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SCL Chapter 14: The High-Speed Escape
🕑 Added 2025-04-07 03:30:45 +0000 UTC"I have an idea." Jim, who was following Augustus, suddenly said.
"If you have an idea, tell me!" Hank on the other side shouted loudly with rapid breathing.
"The gendarmes came by car," Jim said. "I bet they're parked in front of the bar. They're busy arresting people inside and don’t have time to care about the cars."
Augustus stopped, and the people behind him stopped in confusion. No one ran past him at this time.
"Follow me." Augustus turned left at the T-shaped intersection in front and entered a dark and deep alley with no lights. The alley was so narrow that it was difficult for two recruits to walk side by side.
Although the recruits behind Augustus didn’t know what he wanted to do, they followed Augustus closely after a few seconds of stunned silence. No one asked them why they did this but just followed him. In fact, they had only run more than a hundred meters at this time, and it wouldn’t take long for them to return to the door of the bar, but going back at this time would only run into the pursuers.
Augustus asked everyone to keep quiet, so the recruits who smelled of alcohol all squeezed into the alley and didn’t move. There was no light here. The alley walls were covered with blue prefabricated panels to block the rain. Even the moonlight at night couldn’t shine in here.
The recruits waited anxiously for two or three minutes until they heard the sound of the military police reconnaissance vehicle approaching from afar and then quickly leaving.
"Everyone out, run back..." After the engine sound completely disappeared, Augustus whispered again.
A group of people rushed out of the alley again and ran in the original direction. At this time, the steps of the recruits were no longer as chaotic and disorderly as when they had just escaped from the bar, but they still looked like a group of cockroaches running around.
At this time, two military police wearing red shoulder straps were standing at the door of the bar. They looked at the more than 20 soldiers in the uniforms of the Marines running past them in astonishment, but they wondered if they were dazzled.
Augustus found the military police's vehicles in a simple awning outside the Bloody Mary Bar. Most of the vehicles had driven away, but there were still five vulture vehicles and a battlefield assault vehicle with a standard load of 900 pounds. The military police probably didn’t expect that the new recruits who had escaped would suddenly come back, and no one was guarding these 'ownerless' vehicles.
The battlefield assault vehicle still uses four wheels to drive close to the ground, while the vulture vehicle is a floating vehicle, and its appearance is like a sharp three-edged thorn.
The vulture vehicle is suspended a few inches above the ground through magnetic levitation. With the addition of plasma thrusters, these thunder vehicles that rush on the battlefield can reach speeds of two hundred to three hundred kilometers per hour.
The military's 'Vulture' vehicles were far wilder than the modified motorcycle Augustus had ridden at the Styrling Academy. They were more dangerous and thrilling than any customized floating motorcycle that aristocratic youths took pride in showing off on race tracks. Due to the lack of armor, 'Vulture' vehicles were typically used as transport for scouts, but in the infantry's hands, they were always modified with strange, illegal alterations.
"I want the gray-green one." Jim chose a Vulture. "I’ve been driving a harvester on my farm for half my life, so it shouldn’t be difficult to drive this. So, brothers, who wants to sit in the passenger seat?"
"I’m afraid you’ll have to sit in your car for three people. We have too many people," Augustus said to him.
"I, Raynor, Lundstein, Omer, and Benjamin will drive. A Vulture will sit three people. This is the load-bearing limit. The rest will get in the assault vehicle. Brandon, you're in charge of that one."
"I can’t drive a Vulture." Tom Omer blushed. He had driven harvesters and cargo trucks but had never tried anything as extreme as the modified floating vehicles used in Shiloh's underground races.
"I don’t have confidence."
"I’m glad you had the courage to say it; otherwise, someone would be in trouble." Augustus nodded at him, and everyone else laughed at his joke, so no one had time to laugh at Omer.
"I’ll do it. I’ve driven something similar. That was a glorious time." A recruit with gray hair on his temples said calmly amid the laughter. Augustus didn’t recognize him. He was from another recruit company.
"Hurry up and get in the car. They’ll react soon." Augustus interrupted everyone’s laughter and got on a Vulture with a bright red shell and a blue driver's seat. Others followed suit immediately.
Connor Ward sat in the seat behind Augustus. The Vulture was originally a single-person armed vehicle, and the seat was limited to two people. Ilya Kulovsky could only lie on the hood. To ensure that he wouldn’t be thrown away, Augustus got out of the car and used a restraint stretch belt found on the seat to tie him and the Vulture tightly together.
The 'Vulture' sank slightly due to the unbearable weight, and the control panel beneath the windshield flashed red lights, emitting a disturbing alarm. Augustus didn’t care. He called up the three-dimensional map of the town and asked the smart computer to list several routes back to the fortress. Then, Augustus started the engine and fumbled to open the jet valve of the plasma thruster. The Vulture car under his crotch immediately "flew" out. The Vulture car reached a speed of two hundred kilometers per hour in a very short time and was still accelerating. Augustus' 'Vulture' resembled a jet aircraft lifting off the ground for overtime, racing down the narrow streets of Braddock Town at a terrifying speed. Ward, holding onto Augustus' waist, had a pale face, as though he had lost the ability to breathe.
And Kulovsky, who was usually the bravest in the class, was hung on the hood, and it seemed that he would be thrown out in the next second, which forced him to let out a shrill, distorted scream like a woman and think he was on the way to heaven.
Only Augustus remained calm. As soon as he gripped the handlebars, driving the 'Vulture' felt like second nature to him. Driven by interest, Augustus started driving a hover car when he was a child. Now, every car in his private garage under the family skyscraper is not comparable to the 'toys' of ordinary drag racers.
At night in Braddock, almost all the townspeople heard a series of crackling sounds. This is not the sound of the Vulture’s engine, but the sound of its chassis scraping against the ground due to excessive load, causing sparks. The sheriff’s old motorcycle has no way to deal with these drag racers.
"Ohhh!!!" Hank screamed excitedly.
...
The midnight street racing gang of Braddock Town was finally punished.
The military police responded quickly and set up checkpoints at the four gates of Turaxis very efficiently. Despite this, when Augustus and a group of Marines walked in with a swagger, they almost got away with it.
Augustus was also locked up in the detention room and learned from a military policeman that in order to catch the fish that slipped through the net, there were military personnel information collection terminals at the door and inside every bar in Braddock, and everyone's facial recognition features would be recorded.
In fact, every soldier in the Bloody Mary Bar could not escape from the beginning, but at least this experience was enough for Augustus and his racing gang to brag about to others.
Because of stealing the Vulture car, Augustus and others' imprisonment was extended to one week. However, Augustus knew that the military police could only keep them for two more days at most, and the front-line troops that urgently needed new recruits would not let them take another five days of comfortable vacation.
"Max! Move your feet!"
Augustus and the other nine people in his class were locked up in the same crowded cell, sleeping on a concrete floor covered with hardwood planks. And they were not really on vacation after all, so they had no food to eat and no place to bathe the entire night and could only sleep in wet clothes.
If that wasn't enough, the second section of the first platoon also had to share the same toilet with no privacy.
"You can't blame me for this, you have to ask the jailers why they don't make it more spacious here." Max Zander retorted in a louder voice.
"I don't care whose responsibility it is, move away!" Benjamin Crandall's face was livid. He was sandwiched between Max, Tom and Ilya, and his body, which was much taller and stronger than the others, could not move. Although Benjamin was a monk in the monastery in his hometown, his temper was much worse than others.
"Damn it, we are not prisoners!" Aland Lundstein complained.
Augustus was awakened by the noise and looked at the time on his watch: "If you need to pee, hurry up. Visitors are coming in soon. Don't be naked in front of guests."
"If you need to poop, hold it in." Jim added: "Gentlemen, hold your pee steady and don't pee on the ground."
