“Murphy, jump off the caboose when it slows to a safe enough speed,” Cooper ordered.
“Jump? What?” Murphy peered at the train, half of which vanished in the soupy fog and smoke from the factory-filled valley. Somewhere beyond what he could see was the safe point.
“Please don’t,” Emma pleaded. “Murphy, he’s about to decouple everything past Car 5.”
“He has proven his worth as one of us,” Victoria said with a snarl.
“This isn’t personal,” Cooper said. “And you’ve shown you have the toughness to take care of yourself. Not so bad for your fourth gig with the team. Good luck, Murphy.”
The train lurched as it cleared the top of the grade, but the caboose was still on an incline when speed noticeably declined.
Murphy braced himself as he guessed how fast the tracks sped by below him. They were at least forty miles per hour and the resistance of the rear being on an incline was pulling the speed back rapidly. He soon guessed around thirty miles per hour, then maybe twenty-five. Still dangerous, especially at the height he was. He considered climbing down the side of the caboose on an access ladder when a bright blue light zipped by overhead with a soft motor hum.
“I think they’re here.” Murphy gulped and knelt down toward an access ladder when the train slowed to about twenty miles per hour.
The scooter over Murphy roared with a mechanical whir and two grapple hooks shot down into the roof of the caboose. The scooter hummed louder and the train screeched, then everything became unstable.
Murphy pressed himself onto the roof and closed his eyes in fear. When he opened them a few seconds later, the ground below moved at a snail’s pace, but was at least an additional hundred feet below than where they had been.
The scooter overhead hummed loud enough to be a dull roar as it hoisted the caboose higher into the sky. The rest of the cars sagged down at the middle, then rose up to what was Car 6, also held by a glowing blue dot with the same hue as the overhead scooter. Everything was visible after having cleared the factory smoke of the valley. Endless networks and clusters of city lights scattered below, representing Oakland and Berkeley.
“You were not born a soldier like me, but I will not leave you behind,” Victoria said. An engine hum accompanied her disembodied voice, as if she was on a hover scooter. “I see you. Murphy, are you there?”
“I’m on the caboose,” Murphy said. He smiled at the blue dot in the distance that grew closer by the second.
“Find something to hang onto,” Victoria said. “I have a clear shot and I am taking it.” A gunshot echoed through her mic.
The forward blue dot connected to the train’s front end wavered before it and the train toppled from the sky. The entire assembly became a massive weight which pulled straight downward on the rear of the train.
The scooter over Murphy roared and the blue energy glow from its engines flickered between faint and intense. It failed to hold up the entirety of the train and succumbed to the downward pull of the weight. Everything was still at least two hundred feet in the air.
Murphy considered what a smart criminal would do, to just unhook and leave. He crawled along the roof as it angled downward, and eventually climbed when the roof went vertical. Despite the challenge, he went onward to the scooter.
The pilot in baggy attire jolted when he spotted Murphy climbing toward him, having not noticed earlier with his elevation over the train. He struggled against the scooter’s controls with one hand as he drew a pistol and attempted to aim at Murphy. He took a shot and missed, but his thumb found a key he’d been searching for.
A deafening clunk accompanied the ejection of the scooter’s winch system. The little craft sped upward and became a glowing dot in an instant.
Murphy’s stomach twisted at the sudden sensation of weightlessness. He twirled backward when the rooftop drifted away from him and he the ground covered in city lights was suddenly above his head, then spiraled toward the horizon, then he caught a glimpse of the snake-like chain of train cars collapsing overhead, then under his feet. Smoke and sparks shot out everywhere from the crashing train cars that made their return to the ground, and he dreaded his addition to the pile of destruction within mere seconds.
“No clocking out early,” Victoria said both through the radio and in person as the brilliant blue glow of her scooter lit Murphy up and she plucked him from the air with a sickening snap in her arm.
Murphy dangled at the end of his teammate’s grasp and he clawed his way up the side of the small craft.
Victoria piloted the scooter with one hand and held her right arm extended to allow the bald man to climb to safety. She winced at the overwhelming pain which shot through her limb with so much weight hanging upon it. Despite the pain and the climbing man, she sped into a pursuit of the escaped target.
“Thank you.” Murphy pressed himself against Victoria’s back as an uncomfortable passenger on a vehicle made for one pilot.
“Hang on.” Victoria sped up the hovercraft and wriggled her right arm to regain mobility. “I see him.”
“You’re better with this craft than the criminals.” Murphy wrapped his arms around Victoria and held on for dear life. His first time flying was nothing like the comfortable passenger jet he’d always imagined.
“My sisters were originally designed to be pilots,” Victoria said. She pulled a pistol from her hip with slow movements of her right arm and aimed at the distant dot. “Now watch how much ferocity they gifted us with.” She smiled into the rushing air and shot.
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