15.
My heart was pounding, a relentless, steady rhythm, the only companion I had within my own body anymore. Listening to it beat out its fury at this string of abuses—Rose’s ambush of my plane, crawling through a culvert for five hundred yards, and now this—I’d probably run four or five miles, heading south—was strangely soothing now that my head was emptied of all voices but mine.
The Scotland countryside was picturesque, and might have been pretty if I hadn’t been running for my freaking life. I’d heard the buzz of helicopters overhead, and I was seriously afraid for what would come if I got seen. Most of my run was over hilly farmland, and I worried I wouldn’t see a helo coming until it was too late.
As a consequence, I was zigging and zagging between wooded areas. I’d stop for a second, take a breath, and get my ass through the woods until I could see another wood, preferably one that was mostly south. Then I’d haul said ass toward those woods, as fast as my meta self could run. If anyone saw me, they’d know instantly I wasn’t human, because humans couldn’t run that fast. But I hoped that I’d be to my destination before they realized what I was doing, being as I was giving all villages a wide berth and only popping into sight of farmhouses for a few minutes between forest sprints.
Why was it always the cardio I regretted not getting enough of? Not the strength training, because my strength was desperately down without Wolfe. No, it was the damned cardio I’d slacked off on during my stay in the UK, because training cardio as a meta in your hotel room is not the easiest of things to pull off. Sure, I wasn’t in terrible shape, but I wasn’t in peak condition either.
These were the struggles of the metahuman fugitive. Also, I effing hate cardio. Who wants to gasp like a fish?
I was between open stretches, on a high hill, when I saw it below: the Firth of Forth, that river estuary that emptied into the North Sea. I’d been running south to find it, and here it was, day’s end not quite approaching, but not terribly far off. Looking out across the gleaming water, I could see a few ships, tankers and cargo vessels, probably from Edinburgh, or bound to Edinburgh, passing by at slow steam.
Standing there, catching my breath, I was reminded that the next phase of my getaway plan was perhaps the most dicey now that I’d evaded Rose. The Firth was less than a mile away, and I could cover that mile quickly if I didn’t continue to zig and zag looking for tree cover. It had been a while since I’d heard a helicopter, after all, and it had been my good luck (there was that word again) that they apparently hadn’t been using infrared or heat sensors during this manhunt.
There was tree cover to the west, and farther cover after that, but it looked like it was starting to get sparser the closer I got to the Firth. I swore under my breath, because that left me with a choice—break cover and run for it, chancing a helicopter or farmer seeing me as I did so, or take the safe route for a little longer.
It was probably a measure of how rattled I’d been by Rose these last two days that when I broke cover, I sprinted for the next copse of trees instead of going bold and making for the Firth. Finding myself under their shade a minute later, I took another breath, soothing myself for what was to come. Soon, I wouldn’t be getting a break for a long time. I stood under the shade of the trees, not that I needed shade on a day like today. There wasn’t exactly a lot of sun right now.
I took in the smell of the trees as I stood there, put my hand on one of them for support. I thought about lying down, but if I did, I might not get up again for a while and I needed to be well out of here before I collapsed. In fact, given that they were using search helicopters, next time I slept it needed to be either indoors or else under a car, somewhere that my IR signature would be masked in case they did start to employ sensors in their search.
Because that had to happen soon. They couldn’t just keep sending helos overhead in hopes they might blindly stumble onto me.
I broke cover and ran for the next set of woods a minute later. I was timing myself, making sure I didn’t spend too long in any one place. I hadn’t heard the sound of a helicopter in a few minutes, but I could dimly hear one now, chopper blades churning through the air behind me. I poured on the speed, my legs throbbing, screaming, really, as I broke into a metahuman band of exertion that probably made me move in a blur.
I zoomed under the shade of the next woods, and came to a sliding stop before I burst out the other side. This was a small wood, maybe a hundred or two hundred trees, nestled in the middle of farmland. I went all the way to the southern edge of it and stared south, hoping to find my next checkpoint down the hill toward the Firth.
Instead…I found the end of my freaking cover.
There were no more woods between me and the Firth, just a bunch of fields and what looked like a park with a bunch of camping trailers in it. There was human activity within, and I didn’t want any of that, so I chose my course accordingly. I’d break straight for the Firth once I was sure the chopper was clear.
If the chopper got clear.
I could hear it back there, doing a sweep. I didn’t dare peek out at it from within the safety of my concealment. It seemed to be sweeping straight toward me, maybe a mile off to the east.
That was concerning.
The steady beat of the blades against the air was a cheery sound, like death approaching on wings of steel. I tried to control my breathing. It was loud, furious, agonizing in its way, trying to keep it under control. I wanted to suck in gasps of oxygen and expel fearful breaths, but I couldn’t. I kept it quiet, as though somehow they could hear me from above.
I waited, the sound of the chopper first starting to fade, then receding. I didn’t know how they’d chosen their course, but apparently they’d chosen poorly, as Reed was so fond of quoting. Once the blade noise had died down, I set my last checkpoint.
Right on the shore of the Firth.
Plunging ahead at a dead sprint, I ran for it. I headed for the water with breakneck speed and complete abandon. I cleared fences with a single leap, like a champion hurdler, and cut through farm fields hard enough to harvest a part of their crop. My feet hurt, my legs hurt, and my lungs were like a pair of balloons that someone had inflated inside my chest. Foreign, painful, they hung there in discomfort within me.
And the consolation was…there was no consolation, because what was coming next was going to be so. Much. Worse.
I reached the bank of the Firth and came surging down, carefully. I had nothing but some cash on me, and I’d stowed it in my pocket, deep, in preparation for this next thing. It didn’t do any good to wait, so as soon as I reached the shore, without hesitating…
I plunged into the Firth of Forth.
The shock of the cold water was like death washing over me. Okay, maybe not that bad, but it was freaking colllllllllld. My teeth started to chatter, but I didn’t let a little thing like death and impending hypothermia stop me.
No, I had an escape to make, and freezing waters were not going to deter me from my plan.
The frigid chill settling into my bones, I plunged deeper into the Firth, and started my swim south. I’d estimated by the map it was something like ten or twelve miles.
If I hurried…I figured I could make that in about an hour.
My heart sinking—at the cold, at what I was having to do to survive, at the general unfairness of the world presently—I steadied myself and started my long swim south.