Free Digital Venous by Richard Gohl

people on the roof had been moving around, they had now stopped. As he neared the top, he heard a slow, scraping sound. Flicking on the scanner Shane’s entire field of vision flashed orange as someone swung down on a water pipe, using the heel of their boot to collect Shane’s forehead. As he toppled backwards, a laser bolt slipped out of his gun and up through the roof. Shane then fell down two flights of steps, coming to rest on the landing of the seventeenth floor, and blacked out.
    From above a voice said, “Shit, Evan, I’m hit!”
    “I’m coming. Don’t move,” he replied.
    “I can’t jump,” said the wounded woman. “I can’t stand—my leg…”
    “You don’t need your leg to fly. Get up.” Evan helped her up. “Let’s go.”
    “I’m only going to slow you down… leave me…”
    She was in a lot of pain. Her upper leg now had an indentation where the bolt had shaved past and burned through. At least there was no blood. One “advantage” of being shot with such a weapon was that the wound cauterized itself.
    Evan paused to think. “You can’t stay here. He’ll be traced and you’ll be found…”
    “I’ll take my chances, ” she said.
    “You’ve used up all your chances. Fly in, as planned. When I drop to land, you keep going. Keep going until you reach the perimeter. There are numerous exit points in the northern corner.”
    “And what about him?” she said, indicating the guard. “Don’t worry about him. He fell a long way down.”
    They grabbed their bags and their weapons and jumped from the building, flying over the high walls of the research buildings.
     
    Shane woke only minutes later and scrambled to the rooftop, cursing his poor form, to find the two Subs gone. He ran back down the stairs, across the street, deactivated the southern wall security system, and opened the gate. In the distance, he heard smashing glass. He ran to the end of the fifty-meter building and, looking round the corner, saw the man inside the facility. The area was well-lit. Shane scanned the scene for the woman. In the building , he thought. She’s already gone inside the building… Shane edged forward and with a clear line of vision on the man, aimed and fired a white-hot bolt of matter that was so dense it was molten. The escapee dropped, arms flailing upwards. Shane moved in quickly to check if he was dead, hovering over him like a ghost. But where was she? he wondered. The building was huge but each section had been compartmentalized; she couldn’t have gone far. Shane needed this to be cleaned up post-haste. Reinforcements were sure to arrive at any moment. It didn’t take him long to work out that she’d flown the coop.
    He climbed back out the window and ran toward the Greenhill gate. Looking west down a narrow lane, he saw three guards heading south toward the research building. They didn’t see him, which was just as well; he was out of uniform, and well out of his neighborhood. Breathless, he came to the edge of the research facility wall. Looking through a window, he could see the Greenhill gate. It was closed and there was no one around. There was no way she could have escaped here. Shane began running back, northwest along the perimeter, where the Napean roof came down to meet the external wall. It was unfamiliar territory for him, but there had to be an exit point from the facility.
    And there it was. A double door, closed but unlatched. The wind was keeping it shut. He could hear it howling away mercilessly outside. He turned on his bio-scanner, and as he pushed open the door, the wind caught it and slammed it back hard into the wall. Shane stepped through, reeling back as the cold night air bit into his face. He had no doubt that she’d attempted the dangerous run across the freezing desert plain to the Greenhill transdomes. He strained to examine every shape, every mound, bump or rock in the surrounding landscape for her body, but it was hard to keep his eyes open. She