Red to Fade (12 page)

Connor is sweating and speaks nervously to Gabrielle. “Now do you believe that people are trying to kill me?”

Gabrielle says, “Erm, yeah, I believe you. Open the middle seat.”

Connor opens the middle seat, which turns out to be a weapon compartment. In the weapon compartment there are morphian-manufactured machine guns and machine gun magazine clips. Morphian-manufactured assault weapons are more powerful and can fire more rounds than any other assault weapon built on Earth. ZX-53 is the name for each machine gun that is inside the weapons compartment. The ZX-53 looks like the Austrian Steyr AUG assault rifle.

Connor sees the ZX-53s and says, “That's what I'm talking about!”

He takes out a ZX-53 for himself and gives another to Gabrielle.

*

Joel and his crew are on the same superhighway as Gragon. They can see Gragon driving from a distance. In the R1LEV that Charles is driving, Joel is a left-hand side back seat passenger and Johnson, the IT guy, is a right-hand side back seat passenger. Attached to the roof of the R1LEV above Joel is an R1LEV GPS (Global Positioning System) navigator screen.

Joel sees from the GPS navigator that the first two and last two lanes of the eight-lane superhighway rise up to a higher level. Joel thinks that if he had two R1LEVs driving on the first two lanes and two R1LEVs driving on the last two lanes, his troops would get a better aim at the R1LEV that Connor is in from their elevated position. Hogan, Martinez and Henderson are driving some of the R1LEVs.

Joel says, “I'm going to need two R1LEVs on the first two lanes on the left and two on the last two lanes on the right; the remaining four R1LEVs, follow Connor on the four lanes between them. The method that is used to make an RBM explode by bullets is also the method that can be used to blow up an R1LEV. The first and last two lanes rise up to a higher level; I think we will get a better shot at Connor from a higher ground. Hogan, Martinez, you take the left, Charles and Henderson you take the right.”

Everyone replies, “Yes, sir!”

Hogan and Martinez drive on the first two lanes and Charles and Henderson drive on the last two. The drivers on the first and last two lanes of the eight-lane superhighway are now driving up a road hill, elevating them to a higher level than the lanes between them.

There are hazard lanes on the left- and right-hand sides of the first and last two lanes. The hazard lanes are the same size as a superhighway lane.

Joel says, “OK, Hogan, Martinez, I need you to drive on the hazard lane that's on the right-hand side of the road you're driving on. Charles and Henderson, I need you to drive on the hazard lane that's on the left-hand side of the road you're driving on.”

All of the drivers move to the hazard lanes they were told to drive on; and as they're driving on the hazard lanes, they are driving past cars. There is a small wall beside the hazard lanes to protect vehicles from driving off and falling onto the road that Gragon is driving on. Henderson is driving in front of Charles and Martinez is driving in front of Andrew Hogan. An estimated distance in height between the road that Gragon is driving on and the hazard lanes that the agents are driving on is about the height of a three-storey office building.

Joel says, “All drivers drive fast and all shooters, kill this piece of shit!”

The agents driving on the hazard lanes on high ground put the pedal to the metal and drive at a very fast speed; they're gaining on Gragon. They start to get very close. The agents driving on the same road as Gragon are getting closer too. Some agents wind down the windows and pop out of the sunroofs of the R1LEVs that are driving on higher ground and aim their machine guns at the R1LEV that Gragon is driving in. Agents armed with machine guns in the R1LEVs on the hazard lanes that are on higher ground open fire on Gragon; the shots fired from their guns create little sparks as they hit Gragon's R1LEV, and small blowouts of shattered substance as they hit the road.

The agents driving on the same road as Gragon are very close now. They wind down their windows and pop out, aiming and firing their machine guns at the R1LEV that Gragon is driving.

Connor shouts, “Wait till they stop firing and have to reload!”

After a number of minutes the agents stop firing and need to reload.

Connor notices and shouts, “Now let's fire at the guys who are on higher ground.”

Connor and Gabrielle wind down their door windows and open fire with their machine guns. Gabrielle is firing at the agents who are on the hazard lane of the last two higher lanes and Connor is firing at the agents who are on the first two. Their gun shells create little explosions of debris as they hit the concrete of the wall of the first and last two higher lanes.

Gabrielle strikes one of the agents in the back of Henderson's R1LEV. Connor hits one of the agents in the R1LEV that Martinez is driving. The agent that Connor impaled falls out of the sunroof and hits the road that Gragon is driving on. A car runs over the dead agent who fell from the sunroof. Connor and Gabrielle need to reload, so they wind up their windows and start to reload their weapons.

Connor says, “Let them fire first and wait up until they have to reload again.”

The agents on the same road as Gragon fire their weapons and hit the tyres of the R1LEV that Gragon is driving. The ammunition fired from the agents' weapons blow out the tyres of the R1LEV. After the tyres of the R1LEV burst the R1LEV is still able to advance at a fast velocity because the R1LEV has alloy wheels with a grip that are similar to the metallic wheels of an RBM. Tyres are used to hinder the R1LEV alloy wheels from destroying the tarmac surface.

Joel says, “Henderson and Martinez, drive faster ahead of Connor.”

Henderson and Martinez reply, “Yes, sir!”

They do what they are told to do. They're now a couple of miles ahead of Connor. The agents that are on the same road as Gragon open fire with their machine guns at Gragon's R1LEV. Agents in Charles and Andy's R1LEVs also open fire on Gragon.

Joel says, “All agents in Martinez and Henderson's car, open fire on the cars in front of Connor.”

Joel wants to do this so that the cars in front of Connor will crash into each other, creating a barricade, or maybe crash into Connor, slowing down the R1LEV that Connor's in or bringing it to a complete halt. All of the agents that are in the R1LEVs in the hazard lanes open fire on the cars that are in front of Connor.

Civilian cars that are driving in front of Gragon are getting hit by firearm projectiles. As their drivers are also hit, they're swerving left and right, crashing into other cars. Gragon drives around and avoids the civilian cars that are crashing into one another.

A few miles in front of Gragon there is a truck with a trailer. On both sides of the trailer it says
Grey Join
. The morphians call cement ‘grey join'. The trailer is filled with bags of cement. An agent in Henderson's R1LEV opens fire on the truck driver. The truck and its driver get punctured by ammo; the driver dies instantly. The dead truck driver slumps over the steering wheel, making the truck and trailer swerve to the right. A lot of civilian drivers slam the brakes on in their vehicles to avoid hitting the truck and trailer that are swerving to the right. Vehicles are crashing into one another. Car lights and windows are being smashed to pieces. Car doors, boots and engines are getting damaged.

Gragon drives past the truck. The truck misses Gragon by a couple of inches. The truck and trailer are blocking all cars from driving past. The truck and trailer fall on their side. The four R1LEVs loaded with agents smash through them. One R1LEV smashes through the truck. Steel and truck parts fly everywhere. The other three R1LEVs smash through the trailer, making cement powder and parts of the trailer fly everywhere. When the four R1LEVs land on the ground they roll along on the road. When they come to a complete halt, some R1LEVs have landed upright and some have landed upside down. The roads of the first and last two lanes that Andrew, Martinez, Charles and Henderson are driving on will eventually go down a road hill to an underground tunnel. A freeway bridge with busy traffic is joined to the tunnel.

The freeway bridge is above the underground tunnels. The hazard lanes that Andrew, Martinez, Charles and Henderson are driving on are also joined to the hazard lanes of the freeway bridge. The hazard lanes that Andrew, Martinez, Charles and Henderson are driving on don't go down a hill; they go straight. The reason the hazard lanes are joined to those of the freeway bridge is because emergency medical team vehicles can get to crash sites faster.

The road that Gragon is driving on goes straight underneath the freeway bridge. Joel looks at the GPS navigator again. He sees that the hazard lanes that Andrew, Martinez, Charles and Henderson are driving on are joined to the hazard lanes of the freeway bridge. Joel says to himself,
If someone doesn't stop soon they're going to crash into the car traffic on the eight-lane freeway bridge.

Joel shouts in a panic, “Everyone driving on the hazard lanes, stop now!”

All drivers driving on the hazard lanes slam on the brakes. Henderson and Martinez slam on too late. They skid onto the freeway bridge and crash into a car, which crashes into other cars. It's total chaos! Cars on the eight-lane freeway bridge are crashing into each other. Some cars are flying in the air. A truck with a trailer full of cars falls on its side, making the cars on the trailer fly in the air and crash into other cars.

A truck with a Gryogel tank brakes, skids and swerves to the left. Three cars crash into the Gryogel tank, creating a giant explosion.
KABOOM!
Turbulence from the giant fiery explosion makes cars fly everywhere. Gragon drives underneath the freeway bridge and past the crash. Some of the cars that are on fire and flying through the air from the explosion on the freeway bridge are landing on the same road that Gragon has been driving on.

Connor hears the giant explosion and turns around to look out the back window. He sees the giant explosion from a distance, and the cars landing on the same road that Gragon has been driving on.

Connor says to himself, “Jesus Christ!”

Agents riding along with Henderson and Martinez are dead. Henderson and Martinez are also dead. The agents in Andy and Charles' R1LEVs are still alive.

Joel says, “Everyone drive into the underground tunnels. I don't want to stick around and have to explain this shit.”

Andy and Charles do exactly what Joel says; they reverse on the hazard lanes, then drive onto the roads that lead to the underground tunnels, into the tunnels and away from the crash site.

*

Connor turns around to Gabrielle and Gragon and says, “There's nobody back there; nobody's following us.”

Connor pulls out the planet communicator from the inside pocket of his jacket and dials Dylan's number. Dylan is in his house making a cup of coffee in his kitchen. He can hear his planet communicator ringing. Dylan answers the planet communicator.

Dylan says, “Hello?”

Connor says, “Dylan, it's Connor. These assholes are still able to track us somehow. We just survived a huge shootout. Can you do some hacking to see if anybody is tracking us?”

Dylan says, “I'll see if anybody is using any tracking software in the FBI building. Hold on a second.”

Dylan runs up to his IT room and turns on his equipment. As soon as his IT equipment is powered on, Dylan gets to work and starts hacking into the FBI servers that are located in the FBI building where he works. Dylan sees from the programming code that the file tracker server program is operational and somebody is tracking the R-1 file.

Dylan hacks into the file tracker server program and makes the R-1 file untraceable.

*

Once Dylan has made the R-1 file untraceable, the red dot disappears from the Google-style map of the file tracker application loaded on Johnson's laptop. Johnson says, “Holy shit, the R-1 file locator just disappeared off the map!”

Joel says, “What?”

Johnson says, “The location of the R-1 file just disappeared!”

Joel says angrily, “Well, get it back on again!”

Johnson says, “Yeah, OK.” He works on his laptop and makes some calls to the FBI building in LA to get the R-1 file locator operational again.

Joel says, “That son of a bitch is getting help. Who were those pricks that were with him?”

Charles says, “I don't know. I couldn't ID any of them.”

Joel says, “Did anybody get the licence plate number of that R1LEV?”

Charles says, “No.”

Joel says, “It doesn't matter. It can't be too hard to find; it's driving without wheel covers.”

*

A number of minutes have passed since Dylan made the R-1 file untraceable. Dylan speaks into the planet communicator. “They were using file tracker to locate the R-1 file. I've made the file untraceable now.”

Connor says, shocked, “What?! I thought you said last night you couldn't find any tracking software being used, and that all of the IT servers in the LA FBI building were offline?”

Dylan says, “They were offline last night. I don't know, man, they must have fixed the servers and got the file tracker program up and running again. I'm going to the First Dome; you need my help.”

Connor says, “Having another soldier on my side would be great.”

Dylan says, “I'm on my way right now. I'll give you a call as soon as I land.”

Connor says, “Good. I'll see you soon.”

He hangs up and says to Gabrielle and Gragon, “They were able to track us by tracking the R-1 file on the disk. Dylan made the R-1 file untraceable. I think we're safe for now. We need to find a place to see what's on this disk.”

Gabrielle says, “I don't think we should try to open the file back at the station or in any other Red 1 law enforcement precinct. I'm thinking that maybe those guys are getting help from Red 1 law enforcement. Those agents were driving in R1LEVs. R1LEVs are driven by Red 1 law enforcement officers. We have to get off the road as quickly as possible; if they are getting help from Red 1 law enforcement they could have cops looking for us right now.”