Aegis: Catalyst Grove (20 page)

Murphy stood on top of the old warehouse, his hand stretched out in front of him at chest level.
 
Thousands of tiny beads of light shot from his hand like shotgun pellets peppering the skyline above the forest.
 
Once he was satisfied with the covering, the light ceased to fire from his hand, but he kept his hand outstretched as if commanding the beads of light to stay in place.
 
Carefully surveying the forest in slow sweeping movements, Murphy used his throat mike and earpiece to communicate to the others.

“You want to keep moving south-east.
 
I can’t tell how far off the trail they are, but they seem to be sticking close by.”

“Roger that, Eagle One,” chimed Chase through the earpiece.

“Stop calling me that.
 
We are not in the military.
 
We don’t have to speak in code.
 
My name is Brian Murphy.”

The crackle of the headset crumpled in Murphy’s ear for a second.
 
“No, I like Eagle One better.”

“Uhhggh.”
 

“Hey, at least you aren’t Tinker Fairy.
 
Be thankful,” said Chase.

“Your an idiot, you know that,” said Murphy.

“Yea, but you love me anyway.
 
Just trying to lighten the mood.
 
I think we can all agree this is our least favorite part.”

“You are right about that.
 
I despise the extraction stage.”
 
Murphy continued to survey the landscape until he caught a glimpse of movement.
 
“Chase, keep moving eastward. You are moving in on them.”

Murphy pulled out his earpiece so he could concentrate.
 
He had a unique capability to form these small balls of light and use them to see the energy in other people, like an infrared camera.
 
Each ball was like it’s own censor, giving him a live feed of everything that was happening beneath them.
 
As he looked through the woods, he could see yellow forms running.
 
He grabbed the dangling earwig and stuffed it back into his ear.

“Chase, you are about 200 yards from the target.
 
Looks like your little latino buddy is still alive and kickin’.
 
All four of them are running about thirty feet to the left of the trail.”

“Got it, Eagle One.
 
I am in pursuit.”

“I’m not Eagl…..you know what, forget it.
 
You got this from here.
 
Eagle One, out.”

Murphy shook his head in response to his new nickname.
 
He held his hand out a little longer to be sure Chase was on the right track then closed his fingers, letting his hand fall back down to his side.
 
As he did, the small beads of light faded to a vapor, then vanished.

Graham’s legs were burning.
 
His lungs were on fire.
 
They had all been in an all-out sprint since the lights appeared in the sky.
 
Kel was able to keep pace, but Damien was way ahead of them, even with Ailey on his back.
 
Once the orbs overhead faded away, the let up a little.
 

Graham came to a stop and slouched over, putting his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
 
Kel did the same.
 
They were doubled over, concentrating so intently on their lack of endurance, they didn’t notice Chase jumping from limb to limb rhythmically and silently in the trees above them.
 

Damien turned around after noticing that his friends were not with him.
 
He started walking back towards Graham and Kel.
 

Chase continued leaping like a cat from one tree to another without a sound.
 
His movements were so swift and precise, that the limbs he jumped to barely moved under the weight of his landing.

“Catch your breath, amiga,” Damien said to Kel.
 
“You too amigo, but only for a few minutes.
 
I don’t think those were fireworks earlier, and I don’t want to stick around to find out what they really were.”

Graham and Kel kept panting.
 
They just shook their head’s ‘no’ in reply.
 
Damien let Ailey down from his back.
 
Damien waited patiently as Graham and Kel were able to catch their breath enough to stand up straight again.

Chase sat perched in one of the trees like an owl.
 
He watched and studied them until he was ready to break the silence.
 

“I gotta tell ya, this is giving me warm fuzzies all over.
 
They knock you unconscious, almost killing you, and you are still looking out for them.
 
The virtue of your loyalty is inspiring.
 
Seriously, I’ve got goosebumps.”

The sound of Chase’s voice hit them all like a sucker punch to the gut.
 
They all whirled their head around to see where Chase was but didn’t see him anywhere.

Chase let out a small whistle.
 
“Up here guys.”

They all looked up just in time to see Chase’s glowing hand fling towards them.
 
A bolt of light sprang from his palm, connecting with a small tree to their left, uprooting it with ear-ringing sounds of cracking wood and grenade-like explosions.
 

They all fled in panic.
 
Forgetting all sense of direction, they just ran.
 

“Ah, ah ahh…..not that way,” said Chase.

He reared his hand back again.
 
Pushing his arm forward, snapping his elbow straight, another blast of light came from his hand making another small cluster off trees explode upwards next to Ailey.
 
Ailey cried out in shock, clamping her hands over her ears, shuffling away from the explosion.
 

They were all disoriented.
 
The panic inside was scrambling their brains, making it impossible to act on a simple decision, like what direction to run.
 
This must have been what war was like.
 
Explosions, fear of walking into the unknown, the pursuit of the enemy, and the uncertainty of life itself.
 
There was no time for the mind to process anything.
 
Instinct kicked in.
 
It was all the body could do.
 
Fight or flight were the two options, and flight was winning by a landslide.

They all made eye contact with one another and ran together like a pack of wolves.
 
Damien had the sense about him to grab Ailey after the second blast, knowing that he was the fastest one.
 
His mind flashed back to being held in a choke-hold by Chase as Ailey’s grip tightened around his throat in reaction to the explosions.
 
He didn’t dare move her arms, though.
 
He could hear her sobs as her face pressed harder into his shoulder blade.
 
He just concentrated on the the rise and fall of her little chest against his back and counted her breaths, helping him focus.
 

Satisfied with the outcome, Chase fired off one more blast for good measure, then stopped.
 
“There, that ought to do the trick,” he said, watching the others disappear into the distance.

They continued to run as fast as their legs would take them.
 
Graham could hardly think of anything but the pain in his legs, chest, and back.
 
As his legs moved on auto-pilot, he tried to busy his mind as the ran.
 
He pictured Chase up in the tree, wondering how long he had been there, watching.
 
He probably had been there for a while, silently mocking them as they stopped to catch their breath.
 
Graham’s mind kicked into high gear.
 
He is just toying with us.
 
This is pointless!
 
There is no way they could outrun Chase.
 
He could move as quick as lightening.
 
If he was not in pursuit, then he must be satisfied in the direction they were headed.
 
It was his sick little game.
 

Graham stopped the others.
 
Through heavy breaths, he said, “If he wanted to hit us, he would have.
 
If he wanted to capture us, he would have.
 
I think he is funneling us, making us go where he wants.
 
We need to break off in a different direction.”

Kel could barely speak through her panting.
 
“Ok….but…where?”
 

There were trees and bushes no matter where they looked.
 
It was impossible to know where they were or even where they had come from.

“I don’t know.
 
Let’s try there.”
 
Graham pointed to the right, about 90 degrees from the direction they had been running.
 

Damien agreed.
 
“We are far from the trail now.
 
It’s as good of a direction as any at this point.”

The all picked the pace back up to a fast jog.
 
They traveled about a hundred feet before the ground in front of them began to shake, erupting in a mountain of dirt.
 
The ground moved upward like a giant wall.
 
They all fell backwards landing on their backs.
 
Ailey hit the ground and rolled to the side, just in time to avoid being smushed by Damien.
 
The wall of earth sprang upward until is was at least twelve feet tall.

“Where do you think you are going?”
 
The words from the deep gravely voice weighed them down to the ground like anchors.

They all turned around to see the huge form of Cavaness standing a stone’s throw away from them, with his glowing hand aimed at the ground.
 
They all pushed against the ground with their hands and feet, shuffling backwards in an attempt to retreat.
 

Cavaness kept eye contact with them, bringing both hands up in front of his chest with his palms facing down towards the ground.
 
As if trying to push the air into the forest floor, he pushed his arms straight, and a pulse of energy shot into the dirt.
 
They immediately felt the ground beneath them shake.
 
Another wall of earth burst from the ground in-between Cavaness and where they lay, knocking them all to the ground.
 

“RUN!” yelled Graham.
 

They all twisted their bodies around to their stomachs, making their way to their hands and knees in a runner’s stance, then sprang to their feet.
 
In mid-stride, Damien grabbed Ailey by the arm and flung her up and around his back.
 
They sprinted in the opposite direction from the wall of dirt, dodging and weaving through the trees ahead until they came to a long row of thick shrubbery.
 
Not knowing what was on the other side, they sprinted through, tearing pieces of clothing and drawing blood from the pricks and prods of the small branches.
 
The ground on the other side of the shrubs took a steep decline.
 

Damien was the first to tumble.
 
Graham and Kel were not far behind.
 
The hill seemed endless as all four of them tumbled down the embankment like small coins bouncing down a staircase.
 
Side over side and head over heals, they continued to fall towards a large ravine.
 
Each one scrambled for anything that would help them stop falling, but there was nothing to grab onto.
 
Kel fell into a small patch of bushes.
 
As she hit, the obstruction slowed her momentum down just enough to steady her pace and allow her to the ability to shift over on her back.
 
Waves of panic closed her throat and stiffened her muscles as she caught a glimpse of the trees near the bottom of the hill and the huge gap in the ground beyond them.

Instinct kicked in as Kel pushed both arms in front of her.
 
A strong pulse of energy bursted from her hands and penetrated the ground in front them.
 
The earth shook and rumbled, then exploded twenty feet beyond where the blast had entered the ground.
 
Small trees blew out of the ground, the force of the blast propelling them through the air.
 
They corkscrewed towards the bottom of the hill, until crashing to the ground, bridging the gap of the ravine.

They all continued to tumble side over side until they spilled into the huge crater in the ground made by Kel’s blast.
 
They all descended into the crater, then bounced out, but at a much lower velocity than when they entered.
 
Each taking a few more rolls, they eventually came to a stop just inches away from the exposed root systems of the trees now bridging the large gap in the ground.