Outlaws (The Slingers Trilogy, Book 2)

Chapter 23

As soon as the three of them reached the cafeteria, Nolun knew that the entire prison had been thrown into chaos. He looked around and saw other prisoners fighting guards, each other, or sitting in the corner bleeding or cowering. Gunfire could be heard everywhere. Nolun looked at the two girls, then nodded. "If they shoot, we shoot back." They moved through the mob, clutching their weapons. Then, one prisoner lunged at Andress, his fist outstretched, but Andress blocked it just as quickly, then countered by hitting the prisoner in his solar plexus, effectively winding him permanently. As they walked past his wheezing body, Trace gave him a shock with her stun batons for good measure. Then, gunfire erupted in the cafeteria, and the three of them quickly overturned one of the steel tables, ducking behind it. As they sat there, the bullets pinging off the steel, Trace motioned over to the exit door. "I can get over there and hack into that door. I should be able to let us out." Andress nodded. "Alright. We'll cover you." Nolun peeked out from behind the table, spraying his rifle's ammo at the guards, and Andress occasionally popped off a few rounds with her pistol. Meanwhile, Trace slowly snuck across the room, keeping low to the ground, until she finally made it over to the door. She took apart the casing surrounding the panel, and started to fiddle around with the wires. After a few minutes, she was finally able to find the correct combination, and the security door disabled. She whistled over to Andress and Nolun behind the table, who nodded and shot a large supply of rounds back at the guards, then they moved across the room and into the door, with Trace following suit quickly.

After several twists and turns down several different hallways, they finally came to a small grey metal door, which read "Evidence Room". Trace had told them that it was the room where the personal effects and confiscated items of each prisoner was kept. Andress and Trace stood on either side of the door, holding their weapons. Nolun tossed his rifle to Trace, and took one of her stun batons. He tapped the door with it. "Room service!" He nodded to Trace, who shot off the automatic lock, and Nolun stepped through, stunning the surprised guard behind the door in the chest, then kneeing him in his bent-over forehead. The technicians in the room were about to press the alarm button, until Andress aimed her pistol at them. "Don't even think about it." Trace kept her weapon trained on the unconscious guard, and pointed over at a small hatch in the wall with a computer terminal. "Type in our names. It'll give us the necessary crates." Nolun nodded and typed in the names. Metreo, Nolun. Lovecraft, Andress. He then looked back at Trace. "What's your last name?" Trace smiled. "Delarose, lovely." Nolun typed in the name. Delarose, Tracy. The three crates ejected from the hatch, and Nolun opened all three of them, and saw that everything was intact. He looked over at the technicians. "You guys mind giving us a little privacy?" Without a word, the technicians nodded and ran out of the room. A few minutes later, the three emerged from their separate corners of the room, Nolun wearing his jacket, Andress wearing her armour and GDF garbs, as well as replacing her prison-issued arm with her old one, and Trace wearing a purple short skirt, with a jacket and hood over it. Nolun tossed Andress her composite rifle, and holstered his repeater. He saw Trace loading up two modified pistols, both having extended magazines. After managing to get his manacles off, he rubbed the spots on his wrists where the needles were. Andress looked at him and grabbed his shoulder. "We're not out of the woods yet, Treasure Boy."

After retracing the steps that the prisoners had taken earlier that day to go outside, they found the large steel door. After a quick hack, Trace managed to open up the large door enough for them to squeeze through. They looked and saw the dark stormy skies, with the rain looming on the horizon, and the walls and ocean around them. After using a cable that Trace had kept from the camera, she fashioned a rope, and they climbed up the side of the wall, finding a level for the guards to supposedly walk around on, with catwalks and staircases everywhere. Nolun didn't see what he was looking for, however. The three of them ducked behind a wall when a troop of guards ran past, then Nolun went in the opposite direction, hoping to find what he guessed would be there. If it wasn't, this would all be for naught. After a few agonizing minutes of searching, Nolun looked and saw what he needed. They had reached a landing pad with a small GDF shuttle on it, most likely a troop transport. This was the flaw in Caligula's inescapable prison. The very people they would send to protect it would provide the way to escape it. After taking out the two soldiers guarding it, they walked over to the shuttle, escape seemingly on the horizon, they heard a weapon click behind them. Nolun turned around and saw Caligula standing there, holding an old-looking pistol at the three of them, and what appeared to be a detonator in his hand, the rain and wind blowing his hair to the side. Nolun was about to draw his repeater when Caligula spoke, his calm voice even rising above the rain. "I wouldn't do that if I were you..." He waved the detonator in his other hand. "You honestly thought that I didn't prepare for you two trying to escape? This will trigger seismic charges located on the ocean floor beneath these rigs. I press this button, and all of Purgatorio goes into the sea." Nolun's eyes widened, and he quickly glanced over at Trace and Andress, who were standing stock still. "You know I'm not bluffing Nolun. Even you're not fast enough to kill me before I press this button." Nolun went over every possible plan in his head, and then he had an idea. "But then you'll lose." Caligula looked confused. "What?" "You wanted to keep me here in this place for Gottlieb. And true, if you press that, I die, but that means you accept that I escaped. You accept...that I beat you." Caligula's eyes flashed from anger, to confusion, to fear, then anger again. "You'll see who has lost soon enough!" As he was about to pull the trigger on his gun, he lost focus on the detonator, giving Nolun enough time to draw his gun and shoot Caligula right in his wrist, making him drop the detonator. Caligula's pistol went off in the air, and he screamed in agony, and was abruptly cut off as another gunshot echoed throughout the air, this time coming from Andress's rifle. This time, it was a fatal shot, and Caligula dropped to the ground, dead. Nolun looked over at Andress, who grimly reloaded her rifle, and muttered to herself. "Told you so." Nolun looked at Trace, and grabbed Andress's hand. "It's ok...it's over." Andress looked at Nolun and nodded, then the three of them walked onto the shuttle, and lifted off into the stormy skies, like a bird free from it's cage.