The Fall by Claire Merle Page B

leaning against the front passenger door, hand cupped over Cole’s interface projection. His alert eyes held a look of calm determination.
    The headlights grew brighter until white light haloed Seton. Ana held her breath. She tried to count like she used to under water, remain calm, fight the body’s desire to flee. The three seconds the car took to pass them seemed like eternity. Finally the world sank back into blackness. The vehicle turned onto Bayswater Road by Kensington Park and was gone.
    Hands trembling, Ana shook the stove can to make sure she’d emptied it all. At the same moment, the choking cough of a battery split the air. Her heart jumped with excitement. Then the battery spluttered and died.
    ‘Wait!’ she shouted, running around to where Blaize sat in the driver’s seat. ‘Don’t try it yet.’ She poked her head into the car to look at the dashboard. He’d stripped the plastic panel around the ignition. Wires cascaded to the rotted carpet floor. One set had been wound together. Another set, the brown ones, Blaize was holding apart. Seton meanwhile had managed to wedge open the front passenger door and was getting in.
    ‘We need to hurry,’ Seton said, looking at the image projecting on the windscreen from Cole’s interface. ‘There’s another patrol car approaching from the west. It’s heading straight for the others.’
    ‘Let’s use the interfaces for the solar panel,’ Ana suggested. ‘In laser mode they’re fifty times more powerful than torchlight. It’ll give the battery an extra boost.’
    ‘We’ll light up half the street.’
    ‘Only for a minute.’
    Seton looked from Ana to Blaize.
    Blaize grinned. ‘She’s growing on me.’
    ‘OK,’ Seton said. ‘We’ve got thirty seconds.’ Ana and Seton switched the interfaces to laser mode and aimed them at the solar panel on the top of the dashboard. Seton counted. The silver panel sent beams of light shafting and reflecting all over the place.
    ‘That should do it,’ Seton said. Ana waved a hand over the interface sensor and it switched off. Seton flipped his laser beam to a soft ambient light. ‘Now try it.’
    Blaize touched together the exposed metal ends of the brown wires he’d been carefully holding apart. The battery started.
    ‘Yes!’ he cheered. Seton looked round at Ana and nodded. She grinned, feeling his approval. ‘Hold these,’ Blaize said passing Seton the wires. ‘Don’t let them touch. We’ll get some tape from the medical kit to make them safe.’
    Blaize used the automatic lock to open the back door and Ana jumped in. Within seconds, they’d backed out of the narrow space and were heading up the street. The interior of the vehicle smelt musty and damp, but it cruised along smoothly enough.
    As they turned into Orme Lane, the street Cole was on, the patrol car turned in from the other end. The vehicles were approaching each other head on.
    ‘Police. Keep going,’ Seton said, ‘ and let me do the talking.’
    Ana tried to silence her breathing but it came out raspy and shallow. The blue light on top of the police car began to flash. They crawled to a halt before it. On the pavement, level with where they’d stopped, Ana saw Cole’s legs sticking out from behind a rusty vehicle. She gulped in a breath, peered sideways and saw Rachel and Nate pressed up tight to a second car, not two metres from the police.
    ‘Don’t cut the engine,’ Seton warned Blaize. ‘And put that knife away.’
    Two men dressed in blue v-necks and trousers got out of their vehicle.
    ‘Everyone stay calm,’ Seton said quietly, as he buzzed down his electric window. But the officers rounded the other side to where Blaize was driving. One of them tapped a baton on the pane beside Blaize’s ear. Blaize snorted, purposefully taking his time to comply with the request. He was enjoying this. He liked the action and the challenge. Like with the rabbit , she thought . He’d volunteered tonight because this was his idea of fun.