Chapter 20: Break out City

Charlie wobbled and jerked back on forth on the board like a toddler learning to walk for the first time. Even though it was on autopilot, it still wasn't nearly as easy to operate as Beatrice had made it look. Just the act of keeping it balanced took all of Charlie's attention.

"Are you technically a superhero if you're breaking a villain out of a high security prison?" Harleigh said in her ear as she flew.

"One woman's Supervillain is another woman's girlfriend." Charlie quipped back.

"So she's your girlfriend now?" Harleigh asked. Charlie could practically see her rolling her eyes.

"Well—" Charlie quickly ducked under a passing tree branch. "I haven't technically asked her yet, but I have a feeling she'll say yes!"

"Maybe you should stop by a store and get her some flowers on the way there." Harleigh said. "That'll really win her over."

"I think doing that on the way back would be a better idea." Charlie quipped. "I'm kind of in a hurry at the moment."

"You know, I think you do have a super power." Harleigh said.

"Oh yeah?" Charlie said. "What is it?"

"Relentless optimism." Harleigh said. "I can't bring you down no matter how hard a try."

"All you gotta do is cry when you're sad to get all of the bad feelings out!" Charlie said. "Then you're good to go!"

She paused as the board dipped down and came just a foot or two above the head of a woman who glanced up at her in surprise. " I feel like a lot of people are staring at me—"

"Did you forget to turn the cloaking on!?" Harleigh asked.

"Oh no, I didn't forget." Charlie said. "I didn't know how."

"Wha— Charlie!"  Harleigh sputtered out. "Didn't you read the manual?"

"No."

"Charlie!"

"Harleigh, it was like 500 pages long! I don't have that much time!" Charlie said. "Speaking of time, how close am I?"

There was a brief pause before Harleigh got back on the line.

"You're closing in." She said. "I'm going to try and get Sha—" Harleigh paused and exaggeratedly cleared her throat. "Beatrice on the line so we can pinpoint exactly where she's at in the building."

"Rodger Dodger." Charlie said.

Glancing up at the city line, she could see the prison looming in the distance. It was large and intimidating, perched at the very outer edge of New Atlanta.

The buildings around her began to thin out, becoming more and more sparse as the Prison grew larger and more ominous.

When she was roughly a hundred or so feet from the building, she decided to stop.

However, deciding to stop, and actually stopping, she soon found out, we're completely different things.

As she leaned down to change the settings, the board shifted, and her stomach lurched as the feeling of falling took over her. Before she knew it, she was dangling upside down by her ankles and screaming like a child on a roller coaster.

Somehow, In her panicked state she managed to form the coherent thought to swing her body to one side. She put all of her light into it, and the overly sensitive board picked up on her movements and flipped back around.

Upright again, Charlie scrambled to press the button to stop it. The board immediately died own to a speed so slow it almost wasn't moving, and Charlie took a moment to try and calm her racing heart and trembling hands.

Shit, that wasn't very cool. She thought. I'm glad no one was around to see that.

Just as she was standing back upright, Harleigh came back on the line.

"Alright. I think I've got us connected." She said.

"Beatrice! Beatrice wake up!" Charlie shouted as loud as she could manage.

There was the frantic sound of covers moving before a brief, but nerve wracking silence.

"Shut up!" Finally came the harsh whisper from Beatrice. "There's a guard right outside my cell right now!"

"That's not good." Charlie said.

"No it's not." Harleigh said sourly.

"Tell us when the guard leaves." Charlie said.

There was no reply from Beatrice for a while. The slow drifting of the 'stopped' hoverboard even managed to get Charlie close enough to the prison to see the door, and Beatrice still wasn't back on the line.

Charlie nervously, and very clumsily, landed the hoverboard and hopped off as soon as her ankles were set free. It folded back up automatically, and she slung it over her shoulder.

She decided it would be best to walk the rest of the way, as she could be much more quiet and careful with her movements. As she slowly got closer to the building, Beatrice came back on the line.

"Charlie, What the fuck are you doing? Who's this other girl on the line?"

"My name's Harleigh—" Harleigh said. "Okay, Charlie. I've got her location. Fifth floor, cell 286."

"Charlie tell me you're not trying to break me out." Beatrice said.

"I can't tell you that because that is what I'm doing." Charlie said.

"What about you, traitor with a keyboard." Beatrice said. "Aren't you going to try and stop her?"

"I think that's a fruitless endeavor at this point," Harleigh said. "I'm just going to try and keep her as safe as possible."

Charlie ignored them as she approached the building, staring up at it with her hands on her hips.

"So are you going to take down their security system so I can get in there or what's the plan?"

"Uh, there's no way I could do that." Harleigh said. "It would take weeks of careful planning to even shut down part of it."

"Well What should I do then?" Charlie grumbled, mostly to herself.

"Go home." Beatrice said.

Charlie didn't respond.

"Harleigh, which way will get me the closest to where Beatrice is?"

"Well, you're standing at the front entrance of the building, right?" Harleigh asked.

"Well, more crouching in front of it, but yeah." Charlie said.

"Then you need to head east."

"Right." Charlie said with a tight nod. She glanced back and forth, but soon realized she didn't know where to go.

Wait, is east the left or right side of the building? Or is it straight ahead....

"She means you need to get to the right side of the building." Beatrice said, seeming to read her thoughts.

"Okay, Yeah, I know." Charlie said.

She crept forward, closer to the fence that surrounded the building only to notice that there was a guard standing at the front door.

Well, if I climb over the fence here it'll be too loud. If I hoverboard over he'll see me. I'll need to get to the side, then jump the fence.

She ducked back down and started to slowly crawl along the edge of the fence. Every now and then, she would pause and sit up slowly to check that the guard was still in the same place.

When she made it to the right side of the building, she looked back up at the fence, going over the logistics of climbing it in her head.

"Make sure you don't touch the fence." Harleigh said.

"Why not?" Charlie said as she reached out and touched it.

Immediately, pain exploded in her hand, shooting from her finger tip all the way up her arm. She jerked away, biting her lip so hard it bled in an effort to keep herself quiet.

"Charlie!"

She kept her mouth shut as she pressed her arm against her chest.

"Hold on, I think I heard something—"

Charlie cursed in her head as she heard the guard walking towards her. Her eyes darted to a nearby bush, and she crawled inside of it as quickly as possible and crouched down.

"Yeah, like usual I don't see shit." She heard the voice say.

She held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

"It was probably another raccoon." He said, "probably ran off to die in a bush. Wh—Yes I got the meme you sent me about raccoons the other day. Listen— can't you just turn the fence off?"

Charlie bit her lip as she listened in.

"Yeah, just lie on the report. I'm tired of having to hear that damned ping on my radio every time a bug hits this thing! —Okay. Yeah. Thank god!"

The guard's footsteps slowly started to fade away, until Charlie couldn't hear them anymore. She waited a good ten minutes after he left to carefully crawl out.

Once again, I'm saved by sheer dumb luck. Charlie thought.

She reached out and tested the fence again, but nothing happened.

Though her hand still stung, she breathed a sigh of relief and started to carefully scale it. It was relatively easy, and she landed on the other side with a gentle thud.

"Okay, I made it to the other side." She whispered. "Can you let me know when I'm directly below Beatrice?"

"Sure." Harleigh said. "To your left about six feet."

Charlie moved to her left what she considered about the length of a man lying down and looked up.

"Now I need to go up five floors?"

"...yes..." Harleigh said. She sounded about one breath away from telling Charlie to give up and go home.

"Okay, let's see.."

Charlie started to sort through the belt around her waist, and found two things that seemed useful: a sticky grappling hook gun and a short range teleporter.

She took out the grappling hook gun, and looked through the sights up at the small window five stories up. Her finger trembler as it pressed against the trigger. The hook shot out, hitting the ledge of the window with a barely audible clink.

She blinked at it for a moment.

"Now how do I..."

The metallic line snapped back, and she was suddenly hurdled up and towards the building.

"Ah!"

She landed against the side of the building with a thud and dangled from the grappling gun for a good few minutes in shock.

Well at least I'm not dead...

Her free hand shook as she fumbled across the belt for the teleporter, quickly pressing the button once she found it.

The world spun, and she found herself against the cold laminate floor of a cell.

Before she even had the chance to lift herself up a pair of arms grabbed her by the shoulders and roughly pulled her across the room.

She looked up at the person in front of her.

"Beatrice!" She said.

Beatrice frowned and held a finger to her lips. Her hands were handcuffed together.

It seemed Beatrice has pulled her behind the back of her bed to obscure them from the view of the clear glass wall of her cell,

Charlie gave her a goofy grin.

"Don't celebrate just yet." Beatrice said.

She took the communicator from behind her ear, and held out her hand for Charlie's as well.  Charlie removed it and dropped it in her palm. Beatrice took them both, and crushed them beneath her feet.

"Wh—"

"Before we can leave." She whispered. "I need you to do one more thing."

"What?" Charlie whispered back.

She reached down and started to roll up the leg of her stark white jumpsuit.

"I need you to cut this tracker out of my leg."