Ntshona (27 page)

“Lon!” she cried, getting to her feet; here, at the place she had ceased rolling, the curvature of the building’s wall was getting close to level with the ground.

Lon struggled to push his body from a lying position. “Keep going! She must be in the car park!”

Eve initially ignored his instruction for the sake of helping him and began to ascend the wall to reach him, but was deterred by his continuing commands.

“I’m fine, just run to the car park!”

Her hesitation was short, curtailed by more shots at her from ground level. She needed to locate Cat’s car, and assuming the assistive fire was coming from there, it meant the car must be in direct view. She ran with increasing steadiness the closer to the ground she got, and put her total faith in whoever was helping them escape.

Lon struggled to his feet and also began a rapid descent. He was still several metres higher up than Eve, meaning he still had to contend with the sharp angle of the wall; his strides were wide, and his sudden speed forced his legs to move far more swiftly than he had ever hoped he would need to in his restrictive lab clothing.

After scanning the visible parking area and not determining for which car she was headed, Eve set her eyes on her briefcase lying on the pavement close to the nearest set of parked cars, which was launched from her hand when she had fallen. As she was readying herself to snatch it up, she saw that the security personnel on the ground began to drop from left to right. With much effort she slowed her pace, stubbing her toes painfully on the insides of her shoes, and fumbled with the briefcase, eventually grabbing it with both hands because she could not be accurate enough to take only the handle, and she continued to run down a pavement that projected into the car
park, keeping an eye out for a multi-coloured car.

Lon had the same goal of retrieving his briefcase, but his current velocity permitted him to worry about overshooting his target, so, in a manner lacking in personal safety concern, as he reached the ground close to the briefcase he dove into a forward roll which ended with him straight back on his feet, almost falling forwards again, and into pursuit of Eve with his briefcase back in his right hand.

Eve remained metres in front bounding down the pavement not deviating from a set path directly in front of her, attentively seeking the car. Bullets were still fired in her direction, yet many of them were hitting parked vehicles. Her nerves were being tried; she felt she could not keep up this activity for long, her eyes were tearing, her breath was coarse, and her legs wanted so much to give way.

But that’s when she saw it; an unobvious, stationary white car at the end of the walkway transformed into a varicoloured ensign of red, green, blue and some other colours she could not take in so quickly.

As she drew close, the rear passenger door whipped open and, barely slowing down, Eve propelled herself and her briefcase onto the back seat, almost bashing her head on the window on the far side of the car. Her lungs worked overtime as she struggled to replace the air in them.

Lin was knelt on the front passenger seat with a scoped rifle steadily propped against the windowsill, firing silenced rounds at inconsistent intervals. Only now had she become a noticeable target for security. She had no choice but to close the window and cease covering Lon on the final straight.

With regressing ear damage he was more aware of the bullets whizzing past him and ricocheting off static vehicles. He strenuously haled his body towards its speed limit and upon reaching a distance of roughly three metres from the threshold of the car, he threw in his briefcase with such intensity it almost cracked the reinforced glass next to Eve’s face, and he lunged head first inside and landed face down in Eve’s lap.

The door slammed shut behind him, Cat jammed her foot on the accelerator and the car violently jolted forwards towards the car park’s nearest exit.

“Lon, you’re bleeding!” cried Eve catching sight of his left shoulder.

Lin flicked her head around to assess Lon’s condition. “Shit Lon, you’ve been shot”.

Taking a moment to recover strength and oxygen, he kept his head still, but weakly lifted his left hand in a frail thumbs-up gesture and mumbled into Eve’s thighs “It’s fine, don’t worry about it”.

“Oh Lon!” Eve wept, and she gently stroked the back of his head.

“Don’t get complacent yet,” Cat demanded, “we’re still not out of here, and I don’t think it’s gonna be easy, hey”.

Lon struggled into a sitting position. “Why not?”

“Because all the exit points have been blocked”.

The closest outlet was imminent, yet it was backed up with traffic impeded by a close series of bollards protruding from the ground between the guard stations at either edge of the road, and on the other side a thoroughfare exiting through a recreational garden area canopied by trees.

“We need to be on that side,” she stated.

“But there are barriers surrounding the whole complex preventing cars getting in or out,” advised Eve.

“Nothing a few explosives won’t fix”.

Lin reached into the glove compartment and retrieved a small remote control, which she immediately utilised.

A series of small explosions not very far away dislodged a large section of the metal rail that separated the Science Centre complex from the outside.

“Hold onto something!” said Cat.

At an oblique angle the car hied towards a particularly mangled looking section of the battered barrier, mounted the short bank by which it had been supported, trampled the damaged metal and dragged some bits onto the outer road as it screeched into a spin to face the blocked off exit and the canopied thoroughfare opposite.

As the car raced towards and prepared to take a sharp left onto Cat’s preferred escape path, a motorcycle emerged from each of the guard stations ready to give chase, which they did as soon as they ascertained Cat’s intent.

She was forced to take the corner more tightly than expected, cutting across the pavement uncomfortably close to the outlining trees.

“Oh, not this scenario again!” complained Lon.

“They’re gonna try to smash the windows open,” said Cat to Lin, who still held her rifle, “so you’d better take them out”.

“Try not to kill them though,” pleaded Lon, “there’s been enough death for one day”.

“If they die, they die,” Lin said as the window lowered. She waited a few seconds for the car to straighten up in its lane, and for the pursuer on her side to become more proximate. Once these conditions were met, she let off a single round into the motorcyclist’s chest, and his body fell backwards and acquainted with the hot tarmac, followed by his vehicle in a similar motion. “One down! Eve, the other’s on your side, sort him out”.

“I’ll try,” she said uncertainly, “but I don’t know how much ammo I have left,” she shaped her briefcase into its weapon form and opened her window to let out a discharge, however the chaser was undeterred and got nearer to her window, flourishing an electrified baton in his left hand. She tried another barrage, but the gun refused to commit.

The motorcyclist was close, his arm cocked across his right shoulder ready for a deathly swing at Eve’s face.

“I have no ammo!” she screamed in dismay.

Down came his arm through the window, and blood spattered her cheek and neck.

She fell backwards hard, her head striking Lon’s lap as the man on the motorcycle met his fate on the surface of the road.

The bullet from Lin’s gun was dead on target, but was too late to stop the baton from following through on its trajectory. After making brief contact with the skin of Eve’s neck and deflecting, it fell into the footwell by her feet, and concurrently the man on the motorcycle hit the road outside, dead.

“Eve!” bellowed Lon. He shook her shoulders, but received no response; she lay unmoving. “Eve!” he yelled once more. He checked the pulse in her neck. “Her heart’s stopped!” he frightfully exclaimed.

Cat momentarily diverted her attention towards the lifeless body in the back. “Bloody hell, how did that happen?” She turned to Lin, “There’s an AED in the glove compartment”.

Lin wasted no time. She discarded the rifle to the side of her footwell and opened the dashboard compartment to rummage for the Automated External Defibrillator, disregarding any other objects also contained within, spilling them over her legs and into her footwell.

“Lon, take off Eve’s coat and shirt!” commanded Cat.

“Eh? Wha-”

“Just do it, she needs emergency treatment!”

“Okay!” Lon cared not for the condition of the overgarment and forcefully ripped it open, dislodging every fastened button.

“Got it,” Lin snatched up a small, yellow plastic box that had fallen by her feet.

“God dammit,” muttered Cat; to add urgency to the scenario they were being tailed again, now not just by motorcycles, but seemingly a convoy of military-esque vehicles. “Hold on tight back there, I’m gonna double the speed limit!”

Lin climbed with the yellow box into the back of the car and sat on the edge of the seat by Eve’s waist. “Hurry, lift her shirt!”

Lon would have been embarrassed to do so had her condition not been so severe. He rapidly pulled Eve’s shirt towards himself, lifting it over her chest.

“Stop there,” Lin said as she opened the box, “try not to move her neck,” she spotted the burn mark where the baton had hit Eve, “that thing he used isn’t just electrified, it oscillates too; the pulses might have broken some of her bones”.

“What?!” Lon began to fear for the life of his friend.

“If that has happened, this might make it worse,” Lin handed him an electrode. “Put this above her right breast,” she instructed as she placed the other on side of the bottom of Eve’s left ribcage.

“Wait, I can’t touch her when you shock her”.

“Right, so we need to lay her as flat on the seat as possible”.

“But you said not to move her neck!”

“Dammit Lon! The longer we take, the more likely she’ll die!”

“Okay!”

Lin, sitting awkwardly in the right passenger footwell with the inactive baton and Eve’s bulletless briefcase gun, her hair flailing about in the strong wind emerging through the still-open window, lifted Eve’s feet onto the seat and rested her knees on the back of the seat bent upwards, then began to pull her body away from Lon as he held Eve’s head and neck straight.

“Guys!” Cat shouted to them. “I can see traffic coming up, it might get a bit bumpy soon!”

A sudden jolt shook them and the boom of an explosion roared in through the open window, immersing the three passengers in oven-like heat. Pieces of tarmac peppered the inside of the car.

“What the-” Cat realised it was an explosive from behind. The pursuers were catching up. “Jesus, not this again! Are you guys alright?!”

“We’re fine!” shouted Lin as she checked over Lon with a glance, “I just don’t know about Eve”.

Cat closed the window before another explosion almost hit. That, coupled with the immediate traffic ahead, meant she had to take evasive
manoeuvres.

In the back, Eve was laying with her spine as straight as possible without support.

Lon ungracefully stood arched above her with his legs in the footwell and his hands propping himself up on the back of the rear seat.

Lin turned on the AED and waited as it analysed Eve’s pulse. “Ready to administer shock,” it stated audibly after some seconds, and the instant she began to put pressure on the ‘shock’ button the car jarred sharply to the right into the path of oncoming traffic, caused by the forced avoidance of another explosive, resulting in Eve’s limp body shifting and her neck twisting as her head struck the interior of the door.

“Fuck!” shouted Cat as she steered hard back into the correct lane, “The closer they get, the more accurate they are!”

“Shit, her neck is twisted!” exclaimed a disquieted Lon.

“Don’t waste time, straighten it!” Lin commanded.

He did so as cautiously as achievable in his celerity, and Lin jammed her thumb down onto the ‘shock’ button as he pulled away.

Eve’s body convulsed suddenly as her muscles contracted, thrusting her chest into the air, and then down again as the electric pulse dispersed.

Lon locked eyes with Lin. “Did it work?”

“Analysing pulse, do not touch the patient,” informed the machine.

Ahead of issuing another shock, the car was coerced by further weapons fire into an acute anti-clockwise spin, radically shortening the distance between the vehicles engaged in pursuit.

“Ready to administer shock, stand clear of the patient”.

The first junction on their side of the road since escaping from the Science Centre was close; so close, in fact, that prior to the vehicle completely coming to a stop towards the end of its reeling, Cat accelerated hard in its direction and cut the corner much in the same way as she did on her last turn.

These tight and abrupt movements harshly pushed the passengers around, culminating in a tangle of bodies about the back seat: Eve’s body twisted and her left arm swinging over the edge, Lin weighted against the driver’s side back door, the majority of Lon’s upper body mass pressed against her chest, and one of Eve’s legs in between the two, her knee so close to Lon’s face as he lifted himself up from Lin that it struck him on the nose with the next convulsion set off by the AED.