Children of Evolution (The Gateway Series Book 2) (40 page)

Becks lifted the door and shoved it aside. "You OK, kid?"

Nikki nodded, swallowing against the rawness in her throat as Becks hauled her to her feet. Ace was covering the now doorless opening, Max still draped across her shoulders, but she spared a quick questioning glance at Nikki. Nikki nodded again, finally finding her voice. "I'm all right."

Then she got a look through the door at the field outside covered with parked cars and small hover vehicles.
 

"Are there more of them out there?" she asked.
 

"Not that I can see," Ace replied, her eyes scanning the field lit by the spotlights crossing overhead.
 

"There will be," Becks said. "My team says those things are shadowing us in the theater. It's like they know where we are."

"They do," Ace said, keeping her gaze outside and off Nikki. "They don't need to see us to track us."

"You mean me," Nikki said.
 

Ace did glance over then, Becks too. One with a touch of sympathy, the other with pure confusion.

"Nikki is…special," Ace said. "These things can sense her."

But I'm not anymore,
Nikki thought, biting her lip to keep from saying it out loud.
 

Yes, Nikki, you are,
Michael replied, hesitating slightly.
My power is gone, but yours still works the way it always did, more so, actually.

"We're too exposed here," Ace said. "Can your people get a transport to us?"

"Yes," Becks said, "but by the time they get here those things—"

What are you talking about?
Nikki thought.

Nikki, there's nothing wrong with your power,
Michael said with a reluctance Nikki could feel clearly.
It's working harder than ever, building a charge every time you get hurt, and now every time you get upset. That's what gives me the strength to talk to you. The problem is not you; it's me. My power is the one that's gone.

She should have been thrilled, overjoyed. One of her two wishes had come true after all. Her power wasn't gone. It was just…worthless. Worse, it was a liability.

Becks started moving off up the hall. Nikki had missed the rest of their conversation about getting a ride to come to them, which seemed like a great idea. Ace gestured for Nikki to follow as she pushed off the doorframe with a grunt. She'd been resting Max's weight against the wall. Her gaze went right back to join her pistol covering the open door as she backed toward Nikki and Becks.

Michael was right. Ace was as tough as they came, but she couldn't carry a full-grown man around forever, especially not if she was going to have to cross all that open ground to get the shuttle, not with those things out there.

"Where are we going?"

"To the shuttle, like we just said," Ace said. "Now move. We've been still too long."

Nikki started up the hall after Becks, but only to get Ace farther away from the open door. If something happened to Ace and Max because she refused to move…

Ace turned from the door to pick up her pace and saw Nikki hesitating. "It's OK, kiddo. Becks's people are setting up around the back exit. We'll get to the shuttle."

"And then what happens to them?" Nikki asked as she slowed, falling farther behind Becks.

"Just move, Nikki," Ace said. "One thing at a time."

I bring the creatures right to them, that's what,
Nikki thought.
And more people get hurt. Because of me.

She couldn't let that happen. She didn't have it in her to carry more guilt at the moment, not if there was even a slim chance she could avoid it.
 

There was. She knew what she had to do.

What are you thinking?
Michael asked. He paused, but not for long.
No, Nikki. You can't.

Tell me you wouldn't do the same,
she thought back. He couldn't. He knew as well as she this is exactly what he would do in her place.

"Tell them to get away from the shuttle," Nikki said, stopping. Ace took two steps past her before she realized Nikki wasn't moving and looked back.
 

"Tell them to come to you here," Nikki said.

"Nikki we just went over this…" Ace trailed off, her expression hardening as she got a look at Nikki's face.
 

Nikki made a mental note never to play poker and took a step back. "Tell them to come to you."

"Becks!" Ace shouted, dropping her pistol and reaching for Nikki. But with Max's weight, she didn't stand a chance of catching her.
 

Nikki was already running for the open door. She charged through and out into the night, ignoring Ace's shouts.

*
 
*
 
*

Nikki sensed movement behind her as soon as she cleared the building, movement she knew wasn't Ace or Becks, but she didn't spare a glance back. She couldn't. What she was doing was pure stupidity, and if there was one thing she knew, it was how to do something stupid. All-out was the only way to go.

She ran straight for the cars, racing into the orderly rows.
 

They were townie rides, every one. Zoners would have made the trek on foot or bartered rides with the kind of elicits only available in the zones. For once Nikki was thankful for townie excess as she raced between cars and hover vehicles of every kind.
 

Three rows in, she veered toward a low-slung car and jumped. She slid across the hood, intending to drop gracefully between it and the next car. She came close.
 

She hit the second car hard enough to leave a dent under the driver's window. Immediately an alarm started wailing.
 

Nikki scrambled back to her feet and ran in a low crouch several cars down and one row over from the bleating pulse of the alarm. Then she stopped to get her bearings.

It took a second for her to match what she was seeing from the ground with what she'd seen from the air. Once she put all the pieces together, she figured out she was off the west side of the shell-shaped theater. That meant the back of the theater, and the secured area where they'd parked the shuttle, was to her right.

She looked down through the window of the car in front of her, briefly entertaining the idea of pulling a Corso. She rejected the idea, but not for moral or legal reasons. Her hot-wiring skills were—well, she didn't have any. And she didn't have time for trial and error.
 

Movement caught her eye, and she ducked lower. A dark shape was crawling along the outside of the theater in her direction, fast. More than one dark shape.
 

She didn't have time at all.

As she watched, one of the creatures dropped the twenty meters to the ground and bounded toward the bleating alarm.

Good idea with the alarm
, Michael said.
It might buy some time
.

He knew she hadn't done it on purpose—he had to—but now was the worst possible time to distract or criticize. It was too late to go back. He knew that too, so he was doing the one thing he could do to help now that the decision was made: supporting her stupid plan.

The feelings swirling inside were easy to pick out now. Michael was sending nothing but confidence. He believed she could do this. The trickle of fear and doubt were all Nikki.

A window high on the theater shattered, and two more creatures dropped to the ground, joining those already rushing toward the alarm.

It worked.
They're leaving the theater,
Michael said, his voice strong and calm.
Now run, Nikki.

Nikki didn't wait to see how accurate the creatures' sense of her was. They were headed in her general direction. That's all that mattered. Michael was right—mission accomplished.
 

Now I just have to live through it
, she thought as she pushed off the car and ran for the back of the theater.
 

Michael didn't respond. No more distractions.

Nikki pushed to a flat-out sprint straight down the row. No weaving in and out, nothing to slow her down. Her combat boots weren't made for top performance, but fueled by fear and adrenaline and cooled by the night air, Nikki reached a speed her slick new running shoes back at the bunker had never seen.

Over the rush of wind in her ears, she heard the sharp cry of one of creatures over the alarm, then a low answer from off to her left.
 

They'd spotted her, or sensed her moving. Either way, the chase was on, and they were already closing fast. Alien barks and whines sounded behind her, getting louder by the second, more answering from either side.
 

She angled into a tighter row and pushed herself harder. She could see the fence in the distance. On the other side, the four seater waited—her one chance to get away from here in one piece—but it was too far.
 

She could hear the growling breath of the creatures closing on her. She wasn't going to make it—not even close.
 

That realization—knowing that she couldn't outrun the nightmares, that she was no match for them once they caught her—flipped a switch inside Nikki. It awakened the side of her that took over in the gym, the side of her that feared nothing.

Nikki's fear melted away with a cold tingle as she poured on the speed, the wind picking up behind her, pushing her forward.

When one of the creatures dropped to the ground ahead of her, landing hard from its powerful leap, its claws furrowing the damp ground, Nikki didn't cry out or feel a crippling surge of terror. And she didn't hesitate.
 

She jumped, planted her foot high on the door of the car on her right and pushed off hard to the left. She landed on top of the car without breaking stride, jumped off into the next row and sprinted on.

Another creature pounced toward her from the side, but Nikki sensed it coming and dove into a roll, tucking her shoulder the way she'd learned. The creature crashed into the party van beside her, tangling itself half inside the shattered window, and Nikki rolled to her feet without losing a step.

She weaved into the next row, away from the scrabbling claws rattling across the tops of the cars on the other side, and her last obstacle loomed in front of her.
 

The fence around the secured area was simple chain link, but it was easily three meters high. The hover cars parked closest to it were too low for Nikki to use to jump it, but she had to try. She didn't have time to climb, and she didn't have time to look for another way in.
 

A boxy van two cars back from the fence would give her plenty of height, but it was too far back—she couldn't make that jump. She raced toward it anyway, spurred on by the barks of the closing creatures.

She ran up the back of a low, expensive two-seater, one of the creatures right on her heels, and jumped. She caught the back of the van and heaved, pulling herself up.

She rolled onto the top, and—

With a rumble and whine of protesting engines, a winged assault shuttle roared overhead, skimming the tops of the taller cars, barely missing Nikki as she dropped flat. It clipped a leaping creature, throwing it out of sight, then banked into a ridiculous spinning stop that had to give the pilot whiplash. It continued to spin in a half circle, its blazing thrusters driving back the closer creatures.

The pilot gestured at Nikki from the assault shuttle's cockpit as its side door swung open, but she barely registered the movement. Luck had smiled on her at last.
 

The hovering shuttle's wing was almost perfectly positioned between the van and the fence.

She didn't hesitate. She wasn't about to give the creatures around her time to recover, or herself time to think. She pushed up, charged forward, and leapt.

She hit the wing and lost her footing, but it didn't matter. She was close enough. She half slid, half stumbled across the wing and dropped off on the other side of the fence. She tried tucking her shoulder again, but she was too high, and she landed too awkwardly. The breath slammed out of her as she hit.
 

For precious seconds all Nikki could do was struggle to get a breath. Then she pushed to her hands and knees and lifted her head, searching for her target.
 

The four-seater was right where they'd left it—just fifty meters away. She lurched to her feet and stumbled back into a run, knowing she didn't have time to celebrate. A piercing roar arcing overhead confirmed that thought.

She forced herself back to a sprint with a grunt on protesting legs.

Push!
Michael shouted, matching Ace's tone from their runs almost perfectly.
 

Nikki gave it everything she had left in the tank.
 

She yanked the key tab from her pocket as she ran and mashed her thumb on what she hoped was the sensor. She couldn't spare it a glance. She had eyes only for the shuttle, and the dark shape she could see rushing toward her from the corner of her eye.

Thirty paces.

"Engines on!" she shouted into the tab. "Doors open!"

The creature bellowed a challenge as the shuttle's lights kicked on and the doors started swinging up.

Fifteen paces.

From the corner of her eye, Nikki saw the creature leap.
 

She ducked low, turning sharply into the creature's path with a shout, and it overshot her. It hit the ground well wide of her and slid across the wet grass before its claws dug in.
 

Ten paces.

Nikki mashed the sensor again. "Doors closed!"

At three paces, she dove under the down-swinging door. She hit hard, scraping her head and leg and slamming her shoulder into the console, but the creature hit harder, slamming into the outside of the door, rocking the shuttle.

Nikki was gasping for breath, shaking from exhaustion and adrenaline, but she forced herself to keep moving, to wiggle into the pilot's seat, ignoring the pain from her landing.
 

The creature struggled back to its feet outside. Two more were charging across the lot behind it.