The Neo-Spartans: Altered World (40 page)

              Quinn stared at him and now she noticed his bleary eyes and defeated posture. The hollow sensation that accompanies all bad news suddenly obliterated every trace of her previous excitement. Gabriel tried to steady his gaze and braced himself for the news he was about to deliver. Quinn started shaking her head even before he opened his mouth.

              “He’s gone, Quinn. Kilbert is gone.”

              She felt the pressure of tears in her eyes and she fought them. She had to or otherwise even one would break the dam and there would be no stopping.

              “How?” Quinn gripped his hand hard.

              “Grisner. Last night.”

              Quinn clenched her teeth. Her grief quickly morphed into a desire for revenge. Grisner had to be removed. She had to do something before he got the chance to decimate their community. Her mind whirred as she tried to think of something fast. What could possibly give her the upper hand against a guy who had power, resources and experience on his side? She looked at Gabriel who was staring back at her, trying to figure out what this crazed look in her eyes was all about. She wasn’t looking for an answer from him, she just wanted to get that feeling of sibling power, that they were together in this, that she was not alone. It was strange, a few weeks ago she never would’ve turned to Gabriel as a source of support. If anything he had been a source of frustration. The fights and arguments they’d had. They all flashed in front of her eyes. And suddenly the solution came to her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

              Quinn stood in a big city plaza, senses alive, looking around, waiting to be spotted. She knew she didn’t have to wait too long. The place was probably watched by a dozen cameras. It was a key artery through which city life flowed, and those who wanted to keep tabs on the citizenry were doing so with a vengeance. She had chosen the plaza because the crowds that had gathered there offered her protection. She would be spotted, but no police car could swoop in and grab her. If she was right about Grisner, he’d come in and deal with her himself. He was on a personal quest and his pride wouldn’t allow somebody else to handle his business.

              Her eyes were beginning to hurt from the constant scanning of faces, when Quinn finally got that uneasy feeling that somebody, who was not interested in her well-being, was somewhere close. She turned every direction, making an effort not to appear frantic, but feeling the urge to spot her pursuer before he got too close. When she finally made him, Grisner was less than a hundred yards away. Quinn moved into the denser part of the crowd, putting some distance between herself and Grisner, her goal the multi-level shopping center at the edge of the plaza. The center provided an amazing number of connections to the rest of the city that only the Neo-Spartans knew. It was often used as a training ground for evasive escapes for the younger members of the community. Except, Quinn wasn’t going to lose Grisner. She was going to dangle herself like the proverbial carrot and, with any luck, take him to where she wanted him to be.

              She reached the shopping center and took the exterior stairs to its third floor, merging with a crowd of Eugenic teenagers on their way to the movie theater. She saw Grisner lengthen his stride, to catch up, but reluctant to draw attention by running up the stairs. The minute Quinn reached the third level, she looked around and walked into a clothing store for the hip and young. She was certain that Grisner’s instinct and training would make him conclude she’d chosen this store as a hiding place. Quinn sashayed her way to a young sales assistant, and produced her most innocently seductive smile.

              “I hate to be a pest, but could I possibly use the restroom? The one on this level is too far away and I’m dying to try on those cute shorts from your new collection.” She kept smiling and switching her weight from leg to leg, making her hips thrust out, carefully watching the assistant go through the mental motion of picturing Quinn in the shorts. Once he got there, he nodded and guided her to his station where he handed her the employee key. She blinded him with a grateful smile, and disappeared toward the back of the store. All Neo-Spartans knew that the employee restrooms were in the same area where the storage was, and that deep in the back of it was an emergency exit, to the various levels of the structure. Which is exactly where Quinn went. She reached level two, and dashed into some boutique’s storage area. From there, she emerged into the boutique, and meandered around with an empty stare, making her presence more believable, and casually walked out.

              Up the stairs to the third level, past the trendy teen store she had just left and along the shopping center corridor. She was halfway down it when she turned back to check the entrance to the store. Enough time had passed for Grisner to have ransacked it in a relatively calm manner. Baffled and irked, he would leave the store, cursing himself for missing some minor detail. As if on cue, Grisner came out of the front entrance with more urgency than he intended to telegraph. Quinn started moving, without looking back, knowing full well he was already following her. She could tell his pace was fast and brisk, and smiled. Yep, he was annoyed and getting impatient. It was time to really give him the run around.

              Quinn spotted the set of elevators at the end of the corridor and headed there. Grisner tried to carve his way through the sea of teenagers, eyes zeroed in on Quinn. But before she got there, Quinn ducked into a fast food joint, and immediately left it, hiding behind a group of kids, and slid into an elevator. Grisner stopped at the fast food joint, scanning for his target. He didn’t see Quinn get aboard. She was on her way to the bottom floor, and through the glass walls of the moving car she could see Grisner looking to the floor below in search of her.

              His face was red and sweaty. The elevator stopped and everybody got out, Quinn in the center of the group with people wrapped around her like a sushi roll. It took Grisner some time to spot her again, and by that time she was already making it out of the shopping center and onto the promenade that ran along it. The city surveillance cameras would give him feedback on her position, so she hurried along and made a couple of turns around an adjacent parking structure, and disappeared in the back alleys.

              Grisner was looking at the surveillance images sent to his smart device. The girl had popped briefly on the screens when she swerved away from the promenade and into the alleyways. A grin broke the taut surface of his irritation; she was smart and well trained, the Neo-Spartans had really upped the level of their evasion techniques, but he had chased many criminals in the alleyways behind the shopping center and he could follow their labyrinth with his eyes closed. The back alleys provided access to three possible outlets. One was a major thoroughfare with busy fast traffic and countless numbers of city cameras, the second was a loop through a nice residential area and the third took you to a series of green parks, the city council’s desperate attempt at keeping some kind of vegetation alive in this forest of concrete and glass.

              Grisner imagined Quinn would opt for the parks. It was something Neo-Spartans were naturally drawn to, and the lack of cameras and the cover of the trees would make her think she was safe there. Grisner strode through the alleys leading to the parks with the assurance of somebody who’s guaranteed to win. He was oblivious to the fact that two alleys in the opposite direction from where he was, Quinn was fast footing it toward the busy thoroughfare. She was taking a huge risk, she knew that, but it was part of the plan. Right now, she was busy calculating how quickly she could get to the boulevard before the cameras sent a signal to Grisner. She stopped at the corner of the alley and the boulevard, quickly peeked around and zeroed in on a sleek café, approximately four hundred yards away from the corner. Twenty or thirty motorcycles were parked in front of it, half of them occupying the sidewalk. The place was a famous hang-out for privileged but somewhat rebellious Eugenics. Quinn had to reach the café as fast as possible without running, steal a bike, and peel off before the police motorized units got to her. She was still relying heavily on Grisner’s super-inflated ego that would insist on personally pursuing her. But since she had lost him in the labyrinth of the back alleys, she had no way of knowing how close he was or how quickly he could get to her once the cameras located her.

              Quinn pulled back her hair, ditched everything she’d been wearing since she left the Sanctuary in an attempt to make herself look different, and stepped around the corner when a group of pedestrians passed by her. She seamlessly merged with them, making it hard for the city cameras to isolate her. She covered half of the distance with the help of this human pack, but when they reached their final destination—a utilitarian looking office building—Quinn remained solo on the sidewalk.

              A bus arrived at a nearby stop and when the crowd spilled out of it, Quinn quickly merged with them and proceeded toward the café. She got to the parked bikes and frantically searched for one that had the ignition key. In the middle of the lot, she saw the dangling key chain in one metallic blue beauty of a bike. Perfect. She jumped on it, started the engine, revved it, and peeled away. She flew onto the boulevard, ducking traffic and struggling to keep her balance. Her blood and adrenalin were pumping through her heart as if somebody had revved her engine, and she became pure speed and desire to escape. She blasted though red lights, anxious to put some distance between her and any police units she might not have detected.

              Grisner’s smart device beeped, indicating he’d received a video update. He cursed. The city cams had captured Quinn’s image and he was nowhere near the location where she had been spotted. The fact that she was a step ahead of him didn’t excite him anymore. It rattled his macho confidence and all he wanted right now was to be done with her. Captured or killed, it didn’t matter. He simply wanted the Quinn problem gone. He checked the device, saw the streak that she left across his screen as she blasted through an intersection, and called the nearest motorized unit. In no time, the vehicle screeched to a halt right in front of him. Grisner unceremoniously yanked the officer out and took possession of the car. He gunned it through the streets of downtown, taking shortcuts through gas stations and over sidewalks until he got to the wide lanes of the thoroughfare where Quinn had burned some rubber minutes ago.

              The distant roar of the Special Defense Forces vehicle filtered through the city noise and reached Quinn’s ears. Grisner was on her trail. She slowed down a bit and looked ahead. The boulevard stretched to the outskirts where the urban neglect met the barren land and ended there. Quinn roared down the street at full speed, aiming for the desert landscape just beyond the city limit. She flew past blocks and blocks of nasty urban fringe, smelling the dry dust the wind kicked off the barren land. Her heart was beating with excitement. Just a little more and she’d reach her final goal. Grisner’s vehicle was right behind her, pursuing with merciless velocity.

              When the front tire of Quinn’s bike hit the dry, caked up land, Quinn hugged the bike and she shot forward like a bullet. Grisner’s vehicle was dangerously close. She could feel its hot gasoline breath and she tested the speed capacity of her bike. It was scary and heady and she closed her eyes because she didn’t want to be intimidated by how fast she was moving. The bounce from the uneven terrain rattled her body and she began to doubt how long she could sustain this. But then, Quinn felt the cool shaft of air that brushed her cheeks and she opened her eyes. A smile of relief blossomed on her anxious face. A hundred yards away was the Triffid Forest in all its wild Jurassic-like glory. She slowed down for the final stretch, turned off the engine and jumped off, dumping the bike to the ground. Grisner’s vehicle plowed over it and headed for Quinn, but she reached the edge of the forest and entered it. The giant fronds sprang to life and spat their gooey secretions on the car’s windshield. The corrosive effect was instant. The glass melted in sections as if it were heated plastic. Grisner jumped out of the car and backed off to make sure he didn’t become the target for the next Triffid spit. He kept his eyes on Quinn who simply stood there at the edge of the forest.

              “You can’t hide from me, Quinn. It won’t work. I will get you, no matter what. I’m not going to be stopped by a bunch of plants.” He headed for the forest, ignoring the angry hissing that came from all sides. He willed himself to calm down the murderous rage that stormed inside, took a deep breath and crossed into Triffid territory. Quinn was slowly backing away, keeping her eyes on Grisner and the area surrounding him. The plants were alive with activity, roots and branches spidering their way around him, weaving a roadblock of foliage in his path. Quinn hadn’t seen this behavior before. She worried that the plants were not attacking. Grisner read her apprehension.

              “You’ve got the great Declan to blame for this. Bottom line is, he was a trusting fool, sharing all your primitive monkeys’ secrets. He told me about the darn forest…” A tendril unspooled from a nearby tree and smacked Grisner in the back. He stumbled and was about to curse but stifled the urge.

              “Empty your mind, have good thoughts, yes, you’ve been trained how to do that since you were kids. You think nobody else can have this kind of discipline? Good thoughts, yes, I’ll be having all kinds of good thoughts about you Quinn, while we walk through this jungle ’til you run out of Triffid acreage to hide in. In fact, I have nothing but good intentions toward you.”