Diplomatic Immunity

The chat between the agent and the alien gets sour and turns heated when suspicions rise between the two species

               

Lycia finds herself absolutely furious, not only did she get attacked by these aliens, but now she’s a captive, again! Only now she’s been chained to the idiot that attacked her, “How could this situation get any worse?” she thinks to herself. She is torn from her self-pity when the paler alien snaps its fingers at her as if she is some sort of pet. For a moment she thought about taking a bite at its fingers, then maybe it would think twice before doing that again. But seeing how she is in a literal bind at the moment, she thinks better and sees what it wants. It points at the darker one, it probably wants to communicate again, in all things considered  though, she isn’t particularly in a good mood to talk. Especially to this thing they chained her to, she could feel her stomach bruising and her antenna are now throbbing excessively.

               

Just when she thought her luck had turned around after seeing the pathetic creature laying on the ground, right where she could easily insert the device into its head, this happens. Dremux will never stop bragging to her if he finds out about this. Well he was right about one thing, being the first to encounter isolated beings is awful. The pale one snaps it meaty fingers at her again, and that is really starting to agitated her, could it not pick up on the fact that she doesn’t want to talk to it? But it kept speaking loudly in its incomprehensible language doing its best to get her attention, or perhaps its intention is to simply annoying her.

“Just acknowledge the man so we can get on with all this.” The voice of darker alien demands silencing the paler one.

               

She looks up at it reluctantly getting a good look at its features, this one is a light brown, the type of brown that the leaves in her mother’s garden when they died in the winter. It seemed to be a male which meant the paler one was too, well that and with what it just said. It had black looking hair, however when the light from the sun shines on it it reveals a dark brown, and had it growing all over its head. There was a patch growing above its upper lip, which are pinkish and plump, they both look like worms resting on its face. It’s hair also extends from its head down along its cheeks, chin, and neck. Its nostrils are in the center of its face hanging underneath a bulge of flesh that sticks out from its flat face. What she finds most odd are the flaps of flesh that were on the side of its head. She hasn’t met a species with that feature before, upon further analysis she assumes they are its ears after seeing the tiny holes within them. She couldn’t take her eyes off then they’re so thin that light can shine through them revealing some of its blood vessels. The silliest part of this creature’s ear are the thickest part that look very floppy. She thought the eyes a bit disturbing, they’re mostly white but have what she thinks one black circle within it. But when light passes over them it exposes that there’s two circles, one being dark brown ring the other a black dot within it.  It looks as if it had an eye within its eye, she half expects the ring to blink on its own at any point.

“I am in no mood to talk to  the likes of either of you.” Lycia answers in a cold attitude letting the alien know how she feels about it.

“Yeah, well I’m not in the mood to be handcuffed to a stubborn blue freak, but I’m still putting up with.” The dark alien response is more aggressive than her own catching her off guard.

               

Wanting to lash back she opens her mouth but stalls, there is no purpose in quarreling with it, one of the armed ones would just threaten them until they remain silent. These aliens clearly have no idea who she is because if they did they would regret every action they have done up to this point. She swore that if she ever gets home, she’ll make these ones pay for what they’ve done once they assimilate into the empire. And if the rest of their species is as rude as they are she hopes they will be sent out to the asteroid belt to mine resources.

“Silent treatment okay, well how about you tell me how to get this bomb off my head, or better yet take it out yourself so my brain doesn’t go spewing everywhere.” His tone has grown more aggressive, but it soon mellows out when an armed one glances at him.

               

Not that she cared, but not only could she not allow him to remove it because despite her hatred for it, it was the only one who could understand her. As well as, she didn’t even know how to remove it. She had to go off of memory from Dremux’s stories, and non of them detailed on how to take it off. So for better or for worse, and it’s looking to be the latter, she’s stuck with this idiot for the time being. The thought that she’d be stuck with this fool does not inspire too much hope.  She just ignores him, peering out the window of the vehicle they are in watching the landscape go by.

               

She could hear the pale alien trying to communicate with her and the darker one trying to get her attention but she’s and flushes them out of her mind. She just couldn’t wait to get home, despite all of its flaws it’s better than staying in this hovel. She did admit she liked not being the short one in the crowd, most of these aliens appeared smaller than she is. Well all but her own personal buffoon, another quality she could add to her distaste for it. The thought of these aliens meeting the rest of the Alyuan race put a grin on her face. She hopes she’s there when these primitives realize that they aren’t a race to be meddled with.

               

Suddenly she's is pressed against the window her cheek against the glass, she feels that  her handcrafted bag being removed from her shoulder. Once again she fights them off kicking, screaming, and squirming around trying to get out of their filthy grasp.  Looking into the reflection from the glass she sees one of them has got a hold of her hair and is pushing her head against the glass. While another has their hand buried in between her shoulder blades. The arm that is chained to the alien begins twisting behind her back and whenever she tries to yank her arm back in her control she could feel one of them press up against her.

               

The pale alien spouts something to its lackeys, to which they let her go as he observed the sack’s content. Once freed she attempts to lash out at the pale one, but has her chained armed yanked back. The darker alien grabs hold of its chained arm preventing her from attacking her captor. She gives the alien a scowl, but before further violence could occur, she is pushed back into her seat. She now is forced to watch as the pale alien rummages through her supplies, its face cringing when it pulls out and opens one of the food rations.

It quickly moves in into a container and continues to pillage through the material that she had gathered. It pulls out the container for water  opening it up as well before smelling the content finding nothing and putting it in another container. But both Lycia and the pale aliens face light up when it pulls out the emergency beacon transmitter. It carefully inspects it taking detailed glances over it from every angle, it says something seemingly more to itself than anyone else.

               

The pale alien shouts something but she disregards it, if they aren’t going to give her the respect she deserves than she has nothing to say to them. “Hey, maybe if you should answer some of their questions, and then maybe they’ll stop slamming you into the f*****g door!” The darker alien spouts, the translation device isn’t able to translate alien slang so the word ‘f*****g’ goes unedited. Assuming the word is an insult she gives the darker alien an angry glance. “Or don’t, I mean if you’re some sort of masochist that enjoys this then by all means you do you.  Just let me say that I’m pretty sure at this rate one of us is going to have a dislocated shoulder and I’m also pretty sure who it’s gonna to be.”

The alien has such a smug look it infuriates her, but as much as she hates to admit it this thing is probably right. She certainly doesn’t want this to get any worse and so far her luck has been going downhill fast. So despite her feelings, she plays along, at least for now. “Ok I’ll speak to him just as long as I’m no longer harassed.” 

               

The darker skin alien then gets the attention of the pale alien by saying the phrase ‘Santiago’ over and over again. It doesn’t translate into Alyuan so she takes a gander that it is either more slang or the paler alien’s name. Santiago looks over at the darker alien who points it nasty finger at her with one hand, while repeatedly opening and closing with the other.  She isn’t sure what it meant but that clearly doesn’t matter because this ‘Santiago’ seems to understand, asks something to the darker alien. It hands her fellow captive a blank pad along with a primitive wooden device, which the darker alien takes holding the pad in the chained hand and the wooden device in the other.

“He wants to know what that thing he has is and how to defuse the thing you put in my head.” The darker one translates confirming her suspicions that they’re the males of their species.

“That is a transmitter that was in the emergency pod, it’s use is to send a distress signal back to the nearest Alyuan planet. Then they’d send a rescue pod to get me off of your forsaken planet. As for that ‘thing’ as you put it, I do not know how to remove it.” She answers as calmly as possible.

               

The darker alien begins to shout but is silenced by Santiago who snaps his finger at him and gestures back to the pad. The darker alien lets out a loud upset sigh and starts writing on the pad. She finds it fitting watching the darker alien being ordered around like a servant. She watches as he jots down symbols in their language that look like nonsensical scribbles to her.  Santiago says something again to the dark alien which for some reason upsets as he violently points to the translation device in his head. Santiago speaks once more to the alien calming him down for another question.

“Where is the closest planet to ours and when will they arrive?” the dark alien begrudgingly asks giving a fowl look.

“I can’t say for either of those questions because my ship was pulled from Slip-Space before we reach our destination. That and it depends on what ship the send to rescue me, hopefully as soon as they possibly can.”  Lycia answers returning the disdainful look the darker alien was giving her.

               

Again, he writes down on the pad what she was saying and presents it to Santiago, who was reading it like he was confused at what she was saying. “Maybe this one has poor handwriting.” Lycia thinks to herself. Santiago the raises his eyes from the pad and stares her in the eyes, and frightfully the look reminds her of Daemon’s. It shakes her to the core, but she did her best not to look intimidated despite feeling a chill go up her spine. Santiago asks another question not taking his eyes off her, this at least gives her a reason to look away from his gaze.

“What did he say” She is eager to know what the issue is.

“He said, what will your people do once they discover Earth?” It took some thought for her to realize that the last word he is referring to is the name of their planet.

“They will come and take me home and then speak to your world’s leader… or leaders, and you’ll join the Alyuan Empire.” She answers quickly feeling Santiago’s glare burning into her cheek.

               

The darker alien’s expression wasn’t what she expected, the look it has is that of concern and Santiago seems to be picking up on it. He instructs the dark alien to jot down what she said and he does so, but when Santiago reads it her worry grew by the second. He asks another question looking at her even more intensely.

“What if we don’t want to join your species empire?” The darker alien questions. Lycia knew that she needs to pick her next world carefully or else the situation will escalate. “You wouldn’t be the first non-Alyuan to become part of the empire, there are many. They all enjoy the luxuries that the empire provides for them which includes long distance space travel, which your species hasn’t yet acquired. So if you want me to help me help you, you’ll ask him to hand that back over to me.”

               

The darker alien sighs with a snide smirk across its face, like it knew something she didn’t, and given her situation she needs to be in the loop of everything. She watches as he wrote what she had said wondering if he was telling Santiago the truth.  Santiago reads it, sighs, and somehow subtly intensifies his scowl speaking directly to her coming uncomfortably close to her face. Leaning back into her seat she faces the darker alien looking for a translation.

“That’s not what he asked.” The darker alien answered.

“Excuse me?” She replies sheepishly.

“That’s not what he asked. He wants to know what would happen to humanity, our species, if we refuse to join your empire?” the darker alien now appeared to be just as interested in her answer as Santiago was.

Lycia remains silent, knowing that the truth would only put her in a worse position. “Then… we would… allow you to stay independent. And allow you to work your way up to becoming a more advanced species.” She lies hoping that they wouldn’t catch onto her bluff. The darker alien turns to look at Santiago, who gives him a quick glance before continuing to give her the same glare he’d been giving her for what seems like an eternity now. Santiago doesn’t say any words but the darker alien let out a chuckle, or rather it’s more like puffing air out of his nostrils.

“I’m not sure if anyone has ever told this to you before so let me be the first to tell you that you’re a terrible liar.”

“I-I’m not lying it’s the truth we let all the aliens we encounter remain isolated for their own self-governing.” Lycia stutters, growing more anxious knowing that they saw through her lie.

“Really? So, let me personally ask you something, your species has an empire correct?” the darker alien now gives her an odd look while it carries a smirk on its face.

“Yes…”

“And you mentioned earlier that there are other alien species, aside from your own that is part of this empire, right?”

“Well I-” Lycia was going to try and change what she said but the darker alien stops her before she could get a sentence out.

“And when empires expand its usually for more resources like land, food, water, etc, so my question to you is, if your species needs more resources for your people and the only way to provide them with those resources is by going to other planets to get them, what’s going to be left over for those already living on those planets?” She feels her whole body trembling now, at how thorough this idiots questions are, perhaps he’s not as foolish as he lets on. Usually Santiago directed the questioning, and compared to the rest of these aliens Santiago seemed the most intelligent. But these questions though were from the darker alien himself, and he’d just punched through all the holes she’d just fabricated.

“I… um… well you what we do to solve that is-” Lycia couldn’t find the right words to put herself in a better position.

“What’s the matter can’t think of anymore lies? Listen I’m no expert in dealing with these sort of predicaments, I mean my God look at me I’m currently detained by my own government with a bomb planted into my brain. By the way thanks for that, back to my point, I’m in no means a genius when it comes to communicating with beings not from my own world. However, I do know from personal experience that if you’ve been caught in a lie that its best to start speaking the truth before you dig yourself into a hole that you can’t get out of.” The darker alien lectured her.

               

Though she didn’t quite get some of his rambling, Lycia does understand that he knew she was lying to him. She mentally curses herself for not being a better liar, but her conscious gave so many signals that if she told them the truth that they would not like it. Once again, she is forced to weigh her options, should she tell the truth and try to bargain her way out of this scenario unfolding. Or should she try to pick up her lie polishing it to make it look more preferable, then try and lie her way off the planet.

“Do you know what’s going to happen to me?” Lycia asks trying to unfold what the former scenario could entail.

“I have no idea, but I can ask for you. You have to answer their question before they give you any answers though.” The darker alien responds his voice no longer as aggressive or smug as before, if she didn’t know better she’d think he was being sincere.

“If I tell you, but you have to make sure that no matter what I say that no harm will befall me and that all efforts in returning me home will be taken.” Lycia answers cautious of the change of attitude in this alien, but it is probably better than getting caught in another lie.

“…I promise you I’ll speak on your behalf, but at the moment I’m just as much as a prisoner as you are.” Hearing him say that make her feel less confident in all this.

“…Ok, the truth is that if a species doesn’t want to become part of our empire, we evict those who resist and drop them off on some isolated planet to harvest for resources. While the rest are subjugated under our laws and are assigned jobs that meet the empires needs.” She said to him, it wasn’t all true, if any species refused to willingly give up their planet and caused too much of a problem to the empire would launch an invasion until they submitted. And if any resistance continued the species would be subjected to harsher conditions.

              

So it’s a half lie, but seemed to be good enough to make the darker alien believe her because the expression on his face looks as if he was horrified. She watches as the alien writes out what she hopes is her request, but she couldn’t make any sense of the symbols that he’s jotting down. As she watches she notices that he had put a gap between his writings, she wonders if he is separating what she told him from what she asked.

                

Presenting the pad to Santiago who took it from him to read it thoroughly, she watches his eyes move back and forth reading each line. After reading it he looks at her again, but pulls a wire from behind the flappy ear thing, and speaks into it. She turns to the dark alien hoping that he would tell her what’s going on, but he seemed to be just as bewildered as she is. When Santiago finishes she thinks that he was going to try and continue the conversation that they were having. Instead he remains quiet, eerily quiet, they all just sit in an uncomfortable silence.

“What happening?” she whispers the darker alien.

“I don’t know, he said something in some sort of military code phrase saying that we’re on our way to outpost thirty-six D, but I have no idea where that is.” The darker alien answers, now his voice sounds as if he’s concerned as well.

“What about getting me home has he said anything about that?” she was beginning to think that the worst-case scenarios was starting to happen.

“Nothing.” Those words hit her pretty hard.

So, with little options left she figures that she has to try and coax information out of Santiago himself. Looking at the back of the darker aliens head where she implanted the translation device, she notices a small dark pad with the words ‘Switch Languages’ underneath it. So, while no one is looking she subtly reaches over to the darker alien. As she reaches for it one of the armed aliens notices and shouts at her raising its weapon.  Her head snaps towards the alien with its weapon drawn and the rest of her freezes. Now the dark alien has noticed the commotion and shifts his head around his face wielding a look of shock.

“What the hell are you doing?!” the darker alien asks very slowly looking her in the eyes.

“I was trying to reach the device in your head to switch to your language to make this easier.” She calmly says over the armed aliens barks.

“You sure you weren’t going to set an explosive off in my head?” the alien replies calmly but there being a hint of anger in his words.

“Why would I try and set off an explosive this close to myself, what sense does that make?”  she answers her words matching the alien’s tone.

“I don’t know, if you could switch the languages before why didn’t you do so before all this happened?”

“Maybe because some imbecile hit me in the abdomen and pinned me to the ground before I got the chance!” her voice recess her agitation, hushing the extent of it through her teeth.

               

The darker alien opens his mouth as if he was going to say something, but apparently words failed him because he pauses and looks away from her. He looks to the armed alien raising his thumb to it, but it keeps its weapon aimed at them. The soldier seems to have gotten the message but turns to Santiago for confirmation. Santiago, who has remained completely composed through this ordeal, looks at the armed alien then back at the darker alien. She isn't sure what the exchange here means, but she isn’t about to test them by moving any further.

               

Santiago gives him a deep stare that expresses curiosity as well as scrutiny; she glances over curious to see how the darker alien would react to the intensity of Santiago’s stare. It seems that the look that Santiago is giving him makes the darker alien uncomfortable as well.  Unlike herself however, he doesn’t try to hide any of it. There’s some silence with nothing but the humming of this vehicle’s engine filling the compartment, occasionally a shriek of one of the vehicles escorting would break the awkward pause. Santiago must have been thinking because after an exaggerated sigh he tells the armed alien something and he lowers his weapon.

              

 She takes this as allowance to continue, but she does take note that Santiago has one of his hand tucked into his outer article of clothing. She doesn’t know what he has hidden inside of it, but she isn’t too keen of finding out either.  Once again, she reaches over placing two of her fingers on the surface of the translator, which lights a bright blue and scans her finger up and down emitting a rainbow of colors. The aliens watch her intensely as the lights went up and down her fingers. The device gives off a loud ping when it was done which seems to startle all in the compartment, it even looked as if Santiago had flinched a bit.

               

In an instant, she feels a wave of information flow into her mind overwhelming her and giving her a headache. It’s like someone had forcefully pumped something into her mind making her brain swell. She opens her mouth to say something but is startled by the new sound of her voice, it wasn’t too different than original voice but has a notable higher pitch to it.

“Santiago….” She says more so to fully hear herself then to address him.

“…Yes?” Santiago now gives her his full attention.

“Where… Where are you taking me?” She asks in their language which makes her feel off, wanting to say one thing but having a completely different sound leaving her mouth.

“First, I’d like to ask you some questions, like who attacked you. Why is there a bomb in a translation device, and who are you?” the alien was firm in his questioning.

“My name doesn’t matter, as for who attacked me they were a less nomadic species that had become pirates. As for the translator in his head, they’re… very expensive… and very valuable when in comes to contact with other species. Something as precious as that cannot be allowed to be stolen. So when species, such as yourselves, are uncooperative drastic measures need to be taken.”  She explains displaying her disdain for their species through their own language.

“Oh f**k you!” the tanned skin alien shouts somewhat surprised to hear his own voice.

“Ignore him, what are these pirates like?” Santiago continues to prod.

“*sigh* They’re short, shorter than both of us, but are bulky for their size. They’re reptilian and have claws and teeth to match the attitude, and they may have short legs they can be quite fast when they run on all fours.”

“Fascinating, can you tell me if these aliens followed you. Or perhaps what type of explosive is implanted in the translator?”  Santiago said with a smile, one that disturbed her even more than the glare he’d given her.

“No, I cannot.” she says wanting her turn for questioning.

“Why not?” The agent continued

“Because I’m not an explosive expert! And I wasn’t exactly checking to see if I was being followed! Does that answer your questions?!” she is stunned that she even needed to explain this.

“My apologies, now if you don’t mind I have one more question about this transmitter of yours.” Santiago gives a seemingly insincere apology.

“I do mind, so now it’s your turn to answer my questions. Now I want to know where you are taking me?!”

“You don’t need to worry yourself about that we’ll be handling everything from now on. In the meantime, you’ll be coming with us for more questioning, while we try and remove the device you implanted in Richard’s head.”  Santiago answers disregarding her question pulling out a small electronic pad typing in some more gibberish she couldn’t read.

“When will the questioning be done?” She continues getting more worried and upset by the second.

“Like I said you don’t have to worry about any of that, we’ll be taking care of everything.” The alien repeats himself.

               

It's here that she realizes that he’s not answering her questions deliberately, if so then that meant a few things. They’re taking her prisoner, they’ll have plenty of time to question her, and that they weren’t going to let her go. Gritting her teeth she imagines herself being locked up in some foul cell forced to answer these aliens’ questions day and night in exchange for scraps of food. No, she wouldn’t allow it.  She’s not about to end up someone’s prisoner once more, she had to do whatever it takes to get off this planet.

“Santiago…” she says making her voice sound as assertive as she’s capable of, “… if you have any care for what happens to you and your people, you’ll let me out of your vehicle, take this chain off of my wrist, and return my belongings this instant.”

“Are you threatening me?”  Santiago doesn’t appear to be intimidated.

“No I’m not threatening you… I’m warning you! Now, Let… Me…. Go!” Lycia puts emphasis on her final statement.

               

Now everyone in the vehicle was staring at Santiago pondering his next choice of words. Santiago looks around the compartment,  recognizing that what he says next will be the outcome of this conversation. He closes his eyes letting out a heavy sigh before a brief moment of silence, “Alright, give me your wrist.” This response seems to shock everyone in the vehicle, the armed alien tries to dissuade him from doing so. “Relax trooper, the situation is still under control.” The agent replies reaching into his jacket.

               

She isn’t sure about what he meant about the situation being under control, but she did have this feeling in the back of her mind telling her not all is as it seemed. Cautiously she places her chained wrist into his other hand waiting to be released. She tugs the darker alien’s wrist, whose name was Richard apparently, taking a quick glance at him noticing that he too has a look of suspicion. Lycia is ripped from her thoughts when she feels Santiago’s grip on her wrist tighten and she snaps her neck back towards him. He whips out a syringe and tries to inject something into her. Before he can do so she yanks her wrist out of his grasp before kicking him in the chin.

               

Santiago’s head whipped back viciously and he sat slumped in his seat with the syringe slipping out of his hand. For a brief moment she feels some pride beating such a deceitful beast, but seeing the other alien rearing its weapon towards her. She quickly swings her chained wrist down towards throwing Richard into the assailant. A loud explosion comes from the weapon followed by the vehicle veering out of control. Once again she is coated with red alien blood as the vehicle’s operator, which is missing most of its skull, is thrown to the other side of the compartment as the vehicle slams against some kind of divider outside.

               

The vehicle continues swerving and slams against another barrier, except this time bounding over it. At that moment all of the occupants  are given a moment of weightlessness as the bump against the roof of the vehicle. It all ends in a final crushing blow as the vehicle crunches against the ground sprinkling glass and bits of metal all over. The vehicle had lands diagonally flattening an upper portion of the vehicle.

               

Inside the vehicle Lycia once again feels awful, there are more bruises on her body that ached, and the one she’d gotten earlier has only amplified in intensity. To make matters worse she’s been slashed with glass giving multiple small cuts across her body. She turns her head as she heard another groan in the wreckage. It was Richard, who himself had cuts along his arms, and is trying to get a grasp on the situation around him. He kneels on one knee while his other leg stretches outward, he rests his upper body on one of his elbow with the chained arm stretched out as well.

               

This isn’t the outcome she expected, but she has to make this work. Hastily searching for her belongings, she rolls over Santiago’s lifeless body nabbing her food and water supply. Dread filled her veins though as she could not find the transmitter, dragging the dazed being latched to her in her mad search. She finds it between the legs of the hostile alien who’s now lying motionless.  Still cautious of the alien, she quickly snatches the transmitter inspecting it to make sure it was still intact.  It was given a few new scratches to its coat, but it still looked functional.

               

She would have made sure that she has everything she needed, but the sounds of sirens coming closer and closer to her location rushes her.  Eyes shifting side to side, she notices one of the windows of the vehicle had been cracked substantially with light peeping through small holes. She flips onto her back and kicks large clumps of glass out of her way.  The sirens are on top of them now as she crawls through the hole squeezing the alien Richard through as well.  He tries to resist, but she overpowers him and drags him along.

               

Out of the wreckage the light is blinding becoming more disorienting with the combination of flashing lights and sirens all around her. It’s not enough to stop her from running to the nearest building though.  Her focus is on a red building in front of her and she is determined to get there. At the same time she sees these aliens hoping out of their vehicles weapons drawn all shouting at her to stop. Similar explosions like the recent one pop all around her followed by whizzes and whistles of something flying past her.

               

All of her strength goes into getting the doors opened, all of her injuries scream at her as her body smashes into the door. The doors fly open the two fall over with each other. Shouting could be heard over the sirens, so she goes back to the doors pressing herself up against them.

“You! You see that pole with the banner on it, reach for it so we can keep them out!” She shouts at Richard as the aliens try to get through the door.

“W-we? No… no…this-this is a ‘you’ problem. They’re only riled like this ‘cause you tried to escape, they want you not me.” He replies out of breath yanking on their chain.

“Ah! You fool, you think they only want me?! They want what’s in your head too, and I don’t think they really care how they get it! Which mean you’ll end up dead when they tear it out of your skull!” She screams fight the aliens trying to break in.

“Uh…uh...y-you…you don’t even know how to remove this thing from my head, so I’m not seeing a reason to help you.”  He argues slowly beginning to understand his own situation.

“The reason you should help me is because I know people who can take the translator off without harming you. However, I can’t bring you to those people if I’m in these savage’s custody, so make a choice.” Lycia says tugging back on the chain still pressing herself against the door.

              

He stops tugging as hard clearly weighing his options, he lets out a sigh letting go of the chain. Grabbing the pole, he hands it off to her where she sticks it between the handles. Pulling herself from the door she sees them hit the door again bending the pole slightly.

“We need to get out of here.” She turns to her new companion.

“Well then we’re out of luck ‘cause they got the building surrounded. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to get in from another way.” At that moment the two hear a loud bang from elsewhere in the building. “Oh, speak of the devil.”

               

Running away from the noise she forces him down a couple flight of stairs into a large empty room. Quietly she closes the large door crouching down hugging her knees trying to think of their next move. Richard crouches beside her and in a whisper reinstates they can’t stay here. As if she doesn’t already know that, but in her haste to get away from their pursuers she hadn’t taken an escape plan into consideration. Voices could be heard echoing in the distance, they are closing in and here she was hiding. She feels him tap on her shoulder and was going to ignore Richard if he hadn’t mumbled something incoherent. She turns to give him an annoyed look, but notices he’s pointing to something on the floor. It’s some sort of drainage gate that looks old and is covered in a dry flaky metal, but more importantly it was an escape.

“Wonder what that’s doing here in a place like this? Do you think we can get that opened?” he whispers.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to try” She says as they both crawl over to the grate  gripping it testing to see if it will even move. They tug at it with it moving but it is very heavy, with a quick glance they synchronize the efforts. She nods her head and they lift the grate, more of the flaky substance peel off sticking to her moist skin. Ignoring the inconvenience, they set the lid aside peering into the dark hole. It has metal bars that sank into the darkness, they too are coated with this flaky material. Sighing she urges him to go first to make sure it was safe in which his response was to roll his eyes at her. Not sure what that meant she aggressively points at him and then the hole. He does as he was told, but not before pointing to her, then the lid, and then the hole. She knew that he wanted her to put the lid back, it’s insulting that he thought that she didn’t know to do so. He begins climbing down one-handed with the other she slacked to let her to lean against the edge of the hole as she slides the lid as quietly back into place.

 

Author's Note

Thanks to anyone who's been waiting for the next chapter and hello to any newcomers. If you're new probably should read the previous chapters to get be in the know of what's happening. As always constructive criticism is always appreciated.

Reviews

[Virtue Jackson]

Wow, things just keep worsening for them! That was intense, on to the next chapter!