Slime Evolution

Chapter 452 - Chase II

’Those must be Sara and someone else,’ he quickly concluded. ’Given her mobility impairment, she’d hardly go out alone in any situation, let alone one like this.’

At that moment, Lohan recognized, silently grateful, the advantage of them having standardized the look of the gang’s motorcycles, a decision that had seemed small, but was now proving crucial.

Immediately recognizing who needed help and who represented the threat made reading that chaotic scene much faster than it would have been under any other circumstance, saving precious seconds that, in a situation like that, could easily mean the difference between a successful intervention and a complete disaster.

’If all the bikes were different models and colors, I’d probably waste too much time trying to figure out who was who in the middle of all this chaos,’ he thought, getting even closer. ’Small details like that really do make a difference.’

Noticing another black car approaching at high speed, a wave of immediate apprehension took hold of the group. Kai, without hesitating, raised his own weapon toward the unknown vehicle, his finger already lightly pressing the trigger.

”WAIT!” Devon shouted over the comms, his voice cutting through any hasty intention. ”DON’T SHOOT! That car belongs to Halon! It’s the same car he used to come to our base a few days ago!”

The other members, recognizing that detail as soon as Devon mentioned it, let out visible sighs of relief, their shoulders relaxing slightly even in the middle of all that tension.

Devon quickly added Lohan to their shared voice call, and before taking any hasty action, Lohan wanted to understand exactly what was going on.

”Someone catch me up fast,” he asked, his voice coming out firm over the comms. ”What exactly is happening here?”

It was Skye who answered, her voice tense but controlled, starting to explain everything from the beginning while still piloting her own motorcycle at high speed, the sound of the wind and the occasional gunshots interrupting her account every so often.

”Sorry, Halon, this got completely out of our control,” she began, her labored breathing audible even over the comms. ”We just went out to take care of some simple things, I swear.”

It had all started in a mundane way, she said. Skye had gone out with Sara to buy a few basic necessities when a MedPharma patrol team, carrying one of those scanning devices that read the magic traces of people in the Low Zone, detected them in the middle of the street.

The agents approached, trying to convince the two of them to join their corporate guild inside Elysium.

”We turned them down politely, I swear,” Skye continued, a tone of indignation slipping out from under the tension. ”But the guy just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

When Skye refused a second time, more firmly this time, one of the agents, irritated by the persistent refusal, grabbed hold of Sara’s motorized wheelchair, keeping her from moving away, his fingers gripping the backrest with unnecessary aggression.

”He just grabbed her chair like it was some object,” Skye said, the anger still evident in her voice even now, minutes after it happened. ”Sara doesn’t need any help moving at all, her chair’s motorized, completely independent. There was absolutely no reason for that, other than pure intimidation.”

Sara, despite not needing any help to move on her own thanks to her own chair, was visibly frightened by that aggressive gesture, her whole body tensing up in fear, and Skye, seeing that, felt an instant, uncontrollable rage take hold of her.

”I just didn’t think twice about it,” Skye admitted. ”I just acted.”

The punch Skye landed on the agent’s face was strong enough to send him flying several feet across the sidewalk, his body skidding against the cracked concrete, and his partner, panicking and in shock at that level of raw force, immediately called for backup over his own comms, his voice audibly shaking even from a distance.

”We didn’t have a choice after that,” Skye finished. ”We knew that in a few minutes we’d have a whole unit on top of us.”

From there, Skye and Sara raced back to their motorcycle, fleeing as fast as they could through the narrow, winding streets of the Low Zone, or through the air between the buildings, blending the movement as much as Skye could manage to throw off the pursuers, also sending out their own distress call to the rest of the Silver Lotus over the group’s emergency comms.

”It’s been almost twenty minutes now, Halon,” Skye continued, almost disbelieving the number herself. ”I don’t know how much longer the bikes’ fuel is going to hold up at this pace, and Sara’s already exhausted from holding her own balance on the back seat.”

That chase had gone on without letting up for nearly twenty minutes, she explained.

The armored vehicle chasing them could never quite close the distance, but it had an uncertain number of small surveillance drones keeping their exact location constantly updated, making any real attempt to shake off those pursuers impossible.

The group managed to take down the individual drones whenever they showed up, but had no way to deal any real damage to the armored vehicle itself, which kept advancing relentlessly, always a few meters behind, like a predator too patient to rush.

”Our weapons barely scratch its armor,” Devon added, his voice carrying evident frustration. ”We’ve tried everything, armor piercing rounds, the few spells I learned in Elysium, none of it worked right.”

”Did they mention anything about negotiating at any point?” Lohan asked, still assessing the situation.

”They’re not interested in negotiating,” Skye replied, bitter. ”After that punch, it became personal for them. They want to capture us, or worse.”

”Even though they’re not one of the High Zone giants, MedPharma doesn’t usually forgive people who humiliate their recruitment agents in public,” Devon added, a grim tone in his voice. ”They need to keep up their reputation as untouchable in the Low Zone, or they lose all the leverage they use to force people into signing contracts with them.”

Lohan felt his own jaw clench slightly inside the improvised mask, anger settling in hard in his chest.

Hearing all of that explanation, Lohan turned his attention to the armored vehicle in question, watching the heavy, reinforced structure advance down the narrow street without any concern for the old cars, food carts, or pedestrians on the streets.

But then, paying closer attention to it, a striking image formed in his mind.

’This is practically a boss fight,’ he thought, a strategic clarity taking hold of his mind as he analyzed it. ’A big creature, tough on the outside, probably fragile on the inside, with tracking abilities through those satellite drones.’

They had no idea how many drones MedPharma still had available to deploy, so continuing that cat and mouse game of destroying one drone at a time clearly wasn’t a sustainable strategy in the long run.

The only real option, Lohan concluded, was to neutralize the source of the problem itself, cutting off the tracking at the root instead of continuing to react to the symptoms of that relentless pursuer.

”Skye, keep your current route,” he said over the comms, his voice taking on a calm but absolute tone of command. ”Don’t try to get away from me. I’ll take care of the armored vehicle.”

”Wait, you’re going to do what?” Devon asked, a mix of hope and genuine worry in his voice. ”That’s a real armored unit, Halon, not standard security.”

”Trust me,” Lohan replied, simply, his eyes already calculating angles and distances as the Porsche picked up speed.

Guiding the car with calculated precision, he began closing in fast on the armored vehicle from the side, his eyes scanning every inch of the metal structure in search of any visible weak point, any seam or joint that could serve as an entry point.

The noise of the armored vehicle’s heavy engine grew louder as the distance shrank, mixing with the electric buzz of the drones still hovering over the area, casting small red beams of light toward Sara and Skye’s motorcycle.

”Well,” he murmured to himself, a confident smile hidden behind that improvised biomass mask, his fingers gripping the wheel tighter as the distance between the two vehicles nearly vanished, ”let’s see if that armored truck is corrosion resistant.”

But suddenly, a pair of electronic barrels was pointed in his direction, charged with an unknown energy.