Virtual Vandals

Chapter 19

Once or twice, Matt had gone on virtual mountaineering adventures. He’d learned a technique called the glissade, where mountain climbers slide down icy glaciers using their ice axes to brake their descent. Matt had thought he could use the same technique if he got in trouble on the church roof.

Now he was finding that there was a difference between ice and roofing tile, especially when he only had a piece of shattered wood to slow himself up.

His trusty chair leg cracked and splintered as he tried to dig it in and stop his fall. When he finally caught it in a crack, it nearly jerked right out of his hands. He held on desperately, and stopped — until the tile tore loose and he was tumbling again.

He was moving a little more slowly, but the edge of the roof was coming up fast. Matt was doing his best to keep his head. With luck, he might be able to catch himself on the rain gutter at the edge.

But when he got there, the gutter was gone! Somebody must have torn it away to sell the copper sheeting.

Matt had one last chance. This part of the roof seemed to give under his weight. He thrust down as hard as he could with his stick. The roofing gave a bit, until — finally — the wooden stick in his hands bit through. He stopped just in time — his legs were dangling over the edge.

“L-looks like one heck of a ride,” Cat Corrigan called from her place on the top of the roof.

Matt made violent shushing gestures. From his dangerous perch, he could see that the Buzzards had posted guards around the church. The one on this side was the Asian kid. What was his name? Ng.

It was not exactly like watching a military sentinel. Ng sort of slouched along the street with Willy’s pistol stuck in his belt.

But Ng could pull out that gun and use it if he heard the prisoners calling to one another.

At least the others took his hint. Their heads went together, and they came up with a pretty good plan. They formed a human ladder. Serge held on at the top while Luc worked his way down until he was holding onto Serge’s ankles. Then it was Caitlin’s turn. She slid down, clutching at the others to keep from going too fast.

She still had to let go of Luc’s feet and slide free the last six feet or so, but Matt had braced himself to catch her.

Even so, they almost went over together. Cat dangled for a heart-stopping minute. But she quickly transferred her grip to the stick dug into the roof instead of Matt’s arm.

“Phwooooh!” she breathed long and hard. Then she spotted Ng patrolling below. “Now I see why you wanted us to shut up,” Cat whispered.

Matt nodded.

The girl glanced uneasily from the guard to their two companions stretched across the roof. “They can’t hold on up there forever,” she whispered. Then she nodded toward the wooden hook. “And I don’t know how long this will hold, either.”

This time Matt didn’t answer. He was busy watching Ng slouch along on his return march.

When the guard was under them, Matt released his hold.

Maybe he should have warned Caitlin. She gave a sort of strangled cry, which made Ng look up. The Asian boy’s eyes went big, and he tried to haul the pistol from his waistband.

Then Matt landed on him. They both tumbled to the ground, but Matt was on top. This time, Ng didn’t have a hostage to hold Matt frozen. Matt applied a quick but painful hold, and the gun dropped from Ng’s nerveless fingers.

Then Ng yelled at the top of his lungs.

Matt swore to himself. He knew he should have gone for a knockout blow, but he’d been too worried about that gun. Now he didn’t worry about finesse. He hit, hard, and Ng flopped back, silent.

“Move! Fast!” Matt hissed, looking up at the two pairs of legs dangling over the edge of the roof. Caitlin dropped down, and Matt caught her. Luc’s legs waved wildly, and then another pair appeared. Serge had made it.

They both dropped together, just as a Buzzard guard came around the corner — Matt’s old pal Willy.

“Yo, Ng, what’s the big problem?”

The blond boy stared in astonishment at the escaping prisoners. His mouth opened to yell a warning as his right hand tore under his shirt to get his gun.

Serge snatched Ng’s pistol from the ground.

The sound of the two shots seemed to blend together. Willy screamed and spun, his left hand clamping to his shoulder. Serge charged forward.

“Serge, you idiot, you’re heading the wrong way!” Luc called. He, Matt, and Caitlin were already pounding down the street to the east.

Scooping up Willy’s gun, Serge shouted back, “I go to the road!”

There was no time to argue. The sound of the shots would definitely bring the Buzzards out of their staging area.

Matt risked a glimpse back as he and his companions reached the nearest street corner. Gang members came boiling out of the abandoned church like ants from a disturbed anthill.

Then the gunfire began by the church entrance.

“Guess somebody spotted Serge,” Luc said.

But a loud, growling voice rose over the scattered shots. Matt recognized it. James was giving orders to his troops. “Where are the others?” the gang warlord yelled. “Find ’em! Find ’em now!”

Matt whipped around the corner, herding the others in front of him. “Come on,” he said. “They’re going to have search parties out in a minute.”

“We won’t even make it down this street before they get around the corner,” Caitlin said.

“So we hide.” Matt scanned the rows of houses opposite them and chose one at random. It still had a door rather than a plywood barrier or a rough wall of cinder block across the entrance. He was afraid it might be locked, but there was neither a lock nor a doorknob. They’d been chopped out of the wooden panel, which simply swung in when he hit it with his palm.

They stepped into the shadowy interior, lit with a couple of streams of light coming from chinks in the warped plywood panels that were supposed to seal the glassless windows. Matt shut the door, peering out through the chopped hole. It gave him enough of a view of the street to show gang members in their green and black Buzzard colors running down the street the escaped prisoners had just left.

“Now they’ll have people ahead of us,” Luc said. “And they have enough people left to begin a house-to-house search.”

Matt turned from the doorway. “We’ll barricade the door to slow them down. While they fool with that, we’ll get out the back.”

They were in the front hallway of the old house. Obviously, a long time ago it had been cut up into apartments. To the right, a flight of stairs rose to the second floor. On the left was an apartment entrance, its door hanging at a drunken angle from broken hinges.

Matt went inside. Once this had been the front parlor, but it had been turned into a studio apartment. A soggy foam mattress squished with rainwater as Matt pulled it aside. The furniture in here had apparently been left as junk, and Matt had to agree with that assessment. Everything was cheap and shoddy. Still, enough of it held together to be potentially useful now. He wedged the rusty metal bed frame against the door. “See what’s in the next apartment,” he ordered as he started pulling a warped chipboard bookcase forward to add to the barricade.

Luc called out, “There’s an old trunk in here that must have been too heavy to carry.”

Matt had joined him, and they dragged the big, moldy leather trunk toward the door. That was when they heard Caitlin gasp. “We’ve got to get out of here — and quick!” She ran back toward them, and Matt and Luc abandoned the trunk.

Caitlin led them up the hallway. This was a larger apartment, and they could see daylight coming from the doorway of a room in the distance. Light also came from a wrecked window on the air shaft, where rainwater had lapped like a miniature lake. The leakage had also done a job on the hallway floor. Part of it had crumbled away, falling into the cellar below. A six-foot hole stood between them and the rear of the house!

Matt stepped toward the hole. The floor gave way sickeningly under his feet. “We might make it with a running jump,” he said.

“Or the impact of landing might take us through the floor and down there.” Luc peered into the shadowy cellar.

What they needed was a bridge, and fast.

“The door to the front apartment!” Matt said. The three of them rushed back to the front of the house, twisting and pulling at the door to free it from its bent hinges.

Maybe the noise carried. Maybe it was just bad luck that Buzzards came to check the house. When the outside door didn’t give immediately, a yell went up. Fists crashed on the old oak panel, and Matt heard more voices outside — the search party must be gathering at the doorstep.

He heaved desperately, and the door came free. “Let’s go!” he hissed, and the three of them stumbled down the hallway with the heavy door.

At the same moment, one of the gangbangers outside decided to try and shoot his way in. Pistol shots echoed down the hall, and a bullet whined off the bed frame in the hastily assembled barricade.

He’s seen too many holos, Matt thought. There’s no lock for him to break.

Even so, other Buzzards followed their gang-brother’s example. Bullets tore through the outer door and the plywood panels covering the windows. Matt, Luc, and Caitlin piled through the entrance to the rear apartment, glad to put a couple of walls between them and the firing line. Then the firing stopped.

“Your barrier won’t last very long against that,” Luc panted as they dragged the door past the abandoned trunk.

“What if they go through the houses on either side?” Caitlin asked. “They could be waiting for us out back.”

“Let’s hope they don’t think of that right away,” Matt said. “One problem at a time.”

Matt and Luc stood on either side of the door. They boosted it forward to cover the hole. Would it work?

Luc turned to Caitlin. “You’re the lightest. Why don’t you go first?”

She simply shook her head.

Luc’s lips went tight. “We don’t have time to argue.” Moving slowly and carefully, as if he were walking a tightrope, he stepped onto the makeshift bridge.

Breath hissed in between Matt’s teeth. He could see the floor sagging at either end of the panel. But Luc reached the far side and continued on. “It’s solid here,” he reported.

“C’mon, Caitlin,” Matt said. “You saw that it held.”

“It sank,” she said in a choked voice.

There was no time for fooling around. Matt stepped onto the door-bridge. He could think of a couple of hundred things that were more fun than that simple seven-foot stroll. Every step seemed to affect the balance of the improvised bridge and its unsteady underpinnings.

He let go of a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when he reached the far side. Luc had already gone ahead, exploring the rear rooms. Now he came back, dragging a stinking wooden box. “They were books, I think,” he said. “Before the mildew got them.”

Matt’s attention was on Caitlin, who still stood frozen on the wrong end of their bridge.

“Come on — now!” Matt called. “If we made it over, you’ll be okay.”

“I–I can’t,” she choked.

Luc set his burden down. “Cat, come to us,” he said. “We cannot carry you. The floor can’t take the weight.”

She took a baby step forward, then another.

Off toward the front of the house, they heard a splintering crash. “Here they come,” Matt said.

It was as if he’d said the magic words. Caitlin suddenly scooted forward, her arms outstretched as if to balance herself. Although she was lighter than the boys, her sudden, jerky movements put more stress on the bridge.

Matt’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached as he listened to the creaks and moans of rotten wood.

Cat had almost reached the far end — but the bridge was dipping!

“Anchor me,” Luc said to Matt.

Bracing himself on a solid section of flooring, Matt clamped a strong grip onto the back of Luc’s belt. The French boy leaned forward, reaching out to grab the tottering Caitlin’s frantically fluttering hands.

He caught her! Matt pulled backward, dragging all three of them from the soft spot. Their bridge dangled crookedly, just a hair away from collapsing. If they hadn’t managed to get Caitlin off in time…

They heard voices coming down the front hallway. Luc whirled round, grabbed the box of mildewed books, and swept it on to the bridge. The extra weight sent the door panel crashing down into the basement.

Matt was already pulling Caitlin into the rear room, toward the windows.

There was actually glass in the frames. Matt wrestled the window open, then helped Caitlin through.

The building didn’t have much of a backyard. Matt realized that the back rooms had been tacked onto the original structure. There was just a yard or two of muddy, graveled ground and a five-foot-tall wooden fence.

Matt quickly swarmed over, then reached down to help Caitlin up. Luc had caught up with them and was already scaling the boards.

There was a yard beyond the fence, ten yards of weedy, grassy, empty space before they could reach the shelter of the frame house in the distance. Someone had tried to take care of the old building. It had been painted white, with green trim around the windows.

A yell from behind showed that their pursuers had finally gotten around the grand canyon. As Matt glanced back, a head appeared over the back fence, and the flat crack! of a shot rang out.

Matt had a second to be glad that the gang didn’t have the time or ammunition for target practice. A bullet whirred past him like an angry hornet, shattering a window in the house ahead.

Using his forearm, Matt smashed away the jagged fragments still left in the window frame and swung Cat up.

“See what’s ahead,” he told the girl, sticking out a hand to Luc. He had to get the French boy in quickly. More Buzzards were appearing at the fence and clambering over.

Matt half hauled Luc into the room, which was filled with bundles of newspapers. Matt stared in disbelief. How long had it been since the Washington Post came out on paper? The newsprint was brittle, flaky, and dry as tinder.

Through the window, Matt saw another Buzzard hop down from the top of the fence. This one held a rifle.

Matt squinted. The body of the weapon seemed too bulky….

“Run!” he suddenly snapped to Luc. “That idiot’s got a grenade launcher!”

They tumbled along a twisting pathway among chest-high piles of paper, getting out of the room just as a dull fwoomp! announced the firing of the launcher.

A spitting canister spewed a cloud of what Matt figured was tear gas.

The guy is a double idiot, he thought, slamming the door. Tear gas might be useful in the Gardens at Carrollsburg, against people who try to hunker down in their homes. But we’re not trying to stay here. We’re trying to get out. And a cloud of tear gas will just slow up the pursuit.

But then he heard something more than the hiss of gas. Was that the crackle of flames?

Matt swore. The blasted grenade had set the piled papers on fire!

He ran at top speed for the front rooms.

This is a wooden house, a nervous voice chattered inside his skull. The whole place could go up!

Black smoke was already trailing him as he pounded along. Matt caught up with Caitlin and Luc, who were peeking out the front door.

“Fire!” Matt announced in a breathless voice. “Out! Now!”

“But—” Caitlin began.

Matt wasn’t about to argue. He threw the door open and stumbled out onto a rickety porch.

Then he saw what the others had been trying to warn him about. A quartet of searchers stood at the far end of the block.

He should have been shot down, but the Buzzards were too distracted.

He ducked back, standing flat against the wall of the old house. The back of the house they’d just emerged from was completely engulfed in flames, which shot into the sky, smearing a pillar of smoke across the red sky of sunset. Here, on the front porch, hidden in shadows, they should be invisible to the searchers.

But their safety was only temporary. Inside the house, the flames were encroaching — getting closer to them every second.

The escapees couldn’t stay there much longer. Matt hoped it was dark enough — there weren’t any streetlights in this desolate part of town. It was time to take action — even desperate action. He took a deep breath. Maybe they wouldn’t notice he wasn’t wearing the gang’s colors.

“Yo!” Matt yelled to the gangbangers. “We got ’em trapped out back. Come on!” He waved toward the back of the house.

Yelling their heads off, the four heavily armed youths charged back around the corner.

Matt turned back to the doorway. Heat was pouring out of the house — along with corrosive smoke. Cat and Luc were coughing as they stumbled out, their hands smearing black stains across their mouths and chins.

Got to get out of here, Matt thought. This fire will act like a beacon for every Buzzard in the area.

He set off at a determined jog-trot, the others reeling after him. This was an east-west street. Just a few blocks, a quarter of a mile at most, and they’d reach the safety of the Navy Yard….

A furious shout erupted behind them. “There he is!”

The searchers he’d scammed were back, and they’d brought plenty of friends. Matt risked a look over his shoulder. Perhaps three quarters of a block stretched between the escapees and the gang hunting them.

They’re not great shots, Matt told himself. But there are enough of them back there, and some have automatic weapons. If we don’t get out of the way, they could get lucky really fast.

“Move!” The word came out more as a croak as he pushed his pace into a run. At least if they got around the corner….

Then, ahead, he saw dark, wiry figures rounding the street corners.

Matt swerved, leading his companions to the shelter of a stone stairway. He swallowed, tasting the bile flavor of blackest despair. They were cut off, pinned front and rear by two groups of gang members who’d be delighted to kill them. They’d have been better off back in the belfry!