Chapter Seven—Allies and Enemies

They had reached the forest now. The trees here had incredibly thick trunks and long reaching roots that protruded partially above ground, making the uphill hike that much more difficult.

The canopy overhead was dense and lush, which explained why May’s shuttle hadn’t been found after crashing.

Kyle was breathing heavily, and even May had worked up a sweat. Damn she was hot in that black latex.

And as if she had just read his mind, she asked, “You’re not staring at my ass, are you, Kyle?”

“What? No!”

She turned around. “Come on. There’s no way you’re this slow. You’ve been trailing me since I got you out of that hot mess in the crater.”

He scoffed. “Yeah right.”

“Anyway,” she said, “in regards to your question… My benefactors have had Strogaus in their sights for some time, actually. You just so happened to pick up on the recent news of the Landfill Lich.”

“We do like to stick our guns where they don’t’ belong,” Max said.

“And your eyes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Front,” she said, pointing a finger. “Now.”

He laughed, but didn’t argue the point.

Suddenly something echoed across the sky. Kyle glanced up. “Was that—“

“An explosion,” May said. “Not us, though.”

“Shit!” Kyle said. “John!”

He started moving west in a hurry.

“Wait!” May said. “Where are you going?”

“If John’s in trouble I have to help him out!”

“You don’t even know if that had anything to do with him.”

“Same direction he flew off in—you think these douches are using rocks for target practice out here?”

He turned.

“Kyle.”

“What?”

“If you leave, we can’t come back to save you a second time. We’ll probably get shot out of the sky just trying to get out of here.”

“But John—“

“John can take care of himself.” May said. “If he’s alive, he’ll make his way to where he knows you’ll be—which is my shuttle.”

“How do you know that?”

“Basic logic.”

Feeling a pit in his stomach and a niggling worry in the back of his skull, he glanced in the direction of the explosion, then back to May. “All right. Fine.”

“Good,” she said with a nod. “It’s clear they’re looking for us. We need to pick up the pace.”

Kyle nodded. “By the way. I forgot to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about your friend Miles.”

She looked at him, obviously waiting for an answer.

“He’s the one who told us to come out here… I think he’s dead.”

She looked off into the trees, then back to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She swallowed. “We need to hurry.”

“All right.”

She led the way, and sucking up his discomfort and burning throat, Kyle didn’t complain anymore about how difficult it was being out here.

They weren’t hiking anymore. They were running.

Kyle got the sticky feeling that if they didn’t get out of here soon—none of them would ever leave this place. Strogaus clearly had it in for them—and corporate espionage and warfare were commonplace in this shithole of a corporate overlord-run world.