Gecko-Man

VI. Orem's Escape

was gone when Orem woke up, and so was Trewin. His chest felt heavy. He couldn't focus on anything properly, his eyesight blurry. He had a headache, but other than that he felt strong. Stronger than before even. Through the mixed shapes of the blurred room he could make out the clamps, which now stood open again, the pulsing blue of the crystals and the crane arm above, with the spiked dome underneath it. Orem squinted but couldn't see the green glow of the crystal that was supposed to be attached to it. Then he remembered the weight on his chest.
Looking down as best he could with the leather strap pressing against his forehead, Orem stared at his sternum. There, close enough to be seen clearly and at the point where the laser had shot, was a smooth dark emerald, about the size of a drinks coaster and attached to his chest.
Before he could process the fact that there was a crystal welded to his torso, Orem was tilted forward again, and he came face to face with one of the men who were behind the glass window.
He was holding a chisel-like tool on his hand.
He smiled.
"Hello. My name is Hans. Hans Simmons."
He paused, as if waiting for a response. When none came, he carried on like he was having a cheerful conversation.
"You know," Simmons continued, "Mr Trewin isn't as sadistic as you'd think. Not really. He's just frightened- and mad. But me? To tell you the truth, the only reason I agreed to this plan of his was because of his promise of pain. I like hearing others scream. Call it a kink- I do."
Orem didn't speak.
"Now, the good thing about these,"- he tapped the crystal with his chisel- "Is that if there's any trace of them on living material they can regrow, and very very quickly. So we can simply take this chunk of emerald off of you and reuse it- and the best part is that it's now infused with gecko DNA, so we don't have to use up our precious recourses. Now... usually, we do this whilst you're asleep, but when I'm on duty I like to wait till you're awake and responsive. They don't mind"- Simmons nodded to the others behind the window- "They're just here because of money, or madness, or refuge. But not me- I just like to make people scream. So, let's get this thing off, shall we? Oh, I might nick you a little bit. Butterfingers, you'll understand. But don't worry- it'll hurt. A lot."
He lifted up the chisel, and Orem panicked. When Simmons was close enough, he tried to smack his forehead into the maniac's, but the leather strap around his head snapped him back, cracking his skull on the metal table again. Orem's headache roared at him, but he felt the strap loosen.
Simmons jumped back, but laughed as Orem yelled in pain.
"Nice try, but you going to have to do better than that. I was going to be relatively gentle this time, but now..."
He moved closer again, and as he lifted the chisel above him Orem threw his head forward again. The strap buckle broke and Orem's skull crunched into Simmons'. Simmons cursed and stumbled back, clutching his face. His foot found nothing and he toppled off the platform and down the metal steps with a series of hard clangs.
Orem strained at the straps around his wrists as Simmons' angry voice was thrown up from the bottom of the stairs, "Put him back down and give him the tranq!"
The table suddenly started tilting back, and Orem was laying down again. He strained and broke the scrap over his left hand, then his right, then ripped off the others just as a woman ran from behind the window with a syringe in her hand.
Orem stood on the table. The hydraulic scorpion tail rose and swung round, the spanner crackling and the screwdriver's tip glowing.
He dodged as a thin bolt of red shot from the screwdriver, hitting the table and singeing the metal. Orem dodged another, then another, and the woman with the syringe was almost on him.
The laser fired one more time, and Orem leapt over the bolt and onto the tail. It dipped beneath his weight.
The tail's controller panicked and twisted a dial that swung the hydraulic machine around, over the heads of the woman and Simmons, who was now back on his feet and suffering from a gushing nosebleed. The tail sped up and Orem was flung off, straight into the seething Simmons. The man went flying dropped the chisel again.
Orem rolled to his feet and turned to see a blurry figure rushing towards him. Even before the woman was close enough to come into focus, Orem was sidestepping. The woman shot passed, missing the syringe by centimetres. Orem desperately looked round for an exit, and caught the steely sheen of a doorway set into the rock. Before he could race to it, the woman was barreling back towards him. He sidestepped again but she anticipated it, twisting with him, and Orem grabbed her wrist to keep the syringe away. They staggered to the wall, Orem desperately trying to keep his balance and push the woman's arm away. They hit the wall and Orem's grip loosened. The woman's eyes burned and her teeth clamped as she drove the syringe closer and closer to Orem's throat. Then he kicked her shin and her strength left her. Orem tightened his grip on her wrist and plunged the syringe sideways, into her shoulder. The fire in the woman's eyes was suddenly snuffed out and her grin fell, as her pupils shrunk and she dropped to the ground in a heap.
Orem ran to the door and squinted at the familiar looking entry slot by the side. Hoping against hope he stuck his hand in his pocket, and by some miracle he pulled out the all-access card he'd been given so long ago. He slid it into the slot and the door hissed open, revealing a white corridor.
Suddenly a roar blasted behind him, and Orem turned to see the only other conscious people in the room: The last person who was behind the window, the hydraulics operator, who was in a raised chamber behind the table, and Simmons, whose purple nose was proudly exhibiting just how much blood it held.
The maniac roared again and charged with his chisel raised above him, and the other two man pulling taser sticks from their belts. Orem stepped back, through the doorway, and slid his card vigourously up and down the slot on the other side. Simmons' roar twisted into a screech as he sped up, then mutated into a cry of dismay when the door suddenly slid shut in front of him, trapping the three men inside the cave.
Orem let out a staggered sigh of relief. His eyesight was still blurry, his shirt torn in the middle and an emerald still stuck on his chest, but he'd escaped the chamber.
But he knew he wasn't out of the woods yet.
He crept along the corridors, avoiding any voices or approaching footsteps. He tried to follow the signs, but only seemed to get further and further away from the exit every time he looked at the little waving man saying YOU ARE HERE. Maybe he was reading it backwards. Or maybe the little waving man was lying. He scowled at the painted figure (who was now safely as far away from any exit as possible) and turned a corner, walking right into a startled employee.
They stared at each other.
"I'm sorry," the man began, "Are you authorised to be in this part of the fa-"
Quicker than even he could imagine, Orem grabbed the taserstick from the employee's belt, pushed up the small sliding switch and smacked the man on the head. The was a crackle of electricity and the smell of burning hair and the man dropped like a stone.
Orem flicked off the taserstick and dragged the unconscious man into a nearby broom cupboard. Orem closed the door halfway and pulled off the employee's coat, and put it on. It was white, like the ones scientists wore, with the TrewCorp logo monogrammed onto the breast pocket. Then Orem took the taserstick.
"This can't be legal," he whispered, inspecting the stick. Then he shoved it into the waist band of his trousers, making sure it was safely turned off. Then be buttoned up the coat and stepped into the corridor.
Before long Orem passed two more employees. The walked past without even glancing his way. A few minutes after that, an alarm started ringing out. Not the shriek of Trewin's monster, but a real alarm, that sounded like a high pitched fire engine.
Orem started to jog.
He passed another group, and once again they took no notice of him. But then Orem stopped. Four men had just turned the corner, and were facing him. On either side were two adjutors, although their faces were masked and they held real guns, not tasers. Those guns were pointed at Orem.
In between them stood Simmons, whose nose had finally stopped bleeding but was completely purple, and he held a taserstick.
Next to him was Trewin, hands behind his back, grinning pleasantly. He was the only one unarmed.
Orem stepped back slowly, then swiveled and started to walk quickly down the corridor. But the group he had passed had now stopped, and all five if them were warily taking out their tasersticks and blocking off his escape route.
He was cornered.
"Give it up, Mr Stalé," smiled Trewin, "You didn't escape last time, whatever makes you think you shall succeed now?"
Suddenly something in Orem's mind clicked.
"You," he said, and jumped.
Time slowed to a near stop. As he leapt into the air, the two adjutors opened fire, missing Orem's feet by an inch and hitting two of the men at the other end of the corridor. They both flew back.
He had no idea what he was doing, but Orem knew to reach for the ceiling and spread his fingers. His hands stuck to the linoleum. Time sped back up and Orem swung, his feet hitting the ceiling. He found that he could keep them there easily.
Below there were yells and zaps, as one of the shot men crashed into his colleague, who in turn fell over and smacked someone in the face with his taserstick.
Orem was now clinging upsidedown on the ceiling, his fingers and toes acting like suction cups to keep him up. He scuttled along just as the adjutors opened fire again, peppering the ceiling with bullet holes. Orem crawled right over the heads of Trewin and Simmons, the latter trying in vain to grab Orem's coattails. Orem suddenly felt angry, angry for all the horrid things Trewin had done, and reached down and slapped the madman across the face. Trewin howled in anger, but faster than should've been possible, his hand shot up and grabbed Orem's chest. His nails dug in between the coat's buttons and through the tear in Orem's shirt, and curled around them both, then yanked.
Orem was torn from the ceiling and onto the floor, and Trewin pulled him to his feet. Orem tried twisting out of his grip, but Trewin was stronger than he looked, and managed to rip off both the coat and shirt as Orem torqued.
As he twisted he grabbed one of the adjutors' guns, and swiveled until he was behind Trewin. He put his left arm around Trewin's neck, and the gun to the old man's head.
"One person moves, and I shoot."
No one moved.
"Someone grab him," said Trewin. He sounded in pain, and a bright red wt in the shape of a hang was forming on his face.
"He hasn't the guts nor the lack of conscience to kill me." Still no one moved.
"I'm leaving now," said Orem, "And if anyone tries to stop me, I will shoot. I don't have to hit anything fatal, just something very painful."
He backed up slowly, his arm still around Trewin, and nobody followed. He got to the end of the corridor and dragged the old man up a short flight of steps, then kept going until he was out of sight of the group.
"Which way to the foyer?" He whispered in Trewin's ear.
"Straight on, then turn right," Trewin replied through gritted teeth. "But it doesn't matter. No one will believe your story, and you forget I own the police. Within days there'll be a nationwide manhunt with adjutors crawling through every building and over every hill, asking for one man. You."
"Very eloquent," Orem muttered, "Did you write that one up just in case anyone escaped?"
Then he dropped Trewin and bolted to the very end of the corridor. Just before he turned the corner he looked back to see Trewin standing motionless, with the hand-shaped rash across his face.
Orem ran on, dumping the gun the closest bin he could find and shoving open a pair of double doors.
He burst into the foyer.
Less than eighty metres away were the glass double doors, which now stood open in the warm afternoon. Some people turned and stared at the topless man with the emerald on his chest, but most didn't even see him. Then from behind him Simmons burst, flanked by a gunless adjutor and a tasersticked woman.
"Arrest him!" Simmons shrieked.
"Oh, for God's sake," Orem whispered.
He bolted.
The trio followed.
The men were fast, but Orem was faster. Then the woman began to catch up. She raised the taserstick above her head, but then Orem remembered his. He pulled the stick from his waist band, flicked it on and threw it at the woman's. The two sticks clashed and made a sound like a light saber, sparking a bright blue.
The woman stumbled and fell back. Orem was going to make it.
Forty metres, thirty five, thirty.
Then the double doors began to close.
They must have been power-assisted, and someone had pressed the close button.
Twenty metres, fifteen, ten.
The doors were halfway closed.
Eight, five, three.
Orem slipped through the doors two seconds before they closed. The adjutor was just behind and almost slammed onto the glass. His helmeted face looked coldly at Orem, and for a second he was reminded of the robots who had killed his friend less than two days ago.
Orem backed away into the sunlit street, and looked up at the sky. It was about four o'clock. Clutching his chest, he ran down the road, shirtless and half blind. But he was free. He'd escaped.