“Seems like I am gonna need you to break a leg.” Lara comments.
My eyes widen in disbelief, her sadistic tendencies unnerves me.
She sees the panic in my eyes. “Don’t fret you weasel, I meant for you to fake it. Here, wrap your arm around my shoulder.”
I comply without a complaint, I even have a slight amused grin. Faking a limp as she carries me to the front of the entrance, we make our way in as more footmen in heavy gear are assembling out. They probably are going to support the giant machine that is fighting the worm. The soldiers nod at us and step aside to let us in. I shout and groan in pain, making sure I make a fussy scene before they all leave. Lara then drops me like a sack of potatoes, running carelessly down the long passageway.
“Wait, what about the security cameras?” I ask her.
“We don’t have time to worry about that, let’s just grab the antidote and get the hell out of here. I won’t waste a minute if I don’t have to.” She leaves me little choice but to follow.
Taking a few turns through the halls, we pass dozens of rooms; some that are computer offices, labs of some sort, and one that I believe is an armory and gun range. Lara then signals me to a halt, taking a glance around a corner.
Looking at me in the eyes, she orders me plainly. “Follow my lead.”
She readjusts her hat and went around the corner, and I do as I am told. Two guys in front of a large round steel door are over a keypad typing in a code, the doors resemble to the vault of a bank. With a powerful hiss, the massive doors roll sideways to let in the duo into its precious loot.
“Hey!” Lara calls out to them. “We have a sixty-sixty, red bravo. I am sent here from reserve to swap you guys, you two are to go out there and help resolve the conflict.”
The two guys exchange a glance and the taller one of the two asks her. “What’s your identification.”
“Seriously? We’re in a siege and you’re asking for my ID? Fine, if you want to waste time on protocols like these.” She reaches for her pockets as if she were going to pull out an identification, but instead she yanks out a baton from her pockets. The pole whips to its full length and clubs the taller mercenary on the head, he slumps to the ground from the assault.
His partner reacts the same instant as she clubs him, getting a gun almost on her. The instant he pulls the trigger, she side-steps and grabs the mans hand and uses his own weight against him. He is flipped over on his back. He kicks her on the shin that sends her tumbling over, and springs around back on his feet with another gun at hand. I leap at him and grab him by the face, he fires another shot and misses her again. Lara then kicks a fatal blow in the groin that sends him keeling over in pain. She finishes him off with a smooth uppercut punch.
“Are you ok?” I ask her, panting.
“Yeah, I am. Thanks for having my back.” She smiles back at me and strokes her hair back. She surprises me with her smile, this is the first time I seen see her genuinely smiling. Not some ominous smirk, or scary grin. A legit smile.
She turns her attention at the box that was going to be stored away. Upon opening lid, the massive container houses a single item inside. For a moment it amuses me, there is no point in pulling out a giant box to put in a small important object. It is more for show than actual practicality. Regardless, Lara seizes the mcguffin of this film, a little transparent canister filled with a blue liquid. The antidote.
“Looks like this is it.” She comments. She slides it in the back of her jeans, concealing it from the naked eye.
We trace our steps back the exact same route, rushing past all the rooms and the occasional Nova Tera soldiers. The entrance of the bunker doors had been torn wide open sometime after we entered, seems like the worm is putting up quite the fight. Currently, the Titan-Mach is being wrapped up by the sandworm and is wrestling its way out. At the same time, turrets and mercenaries are firing at it in a barrage of bullets and rockets.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
I follow Lara to an armored jeep that is parked close to the entrance, I let her take the driver’s seat, guessing that she is going to butt me out one way or another anyways. We start rummaging for the keys, looking behind all of the nooks a crannies for them.
“Keys, keys, keys, where are you?” Lara says to herself as she searches. She eventually finds them hidden in the overhead sun blinds. “A-ha! Found you.”
She plugs them in and ignites the engine, shifting gears as we make our escape. The loud starting engine and our dramatic escape attract the attention of a few soldiers, and they start to aim their weapons at us. Fortunately, the armored vehicle holds its own against the bullets.
“Woo-hoo-hoo!” I cheer from our frisky and successful mission.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, we have company!” Lara warns me.
I look at the mirrors and spot a few advanced looking motorbikes pursuing us. “Does this vehicle have any weapons?” I twist around to find a walled off section behind our seats.
“What you see is what I see. This Tera Nova junk, they like to make their stuff as different as possible from Genesis tech.”
I begin pressing a bunch of buttons on my dashboard and groping all of the surfaces to see if anything happens, but nothing seems to accomplish anything. I jolt as bullets bounce off the metal shell, our tailgaters are now taking an offensive approach. A big red button with letters SDS written on it catches my attention, I press it and hope it means something like Seriously Dumb Strategy.
My seat jitters and then slides back into a compartment in the walled off section behind our seats, it then swivels around facing me at a joystick and large monitor. A green on/off button glows. I press the button and the screen comes to life, revealing red crosshairs and a camera revealing the outside of our vehicle. I recognize what this is, so I take control of the joy stick and swivel around to where I want to aim at. One of the motorbikes come in line of sight of the camera, I take my time in aiming. When the crosshairs lineup with the bike, I pull on the trigger and shoot at the front wheel. The bike flies in a tumbling crash.
“What did you do back there?” Lara hollers back.
“Nothing for you to worry about, just keep on driving!” I assure her.
The bikes are now swerving back and forth, apparently trying to avoid another shot. I notice a small compartment pop out from the side of the bikes, and small missiles puff out from them. An explosion from the right of the vehicle indicates how close it was. It is now or never, so I take my shot again and barely hit the bike. The bike drifts sideways and crashes into his partner, putting both of them out of commission in a tumbling stop.
Having taken care of our pursuers, I press the on/off button and my seat swivels and slides up front again. Taking the moment to catch my breath again, I calm down and relax. It is a silent ride for a short while, until Lara sparks another conversation.
“I saw what you did back there, you were careful in trying to aim for the wheels and not the guys themselves. Why?”
I sigh. “I can’t kill another man, all of this death is starting to make me sick.”
“That may be so, but this is a war and you are in the middle of it. Besides, you say we are just movie characters, right? Aren’t we disposable in your mind?”
I pause. “Honestly, I don’t know why I spared them. In the back of my mind, I know all of this is not real. But when I am living in the moment, it is hard to think that any of this is anything but real.”
Glancing at her, I see she is expressionless as always. The movie writers could have made her remarkable, but instead she is simply mysterious. There is something alluring about that mystery, which makes her remarkable in her own unique way. The polarities to her personality are astounding.
Changing topics. “Besides, even though this is a war, it is not my war even if I am in the middle of it. So I want to avoid taking part of it. From where - or when - I come from, wars are obsolete.”
She gives me a curious look. “You mean there never was war?”
“No, no, nothing like that at all. We used to war all the time in our history, but that was way before I was born. Hard to explain this, but we had some amazing wars defending against war-mongering aliens and giant mecha battles and the such, there even used to be a bunch of super heroes around a long time ago.”
She grunts in amusement. “Sounds like a science fiction.”
“Yeah, I guess it is. But from the time I am in, there has been no war on earth for a while.”
She nods. “That’s what I hope to do with the antidote, end this senseless war.”
I pause again. There really is no way how I can tell her the truth, I guess it is best I let time run its course. “Where are we heading now?”
“New Genesis HQ.”
I sigh depressingly. Things are going to be really crazy from here on out, and all I want to do is to get out of this mess.