In the Lateness of Hour...Redux
Run. Faster. Don't stop. Don't look back. Let nothing slow you.
Just run.
Those were the only thoughts that ran through the woman's mind as she forced her way through the thick foliage of the Cronos Jungle. Her legs were on fire, her feet were sore, and her head was burning, but she couldn't stop now. She had to keep moving.
She had to survive.
A heavy blanket of rain was washing down the sides of the palm trees and the acrid, acidic liquid burned her eyes as it splashed into her face. The warm, sticky air was filled with the music of war; gunfire and explosions that shook the ground and assualted her eardrums. She could hear them approaching; could hear the shouts of the men that would do anything to capture her and would risk anything to ensure her death. The woman wanted to stop, she wanted to give into the pain that was absorbing her being, but she couldn't. She couldn't let them catch her. She had to get away.
Too many lives were on the line for her to stop now.
The woman could feel her pulse pounding within her chest, adrenaline running through her veins. The thick brambles and bushes left white hot lines of pain across her exposed arms and legs and the water plastered her thin shirt to her back. Her shoulders strained under the weight of her deadly cargo and she fought to keep her breath, her fragile lungs not used to the foul tasting air of the Outside.
She reached for her phone but she knew before she even saw the screen that she had cut it too close. She had left herself fifteen minutes to reach the bridge and all but five of those minutes had already elapsed. The bridge was less than half a mile away and there was no way she would make it in time, not with this bag weighing her down. But she had to make it didn't she? She had spent too much time planning this to give up now. Too many people were counting on her.
Society wouldn't hold her back anymore.
"Hey you, stop!" said a voice from behind, but the woman did the exact opposite. She kept running; vaulting over a tree that had been destroyed by lightning, her hands burning on the still smoldering wood. More gunfire rang out and bullets flew past her face, burying themselves in the tree bark and sending splinters flying into her eyes. She begged her body not to give in, pleaded with her feet to carry her just a little bit farther. She could make it if she kept fighting...
At that moment a pair of hands wrapped around her neck and dragged her to the ground. Her head smacked against a rock and the hands squeezed her throat like a vice, choking her, starving her brain of the oxygen she so desperately needed. Stars danced before the woman's eyes and color slowly drained from her vision.
"Did you really think you could escape?" said her assailant, his voice disfigured by the oxygen mask covering his face. The two of them rolled back and forth on the wet grass, the woman fighting to grab a breath, the man trying his hardest to end her life.
The woman made no sounds - her body didn't have enough oxygen to speak - but she really didn't need to, actions were good enough. These men thought they had her trapped, but they were dead wrong.
She had planned for every contingency.
The woman slid her switch knife out of the pocket on her leg, flipped it open with one hand, and stabbed it down behind her, aiming for where her assailant's throat should have been. She heard a loud scream and the pressure on her throat was instantly reduced. The woman then rolled to the side, picked a gigantic rock off of the ground, and slammed it down onto the attacker's face.
The boulder smashed the plastic air filter on the attacker's face he choked as the unpure air was drawn into his lungs. He writhed across the ground, rolling back and worth and clawing at his ReBreather, trying anything to keep from breathing pollution that his body could not withstand. But despite all his weaponry, all his training, all the millions of dollars sitting in his bank account, there was nothing he could do. After a few moments of struggle, the man's face went blue and he was silenced.
The woman saw none of this; she had already gotten to her feet and had continued to run. They should have known better than to try and stop her. She was too far along now. Everything had been put into motion, all the pieces were in place. Just her mere presence, just the mere fact that she was out in this Jungle had broken all the rules; had changed everything. But that wasn't enough for her.
She had bigger aspirations today. Today she was going to change their pathetic little world.
Finally the woman broke through the edge of the jungle and the bridge came into view. She stood there in awe at the gigantic miracle of human engineering, marvelled at the mass of steel and titanium, the long, slender wires that sprawled through the sky. It was all so unbelievable, it looked like something from another world, yet was just how she had imagined it.
And that was when the first bullet smashed into her body. It slammed into her thigh and she was forced down; another bullet grazed her arm and another buried itself in her calf. She collapsed to the ground in silence, letting the rain mix with the blood that fled from her mortal wounds. She didn't even attempt to climb to her feet. Her journey was over.
But she had gotten far enough.
"We got her!"
"Were we quick enough?"
"Take her back to the Dome!"
She felt a pair of hands grab at her sides, felt herself being lifted from the ground, heard voices from overhead, heard some sort of vehicles approaching. They had captured her. But none of that mattered now. She had accomplished her goal. She had won.
George was going to be so proud.
She reached into her pocket, found her phone, and jammed her finger down on the button.
The masked men screamed out in fear, they dropped her to the ground and started to run. But the woman, hanging onto her last wisps of life, knew that it was too late for that. It was too late to run. But she was glad to see those looks in their eyes; was almost happy that their scurrying forms were the last things she would ever see as her short, pain filled life came to a close. She was glad that she had been the one to strip away the facade that had clouded over their entire, privileged, sheltered lives.
She was glad that she had taught them fear.
There was a brief pause as the signal was sent from the phone to the contents of the bag, but then there was a click, and the miniaturized atomic bomb in the woman's pack was activated.
The blast was incredible. It absorbed everything, all of the palm trees, the wildlife, the guards, it even took out a small piece of the Dome. The Leaders told the Insiders that it was just some sort of mistake, that the explosion that destroyed more than five and a half miles of Jungle was just an accident, just a fluke. But all of the Commoners knew the truth: someone had escaped.
Someone had broken away from the chamber, had freed themselves of the forced tryany, the soul-sucking confines, the humanity draining walls of the Dome, and had seen the real world. Someone had proved that their wildest dreams, their deepest fantasies were true, had shown that with a little human creativity, anything and everything could be achieved, no matter what the obstacles.
Because someone had been Outside.
And she would not be the last.
