Time stopped—
“Say what?” Paine asked, his voice trailing upwards.
—and then started again
“They followed me?” Orbis asked, incredulous.
“They were probably watching everybody in that
investigation,” Mirrorball said.
“Oh, hell,” Bang grunted, going to the window and scanning.
“We are leaving, now!” ROM said, grabbing Scepter.
“When will they get here?” Paine asked, moving towards the
door.
“Uh, now,” said Bang, who saw them, and Scepter, who sensed
them.
“Now?” Paine bleated.
“And they really want to get their hands on you,” Scepter
added to Band. He reached out his mind. Still too far to read clearly. Still
too diffuse for anything specific.
“How do we get out of this?” Tug-of-War asked, panicking.
“How do we get out of here?”
“We can fight our way out easy,” Bang replied. “We have two
of our strongest here, me and Tug. We can blast them long distance—“
“He really is blood-thirsty,” Paine remarked to Mirrorball.
Mirrorball shrugged. “That’s my guy.”
“He’s really nuts, that’s what he is! Attack a SWAT Team?” Orbis asked aloud. “Listen to
what you are saying! That’s giving them free reign to shot you dead on the
spot!”
“All of you, get out. I’ll handle this,” Scepter commanded,
pushing them towards the door. “All they probably know is that Orbis came here
to my office. They don’t know about you guys yet.”
“You called us—“ Pain began.
“I’ll make an excuse if they check the phone” Scepter
replied. “I’m a telepath. One of the best. I’ll know their thoughts as they
think them. Besides,” he said, pointing to where his “third-eye” would glow on
his forehead, “I have a few tricks, myself. Take the second elevator to the
mezzanine. Turn left and take the stairs. It’s the back entrance to a little
park where we all have lunch. It has a loading alley to the side street. Run
like hell. Go.”
“But—“ Mirrorball said.
Bang threw him out of the office. “Argue later! ROM!”
“Hold up!” she shot back. Her fingers were racing across the
keyboard. “I’m locking all the doors and gates...and there!”
“You hacked the building?!”
Mirrorball looked at the woman admiringly. “Boy, she does
that fast.”
“I am so going to have a talk to e-security,” Scepter
muttered.
“Don’t be hatin’,” ROM mused as she ran out.
Minutes later, sitting at his desk, Scepter found himself
staring, blindly, down the barrels of several automatic weapons. “Who’s there?
I am Dr. Emmanuel Veracruz. May I help you?”
“Shit!”
“What alley was he talking about?”
“How ‘bout this locked one?”
“What do you mean, ‘locked?’”
“Shitity shit shit!”
“Outta the way!” Orbis grunted. It was a simple door made of
chain-link fencing covered with wooden planking He gave the lock, a simple,
store-bought key-model, a quick glance and smiled inwardly. He head up one
finger, and, holding out one finger, activated the swirling psycho-kinetic orbs
that were is namesake. Spinning at near the speed of sound, hard as diamond, it
could grind through anything. And, with a brief metallic bzzt! sound, the lock fell to pieces.
“Definitely comes in handy.”
“Move!” ROM hissed, shoving her 5-foot frame by.
“You heard the pixie,” Bang observed.
“And I heard that!”
So too, apparently, did the two very surprised but very
well-armed SWAT officers, on the other side of the door.
For the shock of both parties, it was amazing that not the
SWAT team, or Orbis the Navy SEAL, that reacted first. It was Tug-of-War.
Whirling his right side about, Tug unleashed two beams of
pure black energy that threw both men right off their feet, across the street,
and into the wall of the opposite building. After two
sickening-but-hopefully-not-lethal thuds, both men slumped to the sidewalk.
It could not have been more than five seconds at the most.
“Ooh, that can’t be good,” ROM gulped.
“And not one word about assaulting an officer,” Tug muttered
to Orbis, who was aghast.
The group slid unnoticed into the street and ran like hell.
