SILAS

The bike’s engine rumbles underneath me. Slithering dunes streak past with eerie, kaleidoscopic speed. Sands sprays out under the tires, with a consistent crackle and rattle, like beads falling through an hourglass. The cool air running past my body, rippling my clothing, is a slight respite from the intense desert heat.

I blink, trying to focus. Disoriented. Once again—too many times, now—I feel this weird disconnect from this alien body. As if none of this is real and happening.

That memory, of hiding away in the pantry. Why am I so preoccupied by it? Now, of all times? It's as if I lost myself for a second, there. And was that even a real memory? There's something off about it. Something's not right.

Someone's yelling.

"Blast, move!"

Oh. Right.

There's a projectile directly behind us. A long, cylindrical object, like some kind of missile, but in the rearview mirror it’s a near perfect circle, growing in size in its approach.

As before, when I took on the giant ball mech, I feel a tugging in my subconscious. An intuition of what I can do, what I need to do. All I need to do is shut my brain off and let the instincts take over.

The rocket whistles loud as it shuttles along, angling downward, as if coming in for a landing.

I tilt the bike, steering hard to one side. I draw the handgun and hold it out behind me, pointing directly back. I squint one eye, using the side mirror to aim. I pull the trigger.

The pistol jolts in my hand, slamming hard into my palm. The bullet glances off the projectile, making a spark. Then there’s a ‘pop’; a miniature explosion, as the device engages earlier than it was supposed to. Metal parts split off and fall away, and a large net unfurls and shoots past me and the bike, like a grasping fist, clenching down on nothing but a rising tuft of sand.

The Sand Seekers are way ahead of the operative. Hot on our trail, spread out behind and on either side in a V-pattern. Turrets emerge atop the seeking, wheeled bots, and they all open fire at once, as if receiving the same set of commands simultaneously. Automatic gunfire cuts across the sand, sending up disorienting puffs and sprays.

I start to weave in an erratic, serpentine pattern. With so many shooters, I’m surprised they have yet to get in a good hit. Then I realize: they’re aiming for the tires. I’m still moving thanks to my erratic driving, the uneven terrain, and probably a decent amount of luck. Luck I sure hope doesn’t run out just yet.

This chase is an onslaught on my senses. In the midst of everything, I keep glancing in the mirror, keeping track of the operative. Somehow, I've achieved a complete state of flow. There are no thoughts, only the ebb and flow of my body seemingly operating on its own. One second I've got the bike tilted to the left, by body nearly horizontal to the ground, and the next second I've shifted again, with the bike turned in the complete opposite direction, navigating in circus with the dunes, like I'm surfing the waves of a sandy ocean. Sal has been quiet for a while now, letting me focus. Meanwhile, the Seekers are drawing in close, likely trying to get a shot in at near point-blank range, or to ram into the bike, knocking me over.

Everything's so chaotic, I hadn't noticed we're coming up on the sheer rock wall border. Fast. I can see some of those canal openings Sal was talking about, though. I'm close enough I can see them clearly. And also close enough that I need to manouver the bike now if I want to squeeze through.

I turn right, heading toward one of the openings. I open fire with the pistol, and I manage to pick off several of the Seekers, one after another, causing them to falter, veer off and explode. They've fanned out to the right, trying to head me off before I get to the opening, as if panicked at the prospect that I might slip through and escape.

The operative. He's coming up on my right, now. I can see the color and texture of his hair. Ear-length, sandy-blonde, and thick, flailing wildly in the wind about his head and face. While staring directly at me, he holds out one hand, something appears in his palm, materializing from thin air. Sunlight glints off either end of the object, and I realize it's some kind of dual-bladed knife.

I'm not sure how concerned I should be.

The pursuer on the air bike grips the knife tightly in his hand and winds back his arm. He throws, and the twin blades made a shrill whistle as the knife flies.

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My first instinct is to shoot it out of the air, but as I hold up my handgun, the slide is locked back with the chamber open. I've used up my last bullet. The rest of the mags were in the backpack. The one I used to blow up the mech.

Fantastic.

I pull my hand in toward the left side of my chest, then chuck the gun like a throwing star. It spins, arcing upward into the knife's path.

The pistol collides with the knife. But instead of deflecting the knife, it's sliced cleanly in half by one of the blades, splitting apart in a shower of tiny springs and bisected metal components.

I duck, turning the bike to bring myself low to the ground, and feel the air shift as the knife passes directly behind my head, razor edges so sharp they neatly cut the ends off some of my windborne hair without a hint of a snag. The knife's journey ends as it embeds itself into the rock wall on my left with a loud crunch.

I'm running out of options. And while Sal hasn't voiced her concerns in a while, I can only imagine what she might say if she wasn't more concerned with letting me focus.

I need to pull away from the wall so I can finish lining myself up to squeeze through an opening coming up on my left. But doing so will put me closer to the guy on the air bike, if I don't end up directly in his path.

Another knife is in the air, spinning, whistling.

I brake. Hard.

The knife travels past, just inches away from my face.

I hit the throttle, getting the bike back up to speed. A couple of the Sand Seekers actually streak past me, missing me. I turn the bike, tilting, bringing it around in an ellipse, until I'm facing one of the canal openings in the rock. I rev the engine, shooting forward, half expecting a blade to come careening in from outside my peripheral vision, ambushing me. But I manage to slip through the opening minus any new surprises.

There's a sudden, stark shift in airflow, encased by rock walls on each side, close enough that if I spread my arms I could touch both at the same time. The rush of air, as well as the echo of the bike's engine, reminds me of what it was like back in the grey tunnel. Even though there's nothing above me this time, besides the open sky. The high walls of the canal turn the sky into a bright, dirty bar of unbearably bright sky overhead.

Behind me, there's a series of crashes and bangs as the Seekers impact rock while trying to pursue me through the opening, unable to adjust their path quickly without sliding off course.

I pull back on the throttle. The canal is a straight shot at first, but it’s quickly turning into a winding, snake-like corridor.

After about a minute of navigating the tight turns and curves, occasionally checking the mirror and wondering where our stalker might be, I arrive at a cave-like tunnel. I slow even further, concerned at the idea of transitioning so quickly out of the daylight and into pitch dark, crashing into the tunnel wall for lack of night-sight. Luckily, a headlight on the front of the bike flicks on automatically as I pass underneath the tunnel ceiling.

Minutes pass driving in the darkened tunnel. The air is refreshingly cool in comparison to the outside, if a bit stale. I keep expecting to hear the roar of an additional engine as the pursuer on the air bike catches up with me, but it hasn't happened yet. In fact, I'm starting to think I may have actually lost him. For now.

As I turn a corner, there's a circle of brilliant light up ahead. I decide to accelerate. If there's somehow a trap waiting for me on the other side, might as well hit it at full speed, right? Go big or go home.

I burst out through the opening, half certain the bike will explode underneath me as it hits a mine, or some kind of razor wire. But neither of those things happen. I drive on, the cold sweat on my skin warming again under that awful sun.

Though the rock walls here are just as steep as before, they're much farther apart. It's more like a valley or a gorge.

The path slopes downward, and I follow it, head low, body tight against the bike. I reach a fork in the proverbial road, a three-way split of different paths. Which makes sense. There must have been a flood here at some point to form these canals, and bodies of water tend to converge.

I take the path on the right, on a lark. Another windy, curvy tangent.

I slip into a sort of flow state again, winding my way along the path. Minutes pass.

Wait a minute. Why am I making these decisions? I have no idea where we're going. Isn't there somebody I should be consulting?

It hits me. A sinking, falling feeling in my insides.

"Sal?" I say, trying to peer over my shoulder as I stay on the move. Is it safe to stop yet? Is this the place to do it? I can feel her, strapped against my back. It's not like I lost her in the kerfuffle.

"Blast..." she says.

I can immediately tell something's not right. She doesn't sound right. More than just immobilized, she seems incapacitated. Debilitated. Wrong.

"One second," I say.

I can see the canal opening up into a larger gorge again just ahead. I speed up, pop out through the opening, and scan the area. Almost immediately, I see a small cave opening in the side of the steep canyon wall, underneath a rock outcropping. It might not even be visible to air surveillance, in regards to the operative's airship. Perhaps that's too much to hope for, but I don't think I have many options right now, so I'm gonna go for it and hope for the best.

I have to duck just a little bit to ease under the roof of the mouth of the cave, pulling Sal down with me as I do so. There's downward slope a ways in, creating some extra head room. I drive the bike a little ways down the slope and pull to a stop. I shut off the engine. The headlight stays on by itself. Heart pounding with anxiety and dread, I untie the cloth wrapped over my torso. I hadn't even noticed the taut, un-comfy pressure of it, but I'm distantly aware of the difference now that it's gone. I reach behind me, grabbing Sal to keep her from falling off the bike. I bring one leg up over the handlebars, turning. I lift her. Can't see her face clearly in the shadows of this place, or any other part of her. Holding her body tight against mine, I step around the bike and into the glow from the headlight. I set Sal down, propping her back against a boulder-esque outcropping. I take a step back.

Before I can fully take the sight in, Sal coughs, and a spatter of warm blood shotguns onto my chest.