the street and prepared to leap into the sky as fast as she could. There were no cars on the street, a good thing, but a very eerie feeling nonetheless. However, something stopped her. A movement in the corner of her eye...Cybersix wheeled around, cape twisting behind her.
She found herself looking directly at Lucas. Oh my God.
Lucas could plainly hear the sirens wailing in the distance, but he paid them no mind. THIS was the thief? It couldn't be! Just couldn't! Lucas refused to believe it...She wouldn't...not even under the most dire of circumstances. How could she?
She said nothing, she simply looked at him. What Lucas saw in her face, however, stopped him from asking further. Cybersix was frightened, and she was pleading silently for him to help her escape.
Lucas couldn't refuse her. He didn't regret pointing her down the abandoned alley behind her, but he was crushed. Now that he knew...what was he supposed to tell the police?
he told himself. They don't know who called. He watched to make sure Cybersix had gotten away, then ducked back into his apartment building.
Cybersix ran at her full speed, desperate to get away from Lucas and from that stupid, stupid bank. No more of this, no more. I have to stop James. I have to. She turned in the direction of the docks and leaped into the air with all her strength, blinded by her own shame.
James, meanwhile, hung by his fingertips from the docks, hiding beneath the boardwalk, chest high in water. Not long ago, a troop of Fixed Ideas had come bumbling down the planks, yelling at each other and arguing. James had heard them in time to leap beneath the boardwalk and hide, and they'd passed him without any trouble.
But there was one minor problem. James could not feel the bottom with his feet and the water was rising with the tides.
And James could not swim.