Chapter Nine
Jail Break
I’d found a pair of binoculars in an office near the top floor. Some bygone businessman’s preoccupation of snooping into other people’s lives no doubt. I was putting them to good use though, as I scanned the city below.
I wanted to get out of the city, but I just hadn’t seen an opening yet given the intensive ground search being conducted throughout the city. There was an intersection several blocks away and I watched a group of Code people stop there for a moment. The Code people were made obvious by their finer attire and well fed appearances, even from a distance.
I watched the group. They just stood there, as if waiting on something. A little later several other small groups joined them. That was a curious occurrence. Five minutes later I saw the approach of a big chopper that began to descend between the buildings. All the waiting Code people boarded it when it landed on the street.
The chopper took off and was gone. I caught glimpses of other choppers leaving the city too. The Code people were performing a mass exodus it would seem.
I dropped the binoculars and they shattered off the floor, as the significance of what such an action by our hunters could mean, became all too real to me. I jumped out of the chair and was traveling down stories of the high-rise, as fast as I could go, within a heartbeat. I yelled for Asia.
She looked up at me in alarm, as dread filled her eyes, “They’ve found us?”
“No, but we’ve got to go now!”
“Why?”
“Questions later! Grab your pack!”
I grabbed my pack and my sword and with her following I made my way to the lower floor to my rope apparatus. It was broad daylight and the absolute worst time to be doing this, but the situation was unavoidable. I stepped into the loop and pulled Asia to me and she clutched at me desperately as we started down.
I’d taken some weight off of the counterweight and together we fell down the side of the building in a quite rapid descent. I spared Asia from the jarring landing by picking her up some so I alone absorbed the shock of the landing.
Rolling up to my feet I pulled Asia up along with me and shoved her towards the passenger side of a dust covered shortbread Ram diesel pickup. She stared at me as if I was stupid.
“It won’t work! The computer chips are all fried!
“Not this one! Get in!”
While I had been hunting for Asia I had made fixing this truck a priority in my spare time. The fuel tank had been empty, but I had managed to find some diesel in an engine in a warehouse down by the pier. There had been enough diesel to fill the tank of the truck and a few spare cans. Chantry had left me several undamaged conversion chips to fix the truck’s computer. I’d started the truck up in the rain one night to confirm whether the chips would work or not. The truck had run a little rough at first, but not bad for something that hadn’t run for two years and had been left out in the elements.
I turned the key to let the glow plugs warm. In relief I saw that I still had battery. I turned the key..... Nothing! I tried it again and got the same result. It wouldn’t even fire! This was bad!
I turned to Asia and saw that her face reflected the panic that I felt inside.
She laid a hand on the dusty dash of the truck, “Jesus we need this truck to work!”
She turned back to me, “Try it now.”
She couldn’t be serious to think that…….The truck fired to life sounding better than it had the other night. This one was going to be hard to explain away or better yet live down.
“Did you cut the airbags out?” Asia asked hesitantly, as she stared at the ripped up dash before her.
“Yeah.”
Asia quickly put her seatbelt on, and come to think about it that wasn’t such a bad idea and I followed suit. The ride was bound to get a little bumpy. Asia was peering at something over the hood and to the side of the truck.
“I strapped part of an I-beam to the front bumper.”
At her blank look I added by way of explanation, “In case we have to hit something.” I’d also filled the back of the truck up with heavy iron pieces, which added to our point of gravity and reduced the shock of us hitting something.
I was flying down the abandoned street at 95 miles per hour. All pistons were firing and the heavy cadence of the diesel engine was a beautiful sound that I had missed for years. I swore out loud suddenly.
“I really wish you’d stop saying that!” Asia said heatedly.
I pointed ahead. She looked and saw the people flocking into the street ahead of us intent on stopping us.
“Oh God!” She exclaimed.
“Now don’t take the Lord’s name in vain honey.” I quipped at her.
“I wasn’t!” She fired back at me.
“What are we going to do?” She asked panicked.
I pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. She had my answer.
“You’re going to hit them!” She exclaimed in outrage.
“If they’re too dumb to get out of the way than they deserve to go extinct!” I fired back at her.
Asia covered her face and ducked down, but at the last possible moment people dived off to the sides, as they realized I wasn’t going to stop. Asia peered up over the dash, as I loudly hummed the tune of, ‘I will survive’.
“You enjoy this kind of crazy stuff don’t you?”
I glanced over at her grinning big, “Why do you think they sent me?”
“Road!!!” She screeched out.
I glanced back to the road swearing viciously, as I narrowly dodged around a vehicle left in the middle of the street.
Asia was giving me an accusing look and I responded hotly, “Hey, if you don’t like my language, you’re free to ride in the back and besides you’re the only one Jesus is worried about in this truck, not me! So don’t act like it matters what I say!”
“He loves you as much as He loves me!” She retorted back passionately.
“Oh yeah! Well He’s got a funny way of showing it!”
“He started the truck for you didn’t He!”
I pointed at her, as in reference to her being the significant part of that equation.
“He gave me to you didn’t He!”
“I kind of like to think I made that deal for myself!” I said affirmatively.
She became really incensed at that and half turned in her seat to shake her finger at me, “Who do you think told me to give you Option B?”
I glanced at her only to see that her face reflected nothing, but the sincerity of the truth. “He told you to say that?” I asked doubtfully.
“Do you seriously think that being on the verge of being raped by a modern-day Hulk that I come up with the idea to pledge myself, my time and devotion and even my heart to said man and actually mean it!”
She had a point there I had to admit. “Why would He do that?”
She leaned over and wrote in the dust that lay heavy on the dash. “Because He loves you!”
I glanced from the letters to her and shook my head, “Even if He does love me, why would He shanghai someone good like you with a mixed up jerk like me?”
“How do you know that you’re not exactly what I need in a mate?” She responded in a softer tone.
I glanced at her quickly, surely she couldn’t be serious! She looked very serious, which set my temper off.
“Don’t build me up to be something that I’m not lady!”
“That’s fine by me, as I’m learning to like you just the way you are, minus the bad language of course!”
I looked at her then, when had my life become so full of commitments and faith of all things? I had been in the process of taking her against her will, when something unexpected had happened and now she was busy saving my soul, while I was busy falling in love with her.
“I’ll work on the language.” I said grudgingly, in as close to a concession with another human individual, as I’d ever come to.
“Thank you!”
“Hang on!”
Asia screamed and ducked down, as we slammed our way through several vehicles blocking our way. The truck stood up well to the task, as the steel I-beam forged the way through the stalled vehicles in our path, but it was hard to see through the cracked windshield now. I had to sit off towards the middle of the truck in order to see better through the windshield and surprised I glanced down at the presence of Asia’s touch.
Her hand rested on my thigh and I glanced up to meet her eyes, which were focused on me intently, “Thank you for coming for me!” She said.
I glanced back to the road, “You’re welcome.”
We smashed our way through several more tight places and the truck no longer sounded too good. It was missing and I didn’t want to let off on the throttle too much for fear of it conking off, but it was still moving and getting us away from the city. We were running out of time though. Ten more minutes and I’d be far enough away, at least I hoped so.
Fifteen minutes later with the truck going over 100 miles an hour and overheating I saw the missile trails coming off from the east from out over the sea. I felt relief at the sight of more than just one missile trail. Now we had a chance.
“Oh God!” Asia screamed pointing at the missiles.
I nodded grimly.
“How did you know?” She asked turning to me.
“I watched all the Code people leave the city together and figured out what could be coming next. I figured we had a 30 minute window to get out. Someone gave us an five extra minutes, which is good because we needed them!”
The truck’s temperature gage was in the red, but I kept the throttle pressed down. Asia was looking behind and shrieked again, as the missiles hit the city behind us.
“There’s no mushroom cloud!” Asia exclaimed in morbid relief.
“Probably either biological or nerve gas. There’s still too much valuable infrastructure to completely obliterate such a city in the quest to nab one loan Code Breaker.” I commented bitterly.
“All those people!” Asia said beginning to weep brokenly.
I grabbed her by the front of her shirt and hauled her over towards me, “Listen!” I said brutally. “It’s not your fault! So get it out of your head right now that you had anything to do with someone pressing a button and killing so many people! Their decision! Not yours, understand!”
She nodded, but she was still crying. I unsnapped her seatbelt and pulled her over against me and held her. Sometimes the truth of something didn’t really matter much. She had such a good heart in her. Here she was bawling her eyes out over a bunch of people, who’d only been too willing to deliver her head on a silver platter to the Code people. A person like her was worth protecting, even sacrificing oneself for. She was an example of something still worth saving about humanity.
The truck lasted for another 100 miles, until it croaked and nearly wrecked us abruptly in the dark. I still had a 100 miles left to go before we reached where the plane was stashed at a private airstrip in the country. It would’ve been so nice and convenient to have continued driving on through the night, gotten to my plane, been safely back in the air before daylight, and on my way back to my island with fantasy girl firmly in tow.
Nothing ever went that easy though. Always the……! In search of an adequate curse word I felt Asia’s reproving gaze in the darkness and I stifled it.
“Get out of the truck!” I said gruffly already in a thoroughly bad mood.
I pulled my pack out of the back bed of the truck and said, “We can’t stay near the road. It’s too dangerous. We’ll travel through the night across country and rest when the sun comes up.”
Asia said nothing, but dutifully followed me into the weedy brush alongside the road. We walked all through the night and Asia had a hard time of it. She was a city girl and not used to the ways of the forest. She’d best learn now, because frequenting cities wasn’t in her future, as I had never cared for them. The rougher the country was the better. I’d at least make sure she had access to society of some kind, but I’d live in no city or large town. Maybe a little town.