29: Escape Pt. 1

Something seemed to ripple throughout space, causing Kyle Carter to become dizzy. He tripped over his own foot and went toppling over the edge.

Someone was screaming his name.

A rough hand grabbed Kyle’s shirt just as the heat turned his shoes into mush. He glanced up at his savior. Piott!

Kyle glanced up further. Bradley was hanging over a ledge, holding onto Piott’s arm with one hand and the cliff for dear life with the other.

“KYLE, CRAWL UP!” Bradley shouted over the rumble of bubbling, running molten rock below them.

Kyle did not need to be told twice, and crawled up Piott and Bradley. When he got onto the ledge, he grabbed Piott’s hand and hauled him up. Bradley was the last one up.

They sat on the ledge, breathing hard.

“Good teamwork, everyone,” Piott breathed. “Now, we just need to escape the inside of this active volcano.”

The glowing red eyes belonging to an unseen head squinted at the security camera footage. It didn’t see any bodies falling into the lava. This was embarrassing. If they had managed to find a hiding spot in the waste disposal tunnel, Red Eyes could flush them out easily.

It reached out its bony hands toward its keyboard, the meager movement crackling them menacingly.

Red Eyes was getting too old for this job. Typing commands on keyboards was hard work. Good thing its final mission would be complete before tomorrow’s evening.

The fingers finally reached the keys, and started tapping.

> HACK.PRGM

> Y

> Engaged/HACK.PRGM/route/map.jpeg

>  Engage: Sewage Tunnel

> capacity(1).TEMP(F=451)

--------------------------------------------------100%

Sewage Tunnel Fire Flush Online. Activate?

> Activate

Above their heads, a belch of fire roared out of the conveyor tunnel. Anything inside would’ve been incinerated.

 Bradley whistled and flicked the sparks out of his hair. “That was a close one.” They laughed.

“Out of the frying pan, and into the fire,” Kyle said, making them laugh harder. All this death-defying stuff was making them crazy.

The fire above them died. “We need to find a way to break everyone out,” Piott said.

“Or contact someone who can,” Kyle suggested. “They’ll probably be a lot more helpful than us at this point. Bradley, can you - ”

“Already did a while ago,” the doctor said, holding up a small black disc. It was blinking red in the center. “Volcanos have surprisingly good reception, you kn-”

Before Bradley could finish the sentence, there was a deep rumbling above them. Ships a kilometer long flew overhead, opening up and releasing other, smaller planes. Ropes dangled down and soldiers came sliding to the ground, guns chattering loudly. People yelled, gears grinded. Someone had come down and rescued the Lunars, and were rushed off to a helicopter.

Kyle strapped himself in, as did Piott and Doctor Bradley, and they began lift-off. They could see out the big sliding doors that other officials were being rescued along with them.

As they began ascent into the mother ship high above, though, Red Eyes’ army began fighting back. Gleaming white ships began attacking, sending rockets and lasers flying all throughout the sky. Bradley held onto his seat for dear life.

In front of them, one of the other rescue helicopters exploded into bright orange flames and smoke, falling towards Lightsyphon. The flying debris engulfed their own chopper as they continued forward. Out of nowhere, an attack ship burst from the smoke in front of them, MGs blazing, and rammed straight into them.

Kyle remembered fire. Not being able to breathe because of being trapped in crumpled, red-hot metal, but was surrounded in smoke so he couldn’t have breathed anyway. His mouth was filled with the coppery warmth of blood. He was covered in it. Whose it was, he couldn’t know. He blacked out, for how long he couldn’t know.

He woke up to the sensation of falling, and an ice cold sharp, all-consuming pain in his abdomen, as if something was jutting through it. He screamed as loud as he could, which wasn’t much, and felt his hands, meeting at his chest, grasping something cold and slick with blood.

He blacked out again.

Something grabbed him. Needles poked through his skin. They hurt, but he didn’t notice them. Only the screaming. The screaming was horrible. A large, cold hand in a white sleeve rested on his forehead and put him to sleep.

A lot of time passed. He could remember remembering at one point what went on during that time, but could remember it no longer.

The room was full of bright light.

Kyle Carter snorted and sat up on the cot. The first sign that something was wrong was that he couldn’t remember where he was or why he’d gotten there. The second sign was that he was in a grey t-shirt and jeans, both soaking in blood.