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children of tomorrow -- part 4
“I need more time. What should I do?” Gerard asked Frank. He didn't know the way to Sanctuary. Frank didn't know, either.
“You could try New You,” Frank said, naming the in-and-out plastic surgery shop.
“No one would give a Sandman a new face without alerting someone,” Gerard said with a shake of his head.
“Don't be so sure,” Frank said, smiling slightly. “C'mon, we're going to New You.”
Once there, Frank called the Doc over to the side and started whispering to him. Gerard tried to listen in, or read what they were saying from the shape of their mouths moving, but the Doc's assistant chose that moment to strike up a conversation.
“I'm Shaun,” he said. He was a rather attractive Green, though nowhere near as beautiful as Frank. He thoroughly distracted Gerard, though, moving in close, ducking his head, then looking up at Gerard through his lashes. “You should get red hair. I love red hair.”
Gerard smiled at him and noticed that his tunic was a bit skimpier than what he was used to. The slits in the sides were so high they showed off Shaun's thighs, and he wasn't wearing trousers beneath.
But then Gerard's attention turned back to Frank and the Doc. Their voices were still too low to hear, but their faces showed everything. They were fighting.
“Let them talk,” Shaun said when Gerard went to move in closer to hear. He was looking down at Gerard's hands. “You're blinking, Sandman.”
Gerard jumped at the words and held his hand close to his chest.
“Doc, I think this one needs our help,” Shaun said, winking at Gerard.
The Doc shook his head, but Frank said something else and then finally he nodded tightly.
He led them all to the back room and closed and locked the door behind them all. There, he finally turned to Gerard. “We'll have to be quick. I can't do a full body, we only have time for the face...”
“And his hair?” Shaun asked. “He'd look so pretty with red hair.”
The Doc gave Shaun a warning frown that made the assistant hold up his hands and say, “Okay, okay. Sandman, go into the surgery area and lie down on the table.”
“That's not my name,” Gerard said, frowning a little but moving beyond the glass to the surgery room o do what he'd been told.
“Aren't you a Sandman?” Shaun asked. “Here, I have to strap you down.”
Gerard didn't like the idea of being strapped to the table, especially with big laser needles pointed at him from up high.
“It's just so you don't wiggle,” Shaun said.
“I won't move,” Gerard said. He smiled winningly. “I promise.”
Shaun looked torn. “Well. If you promise.”
From behind the glass, the Doc said, “It's a series of lasers that numb, cut, redesign, and heal your skin, in that order. Would you like to try it on your hand first?”
Gerard shook his head. “Just do my face. Change me completely, I can't look like myself.” He stared up at the lasers. They closed in, making clicking and whirring noises as they prepared.
Gerard had a phobia of laser needles. He'd been around them enough as a White and Yellow, when he'd been training and had gotten hurt. But rarely did they make their way to his face.
His breath came faster and more shallow as the mechanisms dropped down lower. He squirmed and Shaun tut-tutted.
“You promised you wouldn't move, Sandman,” Shaun said.
“Call me Gerard.” His voice came out soft and fearful. He shook his head and attempted to get off the table.
There was a buzzing noise, a call coming in. “One moment,” the Doc said.
For the time being, the lasers stopped their descent and ceased making noise. Gerard turned his head and saw that the Doc was taking his call, but his back was turned. The Doc nodded and set the comm down. When he turned around, slow, so slow, there was murder in his eyes.
Gerard moved just in time. The first laser would have cut straight through his face, and he doubted it would have healed him immediately after.
Shaun screamed. Frank called out to Gerard. The Doc rushed forward, into the sterile area, and Gerard kept moving, trying to get away from the lasers. Unfortunately, they seemed to be locked onto him now, and followed him around the room, cutting into whatever stood in their path.
Shaun screamed again.
Smoke and sparks flew out and a fire started on one side of the room. Gerard looked up to see Frank frozen in the doorway. It was apparent he wanted to come forward and help, but the lasers were going every which way now, making it too dangerous.
An alarm went off. It would alert the Sandmen that something was happening in the shop. Gerard didn't have much time; he had to get himself and Frank the hell out of there.
Then the Doc attacked. It was clear from the outset that he was no match for Gerard's fighting skills, but with the lasers going and the Doc throwing himself in Gerard's direction, it was a precarious position to be in.
A lunge and a sweep to the feet and the Doc stumbled and then fell over onto the table. Lasers immediately locked on to him and cut through his torso and face. His scream was cut off abruptly by a beam of pure energy that sliced through his throat.
Frank did something to the computer panel and turned the laser's off. Shaun was huddled in the corner, back away from the beams, crying silently. Gerard offered him a hand up, but he acted as though he wasn't there.
“We've got to get the hell outta here,” Frank said quietly. His eyes raked over Gerard's body again and again, as though checking to see if he was all right.
“Not so fast.” Ray stepped into the back room of the shop, holding his gun. “What the hell happened here?”
“I have to go,” Gerard said, backing up towards Frank.
“No, you're staying right here,” Ray said, advancing on him. “We need to talk.” His voice was hard. Serious. “Your new friend is getting you into trouble.”
“Frank?” Gerard asked.
“I looked him up. He was a delinquent for years. He's only been in civilized company since he turned Green,” Ray said.
“You had no right to do that,” Frank growled.
“I had every right,” Ray countered without looking at him. His gaze was focused wholly on Gerard.
“We have to go. Please don't question us,” Gerard said. “If you're my friend, if that means anything to you...”
Ray narrowed his eyes. “I was there in Cathedral when you let the Runner go.”
Gerard shook his head. “I don't-”
“Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about, Gerard. I was there.”
Fear made Gerard's chest feel tight. “Ray...” His friend didn't know. That he had a mission from the Thinker, that he had to leave the City, that he had to Run.
“Gerard. Your behavior is suspicious. I'm going to have to do something about this, you know that,” Ray said.
Ray wouldn't Terminate him, he didn't think, but he could certainly slow him down and keep him from his goal. Gerard raised his gun and shot, the blast hitting Ray square in the chest.
“Fuck,” Frank swore quietly.
“We have to get away fast,” Gerard said. “I only stunned him; he'll wake up soon.”
“This way, then,” Frank said, and Gerard followed him out the back door. But instead of following the dimly lit 'alley' back to the Courtyard or to the Main Hall, Frank led Gerard further down the dark passage. “Through the Love Shop.”
They had to wait to get in. Even the back door had a line. It took what felt like hours, and as the time ticked by, Gerard had time to think of Running for real.
He could. He could just get Out and forget his mission. He could forget about trying to stop Frank's friends, the other would-be Runners.
But it went against everything he knew. It was the opposite of the way he was raised. He was a Sandman...
A Sandman who had just stunned his partner.
“You're thinking awfully loud,” Frank whispered.
Gerard shook his head. “It's our turn,” he said when they were finally let inside.
The Shop was once again crowded and dark. A hand slipped into Gerard's – it was Frank's. He didn't want to get lost, probably.
Other hands reached out to him, and Gerard looked up at the far wall and caught a glimpse of Mikey. His sibling was looking right at him. Gerard nodded, but then Mikey was looking elsewhere.
Gerard followed Mikey's gaze and saw that Ray was awake and after them. He was threading his way through the crowd, looking hard at every face. Gerard ducked down and pulled Frank with him.
Frank pulled him to a seemingly dead end, where there was nothing but mirrors. Frank did something and a panel opened. He did something else and a mirror slid out like a door, exposing a long hallway. “Here.”
Gerard took a step back and looked into the main room. Ray was there, but his arms were around Mikey and they were kissing passionately. Ray kissed down Mikey's throat and then Mikey opened his eyes, meeting Gerard's across the room. Mikey smiled and looked away.
Frank rolled his eyes impatiently and pulled Gerard down the hallway. The mirror-door closed silently behind them.
“So your friend is trying to kill you?” Frank asked. He was holding Gerard's hand again. It was dark as they descended down to the tunnels.
“I don't know. I can't tell him anything; he'll have to Terminate me if he knows I'm blinking,” Gerard said. “If he knows I'm going to Run.”
“I'm sorry,” Frank said. “It must hurt to know he wouldn't be on your side.”
Gerard hadn't really thought of that. Ray and he were friends, had grown up together, had been trained side by side from the time they were Whites. Now, he was leaving him, making him think he was actually choosing to Run. That he was a traitor to everything they believed.
“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up,” Frank said. He stood in front of a metal door and started turning the handle. “This is it.”
While Frank was occupied, Gerard slipped his hand into his pocket. He flipped the small switch on the side of his comm. It was a silent alarm of sorts, and would bring the Sandmen down on Frank's friends.
Immediately after he switched the alarm, Gerard felt guilty for it. These were Frank's friends, and even though they had ordered his death...
No, scratch that. Gerard didn't feel guilty about it at all.
Inside, Gerard and Frank were surrounded immediately.
“Why did you bring him here?” one woman, a Red, asked Frank angrily.
“We had nowhere else to go, Becky,” Frank said. “He's a Runner. He knows the word Sanctuary. We have to help him.”
“He's a Sandman. There's no way a Sandman would ever run. It's just a plot to catch us,” Becky said.
Gerard inwardly agreed, but he made himself look as nonthreatening and friendly as he could.
Becky sneered at him. “You're going to die, Sandman.”
“No, you can't!” Frank said. “He really is on our side. He let a Runner go in Cathedral today. Gerard gave him a blind capsule and helped him get away. And there's another Sandman after him.”
“A good story, but I don't believe it,” Becky said. The others nodded in agreement.
Through the metal door behind them came a sound, and then it opened. Shaun practically fell through the doorway, panting and crying.
“Doc's gone,” he said. “Doc's dead.” Someone wrapped an arm around him and helped him stand.
“What happened?” Becky asked.
“Sandman,” Shaun said. Then he looked up, straight at Gerard. “You were there. You killed him.”
Gerard shook his head. Almost everyone leveled accusing eyes at him.
“Doc tried to kill Gerard,” Frank snapped. “And then he died from his own machines. Don't you remember, Shaun? Think. There was another Sandman...”
“Sandman,” Shaun said. “He killed Doc.” His lip quivered and he wiped his overflowing eyes.
“Shit,” Frank swore, advancing on Shaun. He looked like he was going to shake him, but the rebel holding Shaun up frowned hard at Frank and wouldn't let him near. “C'mon, remember!”
“Remember,” Shaun repeated blankly.
Gerard hoped the Sandmen would be there soon to take the rebels out.
“There was another Sandman chasing the first,” Shaun said suddenly. “And this one shot him.”
Frank grinned. “See?”
Becky scrutinized Gerard for a long time. “A Sandman who wants to Run. Who wants to seek Sanctuary?”
“Yes,” Gerard said. He pulled the ankh from his pocket and held it up for all to see.
It must have been the right thing to do, because Becky nodded and then said, “Follow this tunnel down. Keep going down, as far as you can. Then you'll get to a lift.”
“And then?” Gerard asked.
Becky shrugged. “And then you'll find the way Outside.”
“But what about Sanctuary?” Frank asked. “How will we find it?”
Gerard startled. “We?”
“You don't think I'd let you go alone, do you?” Frank said.
“But why?” Gerard asked. “You're still a Green, you have time...”
“I want to see Sanctuary,” Frank said. And then softer, “I want to be with you.”
Gerard forgot for a moment that he had a mission. He forgot that the Sandmen were coming, were probably going to Terminate everyone who didn't know to run. Suddenly he had a future, and for that split second he could see it.
But then an explosion rocked the room they were in and chaos reigned.
Gerard pulled out his gun and grabbed Frank's arm.
“That way,” Becky said to him, pointing past some machinery.
Frank took Gerard's hand and started pulling him in that direction. “Got to get out of here now,” he said.
Gerard looked back in time to see Shaun fall, hit in the head by a blast from a Sandman's gun. “Shit,” Gerard said, and moved quickly with Frank.
“Just keep moving,” Frank said. Then his eyes widened as he looked behind them and yelled, “Look out!”
Gerard turned. It was a Sandman, his gun trained on them both. Gerard shot to kill.
The Sandman fell. Frank was saying something, but Gerard couldn't hear him over the roaring in his ears. He'd killed a fellow Sandman. He'd brought them here, and they'd killed Shaun, and now they were killing the others.
Gerard had killed a Sandman. He could never go back now.
“Gerard!”
Frank was tugging him, but the voice had come from behind. Gerard turned and saw Ray closing in on them. He raised his gun again.
Ray put his gun away and held his hands up. “I just want to talk. Look, just Terminate the Green and you can go back. I covered for you at the station. No one knows you're messed up in this.”
Gerard glanced at Frank and back to Ray. “I can't do that.”
“What the fuck is going on with you?” Ray asked.
“I'm asking you to stay out of it,” Gerard said. He held up his left hand so Ray could see the blinking lifeclock.
“I don't understand,” Ray said. “You aren't due to blink yet.”
“Yeah, well, as you can see, I don't have time for this,” Gerard said. “I'm Running.”
“But if you go to Carrousel you could Renew!” Ray said.
Gerard swallowed. He didn't believe in Renewal anymore, but trying to explain that to Ray would be impossible. “I can't. I can't explain it, but I have to Run.”
“C'mon, Gerard, we've got to go,” Frank whispered loudly.
“Ray?” Gerard said. When Ray looked up, he continued. “I need you to watch out for Mikey for me.”
Ray still looked confused, but he nodded. “I will. Now, you're going to have to stun me again.”
Gerard wanted to hug him. He pointed his gun and flipped the switch to stun instead. “Thank you. For everything.”
One blast was all it took for Ray to go down. Then Gerard and Frank were running, hand in hand, down and down the tunnel.
cheerleading appreciated!
“You could try New You,” Frank said, naming the in-and-out plastic surgery shop.
“No one would give a Sandman a new face without alerting someone,” Gerard said with a shake of his head.
“Don't be so sure,” Frank said, smiling slightly. “C'mon, we're going to New You.”
Once there, Frank called the Doc over to the side and started whispering to him. Gerard tried to listen in, or read what they were saying from the shape of their mouths moving, but the Doc's assistant chose that moment to strike up a conversation.
“I'm Shaun,” he said. He was a rather attractive Green, though nowhere near as beautiful as Frank. He thoroughly distracted Gerard, though, moving in close, ducking his head, then looking up at Gerard through his lashes. “You should get red hair. I love red hair.”
Gerard smiled at him and noticed that his tunic was a bit skimpier than what he was used to. The slits in the sides were so high they showed off Shaun's thighs, and he wasn't wearing trousers beneath.
But then Gerard's attention turned back to Frank and the Doc. Their voices were still too low to hear, but their faces showed everything. They were fighting.
“Let them talk,” Shaun said when Gerard went to move in closer to hear. He was looking down at Gerard's hands. “You're blinking, Sandman.”
Gerard jumped at the words and held his hand close to his chest.
“Doc, I think this one needs our help,” Shaun said, winking at Gerard.
The Doc shook his head, but Frank said something else and then finally he nodded tightly.
He led them all to the back room and closed and locked the door behind them all. There, he finally turned to Gerard. “We'll have to be quick. I can't do a full body, we only have time for the face...”
“And his hair?” Shaun asked. “He'd look so pretty with red hair.”
The Doc gave Shaun a warning frown that made the assistant hold up his hands and say, “Okay, okay. Sandman, go into the surgery area and lie down on the table.”
“That's not my name,” Gerard said, frowning a little but moving beyond the glass to the surgery room o do what he'd been told.
“Aren't you a Sandman?” Shaun asked. “Here, I have to strap you down.”
Gerard didn't like the idea of being strapped to the table, especially with big laser needles pointed at him from up high.
“It's just so you don't wiggle,” Shaun said.
“I won't move,” Gerard said. He smiled winningly. “I promise.”
Shaun looked torn. “Well. If you promise.”
From behind the glass, the Doc said, “It's a series of lasers that numb, cut, redesign, and heal your skin, in that order. Would you like to try it on your hand first?”
Gerard shook his head. “Just do my face. Change me completely, I can't look like myself.” He stared up at the lasers. They closed in, making clicking and whirring noises as they prepared.
Gerard had a phobia of laser needles. He'd been around them enough as a White and Yellow, when he'd been training and had gotten hurt. But rarely did they make their way to his face.
His breath came faster and more shallow as the mechanisms dropped down lower. He squirmed and Shaun tut-tutted.
“You promised you wouldn't move, Sandman,” Shaun said.
“Call me Gerard.” His voice came out soft and fearful. He shook his head and attempted to get off the table.
There was a buzzing noise, a call coming in. “One moment,” the Doc said.
For the time being, the lasers stopped their descent and ceased making noise. Gerard turned his head and saw that the Doc was taking his call, but his back was turned. The Doc nodded and set the comm down. When he turned around, slow, so slow, there was murder in his eyes.
Gerard moved just in time. The first laser would have cut straight through his face, and he doubted it would have healed him immediately after.
Shaun screamed. Frank called out to Gerard. The Doc rushed forward, into the sterile area, and Gerard kept moving, trying to get away from the lasers. Unfortunately, they seemed to be locked onto him now, and followed him around the room, cutting into whatever stood in their path.
Shaun screamed again.
Smoke and sparks flew out and a fire started on one side of the room. Gerard looked up to see Frank frozen in the doorway. It was apparent he wanted to come forward and help, but the lasers were going every which way now, making it too dangerous.
An alarm went off. It would alert the Sandmen that something was happening in the shop. Gerard didn't have much time; he had to get himself and Frank the hell out of there.
Then the Doc attacked. It was clear from the outset that he was no match for Gerard's fighting skills, but with the lasers going and the Doc throwing himself in Gerard's direction, it was a precarious position to be in.
A lunge and a sweep to the feet and the Doc stumbled and then fell over onto the table. Lasers immediately locked on to him and cut through his torso and face. His scream was cut off abruptly by a beam of pure energy that sliced through his throat.
Frank did something to the computer panel and turned the laser's off. Shaun was huddled in the corner, back away from the beams, crying silently. Gerard offered him a hand up, but he acted as though he wasn't there.
“We've got to get the hell outta here,” Frank said quietly. His eyes raked over Gerard's body again and again, as though checking to see if he was all right.
“Not so fast.” Ray stepped into the back room of the shop, holding his gun. “What the hell happened here?”
“I have to go,” Gerard said, backing up towards Frank.
“No, you're staying right here,” Ray said, advancing on him. “We need to talk.” His voice was hard. Serious. “Your new friend is getting you into trouble.”
“Frank?” Gerard asked.
“I looked him up. He was a delinquent for years. He's only been in civilized company since he turned Green,” Ray said.
“You had no right to do that,” Frank growled.
“I had every right,” Ray countered without looking at him. His gaze was focused wholly on Gerard.
“We have to go. Please don't question us,” Gerard said. “If you're my friend, if that means anything to you...”
Ray narrowed his eyes. “I was there in Cathedral when you let the Runner go.”
Gerard shook his head. “I don't-”
“Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about, Gerard. I was there.”
Fear made Gerard's chest feel tight. “Ray...” His friend didn't know. That he had a mission from the Thinker, that he had to leave the City, that he had to Run.
“Gerard. Your behavior is suspicious. I'm going to have to do something about this, you know that,” Ray said.
Ray wouldn't Terminate him, he didn't think, but he could certainly slow him down and keep him from his goal. Gerard raised his gun and shot, the blast hitting Ray square in the chest.
“Fuck,” Frank swore quietly.
“We have to get away fast,” Gerard said. “I only stunned him; he'll wake up soon.”
“This way, then,” Frank said, and Gerard followed him out the back door. But instead of following the dimly lit 'alley' back to the Courtyard or to the Main Hall, Frank led Gerard further down the dark passage. “Through the Love Shop.”
They had to wait to get in. Even the back door had a line. It took what felt like hours, and as the time ticked by, Gerard had time to think of Running for real.
He could. He could just get Out and forget his mission. He could forget about trying to stop Frank's friends, the other would-be Runners.
But it went against everything he knew. It was the opposite of the way he was raised. He was a Sandman...
A Sandman who had just stunned his partner.
“You're thinking awfully loud,” Frank whispered.
Gerard shook his head. “It's our turn,” he said when they were finally let inside.
The Shop was once again crowded and dark. A hand slipped into Gerard's – it was Frank's. He didn't want to get lost, probably.
Other hands reached out to him, and Gerard looked up at the far wall and caught a glimpse of Mikey. His sibling was looking right at him. Gerard nodded, but then Mikey was looking elsewhere.
Gerard followed Mikey's gaze and saw that Ray was awake and after them. He was threading his way through the crowd, looking hard at every face. Gerard ducked down and pulled Frank with him.
Frank pulled him to a seemingly dead end, where there was nothing but mirrors. Frank did something and a panel opened. He did something else and a mirror slid out like a door, exposing a long hallway. “Here.”
Gerard took a step back and looked into the main room. Ray was there, but his arms were around Mikey and they were kissing passionately. Ray kissed down Mikey's throat and then Mikey opened his eyes, meeting Gerard's across the room. Mikey smiled and looked away.
Frank rolled his eyes impatiently and pulled Gerard down the hallway. The mirror-door closed silently behind them.
“So your friend is trying to kill you?” Frank asked. He was holding Gerard's hand again. It was dark as they descended down to the tunnels.
“I don't know. I can't tell him anything; he'll have to Terminate me if he knows I'm blinking,” Gerard said. “If he knows I'm going to Run.”
“I'm sorry,” Frank said. “It must hurt to know he wouldn't be on your side.”
Gerard hadn't really thought of that. Ray and he were friends, had grown up together, had been trained side by side from the time they were Whites. Now, he was leaving him, making him think he was actually choosing to Run. That he was a traitor to everything they believed.
“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up,” Frank said. He stood in front of a metal door and started turning the handle. “This is it.”
While Frank was occupied, Gerard slipped his hand into his pocket. He flipped the small switch on the side of his comm. It was a silent alarm of sorts, and would bring the Sandmen down on Frank's friends.
Immediately after he switched the alarm, Gerard felt guilty for it. These were Frank's friends, and even though they had ordered his death...
No, scratch that. Gerard didn't feel guilty about it at all.
Inside, Gerard and Frank were surrounded immediately.
“Why did you bring him here?” one woman, a Red, asked Frank angrily.
“We had nowhere else to go, Becky,” Frank said. “He's a Runner. He knows the word Sanctuary. We have to help him.”
“He's a Sandman. There's no way a Sandman would ever run. It's just a plot to catch us,” Becky said.
Gerard inwardly agreed, but he made himself look as nonthreatening and friendly as he could.
Becky sneered at him. “You're going to die, Sandman.”
“No, you can't!” Frank said. “He really is on our side. He let a Runner go in Cathedral today. Gerard gave him a blind capsule and helped him get away. And there's another Sandman after him.”
“A good story, but I don't believe it,” Becky said. The others nodded in agreement.
Through the metal door behind them came a sound, and then it opened. Shaun practically fell through the doorway, panting and crying.
“Doc's gone,” he said. “Doc's dead.” Someone wrapped an arm around him and helped him stand.
“What happened?” Becky asked.
“Sandman,” Shaun said. Then he looked up, straight at Gerard. “You were there. You killed him.”
Gerard shook his head. Almost everyone leveled accusing eyes at him.
“Doc tried to kill Gerard,” Frank snapped. “And then he died from his own machines. Don't you remember, Shaun? Think. There was another Sandman...”
“Sandman,” Shaun said. “He killed Doc.” His lip quivered and he wiped his overflowing eyes.
“Shit,” Frank swore, advancing on Shaun. He looked like he was going to shake him, but the rebel holding Shaun up frowned hard at Frank and wouldn't let him near. “C'mon, remember!”
“Remember,” Shaun repeated blankly.
Gerard hoped the Sandmen would be there soon to take the rebels out.
“There was another Sandman chasing the first,” Shaun said suddenly. “And this one shot him.”
Frank grinned. “See?”
Becky scrutinized Gerard for a long time. “A Sandman who wants to Run. Who wants to seek Sanctuary?”
“Yes,” Gerard said. He pulled the ankh from his pocket and held it up for all to see.
It must have been the right thing to do, because Becky nodded and then said, “Follow this tunnel down. Keep going down, as far as you can. Then you'll get to a lift.”
“And then?” Gerard asked.
Becky shrugged. “And then you'll find the way Outside.”
“But what about Sanctuary?” Frank asked. “How will we find it?”
Gerard startled. “We?”
“You don't think I'd let you go alone, do you?” Frank said.
“But why?” Gerard asked. “You're still a Green, you have time...”
“I want to see Sanctuary,” Frank said. And then softer, “I want to be with you.”
Gerard forgot for a moment that he had a mission. He forgot that the Sandmen were coming, were probably going to Terminate everyone who didn't know to run. Suddenly he had a future, and for that split second he could see it.
But then an explosion rocked the room they were in and chaos reigned.
Gerard pulled out his gun and grabbed Frank's arm.
“That way,” Becky said to him, pointing past some machinery.
Frank took Gerard's hand and started pulling him in that direction. “Got to get out of here now,” he said.
Gerard looked back in time to see Shaun fall, hit in the head by a blast from a Sandman's gun. “Shit,” Gerard said, and moved quickly with Frank.
“Just keep moving,” Frank said. Then his eyes widened as he looked behind them and yelled, “Look out!”
Gerard turned. It was a Sandman, his gun trained on them both. Gerard shot to kill.
The Sandman fell. Frank was saying something, but Gerard couldn't hear him over the roaring in his ears. He'd killed a fellow Sandman. He'd brought them here, and they'd killed Shaun, and now they were killing the others.
Gerard had killed a Sandman. He could never go back now.
“Gerard!”
Frank was tugging him, but the voice had come from behind. Gerard turned and saw Ray closing in on them. He raised his gun again.
Ray put his gun away and held his hands up. “I just want to talk. Look, just Terminate the Green and you can go back. I covered for you at the station. No one knows you're messed up in this.”
Gerard glanced at Frank and back to Ray. “I can't do that.”
“What the fuck is going on with you?” Ray asked.
“I'm asking you to stay out of it,” Gerard said. He held up his left hand so Ray could see the blinking lifeclock.
“I don't understand,” Ray said. “You aren't due to blink yet.”
“Yeah, well, as you can see, I don't have time for this,” Gerard said. “I'm Running.”
“But if you go to Carrousel you could Renew!” Ray said.
Gerard swallowed. He didn't believe in Renewal anymore, but trying to explain that to Ray would be impossible. “I can't. I can't explain it, but I have to Run.”
“C'mon, Gerard, we've got to go,” Frank whispered loudly.
“Ray?” Gerard said. When Ray looked up, he continued. “I need you to watch out for Mikey for me.”
Ray still looked confused, but he nodded. “I will. Now, you're going to have to stun me again.”
Gerard wanted to hug him. He pointed his gun and flipped the switch to stun instead. “Thank you. For everything.”
One blast was all it took for Ray to go down. Then Gerard and Frank were running, hand in hand, down and down the tunnel.
cheerleading appreciated!
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Now I want more, because I'm impatient and greedy.
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