GunBarrel Gauntlet: The Last Bronze II

04. Breakout.

               The parallel steel lines of the tracks were swept up in the headlights of the modified truck, gliding them through the tunnels below the city. From the passenger seat Weary had an opportunity to study those small details left from another world. The advertisement billboards of stations with forgotten names, the perfect smiling white teeth of a lady reclining on a summer beach.

A light in the distance was growing, the blinding white glare of the city surface at the end of the tunnel. Shifting gears to pick up speed, Carrion reached for the radio handset to communicate with the escort vehicles.

"We're about to break through, keep pace with me and don't stop moving. Stay behind Audrey for cover, Over."

"Roger that Big Mama" The response crackled.

Barrelling out of the darkness, the claustrophobia of the tunnels gave way to open skies. On either side of the battle truck rose the oxidised ruins of industrial estates, the vistas of other buildings visible through the missing windows and rooves of their hollow frames on the skyline.

Cresting out of the brickwork maw of the underground passages into the this contrasting imagery, the three vehicles skated on their wheel braces close together as they continued northward.

A rock suddenly struck the side of the truck, then another. Glass shards from a bottle impacting the grill made Carrion wary, her expression tense as she concentrated on pushing through. The rock throwing became a cacophony of raining debris, hurled down on them from the upper storeys of office buildings by mad men and women that looked like they had come out of the stone age. Tumbling down with the other projectiles, the burning wick of an incendiary bottle shattered into the front end of one of the escorts.

"I'm hit!" Screamed Tiny through the radio. "The car's on fire!"

Using a curve in the track to get a better perspective on the cars behind her, Carrion could see flames fanning over the Corolla's windscreen from the friction of the wind, all framed in the side mirrors.

"Keep moving!" She snarled into the handset. "It will burn out."

As Carrion had predicted, the chill of the rushing breeze helped to dissipate the flames, leaving black damage over the paintwork and windshield. Without pause they endured the pelting objects, fighting through the gauntlet until the buildings began to subside in height, no longer able to afford an advantage to the Cannibal Clans.

"There's something moving ahead of us... use the scope." Carrion ordered.

Opening a hinged panel in the armoured slats that protected the passenger side, Weary threaded the rifle and his head into the rushing air, sighting through the lens to magnify a pair of savages straining at either end of a two-man logging saw, furiously cutting away at a telegraph pole beside the tracks.

"We got trouble! They're cutting down a telegraph pole... they're gonna de-rail us!"

"Slow 'em down cowboy. How far they got to go?"

The retort of a bullet pinged from the passenger side as Weary brought the cross-hairs onto one of their heads.

"Inches." He replied to Carrion's question.

Weaving the gear stick in coordination with her foot, Carrion braced her arms back onto the wheel as the rattle of the tracks palpitated as though the machine was in sympathy with their rising adrenaline.