The tough gets going

Bracing against the inky blackness that was beginning to seep in at the corners of his eyes, Mitikas threw his head backwards and was rewarded with a shrill yell of agony as the back of his scull hit the face of Sarigiana. She lost her grip around him and he spun around, catching the small time window she was out of balance and grabbed her right arm. Quickly folding forwards, he tipped her body over him in a wide angle and hurled her into the wall. He heard a horrid smack and the breaking of bones as Sarigiana hit the concrete, still he felt no remorse, that woman wouldn't have hesitated a second to kill him, she sure had tried that more than once before. As a matter of fact, Mitikas had done the same, several times, although always to his dismay failing.

Gripping her collars he crashed her head once more against the wall, that was all he had the time for now. He was doubhtful this would kill Sarigiana, however she was incapacitated for the time being.

Instead was he now seeing a hulking shadow in the corner of his eye. It was the orc-like thug back on his feet and only two paces away, having retrieved Mitikas' pistol. The gun shot he had received earlier seemed to bothering him very little, no matter that his light green pantyhose leg was discoloured with blood. Thinking fast, Mitikas caught the wrist of the larger man and twisted his hand. The weapon went off and the bullet hit the wall before ricocheting and blasting through the window in a crackling rain of glass and plastic splinters of what had been the blinds. Now armed, Mitikas shot the grunt remorselessly in the head. Stepping backward he raised his gun against Sarigiana – before realizing he had made that mistake earlier. Bullets did not bite on someone like her.

Instead he turned around and set off to find the escape the two scholars had used. Mitikas crashed through the glass door and raced down the stairs. The place bore the obvious sign of people having fired off guns, the reek of powder still notable in the air. Now silence rested in the shaft and he knew in an instance that the scholars had shaken their pursuers. However he could do better than these badasses.

=o=o=

Meanwhile Narheda and Luwan were rapidly advancing down a long corridor, not surprised anymore to find it totally empty. Narheda had come to the understanding that their foes must have triggered some kind of hazard alarm to evacuate the building, emptying it of all the people inside including of course her colleague Traven. All to lure her, Luwan and Mitikas in a trap. Now, the man they had planned to visit was probably somewhere else. She also imagined the building to be surrounded, these people didn't seem to stop for nothing – including murder.

Pulling up another door, they found a new staircase, a red arrow pointing them downwards with the word 'garage' written below. Not hesitating a second, she and Luwan continued down.
"Let's steal a car," Luwan suggested as they stopped by a third door. Narheda felt the door handler and then she cursed out loud.
"I don't friggin' know how to steal a car," she scoffed. "I don't do things like that! Besides, we're not getting in here. There's a card reader, and we don't have..."
"Move it," Luwan cut her off and as she complied, he raised his gun and fired a bullet right through the lock. Then he landed a kick to the lock and the door flew open, crashing against the concrete wall it was hinged into.

"After you, milady" he held out his hand and frowning she stepped trough. "I can steal cars too," he added with a smirk.
"You seem to have some peculiar hidden talents for a post-grad," Narheda stated, glancing at the younger man before she returned her attention to the murk of the entrance to the underground garage. It was a fairly large place, not unexpectedly in stark, gray concrete and a bit less than half filled with parked vehicles.
"A guy's gotta know his way around," Luwan replied, and left it at that.

Jogging slowly, they made it across the floor of the garage and stopped somewhere in the middle. There were a few cars parked around, and Luwan glanced about, clearly looking for something to grab. This was just getting worse and worse, Narheda thought. She was starting to feel rather sick by now – the odds seemed quite unfavorable for her and the young man. And now they were about to become car thieves on top of everything. But she forced back the despair. Giving in to that would be the stupiest thing to do. If anything she owed it to the late Dr. Arlig to go on.

"The TTC," Luwan cut off her thoughts, indicating a cerulean coloured vehicle parked by the opposite wall. The car was rather old and sprinkled with rust, adorned with a large bump in the rear end and having one of its lights mended with duct tape. Narheda made a face at the ride. "Narheda! Quickly over here!" Luwan urged her.
"Couldn't you have picked anything more fancy," she muttered cynically between her teeth, but the young Harendorite just chuckled.
"The TTC's are a piece of cake to steal, especially the older ones. A baby could steal a TTC, on top of that I imagine that this owner haven't even bothered with an alarm, since this piece of junk is so utterly unattractive."

"I can't conceive her or him appreciating to get it stolen anyway," Narheda snorted when she obediently began following Luwan towards the homely old car.
"No, and I don't appreciate getting a bullet in my head," Luwan returned, and she had to admit that he had a point.

Then he bent down and started to fidget with his left both. Amused, Narheda looked on, seeing him removing a buckle. Bending it slightly, he then pressed it into the lock and began trying to unlock it. Narheda felt as if the scraping noise he was making was echoing loudly in the large room and she had quite a few doubhts that it would work, but after about a minute's fidgeting there was a silent click and Luwan could press the handler and open up the door.
"Once again, you're surprising me," she said.
"Now, let's blast out of this place, accellerator glued to the floor and we can perhaps outride the bad guys."

"Smooth," a voice was suddenly saying behind them. "However if you'd rather ride something with more class, I imagine I could provide."
"Mitikas?" both of them spun around, just as Luwan had started to climb inside of the vehicle.
"The very one."
"But how?"
"No time for that now, we better get out of here, before our foes are returning inside again."

"You think they will?" Narheda asked.
"I know they will," the older man replied smugly and Narheda made a face. "A little trick of mine, but I will tell you later about that one too. Now, let's go!"
"But," Luwan hesitated, making a gesture towards the TTC.
"We have no need for that one, the Javelin is just outside of here and we can run for it the very moment the bad guys decided to move inside again."

"And when should that be?" Luwan asked doubhtfully, once again, glancing over at the car he had opened up. Mitikas leaned over and sinply closed the car door, just as a deep sound reverberated trough the building.
"Now," Mitikas pointed out rather needlessly. "That should be some kind of smoke grenade, I assume."

The next moment the three of them were running towards and trough an emergency exit and up the path to the street outside. Unexpectedly, there was nobody right outside and bravely they dashed round a corner and came out in the main street, running down the sidewalk as Narheda was fearing to feel a bullet embed itself in her back at any minute. But the street was populated with quite a number of people minding their own business and the only thing greeting them were some angry calls when they cut out in front of other pedestrians.

Only seconds later, Mitikas was opening up the doors to his car and they were all leaping inside, buckling up as he started the engine, turned out from the parking spot and made a sharp u-turn to get them away from the surroundings as fast as possible.
"So now what?" Luwan asked as they advanced down the street, rapidly but not irregularely so, to avoid retrieving attention.
"Speaker's Corner, I suggest," Narheda answered. "A least if our original plan should be anything to go by."

=o=o=

Rushing out in the street, trailed by Hikarete and some of her people, Sarigiana noted with frustration that the trio they were persuing was nowhere to be seen. The next moment came the unmistakable sound of a car accellerating down the street in the opposite direction.
"I'm not gonna lose them! Not this time!" With these words she dashed across the street.
"Wait," Hikarete called, but the other woman didn't hear, or pretended to not hear as she dived almost head first into her own vehicle, a sleek emerald and navy coloured Silverhawk 5000DX. "Damn! The bitch is turning this into her private vendetta," Hikarete murmured as she watched the Silverhawk taking up the pursuit.

The accelleration pushed Sarigiana back into her seat, and the four point seatbelts held her firmly as her Silverhawk kicked in with screaming tyres. They were not going to get away! She was going to finish this work and she was going to finish that pain in the ass Mitikas, who always seemed to be ready to spoil her plans wherever she went, as if he was navigating using some eight sense. Which shouldn't really surprise her, given who this man was. Still the very thought of it made her want to scream out loud, where she sat in the car seat, her glowed hands clutching the wheel so hard she could feel her knuckles go white.

She was going to get the freak this time, she swore. Once and for all!

Daylight was fading fast and the bright lights in the street and other vehicles glared into her eyes. The Javelin was about 50 spears in front of her and she overtook two cars in quick succession, but was then forced to brake as the next vehicle decide to turn without warning. Sarigiana gunned the engine, looking up she saw the Javelin make a left turn. Edging closer to the turning, she zipped across in front of a small lorry which blasted its horn in disapproval.

The display bleeped red and the SatNav system told her to 'turn around at the first opportunity', the velvety tenor sounding slightly sensual, a male voice Sarigiana had picked once while being in a better mode. Now the machine's faux sensuality only managed to irritate her.

Sarigiana hit the brakes, the Silverhawk did a 360 turn and barely avoided an oncoming car. She weaved through the oncoming traffic and streaked down the tree-lined main street in pursuit of the Javelin. They were now going east through the Elishar district and heading for the river.

=o=o=

Narheda looked behind as the sound of honking horns and cars braking to a halt became more frequent.
"Mitikas I think we have a tail!" Checking the rear view mirror, Mitikas noted the Silverhawk approaching fast.
"Yes, a beautiful peacock one," he jeered as he squeezed the accellerator ever so gently, the nimble vehicle responding quickly.

Sarigiana flicked the infra-red targeting switch and smiled vickedly when she heard the steady pitch confirming that she had a lock on the Javelin. First Sarigiana used the built in Supera machine guns, she wanted to disable the car and take Mitikas out man to man. The darn schoolars she would have to deal with later. Or not, she could leave those to that scrawny intellectual Hikarete something.

The rounds hit the road, splintering up asphalt where they impacted and the guns changed their trajectory when the tracer rounds got closer to the back of the Javelin. In his mirror, Mitikas saw the tracers and swung the Javelin across the road, however Sarigiana followed across the orange line and the bullets ripped into a car stationary at the road side. She took her thumb off the trigger and changed direction. The lock on was still beeping so she decided to swallow her pride and use the heat seeking missiles. The process unit confirmed the contact address and Sarigiana hit the fire button. The missile rocketed away, the recoil force buffeted the Silverhawk which swerved so insanely that she had to fight to keep control of her car as it fishtailed up the road.

"They're shooting at us!" Luwan called out from his place in the backseat.
"Do they now?" Mitikas grinned. His finger prodded the defense panel and a flair launched itself from the rear diffuser area, the phosphorous ball reached a height of sixteen spears before the missile smashed into it. The explosion rocked the high rise buildings lining the street, and a thousand windows shattered, the glass shards cascaded on to the street below and sprinkled all over.

"Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea," Sarigiana muttered between clamped teeth while slamming her foot on the brake and the Silverhawk skewed around another corner in its pursue of the Javelin. Smiling cruelly, she slid the safety off another machine gun, allowing it to be manoeuvred.

The Javelin zoomed down a long stretch of road accelerating to over one hundred trots-per-hour. Sarigiana also accelerated and when Mitikas slammed the brakes on to negotiate another bend, she almost lost him, but she managed to tag along at the very last moment, screaming tyres burning asphalt. Now Sarigiana fired, the guns burped and the heavy calibre shells streaked away. Mitikas swiftly dodged the fire by whipping the Javelin round another sharp corner. Narheda screamed and looked at Mitikas for some support, his face was a mask of concentration, his hand hovering over the defense panel again, and now a wicked smile crossed his face. Narheda couldn't tell which look frightened her the most.
"Hang on, guys!" Mitikas called out before he started to press certain buttons on his dashboard.

The next moment, the pursuing Sarigiana had to drive wildly to dodge the time-delayed mines laid out by the Javelin ahead. The explosions rocked the city streets and the orange balls of flame lit the early evening sky with a deadly consequence. Now, Mitikas wanted to haul the Silverhawk in closer to allow him to drop more mines. Their pursuer in turn was pleased that her car was keeping its pace close on Mitikas', imitating the Javelin's every move as they encountered more slow moving traffic. Soon she would have him! Soon soon!

Sarigiana accelerated and tapped the back of the Javelin. It spun and Mitikas fought with the wheel to regain control before he floored the accelerator and sped away. Once again he allowed his pursuer to catch him - and when he felt he was locked in he began to smoothly increase his speed. Not far now, he glanced at his watch, not long now. Dropping a gear, Mitikas made another sharp turn, making the Javelin screaming into Equinox Street, the streetsigns being just a blur as they sped past. Sarigiana didn't even notice the information which stated Central Ferry Piers 3 and 4 ahead, she was too preoccupied with hunting her black and golden prey.

As Mitikas pressed his foot down, Narheda turned to look at him in absolute horror. There was that insane smile again. The ferry for the other side of the Anduin had already left the pier and was well under steam. The Javelin rocketed off the dock to the chorus of Narheda and Luwan's screams, and then they soared through the ever increasing gap between pier and ferry. With its targeting software locked in, Sarigiana's car followed less than five spears behind, its control software imitated the speed increase. Mitikas, Luwan and Narheda held their breath as the Javelin flew over the end of the pier.

Narheda screamed as the Javelin smashed through the wooden safety barrier at the back of the ferry, splintering it into a thousand pieces. As she craned her neck and watched, the Silverhawk leapt the gap behind them, but the heavy artillery pushed the nose down and the car hit the water and cartwheeled once before settling. Sarigiana winded and struggled to release the safety belt in her rapidly sinking killer-car while the Javelin trio stepped out of their ride.

"Too bad, she missed the boat," Mitikas smirked as he watched the sinking Silverhawk, the green water of the river bubbling around it. He held no doubht that his die-hard old foe would make it out of the vehichle, however he and his allied had gotten away from her this time. Off in the distance they could hear the expected sirens of police vehicles.
"Two new cars in the Anduin within nearly as many days," Luwan pondered. "With that speed, there'll be an artificial island of used cars blocking the flow of the water soon."