Game Over (14 page)

The truck stood waiting outside and so did Professor Jameson. To Molly's eyes, her dad looked as nervous as a cat stuck in a dryer. She could only hope the driver wouldn't notice.

Molly held her breath as the driver pulled open the truck's rear gate. Inside, under the canvas, there were several stacked wooden crates—and Victor One.

With her father's help, V-One had come around the side of the house and climbed into the truck while Molly and the driver were inside. Molly could see him in there, way at the back of the truck's interior. He was hidden behind a crate, and the covering canvas draped him in shadow, but his eyes gleamed clearly. Molly was sure the driver would spot him.

But the driver just wanted to get out of there and was barely paying any attention at all. He tossed her suitcase in, closed the gate, and tromped back to the driver's side of the cab without a word. Without a word, he climbed
up behind the wheel. When Molly and Professor Jameson hesitated—stunned they had actually managed to smuggle Victor One on board—the driver finally leaned out and barked impatiently, “Let's go, all right?”

Molly and Professor Jameson came to life and climbed quickly into the cab. It was close with all three of them in there. Molly was wedged in tightly between the driver behind the wheel and her dad by the window.

The driver started the truck and the vehicle began rumbling toward the gate of the compound.

No one spoke. Molly bit her lip nervously. She stared through the windshield as the gate came closer. Two guards stepped out of their guardhouse to greet them and check their pass to make sure they had Mars's permission to leave. Molly was now so tense she felt as if she had slipped into some faraway place inside her own mind. The scene outside seemed almost unreal to her, as if the truck windshield were a movie screen and the sentries waiting out there with their rifles on their shoulders were just images being projected onto it.

The driver began to slow the truck. He lowered the window. He fished his travel pass out of his pocket. He stopped the truck. He held the pass up for the sentry to see. The sentry took the pass and examined it. He glanced inside the cab to make sure only Molly and Professor Jameson were in there. He nodded to the second sentry. The second sentry pulled a small lever in a gray box and the compound gate slowly began to swing open.

Molly took a deep breath of relief. They were going to make it. They were going to pull this off. Soon they'd be outside the compound and Victor One could alert Army Intelligence. The Army would send soldiers to arrest Mars, to free Professor Dial, to save Rick . . .

Outside the truck, a phone rang in the sentry's pocket.

Molly's eyes flashed to him. The sentry was a young man with a very pale face and very innocent-looking eyes. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and spoke into it in a low voice. The front gate, meanwhile, was continuing its slow swing open. The young sentry listened to the phone for a moment.

“Yes, sir,” he said then.

He put the phone back in his pocket. He held a finger out to the second sentry. The second sentry touched the gate lever. The lever stopped swinging. It was about halfway open now.

Molly's heart turned dark. She felt it sinking inside her.

The young sentry turned back to the driver and crooked his finger at him.

“Would you step out of the truck for a minute, please?” he said.

The driver's eyes rolled heavenward in his sorrowful face. “Sure,” he said sarcastically. “It's not like I'm in a hurry or anything.”

“Sorry,” said the young sentry. “Orders. We have to take a look in the back of the truck. We're on lockdown. Security. You know.”

“Sure, sure,” the sad-faced driver said wearily. He put the truck in park. The engine rumbled in idle.

Molly could barely breathe at all. She felt her stomach turn to acid. She looked longingly through the windshield at the gate. The gate stood tantalizingly ajar. Just wide enough to get the truck through . . . maybe . . . at the right angle . . .

But there was no chance of that now. The driver was opening the cab door. The young sentry was already moving toward the back of the truck. It would take only a second: they'd open the truck gate and look inside and spot Victor One and it would be over. Mars would have them completely trapped inside the compound.

Molly glanced at her father. Professor Jameson watched helplessly as the guard began to climb down out of the cab.

Frantically, Molly's eyes moved . . . to the dashboard . . . to the steering wheel . . . to the side mirror where she saw the young sentry waiting beside the rear of the truck . . .

The truck's motor was still grumbling in idle . . .

The driver stepped out of the cab. When she heard his feet hit the frozen ground, Molly slid quickly over the seat and got behind the wheel. She reached out of the cab and seized hold of the door handle. She pulled the door shut.

Startled, the driver swung around at the noise. “Hey!” he said.

Molly put the truck in reverse. Quickly, she checked the side mirror. She could see the young sentry still standing
beside the truck, not directly behind it. She wouldn't hit him if she backed up.

That was all she needed to know. She drove her sneaker down hard on the gas.

Molly had to back up if she was going to get the right angle on the half-open gate, if she was to have any chance at all of driving the truck through it, out of the compound. The truck roared and went rattling backward. It shot past the young sentry. He just stood there, gaping at it as it went by.

That was far enough. Molly hit the brake. The truck jolted to a stop. She grabbed the gear shift.

Professor Jameson looked at her in horror. He was only just now beginning to realize what his daughter was planning to do.

“Molly!” he shouted.

“We've got to!” Molly shouted back.

“Stop!” the young guard shouted outside.

But Molly didn't stop. She threw the truck into gear. She stomped on the gas again. The truck shot forward. Molly saw the half-open gate speeding at the windshield.

The gate came closer and closer, fast. The way out was narrow. The gate's edge looked like it was going to clip the fender, stop the truck.

Molly wrenched the wheel. The truck bounced right. There was just enough room to squeeze through the gate if she hit it just so. At least she hoped there was. It wasn't
going to be easy at this speed, and her speed was increasing every second.

The gate came rushing at her. Closer.

And then the second sentry stepped in the way.

He held up his hand. “Stop!” he shouted boldly.

Molly kept her foot jammed down on the gas pedal. The truck rumbled over the frozen earth toward the sentry. He had to move.

“Molly!” her father shouted again. “You'll kill him!”

He was right. Molly watched as the sentry grew larger in the windshield. Another second, she'd run him over. She had to stop.

But the sentry broke first. As the truck raced toward him, the bold expression on his face melted into a wide-eyed look of surprise and fear. Suddenly, he was moving, rushing to the side, racing to get out of the way.

The gate was clear. Molly gave the truck full gas. It charged like a wild bull at the opening.

But she didn't clear it.

The next moment—a jolt—a teeth-rattling squeak—the metal of the gate scratched the side of the truck—a jarring crash—the edge of the gate hit the side mirror and ripped it right off.

Molly let out a cry. But she kept her foot down.

And the truck bounced forward and flew through the gate at high speed.

They were out. They were out! Molly saw the forest
and the forest road spreading before her. She felt her heart expand as a blast of joy went through her. She laughed out loud.

“We're going to make it!” she shouted to her dad over the engine noise.

And then the creatures attacked.

19. INVASION

MOLLY HAD NO
time to react. She couldn't react. She couldn't even believe what she was seeing. Out of nowhere, out of nothing, a hideous creature materialized in the air. It was a gray, winged, woman-like thing, its shrieking face half flesh, half skull. It swept down on the truck with its spindly arms outstretched, its hands outreaching, its long talons slicing, and its teeth bared.

Molly screamed.

The Harpy smashed into the windshield full force. The truck stuttered. A web of cracks shot out across the glass. The beast's hideous face was pressed against the cracks, inches from Molly.

Molly convulsively wrenched the wheel. The truck careened leftward, out of control. It sped off the road. It bounced over the ground. And then, still traveling fast, it smashed into a tree.

Metal crunched. Glass broke. The truck's engine died. Molly's body was thrown forward. Her forehead smacked the steering wheel—not hard, but hard enough to hurt. The Harpy, meanwhile, lost its grip in the crash and was hurled off the windshield, still shrieking.

Molly sat straight, dazed, and saw the winged creature pinwheel away to her left. It landed hard on the forest floor. A fizzle of purple static lanced through its form like bolts of lightning. Then, the next second, the Harpy flashed and vanished and was gone.

Molly blinked. Her head aching, her mind clouded.

Did that just happen?

She turned dully to her father.

“Dad? Are you all right?”

The professor in the passenger seat raised a hand to reassure her, but his lip was bleeding. He was breathing hard. He couldn't speak at first.

“What . . .?” said Molly, swallowing. “Did you see that? What was that?”

“I don't know. I don't know,” he said.

“But you saw it.”

“I saw it.”

She turned to look out the driver's window again. There was no sign of the Harpy. Just the forest floor, just the trees.

And then a giant rotting Cobra rose up beside the window.

Molly was not given to panic. She was tough-minded—and seasoned now, too, because she'd been through a lot. But the sight of this uncanny thing seemed to set her mind on fire. She screamed again and threw herself back toward her dad, trying to get away from it.

The gigantic Cobra skull with its dagger-like teeth jabbed at her, smashing into the window glass.

“Daddy, Daddy, what is it?” Molly screamed—she was babbling—she was that afraid.

But now the snake drew back and struck again and the window seemed to give and rattle in its frame. Another blow or two like that and the window might shatter or come loose and then the thing would be in the cab with her.

The fire of panic that had flashed in Molly's brain swept through and was gone. She was beginning to think again. A Harpy out of the sky. A giant rotting Cobra. This couldn't be happening. But it was. And she had to do something about it.

The Cobra drew back for another strike, rising up on its slithery coil of a body to get more leverage. Molly felt a wad of terror stuck in her throat. She couldn't believe what she was about to do. But she had to. She swallowed her fear. And she did it.

She grabbed the door handle. Cracked the door open. Waited.

“Molly, what are you doing?” her father said.

The Cobra struck.

Molly timed it perfectly. She threw the door open and smacked the snake hard in the face just as it darted at the window. Its head—which was mostly bone—went flying off, the top of the snake's spine exploding in a white blast. The rest of the Cobra's immense body spasmed and uncoiled and jerked on the ground. Purple lightning flashed through it. It sizzled. And in a purple blast, it was gone.

“Molly!” It was her father. “The compound!”

Still half crazed with fear and disbelief, Molly glanced at him. Her father had turned in his seat, was looking out his window at the side mirror there. Molly's mirror was gone, ripped off by the gate, and she couldn't get a good view of what was happening behind the truck.

But she could hear it. Shouting. The crackling of gunfire.

Without thinking, Molly threw the door open and jumped out of the truck to see what was going on. The glass of a broken headlight crunched under her sneakers.

“Molly!” her father shouted. “Get back in the truck!”

But she couldn't. She couldn't do anything but stand there, staring at what she saw.

An uncanny battle was going on at the compound gate. The soldiers there were battling a small army of impossible monsters. Giant Boar-like creatures wearing armor and wielding swords were hurling themselves against the soldiers' rifles. More Harpies were descending from the sky. More Cobras were slithering across the ground. All of the beasts were half rotten, their tattered flesh flying from exposed muscle and bone.

The soldiers loosed bullets at the attackers when they could. When the bullets struck home, the creatures reeled backward, shrieking. They fizzled and flashed with purple lightning and then pixilated into nothingness. But when the swords of the Boars or the talons of the Harpies or the fangs of the Cobras struck home, there was blood—a lot of
it—and the soldiers let out wild cries of agony, horrifying for Molly to hear.

It was a moment before Molly could believe what she was seeing. It was another moment before she could figure out what to do. But she knew: She had to get out of here. She had to get Victor One to someplace where he could make contact with his friends. She had to bring help to the compound . . .

She heard her father call her name again from the truck's cab.

“We have to go!” he shouted at her.

She nodded. She turned to step back into the truck.

And as she did, there was a high, squealing shriek behind her.

She turned and saw a great Boar rushing at her on two legs. He had his sword raised in the air and was about to bring it down as hard as he could. Another second and it would cleave Molly's head in two.

20. BREAKOUT