The Gearwalker shuddered to a halt. Elaine frowned as she lifted the hatch to the engine room. She jumped into the engine room and tightened a loose bolt with a wrench she had pulled from her leather jacket. She sighed as she moved back to the control room. She would never get out of Craecius at this rate. If the city guard found her it would be straight back to her horrible home, and that place was under heavy surveillance.
At a last attempt to get the walker, which she had named Kathy, workig again, she got out the sonic screwdriver she had stolen. Psychic interface, Elaine thought. Just point and think. Work Kathy, run!
Kathy's engines came to life. "Yes." Elaine said under her breath.
She looked out through the back hatch. She could barely see the city gates, but she knew it wasn't far enough. The city had probably already noticed the missing Gearwalker, and her sister had definitely alerted the City Guard that she was gone. But how would they know that she could steer the thing?
That was not the immediate problem though. That title was saved for the fact that Kathy had started running at 4o miles an hour, throwing everything that wasn’t tethered down, including Elaine, to the back. Elaine managed to close the back hatch before much got out, but 3 cans of food managed to roll out anyways.
Elaine, struggling to grasp the leather straps tied to the ceiling, moved towards the front of the room and pulled the lever that halted the mechanics. But the left leg of the walker was too far behind the right one. Kathy began to tilt backwards. “No, no, NO!” Elaine yelled, trying to move the left leg forwards.
But it was too late, the girl jumped out the bottom hatch and fell 15 feet, ending in a roll. Glad that it had worked and her neck didn’t break, Elaine scrambled out of the way. Before everything collapsed, Elaine used the sonic screwdriver to enable the silence technology, so Kathy landed with no sound at all. Elaine ran inside Kathy, grabbing some rope and a hatchet. Elaine had one plan and one plan only to get Kathy back on her feet. She tied the rope securely to a handle on the outside of Kathy’s main compartment and then tied the rope’s other end to a lone tree and took a swing at the tree with the hatchet, hoping that the weight of the falling tree would pull Kathy upright. Unfortunately, the plan completely and totally backfired as the tree fell on top of Kathy, crushing the walker beyond repair.
Elaine knew she was almost out of time, so she grabbed her segway, batteries, a flashlight, the food, and a water purifier. Loading it all into a duffel bag, she jumped on the segway and kept moving. This segway was not an ordinary segway, though. It was a high speed, all terrain segway designed for the police. Elaine was a much better segway driver than a walker driver. Of all the skills Leonardo had taught her, her ability to drive a segway was only second to her skills with a computer.
She wondered if Leonardo had made it out of the city like she had.
7 minutes later, all signs of life went away. Seth, the next town, was now about half an hour away. Elaine stopped briefly for water at a creek. She decided to avoid the town in case they were looking for her. To pass the time, Elaine played with the sonic screwdriver, making it speed up and slow down the segway without using the controls.
Suddenly, Elaine heard someone yelling. “Hey Elaine! Elaine Grace Wells!” She stopped the segway and turned.
It wasn’t the city guard, and it wasn’t Leonardo as she had hoped. In fact, it was two people. It was two friends that she had come to know so well, David and Caroline Robertson. Elaine stopped briefly and spoke fast. “Hi guys! You are awesome people but right now I’m being chased by the military for stealing Kathy, a Gearwalker. Anyway, the government’s looking for me and you’re both great friends but I have to get off this island with Leonardo without getting killed. If you don’t want a death sentence, scram!”
David sighed. “We have a walker just back there. We were about to offer you a ride off the island. Leonardo’s at the coast ready to meet us, too.”
Elaine looked at Caroline, who was standing just behind David. She was pointing frantically for Elaine to run. It was a trap. Elaine turned and sped off on the segway. Elaine knew that David wouldn’t call for reinforcements; he liked to handle things himself. 5 minutes later, she could see David on a hoverboard in the distance. Gaining on her, he was soon just 50 feet away. Smiling, Elaine soniced the hoverboard. The battery fell in a lake.
Caroline, who was trailing behind David on another hoverboard, yelled to Elaine. “We were set up! We didn’t want to do this to you!” and went to help her older brother.
Elaine sighed. The pursuit had driven her so far off course it would be impossible to find Leonardo now. After traveling a bit farther, Elaine stopped to rest and determine a plan of action. Okay. Elaine thought, I’m about 5 miles from Seth. If I backtrack carefully, I can go there, reorient myself and go to the village of Alond to steal a motorboat. Then maybe I can go to the rendezvous point and meet up with Leonardo there.
But the weather had other plans. A warm spring downpour began suddenly. Elaine quickly built a lean-to, another skill Leonardo had taught her, out of branches and leaves. She opened a bag of chips and hunkered down inside the lean-to. It was the first time she had eaten since leaving Craecius. As she ate, she replayed the escape in her mind.
Oh no, Elaine thought. No, no, no, no, no, no. David and Caroline were good friends to me. Was the government blackmailing them into trying to catch me? Or were they being tortured?! Was David getting it worse than Caroline, actually trying to stop me? And how’s Leonardo. He should never travel alone, that man. He was the closest thing I ever had to a father.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sound in the bushes. She pulled her whole body into the lean to and hid. The footsteps were coming closer. Elaine braced for the worst and felt the lean to collapse on her. She looked up and saw a boot. She stood and got ready to run when she realized it was Leonardo. A man of about 25, he stood rather tall with black eyes and golden hair. She ran to him and hugged him. “Right now we’re the #1 most wanted in the country, not just this damn island.” Leonardo said. “From past experience, hugs in the middle of a chase are never a good idea. Now you have thirty seconds to get your stuff together and then we head off.”
Hurriedly packing her stuff, Elaine smiled. She looked up and saw Leonardo smiling. He was just as happy as she was that they were together again. After putting her meager amount of supplies into her bag, she was about to turn on her segway when Leonardo stopped her. “Coast is that way.” He jerked his thumb to his left. “It’s not far. We’ll run. I’ve got a boat.”
Elaine nodded as they turned and ran in the rain.
As they ran, Elaine fumbled for her screwdriver. Pointing it behind her, she soniced her segway so that it followed them. Elaine had a hunch that she may need it again. Fortunately, Leonardo was so concentrated or running that he didn’t notice.
They quickly reached the coast and ran up the beach to where a small motorboat sat tied to a tiny tree. The segway was close behing. “Elaine! Why did you bring that?”
“I thought we might need it….”
“It’s just another way for them to trace us.” He shook his head.
“Fine.” Elaine said, and soniced the segway to go into the water and roll away. They climbed the board the motor boat and sped off. Leonardo started scouring the boat for bombs, GPS devices, and tapping devices that someone could have planted in the boat. Standard procedure. I waited until he was done, then sat down.
“We’re going to the next island over. I’ve got some friends there that can fix us up with some more supplies for the way out of the country.”
Elaine spoke. “Leonardo.....on my way here David and Caroline Robertson tried to trick me and take me back to the city. They might’ve been blackmailed, Maybe even bribed…or worse…..”
Leonardo sat down next to her. “I’m very sorry; I know they are your friends. But they are your friends because they’re smart and clever. David and Caroline will get out of the situation, I can feel it, but it would be unwise to go back for them. That would just be falling into someone’s trap. Your friends would want you out of the country safe.”
Elaine nodded. Leonardo always knew exactly what to say. He sat down in the driver’s seat and the boat set off into the fading light
