“Hey, wake up…”
An entirely-awake Sherri turned over on the bed, towards John’s voice, and glared at him.
Do I look like I could sleep at all on this thing?
“Oh, you look terrible,” John said, grimacing. Sherri simply huffed, and headed for the faucet, where she splashed her face with the questionable water.
She looked John up and down. He was still wearing the outfit Al had put together for him. Her questioning face was enough for him to reply: “Yeah, I know. It felt wrong to choose anything else. So, you’re stuck with Gay Willy Wonka, I guess.”
He chuckled. “And you had a point, before. Bright colours can only help you when you’re following me to get out of here, right?”
Sherri smiled, giving an affirmative thumbs up.
“You made your choice?”
Sherri nodded, adjusting the hand gesture to show two fingers.
“Alone?” John looked disappointed, and Sherri understood. She responded with a sad shrug and another nod.
“Alright. Lemme just give Higgins the heads up…” he tapped away on the handlink for a moment, as Sherri returned to her bunk, and sat down. “Okay… I’ll head out to the corridors and scan for Kromagg brainwaves.”
He phased through the wall beside the electric field, and moved his handlink around like he was trying to get a phone signal.
“Looks like there’s a couple headed this way,” he called out.
Sure enough, what Sherri guessed to be the guards from the previous day appeared at the doorway.
“Attention. Slave Unit 47-G is instructed to report to the showers for personal hygiene.”
As before, the room sprang to life, as the compliant people around her climbed to the floor and stood at attention. Sherri silently followed suit, as she made eye contact with John, who was hovering behind the soldiers.
The field was deactivated, and Sherri felt a hand grasp hers, once again, as the prisoners filed out two-by-two. Sherri hung back to the end of the pack, leaving her immediately in front of the soldier that watched the rear of the group. As she reached John, he began to walk beside her.
“Alright, you want to time it so that you’re between the elevator and the staircase,” he said, looking closely at the blueprints on his screen. “We’re two levels below ground here, so you just have to climb a couple staircases and um… hurt some guys.”
He grimaced. “You need to take their weapons, and if any of ’em sound the alarm before you get out, you’re toast. Higgins thinks it might be necessary to… well, you know.” He ran a finger across his throat.
“I’m just glad it’s you, and not me.”
Sherri shot him a look.
“Alright, I’ll leave this part to you,” he said, as the group turned the corner into a corridor that ended in the elevator doors, with the stairwell entrance towards the other end.
Sherri swallowed her fear.
Okay, it’s now or never.
In one quick, smooth motion, she snatched the particle weapon from the rear Kromagg’s unsuspecting grasp, and shot the front guard in the head. It was a risky shot, given the number of people between her and him, but the perfectly symmetrical nature of the formation allowed her a straight shot past the human heads and into the Kromagg head that was squarely in the centre.
Before the soldier behind her had a chance to react, she elbowed him in the jaw, stunning him long enough to shoot him as well.
“That was great, Sherri,” John said. “Now, get the bodies in the stairwell to buy some time. You’ll need their keycards, too.”
Sherri nodded, and looted the keycard from the Kromagg beside her, along with a large knife, before dragging him by the arms towards the stairwell door.
The other prisoners were standing silently, not knowing what to do; all except for Tim, whose mouth was gaping as he stared at her.
“How did you…”
Sherri gave him a distracted smile. “Get the others back into their cell,” she instructed. “Make sure the ’maggs know none of them had anything to do with this, okay?”
Tim nodded, looking at her with a speechless awe.
She opened the door, and dragged the first guard in, before returning to the other one, and taking his weapon and keycard, and repeating the process. Meanwhile, Tim had begun shepherding the others back toward their quarters.
As she piled the second body atop the first, she closed the stairwell door, and began sprinting up the stairs. John was waiting at the exit to the ground level, holding up a hand. As she reached him, she stopped, and caught her breath.
“There are two more just on the other side of the door,” John said. “Higgins says you should lure them in.”
Sherri took a deep breath, calming her nerves.
Steady heart, steady aim.
She glanced around, trying to formulate a plan of attack.
Two guards. Swinging door. Stairs up, stairs down. Two particle guns, one knife.
Positioning herself on the hinge side of the door, she gave a light knock on the door. A moment later, it opened, and a Kromagg emerged, looking in the opposite direction from Sherri’s position. She took her opening, and held the knife to his throat, pulling him towards her. He cried out, and the alarmed second guard jumped in the door, looking around frantically. It was unfortunate for him that he had moved directly into Sherri’s line of fire. She pulled the trigger, and he collapsed, falling down the stairs.
“I don’t want to kill another one of you,” she whispered to her hostage, “so you can either help me get out of here and live, or end up like the other three I’ve already killed. What do you say?”
He raised his hands. “I… I’ll cooperate…”
“Risky move,” John commented. “Be careful.”
“Throw your weapons down the stairs, and walk me out of here.”
She released him from her grip, and he turned, seeing her face for the first time. His mouth dropped open.
“Yeah, you got hoodwinked by a blind lady, congratulations. Weapons down.”
He stepped back a few paces, and pulled out his particle gun. He squinted at Sherri’s eyes, before looking down at the gun. Slowly, he rose it towards her.
“Sherri, watch it!” John said, frantic. “He thinks you can’t see what he’s doing.”
To Sherri’s surprise, the Kromagg’s head turned towards John, giving Sherri an opening. She shot the soldier, and he fell to the ground in a heap.
“Did he just look at you?” she hissed at John.
John nodded. “I’ve been… getting that a bit,” he explained, biting his lip. “I don’t think they can see or hear me, not exactly. Just sort of sense something in my general vicinity.”
“Well that could come in handy,” she said, before creeping to the door. “How’s my path looking now?”
He poked a head through the door. “Coast is clear on the next leg.”
Sherri quietly opened the door, and looked to either side, before hurrying out. John followed, and took the lead as he guided her down a series of corridors, before giving a ‘stop’ gesture at a three-way intersection. She hugged the wall, awaiting his next instruction.
“Okay, Higgins has two options for getting out of this tree. One involves shimmying out a tight window. Higher odds of escape, as long as you can fit through. That’s where the aura distortion may be a problem.”
“What do you mean?” Sherri whispered.
“Well, if the window conforms to your aura’s size, you won’t fit. If it doesn’t, you’ll go through easily.”
Sherri cringed. “Do we know which one is more likely?”
John tapped a few times on the handlink. “Fifty-fifty.”
“Great,” she said, frowning. “So what’s the other option?”
“Sneaking through the main lobby,” John said, his brow furrowed. “It’s gonna be pretty tricky. I’ll have to spot you extremely carefully.”
Crap.
“If the window’s too tight, will I know before I get stuck?”
“Uh… probably?”
“Okay,” Sherri pinched the bridge of her nose. “Give me the odds of each option, taking all of that into account.”
John entered the data into his handlink, and gave a pensive look at the results. “Looks like the window is now 39 per cent, and the lobby is 46 per cent.”
“Yikes,” Sherri said, a sinking feeling in her chest. A sinking feeling that descended much further when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Spinning around, her heart skipped a beat as she came face-to-face with Tim.
“You told me to tap your shoulder if I changed my mind, right?”