Omega The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,87
The night air was frigid, and I felt it seep through the cracks of my clothing, through the bottom of my jacket to where my shirt had come untucked in all the running, biting at the skin around my belly as I ran off toward the darkened dormitory, the glass and concrete reflecting the fires of the buildings burning all around like some sort of window into hell.
I didn’t see Janus or his party, even though they had (I assumed) exited out the front of the building. Perhaps they were lingering in the lobby, perhaps they had other plans. Either way, I ran for the dormitory. I threw open the glass door when I got there, and saw shadowed faces huddled in the entry; Kurt was up front, his electric-shock cannon in his hands. “Time to leave,” I said, winded from my run.
“What the hell is happening here?” he asked.
“Omega is destroying the campus,” I said, hands on my knees. “You need to get the students out of here. Head for the woods, and don’t get near any of the buildings that are still standing.” I felt a certain grimness as I said it. “They won’t be for long.”
Kurt looked around, his fat face turning on his wad of a bullfrog-like chin. He just looked stunned, unbelieving. “Where am I supposed to go after that?”
“Clear the damned campus,” I said, “worry about the rest later.”
He seemed to freeze like that, and then, haltingly, came back to motion. “All right, everyone,” he shouted, turning back to the few metas behind him, “we’re getting the hell outta here. Follow me, we’re heading to the fence at the edge of campus.”
I saw a flash of movement behind me, and heard a shout of warning from a face in the crowd before I saw what was coming. The glass shattered, exploding in a hail, little shards dragging across my cheek and forehead as I hurried to cover my face with my hands. I tried to look out but something dark and shadowed hit me, knocking me through the freestanding directory posted in the middle of the lobby. I burst through it, feeling the plastic break on both sides as I crashed into the cafeteria wall. My arm hurt to even move, though I fought through the pain, trying to get to my feet.
An enormous shadow stepped through the Sienna-sized hole in the sign, breaking it apart and sending it clattering to the ground. “Hello, Cookie,” came the voice from the hulking mass of Bjorn, “I was talking to Fries and we don’t really like the fact that you’re just gonna walk away from this after humiliating both of us the way you did.”
I pushed off the wall and tottered on my feet, feeling my balance return, my equilibrium coming back after a world-ending sucker punch. “Oh?” I knew I was dazed, needed to buy a moment of time. A repartee such as “Oh?” was not going to do it. “Well, I don’t think your boss is going to be terribly happy with your line of thinking here.” I blinked, trying to figure out what to say. “If he ever is. I’m guessing you’re not the kind of guy who gets paid to think.”
“Always the smart mouth,” he said, and started toward me again. “You always have a smart-assed comment, don’t you?”
“I’ve always found it preferable to having some dumb-assed thing to say.” I steadied myself, trying to brace as he approached me. “I don’t think you’ve learned that lesson yet, which is sad, because it sounds like you’re really old compared to me—”
He moved toward me fast, and I saw a crow in my mind’s eye again ,a dark shadow in flight, and it froze me. I felt him hit me, a short, low punch to the gut that rocketed me into the wall, higher up this time, and I fell something like eight feet to the ground in a crunch of pain that left me breathless. “I bet I can beat that sarcasm out of you. I bet I can make you scream it out. Really, all you need to adjust your attitude is a good beating, a few dozen broken bones to set you straight—”
The flash of lightning that hit him was epic. I’d always seen the weapon that Kurt used fired in light or at least semi-light places. In the darkness it was as though Eleanor Madigan had unleashed everything at him, and it took a moment for me to realize