DUALITY /#Wattys 2021

Chapter 7

The raid, Ridley thought in despair. How could they possibly recognize me? You can't see anything but my eyes! Yes, she was short, but she certainly wasn't the only short woman in Midgarde. Could the security cameras be that good now at facial recognition?

Apparently so.

Or: Had Reb turned her in? Had he led her into this? Suddenly she hated him. Sannah!  She'd never get back to her now.

Scrunching under the mass of bodies above her wouldn't help, Ridley knew. She did it anyway.

"Ridley Faircloth! Ridley Faircloth! Show yourself!" The order in a grating man's voice reverberated through a bullhorn.

Ridley had scrunched so low down she couldn't see the captain anymore. Above her, heads wagged and irritated workingpeople murmured in the negative. Someone accidentally kneed the person next to her in the head and the man grunted and cursed.

"Spider and loupes!" the captain snapped.

Ridley heard gasps all around the crowd in the station, but she couldn't see anything. Amid the groans and curses from the bodies above her, she heard onlookers babbling like a faraway brook. Then a heavy pounding approached, closer and closer in a sort of quick tap-tap rhythm on the tile floor, mixed with a metallic clang. 

With a whoosh the air felt heavier, closer, and the light above her dimmed to almost dark. Ridley looked up to see a round metal roof, several yards in diameter, that pressed down over the prone bodies under the net to hover less than three feet above their heads. Eight thick, jointed metal legs held it aloft. 

Between the closest pair of metal legs, a pair of human legs stood: police, waiting to capture those under the net. Two women at the top of the pile of prone bodies screamed. Ridley couldn't see if any more police stood around the perimater; too many people lay sprawled in her way.

Their screams turned to sharp little yips, as, one by one, some unseen force ripped people from the pile. The pressure of bodies above her lessened and Ridley could breathe easier; yet the weight in her chest grew. Soon there would be nowhere to hide. 

As the bodies dispersed, Ridley could make out a crowd of onlookers across the tile floor, probably held at bay by police. The people looked hazy, as if she were seeing them through a thick fog. The metallic hum of a force field reached her ears; that explained it.

The force field stopped about six inches above the floor. A police officer's face appeared beneath it, upside down, as he bent to peer under the foggy effect the force field generated, at the people left under the net. The force field blurred his legs down to his pants cuffs and shoes. 

Then Ridley saw his hands, holding a metal snare that snaked in and gripped the arm of the man next to her. The officer heaved on the snare hard enough to dislocate a shoulder, jerking the man's body around and yanking him under the net, under the fog and out into the station. A cry of pain floated back to her as the man disappeared.

Only a few people remained trapped under the net. A woman next to her pointed at the metal roof and screamed, "It's going to crush us!" Ridley turned her head to catch the whites of her eyes rolling in the shadow.

"Shh!" said Ridley. "No, it's not." No doubt Devane planned to tear her limb from limb himself, once the Railroad Police caught her.

The snare darted back under the fog and captured the woman by the foot. In an instant she was gone.

Ridley rolled to her stomach. On her right, two other people lay, one on his back, too scared to move. The other clambered onto his hands and knees.

Ridley could move a lot faster on her hands and knees. Maybe she could dart under the force field and run fast enough to get away. She crawled forward and put her hand out. The fog felt like a solid wall to her hand, and she got a terrible electric shock when she touched it. It sparked lightning like a thundercloud. Immediately an officer thrust his snare under it at her, and she scrambled backward, evading it.

Another snare caught the man behind her; she turned around just in time to see him yanked away under the force field. He hit the field with the top of his head and screamed in tandem with the spark and the low buzz. Then he was gone.

Ridley crept to the edge and peeked out. Two pairs of officers' legs in black pants and lug-soled boots stood several feet down.

"There!" One pair of boots pivoted to face her; the next instant the officer bent down and a snare came in after her. She drew back. Another snare appeared on the other side of the trap, fumbling for one of her two remaining cagemates.

"What is this thing?" Ridley shouted.

"It's the spider," said one man.

Ridley pivoted to avoid the snare. "That's a lot of help!" she shouted back.

The net slid over them, trailed along the floor under the fog, and disappeared. The captain peered under at them, then straightened up and said, "One foot."

With so few people left trapped under the roof, Ridley could see the eight jointed metal legs that held it aloft. The eight legs bowed outward on giant hinges and the metal roof dropped so low Ridley thought it really would crush her. She couldn't lift herself from the floor; she had no room to maneuver.

The snare came in and feinted at her. Ridley sidled to the right. Another appeared to her right and she rolled and hiked her hip up just enough to bend her knee and lift her foot out of reach.

A little camera on a metal rod lowered to floor level across the enclosure. Outside, the captain cursed and said, "Forks! One way or another, we're going to get you into custody, Miss Faircloth!"

A long pole ending in two wicked prongs slid along the floor. When it touched her arm, it shocked her. Ridley bit her lip, trying to deny the officers the satisfaction of hearing her scream.

The camera guided the fork until Ridley had no choice but to move to the edge of the force field. An officer's snare grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her under it and out. As she slid on her stomach outside the field, she finally got a look at the machine that had trapped her.

A big, flat, octagonal metal robot crouched above the floor on the eight legs. The force field it generated made the floor under it look so hazy and blurred Ridley couldn't see anything, although she knew one person still lay under there. A moment later, two officers with a snare fished him out. Halfway out, it looked as if his legs were cut off; they appeared as if by magic as the snare drew him out from under the spider.

She rubbed her arm, sore from the snare, and two huge boots stepped in front of her. Ridley looked up into the pale face of the captain. An officer knelt at her feet, snapped her into hobbles, and removed the snare. Another officer grasped her right arm, gripping her with the strength of a tiger. The captain grasped her other wrist, and they snapped her into manacles and hauled her to her feet.

As they dragged her past a crowd of onlookers, Ridley spied a couple of news cameras. This will be on TV, she thought. Mom will be frantic. And, How am I ever going to get back to Mom and Sannah now?