Evasion

 

“If we exit to the street side, will we run into the threat?” Dyna asked. Beatrice wasn’t giving them an exit. She had to do it herself.

The planchette shuddered.

Why?

Was the question not specific enough? Was ‘run into’ too vague? Dyna obviously didn’t mean physically sprint into someone, but did the board know that? How did it decide how to parse her questions? Some obviously had been less than specific, but she still got answers.

“Will the threat—”

“This is taking too long.”

“You got a better idea?”

Hematite didn’t respond. Standing just to Dyna’s side, she stared down at the Ouija board. She stared for a long moment, then snapped her head up to look toward the parking lot.

“This way,” Hematite said, hurrying out of the alley.

“Where are you going?”

Hematite turned. “Following my intuition,” she said, tone lacking any discernible inflection or tone. Her face remained impassive as well despite her obvious fear and nervousness from earlier.

For some reason, that bothered Dyna. Again, even in this stressful situation, Dyna couldn’t help but be struck by how odd Hematite was. All of her actions, her random popping up and disappearing, her emotions… She just didn’t feel consistent despite being a self-proclaimed ‘normal girl’ stuck in situations over her head. Maybe Dyna didn’t know her well enough, but Dyna considered herself to be a normal person who had to deal with extranormal situations at distressingly regular intervals. Therefore, a normal person should act like she did, not like Hematite.

“Are you coming?”

Dyna picked up the board and started running after Hematite. Although odd and inconsistent, Dyna didn’t doubt that they were in trouble. She had seen Hematite’s visions through the mirror. That couldn’t be faked.

And if Hematite had suddenly regained some confidence, maybe her intuition was telling her what to do in order to maximize her luck. Dyna was willing to trust that much. At least until they got a moment to breathe and either question the board or Beatrice.

To Dyna’s surprise, Hematite did not run toward one of the few cars out in the parking lot. She would have figured that someone with improbable luck would be able to hotwire a car in an instant and get them transportation to escape the area. Instead, she headed straight for the sliding automatic doors of the department store.

There were still some lights on inside, but the vast majority of the store was dark and the doors didn’t open. A quick glance at the operating hours showed why. The store had closed over an hour ago. They might leave the lights on permanently, though it could also be a custodial crew or cashiers closing up for the night.

Undaunted, Hematite pulled a stereotypical bobby pin from her bodice-like top and jammed it straight into the lock. Having learned a little something about lockpicking from Ruby, Dyna was pretty sure she needed something to tension the pins, but Hematite barely needed to wiggle the pin before the lock clicked.

Sliding the door open, Hematite waited just long enough for Dyna to slip in before closing it and locking it from the inside.

“Now what?”

Dyna blinked. “You’re asking me?”

“No one else nearby,” Hematite said without looking at Dyna. “You have more experience being chased than I do, right? What can we do? Where should we go now?”

“My intuition said that we should steal a car and get out of here at a wildly unsafe speed,” Dyna said, trying not to sound as stressed as she felt. She didn’t want to stress Hematite any further.

“Yes, I did read in your file that you have a habit of stealing cars.” Hematite looked back to the door she had just locked, peering through the large windows at the nearly vacant parking lot. A frown crossed her face and she flinched.

“It isn’t a habit.”

“Whatever it is, I think we should stay in here.” Grabbing Dyna by the arm, Hematite pulled her further into the store. “And stay far from the windows.”

Dyna did not protest that point, quickly moving along with Hematite. “Why here?” she asked, looking around.

Most of what she saw were clothes. Racks of shirts and pants. Mannequins showing off sweat pants and a dress. Along one wall, there was a glass counter filled with jewelry. She couldn’t see the whole store as some walls blocked the view, but knew from the outside that it was a larger building. A few signs hanging from the high ceiling pointed toward kitchen supplies and bedroom furnishings sections of the store.

“I guess I feel safer in here.”

“Do you still see us dying?”

Hematite’s eyes flicked up to Dyna for a bare instant before looking away.

“I’ll take that as a yes, which means we aren’t safe here.”

“At least not yet.”

“Not yet? We…” Dyna looked around. There would be hundreds of places to hide here. With the racks and walls and counters and signs, she could barely see anything beyond the walkways between the floors of clothes. “We don’t even know who is after us. I haven’t even seen evidence of anyone. How many are there? What are they armed with? How far are they willing to pursue us?”

Dyna spotted a particularly thick rack of long dresses. A perfect spot to crouch down and interrogate the board for a few minutes. But Hematite, hand still on Dyna’s arm, started off in the same direction as Bedroom Furnishings.

“I saw a gun,” she said as she walked. “My visions aren’t always clear, but the PP-2000 has a distinct silhouette. Very angular.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Russian-made submachine gun. Compact, portable, and reliable, but never really got that popular. It was phased out of most services a good five to seven years ago, so hard to say who is after us exactly.”

Submachine gun ticked something in the back of Dyna’s mind. Since her mirror fully turned into a proper artifact, she had gone through a number of training scenarios and lectures. Mostly ones dealing with self-defense, but Emerald had insisted on variety to keep her on her toes.

Typically, submachine guns appeared in close-quarters combat areas. Places where reduced size and recoil helped immensely. They were also typically used by special forces, often in conjunction with suppressors.

Which sounded bad. “So we have a squad of special forces after us?”

“Don’t know. Just know what gun I saw. I think.”

“Great.” Dyna didn’t know what kind of training special forces would have had, but was willing to bet everything she owned that they trained far harder and longer than Dyna had. “Where is Ruby? Beatrice? Bea—” Dyna cut herself off as she moved a finger up to her ear.

The earbud wasn’t there. It falling out wasn’t a surprise, but Dyna did wonder when it had happened. The run to the department store? During the countdown? Before?

She still had her phone, however. Pulling that out and finding that the call was still ongoing, Dyna disconnected the wireless earbud and put the phone to her ear.

“Beatrice, how long is Ruby going to be? Or any reinforcements?”

“Unknown.”

“Unknown? What do you mean unknown? It’s just distance divided by spee—”

“Asset: Ruby has engaged with unknown combatants. Communications have been disrupted.”

“A communications disruption? Jamming? Or did Ruby just toss her phone?”

“Unknown.”

“Why haven’t the administrators let you off your leash yet! Damn it,” Dyna ranted. “You send them a message right now, every single one of them, and let them know that they better hope I die here because if I live through this, I am going to go smack each one of them upside the head until not even the institute’s best psychics can put their minds back together. I’m going to rip off their smug smiles and shove them so far up their—”

“Dyna.”

“What!”

Hematite flinched, but pointed at the wall. “I think this is what we were looking for.”

Dyna had barely been paying attention to her surroundings as they walked. Given the situation, that was probably dangerous, but at the same time, she was upset. Why did this happen every single time she got wrapped up in some incident? Left alone with no support while the walls closed down around her? It shouldn’t happen! It…

Dyna took a deep breath. Anger wasn’t helping right now.

Taking in her surroundings, Dyna guessed that they had slipped back into an employee only area. The wall Hematite had pointed to was some kind of electrical panel case painted notice-me-not gray with a large red handle sticking out of it. A small padlock kept the red handle in place.

At least, it did until Hematite shoved her bobby pin into the hole and jiggled it around. As soon as the lock fell to the ground, Hematite reached up and pulled down on the lever.

The hum of centralized airflow cut off as the lights in the hall went dark.

Plunged into darkness, Dyna looked to where Hematite had been standing and gave a flat look that nobody would see.

“Do the people after us, who might be special forces, not have night vision equipment?”

“I’m just following my intuition. I saw the lever down. Now it’s down.”

Emergency lights flicked on, though the faint light wasn’t half as powerful as the main overheads. Peeking back through the door they had come from, Dyna found the main room near pitch black. Infrequent emergency lights allowed some vision, but the clothing-filled room as a whole was just too large.

“Could your vision have been warning you against putting the lever in its down state?”

Hematite, looking small, shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve had a lot more practice interpreting what I see than you have.”

That might have been true, but…

Shaking her head, Dyna decided arguing was counterproductive at this point. “We’re not getting reinforcements anytime soon. Sounds like Ruby was ambushed. We’re on our own for the foreseeable future.”

“So now what?”

Dyna pressed her lips together. The last time Hematite asked that, she immediately ignored Dyna and ran to turn off the power.

Dropping the Ouija board on the floor, Dyna crouched over it. “Could you get me a backpack from somewhere in here?” she asked of Hematite, not the board. Carrying around the board was going to be a liability more than an asset if a fight broke out.

“You want us to split up?”

“I… no, you’re right. Bad idea.” Sighing, she looked down. “Is the threat after us inside this building?”

NO

“Is the threat still after us?”

YES

“Is the threat aware of our presence inside this building.”

YES

“How many individuals make up the immediate threat to us?”

The planchette slid down to 6, but just before it fully stopped, it abruptly changed directions to the left and stopped on the 5.

At first, Dyna tensed, fearing another countdown. She readied her gun and waited, but the planchette didn’t move.

“Did you hear that?” Hematite asked. She had moved over to the door leading back to the main store area while Dyna was questioning the board.

Dyna listened closely, wondering just what kind of noise would have alarmed Hematite. There were some very specific sounds she imagined—footsteps moving across tile flooring, breathing, the rustling of clothing or clank of equipment…

But there was none of that here. She was just about to answer negatively to Hematite’s question when she heard something.

A crackling. Distant. Had Dyna of last year heard it, she probably would have suspected firecrackers.

It was gunfire.

“Ruby?” Dyna said under her breath. Holding her phone up, she asked, “Beatrice, how far away was Ruby when you lost contact with her?”

“Approximately one mile away from your current location.”

“That’s probably her then. We should—”

Hematite held up a hand then quickly put a finger over her lips.

White beams of high powered flashlights swept over the walls and racks of clothes. Hematite and Dyna ducked around the side of the partially open door just as a beam swept over where they had been standing.

Back pressed up against the brick wall, Dyna put her phone away. The light from it could easily give them away. Beatrice wouldn’t be able to help with a tactical situation anyway.

“How many threats are inside the building?” Dyna whispered, voice barely audible even to herself.

The board still heard despite being a short distance away. The felt on the underside of the planchette sounded like a stone tomb grinding open in the utter silence of the employee area. Thankfully, it stopped just as quick as it started, indicating that all five of the answer to Dyna’s previous question were now inside the building.

“Are they wearing body armor?”

The planchette slid again, making Dyna wince. It wasn’t loud. Her heartbeat was probably louder. It still made her grit her teeth until it stopped on YES.

Dyna pulled out her mirror. She carefully kept it angled away from Hematite, remembering Ruby’s story about being attacked—though Dyna still wasn’t sure of just how true it had been or if Ruby had been misunderstanding something, it seemed best to play it safe.

Hematite was looking at Dyna. With the dim emergency light to Dyna’s back, she couldn’t see her own face in the mirror’s perspective. Her face was just one large shadow.

She didn’t know if Hematite was still seeing their deaths or if they had changed their fate.

Not that Dyna believed their fates were set in stone. No fate, she thought to herself. Knowing the future changes it.

Hematite locked eyes with Dyna for a brief moment then nodded her head. She bent and picked up a small silver knob that might have come from the end of one of the clothing racks. It gleamed in the dim light. Closing her eyes, she held it to her chest.

A beam of light swept past the door again. Hematite waited a moment after it was gone before pivoting around the side of the door. She threw her arm forward, sending the little silver knob flying in an arc. She didn’t stop moving once the knob was off. She ducked out into the main room, hurrying to the right.

Consulting with her mirror to make sure there were no eyes on her, Dyna moved out and to the left just as a loud metallic clatter drew everyone’s attention to wherever the knob had landed.

She had left the Ouija board behind. It was too cumbersome to fight with. She would have to come back for it later, if possible.

If it wasn’t possible… she would probably have larger things to worry about. Probably bullet wounds.

Pushing morbid thoughts from her mind, Dyna moved low to the ground, careful to avoid touching any racks of clothes. The bedding department was just a few quick steps away. It had tall metal racks holding blankets, comforters, pillows, and the like. A bed set out for display had a headboard that went up to her chest. None of it would make for good cover, but nothing in the store would. It was better concealment than clothing racks that didn’t quite reach the ground or glass display cases.

Carefully peering around the side of a bedding rack, Dyna caught sight of one of the threats.

They were definitely some kind of special forces. Solid black clothing and gear. No markings at all. In the dim emergency lights, Dyna could really only see the silhouette, but that was enough to spot the bulk of a ballistic vest and the smooth contours of a helmet. This one didn’t seem to have any night vision, surprisingly enough, but his gun did have a high powered flashlight on the front of it.

Hematite had been right, their guns were oddly shaped. Like a bow tie, almost.

As she watched, she spotted a shadow moving between racks of clothing in the distance. Hematite.

The soldier saw her too. “Contact,” he said, tone soft. He didn’t say anything else, but Dyna saw several other beams of light swing around into the same direction.

Dyna waited. This wasn’t it yet. She felt bad, using Hematite for bait. But Hematite had supernatural luck. That was more than Dyna had.

Loud cracks of gunfire echoed through the store, followed quickly by crisp yet muffled reports of suppressed bullets.

That was it.

Dyna pivoted, sure nobody’s eyes were in her direction with the gunfire going on elsewhere. She didn’t know if their body armor protected their backs. Not wanting to take the chance, she aimed low.

Three pulls of the trigger sent three ear-splitting shots into his legs. He collapsed, but Dyna didn’t stick around to see if he would stay down. She moved, dashing from concealment to concealment as fast as she could while keeping an eye on her mirror.

The soldier she had attacked caught sight of her for a brief moment, but he didn’t fire his weapon. His eyes turned to his knee—or what was left of it. Dyna wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but upon seeing his leg, he started shouting.

The mirror went dark as he lost track of Dyna.

One down. He wasn’t dead. He was still armed. Going back to the bedding area would be dangerous, but Dyna didn’t need to kill them. If she could disable them enough that they couldn’t chase her and Hematite anymore, she could leave them to properly armed and equipped police or soldiers or whoever would be cleaning up this mess.

Dyna entered into the appliance section of the store. Tall refrigerators and ovens might actually provide cover. Pressing her back against one of the fridges, she took a breath before focusing on her mirror. She could figure out where they all were as long as they all had one of each other or Hematite in view.

Four threats left, minus any that Hematite had gotten.

She could do this no matter what Hematite’s vision said.