him. The remainder of the crowds - the rest having either ran away from al-Kara and the gunshots, or ran after the police to witness the action - parted like a doorway to let the officer escort Najima. They were passing the alley where the others no doubt were able to run away. As they came around the corner, Najima glanced to see of any sign of their escape.
But the first image was a figure running directly toward her and the officer. Najima quickly realized it was Bri, although at full sprint. It looked as if Bri was about to tackle the officer. Najima pulled herself away from the officer, turning her back to Bri, before she heard a loud pop.
The officer began screaming and Najima felt an arm wrap around her own, which began pulling her away. She glanced over her shoulder at Bri, then turned back to the CP. The officer scraped at his helmet as if it were covered by angry wasps, before scrambling for his gun.
Bri threw what looked like a small rubber ball at the officer with her free hand, which struck him in the side. In an instant, it exploded into a small but violent electrical burst. The shock made the officer throw his gun out into the street as he began to yelp in pain, slapping at his side as if to put out a fire. This gave Bri enough of a lull to produce another ball, which she threw hard to the ground. The moment the ball struck the sandstone sidewalk, it burst into an engulfing cloud of smoke, as if the street were suddenly plunged into center of a grassfire, the scent stinging the insides of Najima’s nostrils.
Najima could hear chaos in the streets again, as people began screaming and coughing. But the layer of smoke allowed Bri to drag her away, back to the alley, and out of the smoke. No sooner had they escaped, they bolted down the street, Najima somewhat slower with her hands still bound.
“The others are going to help Otto! Do we have a way to get out of here?”
“I have a raft at the spaceport!” Bri and Najima quickly skirted their way through the hot desert town, through alleys and past confused passers-by, until they climbed the stairs of the spaceport several blocks away. The confused attendant tried to make a comment, but in only moments, Bri and Najima were on the raft, and it was airborne.
∞∞∞
“Sorry we left,” Bri explained once they had risen high above the city, where the heat of the desert was lessened by the cooler, higher air. “We didn’t know what to do. Then we got a call from our boss, and he wanted to help you.”
“Your boss is the terrorist?”
“I mean, if you want to call him that,” Bri said shyly. Her black hair waved in the wind as her pony tail bounced along her shoulder as she looked at the ground below. “Anyway, you can think what you want later. Let’s get those cuffs off you.”
Najima was thankful for the suggestion, as it took a great deal of effort to control her raft tied as she was. The only thing that could break an electromag cuff was a strong burst of energy, or the accompanying key, the latter neither of them had. Najima mentioned that her pistol was in her satchel, but Bri told her that was far too dangerous. “I have a better way.” She dug in her own bag, producing another of her bouncy-balls.
“Do you usually wander around with all these balls? I don’t want to get shocked like that guard.”
“I’m a chemist,” Bri said. She broke the ball with her hand and poured a little of the blue dust, into her hand. “I know how to mix chemicals, and we usually get into the same types of situations. So I keep some mixes handy. This stuff is concentrated shock powder. Nasty electrical shock, but only lasts for a second. I’m not going to throw this at you - just going to use a little bit of the powder. It might sting a little.” Najima clenched her teeth before Brishti tossed the dust on the cuffs. Najima yelped as a zap of electricity spiked through her hands. But after a second, it was gone, and the cuffs shattered into nothing.
Najima rubbed her wrists, dulled by the shock. “That actually worked.”
“Told you so. And your hair...” Bri laughed as she patted down the frays of Najima’s hair which stuck up at odd angles after the shock, brushing it until it was back to normal.
Najima thanked her with a friendly and rough poke before hopping to her feet and opening her rafts sails. “Which way are we headed?”
"This is how you travel?" Bri asked as Najima adjusted her raft's anti-grav engine, directing them toward a location on the horizon that Bri pointed to.
"She's my sweetheart. Been taking care of me for over half a year, and hasn't managed to let me down yet." As they began to float on, Najima sat with her new friend, giving her brief spiel to Bri, about how she traveled the stars, wandering free, and doing as she pleased. When Bri asked why Najima left her home, she simply said, “I’m looking for something that I lost,” just like she told everyone who asked. She only realized then that she was playing with her anklet unconsciously as she spoke, and stopped.
“The big question,” Najima continued, “is why did you all help me? You could have left me and not had a second thought.”
"Well, Brat wanted to just run... And Priya wasn’t sure. But I said we should go back for you somehow. Because, well, you seemed different," Bri replied, before pausing to gather her thoughts and confidence. "You are different. I can't say I've ever met anyone who would just help us. Or someone who would throw themselves at CP officers for fun."
"You three were trying to help people. I like that," Najima said. "Even if it means getting in a little trouble to do some good."
"It was fantastic. We can't thank you enough, really." The two shared a smile before Bri continued, “So once we were safe, I called our boss, and told him the situation. He decided to drop by, and well, you saw the rest.”
"And your boss is Otto al-Kara. Why would he want to help you three save me?”
"Obviously we got away after you stayed behind. He was surprised you did that for us. So he said the least we could do was bail you out. And maybe you would help us," she said, although the last part of her sentence notably accompanied a shy drop in her voice.
"Help you with what?" Najima questioned. But Bri replied that Najima could hear for herself once they met up with the rest of the group. As they hovered far beyond the outskirts of the town, they shared a less serious conversation, about what they enjoyed and what their lives were like. Brishti was remarkably intelligent, and Najima couldn’t help but be a little surprised. It made Najima wonder what could bring a young, talented scientist to fall in line with a feared terrorist who would not hesitate before shooting at civil protection.
After 45 minutes of flying, the sky changed to an even deeper orange, the glare of the hot sun glazing the horizon into a blur of light. The barren desert below them suddenly rose into a collection of mesas and bluffs, giant slabs of rock rising like skyscrapers from the earth. Brishti said this was their destination, as Najima looked down at the weaving paths in the mesas, like miniature roads, all carved by streams that had long since evaporated to nothing.
Bri directed them to a location near the heart of the mesas, where an odd clearing stood out, a cylinder of rock where many of the ancient streams must have collected into a lake. The raft landed, and the two of them stepped off in the space, filled with cacti which clung to life. Standing in the heart of the mesas was like being lost in the middle of a grand city, burnt brown-orange coloured rock walls stretching for dozens of stories high.
"Here we are," Bri announced, although there seemed to be nothing to announce. There was nothing in this cathedral of stone except a stumpy rock in the middle of the clearing. Najima hummed with apprehension until Bri knelt down at the stumpy rock. It was only then, in the darkening evening light, that Najima noticed there was something odd about the colouring of this rock compared to the surrounding geology. The rock - apparently a manmade creation - had a small hatch built into it, revealing a keypad underneath. Bri entered in a series of numbers and letters as the rock beeped faintly.
"Follow me," Bri said with a smile, before walking directly toward the vertical rockface in front of her. She continued at a steady pace until she passed d
irectly through it.
Najima approached the mesa wall before putting her hand to it. There was no rockface - it was an illusion - Najima's hand passed directly through the hologram rock, as if it had been eaten by the rock itself. "Now that's cool. I actually feel a little weird about this..." Najima closed her eyes and took a breath before walking into the mesa.
When she opened her eyes and let her breath pass, she was in a very large room of stone, a cave carved directly within the bluff. There were a few screens on the walls, above a collection of terminals on one side of the room, with electrical wires running along the floor to power the various electronics. It was a disorganized space, but the fact that it was hidden within a giant cliffside was testament enough to the resourcefulness of the occupants.
“We're back!" Bri called out to the room, which became lively with residents. From the corner of the room, where a very sophisticated anti-grav car was parked, Brat appeared, throwing several tools to the ground; from a hallway on the far side of the room, Priya bounded around with a big smile, already enthused to see how their plan worked perfectly. He was followed by a young girl, around Bri’s age, with long hair and a slim, curvy figure.
“How did you two get here?” Brat asked. Bri explained for Najima,