Offworld (40 page)

"Later!" she shouted, feeling a sudden surge of adrenaline. "Let's
get out of here!"

She made for the second vehicle. Terry was already in the driver's
seat, but she half-motioned, half-shoved him over, and this time he
didn't dare disobey.

The jeep's engine snarled like some sort of hungry predator as
Chris made a right turn at full speed, jetting through town. Owen sat
next to him, Mae in the back seat. Trisha and Terry were right behind them, keeping pace dangerously near Chris' bumper. Four jeeps were
in close pursuit, with many more behind. Per Chris' instructions,
everyone had donned their earpieces once more, though Mae still
did without one. As Chris had told her, he wasn't keen on trying to
make her more like them; he thought she was pretty neat just the
way she was.

"There's something else," Chris announced.

Owen was white-knuckling the arm rails in the jeep as Chris sped
at ungodly velocities toward downtown Houston. No one in either
vehicle said a word, waiting for Chris to explain.

"I saw my missing time on Mars. All of it. When I blacked out a
while ago, I saw the rest of it."

He hesitated, and Owen looked at him. He hated it, but there
was an anxiety-filled expression on his face that he couldn't seem
to wipe away.

"What happened?" Trisha asked over her earpiece.

Chris spurred the jeep around another corner, and they barely
missed crashing into a tree.

"The void ... It's not what we thought," he said. "I think it's a
window."

A window?" asked Owen.

"There were ... men. I could see them, through the void. They
weren't on Mars-I don't know where they were. But I could see
them, and they could see me. And I could hear what they were saying. They were talking about me."

"What did they say?" asked Trisha.

"I don't know exactly, some kind of technical jargon. But they
seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see them."

It was crazy and he knew it. Would they believe him?

"Who were they?" Terry asked. "What does it mean?"

Chris could only shake his head in confusion, unable to reply.

As they neared downtown, Chris more than once drove in circles
through some of Houston's streets. Within twenty minutes they found themselves dodging the nonmoving traffic amid skyscrapers not far
from Houston's giant sports coliseum, which had been refurbished
since Chris had last seen it.

"Where are we going?" asked Terry.

"Nowhere in particular," replied a harried Chris. `Just trying to
evade those guys behind us."

"This isn't a fighter jet, Commander," Owen advised. "You're
driving like you're dogfighting. Roston has superior numbers; they'll
outflank us soon at this rate. We need to improvise."

"Improvise, huh?" said Chris under his breath. "Okey-dokey."

With a sharp jerk of both of his arms, he steered the jeep hard
to the right, straight into the coliseum, smashing through a massive plate-glass window in a rain of broken shards. The jeep's tires
squealed against the low traction of the building's tile floors, and
Chris spun into a quick turn to the right, tearing through the stadium's
enormous lobby.

"Better?" he asked, glancing in the rearview mirror to see Trisha
still following close, and their hunters not far behind.

"I'll let you know if we live," replied Owen.

Ahead, there was a set of escalators with stationary steps beside
them. The steps looked just wide enough....

"Chris!" shouted Trisha in his ear, "you're not going to-?"

"Gun it, Trish!" Chris replied, pounding on the accelerator. `And
hold on!"

They hit the base of the stairs, the jeep's tires grabbing for purchase as they nosed upward. They barely had enough space and
crashed against the handrails with the noise of a jackhammer until
they were free.

The stairs opened into a narrow second level, and Chris pressed
the jeep to its limits, racing by the concessions of the oval-shaped
building.

"There's improvising and there's pure insanity," Trisha said. "I
don't see how this is helping us."

"They are keeping up," added Owen, looking behind at the pursuing jeeps that were climbing the stairs after them.

`Any grenades in this thing?" asked Chris.

Owen spun and retrieved a pair of palm-sized weapons from a
lockbox in the back seat. They were stainless steel and smaller than
any grenades Chris had seen in the war.

"One of these is enough to level a small building," replied
Owen.

"Perfect!" commented Chris.

When they'd made almost a full circle around the interior of the
building, Chris suddenly jerked the car to the right and they burst
through another set of glass doors.

"Pull 'em, Beech!" shouted Chris.

They were inside a tiny sky bridge, connecting the coliseum
to its parking garage. There was barely room for the vehicle within
the bridge, but Owen pulled out the pins on both grenades and
lobbed them out his open window, well over their heads and Trisha's
jeep.

They tore through a set of metal double doors and were inside
the parking garage, with Trisha's jeep inches behind. Chris made
another violent turn to spiral down to the exit.

The bridge burst into an enormous orange cloud behind them,
turning to debris and dust, and taking out ten feet or so of the parking garage with it. Parts of the garage near the blast collapsed in on
itself, but there was just enough room for both vehicles to squeeze
through, around and around and finally back out onto the street.

"Not bad, Commander," said Owen.

Smiling, Chris turned northeast along Convention Center Boulevard until he came to the old baseball stadium, where he turned
west on Texas Street. Roston must've had a lookout at the park, Chris
decided, because moments later, a parade of jeeps appeared in his
rearview, and they were gaining fast.

Chris made another sudden right turn, hoping to shake them,
but they were too close.

"Look out!" screamed Trisha.

One block ahead, the street was obstructed by two rows of endto-end jeeps.

Roston's men had had enough of chasing and were starting to
anticipate their moves, pinning them in.

Nowhere else to go, Chris made a jarring turn into an incredibly
tall parking garage. He charged through the yellow arm and raced
toward the ramp leading up.

"Another garage, really?" asked Terry.

"What's the plan?" said Trisha, who was still keeping pace right
behind.

"I don't have one!" replied Chris. `Just trying to evade!"

There was a screech of tires from behind, and just as Chris turned
the first corner of the up ramp, he turned to glance behind and saw
a trio of Roston's jeeps speeding into the garage behind them.

A little help, please?

Anything

I'm willing to beg.

He drove, the echo of screeching tires reverberating through the
parking garage. Spiral after spiral they climbed upward, ten decks ...
twelve ... higher ...

As they approached the top deck, Chris heard Trisha shout, "Terry!
What are you doing?!"

Just keep going!" Terry replied.

Wondering what was up, Chris had just cleared the final cement
overhang leading out into the bright light of the beacon when his jeep
was lifted a foot off the ground by an explosion from behind. Chris
was startled so badly that he sent the jeep into a tailspin, slamming
into and through the low parking garage wall.

Trisha jammed clown the accelerator when she saw what Terry
had clone, speeding past Chris' jeep to the right, and bracing herself
for the coming impact.

Her vehicle barely made it clear of the blast, which brought clown
a section of the top deck onto the jeeps behind them.

She looked to her left and saw Chris' jeep spin wildly and break
through the low wall at the edge of the structure. They finally came
to a stop facing her, their jeep's back two tires hanging off the side
of the building.

The jeep itself was already starting to teeter, slowly tilting
backward....

She heard Owen and Chris shouting inside the vehicle, trying to
shift their weight forward, but each time they moved, the jeep inched
back a little farther. Trisha wouldn't have much time.

Instinct taking over, she popped her gearshift into reverse and
spun to the right until her jeep was facing Chris' head-on from ten
feet away. Terry jumped out, running to put his weight on the hood
of Chris' jeep, but he was too small to make much of a difference.
The tilting motion continued, although a bit slower.

Trisha unlatched the winch at the front of her jeep and slid under
Chris' vehicle to clamp the winch's hook onto the other car's front
axle.

Chris' jeep was passing the twenty-five-degree mark, and the tilting
seemed to be speeding up. Terry's added weight began to push the
car hack even faster. He jumped off and returned to Trisha as Chris
and Owen's vehicle began slowly pulling at Trisha's.

Back in the driver's seat, she jammed the shift into reverse and
floored it. Grinding pavement the whole way, she tried to pull both
vehicles backward, but it was too late, as Chris' jeep slipped over
the edge. Still the cable held, with Chris' tires touching the side of
the parking garage. Trisha had to keep spinning her tires in reverse
to prevent the other car from dropping the fourteen stories down to
street level.

"What happened back there?!" Chris demanded over his
transmitter.

"Terry threw some grenades out!" Trisha replied.

"Well it worked for Beech!" Terry protested.

"Beech knew what he was doing!" shouted Chris.

This was nuts. An entire regiment of Roston's men were probably
waiting for them on the street below, the very street that Chris and
Owen were dangling over. There was no way to get down from the
top of the garage. And if she took her foot off the accelerator, Chris,
Owen, and Mae-and now she and Terry too, thanks to the winch
cable-would plummet fourteen stories to their deaths.

"Terry, get out of the jeep"

All right, all right, let's think our way out of this... " Chris said,
faking the best calm he could muster.

"Maybe you could climb up the cable, Beech," Terry suggested,
ignoring Trisha's request.

Trisha heard a door open below. Rapid-fire gunshots followed
that sound from the street below, and the door slammed shut.

His jeep lurched with the motion, and dropped another meter,
dragging Trisha's jeep that much closer to the edge.

"No good," Owen replied, his voice garbled amid the hail of
gunshots, which didn't stop.

Trisha stared straight ahead out over the edge of the parking
garage, where bullets were spraying upward even now. So there was
no way down, and no way to pull the other jeep back up-they were
too evenly matched in weight....

"Trish?" shouted Chris. "I need to tell you some-"

"There's no way out!" said Terry. "We either die by falling over
the edge, or we die when Roston's men break through the rubble
behind us...

"Trisha!" Chris shouted again.

There was a building on the other side of the street, a skyscraper
about a dozen stories taller than the parking garage. It had a patchwork pattern of vertical and horizontal cement beams, with large plate-glass
windows in between.

"If only there was a way ..." she mused.

"Trisha Merriday.!"Chris screamed.

She blinked, her eyes wide. "What?"

"I need to tell you I'm in love with you!"

"It's okay, we're going to-wait, you what?" Trisha's foot came off
the accelerator, and the car slid forward while the other jeep began
to descend. Both Terry and Chris let out a simultaneous yelp.

Trisha snapped out of it and pressed on the accelerator, moving
the truck backward again. But it only moved a few feet this time.

"Wow .. " she heard Mae say through Chris' earpiece in her
childlike tone, and she knew the girl wasn't talking about their predicament. She was marveling at Chris' revelation.