Gyrus

Chapter Fifteen: Puppet Strings

I was screaming inside my head, but my face was set in an unimpressed sulk. There I was in front of four guards and a detective I couldn't trust, with Norman trapped in the cannery and Zoe out of commission, handcuffed to the bed back at the motel. I was on my own. Why the hell Williams had come looking for us, if his only intention was to hand me over to Betulla was something I couldn't wrap my mind around, but I was going to find out. But to get out of this with a good possibility of being alive, I knew I'd have to resort to something drastic.

The Marionette Mode.

Shutting out everything around my allowing my mind enter a lesser state of consciousness, I gave myself to my subconscious. The Marionette Mode was a state of altered perception I discovered barely a year ago; it awakened things in my mind which were ordinarily inaccessible. My body also felt detached from me, yet responsive to my nudging, like I was controlling myself with a 20-metre pole. My sense of focus was diluted, making me receptive to all stimuli. My legs moved without my consent, subtly shifting my stance so I could be off at the slightest provocation. Feeding my cognitive thought processes with information my subconscious had gleaned and randomly stored, my mind began to process and analyse my environment.

Instinctively, I knew that Detective Williams ran half a mile in about two minutes and forty seconds, extrapolating from his width of his steps, muscle condition and general reflexes. I did the same in about three minutes and thirty seconds which meant, unless I was really lucky, there was no way I was getting away from him. Added to the guards at the gate, only a spectacular turn of events would get me out of this mess unscathed. Sucktastic. 

"Hey!" The guard who had pulled his tranquiliser gun earlier spotted us. "Get out of here."

Williams tightened his grip on my collar and pushed me forward. "I'm a police officer, Detective Williams from the Arizona state department. I was asked to find this boy and his friends and bring them to you."

The guards immediately tensed and the guns came flying out. They were the new shift; Williams had no idea they hadn't been briefed about him. 

"Stay the hell where you are." One of them growled. 

"Let me get out my badge. I swear I'm the real deal." Williams replied, trying to calm the guards down. He dug his hand into his right pocket frantically, trying to fish out his badge and defuse the rapidly devolving situation. I saw my chance and took it. 

"He's got a gun!" I yelled. 

Williams turned his face to me, shock written all over it. He barely had time to notice the guard closest to us depress his trigger, releasing the taser bullet lodged within. Williams had pulled me between himself and the guard and I had - literally - seconds to save my ass. Strafing slightly to the right, I backed into Williams and elbowed him as the taser bullet zinged towards us, crackling with electricity. Rolling off him, I pushed him into the trajectory of the bullet and it hit him square in the chest. Just as I released him, the guard clicked the button that sent a thousand volts into the detective and he howled as the electricity caused his muscles to lock, immobilising him and causing him to go to ground like a felled tree. All my assumptions were instantly debunked, the guards were inexperienced and trigger happy. They wouldn't hesitate to shoot me too if I didn't play my cards right. 

I took off in a sprint distancing myself from Williams, weaving in a zigzag in case any of the guards was an okay marksman. I had noticed earlier that the guard by the terrace who had started the joke had his holster on his left and the rest had theirs on the right. I was ambidextrous which meant I had the advantage whoever I chose to tackle first. It would take about a minute for the guard to who had fired to reload his taser gun and the remaining three to cover him. I had to get them to empty their current round of bullets without drawing whoever was inside the precinct itself. Feigning fatigue, I stopped and doubled over and used the opportunity to look over at Williams. He was still splayed on the ground contorted at an awkward angle, twitching slightly. The shock must have knocked him unconscious. The coward.