21: Black and White

With the main group of guards dealt with, along with their pet feral, Olivia and Ben held their ground at the main stairwell leading out of the Arena. Only a few more gang members probed at them, in ones and twos who quickly backpedaled once they realized the situation. Chris and Amanda didn’t take long, hurrying up to meet them with a backpack full of documents and drives. They retraced their steps out of the Arena, though their pace slowed at the sight of the feral sized hole Olivia left in the middle of the cavern. They froze at the entrance to the garage. 

“Trap?” asked Amanda. “We haven’t seen anyone in a while.”

“Maybe,” said Chris, turning liquid and poking a lump of himself around the corner. He snapped back a moment later. “Clear.”

“Shouldn’t there be sirens?” asked Olivia, as they stepped into the night air. That always seems to happen when we get into fights. I do hear a lot of engines around though.

“You think a gang is gonna call the cops?” asked Ben, incredulous. “You think anyone heard those guns when we’re underground like that?”

“Oh, sorry,” she replied with a slump of her shoulders. Why am I so stupid? At least that mantis guy didn’t look like he was worrying about anything at all. Is that what I’m supposed to be?

“Why the fuck you apologizin’?”

Before Olivia could think of a reply, Amanda snapped, “Leave her alone.” Ben shrugged as he ran, but kept quiet. How could I answer that question? Olivia frowned. I’m tired of never being able to answer questions. Why did I apologize? 

As the others reached the concrete wall covered in broken glass that ringed the steakhouse, Olivia took flight once more. She circled a few times, no longer caring about whether cameras might see her. The sound of engines in the night stood out to her, approaching fast. She disassembled the signal blocker she’d set up on the roof and pushed the button on her mic once the airwaves were clear. 

“Can you guys hear me?” she asked. 

“Yeah. How are we looking?” replied Chris. 

“I don’t see anything, but there are a lot of cars approaching pretty quick,” replied Olivia. 

“From our car?”

“Um, maybe? I don’t think I understood.” Why would they be coming from our car? They have their own.

“The direction they are coming from. Will we run into them when we get to our car?” clarified Chris, the pace of his voice picking up as he talked. Right, talk faster. 

“No.” Sorry, I’m stupid.

“Alright, meet us over the wall, let’s get out of here.”

Olivia glided off the edge of the steakhouse and over the wall, joining the others in their dash to their escape. Ben teleported ahead with the keys. They dove into a jeep already started, if rattling horribly, and ready to go. Soon enough, they left the steakhouse behind as Ben took them on a winding route through the city. 

They drove north through the dark streets in silence, passing no other cars. Olivia shifted nervously in her seat, resisting the urge to puff out her wings. We’re kind of sticking out. If anyone looks into the windows they might see me. It feels like we’re being watched. The others left their faces bare for that exact reason. Ben had a scanner built into the car’s radio to listen in on the police band. They definitely noticed something at the steakhouse, but no one called in about them specifically.

As the jeep rounded a corner, they came face to face with a pair of trucks parked in the street, leaving only one car width between them. The moment they came into view, someone in black stepped out of the second truck. Olivia caught sight of an image of a white eye on the masked man’s shoulder as he raised his hand, motioning them to stop. 

“Fuck that!” said Ben with a laugh. He put on his mask in one fluid motion, Chris pulled up his bandana, and Amanda fumbled with her helmet. 

Ben spun the wheel as hard as he could and gunned the engine. The jeep hit the curb, jolting the occupants, and drove along the sidewalk, refusing to be stuck where the eye people wanted them to be. The trucks roared to life just behind them.

Amanda called out, “What, these guys aren’t just unmarked?”

“No, they’re the Watch,” replied Chris. Olivia heard guns going off and Chris yelled, “Keep your head down.” Easy for him to say.

“Who?” Olivia asked Amanda beside her.

“Organized vigilantes,” she replied back, voice now projected by the helmet. A bullet snapped past. “Basically a militia.” I don’t know what that means.

They tore away from the trucks, who naturally had no problem closing the gap with their rattling old ride. An orange beam of light passed by them, narrowly missing Ben’s door. What was that? Olivia eyed the door handle next to her, her wings bent and aching. She shuddered a bit. I’m not going to abandon everyone just to save myself. She winced as they came within two inches of being hit by a pursuing truck again. Though not being in here would be great. She was jolted back to reality when the truck made contact, causing Ben to almost lose control.

Olivia doubled over at the sharp sound of the impact, metal shrieking and snapping. Oh, this is going to be a recurring thing isn’t it? Painful, painful noises. She gritted her teeth and forced herself upright. Gotta get used to it. 

Another laser lanced out from behind them, striking the wheel just in front of Ben, melting it into slag. Ben lost control, and the car flipped and rolled, coming to a stop on its own roof.

It took a few moments for Olivia to regain her bearings. She wasn’t hurt, but she wasn’t sure of the others. She smelled blood, not her own. Chris had turned into goo before impact, he was reforming, albeit slower than she had seen before. Liquid Chris had no blood, so by process of elimination that left Ben and Amanda. He hung there by his seat belt, the airbag had deployed and filled the majority of the space up front. Amanda groaned, shifting in her own seat belt and jostling Olivia’s right wing, still sore from the thrashing the mantis feral had given it.

She could still hear a heart beating and lungs drawing in breath from Ben, so at least he was still alive. She could also hear the trucks drive up, the click of weapons and the impact of boots on the asphalt. We need to get out of here. She punched a claw through the buckle of her seat belt, releasing her and sending her curling into the roof below her. With footsteps fast approaching, she twisted to get herself back upright as much as possible. She kicked at the door beside her, sending it flying off its hinges. Oops. Oh well, Ben needs a new car at this point anyways. 

She crawled out and froze. Nearly a dozen armed members of the Watch, all with that eye insignia on their right shoulder, began to form a semicircle around the upside down jeep. She saw Chris, still in liquid form, flow out of the broken window on his side. Ben and Amanda began to stir, pulling themselves out.

Olivia looked back at the Watch members. A woman called out “Come out with your hands up. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” In a normal voice she said, “Blackout, Whiteout, you focus on the feral.”

That doesn’t sound good. 

Then, suddenly, everything went black. A complete absence of light. She could see nothing. The only thing she heard was herself. Wait, are those my organs? There was absolutely no other sound. She moved forward, immediately bumping into something. It had no texture, perfectly smooth and spherical. Her shoved in wings and tail pushed out with no success. I hate tight spaces. I’m going to go insane if I can’t get out of here. 

She braced herself and rammed her shoulder into the offending wall. Nothing. It was getting hotter, her breath getting shorter. And louder. What’s going on out there? She hit it again, putting all of her desperate strength behind it. Nothing. A third time, and it shattered.

“Breaking through. Shoot it! Shoot it!” said the masked man she stumbled into, knocking him on his back. She came upright next to another masked man on her right in the process of pointing a pistol at her. 

She dodged to her left. Suddenly she was encased in the blackness again, no light or sound. She froze, her tail was extended somewhat, it hadn’t been shoved inward like it had before. Three rounds suddenly struck her in the gut. She screamed, partially out of surprise, partially out of pain. She hadn’t heard anything coming. These guys really want to kill me. Ow, that hurt. Just leave us alone. 

She hunched over and rushed forward again, towards the last place she’d seen the man. Light and sound returned with a couple steps. Blackout was dressed identically to the rest of the Watch, the masks, or lack thereof, being the only difference between the individual members Olivia could spot. Narrowed eyes stared at her through the holes of a pure black featureless  mask covering his entire face. Instead of enveloping her, the next black bubble covered up the man, leaving her charging at nothing.

She heard the man she’d knocked down start to get up behind her, well within range of her tail. She whipped it towards him. Her tail met something smooth and unyielding. She snarled in frustration, then spun and lunged at who she presumed to be Whiteout. He looked the same as Blackout, only with a pure white mask. 

Blackout managed one stray shot at Olivia’s back, striking her shoulder and shoving her forward. Two separate black bubbles engulfed her, but she ignored them, as well as a white orb meant to trip up her charge while her vision was blocked. A few long strides brought her right up to Whiteout, and she brought down her open hand to slash, when a white orb appeared between her hand and Whiteout.

She hissed in frustration as her claws scraped against the bubble without finding purchase and everything went black again. Her wings, half outstretched as she fought, pushed against her back as a solid bubble engulfed her. Leave us alone! She broke through with far more ease than before, and was again greeted with pistol fire, though this time she barely felt it.

Black and white bubbles met her every time she tried to advance, but the two kept moving, keeping her from ever seeing more than one at a time. She roared as she slapped aside a bubble that she nearly ran her nose into. 

A familiar voice shouted out over the shouting and gunfire. “Olivia! Stop!” 

Olivia froze, out in the middle of the street. Who? What? Behind her, Chris and Amanda had taken cover behind the engine block of the jeep and fired over it. Where is Ben? The other Watch members fanned out behind their own cars, three working their way around the flank opposite Olivia. Both groups took potshots at each other, more keeping each other pinned than filling the air with lead. There were sirens in the air, and Olivia heard the sounds of an approaching helicopter.

A woman in a dark blue mask with one eye hole and three diagonal orange stripes across it launched an orange laser from her hand at Chris. The air shimmered around the beam, and the car melted where the laser made contact. Blackout and Whiteout bubbled her once more.

Right. Leave them, help friends. With two slams she broke out, running to the others. She bulled through the bubbles meant to trip her up. A few bullets hit her partially outstretched wings, bouncing off the skin instead of anything substantial. 

Blackout yelled, “Ryan, she’s running!”

A mask-less guy, the closest of the Watch shooting at the others, turned and withdrew something from one of his many pockets. Before Olivia reached the overturned jeep, he clicked a button on the side of a small grey box. A piercing whine, impossibly high pitched, brought Olivia skidding to her knees. Her screams couldn’t drown out the noise of a gunshot, drawn out forever.

She managed to look up at Ryan as she pressed her palms to her ears, scales digging into skin. He called out to the others, “Got her! It worked.” He walked out from behind the truck, getting the box closer towards her. Pain scrambled all thought.

Blackout and Whiteout both relaxed as they flanked Olivia, other members of the Watch keeping Chris or Amanda from reaching her with gunfire. None else seemed to even hear the noise. “Fuck, we should have started with that.”

Ben teleported up to Ryan, grabbing the box with one hand over Ryan’s and stabbing a knife into his wrist with the other. Ryan cried out and dropped the box, but had enough presence of mind to pull back as Ben ripped out the knife. The next slash went wide, nicking Ryan’s skull instead of his throat.

The box had fallen to the ground, Olivia could see it through her tears. Ryan managed to free his bloody hand from Ben, who gave him a hard kick to the groin for his efforts. Ryan went down with a strangled cry, and Ben took the opportunity to stomp on the fallen box. Just like that, the noise stopped. Several members of the Watch turned, and a laser lanced out at Ben. He ducked and teleported over to Olivia. 

Ben yelled out, “Gotta get outta here, now.” The sirens were much louder, and the helicopters were almost upon them. He helped Olivia haul herself to her feet. Liquid Chris covered Amanda as they began to sprint away from the wreck of the jeep. Olivia felt a few more bullets hit her wings and back as she lumbered after Ben, ears still echoing with the box’s shriek. 

***

Olivia landed ahead of Chris, the next fastest of the group. Flight had spared her a night of running and hiding across miles of city. Ben and Amanda leaned on each other as they rounded the corner of the building, too exhausted to snipe at each other. Without a word, they crawled back into their shop.

It’s OK. We’re OK. We’re safe and OK. Olivia collapsed on her mattress, feet, tail, and wings hanging off the edges. Her back ached after constant flying back and forth to scout. A couple dive bombs kept the Watch from following too closely until they could lose them entirely, along with their injured members. No one followed. I made sure. We’re OK.

“Was that at least worth it?” asked Ben after they caught their breath, peeling off his sweat soaked hoodie to reveal an even more sweat soaked tank top. 

Amanda took a moment to rouse herself from her customary chair. She set her helmet down on the desk and replied, “It looked like it. Whoever’s office that was, they were pretty high up in the food chain.”

“Says you,” he grumbled under his breath. “I miss my car.”

“Gonna fix this,” murmured Chris under his breath, so low Olivia second guessed that she’d even heard it. Out loud, in a far more forceful tone, he said to the group at large, “I know all of us had our doubts today, but that was damn fine work we did. It came close, but we got what we needed and out in one piece.” Oh! If he says it was good, then that must be what good looks like. “Amanda, do you think we can start sifting through what we got?”

She gave him a curious look before replying, “Right now?” We just spent hours just running. Olivia took a deep breath, getting ready to haul herself up. I’m not sure what I can help with, but I guess she’ll need it.

“Time isn’t our friend.”

“No. Not right now. We’re too exhausted, it will be a waste of time.”

Chris considered for a moment, then gave a curt nod. “Alright. Good point. We can pick this up once we’ve recovered.”Olivia slumped back down on her bed. OK. Good idea.