Kitty Wittgenstein and the Sinister Society of Southpaws (11.5)

11.5 Panic Room

(note: to go to the beginning of the story, go here, to see all Chapter Eleven posts, go here and to see all Sinister Society of Southpaws posts, go here)

I didn’t have time to work out if he was bluffing or not. I’d been reasonably upfront in my dealings with the multiple bad guys in this little adventure. Confident in the idea that they all had to keep me alive for their assorted reasons. In the present, anyway.

Then Sinister Two had blown that idea out of the water with his attempt to blow me into the water at Victoria Falls.

Now the society itself seemed – if this soldier was to be believed – to be ambivalent about my survival also.

The stakes were suddenly raised somewhat.

Hopefully I could still rely on Derek not to ‘lead’ the Dexters on an attempt to terminate my existence. Blood being thicker than murderous rampages and all that.

Not that the Dexters were a problem currently worth contemplating. Not if Jason’s last comments meant what I thought they meant.

No. The big problem at the moment was how to hold these soldiers at bay a little longer. Bruce was going to need more time. I’d liked the stand-off idea. I could have just waited patiently, gun pointed at my head, until Bruce was done.

Now I had to come up with something else.

The first thing I did was step back through the door behind me. I slammed it shut.

It wouldn’t hold long against the enhanced strength of the soldiers’ battlesuits.

Indeed, even as the first one pounded into the door, I could see the hinges strain.

I didn’t have long.

I was in the engine room. There was another door at the other end. I could try and run for it, but I wouldn’t make it.

Instead, I started shooting. I wasn’t sure at exactly what I was aiming, but I figured a bullet in an engine might cause some explosive cover.

Or, as the bullet tore through some kind of piping, gaseous cover.

I wasn’t sure what, exactly, the gas was. It may have just been steam. But, whatever it was, it was emerging from the pipes in large quantities. I sent another bullet into the piping. More gas emerged.

On the other side, I heard the door smash open.

Time to scarper.

The gas may not slow them much, but even if it only slowed them a little, that might be enough to get me to the next room. With time to come up with another delaying tactic.

I turned and ran for the far door.

A siren suddenly started to blare.

“Alert, alert!” came a voice over the speakers. “Gas leak in Engine Room One. Lockdown sequence initiated. Evacuate all personnel. Lockdown will finalise in ten seconds.”

“Better back off, guys. This room’s not safe,” I said.

“Oh, we’re safe in these suits,” said the main soldier.

“Five,” came the voice, followed by the rest of the countdown. As she hit ‘one’, I leapt through the doorway.

Behind me a reinforced door slammed shut.

The soldiers were safe.

But they were locked in the engine room. And I was out.

(to be continued)