Ntshona (8 page)

Lon and Eve had misjudged the distance, and in fact had gone into the next lane. Luckily for them the oncoming car had sheered off course and missed them, although it was certainly not lucky for the passengers involved in the collision.

Many pedestrians on the pavement beyond the road interrupted their introversive routines to witness the scene.

Both Lon and Eve were astounded by their fortune, yet at the same time were concerned about the crash victims before them.

The police car was halted in a line of traffic behind the accident site. The front door on either side opened and out came a policeman from each, both of whom were brandishing standard issue pistols, certainly ready to shoot.

“Bloody hell!” Lon yelled as he once more pulled Eve away from the site towards the pavement, which led round a corner and out of view of the policemen.

All they could do now was run hard and hope that the police would not catch up and try to blast them in a heavily pedestrianised area.

“What about the people in those cars?!” shouted Eve as she lagged behind Lon.

“I don’t think they were hurt”.

“But the driver’s side of the one car was destroyed!”

“Don’t worry,” reassured Lon, “that car was an automatic; the passengers were in the back”.

“I hope so!” shouted Eve, “otherwise they’ll have a real reason to be after us”.

Dodging people in the street was hard, especially at the speed Lon and Eve were trying to escape. Another difficulty was navigation; Lon did not have the opportunity to consult his palm screen as to where they should be going, so he had simply to rely on the mental map he was trying to draw in his mind earlier.

“I think we’re getting close to the coffee shop,” panted Lon as their feet hammered down the street towards the next intersection. “I think the next crossing is the last!”

They soon reached the intersection, and pushed themselves towards the front of the queue waiting to cross. They could do nothing but await their turn; the thought of performing the same dangerous act as only minutes before was more than daunting. They braced for a rapid dash at the first opportunity.

The pursuers had gained ground and were in close proximity, merely ten or so metres off Lon and Eve’s position. One of them fired.

A loud blast echoed from tall building to tall building, followed by shouts and screams of surprise and fear.

“Shit! Are they mental?!” Lon could not believe how careless these men were in such an overcrowded place, and why their efforts to apprehend them were so excessive.

“I think they want us dead!” screamed Eve. She was terrified.

People were scattering over the pavement and into the road. Cars were stopping to avoid colliding with them.

“The robots are green, let’s go!” shouted Lon, and the two ran across the road as the traffic lights switched colour.

Another shot was heard, followed by another, followed by more screaming, then another shot.

For Lon and Eve this scene was reminiscent of their previous night. At this rate, dodging bullets was to become a pastime of theirs. They made it across the road without any injuries and quickly disappeared from sight around the next corner.

More police sirens began to wail, the sounds emerging from different directions. It was like a death threat ringing through the streets.

Lon pulled Eve into a deserted alleyway where they stopped running and tried to regain their lost breath.

“We can’t,” panted Eve heavily, “we can’t stop here, look,” she pointed upwards to one of several visible cameras dotted along the lengthy passage.

Lon too was trying hard to breathe normally. “We have to stop somewhere, we can’t go straight to the cafe because we’ll be cornered,” he pressed both hands flat against the closest wall and tried to control his intake of breath. “I’ll call Tan and tell him”.

“Do you have his number?”

“Yeah, I got it from Chris last night”. Lon revealed his palm screen, closed the map that was loaded, then gestured for a keypad to appear, on which he typed the word ‘Tannie’. A phone number appeared, which Lon pressed. He put his thumb to his ear and his little finger in front of his mouth. He took a deep breath to once again attempt to steady his diaphragm.

Several seconds passed.

“Tan!” Lon shouted, “We can’t make it to where you are, we’re being chased by the police!” Several more seconds passed in which Lon listened to Tan’s instructions. “Ok, I’ll send you them now”. He removed his hand from his face and tapped his palm screen to end the call.

“What did he say?” asked Eve.

“He came here in his car. He wants our live co-ordinates so he can pick us up,” said Lon while tapping on his palm.

“So if he’s got our live co-ordinates he can see where we’re going, right?” asked Eve.

“Yeah”.

“Then we should get out of this alley where we’re easy prey,” she said.

Lon agreed, “Let’s get moving then”.

The two continued their escape; they ran to the far end of the alleyway. As the view of their path opened up, they needed to decide in which direction they should go next. Each street was rather uniform and had barely any immediately noticeable variations, making their decision on which way to go based entirely on the direction from which the police sirens could be heard approaching. They took a right turn, which would potentially take them full circle, and away from their original destination.

It seemed the pursuing police, as well as any other police officers in the area, had chosen to chase the two down the road where they would have gone had they not turned into the alley.

“Did we get lucky?” asked Lon in disbelief.

They mixed in with a group of pedestrians as before.

“It’s about time,” said Eve. “What should we do now?”

“I think the best thing is to keep moving,” Lon replied, “so maybe it’s best to stay with this crowd till Tan finds us”.

Staying calm and moving slowly was not easy for them as they knew surveillance and police could be anywhere. Seeing as their lives were now certainly in danger, it was painfully frightening for them not to be running.

For some minutes they stayed with the thickest parts of the crowd, following it wherever it went.

Sirens were ringing in the distance, yet seemed to be getting louder.

“Where the hell is Tan?” said Lon. “The police have probably found us again”.

“Why is this happening to us?” asked Eve desperately.

Another siren began howling closer to their current location.

“Of, for f-”

Lon’s voice was overwhelmed by yet another wailing siren, even closer this time.

“Where the hell is Tan?!” cried Eve.

It was evident that their location had been discovered, yet they were still unsure of what to do.

The noise of the sirens became louder.

The traffic on the road started to thin.

The sirens became louder still.

“Shit! They’ve blocked off the end of the road!” shouted Lon. He poked his head out above the surrounding pedestrians to see the road behind him. “Dammit! They’ve blocked both ends!”

“What should we do?!” cried Eve.

A shot was fired into the air to encourage the masses to disperse.

People scattered in all directions, yelling, screaming, and voicing expletives.

One woman could be heard shrieking “The police have gone crazy! They’re gonna kill us all!”

A series of police vehicles began moving in at the back of the traffic down at the far end of the road. A motorcycle emblazoned with the all too familiar black and white colours of the police broke off and sped towards Lon and Eve’s location, weaving through the remaining traffic to get close to them.

Lon saw that the rider had a machine gun strapped to his back and a pistol holstered at each hip. He started to panic. He looked around himself back and forth seeking an escape method. There was no way they could outrun such a nearby motorcycle, especially one that could potentially shoot rounds.

“Lon! What do we do?!” screamed Eve, shaking his arm violently.

He could not think of a plausible cause of action, and the longer he stood not knowing, the more his body was taken over by fear and adrenaline.

The motorcycle skidded to a halt.

In an odd moment of clarity, Lon realised what he had to do in order to survive. As the man on the motorcycle raised his right arm to reach for the weapon on his back, Lon launched himself forwards and removed his previously acquired baton from his left sleeve with his right hand, and went straight for the man’s largest opening.

Lon struck him in the ribs using the baton in a backhand whip
-like motion. Not giving him a chance to recoil, he then attacked the man’s hands to reduce his ability to pull a trigger. He avoided hitting the head as it was shielded by a riding helmet.

“What are you doing?!” screamed Eve, “
Let’s go!”

This, along with the closing in police cars, encouraged him to cease and escape. He turned to eve, still with the baton in his hand, and said “Let’s go then”.

He let Eve get a head start. They ran in the direction from which they had initially entered the street; this end was closer than the other, and had fewer barriers erected as there were still pedestrians and traffic escaping the foray.

Behind the blockade were several police cars, and next to each at least one officer, each with firearms it seemed.

“We can’t stand out or we’ll be easier to shoot!” advised Lon as they dashed along the pavement. “Stick with the crowds!”

It felt demoralising to use others as shields, yet it was their only chance of escape.

The closer they approached the barricade, the more they were wary of their possible impending deaths; they were shot at earlier by two police officers, so what was stopping more of them from doing that now? What made matters worse was the fact that they would get it from behind as well.

The policemen behind the barriers were readying their weapons, waiting for the first sight of their targets through gaps in the crowds.

Eve could see that she was getting dangerously close to their pursuers, but she focussed all of her efforts on reaching the crossroad through the remaining gaps in the barriers.

There was a shot from behind her.

People screamed and cried some more.

The officers behind the blockade suddenly looked less confident than they had before, and a few of them took cover.

Another shot was fired.

Eve whipped her head around so she could understand what was happening.

Lon was running just a few metres in her wake, holding a pistol in his right hand. “Where the fuck did you get that from?!” she yelled at him.

“Just keep running?!” he frantically screamed back.

Although his actions could have been considered reckless and lacking in judgement, they seemed to be the perfect means for escape, as the two managed to reach the crossroad without anyone taking shots at them. They ran down the road to the left, taking full advantage of the space the dispersed crowds had left to pick up speed and make some distance between themselves and those chasing them. In addition, the traffic that the roadblocks caused prevented any police cars from mobilising, and made it difficult for any police cycles to travel quickly.

“Eve!” shouted Lon, who was still lagging a few metres behind, “Take this, Tan’s calling me!”.

Eve slowed down in order to allow Lon to catch up to her, and he handed her the gun from his left hand as if the two were racing in a relay. “You have another?!” she shouted, before noticing the machine gun strapped to his back. “You have
three
guns?!”

He ignored this and gestured on his palm screen using the butt of the pistol in his right hand, then put his left hand to his ear to respond to Tan’s communication. “We need your help!” he bellowed into the receiver before giving Tan the chance to say anything first. Lon found it difficult to speak and listen through his device while running.

After a few seconds Eve heard Lon shout “Look out for a ‘candy apple red’ coloured car with two doors open, it should be on this road in the lane closest to the pavement”.

It seemed their luck was swinging back into their favour, as they caught sight of the outstanding car within a few moments.

They darted for the opened doors.

They were both happy to see the car had tinted windows, offering them a little extra concealment.

“You take the front!” Lon shouted to Eve, who was the closest to arriving at their target. He reached the back, threw in his remaining pistol, jumped in, and slammed the door shut. “I’m so glad this is a one way street! Crossing roads hasn’t been healthy for us today!” He removed the machine gun from his back.

Tan saw on one of the displays on the windscreen in front of him that Lon had brought along some weaponry. “Jesus Christ man! You’ve got a small arsenal there!”

“I took them off a policeman on a motorbike,” panted Lon. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and cheeks.