Ex Officio (#3 EX TRILOGY)

Chapter 4

Akoma gasped, and for the first time since she had been totally uninterested in all that was going on before her eyes, this scene was enough to give her the chills. The suited men looked menacingly bloodthirsty and their long bladed arms gleamed in the dark as they closed in on them. Akoma could feel her tummy burning as fear gripped her and her palms began to sweat. She glanced at Poku and realized he was looking anywhere but at the faces of these killing machines. He bowed his head and shut his eyes as though trying to focus on something. Akoma found that unbelievable and wished she could just smack him in the face to get his head back into the moment, but she was stopped when he squeezed her hand slightly and whispered. Akoma could not catch it the first time.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked.

Poku leaned closer and whispered, "We are safe."

Akoma ogled at him and mouthed, "Really?" Before she could say anything else, Poku cocked his ear towards the floor and listened. The Ex Vivo men exchanged looks and stared at him, wondering what he was up to. Akoma felt awkward and wished she could just rip her head off and hide inside it.

"Our getaway guy is not far from here," Poku added. "Follow my lead." He pulled Akoma closer to him so that both of them had their fronts pressing against each other, faces only few inches apart. Akoma frowned and held her breath for fear of catching anything her nose was not prepared to endure. Poku winked at her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Akoma tried to protest, but he merely gave her a pinch in the back to silence her and nodded at her to keep up. He took a step to the left, and Akoma followed suit. He cocked his head again to listen to something for a moment, shook his head and took a step backwards. Akoma followed him and rolled her eyes in disgust. Finally, Poku took two steps backwards and stopped, pulling Akoma with him. This time, he helped Akoma adjust her position slightly and signalled her to stand firm, and then he whispered, "Hold on to me, and don't let go." Akoma obeyed without question, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him tightly with her eyes closed.

Agent D was shocked to realize that they had all been standing there watching them goof around before them without a reaction. He snorted and nodded at his men, who took a stance and prepared to attack. Just before one of them could move, he stopped in his tracks and blinked, signalling the others to stand down, and his eyes glowed red, emitting scanning rays with which he searched the floor along the path Poku and Akoma had walked. He swept the rays back and forth and finally focused on a particular spot, and then he ran a scan for heat signatures. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he let out a gasp.

Agent D frowned. "What is it?" he asked. "We are wasting – "

"Sorry, Akoma," Poku whispered, and without warning, the floor beneath them caved in and they fell. Akoma felt a jolt in her stomach that felt like she was being sucked into a hole. She was tempted to open her eyes just in time to see both of them falling amidst debris from the implosion, and their fall was broken by what felt like leather pads beneath them. Before Akoma could determine whether she had crashed to her death or not, she felt herself swept away with a harsh jolt, followed by the sound of a car engine. She looked around her and found herself lying in the backseat of a jeep driven by a hulking hooded figure. She sat up quickly just in time to see the car tear through a door downstairs and onto the dusty drive outside the old house. Akoma looked around her to see the Ex Vivo men leaping off the building onto the ground to chase after them.

Akoma realized she felt totally numb from the fall. Poku was still holding on to her and her heartbeat was now pounding in her ears as her mouth began to water out of shock. She held her breath and clutched her chest, wondering what could have gone wrong if they had fallen down the wrong way. She turned to glare at Poku who was grinning at her and slapped him in the face, making him let go off her.

"Are you guys OK back there?" the hooded guy asked. "Hang on, will you?" He steered right and got his two passengers almost losing balance and falling off if not for the steel bars they gripped onto in a swift moment of reflex.

"Who is this?" Akoma asked breathlessly. She ogled at her hands and found them shaking, something she realized could still be the effect the near death experience had left on her. She clutched her belly and bent over the edge of the jeep to puke. Poku laughed and reached for the driver's shoulder to pat him.

"That was amazing, meeeeehn!" he screamed over the wind rushing past them as the jeep sped through the night. "You have any idea how fast you can get us to the helicopter?"

"Helicopter?" Akoma gulped and asked while wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "What?"

The hooded guy glanced at her over his shoulder and grinned. He was a heavily bearded man with an eyepatch, a scarred face and some missing teeth. He looked like he had been through a lot in life with just that appearance, and his laughter was like the bark of a dog. "I'm TT. Nice to meet you, madam."

SLASH! The jeep jolted and Akoma turned around to see a big chuck of the jeep's rear slashed off by Agent D who seemed to have leaped over several houses to land right behind them. He failed to land properly and fell behind by several feet. Akoma cried out and crawled towards TT. "You have no idea what you are up against. These things are from Ex – "

"Relax, sweetheart," TT chuckled and said. "I know, I know. Just grab something and don't fall off, all right? We cannot lose you tonight. You're important."

Akoma frowned. She turned around and saw the other Ex Vivo men joining Agent D in the chase. They appeared to be running so fast and covering long distances with their leaps that obstacles like trees, buildings and cars appeared to be just hurdles to them. On the other hand, TT was also doing everything he could to keep driving faster to stay clear of them. TT steered right upon arriving at crossroads and tore into someone's maize farm.

"My guy!" Poku cried out and Akoma was glad he looked scared this time. "Take it easy, OK? This is Somanya. Someone could curse you for messing with their micro economy. Goodness. That's a farm!"

"Do you want to live? Sit there and talk!" TT laughed and accelerated some more. They had to shield their faces to avoid being cut by the leaf blades whizzing past them as they grazed a path through the maize farm with no idea where it would lead them. Akoma looked behind her and realized they were not being followed anymore. She looked up into the sky and saw nobody leaping over the several acres of maize. Was she supposed to jubilate?

The jeep finally made it out of the farm with loads of leaves stuck in the tires and maize scattered inside the jeep. Akoma spat some grains out of her mouth with disgust and wiped her face. Poku stared at her and gave her a nod. "You will thank us later for saving your life," he said, pulling out the storage media and tapping it with his fingers.

Akoma stared at him for a moment and asked in a hushed voice, "The storage media was safely tucked inside my bras. How did you get it out?" TT cleared his throat and looked away, pretending to hum a song to himself. Poku pursed his lips and sighed. Akoma scowled at him and waited for an answer she was not sure she really needed. "Uh-huh?"

"Look," Poku began. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, OK? Sometimes, you have to do what you have to do to make sure what you have to do is what you have to do. I am sorry for – um – doing that – "

"Doing what?"

Poku frowned. "You are supposed to be thanking us for saving your life. What is all this – "

Akoma slapped him in the face again and raised a fist at him in anger, but a terrified look on Poku's face stopped her. "What?" she asked.

Before she could turn around, a number of arms seized her from behind and pulled her off the jeep. Akoma reached for Poku's hand and cried out, but it was too late. The jeep was still on the move. Poku looked as helpless as he looked shocked. As soon as Akoma and the Ex Vivo men who had seized her landed on the ground, something strange happened, and it totally wrecked her physics.