The F.O.X. Project

Chapter 5: The Silver Knife

The BiCopter touched down on a small landing pad at the edge of the city,
It's wall towering high above the warehouses and apartments of the area.

Max stepped down from the landing pad and strolled into a dark alleyways. The shadows are the only friends he needs.

Creeping through the alleyways, he moved around the city. Trying to find his old hideout. A thousand vehicles spoke as one to create a cacophony of sounds echoing through the overgrown alleyways.

Abandoned and wrecked vehicles lay scattered about and it reeked of mould and smoke. The worst people lived deep down, in the depths below the bustling city of Macropolis.

He came to a stop by an open area of a BiRail tunnel and began to make his way across the large gantry spanning the tracks. It creaked and groaned under his weight and a spanner, dislodged from the slight shaking of the gantry, fell and clattered against the electrified third rail on the middle set of tracks.

A slight hiss could be heard from the middle tracks, then a rumble and the BiRails spotlight shon into the opening. A split second later the locomotive shot by, followed by a set of double-stack open flatbeds. He jumped down onto the speeding train, he fell over on impact and rolled until he hit a crate with a heavy thud.

Rubbing his aching back, Max walked between the crates, ammo boxes, damaged vehicles and shipping containers. Soon he found what he was looking for; his red 2000s Dodge Rebel. It was parked next to a purple 1980s Dodge Challenger with a hood ornament of a bear with a top hat. Cars weren't usually allowed to be any colour than white, but the rebels known as the Nova Corporation painted their cars red as a statement that they will never, under any circumstance, bow down to DCC. He wasn't part of them but it made good camouflage and explained his reckless driving to the civilians on the streets.

He sat in his car as the BiRail shot out of the tunnel and over a calm and tranquil open ocean. It usually wasn't like this but it was the day that the winds shift so there was no breeze whatsoever.

The Train flew over the ocean. Max could make out small trawlers and container ships dotted about the horizon, their sails glinting white against the cloudless sky like bunting.

He started up the engine and it roared as he kicked it into gear, the train slowed and entered another tunnel on the other side of Macropolis.

A service road swerved into view, level with him. The road won't be alongside for long so he ploughed his foot into the accelerator and the car flew powerfully off the flatbed, landing heavily on the service road. It then steered into a steep upward corkscrew as he ascended to street level.

Max's heart raced as his car leaped out of the corkscrew and onto a busy street, narrowly dodging traffic. The car screeched to a stop at a red light and he caught his breath (and the eight-pack of beer cans that flew forward from the back seat, no idea how those got there... )

He put his foot to the floor again and the car shot off. It was only a matter of time before DCC noticed he was here. In fact, they were probably already on their way.

With a roar, the car sped up the on ramp to one of the many freeways cris-crossing the city. Viu Tower loomed over him the entire time. A huge, multi-story mass of metal four kilometres high, the tallest building on the whole continent watching him. Thankfully, the tower was recently prised from the clutches of DCC by the Nova Corporation so he wasn't in as much danger as he could be, but they weren't going to help him either if he was to get in trouble.

Just as that crossed his mind several bright blue police cars sped around a corner behind him, but he was going to fast to do any evasive manoeuvres. He put on the brakes and twisted the wheel left, then right and the vehicle drifted perfectly across a junction and down a side street, yet again slotting perfectly between two civilian vehicles.

The narrow alleyway scraped the edges of his wing mirrors as the car made its way down it. Dust and and the smell of mould blasted through his air conditioning and the darkness gave way to a small residential street that headed right down to the dockyard, where he was catching his boat to The Eye of Vanet.

Revving, the car made its way down a steep hill to the mass of warehouses and dry docks making up the eastern dockyard. The car drove through the front gates and between two shipping containers towards the back of an open warehouse. Max then made his way to a small trawler and approached the captain.

'Goin' to Pacifico Mr Risdon? Haven't seen ya in a while.' The captain mentioned in a gravelly, American accent.

'Yep, I have someone I need to meet.' Max replied.

'A'right'

The captain clambered into the cab and the boat started to slowly make his way out of the port.

Max decided that this would be a good time to get some rest so he went down below deck and passed out in a hammock.

♦️ ♦️ ♦️

Max woke up, he was no longer in his hammock on the trawler. Instead, he was staring out of a window over downtown Pacifico. Far in the distance, a huge meteor was bearing down on the horizon. It touched down and screams were heard as shockwaves tore through the tropical city. Several apartments collapsed as a huge cloud of water rose from the crash site. A sudden gust of wind almost sent him flying off his feet and he began to make out a wall of water crawling quickly towards him. It collided with the coastline and he was surrounded by water.

♦️ ♦️ ♦️

He woke up to a deep rumbling sound. His hammock flipped over and he crashed to the wooden floor. Briskly and clumsily, he ran up the little flight of stairs and up onto the ships deck.

A truly terrifying sight lay before him. A huge rolling tidal wave was coming straight towards the trawler.

He witnessed a tanker ship hit the wave . It instantly exploded and flames shot up towards the sky before getting ripped apart by the Great Wall of water as it tore the tanker to pieces.

He stared at it as the boat slowed to a stop. He had nowhere to run...