The soldiers following Augustus sobered up a little at his words. With so many people sprinting down the streets like they were on a training run, they might as well have been shouting to the military police that they were right here.
So every dozen or so steps, a group would turn onto another street or into an alley. They were all active-duty soldiers who knew Braddock well and knew where to go.
The more than twenty remaining recruits, however, were completely lost. They could only keep following Augustus, hoping he would lead them to safety and help them escape the military police.
Augustus had only arrived in Braddock that very day. He realized the best thing to do was stick to the main roads, since they had no idea where the side streets and alleys led. But unless he could outrun a car, they would be caught sooner or later.
"I have an idea," Raynor said suddenly, right behind Augustus.
"Then spit it out!" Harnack shouted breathlessly from the other side.
"Those military police came in cars," Raynor said. "I bet they're parked right outside the bar. They're busy arresting people inside and won't have time to look after the cars."
Augustus stopped, and the people behind him came to a confused halt. Surprisingly, nobody tried to run past him and keep fleeing.
"Follow me." Augustus turned left at the T-junction and headed into a narrow, gloomy alley with little light. It was so narrow that two recruits could barely walk through side by side.
The recruits behind Augustus had no idea what he was up to, but after a few seconds of hesitation, they followed close behind. Nobody asked why; they just went along with him. They had only run a hundred yards or so, and could have doubled back to the bar in no time, but going back now would mean running straight into their pursuers.
Augustus told everyone to keep quiet, and the recruits, reeking of alcohol, crowded into the alley and stood perfectly still. There were no lights, and blue prefab roofing panels stretched overhead between the alley walls, blocking even the moonlight.
The recruits waited anxiously for two or three minutes, until they heard a military police scout car approaching, then speeding away.
"Everyone out. Run back!" Augustus whispered once the engine had faded away completely.
The group burst out of the alley and ran back the way they had come. By now, the recruits were less disorganized than they had been when fleeing the bar, but they still looked like a swarm of Roaches.
Two military policemen with red shoulder patches stood outside the bar. They stared in astonishment as more than twenty soldiers in Marine recruit uniforms ran past, wondering if their eyes were playing tricks on them.
Augustus found the military police vehicles beneath a crude awning outside the Bloody Mary bar. Most of the cars had left, but five Vultures and a standard assault vehicle with a nine-hundred-pound payload capacity remained. The military police probably hadn't expected the recruits who had escaped to suddenly double back, and nobody was guarding the "ownerless" vehicles.
The assault vehicle still ran on four wheels close to the ground, while the Vulture was a hover vehicle shaped like a sharp, three-sided spike.
Vultures hovered several inches above the ground by magnetic levitation. Fitted with plasma thrusters, these bikes could tear across a battlefield at two hundred to three hundred miles per hour.
Army Vultures were far wilder than the modified motorcycles Augustus had ridden at Korhal Sterling Academy, and more dangerous and thrilling than all the custom hover bikes the noble scions at the racetrack prided themselves on. With little armor, Vultures were usually used by scouts, but the Marines always found ways to have fun with them, leading to all manner of bizarre, illegal modifications.
"I want the gray-green one." Raynor picked out a Vulture. "I spent half my life driving harvesters on my family's farm, so this can't be too hard. Well, brothers, who wants to ride shotgun?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to take three people. We've got too many," Augustus told him.
"Raynor, Londerstein, Omo, Benjamin, and I will drive. Three people to a Vulture—that's the weight limit. Everyone else can take the assault vehicle. Brandon, that one's yours."
"I can't drive a Vulture." Tom Omo blushed. He'd driven harvesters and cargo trucks, but unlike Raynor, he'd never tried the "real man's bumper cars" at Shiloh's underground racetrack, which were made from modified magnetic-levitation motorcycles.
"I'm not confident."
"I'm glad you had the courage to admit it. Otherwise, someone might've gotten hurt." Augustus nodded at him. The others burst out laughing at the joke, leaving no time for anyone to mock Omo.
"I'll drive. I've driven something similar. Those were the days." Amid the laughter, a recruit with some gray at his temples spoke calmly. Augustus didn't recognize him; he belonged to another recruit company.
"Get in, quick. They'll figure it out soon." Augustus cut off the laughter and climbed onto a Vulture with a bright red body and blue seat. The others followed at once.
Connor Ward sat behind Augustus. Vultures were single-person combat vehicles, and two people were already pushing the seat to its limit. Ilya Kurovsky had to lie on the hood. To keep him from being flung off, Augustus climbed back down and used a restraint strap he found on the seat—the kind used to tie up prisoners—to secure him tightly to the Vulture.
The Vulture sank a little under the unbearable weight. Red lights flashed across the control panel below the windshield, and an unsettling alarm sounded. Augustus ignored it, brought up a three-dimensional map of the town, and asked the onboard computer to plot several routes back to the fortress.
Then Augustus started the engine and fumbled for the plasma thruster's jet valve. The Vulture beneath him shot forward, "flying" away at once. It reached two hundred miles per hour in an instant and continued to accelerate.
Augustus's Vulture was like a jet fighter taking off with an extra passenger, racing through Braddock's narrow streets at a heart-stopping speed. Ward clung to Augustus's waist, his face ashen, as if he'd forgotten how to breathe.
Kurovsky, usually the bravest recruit in his company, was dangling from the hood and looked ready to be thrown off at any moment. He let out a shrill, distorted scream like a woman's and was sure he was on his way to heaven.
Only Augustus remained calm. The moment he gripped the steering handle, driving a Vulture felt like second nature. His interest had led him to start driving hover racers as a child, and every car in the private garage beneath his family's skyscraper was beyond anything ordinary street racers could call a "toy."
That night, nearly everyone in Braddock heard a series of scraping, crackling sounds. They weren't coming from the Vulture's engine. They were sparks flying as its overloaded undercarriage scraped against the road, and the Magistrate's old motorcycle was no match for these speed demons.
"Woohoo!!!"
Harnack let out an excited scream.
Before you continue