Cole let the first one go by. The Navy man stopped a few meters out of the alley, looking up and down the street. The second one came out gasping for air.
Molly covered her mouth with both hands, focusing on the gun held by the lead man in black. Their lives could end at any moment. Terror held her in place as Cole darted out to the winded man’s back, his stunner crackling like lightening. The man crumpled to the sidewalk with a huffed “Oh!”
The lead man spun around with the gun. Molly tried to call out to Cole, but he was already bringing up his forearm up to meet the man’s elbow, stopping the spin. The gun went off with a bright flash and a spit of smoke; the wall beside Molly’s head exploded into sand. She ducked reflexively, if a bit late.
The two men struggled for control of the weapon as the car with the wailing siren rounded the corner, red flashes painting the world around them. Molly ran to the stunned Navy man, his body still twitching slightly, and pulled the metal baton from his hand. She spun around the gunman, swinging the stick with both hands like a galaxy baller, striking him on the base of his skull.
The crack was like another report from the gun. Molly’s elbow went numb from the vibrations in the stick and she lost control of the baton. Cole grabbed her wrist and began pulling her across the street and away from the red lights, but all she could think about was collecting those weapons.
“Wait!” she yelled, yanking her arm out of his grip.
She spun away from Cole and dashed back to the scene of the fight, the headlights from the Navy car bearing down on her. A flash of light lit up the entire street for a moment, followed by a roll of thunder that Molly could feel in her chest. The first drops of rain started pattering down as she threw herself on top of the two black shapes. The car screeched to a halt between her and Cole, the doors popping open.
“FREEZE!” someone yelled.
A shot rang out. Both doors flew open and the two bombers spilled out, their bulk seeking shelter by the small vehicle. The man closer to Molly clutched his shoulder with a grimace; she held the gun straight out, trembling.
“Drop it!” she commanded, and two objects clattered to the pavement. The men looked at each other over the red flashing lights before glancing up to the sky. Molly seemed to have their attention, but recognized that it was divided between her and a larger worry.
Cole ran to her and took the gun, keeping it trained on the wounded man. “This is your plan?” he asked, gesturing to the small hole in the open driver’s door.
“Yeah, we need to get in that car.” The rain started coming down in a heavy drizzle, punctuating the tension in her voice.
••••
The men in black seemed to realize what was going on. One of them made a move to get back in the vehicle. Cole didn’t hesitate. He fired a shot over their heads.
“Shut that door,” he commanded.
The large Navy officer did so.
“If you have a place you can get to, you’d better start running.”
The two Navy men locked eyes, visibly frightened; the rain pummeled them in steady sheets. They seemed to arrive at some silent agreement and both of them took off down the alley—back toward the Naval Office.
Cole watched them go, then turned to check on Molly. She was gone! He looked up and down the street and inside the Navy car. Nothing. A wave of panic rose up in him.
“I need help back here!” he heard her yell through the pounding of the rain against the metal car. He ran to the rear of the vehicle and found her crouching in the street, fumbling with something.
“What’re you doing?” Cole hollered.
The hatch she was wrestling with finally wrenched open; a length of metal chain cascaded onto the wet pavement.
“The taxi we ran past was doing something with this.”
Cole blinked the rain away; he looked up and down the street and saw the metal posts sticking up along the road like parking meters. He’d assumed they were for keeping the cars from flying into the gutters, but now he understood what they were really for.
They had not been taking this rain as seriously as they should have.
He grabbed the end of the chain from Molly and told her to get in the car. She nodded and disappeared into the veil of falling water. Cole dragged the chain toward the nearest post.
It wouldn’t reach. The Navy guys had stopped in the middle of the street. Cole heard something like thunder, but different, roaring down a distant road. “Molly!” he yelled as he ran back to the car. “We need to push!”
She nodded and jumped out, back into the torrent of rain. They both shouldered the door-jam of the vehicle and pressed back toward the nearest post. The car was still in gear, but it was incredibly light and the road was already submerged beneath a thick layer of water. They fought for traction, new boots on rough stone, and were able to budge it a little.
“Good!” Cole shouted. He ran back for the chain as Molly disappeared into the driver’s seat and out of the deluge.
Cole figured out how the hook at the end of the chain fit snugly into the links, so he wrapped it through the hole halfway up the post and secured it. He hoped he did it right, because he could hardly stand in the rain now. It threatened to push him down into the rising puddles and drown him.
He fought his way back to the car, fell in, and pulled the door shut. Molly had crawled into the back to give him room.
“Oh my gods,” she said. “I shot that guy in the arm. I was just aiming for the car.”
“It’s okay, you did good. Real good.” Cole fingered the hole in the glass; water dripped through it in a steady trickle. “I’m not sure what to expect here, partner.” He reached into the backseat to squeeze her hand. Hers was cold and trembling.
Cole pulled off his backpack and searched inside for dry clothes. The assault of water on the roof was impossibly loud. It made it hard to hear the first wave of water that came down the street and caught their car, sliding it back. And now Cole realized why the chain was so short. You were supposed to park close to the post on the downhill side. They were in the wrong place. The chain wasn’t going to hold them until after the floods pushed them to the other side.
The second wave of rushing water hit. The narrow tires and egg-shaped body shed most of the wave’s energy, but the vehicle shuddered once more and slid another meter. Cole could feel the slack in the chain. He could imagine the danger if a large wave hit them right now. Molly leaned forward and held onto his shoulders, pressing her wet cheek against his arm. Her teeth chattered through his jacket like distant thunder.
He heard the next wave before it hit, even over the pounding on the roof. The wall of water roared like the ocean on a paved beach. This time, all three tires came off the pavement. Their little haven swung around like a child’s toy, back in the direction it should have been parked. One of the rear tires touched down first, flipping the bubble on its side and sending it on a dangerous slide toward the sidewalk. The roof of the car slammed into the next anchor post down the street.
Molly tumbled forward, across the back of his seat and onto Cole. They landed with a combined grunt on the driver’s side door. The shape of the anchor post showed clear through the dented metal roof. The car lurched again as the wave slid by, the glass with the bullet hole scraping across the pavement.
“Are you kidding me?” Molly asked.
“Bad parking job,” Cole grunted, holding her on top of him.
Neither of them laughed. They held their breath in the din of rushing water and pounding rain, straining to hear the sound of the next wave, if indeed there was going to be one.
••••
There was.
The next rumble started advancing, even louder this time. The windshield provided an amazing view down the street: the glass spanned sideways from cement to sky. They were still facing the wrong direction; the car’s momentum had bounced them across the wide gutter and onto the sidewalk. Now they looked back toward the two entangled Navy men, their black-garbed forms washed several meters closer from the waves. The standing water already halfway covered their nauseating stillness.
Except one of them wasn’t perfectly still. The smaller one—Molly thought he may have been the scout in the office—shook his head. It was hard to see through the rain, but he seemed to be rising from the pavement.
Molly was lying on top of Cole, the driver’s bench vertical and useless. She tapped his chest and pointed.
“I see it,” he said.
The skinny man, bathed in the pulsing of the red lights from the roof, stood upright and looked around at them. The wind blew water off him in sheets. He leaned back into it and staggered forward. Something shiny materialized in his hand.
Molly screamed and Cole wrapped his arms around her, trying to rotate his body between her and the gunman.
The Navy man raised his arm and pointed it at the windshield, ready to shoot out the glass of their protective bubble. Then he paused. He looked back over his shoulder, down the street. An avalanche of water rose up behind him. Even over the maelstrom, Molly could hear his high-pitched shriek of terror.
The large body on the ground was lifted up first, and then the man with the gun was hit by the foaming wave. His knees buckled and both men disappeared in the churning wall of white. A wall that headed toward Molly, Cole, and their thin glass barrier.
The smaller guy hit the car first, his body materializing out of the shuddering sea of confusion. His face pressed against the wet glass in a comical grimace as the car was pinned to the sidewalk by the breaking wave. The man was flattened to the vehicle, underwater, bubbles leaking from his nose and mouth. He looked right at Molly, his yellow teeth clinched tight as his lips split open in a sneer. The hand with the gun pulled back, twisting the barrel around to face her, determined to not be swept away alone.
Then another large wave hit the car with astounding fury, spinning the entire vehicle around in the proper direction. There was a shriek of grinding metal and glass followed by a metallic shot as the chain finally snapped taut; the car came to a rest, straddling the wide gutter. Detritus and debris from the alleys and streets of Palan thudded off the car as they passed underneath.
Wherever it went to, the garbage clinging to the windshield was going with it.
11
Parsona. Molly could read the word clearly on the starboard wing, the faded black stencil spread across the wide metal surface. She hovered above the “O,” the letter bigger than her outstretched arms.
Before she could even walk, Molly had spent time out here; she would crawl around while her father worked on the surface controls. Now and then he’d scoop her up when she got too close to the edge, then hold her in his lap and look out across the prairies of Lok. It was up here that she’d learned to read her first word, spelling out her mom’s name one letter at a time.
Now she floated just above it, weightless. Her old nightmare had returned, but it was different. She was closer, and there was something to push against.
Molly reached down and touched the cold metal with her bare hands; she hooked her fingernails on the edge of a line of rivets and pulled herself toward the gleaming hull. She floated, pulling herself along, working toward the glow emanating from the cockpit.
Someone was inside. She wanted to see who. Her father? Her mother? Was she dead, here to join them?
She approached the navigator’s porthole, so close to finding out, when she felt the first vibrations—the thrum of the main thrusters reverberating through the hull. She screamed for them to wait as the ship lurched into motion, but her wails would not carry in the vacuum. Her anguish reached no further than her own ears, transmitted through her tear-streaked jaws. Molly pounded the hull with her fists, struggling to alert someone to her presence, but the violent act just pushed her away. Off into the vacuum. Through which Parsona moved easily. . .
Molly startled awake, a shiver from the nightmare traveling into the real world with her. Or was it the cold? Last night’s events washed over her, filling her with a hollow dread. Her head rested on her hand, which was palm-down on Cole’s chest. She could hear his heart thumping, like the thrum of an idling engine. A warm and mostly-dry shirt was draped over the back of her soggy blouse, the hem pulled up to her neck. She rolled her eyes up Cole’s chest and neck and found him wanly smiling back at her.
“Good morning,” he said.
But it was still dark outside. The rain pattered softly on the passenger side door; various leaks had allowed rain to seep in, collecting at the bottom of the damaged shell. Molly felt sore and cold, but happy to be alive.
“How long have I been asleep?” She pushed up from his chest and searched for a way to brace herself in the awkward confines of the upturned car.
“Not long,” he said, sitting up and wincing, rubbing his neck as if it were stiff. “I think the worst is over, but we’d better get out of here before the authorities come looking. I figured out how to shut off the lights, but I’m sure we still stick out like a sore thumb.”
Molly agreed. She thought about their next moves and realized they didn’t have many available: back to the Regal, and now they were relying on Drummond for help. The thought absolutely mortified her.
Cole made some room and Molly stood on one door while trying to operate the other. The impact had jammed the seam a bit, but it opened with a creak of warped metal. She tried pushing it up and out, but the feeling in her arms hadn’t fully returned from the nightmare.
“Little help.”
Cole wiggled his way up beside her and shoved the door out into the early morning air. It flopped back into the darkness and a drizzling rain invaded their temporary shelter. Cole boosted Molly up to the side of the car and she slid down with a splash into the street.
“It’s deep,” she warned him.
She heard him grunting as he forced himself up and out. He landed beside her with his backpack held over his head.
