Page 133 of Homebound
“Hey, how come you’re taking them out? Take me out, too!” somebody cried out to Ruby.
“Guess you aren’t special enough,” came her flippant reply.
“I want to go! Please, helper, take me out of here!” another accented voice implored.
Ruby didn’t reply. She approached Gemma with the Sakka from cell28 in tow. The Sakka was in the process of buttoning his gray janitorial overcoat without looking at Gemma. A hat followed, concealing as much of his features as possible to pass for a human.
Gemma gave Ruby a questioning look, to which the older woman shrugged. “Simon wanted him along.”
“The Sakka alien?”
“Mayhap you don’t clean well enough,” Ruby said on her way to the door.
Too frazzled to contemplate the meaning of the Sakka’s company, Gemma followed Ruby to the stairs. The heavy door closed behind them, abruptly cutting off the howling and shouting of desperate voices begging to be taken away from this place. Promising to do anything in return.
They descended on silent feet.
But as they were nearing the ground floor, the racket of a massive commotion swelled louder and louder from the door that led to the lobby. Ruby cracked it open and jerked back as the uproar of warfare blasted through the crack.
The lobby was a battlefield. Smoke swirled around in abundance, obscuring furtive movements of the guards who ran around in short bursts, jumping over the bodies of their fallen comrades, crouching behind the few available corners. Laser guns zapped without respite and seemingly without aim, hitting walls and doors, and splintering the lockers and the crude counter where helpers used to receive their stun guns every morning.
Marigold crouched low behind a steel column, coughing in her hands. Janitorial buckets were scattered on the floor and sheets were smoldering inside the supply closet.
A hulking black sweeper was parked smack in the middle of the lobby, giving off an acrid smell of burning oil and hot metal. Its magnetic field appeared to be turned off, and behind it, Gemma caught a glimpse of the night visible through the jagged opening that used to be the entrance door.
“Holy Mother of Jesus…” Ruby’s hoarse whisper barely reached Gemma’s ears over the noise. “I think Simon’s already here.”
“Whatever makes you think so?” Gemma murmured rhetorically knowing Ruby wouldn’t hear her.
The three of them hovered at the door in indecision.
“We should go back and pretend we never left our cells, helper.” The Sakka was wringing his slender hands, its childish face scrunched in profound fear. “Your plan is bad. We should wait for another time.”
He turned to go but Ruby’s hand grabbed his coat and stopped him in his tracks.
“You stay with us.”
At this moment, the door leading to OO’s office splintered off its hinges, and Simon emerged like a specter of doom. Gemma had a half-second in which to take in his tall form clad in some body-hugging suit that showcased the width of his shoulders. His strongly-molded veiny arms were cradling a weapon the size of a small cannon.
In a blink of an eye, he traced away from OO’s office sending his white braid flying in a graceful arc, and disappearing behind the sweeper just as more gunfire erupted, targeting the spot where he’d stood a second ago, incinerating the remnants of the office door.
Instinctively, Gemma shrunk back.
The sweeper moved then, its gears grinding, its chassis groaning under its weight. Like a giant steampunk snail straight out of a mad scientist’s nightmare, it chugged rhythmically as its multiple tiny wheels hidden under the armored belly propelled it across the lobby with the speed of an arthritic man on a walker. The guards peppered it with shots, but their handguns couldn't make a dent in the sweeper’s reinforced body.
The sweeper turned as it went, clearly chauffeured with purpose, and by the time it reached the doorway where Gemma, Ruby, and the Sakka were plastered against the wall, its solid side was facing them, offering protection from the lasers.
Simon came around, pouring fire at the guards to provide them with cover. He didn’t look at Gemma, but he didn’t have to. His complex eyes enabled him to keep the entire lobby in his field of vision without so much as turning his head. His battle eyes. One of his many advantages over humans that had Dr. Delano’s undies twisted in a wad.
Simon’s eyes were glowing with dark fire, telling Gemma that his body was firing on all cylinders.
“You hijacked a sweeper?” she asked stupidly when he paused to loom over the three of them.
He shrugged. “Seemed like an easy solution.”
She smiled at him. “Your eyes are very shiny. You’re angry.”
“No, just jacked up. But if you don’t move, and fast, I’ll get angry.”
