(note: to go to the beginning of the story, go here, to see all Chapter Ten posts, go here and to see all Sinister Society of Southpaws posts, go here)
People began running everywhere. Wainwright was immediately on his phone.
“What’s going on?” he ordered.
It seemed obvious enough to me. Sinister Two had decided it was time to make his move. And he was wiping out his tracks (and his opponents) in the process. First, me at the Victoria Falls headquarters. Now, the Dexters in McDonald’s Farm.
The benefits of gathering one’s enemies into places you’ve built, I guess.
I decided not to mention the bug in the self-destruct code I’d discovered earlier. Didn’t seem to be much benefit to accelerating the self-destruct process this time around.
Wainwright snapped his phone shut. “It’s not a drill,” he said to Derek. “We should evacuate.”
“This ship will self-destruct in four minutes,” came the speaker voice. “Evacuate all personnel.”
“Let’s go,” said Derek.
We began to run down the corridor to the hangar. On my insistence, the Proclaimers had left earlier, taking our ‘borrowed’ helicopter back to its Zimbabwean owner. But there were still going to be enough helicopters in the hangar for us to evacuate.
At least, I hoped so. Because I certainly didn’t want to be shot out of one of those cannons again.
“This is not a drill!” came a new voice over the speakers. “Begin evacuation procedures immediately.”
Everybody seemed to move their speed up a notch.
We burst through the hangar. Helicopters were spinning up all over the place. Dexter soldiers were piling into them.
A thought occurred to me. “We must be halfway across the Atlantic,” I said. “Are these helicopters going to get us to land?”
“They’ll have to,” said Wainwright.
Right. Because aeronautical engineering worked by sheer force of will.
“This ship will self-destruct in three minutes,” the speaker voice said. “Evacuate all personnel.”
“This is not a drill,” came the other voice. “Evacuate now!”
Derek, Wainwright, Bruce and I ran over to a specially designated helicopter. Its pilot sat in the cockpit, fiddling with switches. The blades began to whir up.
I jumped in through the open door. Bruce followed me.
Then, as Derek went to follow him, Bruce kicked back. Derek fell to the ground.
“What are you doing?” I said.
'Leader' of a genocidal private army or not, that was still my little brother he was kicking.
Bruce slammed the door shut. Locked it. The pilot turned and echoed my question.
Bruce answered him with a punch in the mouth. The pilot shook his head. Bruce punched him again. He fell unconscious.
I leaned over to the door.
“Don’t,” said Bruce. “We need to get away from them. This is our only chance.”
I peered at him. Unsure whether or not I could trust him.
“They’ve got time to make it to the cannons,” he said. “They’ll be fine.”
He waved goodbye to them and pointed in the direction of the cannons. After a brief pause, Wainwright turned and ran. Derek followed him.
“They’d better be okay,” I said.
“They’ll be fine,” said Bruce. “Now, let’s get out of here.”
He unbuckled the pilot and pushed him over to the co-pilot seat
A question occurred to me. “Do you know how to fly a helicopter?”
“How hard can it be?” he said.
(to be continued)
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