The Gemini Age: Book One

[16-3] Through the Crossfire - Part Three

    "Are you sure about this, Penelope? Like, really sure?"

    "Lloyd, I designed Deedee. I tested him rigorously during initial production. I know him inside and out."

    "Did you test him underwater?"

    It was not the word Lloyd wanted, he knew, yet it was the best way he could think of to describe what he, despite his complaints, was doing to the car. A hemisphere of water large enough to contain the car flowed around them, rising into the air before rushing down to the road and between the car's tyres to emerge in the Daedalus' wake. The volume of liquid was uneven due to the constant current that kept it flowing, but the hemisphere was thick enough in all areas for somebody to stand up straight within the water. Light spilled over the outer waves and twinkled away before it struck the vehicle's bonnet, leaving them dazzled in the aqua dome.

    The Daedalus rolled over the road at a slow and steady speed. Lloyd hung out of the window in the slim orb of air that remained as he guided the water around their vehicle, his arms already tired from working the fickle fluid. The water had tried to splash onto the road beyond his reach several times already, and they had yet to reach the radius of the sound cannon. He could not stop his hands shaking at the memory that still hurtled through his head.

    Penelope balanced the vehicle's wheel in her hand, weaving around holes and debris in the road. Relics from previous attempts to beat the defences, she reckoned. "Stay calm, you're doing excellently. In fact, we're almost there!"

    Through heavy breaths, Lloyd managed a smile. "Almost at the scary, deadly, difficult part, you mean? Great!"

    "We'll be okay. Sound spreads out much more widely and quickly through liquids than through air, so the water should dissipate enough of the sound wave's force for us to power right past the cannon. You'll just have to persuade the water to flow a bit faster to keep us shielded, is all."

    "That's all. It's so easy, I've got this!" Lloyd cheered, yet his shoulders fell as soon as he stopped talking. "I'm really wishing I'd pestered Jade for those water magic lessons now. She'd be great at this."

    "Yes, well, you are great at this. Chin up!" Penelope drove around a car alloy stranded in the middle of the road, her fingernails tapping the rim of the steering wheel. Honesty made her admit that yes, she would prefer Jade in the seat beside her. The same honesty, however, revealed that she would also prefer her father not be conspiring with common criminals to seize political power and villainise innocent citizens in the process. Neither wish seemed likely to come true soon, so she had to work with what she had, and Lloyd was proving a more than capable deputy for their mutual missing friend. "I'll let you tell Jade and Marcus all about this when we see them next, okay?"

    Lloyd glanced inside the car, his face red from exertion. "Really? Oh, yes! Okay, but how much creative licence am I allowed? I'm thinking we could add more fire, maybe some meteors –"

    The water shook in Lloyd's hold. A booming sound powerful enough to rattle his ribcage thundered through the shield, shaking each water particle free from its bonds and dissolving the dome to a mesh of crystalline droplets. Ears ringing, Lloyd knitted the drops back together. "What was that?" he gasped, unable to hear himself.

    All the lights on the Daedalus' dashboard flickered and flashed, stabilising as the piercing pitch left their ears. Penelope tossed her gloves onto Lloyd's lap and gripped the steering wheel with blanched knuckles. "We're in range. Hold on!"

    "What do you mean, 'hold on'? Hold on to the car, or the water?"

    The water muffled some of the tyres' screeching as Penelope slammed her foot down, yet the way Lloyd's body lurched into the water shield with the sudden acceleration gave him the answers he needed. He strained to correct his posture and began whipping the water around the Daedalus as it raced down the road.