Day 4
John was standing at the bars watching eagerly but not saying anything. Jamie was at her bars and wanting desperately to ask me what was going on, but seeing John stay quiet made her think that the less noise we made, the better. I went to her cell first and opened it, getting John next.
"Come on, I'll need your help carrying her" he said, moving over to Dana's cell.
"What? No, John, we can't move her. The doctor thought her head might be injured, it's not safe."
John turned back to me, fuming. "You'd better not be suggesting we leave her here, Derek, because I know you and her go back further than even you and me, and if you are suggesting that, then you're not in your right mind."
"Listen, that doctor came here from a hospital, and I'm betting he didn't come in some car." I was bluffing here, the doctor wasn't thinking of how he got here or how he'd get back, just the leisure time he was missing. This was just a guess. "I'm hoping he got here in an ambulance"
John nodded. "Works for me, let's get the hell out of here."
During the entire conversation, Jamie had been listening at the door. Smart move, given that if Shaw were to come by I wouldn't be able to warn anyone. I went over to the sleeping doctor and took his helmet off, then walked back to her, handing it over. "This won't work on me, but it's obvious our captor's got no reason to think they don't work, given he sent someone in here with one. So it'll probably work on him. We'll have to work fast, he'll be able to tell that John's there but he'll think you're lagging behind. Hopefully I can keep myself hidden."
They both nodded. Back in the siege, we'd all deferred to John and Dana, the two that had military training. Now that we were participating in a jailbreak, this was my territory.
I slid the ID through the reader and the door unlocked. I moved through it swiftly, not bothering to check if anyone was on the other side. If Shaw was there there wasn't anything I could do.
He wasn't - I was in a whitewashed corridor. The other end featured an unmanned booth where, if this had been an official prison and not someplace to throw subversives, a guard would be. I made my way up there and glanced in. The first good news was that, while there apparently several video cameras, none of them were working. The second good news was that the last time I'd had to escape, the place had a control board like the one I was looking at. Lockdown, alarms, remote triggering of the doors... the last one I activated quickly. As soon as they figured out the doctor was missing, they'd invalidate his card and we'd be stuck wherever we were. If my guess about this place was right, and they hadn't fully staffed it, chances were good they wouldn't notice the doors opening because there simply weren't that many of them.
Personally, I was hoping Shaw was it. Last time there'd been a token group of Troopers, but there'd been a lot more of us that time. This time, at least, I had a weapon.
The room on the other side of the corridor was a receiving area, though there was nobody being received at the moment. Shaw was sitting behind the counter, writing something down. Reading glasses on, head resting on one hand, he hardly looked the telepathic interrogator we had met mere hours before. Still, I knew how dangerous he could be.
I moved forward, quickly, drawing the stunner and aiming at him, squeezing the trigger.
Shaw didn't even look up. Just kept writing.
John exited the corridor behind me, and that got our warden's attention. He looked up instantly, frowning. "Out so soon?" he said, standing and drawing his own stunner. "I regret to tell you that Dana will pay for that." I'd never stopped hitting him with my own stunner. It was getting warm in my hand, and still he was standing. It shouldn't have taken half this long.
"Those won't work on me." He said, frowning and taking aim. "But mine will work on you."
He never got the chance to demonstrate. Jamie struck him with a baton right in the back of the head. He fell over, stunned but not down. John had closed the distance between us by this time too, and vaulted over the counter to help keep Shaw down.
"How do you like it, huh?" he shouted between hits. It took little time for our former captor to be put out of commission - though not permanently, as much as John might have liked it. Instead, I drug the body back to my cell, took the ID card, and locked him in.
John's tension and anger had evaporated, all of it apparently having been transferred kinetically to Shaw's face. Jamie had collapsed the baton and pointed me to the room which was apparently serving as a low-grade armory. There were other stunners - I took one that I hadn't depleted the battery of - some helmets, some batons and a shotgun or two. John took the latter and a helmet; Jamie seemed satisfied with the weapon she'd liberated.
The outside beckoned, but I didn't want to throw away a perfectly good escape by being careless now. I moved toward the doors and focused, trying to sense if anyone was there. I got nothing, but in the event there was another telepath outside, I had John do some reconnaissance.
There was nothing. The only person stationed here, apparently, had been Shaw. There were three vehicles in the parking lot - a van, a small car, and a Trooper vehicle. I swore under my breath, knowing instantly that the small car belonged to the doctor and of course the Trooper car belonged to the Trooper who'd been keeping us here. No ambulance, in other words.
I started examining the van, which proclaimed itself to be from the Paradise Valley Sheriff's department. It looked like it hadn't been used recently, but didn't look like it was abandoned. Probably belonged to whoever ran the place when the Troopers weren't around.
There was a grunting behind me. "Derek, hold up Jamie's end while she opens that thing up."
John and Jamie had apparently been busy. They were now both struggling to hold up the cot that Dana had been placed on upon arrival. It wasn't a stretcher, it probably wasn't even save to move her this way, but damn if they were going to listen to me. Now that we were free of the place, John was back in his element. I moved to Jamie's end of the cot and took over for her, while she moved to the back of the van, put a key in, and opened the door. Thankfully, the back was empty. John and I eased the cot into it. John was operating with a willful disregard for how this might not be the most advisable course from a medical standpoint. Dana was still fully unconscious, and not getting any better from what a brief contact could tell me. I opened my mouth to say something, and John looked at me with a glance that told me to shut it.
The van started. There was a mesh partition between the front seats of the van and the cargo area, and Jamie waved back at us. John hopped in to be next to Dana and keep an eye on her, while I closed the back doors and went around to the passenger side. Opening the door, I asked Jamie the question that had been burning in my mind the past several minutes; the question I could tell she wanted me to ask.
"Okay, you got me. How did you get the key?"
She smiled, considered continuing to be coy but discarded the idea given that I was a mind reader and would figure it out myself eventually.
"Sheriff kept a desk behind that counter. Kept these keys in one of the drawers. Shaw apparently thought it was a great place to put things, because this was there too." she handed over a small plastic device I recognized instantly as my father's PDA. It had been a journal to him, and had worked as a the same to me. I had figured the Troopers would have brought that back to their labs the instant they saw it, given how keen they seemed to learn anything they could about him. Yet Jamie had spotted it, recognized it for what it was, and brought it to me.
"You're a gift, you know that?" I said.
She just smiled in response, threw the van into gear, and started driving.
Full Post...
"Come on, I'll need your help carrying her" he said, moving over to Dana's cell.
"What? No, John, we can't move her. The doctor thought her head might be injured, it's not safe."
John turned back to me, fuming. "You'd better not be suggesting we leave her here, Derek, because I know you and her go back further than even you and me, and if you are suggesting that, then you're not in your right mind."
"Listen, that doctor came here from a hospital, and I'm betting he didn't come in some car." I was bluffing here, the doctor wasn't thinking of how he got here or how he'd get back, just the leisure time he was missing. This was just a guess. "I'm hoping he got here in an ambulance"
John nodded. "Works for me, let's get the hell out of here."
During the entire conversation, Jamie had been listening at the door. Smart move, given that if Shaw were to come by I wouldn't be able to warn anyone. I went over to the sleeping doctor and took his helmet off, then walked back to her, handing it over. "This won't work on me, but it's obvious our captor's got no reason to think they don't work, given he sent someone in here with one. So it'll probably work on him. We'll have to work fast, he'll be able to tell that John's there but he'll think you're lagging behind. Hopefully I can keep myself hidden."
They both nodded. Back in the siege, we'd all deferred to John and Dana, the two that had military training. Now that we were participating in a jailbreak, this was my territory.
I slid the ID through the reader and the door unlocked. I moved through it swiftly, not bothering to check if anyone was on the other side. If Shaw was there there wasn't anything I could do.
He wasn't - I was in a whitewashed corridor. The other end featured an unmanned booth where, if this had been an official prison and not someplace to throw subversives, a guard would be. I made my way up there and glanced in. The first good news was that, while there apparently several video cameras, none of them were working. The second good news was that the last time I'd had to escape, the place had a control board like the one I was looking at. Lockdown, alarms, remote triggering of the doors... the last one I activated quickly. As soon as they figured out the doctor was missing, they'd invalidate his card and we'd be stuck wherever we were. If my guess about this place was right, and they hadn't fully staffed it, chances were good they wouldn't notice the doors opening because there simply weren't that many of them.
Personally, I was hoping Shaw was it. Last time there'd been a token group of Troopers, but there'd been a lot more of us that time. This time, at least, I had a weapon.
The room on the other side of the corridor was a receiving area, though there was nobody being received at the moment. Shaw was sitting behind the counter, writing something down. Reading glasses on, head resting on one hand, he hardly looked the telepathic interrogator we had met mere hours before. Still, I knew how dangerous he could be.
I moved forward, quickly, drawing the stunner and aiming at him, squeezing the trigger.
Shaw didn't even look up. Just kept writing.
John exited the corridor behind me, and that got our warden's attention. He looked up instantly, frowning. "Out so soon?" he said, standing and drawing his own stunner. "I regret to tell you that Dana will pay for that." I'd never stopped hitting him with my own stunner. It was getting warm in my hand, and still he was standing. It shouldn't have taken half this long.
"Those won't work on me." He said, frowning and taking aim. "But mine will work on you."
He never got the chance to demonstrate. Jamie struck him with a baton right in the back of the head. He fell over, stunned but not down. John had closed the distance between us by this time too, and vaulted over the counter to help keep Shaw down.
"How do you like it, huh?" he shouted between hits. It took little time for our former captor to be put out of commission - though not permanently, as much as John might have liked it. Instead, I drug the body back to my cell, took the ID card, and locked him in.
John's tension and anger had evaporated, all of it apparently having been transferred kinetically to Shaw's face. Jamie had collapsed the baton and pointed me to the room which was apparently serving as a low-grade armory. There were other stunners - I took one that I hadn't depleted the battery of - some helmets, some batons and a shotgun or two. John took the latter and a helmet; Jamie seemed satisfied with the weapon she'd liberated.
The outside beckoned, but I didn't want to throw away a perfectly good escape by being careless now. I moved toward the doors and focused, trying to sense if anyone was there. I got nothing, but in the event there was another telepath outside, I had John do some reconnaissance.
There was nothing. The only person stationed here, apparently, had been Shaw. There were three vehicles in the parking lot - a van, a small car, and a Trooper vehicle. I swore under my breath, knowing instantly that the small car belonged to the doctor and of course the Trooper car belonged to the Trooper who'd been keeping us here. No ambulance, in other words.
I started examining the van, which proclaimed itself to be from the Paradise Valley Sheriff's department. It looked like it hadn't been used recently, but didn't look like it was abandoned. Probably belonged to whoever ran the place when the Troopers weren't around.
There was a grunting behind me. "Derek, hold up Jamie's end while she opens that thing up."
John and Jamie had apparently been busy. They were now both struggling to hold up the cot that Dana had been placed on upon arrival. It wasn't a stretcher, it probably wasn't even save to move her this way, but damn if they were going to listen to me. Now that we were free of the place, John was back in his element. I moved to Jamie's end of the cot and took over for her, while she moved to the back of the van, put a key in, and opened the door. Thankfully, the back was empty. John and I eased the cot into it. John was operating with a willful disregard for how this might not be the most advisable course from a medical standpoint. Dana was still fully unconscious, and not getting any better from what a brief contact could tell me. I opened my mouth to say something, and John looked at me with a glance that told me to shut it.
The van started. There was a mesh partition between the front seats of the van and the cargo area, and Jamie waved back at us. John hopped in to be next to Dana and keep an eye on her, while I closed the back doors and went around to the passenger side. Opening the door, I asked Jamie the question that had been burning in my mind the past several minutes; the question I could tell she wanted me to ask.
"Okay, you got me. How did you get the key?"
She smiled, considered continuing to be coy but discarded the idea given that I was a mind reader and would figure it out myself eventually.
"Sheriff kept a desk behind that counter. Kept these keys in one of the drawers. Shaw apparently thought it was a great place to put things, because this was there too." she handed over a small plastic device I recognized instantly as my father's PDA. It had been a journal to him, and had worked as a the same to me. I had figured the Troopers would have brought that back to their labs the instant they saw it, given how keen they seemed to learn anything they could about him. Yet Jamie had spotted it, recognized it for what it was, and brought it to me.
"You're a gift, you know that?" I said.
She just smiled in response, threw the van into gear, and started driving.
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posted by Roger Ostrander at 4:49 PM
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