First, I'd like to apologise for the incorrect spelling on Dijon. Either it was a typo, or most likely, because I was only imagining how the word was spelt in my head, then that was how I interpreted it. I didn't actually use google maps to get the name, so oh well. Rock on Coach Trip!
You're a lucky bunch, let me tell you. Thanks to the snow that's hit is in the UK, I'm pretty much snowed in (although I bet most of the schools in my area will be closed on Monday, yet mine wont – happened last year, and there was even a Facebook page created about it to show our anger about it, which we, the older years, found pretty amusing), and so was able to write this in a day.
For anyone who lives in Canada/ a place where there's snow pretty much year round, I've got this to ask: How on Earth do you, and your country, work? Seriously, if you'd like to give the UK some hints and tips, it'd be welcome.
Disclaimer: Don't own. Grr.
Escape, 13
Alex Rider
Finally, they headed to the train station, where James bought two tickets to Dijon in eastern France. This would just be the first stop of many, and as they got on the train an hour later with nobody stopping them, Alex hoped that they wouldn't be stopped on the next part of their trip.
They exited Dijon's main train station roughly three hours after getting on the train. James was cranky, Alex could tell by the look on the boy's face, but didn't speak up of it. Instead, he simply asked Alex what his master plan was.
"To get out of France," Alex replied, not wanting to divulge any further information in the train station; who knew who was there, after all.
James wasn't happy with that answer, though. "Yeah, but how are we gunna get out of France?"
"By moving, James." Alex looked sharply at the boy, communicating that he wouldn't be saying anything further.
This put James in an even worse mood; he wanted an adventure, wanted to be running all over France with buildings exploding and car chases that inevitably ended with rocket shooting out of the exhaust at the enemy.
Alex hoped that the situation wouldn't come to that, at the very least. Maybe there will be a car chase, Alex mused. Who knows what the future will hold?
Alex dragged James into the main reception of the train station, and bought a ticket to Morteau, just outside the border of Switzerland. This, at least, gave James an idea of where Alex intended them to go, but unfortunately they'd have to wait for two and a half hours for the next train – Morteau was a small town, and as such didn't have many trains running to it.
Instead of waiting in one spot for two and a half hours, which was risky, Alex had to admit, he decided that restocking of supplies was something they might as well take care of, and return in just over two hours time for the next part of the journey.
The first stop Alex deemed necessary was to restock on food and drink, so he took James to a small supermarket close to a bundle of hotels. Not wanting to carry too many things, and with the chance that the bag they were going to store the purchases may be lost at any given point, he grabbed as few things as possible; two pre-made sandwiches, four bags of crisps, two bottles of pepsi, and two bottles of water. He thought it should last them until tomorrow afternoon, maybe tomorrow evening. As they were headed to the tills, Alex saw some peppermint polos, and decided to grab those, too, for no reason other they were a great way to build water inside the mouth – if they ran out of water and became thirsty, this was a good way for them to stave off the feeling of hunger and of parched throats.
After paying, Alex took James to his next stop: a tourist shop. He let James pick out where he wanted to visit whilst in the town, but he didn't see many things he'd like to do, besides go on a tour of Mustard factories, which Alex put a stop to – he'd seen one of the factory visits on Coach Trip, a show he'd watched whilst in hospital and there'd been nothing else on during the day. Not only did the people on the coach trip find the tour boring, but also stunk for the rest of the day.
When James complained about not being allowed to do something he wanted to do, Alex told the both of what he'd heard, mentioning 'girls' and 'off-putting smell'. Needless to say, James sulked, but didn't complain much further.
He suggested that they visit Musée de la Vie Bourguignonne, where they could see "folklores costumes", as one of the brochures James had picked up suggested.
It was only on the way there that Alex started to feel like something was wrong. They had to pass through Ville Centre, one of the main open shopping squares, in order to get to the museum, and being a Saturday, Alex was sure the Centre should have been full to the brim of people buying the goods. In a way, it was; passers-by were rushing from one side of the Centre to the next, stalls had plenty of people surrounding them, looking at what was on offer, yet most people were only doing just that; browsing. One or two were actually buying, but no more.
That raised the hairs on the back of Alex's neck. It wasn't natural. He'd never visited Dijon before, but he was sure that this wasn't the norm. After all, if people just looked, no one would get any business, and no body would survive.
Which meant either the economical crisis had seriously hit the people of Dijon, or there was another reason they were here.
He grabbed and squeezed James' arm; a signal they'd come up with to convey to James that something was amiss, before he led James away from the Centre, to the right of where they'd first entered. This way would lead them back to the train station, Alex knew.
But it wouldn't only take them to the train station – after all, their train wasn't set to leave for at least another hour and a quarter, and Alex doubted he'd be able to purchase another two tickets before trouble started.
And he was sure trouble was going to start, and soon.
No, it would also take them to Cour de la Gare, the departure point of one of Dijons main way of travelling – the Segway.
Although Alex would prefer to travel by car, he knew he wouldn't have the time to either steal one without brining attention to himself and James, and he also wouldn't have the time to break into one, and them to hot-wire it.
So the Segway it would have to be.
As he rounded a corner that would make him and James out of sight of whoever was watching them in Ville Centre, he heard the movement of running feet.
He smiled – he knew they would move when he couldn't see, the cowards.
They started to run as soon as they were out of sight, Alex pointing James in the direction of the Segways.
He quickly took care of the lone security guard who was making sure the remaining Segways that hadn't been used on the latest tour with a running kick to the stomach, followed by an elbow to the neck as the unsuspecting guard crumpled forward. He was knocked out cold within seconds, and Alex quickly jumped onto a Segway. There was only room for one on it, and so Alex had to waste further seconds showing James how to start and control it.
His uncle had taken him and Jack into Bolton to see them take on Chelsea - and subsequently lose to the blue team - when Alex was 12. He'd booked them in to stay for the weekend and the following Monday as it was a bank holiday, and so he was off from work and Alex from school. Not only had they seen the match, but on the Friday night had gone to a local ice rink, and the following evening in celebration of the win had gone on a Segway tour of the stadium. Although Alex would have preferred to tour Chelsea's home stadium, moving up and down and around corners on the Segway had been a lot of fun, especially as Jack just couldn't seem to get a hold of how to control the machine... even if to control it all you had to do was lean forwards, backwards or side to side, depending on which direction you wished to go.
James hadn't had the same privilege as he had, though, and wasn't as confident. As they moved away from the unconscious guard, he was constantly moving too close to Alex for the blonde boys liking. Before reaching out to hold onto James' handle bars, he looked back, noticing that there was around two dozen men running in their direction, but still 200 or so meters away.
The men – soldiers, Alex thought - caught up to them as they started to move – it took quite a few seconds to get up to the maximum speed of 12 miles per hour, and in that time the soldiers had rid the gap between them to less than 50 meters.
But when they hit maximum speed, even if only at 12 mph, it was enough to distance them once again – one of the quickest men in the world, Usain Bolt, a 100meter sprinter, could run at 23 miles per hour, but that was only for 100 meters. These men were soldiers, not sprinters, and as such weren't trained like Bolt. Their average speed was most likely somewhere in the region of 14 mph on a track. On a cobble-stone street with civilians walking in both directions, they were obstructed and restricted to less than 10mph, Alex guessed.
The soldiers had figured this out, too, for they veered off to the cars lining the streets – they'd had people waiting in cars, Alex saw as he looked back quickly once again.
Cars, of course, were much quicker than the Segways, but Alex wasn't about to give up his and James' mode of transport – whilst it brought attention to them, it was also a way for them to save energy; Alex didn't know how fit James was, didn't know how long he could run for without needing to stop.
But the cars were obstructed, too, by the people walking in the streets – this was the centre of a shopping town, where although there was roads, most people walked rather than drive – yet they made more progress than on foot.
Alex leaned to the right, bringing James with him, and bumped up onto a pathway. The main street that they had been on had dozens of small alleyways, and Alex intended to take them down one where a car couldn't go.
But then he heard the sound of sirens at the other end of the alley he was about to turn onto. Not wanting to risk what sounded like the police seeing him – he assumed the police were after him; what other crime could there be on the streets of Dijon at this time of day, with soldiers after them than the theft of two Segways? The guard must have come too and phoned them.
And if the police saw him and James on the Segways, well, they'd get him for sure. People moved out of the way for police cars, after all, and so they'd have no obstructions like the soldiers did.
Instead, the boys moved further down the main road, away from the shopping streets, the soldiers keeping them within sight. Three alleyways after the first, Alex decided that the sirens had long past, and that the soldiers were too close for his liking. Twice when he'd looked back he'd seen a gun pointed out of the front car's passenger window, and had ducked in front of as many passengers as he could – he doubted the gun had bullets in it, but rather was more than likely a dart gun with some sort of anaesthetic inside as they wanted him alive. Without a clear shot, though, they wouldn't be able to get him – or James.
The fourth alleyway was perfect for the boys – it was just wide enough to fit them both in side by side, and had a couple walking towards them. When the couple saw the boys on the Segways, they moved into a single file so they could get past, but moved side-to-side again shortly after they'd passed each other. The car couldn't follow them down the alleyway, and they also couldn't fire because of the couple. By the time the couple had moved out of the way, Alex and James were long gone, too far away for the limited distance the dart gun could fire.
Sorry for any spelling mistakes.
I have two main hopes for this story, that don't include people liking it/ and me finally finishing it: 1, It stays realistic, and 2, It stays original. I think this is the only story that is based around Alex running away from MI6 (although I guess there might be one or two others, but if so, I haven't read them), and I also don't believe that anyone has included Segways in their stories, either. So hopefully, you'll all agree that this is original.
In regards to staying realistic, I'd just like to say that all of the places mentioned in my story ARE real, and I do research into where these places are in regards to how far away from each other they are. For instance, the hotel Alex first passed way-back when was a real hotel, and IS close to the Euro Tunnel.
However, I couldn't find on Google maps where the museum used is, and so placed it close to Ville Centre, but I can tell you it is in Dijon, and does show folklores costumes (among other things). So if you live in Djon, or France, or have been there, and are like "WTF – that isn't anywhere near there!" my apologies. I couldn't really think of what else to put.
Oh, and I think that Cour de la Gare place that has the Segways is close to a train station, too, btw. I only looked at it on Google Maps (my favourite site right now, I swear) and there seemed to be train tracks, so if it's wrong, blame Google.
Anyway, I hope you liked, and I hope you review.