It was official. It was a chase!
Following Corby down the 36th were a dozen of police vehicles. His computer counted them for his convenience; there were exactly twelve. He never had it that bad before. And oh, the number just changed to thirteen. How lucky! As much as he sometimes enjoyed squabbling with police, just for the heck of it, right now it wasn't his favorite. Today–of all days–was a bad time for this.
"Okay-alright. I guess I missed this," he mused, punching a few more buttons, though now his fingers were trembling. He was beginning to have adrenaline shakes. And it wasn't cute. But there was a grin on his face; maybe he really did miss this. It was an acquired taste, this, the chase. But once you got the hang of it, you really did begin to enjoy it.
And the muscle memory of what he could do was beginning to come back to him, like the good old days. He knew he was capable of doing great things, thank you. He didn't really lose the skill; he'd just temporarily forgotten about it. He looked at the city map on the screen, trying to figure out what to do next, and it all started slowly coming back to him. Public roads were off-limits. Bummer! They were too crowded, too predictable; police were too familiar with them, too comfortable. Playing it safe wasn't an option at this point. Corby had to think of something different. He had to think outside of the box if he wanted to get the two of them outta here. He considered something–
Something rather unconventional…which made him frown. But when he looked back at the boy, who was still unconscious, his eyes were suddenly filled with determination.
"You just hold on, okay?" he said to him. And with that, turning back to the road, he yanked the steering wheel all the way up, and the Buick dove down sharply.
Down seemed to be the only way to go anyway, in these circumstances. The Buick plummeted, plowing clumsily through busy air traffic. It was suicide, having to descend like that, and Corby knew it, but it was the only way to shake the police off. Nobody else would have thought of this but he did. Nobody else would have dared to. If Corby wasn't an experienced pilot, he'd be dead meat. But he wasn't named the best in his squad for nothing, he reminded himself and went on with it.
"If we make it to the smog, we'll be alright," he explained, although the boy wasn't listening. He was just starting to regain consciousness, struggling to get his bearings, which unstrapped, he was flung around again helplessly.
"Corby…!" he yelped.
"I'm sorry, but you're just gonna have to hold on, okay? This will be over soon, I promise."
The good news was that the police stopped chasing them. They wouldn't have the guts. The bad news was that one of Corby's computer screens flashed red, which meant Warning! He looked down at it and let out an annoyed, "Shit!"
Several spacefighters were on his tail, following the old Buick closely. Corby frowned at their reflection in the mirror, spotting the dog-faced piloting them. What did those freaks want with the boy? Corby shook his head, disapprovingly. How did Loo manage to piss off so many people so fast was beyond him. Hadn't he just arrived on this planet like yesterday? There was no time to ponder over it though. Corby gritted his teeth and spun the Buick around so it swiveled like a ballerina. The car protested but moved on. Squeezing through tight traffic lanes–left, right, left, right–it scratched its way between other cars, sending out sparks of metal against metal. But it was making it through, fat-assed as it was, successfully.
"No harm, no foul," Corby declared.
No more than a hundred floors away from the ground now, they were halfway through. They were bound to make it, Corby thought. Only his computer seemed to think differently. It was flashing red again, more persistently than the last time, and in the semi-darkness of the Buick's narrow interior–and the further down they went, the darker the environment was getting–the red light was hard to ignore. An impending attack warning. Shit!
Corby adjusted his rearview mirror, and yep, the dog-faced were still following him. There were three spacefighters now. Shit! Shit! Shit! Now he really wished he was flying his spacefighter, not the Buick. If there were any species more devoted to their job than the dog-faced, Corby didn't know them. But courage wasn't all it took in their case, because they had cornflakes for brains. The dog-faced lacked common sense and, as a rule, acted on impulse. Outsmarting them rather than trying to overpower them was probably going to be Corby's best bet.
He swung the old Buick around one more time, this time making a beeline for the garbage truck stuck in traffic several lanes below them. It was going to get messy, sure, but since the truck wasn't man-operated, Corby thought it was a perfect decoy. Moments before crashing into the garbage truck, he spun the Buick around once again, and having merely brushed against its rusted surface, passed it by unharmed, not counting the now detached rearview mirror. Just as Corby expected, a racket of explosions followed immediately. Predictably, they blew up the garbage truck. What he didn't expect though was that one of the spacefighters exploded together with it. The mess! Corby smirked; it was going to take a lot more brainpower than this if they wanted to follow him. One was down. Two more to go.
He glanced into the remaining rearview mirror, and it looked like the dog-faced were willing to take a chance. The other two spacefighters were hot on his heels still. He took a sharp turn left and slipped into a ten feet wide maintenance tunnel he knew was there just because he already used it once before to shake the enemy off his tail, just as he was about to do now; but it looked like the dog-faced knew about the tunnel too, because they followed him.
Corby strained his memory to remember the network of tunnels, and took another sharp turn left, entering a branching tunnel. Then he urgently hit the brakes, making the Buick stop dead in its tracks, and switched off the hover-drive, so that it dropped down to the ground with a clang. He watched two spacefighters fly over him and, in a second, both crashed into a dead-end wall. He tricked them into thinking it was another tunnel but it was only a precipitation tank. An explosion roared. Bang! But Corby was already turning the hover-drive on and backing out into the main tunnel, a smile of victory on his face. And the award for the dumbest species in the galaxy goes to… He didn't think they were this stupid but they proved him wrong.
Exiting the network of maintenance tunnels, Corby was back on the street. He thought he'd gotten rid of the last of the dog-faced but there was one more. His computer flashed red again, anticipating the attack. This one must have been the smartest of them all. Still, it didn't mean he was smarter than Corby.
"Come on, you!" Corby growled, clasping his hands on the steering wheel. He made the Buick dive down again but the dog-faced followed him. He was only about thirty seconds away from the smog, but he didn't think he had thirty seconds.
Before Corby could so much as blink, the blast rattled the old Buick. Corby was jolted hard in his seat and showered with fragments of shattered glass that used to be his rear window. It was a direct hit. Part of the Buick's fat ass got blown off. But it wasn't going down yet, not this easily. It was going to take a lot more than this to put it out of order.
Corby gritted his teeth. Fifteen seconds away from the smog–
Another blast. Bam! The stupid dog-faced didn't even let him have a breather. "You shithead! Come on!"
Ten seconds–
Nothing Corby could do now but wait, counting down the remaining seconds. He winced, anticipating another blast. But it didn't come. Five–
There must have been a hiccup on their side. Three–
The only thing Corby could hear was his heartbeat; everything else faded into the background. Two–
Dear God in heavens! One–
The Buick hit the gosh-darn smog so rapidly that the visibility plummeted to zero. But Corby didn't need his eyes here. He knew this place like the back of his hand. Ground-level indicator flashed but Corby had already whammed the steering wheel down, pressing it into his lap so hard it hurt him. Buick squealed in protest and shuddered as it tried to pull out of a dive. Corby held the steering wheel tight; going further down wasn't an option. Below them was a century-worth pile of garbage that'd gotten compressed under its own weight into a solid layer at this point. It was good as rock. Running into it at full speed would have been ill-advised. So Corby kept pushing the steering wheel down until the Buick righted itself and was flying parallel to the layer of garbage. Soon he heard the roar of the explosion behind, and that would have been the spacefighter that was following them. The dog-faced had no idea about the garage and because of it, their ground-level indicator would have been a couple of seconds behind. Enough though for them to smash into it. Corby let out a sigh of relief. Not so smart after all, are we? He knew all dog-faced were the same; that was probably why there weren't so many of them left out there. Well, there were going to be even less now. He had no compunction about it; they came after him. He was defending the boy. And he'd do it all over again if he had to.
He brought the Buick upwards and, coming out of the smog, proceeded to gain altitude. Velocity they achieved was going to come in handy now; Corby was going to use it to take them above the three-hundredth level. They needed to get out of the city, stat. That was the only way he could think of to get the boy somewhere safe. There was no telling whoever else might have wanted to go after them while they were still in the city. It was too dangerous, so Corby floored the accelerator to get the last kick out of the old Buick, and its engines roared. Corby petted it on the dashboard lovingly. Looking up through the windshield, he could see a patch of blue sky. It was clear and beautiful, and it was going to get them out of here.
He shook his head; he couldn't believe he'd done all that just because of another boy. General Monroe would have been so disappointed in him. She always told him he had a soft spot for guys like that, young, cute, and innocent-looking. And that he had a savior complex. She was right, he guessed. Because there he was again, saving another boy, risking his life for him. Well, screw Monroe! What did she know anyway? He was going to save the boy just the same. And she was no doubt going to hear about it. She'd know soon enough it was him who snatched him from under their noses. He only wished he could see the expression on her face when she found out. Serves her right for telling Corby he could do better. Once a savior, always a savior, he guessed.
Meanwhile, his yellow Buick shot out of New York City's airspace like a cork out of a champagne bottle. When they were out in the open at last, Corby put it on autopilot (the onboard computer could very well handle the rest), and finally unstrapped himself. When he looked over at the backseat, the boy was unconscious again. He just lay there, breathing shallowly. They pulled some serious G-s back there, so it was no wonder. Being a spacefighter pilot, Corby was used to it. The boy was not!
Corby nudged him gently, hoping maybe his touch would rouse him. It didn't. His skin was so smooth though, so unblemished, and rosy-red. Corby's gaze lingered on his body, despite him feeling self-conscious about ogling the boy when he wasn't awake. What was he even wearing? Thermobandages? He was lucky Corby picked him up when he did. Otherwise, he would have been in so much trouble alone in the city.
His eyes fluttered open suddenly and he whispered something in an urgent tone of voice. Corby didn't catch it. He leaned close.
"Egypt…" the boy muttered again, looking at Corby pleadingly. He was shaking all over.
Corby narrowed his eyes at him. Did he hear it right? "What are you–?"
"Black…pyramid…" the boy breathed weakly. He looked like he was about to pass out. "Egypt…"
"Egypt? You want to go to Egypt?" Corby asked. The boy nodded emphatically and managed a smile. Corby breathed out sharply and smiled too, just because he couldn't believe it. He shook his head incredulously.
"Pleeeease," the boy wheezed, gathering his last strength.
Corby studied him; he couldn't believe his ears. Egypt? Really? Why on Earth would he want to go there?
The boy seemed to be awaiting his response. His breathing was extremely labored. He was about to pass out again.
Corby gulped. "Okay," he said, conceding. Who was he kidding, he'd do anything the boy said. "We'll go to Egypt."
Before he blacked out, the boy smiled, relieved. Now he could rest assured Corby was going to take him to Egypt. Why did he even want to go to Egypt, Corby didn't know. But he was going to take him there. Apparently. Why not? It's not like he had anything better to do. He shook his head, ashamed of himself. So stupid! He'd known him one day and was already ready to take him to Egypt just because the boy asked him to. General Monroe was right about him, even though he didn't want to believe it. She said he'd do anything for a cute troubled boy. And that he had a severe savior complex. He smacked himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. Idiot! He sighed.
The boy was really cute though! And he was in trouble. Corby looked at him again. He was beautiful! Corby's lips stretched in a smile and he was right back where he started. He decided not to fight it this time. What was the point? When the boy said 'Egypt', he already knew he was going to take him to take him to Egypt. Even though General Monroe would have strongly disapproved of it. But she wasn't here, so Corby put his hands back on the steering wheel.