Read Online The Black Seas of Infinity by Dan Henk - Free Book Online Page B

and
forth as the trail grew courser, but my mind was elsewhere, racing
through the possibilities. I heard a distant sound, and my
concentration was wrenched back to the present. It was a
helicopter. I could hear the blades cutting the air and the high,
thin whine of the motor. It approached. Suddenly, shafts of
brilliance intersected the trail in front of me. I pushed the
headlight lever in. Stupid! I should have done that sooner! My
amplified sight meant there was no need now that the first light of
dawn had arrived.
    If they have any sort of advanced listening
apparatus, I’m screwed! The spotlights were now probing the trail
immediately behind me. They hadn’t quite found me yet. I sped up
and kept to the trail. The Jeep jarred violently, disagreeing with
the coarse terrain, but now I had no choice. If they found me, the
vehicle was lost regardless. The spotters cut a swath across the
path in front of me. If I wanted to hold onto this Jeep I had to
get off the byway. I tapped the brakes and swerved into the tree
line on the left. The beam of light swept right past where I had
just been, continuing on before quickly drawing back. It flowed
slowly over the same dirt path, the intense illumination growing
hazy as it hit the trail, the floating motes of dirt rising
incriminatingly. It passed back and forth several times before
finally giving up. Almost instinctively I held my breath before
realizing that was a human reflex, and thus impossible now.
    After ten or fifteen minutes—it was hard to
tell—I shifted into gear and re-entered the trail. Soon I heard
another helicopter approaching in the distance. This one seemed to
be homing in on me. They probably had listening gear and night
vision goggles. Maybe infrared as well. They were definitely
picking up the sound of the vehicle, and if I parked it, they could
still locate it by the heat of the motor. Fuck! I didn’t know if
this body generated heat as well. It hadn’t in experiments, but
with an occupant it might be a different story. But I had no
choice. I pulled off the trail, shifted into neutral, and stomped
on the parking brake. Leaving the motor running, I jumped out.
Maybe that would buy me a little time. I started jogging, roughly
parallel to the trail. I made it about 150 yards when in a quick
backward glance I saw a spotlight singling out my Jeep. I stopped
for a minute and watched. A bright white strobe burned down on the
vehicle, blurring the sharp edges.
    Moments later they were screaming demands
through a bullhorn. A rope dropped from the helicopter, and men
started to descend. They wore full riot gear, body armor and all. I
started running again. This body never seemed to tire, and I could
reach incredible speeds. I should have been relying on this all
along! I was traveling faster than the Jeep, and my trail was far
less noticeable. There was no way I could anticipate everything, so
taking the Jeep had not been a bad idea. But I just should have
ditched it hours ago. I kept my hearing trained on the receding
commotion while sprinting alongside the trail. At my current speed,
I would reach Virginia before too long. It seemed unlikely they
would make out my sound from the other animals in the woods. I
didn’t pant for air, and I seemed to have precise control of my
stride, conscientiously softening the blow of my footfalls. They
contorted around piles of pine needles, skipped over hidden
gullies, and hurdled debris. I heard the sound of guns firing.
About five minutes later, the Jeep engine shut off. Soon, very
soon…I just needed to get through this tricky stretch. I kept
running.
    After a little while the helicopter floated
away in a fading din of thumping air, growing inaudible in the
distance. The other sounds of the woods took over, filling the
vacuum with moving animals, insects buzzing and clicking, and the
constant grind of pine needles crunching under my feet.
    About twenty minutes later, I started to hear
a new sound. People—probably