Chapter 10: Chapter 10 – Over the Rooftops (2)

A drone hovered above them, gray and without any recognizable logo.

Panic gripped her. The instinctive fear of hunters descending upon her from the sky if she dared to enter a clearing in the woods. Something that had already happened to her in the wilderness. It was a fear that was unfounded right here, in the middle of the city. Wave pulled her legs up to stand up.

The drone reacted, flipped a barrel out of its base, and pointed it directly at her. A fear that was absolutely well-founded, she corrected herself. The barrel made a plopping sound and Wave instinctively rolled to the side. Not fast enough. Something hit her on the right shoulder and Wave groaned. It felt like she’d run into a wall unchecked.

"Shit, shit, shit!" she screamed, "Brontoshit!"

She curled up and felt for her shoulder. Dry, no blood. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black ball bounce and then roll away. A rubber bullet. Whoever was targeting her at least wasn’t going to kill her. Wave would have rejoiced, yes, she would have thrown her arms up in the air in jubilation if only her shoulder hadn’t hurt so much.

"Get up Wave!", Aki yelled in her ear. "You’ve been hit by worse in the Arena and gotten back up, haven’t you?"

That was true, both for the Arena and the outside world, and she had survived it all. Obviously, because otherwise, she wouldn’t be crawling across the rooftop right now. And today, here on the roof, not even her life depended on it. She was no prey and the drone was no deadly giant bird. She gathered all her courage and rolled to her knees.

"I surrender!" she shouted clearly so that the drone and its controller would understand her.

"What?" cried Aki, aghast. "Wave, are you going to give up?"

She wasn’t planning to, of course. But this way, maybe the drone wouldn’t shoot at her while she struggled to get up off the ground with her hands raised.

"Put the hearing aid in the opening!" the drone demanded in a tinny voice. It flew closer and a small drawer opened at its side.

So it really was those guys from her apartment. Wave fretted. She hadn’t gotten far, after all. She had felt too safe up here. Ember had been right, but she hated to admit it. Well, if the Akimoto guys wanted her to surrender, she’d play along.

"Wave?" Aki’s voice trembled, or was she just imagining it? "Hey, Wave, what are you doing? Don’t leave me ..."

Her hand swept past the hearing aid without grasping it. She pretended to hold it in her hand, moved her arm as if to put it in the opening, hoping, as she did so, that her bluff would not be noticed. Then, at the last moment, she grabbed the barrel instead and spun the drone through the air. Its metal casing crunched as it hit the ground. Wave lifted her foot.

"Steel caps!" she commanded to her synth suit and stepped on the barrel, once, then a second time. "Take that, bitch!" That was immensely satisfying. As she lunged for the third kick, the drone accelerated and broke free. Crap!

The hover engine was protected by the drone’s armored casing, and the impact had left only a few scratches that revealed shining metal beneath the matte gray paint. But the barrel had a visible kink. Now the stupid thing wouldn’t be able to shoot at them.

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"Wow, Wave, that was a clever deception." Aki sounded relieved that Wave hadn’t turned him in.

"Save the congratulations until we get rid of them for good. And I’ll warn you now, it won’t be pretty."

"I’ll grit my teeth, just get us out of here."

Wave ran off, toward the edge, with the drone in pursuit. The controller wasn’t stupid enough to fire at her with the bent barrel. Too bad. Instead, he overtook her with the drone to cut her off. He wanted to stop her jump.

That was just fine with her because she didn’t want to jump to the next building at all, she wanted to go down. She grabbed the drone and her gloves clung to its hull. Then she tripped over the edge of the roof, pulling it down.

The engines howled and Wave rocked. She tried to maneuver the drone back to the wall of the building they had jumped from. The howling turned into a shrill whistle, and she thanked the drone's controller for not just shutting off the engine and letting her plummet to her death. Then she heard a crack in the drone. Uneven whirring sounded from the inside and it emitted a cloud of black smoke, directly into Wave’s face. The acrid smell of burnt electronics invaded her nose and she gasped. The drone went silent and now they were falling anyway.

Wave pushed the drone away to give herself momentum to move the last few inches to the wall. Her fingertips made contact and tiny sparks rose from the barbs in their gloves, scraping across the surface. Finally, the barbs took hold, she found her footing and was slowed in an instant.

"Whew!" Wave groaned. Her left shoulder, over which she had rolled earlier, throbbed in the back, the other shoulder throbbed in the front, and her arms burned. Her muscles felt like shoulders and wall were playing tug-of-war with them. Once she was down, she’d have to test how much she was really hurt. Or she would wait until she had reached Ember and was safe again.

The drone hit the ground with a clang, bounced off, and skipped across the asphalt a few more times before disappearing among screaming, cursing, and fleeing citizens. Some pointed up at her, too. Yeah, she had to get away from the wall before the Secs showed up.

She slid the last few feet down the wall and then ripped open the suit on her face. The synth plates retreated until they reached her neck, and Wave greedily sucked in the fresh air. Using the hair tie, she pulled her unruly hair back together and roughly patted the dust from herself. She still looked like a scarecrow, even though the citizens who gaped at her curiously had certainly never heard of scarecrows. At Ember’s place, the first thing she would do was to hog her cleaning synth.

"Show me the way to Ember via public transport!" she commanded the navigation system. The green arrow now pointed below ground, down to the city’s subway system.

"Can I open my eyes again?" Aki asked. He sounded exhausted.

"Are you telling me you didn’t witness my glorious fight against the drone and our epic descent?"

"Nope. I’m sorry."

Wave shrugged and immediately regretted it. "Bio readings," she ordered after all, before limping toward the stairs that led down to the subway.

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