Astra: Synchronicity by Lisa Eskra Page B

doorknob but it didn't budge. Locked.
    He felt a heavy object slam across his back,
forcing him to double over from the stunning blow. When he turned,
Tiyuri stood there behind him, swinging a glass lamp at his head.
Before the sight even registered in his mind, Magnius reacted,
blasting the man back ten feet into a wall with a telekinetic
repulsion wave. The discharge embedded Tiyuri in the drywall, but
he shrugged off the pain as he climbed out. A dusky sheen gave him
a phantasmal appearance, but he charged back into the fray without
pause.
    His captor moved faster than a mortal man had
any right to. Magnius had not yet recovered when he found himself
grappling face-to-face with a master fighter. Tiyuri locked his
arms around his head in an attempt to gain the advantage, and
Magnius pulled away with every ounce of strength he possessed. They
stumbled around the room in haphazard motion, and their flailing
broke shelves and a display case on the wall. Lyneea's porcelain
figurines wailed as they smashed against the floor. The two
careened back into the dresser. The moment he fell onto it, Magnius
felt his weight crush every object on it.
    Using what little leverage the dresser gave
him, Magnius kicked at Tiyuri to break his grip. His opponent
slammed his fist hard into Magnius' face. As he recoiled from the
pain, he hit the brute with a telekinetic shock more powerful than
the last one. Tiyuri crashed into the door, breaking the lock and
sending it flying open. But the obstacle didn't hinder his motion.
He continued on and plunged down the stairs, frantically pawing to
grab something—anything to stop his violent descent.
    Magnius didn't hang around to watch. He ran
to the window and stepped onto the overhanging roof. After climbing
down the nearby tree, he fell onto the ground and panicked, knowing
it would only be a matter of moments before Tiyuri came to. He
sprinted toward the white car, threw the gull-wing door open, and
jumped inside. Without even unplugging it from the house, he
shifted into reverse and sped out of the driveway. Upon reaching
the street, he jammed it into drive, running over a flowerbed in
their front yard with his getaway.
    He breathed an uneasy sigh and headed toward
the other side of the city. The trip wouldn't take more than
fifteen minutes on a bad day. But this was about to be a very bad
day. He glanced into the mirror and saw a large vehicle skid around
a corner behind him. Within seconds the bright headlights blinded
him, and the car accelerated toward his. He stomped the pedal to
the floor but the electric car didn't respond, since it had been
designed for city travel not high speeds.
    He swerved into the other lane, missing a
collision with an approaching hovercar by inches. Dodging oncoming
traffic became a frightening prospect so he made a series of rapid
turns onto side streets in order to lose the pursuer. It didn't
work, only serving to make the car behind him more aggressive and
dangerous. They dodged lampposts and vehicles in a frantic race for
survival, one he had no illusions of winning. At the sedan's
current rate of approach, he'd never make it to the landing
pad.
    The two entered a residential area, and the
last thing Magnius wanted to do was injure a child or any
pedestrians. He decelerated and let Tiyuri clip his right rear
fender. In one surreal motion the car spun around clockwise and the
black hovercar smashed into the passenger's side of the commuter,
pushing the two down the street with their inertia. As they slowed,
the vehicles slid against a tall concrete wall, grinding them to a
stop.
    Jolted but uninjured, Magnius tried to get
his door open, but it wouldn't budge. The car's frame had buckled
during the impact, preventing the handle from operating properly.
He glanced at the smoldering hovercar still wedged into the
opposite side of Lyneea's poor wreck. A jogger they'd passed after
the collision rushed over to Tiyuri's vehicle like a Good
Samaritan. If he could've done