The Elite | The Unnamed Duology

9: Safehouse

9: Safehouse

"So the easiest place to get over is right here," Rose the Runner explains, drawing a line with her finger to the top of the wall. They had circled around it to a place where the top has wires and spikes bent in strange angles, but Daniel can see a spot large enough to get through with no trouble. Aside from the climbing part, that is.

"How are we supposed to scale it?" Daniel the Elite Runner asks, the rising sun making his nerves prickle with energy. The lighter it gets, the easier it is to be seen, that much he knows. "The walls are smooth."

Rose shakes her head, bringing her outstretched hand down to rest on her hip, mirroring the other one. "We use stick-soles. The Unnamed created them in secrecy, even from other parts of itself. Only the highest people knew, like One, Two, Three..." She swallows hard. "I only knew because I was one of the fastest Runners there was until you came in. Then things started taking off and they just kind of got lost in the rubble. I have an extra pair, actually."

Tugging something from her pockets that look like little triangles, she hands two pieces to Daniel. They're blue and gooey-feeling. Warm too. Saying it grossed him out would be an understatement.

He watches as she lifts them from her palm and stretches them over the toe of her shoe, reminding him of a balloon. Rose pulls another corner and pulls it over her heel. There's a slight sucking sound as it forms to the shape of her shoe.

Through the amazing invention before him, Daniel manages to make a disgusted face. She chuckles slightly at this as her eyes dart up to his, and shakes her head as she fixes the other stick-sole to her left shoe.

"Your turn," she laughs tightly. "Hurry. Quit being a baby."

He does as she had, cringing and trying to touch as little of the material as possible, taking twice as long as Rose. She rolls her eyes and then backs up.

"You need a head-start," she smiles.

Her feet take her a little bit farther away, and then she begins to sprint as fast as she can towards the wall. Her right foot collides parallel with the cement and she begins to escalate up the wall at an angle. She's not exactly perpendicular to the slab of stone nor parallel, but somewhere in bewteen that.

Rose the Runner begins to lose momentum and brings her body closer to the wall, reaching up with her arms. Her fingers wrap around the top edge and she pulls herself the rest of the way up, using the stick-soles to help get her higher.

Swinging her body across the top, she looks down at Daniel and says, "Now you try. See you on the other side," and disappears.

The Runner stares in awe at the events that just played out. She literally just ran up a wall. With sticky stuff on the bottoms of her shoes. It hurt Daniel's brain. But he needed to try now, and he knew it. The sun's coming up and everyone will be awake soon.

He backs up and readies himself, slowing his breathing. Daniel begins to pump his legs and arms, and then the wall is before him. His foot meets the cement and he's moving upward before he knows it. And then, not realizing he's perpendicular to the wall, he's on the ground, gasping for air and recieving sand instead. He pushes himself up and tries again, focusing on his running. He's always been clumsy.

But this is running up a wall.

Daniel takes off and meets the wall. His lower body and core muscles scream to relax as he struggles to stay at a thirty-ish degree angle, and he begins to lose momentum. He stretches out his arms and feels the corner brushpast his fingers.

And then he's falling once more.

Only this time, someone catches him around his wrist.

Daniel looks up to see Rose's face, pinched with strain. She's having trouble holding him up.