Previous|Index | Next

“What are we going to do?” Charlotte collapsed onto her bed, hugging herself.

Sienna took a breath and looked up at the loft panel in the corner of the ceiling. She gritted her teeth and pushed it up with her mind. “You can still get from house to house right up there right?”

“Yeah.” Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Wait you want us to escape through the loft?”

Sienna nodded. “Well, you and Ryan anyway.” She started pulling her temporary costume out of her bag. “You can sneak out through the empty house at the end of the row.”

“What about you?” Charlotte asked frantically. “You’re not thinking of taking them on, are you?”

“I’m going to distract them.” Sienna started pulling off her jeans. Ryan turned away and faced the wall, flushing red. “Sorry, no time for decorum.” She pulled on the leggings on and quickly changed her top. She was just grabbing the ridiculous mask when a shot rang out from outside. “Damn! They’ve started shooting–” She broke off as she realised that instead of screaming there was only a deathly silence.

“They fired over the crowd’s head to try and get them to scatter.” Ryan’s eyes were unfocused. “It didn’t work. The crowd isn’t shifting. I don’t think their restraint will last much longer. We should move out quickly.”

“Good idea.” Sienna nodded. “And will you be able to listen for them and avoid them, or is the mental noise too much.”

“I should be able to manage that,” he said. “But it will give me an awful headache.” He clambered up on a chair and through the loft panel. “Come on, Char.”

Charlotte just stood there, ghost pale and staring at Sienna.

“B-but they’ll shoot you,” she said. “Come with us.”

“Someone has to stop them shooting your neighbours,” Sienna said, trying to persuade herself she wasn’t just as terrified as Charlotte.

“But it doesn’t have to be you,” Charlotte said.

“Who else–” Sienna broke off as another shoot rang out outside. “Damn it, Char, get going!”

“B-but…”

“Don’t make me push you, Char,” Sienna said.

“Come on, Char,” Ryan said. “We don’t have long.”

Charlotte visibly shook herself and tried to climb up after him, but she’d never been the most athletic of her friends and failed miserably. Sienna sighed to herself.

“Come on, I’ll give you a boost.” She linked her hands so Char could use them as a step. As she lifted her hands to try and boost Char up she discovered that her friend seemed to weigh virtually nothing and Charlotte shot up through the hatch and ended up in a heap with Ryan. Sienna was so startled that she jumped back and stared at her hands in confusion. She didn’t have super-strength and Charlotte weighed a lot more than the two kilograms she could lift psychokinetically, so what just happened?

“Worry about it later!” Ryan snapped. “They’re about to start shooting people you have to move. “And try not to die.”

“I certainly intend not to,” she said. “Good luck!”

“It’s odd,” Ryan said softly. “When I concentrate on hearing a few people everyone else fades out. I wish I’d realised that earlier.” He pulled the hatch closed behind him and Charlotte.

Sienna waited until the creaking above her confirmed that Charlotte and Ryan were moving then cautiously looked out of the window again. The standoff was still continuing. Though the crowd was a little smaller. Some must have run when the men fired over their heads. Sienna didn’t blame them.

She chewed on her lip. Ryan had said the men were about to start shooting and she believed him. She knew she could distract them but first she had to get out there unseen and she wasn’t sure how she was going to pull that off. Unless…

She tilted her head as an idea occured to her. She hurried down the stairs to the front door and concentrated on sending a blast of thought at everyone in the street.

Do not notice me!

She’d never tried to influence more than one person at a time and she had no idea if it would work even if she could. She might be doing the mental equivalent of yelling at people not to look at her for all she knew. Still it was her only chance.

She cracked the front door open cautiously and peeked out. No one reacted. She slowly opened it a bit more, just enough to slip outside then closed it behind her. Still nothing. It seemed to be working.

She kept pushing the instruction not to notice her at everyone as she worked he way around the edge of the crowd so she could get a view of the men and their guns.

There were six of them this time but only three had rifles. The others were packing hand guns but still had them hostered. They seemed to be trying to negotiate their way through the crowd. It wasn’t working.

If only this hadn’t happened before Martin had been able to get the schematics. She had a feeling that the lever she could see on the right side was the safety, and she could probably move it, but she didn’t want to set the gun off if she was wrong.

The hand guns were easier. She hid behind a post box and concentrated. The guns slid from their holsters and floated away from the men to the other side of the crowd. Sienna tensed with concentration and laid them gently on the ground.

Of course concentrating on that meant her instruction not to notice her and what she was doing slipped and both gunmen and crowd began looking around wildly trying to find who was behind it.

“He’s got to be in the crowd,” one of them said. “They’re protecting him. They’re all traitors.” He shifted slightly, clearly about to fire.

Sienna dived out from her hiding place and leapt in front of him, concentrating on holding the trigger and pushing the barrel up so it wasn’t pointing at anyone. Then she pulled on it with her mind. It was heavier than than anything she had tried to lift previously and he was holding on to it desperately, still trying to fire.

Sienna was so distracted by the struggle that she didn’t realise her mistake until one of the others spoke.

“We’ll have to tell Dodona she missed another one.”

Sienna whipped around to look at the speaker, but didn’t have time to take hold of his trigger before his finger tightened on it and he fired.

Previous|Index | Next