The Seventh Element
Chapter 5
The Chase
The man gulped and kept his feet as close to the wall as he could. The cars above and below were unnerving, but better a few odd noises then the armed guards back inside the GR plant. A hovercar swerved down from the traffic above and stopped to hover in front of him. This car had a distinctive black and white color scheme with a map of Japan and a golden star over it on the sides. The man slapped back against the wall and held up his hands.
"Attention." The officer driving the car said into the speaker. "We are now going to process your identification. Please hold your head still." The officer beside him called up the camera and zoomed in on the face. The camera scanned the eyes, mouth and nose, and began searching through the police databanks for a match. Meanwhile, the man looked down at the flock of cars swerving under him. With all the cars, the odds were in his favor.
"No match." The officer muttered, the same words flashing on his computer. "He has no file." The man sighed and jumped forward, plummeting. He fell several stories before crashing through the roof of a bright yellow vehicle.
- - - - - - - - - -
"Whoa!" Tea shouted, lurching forward as the back of her cab fell in. She served through traffic as she tried to figure out what had happened. She had accidentally swerved into the other lane when the roof had caved in.
"You have been in an accident." The computer informed her.
"No shit you stupid S.O.B.!" Tea snapped.
"You have 1…"
"Point left on your license, I know. Look out!" Tea honked her horn and finally swerved out of traffic and slid into place out of harm's way. Tea flipped on the autopilot and rested her head on the steering wheel. "I pay my taxes, I work an honest job…why does this shit always happen to me?" She groaned.
"Se no kiharl ti bat!" Tea rolled her eyes at the mysterious voice and turned around.
"And a se no kiharl whatever to you…" Tea trailed off as she found herself staring into a pair of stunning violet eyes. Of course, the shock wore off once she noticed the beautiful eyes were glaring at her. Tea cleared her throat. "You okay pal?" She asked.
"Ti bat sie no kihat itma!" The man snapped.
"Really?" Tea asked.
"Girlyo gir thal nor shonigraph, gey to Monocheawan sol ti Mangalore ti bal!" The man slammed his fist against the plastic angrily, and Tea jerked back. "Giy hor gir se no bat nor get jir larn!" The man finished. Tea cocked an eyebrow.
"Uh-huh…okay, repeat everything you just said in English." She replied. The man growled.
"Githarn!" He snapped. Tea scowled. Some words needed no translation, judging from his tone. This guy was a looker, but had to work on that attitude.
"Hey, I'm just trying to keep my job okay?" Tea muttered. "You okay, you wanna go to the hospital? I'll let ya go free of charge, considering you just crashed through the roof." The man eyed her warily and smiled. Tea smiled back as the police cruiser pulled along side the cab.
"Attention, driver of the cab labeled 294, you have an unlicensed passenger in your vehicle. We are going to take him into custody." Tea glanced out the window and sighed. Why were the cute ones also crooks? "Please open your passenger door." The police officer ordered.
"They'll take you to the station, they'll help ya out more then I can." Tea said, turning to the steering wheel. The man shook his head.
"Thesho tim harl, tim thesho mia harl!" The man insisted.
"I repeated, please open the passenger door." The police repeated. The man looked around the back seat of the cab and spotted a small ad posted on the door. It displayed a small group of children in France, one of the few countries that hadn't been able to afford the conversion to giga-scrapers the other cities had. The words PLEASE HELP were scrawled across the bottom.
"Plaaaayse….haaaaalp." The man said slowly. Tea sighed.
"I can't, I gotta take the cab to Mai for an overhaul. Besides, I drive away and I lose my license, and I can't let that happen." She explained.
"Pleeeese haaaalp." The man stammered.
"I repeat, please open your passenger door." The police said. Tea gritted her teeth and reached for the controlled.
"Alright already." She muttered. She pressed a button under the ID reader, and the back door swung open.
"Thank you for your cooperation." The officer said. He turned off the microphone and flipped on an anti-grav wave to form an artificial bridge of air between the two cars. He snapped a cable to his belt and started to walk over the gap.
"Pleeeease heeeeeelp." The man finally said. Tea clenched her fist and growled.
"Mai's gonna kill me." She said to herself. She lurched the throttle forward, and the cab shot like a bullet. The officer on the anti-grav bridge stumbled backwards into the cruiser.
"Call the other squads, we got a runaway!" He snapped. Tea swerved down the street as two more police cars drove out onto the street to join the first. Tea hit the door close button and glanced down at her computer.
"You just disobeyed a police order. 1 point has been deducted from your license." The computer said.
"Yeah, I know!" Tea snapped, slamming her fist into the speaker next to the computer.
"Your license has expir…" The speaker crackled and droned out. Tea glanced in her rearview mirror.
"That last thing I need is this on my record." She growled, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out an ID-sized computer chip and jammed it into the reader. Behind her, the first police car pulled up its computers.
"Scan that damn thing, I wanna know who's driving!" The driving officer snapped. His partner typed and held up his hands.
"She's got a scan block up, I can't get a lock." He muttered. The driver smirked.
"Then she's a car thief." He pulled out his radio. "Attention squadrons 276 and 34, the subject is a thief, fire at will." Tea steered around a transport and jerked to attention at the flashing words on her console. She glanced down and her eyes widened at the blinking words ATTACK DETECTED.
"Hold on!" She shouted. She jerked the gear shift, and the cab pitched down as the weapons on the police cruisers fired. The man in her back seat fell forward and growled.
"To noj ti hara!" He shouted. Tea weaved down several lanes and looked in her rearview mirror.
"Damn it. They are not giving up." She said to herself. She spun the wheel, and the cab suddenly righted itself before swinging to the right and driving into a maintenance shaft in the McDonalds Corporation HQ.
"Gi harl thesho harl!" The man shouted. Tea gritted her teeth as one of the cars, swung into the shaft after her.
"I'm all for communication and conversation, but do me a favor and shut up!" Tea yelled. She turned down a corner and pushed the accelerator down as the cab veered towards a solid wall. Behind her, the driving officer grinned.
"She's trapped. Blast her." His partner called up weapons and took aim at Tea's cab, Tea reached down and typed up a command on her computer, her finger hovering above the ENTER key.
"Let's see you bastards try this." She muttered. A few meters before the wall of stone, Tea slammed the ENTER key, and the forward thrusters on the cab died instantly, the lower thrusters activating and slamming the car upwards into the alley above it. Beneath it, the police cruiser slammed into the wall and exploded. Tea piloted the cab down the alley back onto the main street.
"I think we're safe now." She said. The man nodded and panted. Tea looked down and gasped at the ATTACK DETECTED words. "Scratch that, down!" Tea flipped on the autopilot and ducked down as the car drove through an intersection. The six police cruisers lined up at the crossroads opened fire on the cab. The man in the back seat screamed and ducked down behind the driver's seat. Bullets pierced the car and imbedded themselves in the metal. The man and Tea both screamed as the car careened down through the sky. Tea lifted her head and glared at the dead autopilot light. She cursed and grabbed the wheel.
"Hold on, we're heading for the Fog!" She yelled. She pushed the throttle down, and the car drove down through several lanes of traffic before vanishing in a cloud of white smoke.
- - - - - - - - - -
"Nothing here." Joey muttered, peering out the window. The Fog lived up to its name by casting a dark cloud over the entire area. About a hundred feet down, the actual surface of Earth still existed. That place wasn't habitable anymore, hence the immense towers that the some 2 billion people of earth now inhabited. Joey sat back in the escorted squad car and sighed.
"There's no way we're going to find them." He growled. "We're going up. Hell with it, we'll find the damn Items on our own." The squad car diverted power to the vertical thrusters and rose up above the barrier. A few feet down from where they had given up, inside a small alcove in a tumbling wall sat a yellow cab, powered down entirely.
Tea squinted to make sure the car was gone before reaching down and powering back up. She opened the door and walked to the back seat, pulling it open.
"Hey pal, you alright?" She asked. The man groaned and held his hand to his left shoulder. Tea leaned in and pulled it away to reveal blood dripping from a bullet wound. "Ah damn…"
"P…priest…" The man gasped.
"Hey pal, you don't need last rites yet, I know a damn good doctor." Tea replied. The man shook his head.
"Ishtaaaar…." He wheezed.
"Huh?" Tea asked, leaning closer.
"Maliiiik….Ish…..tar. Priest…" The man slumped down in the seat, and Tea sat back.
"Why does this shit always happen to me?" She muttered. Tea climbed back into the front seat and called up a search. She types in 'Ishtar, Malik', and a few seconds later, the address popped up. Tea took note before powering up the thrusters.
- - - - - - - - - -
Malik got up from his scroll translations and opened the door. He stared at the odd sight of a young woman holding a man in her arms bridal-style. Malik looked them over and raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?" He asked.
"I'm, uh…I'm looking for a priest." Tea said.
"I don't do weddings, you want father Schroider down the hall. Congratulations on not being bound by gender roles." Malik closed the door and went back to his scrolls. Tea growled and kicked the door open. Malik screamed and spun around as she barged in.
"He's not my husband, he's my fare." Tea snapped, dumping him on the couch. "We're looking for a priest named Malik Ishtar. The computer banks said he lived here."
"Yes, that's me. But I don't know him." Malik said, annoyed.
"Neither do I, he just dropped through the roof of my cab. He's got some sorta tattoo on his forehead here." Tea lifted his head and brushed the matted tri-colored bangs away.
"Tattoo?' Malik asked, peering in. On the man's forehead was the light image of an eyeball. Malik gasped and jumped back. "The Eye of Anubis…" He whispered. Tea frowned.
"Hey, what's up?" Tea asked.
"Seventh…element…" Malik murmured. He grinned happily before slumping down to the floor. Tea pulled out her cell phone and dialed.
"Mai here." The blonde answered.
"Hey Mai, Tea. I'm gonna be a little late bringing the cab over. It's one of those days."