“Careful now! Parts of that structure could collapse on itself at any moment!” Itzel leaned forward, pointing at one of the warped beams dangling over the Eco-Dome.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured by all the shaking a destruction,” Dallas said with annoyance. He slowly threaded the carrier through the biggest gap in the collapsing ceiling. As he piloted the vehicle through contorted metal and shattered glass, the back of the carrier scrapped against a bent support beam and rattled everyone inside. They passengers gasped out of fear as the carrier wobbled off its course. “And this is why I didn’t civilians coming along!” the enforcer shouted as he tugged on the flight stick to maintain control.
“Can’t you set this craft upright?” Enidri shouted from the backseat as the carrier tilted forward and rapidly lost altitude. She pressed her hand against the window to keep herself upright.
“I’m trying! But it looks like that bump damaged the stabilization system!”
“If we’re going to crash, aim for the swamp!” Itzel stretched her arm in front of the enforcer and pointed out his window. “You see it, right? That’s close enough to where Gurk and Mag are!”
“What? Are you kidding me?” Dallas blurted back as he wrestled with the control stick. The vehicle leveled just above the tree line. “If we landed in that swamp, this carrier would have sunk to the bottom with us in it! There’s no way that this thing is staying afloat!”
“At least try to get us down near it!”
Dallas shook his head. “No can do. You see any clear space for me to land this thing?”
“Then drop us off,” Itzel said. “I’ll even point you exactly where you need to go!”
Dallas gave the fighter a look of utter disarray. “Are you an enforcer?”
“No, I’m not. But we’re already in here and you had a lot of difficulty going through that opening. You wanna go back through it to kick us out?”
“You’re already breaking the rules. Might as well keep at it!” Enidri said. The enforcer rolled his eyes and looked out his side window before sighing.
“We’re keeping this our secret. Understood?”
“Keep what a secret?” Itzel replied with fake bewilderment.
Dallas couldn’t stop a chuckle from escaping. “You know, that’s the kind of thing Ringa would say. She’s unorthodox, but she gets results. Let’s hope you three are the same way.”
The vehicle took a sharp turn to the left. With Dallas’ careful maneuvering, the carrier hovered above a tearing section of the swamp. A long seam formed in the soft soil that slowly grew into a long fissure. “Are you three sure you still want to do this?”
“Do you know anything about the building regulations in Labrisson?” Itzel shouted over the sound of destruction from below. “It’s not much more dangerous than living in their subsidized housing!”
The enforcer shook his head. “If you say so. I can’t get you any closer without risking the vehicle and our only way of escape. That means you’ll have to jump the remaining distance!”
Enidri pushed her door open and looked at the ground. “I’ve fallen from higher heights.” The swordswoman unbuckled her seat belt and slipped out of her seat. She plummeted straight down before landing feet first on the grass.
“Hold up, Eni! Don’t get too far ahead of me!” Itzel shouted as she did the same. Janus leaned over the backseat and watched as Itzel dropped straight to the ground, landing next to Itzel’s side. The vehicle swayed with both doors on the right side wide open.
“I wish they would have at least closed the doors behind them,” Dallas said with annoyance. He tilted his head up and looked at Janus through the rearview mirror. “Are you following them? Or do you at least have a bit of common sense?”
Janus opened his door. A long fissure formed beneath his side of the vehicle. The crevice was pitch black, showing that there was more than a bit of depth to it. “Despite my degree, I don’t have a shred of common sense,” the physicist said without hesitation. Using the seat as leverage, Janus pushed himself out of the vehicle. Like the others before him, he plummeted through the air. Unlike the others, he landed with a roll before skidding on his side and ending up a foot away from the enormous crack.
“You all right, Janus?” Itzel shouted as she ran to his side. The fighter grabbed him by the arm and stood him straight up.
“Yeah, yeah. After everything that we went through in Labrisson, it’ll take more than stumble to stop me.”
The fighter jabbed Janus in the arm, making him flinch. “Look at you! Already getting a hang of this whole Exterminator business.”
“I thought you wanted to hold off the celebrations for later,” Enidri said as she turned on her Ion Blade. “Mag’s still on the loose. And we have no idea where Gurk is.”
“Eni’s right,” Itzel said, her expression becoming serious instantly. “We’ve still got a job to do.”
“Any idea where Mag and Gurk could be?” Janus stood on the tips of his toes and scanned the horizon. "I know Mag wanted to meet Gurk by that falling support beam, but it’s just as possible that they could have moved else—"
A vibrant red beam pierced through the treetops in the distance and travelled in a straight line toward Dallas’ carrier. The laser blast missed the vehicle thanks to the driver’s quick reaction, but the sudden movement made the carrier sway even more.
“At least now we know where to look,” Enidri said as she stared at the hole in the canopy left behind by Mag’s blast.
“What kind of weapon was that?” Janus said with awe. “How are we supposed to handle something that powerful?”
Enidri twirled her sword as she stood at the edge of the enormous fissure in the ground. “We handle it by making sure Mag doesn’t get to use it.” The swordswoman crouched out the ground before propelling herself with a single leap. She cleared the gap without a hassle and darted into the forest.
“She seems more eager than you,” Janus remarked as he followed Itzel.
“She’s trying to get a hefty sum of tokens from Sheila. That’s why she’s so eager to get Mag. And if I get to him first, she knows she won’t be able to collect that extra bit of cash.”
Itzel followed behind Enidri and leaped over the split in the ground. Janus hesitated as he peered into the crack in the ground. He could see the metallic floor and lights from the structure beneath. The physicist took a few steps to get a running start.
“If you don’t make it all the way, I’ll catch you!”
Janus sprinted. He flailed his limbs as his body soared over the gap. He clutched onto the grass of the other side of the fissure, his hand scrambling for solid ground to clutch onto. The dirt gave way from his weight until Itzel reached down and pulled Janus up by the arm.
“Close call,” Janus said while panting as Itzel brought him to his feet.
“If I’m being honest, I didn’t think you’d make it,” Itzel said with a chuckle. “When I saw you flailing across the gap, I was half expecting you to hit the side and just drop.”
“Then why did you tell me to jump?”
Itzel shrugged her shoulders. “I thought you would have been able to run a bit faster than that.” She then gave him a friendly shove on his shoulder. “But all that matters is that you made it to the other side, right?”
“For now, yeah. But if we somehow manage to make it out of all this alive, we’ll have to have a discussion about how we communicate.”
“Fair enough.”
Janus gestured with an extension of hand for Itzel to advance through the forest first. “Go ahead. I’ll stay behind you. I know you probably want to get to Mag before Enidri does.”
With a nod, Itzel agreed to the offer. Together, they darted across the shaking landscape and followed the trail of slashed wood and leaves that the swordswoman left behind.
