I'm back! I decided to update now, since I have a week off school. I really liked writing the last chapter, and I have heaps of ideas that I can't wait to include in the future.
Natalie Kabra and Zai pressed themselves against the wall of his room, breathing heavily. The Vespers had them captive aboard a fake freighter, and they were separated from the rest of their friends. Definitely a worst-case scenario.
"They'll be here any minute!" Zai hissed, trying to keep his fear from showing. How could I have been so blind? I knew this ship was fishy! People think Natalie and I disappeared, so they'd be searching for us. A real freighter would've alerted the authorities immediately after finding us!
"Do you have a plan?" Natalie asked in a quivering voice. Zai stared at her.
"You're the Lucian! Aren't you supposed to be good at coming up with strategies?"
He immediately felt guilty at snapping, after all, he was older and more mature.
Natalie closed her eyes for a moment. "We're surrounded by Vespers on the docks," she said slowly, "so the safest way off the ship will be by-"
"By water." Zai finished. He looked out the small, circular window above his bed. Far too small for either of them to fit through, provided that they could break the plastic. And the gray, polluted water didn't look too inviting, either.
"There are too many of them for us to sneak off right away..." Natalie mused, twirling a strand of raven hair around her finger. Zai was mildly impressed about how calmly she was talking about escaping off a ship crawling with brutal Vespers; she looked like she was back in London shopping at Harrods, deciding on a pair of shoes to add to the plethora she had at home. "We'll have to create a diversion."
"You're insane." Zai shook his head, picturing himself and Natalie leaping dramatically off the ship as it exploded behind them, sending a huge fireball into the air while the Vespers on the docks looked on in shock.
"Let's do it."
...
"Are you sure this is safe, Uncle Alistair?" Amy Cahill asked. They were standing in the hotel parking lot, examining at the dubious-looking car in front of them. It looked sort of like a squashed, white minivan, with a tall, broad windsheild with a crack running through the middle, and a flat back, and one of the tires was larger than the other three, tilting it slightly to one side. There were larges paint that had been scraped off, and one of the doors hung slightly open.
"Quite sure, my dear." Alistair smiled proudly at the run-down van. "This is one of our finest creations-the height of Ekaterina engineering. Of course, it's not ideal, flying would be a better option, but I can't get a plane here in time, and I think I might be a little too old for parachuting."
"Oh, I'm sure we'll be fine." Amy replied. Ian stared sullenly out over the water, not bothering to add his two pence. He had barely said a word since yesterday, Amy wondered if he was in any condition to continue on with them, but he didn't really have a choice. Dan also seem ed sulky; he hadn't mocked Amy or called her a nerd in in days.
"What makes it so great?" Elias asked, peering through his ever-present sunglasses at the white monstrosity.
"Well, she may not look like much, but this car is made with the same design as our armored limos that the Lucians stole from us years ago." Alistair answered, glancing at Ian. "It's fire-proof, bullet-proof, even bomb-proof. It has a direct link to Ekaterina satellites, through which it can receive information from our strongholds, as well as the precise location of anyone on the planet." Alistair smoothed his jacket. "It is also equipped with our top-notch defense mechanisms. It is more than match for the black Hummers that the Vespers use, only not quite as flashy."
You think? Amy thought. Nellie opened the driver's door and peered in.
"Looks fine to me." she declared, boldly ignoring the fact that she was sitting in what was the frumpiest car Dan had ever seen. She hopped in. "Let's get going!"
"Comfy." she commented. Dan climbed into the backseat, placing himself between Amy and Matt. He had to admit: It was pretty comfortable. The door next to Amy, he realized, only appeared to be ajar. It was actually sealed shut, with a crooked door placed over it, giving it the appearance of a broken door. The whole inside of the car was actually extremely modern and state-of-the-art, the outside was just a disguise.
Disguise. Dan rolled the word around in his head. Such a dangerous and complicated word, both very good and very bad at the same time. He made a mental note to be wary of disguises in the future.
"You dudes ready to roll?" Nellie asked, having been shown by Alistair some of the car's more advanced features. Without waiting for an answer, she peeled away from the parking lot, the engine making a subtle yet noticeable clang, clang, POOT! noise. Dan figured (and hoped) that it was just part of the car's cover as a piece of junk.
Great, Dan thought. We're trying not to draw the Vespers' attention while driving a high-tech piece of trash that sounds like a waterlogged kazoo. Or Amy playing a waterlogged kazoo. Whichever sounds worse.
...
As the unlikely group of six turned onto the highway to Paris, little did they know there were three pairs of eyes focused on them. In a sleek black sports car, outfitted with the latest in Vesper stolen technology, was a woman and two men, all of them looking through Ekat-designed high-powered binoculars at the white van.
"Madam, it's Cahills. Should we eliminate them?" one of the men asked in a soft Yorkshire accent. He was dressed casually, in a blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. Those fools they were spying on weren't the only ones who knew how to blend in.
The woman shook her head. "Patience, gentlemen. Remember... all good things to those who wait." She smiled. "This is only the beginning. And besides..." her smile widened, making her look like the Cheshire Cat after finding a particularly plump mouse, "I've got something much, much worse in store for them."
The two men behind her shivered; the very thought of what she might do to them made them feel suddenly very, very cold.
...
"Alright, let's review: We sneak into Foucan's office, create the diversion, and then swim to shore." Natalie went over her plan. Zai closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"First off, Ms. Kabra, do you even have this 'diversion' planned out in your head?" Zai asked. "Secondly, do you even know where Foucan's office is? Third of all, did you forget that this place is crawling with bloodthirsty Vespers? And fourth of all, are you on crazy pills?" Zai shook his head briefly. "Don't answer, it's rhetorical."
"Well do you have a better idea?" Natalie challenged. Why was Zai so prickly?
"As a matter of fact, I do. Let's go."
They grabbed a few things from that they might need: Zai snatched a candle and a box of matches; Natalie stuffed one of her vials into the pocket of the baggy pants she was wearing.
They cracked open the door to Zai's room.
"It's clear." Zai and Natalie stepped into the corridor and crept down the narrow space carefully, keeping close to the wall to the floor wouldn't creak.
"So, what is this amazing plan of yours?" Natalie asked as they reached the first turn.
"I never said it was amazing." Zai retorted. "It's just meant to give us a chance of survival. And could you please keep quiet? It just so happens that I don't want the Vesper's to know what we're doing."
Natalie huffed, but didn't say anything. After making their way around several turns, ducking into storage rooms and cabins to dodge crew members. After a few minutes, they reached the "Captain's" office. Both were surprised that it was not locked, or even closed.
"Strange." muttered Natalie. After exchanging a cautious glance with Zai, she pushed the door open slowly. The room was empty. It was about ten feet by ten feet, the walls painted a drab gray color, with a large desk and swivel chair taking up one end of the room. The desk was completely bare, save for a black, spherical pen holder. The walls were covered in various maps and charts, with lines crisscrossing the oceans every which way.
"Okay, what now?" Natalie whispered in an exaggeratedly loud voice
"Before we sneak off, we need to search his office. Just look for something that might be useful, like where we should go after we escape, hopefully. Just hurry, we only have a few minutes before they find out we're missing."
Zai and Natalie searched the sparse room. They opened drawers on the desk, but found nothing. Zai sighed in frustration. The Vespers were probably looking for them right now.
Come on, come on! He looked frantically around the room. What looked out of place?
The pen holder!
It was too modern, too sleek for a room this drab-looking. He tapped on the base. Nothing happened. Natalie watched with rising alarm as he tried, panicked, to get something to happen. Then, his fingers brushed against the pen itself. The pen, which was really a lever, clicked back. The result was astounding. As Natalie and Zai watched with widened eyes, the boring gray wall whirred to life and slid back, revealing another wall behind it: Black, with a large, dark red 'V' painted across it, covered with flat-screen monitors, each showing a different location: Quito, Brasilia, Montevideo, Panama City, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Copenhagen, Tallinn, Athens, Antananarivo, Windhoek, Alexandria, Damascus, Namche Bazaar, Hanoi, Auckland, Perth, Port Morseby.The dark mahogany of the desk also flickered, turning into a holographic, map of the entire world, complete with raised areas for mountains and high elevations. There were several blinking red lights across the continents, some blinking faster than others. Zai looked over the map. None of the locations with blinking lights meant anything to him, except...
Namche Bazaar! That's where we flew into when we went to the Himalayas...and we were caught in that avalanche...and that's one of the destinations on the screens. And it doesn't fit in with all the other big cities around on there.
"Zai!" Natalie's urgent voice interrupted his thoughts. "We need to leave!"
"Wait!" Zai knew that the Vespers were probably looking for them, but this was probably the last place they'd look. And he needed to check this out. He hurried to the wall and scanned the screens.
There!
The screen labeled 'Namche Bazaar' depicted a snowy mountain, broadcast to the Vesper stonghold via satellite. Vesper guards in pure white armor were standing in front of a huge boulder, which Zai and Natalie assumed to be a hidden door.
"They wouldn't be standing there if it were a normal stronghold." Natalie whispered. "They're... guarding something."
"Or someone." Zai finished. He turned toward Natalie. "I think we know where we need to go."
"Right." Natalie affirmed. "It's the most likely place that they're holding Mr. Cahill, and it's the most likely place we'd meet up with the others."
"Good. Now we have to get out of here." Zai grabbed the chair and lifted it up. It was heavy, and his muscles strained with the effort. Natalie rushed to help him, and together, they dropped it onto the desk. The glass holographic projector shattered, putting the image out. The results were immediate: Loud alarms started blaring, and red lights flooded their vision. Smoke filled the room, causing them both to gag and choke. And the Vespers would find them within seconds.
"Out! Now!" Zai yelled. But before they could reach the door, a panel on the wall slid back, revealing the cold water below. A slide inflated and tipped toward the water, exactly like the kind of commercial airliners. Natalie and Zai looked at each other, then at the slide. Without a word, they slipped through the platform and hopped onto the slide. At that instant, Vespers burst into the room, still dressed as freighter ship crew members. As soon as they reached the bottom, it detached from the side of the ship.
"Look out!" Natalie screamed. They ducked as rounds of machine gun fire slammed into the raft. But as Zai and Natalie waited for the raft (and them) to be torn to shreds, the bullets just bounced off.
Of course not, Natalie thought. A regular inflatable raft is far to low-tech for Vespers in the twenty-first century.
"Is there any way to steer this thing?" Zai asked. The rounds of fire were pushing them further away from the ship, and the last thing either of them wanted was to be pushed further out to sea.
"I think there is!" Natalie replied. Swiveling his head, Zai noticed a set of controls at the end of the raft: a steering stick, gas pedal, and a break. Zai grimaced and locked eyes with Natalie. How hard could it be?
Sorry it took so long to come up with this. Hope you like it, and hope you're excited to see what comes next.