Homeward Bound, Part Eight by patricia51
(Captured)
"Don't move!"
A moment of complete silence filled the cavern after that command. Before anything else took place the two teenaged girls heard a new voice speak. A male voice that immediately set both K-Mart's and Angie's teeth on edge.
"I realize Alice; I may call you Alice, may I not? Alice Abernathy-Olivera sounds so formal and I believe that you and I are destined to become very close over the next few weeks. Alice I know that you are capable of amazing mental and physical feats. However no matter how fast you are, no matter how powerful your mind is, there is no way that you can disable all the weapons being aimed at your little groups before some of them fire."
"I admit that we would probably not kill you. That actually is a relief; my instructions from Chairman Wesker are very specific. You and the teenaged girl Angela Ashford, pardon me, Angela Valentine I understand she is now known as, are urgently wanted in the Umbrella Corporation labs in Tokyo."
The voice changed inflection. "Officer Valentine I assume you are about to utter some phrase along the lines of 'Over my dead body'. I assure you that could be accomplished quite easily. However if you behave yourself there really is no reason why you couldn't accompany your adopted daughter. Granted you would be a hostage for her good behavior as well but we have no intentions of subjecting her to the crude and painful procedures those idiots in Los Angeles were intending. She is much more valuable alive rather than in pieces."
"Speaking of her..." There was a pause as the speaker was apparently double checking the view he had of the group. When he resumed there was an edge to his voice.
"Morgana!"
"Yes sir," came the reply. Instantly both girls knew who it was. It was the woman who had been calling herself Linda.
"Where are the brats?"
"Brats!" hissed Angie before she regained control of herself. In spite of the situation K-Mart had to restrain a giggle at the look of outrage on her best friend's face. She made a "calm down" gesture from her side of the opening.
"They were left to guard the vehicles, sir."
"Take a squad and go get them," the man directed. "Angela may not be hurt. If you have to injure the other one to convince her of your desire to follow instructions than you may."
"Ah Ahhhhh, Alice. Don't get excited. I won't hesitate to use this dart gun on you. The sedatives loaded in each dart will put even you out. And if I were to miss and hit, say, your husband there, well, it might be too much even for his system."
Angie heard a strange noise that took her a moment to identify. It was K-Mart grinding her teeth in frustration, a sound that stopped when they heard Linda's, or rather Morgana's voice approaching.
"You three come with me. And you two as well."
Boot heels rapped sharply on the cavern floor. The girls realized they were not just coming their way but were almost on top of them. Angie cast a look up the winding stairway and shook her head. To move fast enough to escape to the cave above ahead of the oncoming party they would almost certainly make some noise. And they might not make it anyway; the boots were approaching very quickly.
With only seconds to make a decision the two girls looked at each other. Both were wearing dark jeans and shirts. Angie had adopted K-Mart's habit of wearing a cap and both had tucked their hair up under those caps. They nodded to each other and each pressed herself as far as she could into the shadowy hoped for safety of the hollowed niche on her side of the entryway. Tiny clicks told each one the other had her pistol in hand and was ready to fire if they were discovered. Then dark shapes were filing through the doorway and Angie and K-Mart held their breath.
"Just keep going, just keep going," K-Mart silently urged the black clad men who followed Morgana up the stairs.
"Don t look around, don't look back," Angie tried to mentally instruct the group of Umbrella soldiers.
And then the dark line was nothing but footsteps clattering up the stairway, the curl of the design taking them out of sight. The girls managed shallow breaths and then nodded again to each other. They inched forward and peeked into the vast room just in time to see their parents and friends being marched away through an opening to the left. One of the heavy wooden doors similar to those they had passed closed behind them and their captives.
The girls slipped from the archway and sped quickly across the rough floor of the cavern. They had almost reached their objective when the door groaned and started to swing open again.
K-Mart grabbed Angie's hand as the other girl instinctively started to raise her pistol. Shaking her head the blonde teen pulled the other one across the cavern to pile of equipment where they took cover just in time.
Peeking out through a gap in one of the tarps that covered whatever in the world they were sheltering behind they saw a man in the uniform of an Umbrella officer enter the cave accompanied by a couple of what had to be junior officers and a full dozen guards in the ubiquitous facelessness of the black helmets and garb.
"Guard this door," the man instructed the group. "Let no one in who does not have a pass from me and me alone. The only exception is that Operative Morgana may pass if and only if she is bringing the two teenagers in whose descriptions I have given you. Or just the one if she finds it necessary to eliminate the taller blonde one." He shrugged. "That one is of no importance."
The voice had immediately identified the man as the one who had mocked their parents during the capture. The girls studied him and exchanged glances that promised volumes of what they would do to him should it be required to help their parents and friends escape.
"You," the man indicated one of the lesser officers, "remain here. Remember, Chairman Wesker does not accept failure and neither do I. Let them escape and you know what your fate will be."
"Yes sir, Major Halstead." The junior officer saluted, a salute Halstead returned almost offhandedly.
"You," he beckoned to the other officer, "may accompany me to the radio room. I need to inform the Chairman and Major Turner of our progress and summon the ship that was headed originally for Los Angeles to meet us here." Turning on his heel he headed for the far staircase. Once more Angie and K-Mart melted into the shadows, remaining motionless until he disappeared up the stairs.
Angie brought her mouth to K-Mart's ear. "What do we do now? We haven't much time before they discover we're not at the vehicles."
K-mart nodded, and then brightened. "I think they'll search for us up top side for a while. She's not going to just come back and report she didn't find us. In the meantime," the taller girl pointed to a nearby opening, an opening that carried the sound of the sea to them. "Maybe we can go around."
As they prepared to move a portion of the pile they were hiding behind where the tarp had slipped off caught K-Mart's eyes. As Angie moved first the blonde girl hastily grabbed some items from two open boxes, stuffed them in various pockets and followed her friend.
Fortunately the cavern was dim, concealing the teens as they crawled from one pile to another. Following what they had been taught they moved one at a time, the motionless one covering the other as she moved. K-Mart blessed the face shields of the Umbrella troopers' helmets. She had examined them before all the way back to Sam's and found that while they were great for cutting out the glare of the sun they left the wearer at a distinct disadvantage in dim light. But they WERE part of the troopers' uniforms so they wore them unthinkingly she supposed.
The last part of their escape was the most dangerous. A full ten yards of open floor stretched between their position and the opening they were aiming for. This close, the booming of the waves was much louder and they could smell the salt air. Giving each other a quick glance and a hand squeeze they got all the way down on their tummies and slowly crawled over the floor. The irregular nature of the cave floor helped for although it made crawling harder it provided some shadows and tiny hiding places that the girls used.
Using the training their parents and friends had given them the teens kept watch on the guards from the corners of their eyes, rather then looking directly at them.
"A person may actually begin to sense that someone is watching them," Carlos had told them in the days while they waited for Claire to heal enough to travel. "Plus you can see motion quicker from the corner of your eye while looking straight ahead."
At first neither K-Mart nor Angie had believed it but demonstrations had shown them it was true. So they kept their eyes fixed on their objective, freezing into immobility whenever they saw movement. In seemed to take hours but were no more than a couple of minutes before they rolled out of sight of the guarded doorway and sprang to their feet.
A short dash down a tunnel through the rock brought them out on to a sandy shore. Waves lapped at their feet. To the right the water was obviously deeper for several boats bobbed up and down at the wooden docks that they were tied to. To the right a sailing boat of the type that had brought Morgana to them was grounded on the sand, its mast lowered to the deck.
Farther out the cavern roof curved down until it almost touched the water.
"The tide must be in," noted Angie.
"Look!" said K-Mart almost fiercely as she grasped her friend's arm.
All the way to the left the beach followed the cavern wall until it ended in a spit of solid rock. Beyond that there was a light. A dim yellow light shaped like a window. A window that showed bars all along its length. Straining their ears the girls heard familiar murmured voices.
"It's them!"
The teens raced to the rocky point. The way was barred by about fifty feet of ocean. Impulsive as always K-mart jammed her pistol into her holster and started to wade out towards the beckoning light. Even when it reached her waist she kept going, preparing to push off and swim to her parents. Then there was a splash and Angie grabbed her collar and with nearly frantic strength yanked her friend back to land.
"What is it?" asked an exasperated K-Mart.
"There's something in the water."
(To be continued)