The World After (16 page)

Shimi Levy also wanted to see what the Yuyuan had built for themselves. He ordered the pilot to call a boat to pick him up and take him there.

Lucifer reached the communication center, or at least what was left of it, and joined his seven brothers, who were using their unnatural strength to quickly clear the rocks blocking the tunnel. They had done a great job; it looked like any minute now they would be able to go through. Suddenly, Lucifer waved everyone to stop working and listened intensely. His amazing hearing abilities detected a monotonous ticking sound, just like from a clock.

A second later, for the first time in his life, panic crept in his voice as he shouted, “Quick, everyone out!”

Without asking any questions, the seven archangels followed their leader towards the surface.

Suddenly, a chain of explosions made everything collapse, causing a major earth tremor as an aftermath.

Up on the surface of the lake, Shimi Levy was heading on top of a boat towards the entrance of the city when the water under it exploded and lifted the whole four-ton machine high in the air. Shimi Levy's eyes widened in horror.

* * *

Jinhun and Taylor were running as fast they could through the rough field. On one side they had the forest and the constantly growing number of soldiers emerging from the trees, and on the other their retreat was blocked by a wide and very long stretch of open water. They were moving parallel with the forest, and the line of soldiers had fired several warning shots already but were still unable to surround the two men. That said, the distance between the two groups was closing fast, and the two tired men were running out of time.

A humming sound came from behind them. Glancing over his shoulder, Jinhun saw that the origin of the noise was a military speed boat equipped with deadly machine guns. The two men squeezed the last resources of energy left in their bodies to increase the tempo but their legs were no match for the machine's engine. It was only a matter of seconds before they were within range of the deadly weapons.

Taylor pulled Jinhun's sleeve to the right and, without waiting to see if his Chinese friend would follow him, jumped in the water. With two energetic kicks, he disappeared for the time being from the view of the soldiers and the boat in between a small cluster of bamboo. Jinhun's head appeared next to his only seconds later.

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but for the last few yards of our run I felt the ground under us moving,” Taylor said.

“You're right. We were not on solid ground. Just a thick layer of branches, leaves and mud forming a floating surface on top of the water.”

“So if we swim under it, we might be able to find an opening on the other side? By my calculations, this stretch is no longer than thirty feet. If we succeed, we'll be behind the soldiers too.” Taylor was talking quickly as the sound from the boat was increasing.

“Yes, but what you're suggesting is extremely risky. We don't know at all if there's a way out on the other side, plus the visibility down under will be near zero with all the mud.”

At this moment, a trace of bullets ripped the water surface just inches away from where they were.

“I'll try my luck.” Taylor grinned to the other man and, without further discussion, dove under the water. Jinhun took a deep breath and followed him, a second before another line of bullets ripped the bamboo to pieces.

What they were trying to do was extremely risky and nearly impossible, and all Jinhun was able to do was to try and not lose sight of Taylor's legs. They went under the motor boat, and after that the light disappeared and visibility dropped drastically. Due to the huge amount of rotting waste, Taylor was lifting a lot of mud from the bottom, and eventually Jinhun had no choice but to close his eyes and continue making progress in darkness.

His lungs started to burn. He opened his eyes to orientate, but apart from mud and swimming pieces of plants, he wasn't able to see anything. There was no trace of Taylor. Jinhun felt that he was about to open his mouth and breathe in a deadly amount of water when a hand appeared from above him, grabbed his collar and pulled him upwards.

A second later he was gasping for air and spitting mud. Somehow, this crazy plan succeeded. After restoring his composure, Jinhun's senses returned. He saw Taylor sheltered right next to a tuft of grass, watching intensely the Indian soldiers and the boat searching for them in the water on the other side.

“We must move, soon they'll figure it out. Are you okay?” He turned towards Jinhun.

“Yeah, thanks to you.”

“No problem.” Taylor turned his attention back to the search party that was spreading up and down the other shore as they talked. “Very soon, they'll call for air support and more boats and we'll be found. We must be out and away before that.”

Jinhun had the time to look at their surroundings. He said, “I suggest we follow the shore while in the water for about quarter of a mile west. There I can see mangroves. Their roots and leaves should provide us the needed cover to retreat. If I'm not mistaken, the mangrove forest will take us right to end of the swamps and it's the woods after that.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Let's go.” Taylor led the way, holding one hand to the shore and diving underwater in the passages where the grass was too short and they could have been seen.

It took them half an hour to reach the mangroves, but they did that undetected, and after pulling themselves out of the water, they continued forward through the indescribable tangle of branches.

The very difficult conditions between all these entangled branches made their progress very slow. With them trying not to make noise, they were nowhere near the end of the swamps when the first choppers flew over their heads.

The two men were also very tired after all the effort of the last few days. Once Taylor slipped and dropped with a splash in the water for the third time, they had to stop and rest.

“We can't continue like this, we'll never make it,” Taylor said.

“You're right. Night will fall even before we make it out of the mangroves, and we can't risk traveling in darkness through this chaos. Not to mention that even if we reach the woods, we'll be left with no energy.”

“How far are we from the mountain and that cave?”

“I'd say around ten miles.”

“By any chance do you have any other transport hidden somewhere around?”

“I'm afraid not.” Jinhun forced a smile despite their grim situation.

“We must think of something else,” Taylor said more to himself.

“I'm afraid that we won't make it even if we keep going. They won't wait for us in the caves forever, and I can't see us covering all that distance in time.”

They stopped talking as a slow moving military boat glided near them, out in the open water next to the mangroves. They froze in their places not to be noticed and soon the boat passed them.

“I have an idea. Follow me.” Taylor started making his way carefully towards the edge of the mangroves.

The two men sheltered themselves just on the edge of the trees, finding branches that hung only inches above the water. About ten minutes after they did, the same boat came back their way, still moving very slowly and observing the cluster of trees for the runaways. At this point, Jinhun retreated back in amongst the trees.

The five soldiers in the boat livened up when they spotted the red-haired man they were looking for. Taylor looked as if he had just climbed on the end branch when from the boat came a shout for him to freeze. He simply obeyed as they quickly made their way to him.

The man maneuvering the boat picked up a radio and started shouting something while the other four soldiers moved to the side nearer to the mangroves and pointed their weapons at Taylor. He lifted his hands high in the air as the boat slowed down and moved close to him.

The moment the engine stopped, Jinhun pulled himself on board from the other side where nobody was observing. At the sound, he made everyone turned instinctively. Taylor waited for this and jumped forward with his hands held together like a hammer. He neutralized the nearest man when hitting him as hard as he could in the back.

He was also quicker than the next soldier, and as the Indian was turning towards , Taylor's fist hit him in the face and sent him backwards. As the helpless man was falling, Taylor managed to grab his machine gun and turn the muzzle towards the third solider who was hit by three lethal bullets. After that Taylor fell behind the body of the solider he had just hit as the strap of the gun was still over the soldier's shoulder. When he got back up to look around, he saw with relief that Jinhun had dealt with the other two men. This brave attack by the two men happened in just a few seconds.

Without wasting any time, they pushed the bodies over board and, using the manual control still available on all military equipment, they turned the engine on.

“How do we increase the speed?” Taylor asked as he was holding the steering wheel.

“Here.” Jinhun pointed. “But first you have to switch off the computer controller waiting for commands from implants.”

“How?”

Jinhun simply lifted the gun he took from the soldier and fired at the brown box at the rear of the boat.

“Now you're manually controlling everything. That's why all military vehicles still have it, in case something like that happens.”

Taylor upped their speed to the maximum, and very quickly the boat's front lifted in the air as it sped through the narrow channel, slicing the surface with calm smoothness. Jinhun gathered all the weapons they kept and, before moving to the rear, said, “Just keep on straight. The swamps will simply end in about three miles, and after that we'll be on foot. I'd say we'll be there in less than five minutes.”

After that he made himself comfortable at the back and lined up all the weapons so they could be in arm's reach. As they anticipated, their journey wasn't going to be smooth and uninterrupted. Less than two minutes had passed since they took control of the boat when three similar motor boats appeared behind them. Jinhun wasn't particularly worried about them because they kept the same speed as them and the distance remained safe, but his eyes narrowed as two much bigger military boats equipped with machine guns and a cannon moved ahead and slowly but surely started eating the distance. His other worry was a fast approaching helicopter from their right.

A minute later, the two big boats were close enough and opened fire. The two cannons sent missiles right in front of the boat, obviously to try and slow them. The two men had to confess this worked, as Taylor was forced to veer left and right and this killed a lot of their speed. Immediately after that, the men behind the big machine guns on top of the boats opened fire, and Jinhun had to seek cover as at least a dozen bullets ripped the metal of their boat.

They were nearly level with the two big boats and had hardly gone half of the distance to the shore. Jinhun had no chance to return fire as he had to seek cover. Now the distance also allowed the soldiers to fire at him. At least the armor of the engine near him was holding and many bullets ricocheted off it.

Jinhun was curled up behind it and in his hands he held a small grenade launcher. It had two muzzles and was able to fire simultaneously from both. A second of no fire was enough for him to quickly jump to his knee. Without having any time to aim, he simply stabilized the weapon and two grenades went up in the air as he quickly dropped back to seek cover. Two explosions and human cries hinted to him that he had succeeded. He peaked out again to see burning people jumping over board from the boat.

The effect this had was immediate. Realizing that the runaways were heavily armed, the two boats slowed down and allowed a safe distance to open. Taylor shouted that he was able to see the shore ahead of them and that soon they must think about leaving the boat.

Jinhun got up and ran to the front to join his companion while the helicopter got near enough to open fire. They were in serious trouble again.

“Give me that.” Taylor grabbed the grenade launcher from Jinhun, leaving in his other hand a gun. “When I say, you jump in the water from the right side but don't swim towards the shore as they expect, just stay in one place under water.”

Jinhun nodded, and shouting over the roar of the engine, Taylor ordered, “Now!”

The two men left the boat trying to jump as far away from its dangerous bottom as they could. Taylor looked around him when he was under the water's surface and, with relief, spotted Jinhun not too far away. At this moment, the surface over them lit up and a loud explosion was heard as their boat crashed into the shore. They felt the wave even under the water.

Using his hands, Taylor indicated to Jinhun to swim to the surface for air and dive back. The Chinaman noticed that his companion deliberately delayed his kick towards the surface and wondered why, but in a second his head popped up and he opened his mouth spitting water. Jinhun didn't have much time. The helicopter was right over his head and he was very lucky to disappear under the water again just before several gunshots ripped the surface where his head was. The pilot lowered the machine even closer to the water to give the shooters a better chance. At this moment, Taylor's head appeared several feet from where Jinhun had popped up just a second ago. The soldier on the edge of the chopper's open door noticed him, but Taylor was quicker and a grenade flew towards the flying machine as the red-haired man disappeared again under the water's surface.

Taylor was kicking hard downwards when the burning helicopter landed with a massive splash in the water and started sinking fast. The two men didn't wait to see if there would be survivors, and using strong underwater kicks, they headed towards the nearby shore. They showed their heads on the surface only when they reached the shallow waters. They were pleased to see that the water's entire surface behind them was covered by burning remains or burning fuel that was providing great cover for their retreat. Dark clouds of smoke were reducing the visibility significantly. With their boat also providing extra fire and smoke, it was impossible for the men on the boats to see them as they waded out of the water on solid ground and, with great leaps, disappeared in between the big trees.