John watched Sherri take in the unexpected presence of Tim. She bit her lip as he looked down each of the three corridors nervously, but maintaining a wide smile on his face.
John looked down at his handlink, expanding the list of projections he’d received from Higgins.
He definitely didn’t predict this…
“I don’t know how you did any of what you’ve done, but it’s amazing,” Tim gushed, taking a hold of Sherri’s hand. “You’ve gone and given me hope, Janet.”
Sherri’s apprehensive expression melted as the two looked at one another.
“I’m glad,” she said, and stole a glance at John, who grimaced at her, before frantically entering the new data points into the handlink. “Listen, you’re gonna have to do exactly what I tell you if we’re gonna get out of here alive, okay?”
John drew a sharp breath as he studied the results Higgins was giving him. “Sherri, he’s brought our odds down to sixteen percent. And the window’s out of the question now; he won’t fit.”
Sherri took a deep breath as she met his eye, and nodded resolutely. John knew what her steely expression represented, and he gestured to the right-hand corridor, which led towards the lobby.
“Come on,” she said to Tim, as she strode ahead.
John re-centred himself at the end of the corridor, by a door that led through a security office. He checked inside, spotting a Kromagg watching a series of CCTV displays.
He re-emerged to meet Sherri as she reached him.
“There’s one guy in there,” he explained. “He’s watching security footage. So taking him out will let you slip through without being watched on camera.”
Sherri nodded, thinking a moment, and turned to Tim.
“I need you to stand on this side of the door,” she said in a low voice, pointing to the hinged side of the door, “and await my signal. Got it?”
He nodded, his smile turning to a serious look. “If we get out of this, you gotta tell me how you can see,” he whispered, before flattening himself against the wall beside the door.
“If we get out of this, I’ll explain everything,” she said with a wink.
John snorted. “He wouldn’t have seen that wink, you know.”
Sherri shot him a smirk, before swiping the keycard. John moved through the wall, to see the Kromagg turning at the sound of the door opening.
“Hey, over here!” John shouted, waving his arms. The security guard’s head snapped towards him, a split second before a nasty wound opened up in his temple; a result of Sherri’s trigger finger. He flopped off his chair onto the floor, as Sherri entered, beckoning Tim.
John wiped sweat off his forehead. “I hate this so much,” he said, heart pounding.
“Yeah, me too,” muttered Sherri as she studied the monitors in the room.
John pointed to the lower right hand area of the grid. “These are of the lobby,” he explained. He waved his finger at one of the monitors that showed a security gate. “This is our biggest concern, right here.”
“You really look like you’re lookin’ at these TVs,” Tim said, staring at Sherri with eyes like saucers.
“I am,” she replied simply, before looking up at John. “Do you think you could distract all these ’maggs?”
John was about to answer, but was pre-empted by Tim.
“What?” he exclaimed. “That’d be suicide!”
Sherri glanced at him, mouth open. “Uh, I wasn’t talking to you.”
Tim’s head tilted in confusion, and she shrugged. “I have a friend on the, uh… astral plane. He’s helping me.”
Tim grappled with her words for a moment. “Like a ghost friend?”
“Sure, close enough,” Sherri said. “The Kromaggs can sense him when he makes a ruckus, and so he might be of use getting us past all these ones without a bloodbath.”
John nodded. “Right, that could work, but you’ll need to be extra vigilant without me to spot you.”
He gestured at the monitors. “But make sure you take in every place you can duck into to hide.” He brought up the Kromagg brainwave sensor map on his handlink. “Do it fast. I’ll watch for ’maggs heading this way.”
As John kept his eyes on the handlink, his periphery told him that Sherri was leaning in to the monitors, and he knew she would be formulating the most efficient route to take.
“Tim,” she said, gesturing for him to join her. “You need to stick close behind me when we make our break for it. Here’s where we’ll be coming out. We need to duck straight behind this planter box here…”
As she explained, he poked a head out the door on the opposite side of the room where they’d entered, which opened directly into the lobby.
At his initial glimpse, he counted sixteen Kromaggs. Six were some form of security or military, while the others seemed to be civilians going about their day.
The tree they were currently in seemed multi-purpose, like a full town confined within the trunk of the massive tree. In fact, with the data he’d gathered since he’d been here, it seemed like most of the enormous trees served as their own communities, with little going on in the open air. There were paved roads and cars, but everything seemed much more vertical than sprawled across great distances – at least in this forest city.
He’d taken stock of the tree that Nexus Quinn was inside of, and it seemed like the exception to the rule; it was a dedicated military facility. It was no doubt the Kromagg culture was militaristic; their soldiers were everywhere, doing all manner of duties. Primarily, John assumed, to keep the dwindling human population under strict control.
He pulled back into the security room, and Sherri looked up at him.
“We’re ready. On your signal.”
“Aye-aye,” John said, feeling butterflies swarm in his stomach. He stepped out into the lobby, and made a beeline to the Kromaggs who stood in the immediate vicinity of the door: one in a security uniform just like the one who’d been watching the CCTV monitors, and the other, what John surmised to be a female Kromagg – a rare sight, since a great deal of them had died off in the aftermath of the war, according to Quinn’s notes on the matter. She wore a smart suit and was conversing with the guard. John wondered if she was someone important.
Moving past them, in the direction of the middle of the lobby, he stomped, and waved his arms.
“Hey!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Look, everybody, it’s a distraction! Everyone look at the distraction!”
To his great relief, the eyes of all the Kromaggs he could see were diverted towards him.
Please keep looking.
He continued his barrage of noise, doing jumping jacks as he watched the security room door open, and the two fugitives creep behind the large planter box nearby.
What else can I do to keep this up?
Taking an idea from his outfit, he began to sing.
“Who can take a sunrise…” he crooned, “Sprinkle it with dew…
“Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two…” He dropped to one knee, spreading out his arms. “The candyman! The candyman can…”
* * *
“You don’t have to actually perform this for us,” said Quinn, laughing, as John sang his heart out in the middle of the warehouse.
John went silent, scratching his head as he climbed to his feet. “Yeah, you’re right. I got a bit carried away there.”
“Huh, I don’t have a half bad singing voice, now that I’m hearing it from someone else,” Sam commented, with an approving nod.
“I think it adds flavour,” said Rembrandt. “I say let him finish.”
“As much as I love to hear those dulcet tones,” Donna said, “We don’t really have time. Please, John… continue your story.”
John’s cheeks burned as he complied with his double’s wife’s request. “Right, right. Where was I? So, my distraction did a surprisingly adequate job, and they were able to slip past the checkpoint. Thing is, it was almost too easy.
“We didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, of course, but… you know… sometimes you’re the city of Troy and the gift horse in question contains the Greek army.”