Page 25 of Fighting Gravity
“Put it on,” he said, gesturing at the oversized cloak.
I rolled my eyes. “Why not just leave me on the ship?”
“Because I don’t trust you not to try something that will either get my shuttle destroyed or attract unwanted attention.”
“You really have no faith that I can fly out of here, huh?”
“None.” He reached out, grabbing my arm with bruising force. “Now put on the cloak.”
I yanked my arm away with a snarl and reluctantly slung the cloak around my shoulders and lifted the hood over my head. Norm shoved me toward the ramp that lowered at the back of the shuttle and then took some weird device from one of his companions. It looked like a strip of thin metal, but I knew better. It was about to slap over my wrists and turn into cuffs.
I needed to think of something. I didn’t know Norm well enough and I didn’t trust that he wasn’t going to trade me for parts. He wanted to kill me back on his ship, so what was stopping him from dragging me along just to give me to some gross, alien mob now that he was desperate? They sure talked a lot about something they didn’t want to tell me on the way to the port.
My Buddy was in the female’s hand. She hadn’t figured out what to do with it and so she hadn’t tucked it away yet. When we got to the ramp and the musty, humid smell of the space station wafted through my lungs, I was relieved to find that the oxygen was rich there. I had a chance.
My heart was racing. It always did when I was about to do something stupid. I took a deep breath, making sure I could really breathe. There were a lot of windy tunnels up ahead. I could get lost in them.
I was going to get one chance and one chance only. Was I alright dying if my stupid non-plan worked? Internally, I shrugged it off. I wasn’t going to end up on some giant alien’s plate or as someone’s pet.
As Norm began shoving me down the ramp, I saw the cuff flash in my peripheral. He took my wrist and in a fit of desperation, I shoved him with both hands. He didn’t budge. I kind of expected that. He did release my wrist though and once I was free, I spun around, snatched my Buddy right out of Sour Face’s hand, and booked it.
Jeezus… I almost tripped just getting down the ramp. The stupid cloak was way too big and the fabric was hitting my feet. If I was going to escape, I needed to toss it. So I did. I threw it off and sprinted through the first tunnel I found, bumping into bodies left and right. I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. From the smell alone, they weren’t pleasant sights. Some were tall and lanky. Others were short and walking on all fours. Other than that, I didn’t have time to stop and truly soak it all in. If I could find a nook to hide in, I could activate my Buddy and call for help. Or, at the very least, activate a tracking beacon so someone knew I was alive… somewhere… wherever the fuck I was.
Maybe I was too far for a signal to even reach anyone…
I just. Needed. To run.
I thought I was fit as hell until I was sprinting down a metal walkway through an alien-infested deep space station.
Never thought I’d say that…
Something in the back of my mind thought maybe I’d see people there, but that was stupid. I was the only human and yeah, all the creeps noticed even if I was whizzing by them at full speed. But the biggest creep—the one I was running from—took the cake.
I moved fast down wide hallways, narrow hallways, across metal overpasses, and through what looked like crowded markets that smelled like food. Maybe not good food, but I could tell it was food. Steam and smoke thickened the air and coated my skin in sweat. Weird languages were being shouted from all directions and no matter how much I tried not to look at anything, sometimes I caught glimpses of purple faces. Green faces. Gray faces that looked like something out of “Planet of the Apes.” Any one of them could reach out and grab me, but I think they were as stunned as I was.
When I found a narrow alleyway, I squeezed through and lifted my Buddy, finally trying to turn it on. To my luck, the screen lit up, welcoming me by name. I wanted to celebrate, but I knew better than to accept an easy win. Nothing was that simple.
As I sped-walked down the alley fiddling with my Buddy and breathing like I’d just run a marathon, I heard a commotion out in the market. I really didn’t want to wait around to find out what was going on. I already had an idea so I ran out of the other side of the alley into a slightly less crowded street. Less crowds did not make it easier to navigate though. I was pretty sure that I was in some kind of slum. It smelled like literal shit and the inhabitants didn’t look too stable. I sped up, running as fast as my already sore legs could carry me while I attempted to punch in codes on my Buddy to send a distress call.
I had left Norm in the dust. Or so I thought. But I decided to glance over my shoulder as my pace began to slow and was horrified to see him turn a corner right onto my slummy street. He had one of the gadgets from his belt in hand. It still looked harmless, but he didn’t. he looked furious and a furious Norman was bad news. He was big and peered over the heads of the sparse crowd, immediately picking me out like a hawk finding a fish under choppy waters.
I spun on my heels and kept running. Glancing back again, I saw him shoving past everyone in his path. The green tower of muscle could run, but I had one advantage in a chase. I was much smaller. I started ducking into narrow alleys again and losing myself in the maze. I thought it was a great idea for a while. It seemed to be working out. All I needed to do was find a corner and finish what I was doing on my Buddy.
But then a big, thick arm swept out in front of me just as I was slipping out of another crevasse. I grunted, clotheslined right in the chest. I fell back onto the damp, metal ground, my feet flying out from under me. My Buddy was tossed straight into the air and I lost track of it. For a moment, I was seeing stars, and not the kind I liked.
Before I knew it, Norm’s hand was on my neck. He pulled me to my feet and shoved me against the wall so hard I lost my breath. Raising one of his little gadgets in his other hand, I watched a blue, buzzing tip shoot out of it like a switchblade. The cerulean light lit up his angry face as he leaned over me, blocking my view of anything else.
It was just him and me.
The blade hummed with some kind of electrical charge and that close to my neck, I could feel the heat. It began to sting, the pain akin to getting a tattoo in a really tender spot. Ok, I could handle that. But then it got worse. It wasn’t until I heard my skin sizzling that Norm put the blade away and slapped the cuffs on my wrists too fast for me to fight. Sour Face stepped up behind him and picked up my Buddy, stuffing it in her pocket. I still didn’t really understand what they were going to do with it, but I knew it wasn’t good.
Maybe I should have just destroyed it. My freedom was feeling less attainable by the second anyways.
My hope was diminished by about 40% when I saw my Buddy disappear. It was diminished by another 10% when the cuffs were on my wrists. I slouched with defeat, rubbing my neck where burned flesh made a throbbing line right above my collarbone.
I’d been around the block before and somehow, Norm had managed to put more scars on me in the last week than anyone had in my whole life. And that was saying a lot.
11: Rhone
