Charalee
The look of shock, betrayal, and anger on Ann's face almost made the entire debacle worth the effort. Almost. Charalee sprinted toward the elevator, her skin-sheath taking a hit from a well-aimed Security crewmember. The skin-sheath absorbed the energy, dispersing it throughout the material. Charalee hardly felt more than a slight increase in heat, though she knew that the skin-sheath's ability to regenerate itself was the only thing that kept a second shot from tearing her in two. Skin-sheath notwithstanding, the force of it knocked her off balance, though not enough to do more than slow her for a pace. Ann shouted something about stopping her--it was clichéd, no matter what it was, Charalee felt sure--and more shots cut the air, sizzling against walls, glass, and consoles. Desperate engineers dropped to the ground, covering their heads in surprise and terror. The elevator doors loomed in front of her. A couple of steps more… She slammed against the unyielding doors, her breath rushing out of her despite her sheath. Furious, Charalee slapped the aedee terminal to summon the elevator--it should still be at the top floor, as no one else was coming up--only to hear Ann laugh tersely. Rage rushed through Charalee's body at the condescending sound. "You don't have authorization to use the elevator, sweetheart," said Ann as she climbed to her feet. The remaining crewmembers stood in their stock stance, weapons trained on Charalee, who could only glare at her sister. "Keep her contained," said Ann. "We have an emergency downstairs that we need to--" As Ann spoke, one of the crewmembers came close enough to touch her. Squeezing a hand to signal her aedee's interaction with the skin-sheath, Charalee felt her entire body stiffen with augmented strength. In a blur, she disarmed the man, then snatched him by the coveralls. With a spin, Charalee hurled him into the approaching three crewmembers, knocking the entire Security force to the ground in one move. Before anyone could move, Charalee sprinted forward, firing the weapon-- --at the glass overlooking the Hangar. The shots burned holes in it, fracturing it enough. With another aedee cue, her skin-sheath hardened to a beyond-steel level, localized on her forearms. The shock of leaping into the damaged window was absorbed by her sheath. The glass bent, yielded, broke. Charalee was in free fall, plummeting twenty-five meters toward the ground. As she fell, she could see the constellations of shattered glass falling with her, the morass of people below, the charging herd of Dentolura. The sound of screams echoed throughout the Hangar, floating up towards her as people began to panic. The air rushed through her hair. The ground loomed. Executing a tight flip, Charalee redirected all of the protection that she could to her legs. The skin-sheath ought to be able to handle that much strain--it was tested to work for upwards of forty meters--but, lately, things hadn't always worked the way she wanted, Charalee had noticed. Her breath caught in her throat. Panic started to edge its way into her mind. The ground seemed to grow. Then it was done, she'd landed, and though the force jolted through her entire body, causing one of the stitches in her head to burst and a fresh shock of pain and blood to leak through, she hadn't splattered as she'd feared she would. Then momentum caught up with her; too much energy shoved her forward. Spilling awkwardly forward, Charalee's heels tripped upwards and she found herself midair and upside down, spiraling in an ungainly star shape, landing some three or four meters from where she'd touched down. Unprepared for this, she didn't have time to reprogram the skin-sheath. When she landed on her left arm, she heard--and felt--a dry crack. Pain spiked through her as she bounced, grunting and gasping, another meter through the Hangar. As she rolled to a stop, she cradled her forearm, gritting her teeth against the pain. Blood dripped into her eyes as she tried to get up. Shock was rippling through her, making her empty stomach revolt, disassociating her ability to think clearly. In the not-too-distance, the closest Dentolura rushed in, their sundry shapes and faces a terrifying reality to face. Behind the creatures, the sun peered over the lip of the horizon, pouring its golden beams into the Hangar. Power. Portal. She could still escape. Forcing her arm back into position--screaming as she did so--she ordered the skin-sheath to bind up her forearm, immobilizing it. The pain was intense, but it also served to clarify her purpose. She wanted to survive. Nothing would keep her from getting her freedom. Behind her, the crowd continued to panic, pushing against each other, trampling one another in their haste and fear. In front of her was the onrush of lura, slaver on their jaws and violence in their eyes. In between was the Portal--off to one side and, mercifully, undamaged by the incoming horde. She could do this. She could pull it off. Gritting her teeth (and triggering the best pain-blocking protocols her aedee had), Charalee began to sprint. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something--one of the hover-pads that she'd taken upon arriving at the Compound. With the power returned, they would work. Deviating from her straight-forward course, she jumped onto the closest one. A short Security crewmember saw her, yelped, and moved to intercept. Charalee fiddled with the controls as the member leaped onto the pad. Charalee fretted for a split moment about how she'd defeat someone with only one hand, but the woman didn't attack her--instead, she slapped the large crate that was also on the pad. The crate's door popped open, releasing a noxious smell, but other than that, nothing happened. Taking advantage of the woman's choice, she kicked the crewmember in the stomach, sending her sprawling, her slanted eyes wide with pain and anger. Charalee laughed and tapped the control, shooting forward. With a flick of her finger, she increased the acceleration, zipping along faster than she could have run. Behind her, the thunder of the horde only grew. She knew she was cutting it close, and she hoped that she could avoid their notice, since there were so many tasty morsels in front of them. Sparing a glance behind her, Charalee's stomach dropped into her aching feet. The entire horde, it seemed, had started coming after her. Swallowing hard, she glanced at the accelerator. A red light flashed. Shoving the wind-whipped hair from her eyes, she looked closer. OVER LIMIT. She glanced at the crate behind her. "Good luck," she said to it, and shoved it off, the action causing a twinge of pain in her left arm. The cage clattered free, spinning wildly on its base as it skittered across the concrete floor of the Hangar. The hover-pad began to speed up. Charalee let out an exultant whoop and faced forward. The Portal was close now. Charalee's temple warmed. She frowned. Who was calling now? A glance in the bottom left of her vision let her know it was, unsurprisingly, her sister. Despite the pain in her head and arm, she felt a flutter of joy pass through her. Ann wanted to talk? Charalee was feeling expansive; she'd allow it. "I'd like to thank you for this chance to escape," said Charalee as she rammed the hover-pad into a rapid deceleration. The change in momentum nearly threw her from the pad, but she managed to remain onboard until it was safe to run off it. "I couldn't have gotten here without you." "Charalee," said Ann, her voice soft and sad, "I didn't want to do this." "Do what, sister?" asked Charalee, sprinting toward the aedee-terminal that controlled the Portal. "Lose?" "No. I didn't want to see this happen to you." Charalee slapped the terminal, calling up the protocols she'd been sent as Envoy to turn on. The Portal began to warm up, drawing on the prodigious power of the PRISM engines, utilizing Prospero's sun as a connection to the star closest to the Vanguard. How it worked, Charalee had never understood. Something about restructuring the matter passing through the Portal and reassembling it on the other end. Whatever it was, she need only allow it to fully power up before she could step through, returning to the Vanguard and there relate the tragic tale of Prospero's demise, everyone dead as the hostile megafauna feasted on their remains… Charalee laughed. In a few minutes, the Portal would be open. She'd be safe. She turned to look at the tower where she assumed Ann still stood, watching her sister leave. "You're jealous of me, Ann. You always have been. What have you ever done that I couldn't have done better? You were always inferior to me. It's something Mother knew. That's why she did for me what she refused to do for you: She paid for my digenetic implants, Ann. She cared about me." "I'm sorry, Charalee. I can't let you leave." "You aren't likely to stop me, sister. That's a problem for you, isn't it?" "Well, as Senton taught me, you never know when a biological solution will be what you need to solve your problems." Charalee blinked. The timer on the portal read another three minutes. She couldn't leave yet, so she decided to indulge her sister's cryptic comment. "What do you mean by that?" "Goodbye, Charalee." Her temple cooled, letting her know that Ann had disconnected. Behind her, she heard a distinct pop. Confused, Charalee looked around. The horde had stopped chasing her, she realized. They had found something on the ground…the infant from before was in the midst of the mass of creatures. Had that been in the cage? That explained the smell. Thinking of that stench was enough to make her smell it again. Charalee took a deeper breath. No, she wasn't imagining it. There stink of copper and sewage invaded her nostrils. The horde's attention on the infant snapped to her, almost as one. Charalee's eyes widened. With trembling fingers, Charalee reached behind her. The pop, what had that been? A small protuberance came beneath her seeking hand. She plucked it free and looked at it. A used Calm packet, one that required an aedee signal to open. Bringing it closer to her face, she took a whiff. The smell of the Dentolura pheromones still lingered thickly around the opening. Charalee looked up at the approaching horde of lura, her face frozen in fear and dawning understanding. Ann had betrayed her. She'd tricked her, let her go… The closest lura leaped forward, its jaw unhinged and wide. The timer read ninety seconds when she began to scream. The screams stopped when the timer read twenty-eight seconds. Comments are closed.
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What is this?This is a NaNoWriMo project that publishes, day by day, the chapters I'm writing for 2017. If you're confused, go to Chapter 1 Ann and start there. ArchivesCategories
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