17 | Dance Between Two

LUCAS flew out into the open air. He faced the darkness and a cold breeze enveloped him as the immediate area around him lit in a faint blue light. His head turned to the right quick and he spotted his goal—about half the length down the building a fair distance away. LUCAS reached his hand out and closed his eyes. He felt his arm extend out and he began to fall.

His heart was pounding and he knew if he opened his eyes he wouldn't be able to make it. He waited another second and then he balled his hand into a fist. There was a sharp pain as the sound of glass smashing sounded in the distance. He grabbed hold and pivoted in the air, releasing the tension in his shoulder and he began shooting forward. He opened his eyes and saw his arm had extended several hundred times the length of itself and he had worked it into a grappling hook.

As he sped toward the fifth floor window he braced himself and brought his knees up toward his chest. He saw an officer grab the edge of the window pane and glance outside and it was at that exact moment that LUCAS came crashing into him and the two barreled into the room. When he hit the officer he let go of the pan and his arm retracted back to normal size.

He slammed his arms together and the shield erupted in front of him just as the surprised gunfire came. Each gun only managed a single round before they stopped cold. LUCAS rolled hard onto the ground and landed on one knee—carrying the momentum forward he crossed his arms in a wicked arc.

Flames retreated from his fingertips like individual flamethrowers. He took in the lobby as the officers scattered to make sense of the situation. On the far edge of the lobby he saw Laven pinned up against the wall. To his right he noticed that several officers lie on the ground, unmoving.

They had been like this before he had entered the room, so she certainly put up more than a fair fight. His map showed that a group of about twenty or so officers were traveling from the floor below them up, and remaining in the room now was about twenty remaining—counting the five that were running against the wall to put themselves out. LUCAS extended his arm out above the rest of the officers, his hand grappled around the officer's neck that had Laven pinned.

His hand grew white hot and the officer's screams filled the room. Laven looked puzzled for but a moment and then brought up her knee into the officer's abdomen. He bent down and fell backward. Laven darted into the thick of the crowd. She thrusted the baton in her grip into the side of two officers before LUCAS could get his arm back. The two of them worked in tandem and covered each other as the officers tried to fight back. The surprise of how useless their weapons were was their downfall. Some of the remaining officers tried in vain to operate their guns—believing they had only misfired. LUCAS rammed onto the leftmost one—a larger man than the rest. A woman tried to cover his rear but Laven swiped her legs from below, bringing the baton to her chest.

Laven spun by LUCAS, covering his rear as an officer was aiming the gun like a bat toward his head. She reached down and snagged the fallen officer's baton and engaged it as she slammed both forward into his arm. She contorted strangely and dropped the weapon.

LUCAS had just retracted his shield, and turned to see the action unfold. He looked up to Laven who cocked her head at him, giving a small smile. Around them the room was cleared, bodies were strewn all across the lobby, and for but a moment LUCAS was breathing heavily. The dots heading their way on the map were a few minutes off. Faster if they used...

LUCAS turned to the elevators at the eastern end of the lobby. He ran up and put both of his hands on the doors. The heat starting melding the edges together, preventing their exit. He ran to the two doors next to it and did the same. His hands emptied fully from the fire from the gunshots and he was breathing heavier when he had finished. He was just in time, as he saw the dots rising up to their floor, but they could not exit out of the elevator. This would mean that all of the elevators on this side of the building would eventually get bunged up. They would need to find an alternative method out, and fast.

"I have several questions," Laven said when he had returned to the lobby proper. "But first and foremost...thanks for coming to assist. I got a little in over my head near the end there. I didn't expect so many suits to come at me at once."

"I saw them on the map and figured it meant trouble," LUCAS said. "Couldn't just leave you to deal with that."

"So like...how did you do all that? That was wild. This guy over here is..." She looked toward the body of the officer that had previously pinned her. "Looks like you burned him to the bone."

LUCAS took in a deep breath. "Yeah...I uh, kind of figured that out in the heat of the moment. I'm learning new things about myself more than I thought I could."

"And did you..." she walked over toward the open window—shivering as she looked out to the open sky. "How far...?"

"I was on the...twenty-fourth floor."

"Twenty-four?!" She looked at him surprised. "You jumped all that way?"

"Jumped and latched on. I kinda took a chance with that one. I didn't test it beforehand. Guess I just kinda...knew before that it was going to be okay."

"Shit, all this time I was worried what they were going to do to you here and I'm the one that needed saving," she put her hands on her waist.

"I wouldn't call it saving, more...assisting." He felt something well up inside of him hearing that she was worried about him. He tried to stuff it back down, but she had noticed. She approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. She bent down and kissed his cheek.

"Now, while you were out here assisting me, can I assume that to mean you found what you were looking for?"

His cheeks blazed red and he felt a sudden embarrassment. "I...uh, no. I hadn't yet. I was heading up near the top and I saw and so..." he suddenly lost the words.

"Oh, I see. I'm...sorry." She suddenly looked away. "I didn't mean to distract from..."

He realized that Bambo and Blaise were still listening to her, and he nodded. "Don't worry about it. I'm going to return to my end of the building and gonna tackle some of the lower floors, you can return back to what you were doing here," LUCAS said, then he took a step back from her and held out both of his arms—palms outstretched. There was a silence that enveloped them—and then a sort of white noise echoing and bouncing off the walls. LUCAS looked to her and sought out her eyes. "I'm dampening the comms signal, we're good to talk for a few seconds. I'm going to reroute my locator so it looks like I'm going to be on the other half of the building. I want you to come with me—up to the top."

She looked surprised at this.

"We'll run through the rest of your mission once we reclaim the fragment. Save as many as we can, but...I care about you and don't want something like that happening to you again. Foolish machine like me should stick to the mission, but I don't have many people in my corner. I just..."

She smiled and cocked her head. "You don't have to say anymore. I'm in your corner."

LUCAS looked at her and smiled. "I have to put this down now, they'll be wondering what's happened. We'll need to separately explain ourselves I think. I'm placing my dot a bit away so we may need to check in away from each other so they don't hear us through each other."

She nodded.

He lowered his hands and the white noise disappeared. LUCAS looked at the map and started pinging his signal up on the fourteenth floor on the other end of the building.

"Luke, do you copy?" Bambo called, his voice was exasperated. "Do you copy?"

"Hey Bambo, sorry about that," LUCAS started walking into the area near the elevators. "Just got into a scrape trying to unjam a situation here. We're both clear now. I headed back to my post."

"Oh, that's good to hear. I saw you zipping around so fast I thought there was a delay on our side."

"No delay. Just using some tools to move around quickly," LUCAS said. "We're going to continue through here, I'm going to need to focus so my updates are going to be minimal. There are a lot of officers still on guard here."

"Roger. Stay safe. Blaise just got done talking with Laven, much the same deal. Gavin and Roshe are back so we're going to go meet with them. We have alerts on so if you ping us we'll know."

"Got it, thank you much." LUCAS said, smiling wide.

He rejoined with Laven, who similarly had a grin on her face. "Looks like we've got some good fortune here," she said.

"Okay, we really need to get moving now—we got some headed our way now. We should...." he looked around. The officers that had been stuffed in the elevators were now gaining on them. If they ran on foot they'd be tailed until they came to fight. While he was sure they could take care of the force—if they could get in and out without eliminating the entire building...his guilt may yet not sink entirely down his chest. "C'mere."

LUCAS took her by the hand and lead her to the edge of the window. He let go of her and she ran to his side, confusion on her face, but then he wrapped his left hand around her waist and he lifted up as he leaped off the side. She screamed in his ear and he threw out his arm, it shot up past a dozen identical windows and a similar shattering sound echoed into the night. He caught hold and they rose up. She continued to scream for another second but halfway up she stopped—her breath caught and she turned her head to see the sky. LUCAS turned to look at her staring, but said nothing. He wasn't sure if he'd be heard anyway.

When they approached the edge of the window pane he yanked hard with his right arm and they flew into the office space. He quickly formed the shield and turned around so they flew through the thin walls that separated the cubicles. The office was dead silent—the lights were off. It seems whoever worked in this space was out for the day.

The both of them sat there for a second, her in his arms and breathing hard. She ran a hand through her hair and stared into his eyes.

"If I told you about that before you never would have agreed to do it," LUCAS said, offering a small smile.

She took in a deep breath and steadied herself. "If I didn't see the sun setting like that I would have shaken you to pieces. That view was..."

"Incredible, right?" LUCAS offered.

She looked up and slowly made her way off of him. "How far are they? Do we have to do that again? I don't think my stomach can handle that excitement twice."

"They are..." LUCAS checked. "Looks like the closest bunch is three floors below us. We're on the thirtieth floor. There are smaller groups from here on out upward. I think they're not combat oriented, though. They might just be workers."

"Like, we have to free or with them?"

"I would guess it's people on Kosunaga dime. Administrative and more technically minded. The kind of people that work in places like this," LUCAS nodded toward the cubicles.

"Gotcha." She looked around and shivered. "Sorry...I'm still a little shaken up."

"Don't worry, I know what you mean. That's what I felt when I came in crashing through your window. I think it all burned out during the fight."

"You're like my Romeo, you know that?"

It took him a second, but then he understood the reference. "To be fair," LUCAS said. "I think I'm more like the rock."

"I guess so. But call yourself a stone at least. Sounds more refined."

"Whatever you say."

"We should find the elevator around here. Although we may have to prepare for a scuffle if they come up in one."

"I'll be able to see if they are or not. Right now I'm not seeing anyone in them near us. There are a few on the other end...huh..."

"What is it?"

"They're all congregating...toward my fake location. The place I'm passing myself off as. They're all walking toward that area."

"That's lucky for us then," she said, cracking her neck. "Should be a straight shot, right?"

LUCAS was quiet for a moment. He looked at the map again and had a bad feeling about this.

He held his arms out, dampening the signal again.

"One moment, where's your comm device?"

She looked at him, confused. "It's...right here, why?" She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small device the size of a quarter.

LUCAS took it and threw it to the ground and stamped on it.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Think about it, why would all the officers be heading toward my fake location? Who knows about that location?"

Understanding lit up in her eyes. "They wouldn't, unless they were being fed that map."

He nodded. "Someone is feeding our info out. It could be the both of them. I'm not sure. My money would be on Blaise but we cannot afford to be wrong on this."

"So now they'll think that I'm dead. That was the deal if I ever lost the comm device."

LUCAS nodded again, "That'll work perfectly. I'm going to keep my signal up as long as I can. We do need to book it to the fragment, but then we need to leave. I know our goal was also to free as many people here as possible, but I think the longer we stay here the longer we risk losing everything."

"Yes..." she said, a somber tone growing in her voice. "I hate to think it, but there's no reason why they'd have your map information..."

"If we're decided then, we have to hope that the little work we did is enough to get some people free. We'll go straight up and recover what we can, get out of here, and we'll try to rendezvous with Gavin."

"You sure you trust him?" Her tone was cautious. She was worried, he knew that much.

"I know his history most of all," LUCAS said, nodding. "More than any of you. It's a long story, though. I'll tell you later when we're out of here."

"I know his history most of all," LUCAS said, nodding. "At least, more than anyone else. But that's a long story, though. One I'll tell you later when we're out of here."

She nodded, "All right, I trust you." She took in a deep breath and turned toward the hallway. "All right. You good to go?"

LUCAS nodded, and the both of them went off on their way. It was a short walk to the elevator and Laven clicked the button a single time. The doors on the left opened up and they were swallowed inside.