2036 Chapter 7: Exit pursuit by a RAT

 

Chapter 7: Exit pursuit by a RAT.

Oh no.

Oh god.

No no no no nonoononononononononono.

NO!

That was what was running through my head when the back of the bank exploded, likely killing Marcus and probably incinerating the money. I’d only known the guy for one day, and he was dead.

Of course, things got worse.

I heard Carmine and Scalp running towards the carpark, which was a stupid idea because two IO guys began running after them. Rule 1 of exiting a heist scene was NOT to run. Then again, most heists didn’t end with a gas explosion.

“HEY, YOU! STOP!” the first one shouted in a static and gravelly voice. Carmine and Scalps footsteps ceased. I had no idea what was going on, so I couldn’t offer any advice aside from…

“Guys, whatever you do, do not speak back to the mic. Just explain why you ran away and come back to the car.”

…

Carmine started “AH! Hello officers, we were…”

“What’s your identification number.” Said another guard, this time in a woman’s voice, equally as static and gravelly.

Carmine struggled to remember her fake serial number “Uhm… seven five six… six… uhh… SEVEN! Seven five six seven dash… four two ze-“

“Hold up.” Said the first guard. I heard him turn his radio on. “Command, he have a sprinter and someone I think is a RAT. Yeah, he matches the description of the one posted here.”

I heard Scalp curse under his breath.

“Sir, you’re gonna have to come with us.” Said the female officer.

“Woah whoa whoa! He’s not going anywhere!” Shouted Carmine. “Why the hell are you harassing us? we were just running away from that big explosion like any sane pers-“

“Ma’am we-”

“DON’T MA’AM ME YOU SKE-” The first officer struck Carmine with her stub baton. Her mic blasted the sound of her head hitting the floor. The second officer then shouted, “Get the Piper!” Whatever that meant.

Suddenly, I heard gunshots from below me. Shots that could only be from Scalp’s hand cannon. This day just kept getting worse and worse.

“RHYS GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! WE NEED TO LEAVE!” Shouted Scalp.

“I can’t! If the car gets destroyed, we have no way out of this mess!”

“PLEASE!! I CAN’T GO BACK!!!”

“What d’ya mean you can’t go back?!”

“GET DOWN HERE NOW OR I WILL PHYSICALLY REMOVE A CHUNK OF YOU IN RE-EDUCATION!!!!”

What did he mean “I can’t go back”? That didn’t matter. All that mattered was that if I didn’t act, Carmine and Scalp would get shredded by IO enforcers. Their lives, and a “chunk” of me was at risk.

I wasn’t gonna just drive down there and gun every IO officer down with my 1911. That would only raise the stakes, and worse, make me a murderer. I couldn’t imagine having to live the rest of my life with blood on my hands. I’d only ever shot someone ONCE in the foot and I felt terrible afterwards.

But I also couldn’t leave them. If IO got to them, they could be sent to re-education, be straight up executed or worse, disappear. As someone who went through re-education, I couldn’t let anyone go through that process. The psychological abuse, isolation, beatings and the affects it still has on my life. It was almost a fate worse than death.

So, I was at a crossroads. I could either try and save my friends and risk us all ending up in re-education or I could just sit there and save myself.

Then I remembered why I joined up with Unger in the first place. With enough money, I was gonna leave the UISC through some black-market smugglers. I could go home. I could see my friends and family again. After 10 years of being stuck in this godforsaken country. No more UISC. No more IO or GodsEyes. No more paranoia about cameras being everywhere. And the others. Carmine, Lilian, Scalp and Unger. My friends. The only reason I didn’t just chug a bottle of bleach when I got home from work. They could leave as well. We could all leave. We could all have a better life. That’s what Unger wanted.

…

Idea.

I lifted up the bonnet of the Toyota and saw how thick it was. If the IO guys were using stun-rifles, which they usually did on street patrols, a single sheet of metal would be enough to protect my windscreen from flying taser bullets. I could use it as shielding, grab Carmine and Scalp and drive around town until I lost IO.

I picked up my mic and asked if anyone was there. I was horrified to hear what sounded like carmine screaming, along with the sound of something bashing against concrete.

Almost automatically, I started driving down the parking lot, where I had to lean out the window to navigate. As I was halfway down, the bashing stopped. I whispered down the mic “C-carmine? You there, you alright?”

All I got was three words. What I thought might have been Carmines last words.

“Rhys. Kill… Scalp.”

As soon as I got down to the ground floor, half of IO law enforcement pointed their weapons at me. I heard a blasting “HANDS IN THE AIR!!” from all of them. I rolled down the car window and held my hands out. I looked to my left and saw what I feared. Scalp was holding Carmine in the air by the neck. Her face was blood stricken and she looked as afraid as she’d ever looked. She could barely hold her eyes open.

The scariest thing, however, was Scalp.

His eyes and expression where blank. His hands, that where still clutched around Carmines neck were shaking and sweaty, like he was trying all he could to let go. When I looked at him, his head violently jerked to look back with wide, unblinking eyes, then went back to looking at Carmine. If I was some kind of analyst, I could figure out what was going on in only a few seconds. But I wasn’t.

“STEP OUT OF THE CAR!!” I heard. My hands which were now shaking, disappeared back into the car as I fondled for my gun. The officers still couldn’t see me, which was a plus. I took my gun in my right hand, and slowly opened the door.

“HURRY UP!!” Shouted one officer.

I took a single breath in… and stepped on the gas.

The officers fired their guns at the car to no avail. I heard the sound of my door hitting Scalp, throwing him off Carmine. I shouted for Carmine to get in the car, and she literally leaped into the passenger’s seat. Before I could start driving again, Scalp almost instantly stood back up, blood streaming from his nose but his expression still the same. Carmine screamed, and I reacted by shooting him in the leg. Whatever I did seemed to briefly snap him out of his trance, because he shouted in pain and fell back to the ground.

I sped out of the parking lot as fast as I could, not paying attention to the IO officers who dived out of my way. After I quickly closed the bonnet, I floored the pedal so hard it hurt my foot.

Streets flew pass almost instantly, like a big grey blur. The only things I could hear was the sound of IO stun bullets ricocheting of the car, and sound of carmine firing back at IO with her Uzi, and the cars engine trying not to explode, or worse, just give up. I almost hit people who were crossing the road on four separate occasions. A bunch of IO police cars actually did hit people, which was… graphic, despite hearing that all of them survived.

I was driving north-west, up to the golden gate bridge to hopefully loose IO in traffic. Since we were being chased, I thought it was best to not bring Unger into the problem. Though I didn’t think the car could make it to the golden gate. IO where throwing everything they had at me at this point. Cars, troops, blockades, helicopters, even drones. Around when I got to the Tenderloin district, they decided to use live ammo on me. I was scared for my life, but I was also kind of proud that I’d made IO so angry that they wanted me dead. Carmine was holding on as tightly as she could for most of the chase, which didn’t help her injuries. The back off her head left a red stain on the headrest. She kept trying to stop the bleeding, but we where going so fast that she couldn’t.

We where almost at the bridge. My hands where so sweaty that I could hardly turn the wheel. The car’s engine was steaming. IO sirens blared like foghorns. For the first time in 2 whole hours, I stopped driving. IO had blocked off the first golden gate. They had officers, cars, choppers and even some GodsEyes support all closing in on me. I knew the engine couldn’t take much more. Toyota Lynx’s where meant to be fast but couldn’t travel across an entire city at top speed.

Then I had an idea.

It wasn’t clean. And it had a high chance of killing us. But it was our only option.

I nudged Carmine and asked, “Are you awake.”

“I don’t want to be.” she replied.

“Why’s that?”

“I can’t see.”

Those words stay with me to this day. There must have been a burst blood vessel in Carmine’s eye when she was getting attacked by Scalp. I looked at her, and sure enough, her eyes had gone blood red. That complicated things. That complicated things a lot.

“Okay… Carmine, I’m going to do something very, VERY stupid. But it could get us outta here.” I said.

“What are you gonna do?” she responded.

“We’re gonna drive off a bridge.”

“WHAT?!” she shouted.

Those where the last words I heard before I drove the car off the Golden Gate Bridge.