Chapter Twenty Seven

Roger and I both stare at Skye for almost a whole second. Then we understand.

“But…” I want to remind her of the incident.

“You destroyed the reader.” Again she knows what I want to say.

“Yeah.”

“Roger?”

“Uh… They rebuilt one. At the base. It is said to be an amplified version, but it’s placed in the arsenal with pretty heavy guard,” Roger reports.

“But first. How do we get out of this?” I cast a downward glance at the cuff that’s armed with a bomb. “And it’s not like these two officers will just let us walk out.”

Skye and Roger both fall silent.

“Any ways we can prevent the bomb from defusing?” I break the silence.

Roger shakes his head.

“What about superpowers? Besides telekinesis? Any other superpowers or magic?” I keep on asking.

“Superpower… Magic… None that I have right here.” Roger says this probably with a deeper layer of meaning. He doesn’t have any right here. Then there’s probably one somewhere. Since he didn’t tell us directly on this vessel, he’s probably afraid of other people knowing. Either it’s highly classified or it will endanger his life, or… it will endanger me and Skye.

“Can you interfere the connection between the sensor and the bomb?”

“No, it’s hardwired. Made so we couldn’t isolate the bomb.”

Right… So no way out…

Then a revelation comes to me. I’m shocked that my most-likely 100 IQ didn’t think of this earlier. “We are keep thinking about how to break the cuff. What if we don’t?”

“What do you mean?” Skye asks.

“Skye, you can fight without using hands right? You proved it to me the first day we met.”

“Yes.”

“What about you Roger?”

“I guess I couldn’t be much help without using my hands, but as soon as I get my ring I can remove the cuffs,” Roger thinks for a while and replies.

“Okay good.”

Skye turns her head a bit, so that she’s completely facing me. “What about you Andrew? What can you do?”

“I’m the decoy.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“Wait. But again. How are you going to get us…”

I interrupt her by sinking straight down onto the ground. Lying flat on my back, I flex my biceps and triceps with all my strength to pull myself up. Building on that momentum, I crush the pipe joint to the wall with my knee.

“Quickly get the ring. I’ll hold them off.” Skye and Roger, despite with the cuffs still on their hands, already slid off the pipe.

Roger fumbles something out of his pockets and attempts to give it to me, but with his cuffed hands he can’t manage a throw. “Take this. It’s Force Dye. Use it when you’re desperate in a fight.”

I run over and grab the object. It’s a small green vile. I can’t identify what it is inside, but it doesn’t weigh a lot. Before I can ask anything, the two officers’ footsteps already grow closer.

When the two officers walk in from the cockpit, Skye and Roger already exit downstairs from another trapdoor. I kick the pilot’s chair towards the door. Even though I do not have Skye’s excellent maneuver over my legs, but my enhanced strength and reflex can still deal that damage.

Well, to the exact opposite, that kick did nothing, at all. The chair explodes into pieces in front of the door, and these broken splinters and shards are flung back at me, with the equal strengthen of my kick. I roll out the way and see that wall scarred with holes.

Right, no way I can beat them. I’m going to play the risky move.

I run towards them and slide downwards to dodge the invisible blow that would be aiming for my head above, but this time the two officers have better teamwork. One hits high; one hits low. I am thrown off onto a wall on the side.

“Come in close, and I’ll detonate this bomb!” I make the stance of slamming my cuff onto the wall. However, I know full well that this is an empty threat. I don’t even know how big the blast radius is. Maybe I’ll pulverize right in front of their face, and they will just spectate unharmed.

The two officers haven’t even thought that much.They just rip my arms away from the walls and pin them on the ground. I guess this is the situation Roger refers to as “desperate in a fight”. I should use that Force Die or whatever.

I make a sudden twitch and shake my arm free from the force. Then I pelt that vial of Force Die towards the two officers.

I’m expecting that thing to be a grenade of some sort, or at least kill the force. None of the above. Then I register that Roger is saying “Dye” instead of “Die”.

The green thing from that vial immediately diffuses out into the air and turn the entire room green. Literally. Every air particles seems to color itself green. Wow, okay. So a smoke bomb or some sort? But I can still see the two officers and every other object in this room perfectly clear.

Skye runs back from the cockpit door. The green dye not only didn’t blur her action but sharpened it — every movement becomes double clear.

“Andrew, the ring’s still here in the cockpit.” Then she takes in the surroundings and opened her mouth wide in shock. “What have you done?”

“Watch out! I didn’t take them out!”

My sentence is half swallowed by the loud zapping noise of air torn apart. Before I even turn my head, I know there’s an attack coming. To my amazement though, I can actually see the attack. The dyed air forms a turbulent of dark and light green, and I see an extremely prominent stream of darker colored air coming right at me. So this is what the dye is for.

I jump aside, and Skye has done the same. As I’m formulating an attack strategy, Skye has already jumped into action, literally. She throws a right roundhouse kick right into that officer’s liver. She kicks of the ground with her left leg while her right leg is falling back onto the ground. Building upon that force, she unleashes another left roundhouse right onto that officer’s head.

That officer is knocked out.

Then Skye twists her torso and throws a side kick onto the other officer’s chest, but he blocks it easily with his force.

“Roger, now!” Skye shouts.

Roger, now with the previous officer’s ring on his hand, sweeps that officer’s shins with a force so strong that it could completely snap the bones. Skye then lands an axe kick right on that officer’s face.

“Right, now where to?” I ask Roger.

“Land in Northern Metropolis, the base is right outside the metropolis.”

After all the years I spent in the base, I am still not aware of its location.

One of the officer struggles to say something, “Don’t… Reader… You’ll live with… a life… guilt and regret…”