Poison. (BOOK 1/2, THE POISON SERIES)

CHAPTER 4: HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT (DAN)

I wake up the next day.
I lie on the cardboard layered over the grimy alley.
Heavy rain drops slams onto my face. I sit up.
Okay today, I need to find the liberator base, pass on the information about the whereabouts of the surving humans.
The Liberator base is in The Art Store in Westfeild Central, the largest shopping center in The Central.
But everywhere is so monitored that I have a 3% chance that I'll survive walking around the Shopping center.

I get up and look at my phone.
A few messages from Dash, one message from Silver Fox.
I just turn off my phone, I can't leave it on too long or they'll track me...

I walk out onto the busy street of morning shift shoppers and I head towards the Shopping center.
*
I walk cautiously through the Shopping center.
Okay so it's floor 23.
I walk into an empty lift.
Several people walk in with me. Two police officers walk in.
"Sh*t." I whisper.
I bend over and fake tie my shoelaces to avoid eye contact.
Have they seen me?
Oh no I haven't pressed a lift button!
I stand up cautiously.
Oh no. I've forgotten the floor number.
I push floor 20.
I hope that's right.
Then I hear two clicks behind me. Like guns being loaded.
I can't react. It's too obvious. The lift stops on floor 10 and three people exit the lift. I just stay still facing the wall.
Floor 14. One person exits.
I feel breathing on my neck.
Floor 17. A woman with a buggy exits.
Floor 20. I make a quick way to the door.
Bang!
Luckily just as he shot, I tripped up slamming face down onto the hard floor. Several shoppers trample over me, not noticing me.
I taste blood.
I get up and move through the busy crowd, blood leaking from the side of my face.
Oh god I'm leaving a trail of blood! They'll easily find me now!

I keep walking trying to be causual. Ever so often I glance around to see if I'm being followed. So it's the Art shop!
"SH*T!" I yell. Oh gosh it was floor Twenty-three! I've got 3 large escalators to go up without being killed by Brad's goonies.
I'll take the lift!
I move through crowds of shoppers.
I reach the twenty lift doors in a large cemi circle row. All doors are closed.
But then every door opens! Each lift is filled with 5 soliders, all of them in Brad's branded black wetsuit uniform. In the direct center lift is the tall obnoxious Stalker. He's kind of like the new Hunter, but he's much more full of himself.
"SH*T!" I yell, I nearly trip up as turn and run away.
I'll have to go up the escalator. Bullets fly past me! Shop windows shatter! Innocent shoppers are killed.

I reach a balcony area with a banister overlooking all the 19 below shopping levels.
It's a 100 foot drop. A solider runs up to me I flip him over the banister and he falls down and splats in the food court.
More soldiers reach me.
I punch one man and shoot him.
More come.
I kick two men over the banister and shoot them while they fall. I shoot one man in the foot and he leaps over the banister in pain.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
I take out several more men.

The Stalker barges my chest with his shoulder, I flip over the banister and hang off the pole. I try shoot the Stalker, I hit the giant glass dome 200 feet up. It shatters. Glass shards shower down on everything. After that only rain falls into the building. The Stalker looks at me helplessly hanging with one hand from the bar.
"AWWW. The great Liberator Dan, hanging from a ledge! What a awful way to go!" His long fingers hoping to unply my fingers from the bar move towards me.

The stalker falls over and behind him is a girl with dirty brown hair. She takes my hand a pulls me over the banister.
"You're Dan right?" She asks, "I'm Hope, I'm the liberator you talked to on the phone!" She says.
"Oh hi. Your shift is a Robin right?" I ask.
"Yeah! Now lets go!" She pulls me up the escalator we run bullets closely missing us.
We barge through startled shoppers who are trying to escape. We reach floor 21, we turn and run up the next escalator.
Floor 22.
We keep running and barging through the crowds.
We turn and go up the next escalator. While on the escalator full of panicking shoppers two soldiers reach us. I shoot one. Hope flips the other over the side!
We reach the top.
Floor 23. We run past the rows of shops, cafe's and restaurants. I look behind us.
No soldiers just startled shoppers.
We reach a shop called "Art Shutters" we rush inside and Hope pulls the shutter over the doorway.
Hope flicks her brown hair over her shoulder and turns around.
I look at the shop. There are loads of Animal graffiti art with various coloured canvases.
There's one with an Eagle.