Noise exploded overhead as officer reinforcements arrived in a fleet of prewar helicopters. They had been damaged over the years with metal plates visible on their underbellies where their artificial wounds had been healed.
Sic didn't waste a second of the confusion jumping to her feet while Briggs was distracted and running for her life ripping out the tracking dart once she was a safe distance away. The outpost was surrounded on one side by a large rock formation divided by small cracks just big enough for a skinny girl like Sic to fit through.
Sic imagined there were fletchettes flying through the air behind her motivating her to run faster and ignore the insistent burn in her injured leg.
She yelped in pain as she shoved herself into the crevice too fast causing the rough stone to take off the skin on her shoulder leaving a smear of red behind. The squeeze was tight even for an under-nourished body like hers.
When she finally broke through into the open canyon on the other side, a relieved sob tore through her chest. More officer vehicles could be heard approaching above and on the other side where she had just came from so she wasted no time in continuing her escape.
In the confusion she doubted they would notice her absence for at least a day if she were lucky while they sorted through the dead and wounded. How badly they would want a single S.G.D. back in their possession was something Sic couldn't guess.
Without her mask she wouldn't last in the nearest walled city. It was the highest populated area and the perfect place for her to hide. They would never expect her to go where there were so many people and would be searching the desert for her. So her first and second objectives would be obtaining a rebreather to appear normal and finding a way to hide her scarring.
Sic knew the area around the outpost fairly well, the passage she was in split in three directions, two of which were dead ends and the final opened onto a maintenance road mainly used for supply deliveries. It was well hidden to avoid bandits and other undesirables stealing the cargo and most importantly entirely blocked on either side by the high canyon walls, perfect for hiding her escape.
It was unbelievable luck that Briggs had dragged her in this direction instead of towards the open desert where she would have been spotted within hours.
Even knowing the area as well as she did she still felt relieved when she saw the tire tracks beneath her feet that confirmed she was going the right way.
That relief was short lived when she saw something blocking the way ahead of her. It had to be her imagination, surely, she thought. Because it looked like the wyrm had escaped and somehow gotten ahead of her.
The closer she got the more she could see that he wasn't an illusion. He rested on his elbows like a sphinx, his serpentine body blocking the entire road.
There was no other way around, Sic knew, even if her brain was running through impossible scenarios like climbing the walls or suddenly sprouting wings like her old friend Laddy.
Did he want to kill her for what she'd done?
He wasn't charging at her or showing any aggression as far as she could tell. Sic's leg and shoulder burned and she felt tired and cold. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and the reality was setting in.
Girl and wyrm stared at each other for a while longer before she came to a decision. If she were to die she would rather it be to this creature than her captors.
At least this death would be something she could understand, not being killed or eventually worked to death just for being what she was. So she forced her feet to move, grinding her teeth against the pain in her sprained ankle.
The wyrm seemed bigger than before the closer she got to him but maybe that was because he was stretched out to his full impressive length. Sic was close enough to see the steam leaking from his nostrils on each exhale, his body temperature much hotter than the cool evening air.
With only a few yards of distance left between them, Sic stopped, wobbling a little on her feet. She seemed to have gravely miscalculated how exhausted she really was.
"If you want to kill me then just fucking do it," Sic said in a dull monotone. The wyrm just tilted his head as if he didn't understand. "Because of what I did, you want to kill me right? That's why you're here?" Sic tried again.
She was growing impatient and ground her teeth harder, resisting the urge to stomp her feet like a small child. The wyrm was an unreadable statue and silent observer to her breakdown.
"Goddamn you," she snapped. "I'm so close don't you understand? I have to get out of here.
What do you want?"
"Are you an idiot?"
A male voice came out of nowhere, nearly making her jump a foot in the air.
Was she followed after all?
Sic frantically searched all around herself in the dying light but saw no one.
"Over here," he said.
Sic spun back towards the direction of the voice, bewildered. The only thing there was the wyrm.
