DETERRENT - Apply Fic

-01

It always begins with getaways.

By the time their twelve-week sentence ends, their bodies were more prepared to flee than ever before. This process was abnormal in its normality. Their teeth were not sharpened with instruments to appear more canine, but their stomachs were better able to digest hard foods. Their arms did not have the bulk steroids bring, but they could strike down trees with a few swings of an axe. They could toss around firewood with the ease of dropping a match onto kindling. The fastest among them could have run laps around their former selves. Without maps and tracking systems, they could still navigate with ease.

This proved fruitful as they sprinted through the fields of the Mullins' family farm, running as fast and as far and as quietly as they could manage simultaneously.

Benji Mullins was broad and not made for running. He did as he could, darting through the trellises of peas, scrapping his arms on the wood, blood seeping into his shirt. Having worked on a farm all his life, Benji had an advantage. However, he never had to think about running. All Benji had ever aspired to be was someone who could stand on his land and claim it as his own. Now, he was sprinting away from his home.

There are no CCTV cameras out in North Marcanty, and it is somehow bittersweet for Gale Hatcher. Cameras are the reason he is in this mess at all. With his blue hair entirely grown out, he might blend into the dark night. Even cameras might not notice him stumbling, rounding through the corn, trying his best to find the others. With no cameras, they might be able to escape. With no cameras, they might never be found again.

Harvey Evrin wishes he has grabbed a kit with medical supplies. He isn't sure how much longer he can run. The modifications on his leg may have strengthened it to run without his cane, but the pain rips through it, tearing his new muscles. He shouldn't have ever been here at all. Harvey had to protect the Wraiths, and now unfortunately, he has to protect his other delinquents.

When Cosmia Quartz had lost sight of Calath Hinge, she swore under her breath. Cosmia was used to pivoting. She hadn't expected that running through a field would be twice as hard as running fleeing the police back in The Sticks. Dirt is more uneven than the pothole-covered streets of her home. Her best bet was Calath and the broken-down truck a ways east, but it could be south now. There are no alleys to duck in and hide. She's got to run.

Faris Hakim isn't meant for speed. His lungs are huffing, and he collapses to his knees, fighting for breath. The long con was always his game. If it were up to him, he could have bided his time, waited, and pulled a month after six decades of planning. Faris is strong, but he never needed it. He had relied on charming his way out of every situation. Unfortunately, he was surrounded by assholes and idiots.

Originally, Titus Silver wanted to run away. All things start the same way they end, he supposes. It was supposed to be with Caius. It was supposed to be to Underpass City, or The Marcanty Free Zone, or any other of a thousand places. Titus knew cities and computers and how to please his parents and other wealthy people. His plan was predicated on places with many buildings and crevices to tuck himself inside and create a new life. There are many places to hide in a cornfield, but no ways to live there forever.

Norbu Wangchen wouldn't have ever thought about himself as being exceptionally clever or even as having a good memory. Schools in Leth don't produce capable thinkers, learning disabilities aside. Yet, Norbu remembers. He remembers records and collects them even though they haven't been produced in three hundred years and restoring them costs thousands of credits. He remembers how to snap quickly like lighting as he did in Flage. He remembers Tibet even when so much of everything else before Marcanty has been forgotten or at least omitted. Best of all, he remembers his way through the fields. He's so far ahead of the others, approaching the patches of vegetables that are low to the ground and that will leave him exposed. That gap, the leap of faith through a hundred metres of bare air, that is where he fears his cleverness will fail him.

Having pictured leaving this farm night after night, Rhiannon Rose Armitage wouldn't have pictured this moment. She had imagined day in and out of her parents coming in by plane and pulling her out of there early. Perhaps the Neo Elysian state would come having cancelled their pilot program. On her worst nights, it would be doctors from medical facilities coming to imprison her for years longer. Rhiannon wasn't made for North Marcanty. She was sunburnt, the only kind of burning that wasn't something she enjoyed. Her body ached, and it was bruised, callused, and dirty. In this moment, it was worse.

Eurydice Lyre doesn't look back. Looking back is blasphemous. She does stop and listen. She can hear them, most of them, and it's only a bit more difficult than it was in Neo Elysium. Eurydice has been finding people for years, down dark alleys in Flage, between the sounds of drunks chanting outside bars and engines revving and rain blasting down onto the ground between the giant buildings around her. It's easier on a windless night to hear the rustling of the fields. So, she turns and runs in a different direction.

There is something in Kae Melrich's hand that shouldn't be in it. Unfortunately, that is often the case. The urge hasn't subsided here. She won't let go as she sprints and sprints. Tears spill from her eyes, and she can't afford to shut them. Theft isn't difficult when for people like Kae, people from The Arch with wide eyes and pouting lips. Kae can't bat her eyes out of this one. Still, she can't let go.

Calath Hinge was supposed to be done with her days working with criminals. She had left the Flatteners for a reason. Rescuing Dovey was the reason she is stuck here. If she had to do it all over for Dovey, she would. Calath knows this is it. She'll never see Dovey again. Likely, she'll never see Neo Elysium either. If this isn't their physical end, it is their political one. Perhaps Calath can save someone one last time.

Even though the harvest is ending, the sounds of katydids still erupt around them. Early in their stay, it was hard to sleep at night. Their shrill chirps always proved distracting. At this moment, is hard to notice them over the sound of gunshots firing through the brush.

~~~~~

A fun little ditty. This is just a character intro, but still, let me know how you think your character was portrayed! I'm so excited to start writing! There are a few more chapters I can write before I really need relationships so don't fret, but for those of you who are able to get them in sooner, it will only accelerate the pace of this story.