Lightspeed: Drug Detectives

Chapter 31 (Act III): Going Up

Chapter 31, guys! It's official; there's one main story chapter for every day in.....most months except for September, April, June, and November! No, the Prologue doesn't count as a chapter. It never really did. That's why it's called a "Prologue" and not "Chapter 0" or something like that. Or "Chapter -1".

Whatever.

My name is Ariel Axilas, and welcome back to another chapter of my second novel, "Lightspeed: Drug Detectives"! Last time.....GOOD GOD. Last time, we had one HELL of a thrilling escape sequence from the Solionite Mines after the Paragon Herman ended up accidentally setting the timers for the dynamite-laced explosives to go off a little bit too early. But.....dude. You should have SEEN me in the last chapter. I was blasting through the passageways and caverns, I was holding onto my friends, I was determined, I was practically flying.....fuck. It really got my blood pumping, y'all. Like, actually. Hell, I even ran directly past some of Herman's rigged explosives like it was just another Sunday for me! It was THAT nuts!

The chapter wrapped up with us barely threading the needle at the mining elevator that was supposed to get us out of the Mines......and up to the Celestial Compound. I was literally hammering that elevator call button, like, a million times a second, because I had my super speed activated. It apparently got Erica's interest as well, but there wasn't enough time to address it back then. But, at any rate.....Herman pushes us into the elevator the moment it opens, he hits the button inside the car to close the doors again, the alcove floods with debris the moment we're safely inside, yada yada yada. Typical "last-minute escape" sequence, really. But above all, I have to thank the author for getting us through that steaming hot bucket of shit.

This time, Erica, Herman, and I have an unusually calm ascent in the elevator—after having previously run for our lives in a desperate attempt to escape from the Solionite Mines—and the three of us get into a rather.....interesting.....conversation. I don't fucking know. Just keep things here, okay?

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-Solionite Mines Mining Elevator, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic-

I'm the speedy superheroine Lightspeed, and I've just brought the remaining two members of my badass posse—that'd be my best friend Erica Shields and the Paragon Herman—into a mining elevator which, we believe, will take us straight up to the Celestial Compound at the surface, enabling us to—hopefully—start taking them down from within.

I can feel the car moving.....we are indeed heading upward. But I wasn't expecting the atmosphere to be so.....calm. So.....not dangerous. I'd have expected there to be a trap in here for us; maybe the ceiling compartment would've been slid back and some grunts would have popped in to attack us. But.....nothing.

Part of me feels relieved; I could use a bit of a break, especially since I just brought two of my friends through a rapidly collapsing mine and we're about to emerge directly inside the base of operations of quite possibly the most formidable drug cartel for miles around.

But another part of me feels let down. My blood's pumping, my pulse is pounding, and that specific part of me is already itching for another intense sequence. It doesn't even have to be straight combat; you saw how intense the mine escape scene was.

For right now, though.....we're just here. A trio of heroes. Bunch of misfits standing around in a slowly ascending elevator car.

Eventually, my best friend Erica breaks her silence.

"Hey, Ari?" she asks me, referring to my real name, Ariel. "You got a moment?"

"What's up, girl?" I ask her coolly, though I'll admit I sound a little too excited. "Don't be shy; just hit me with those words of yours."