Freegans part 59

Lucy
All hell had broken loose. Blasts of plasma whizzed over and around us, dead men and pieces of robot (apparently, even the Drones could only take so much) lay on the ground, and screams permeated the air. I was running after Cara and Matt, with Ben and Madiza behind us. We were headed for the submarine, which seemed our only option for survival. I tripped several times over corpses, which made me shriek each time. I wasn't used to there being so much death.

Suddenly, I found my path blocked by one of the soldiers, his rifle aimed at my heart. I skidded to a halt, and felt the horror of knowing that I was about to die. He was about to pull the trigger- when he disintegrated into a blob of mush. I saw Paris standing there, holding a smoking plasma rifle! All I could think to say was, "Th-thank you."
"No problem. Come on!" She grabbed my arm, and pulled me after the others.

In record time, we managed to get inside the sub. Kestrel was lying in a corner, clutching a shoulder, which was dripping blood; he must have been grazed by a ball of plasma. Max, Tower, and Deep Thought were administering to him. The Ox burst in, hair and glasses disheveled. He was followed by a crowd of Resistance members and ex-prisoners. I couldn't tell how many had been lost, but I did know that there was a lot more room inside the sub than there had been. I felt a pang in my heart for all those who had been lost.

Once the door was shut, Ox staggered to the controls, and with a few parting blasts, began steering us out into open water. Through the viewing screen, I could see that the consumerists were getting into their subs too; they meant to follow us.
"Yip-yip!" exclaimed Madiza.
We all turned to her in surprise. It was the first time she'd spoken in hours.
"Huh?" asked Cara.
"It's the phrase Aang uses whenever he wants his bison to fly!" she explained in a cheerful tone.
"His...bison?" Matt raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Yes, it's a flying bison! His name is Appa!"
We all looked at each other. It seemed that Madiza was back to normal.

Freegans part 31

Matt
Kestrel said, "We need to keep moving. The Junkmen will probably send out more robots."
"Where do they get all of them?" asked Cara.
"They were prototypes the government created. However, they turned out to be defective, so they were thrown down in the basement, like everything else the government fails at. The Junkmen found them, and decided to reprogram them for their own use."
"How do you know all this?" I asked.
"I'll explain later. Come on."

I shot a glance at Lucy. She looked about to collapse...again. However, she caught me watching, and said, "I'm fine, Matt. Really." She gave a smile that didn't look very convincing. However, Ben gave me a note that said, "I'm helping her. It's no problem." As if reading my thoughts, Kestrel said, "We just need to go a little farther. There's a place where we can hide and rest."
Now reassured, we headed out.

As we crept down the tunnel, I noticed that Madiza was acting strange. Well, stranger. She was wringing her hands as she walked, rocking back and forth slightly. Her eyes didn't seem completely focused on anything, and she was muttering something under her breath. I cocked my head to the side, and managed to catch that she was saying, "...almost there. We're almost there."
"But what will we find?" she asked herself in a different voice. "They might try and take your soul again. In fact, I bet that's just what they'll do."
"Don't be ridiculous!" she said in her regular voice. "He's a good boy, isn't he? He won't hurt us!"
"HE won't. We don't know about the rest of them!"
"Do you think he'd be with trashy people?"
"You can't be too careful nowadays. Remember the Eiffel girl?"

I turned to Ben and raised an eyebrow. He grabbed out his pad and pencil, and scribbled for a long time. Then he handed me the pad.
'A few months before she went mad, a fellow inmate was placed in her cell with her. It was a consumerist girl named Paris, and they sort of became friends. She told Madiza that she wanted to escape and go to the Freegan hideout. However, it turned out that Paris was actually a spy trying to get information out of her. Madiza found out in time, and told her that she knew. Soon after they took Paris away. And a few months later, they did something that drove Madiza absolutely bonkers.'

"Were you there?" I asked. Ben shook his head no. He took back the paper, and wrote, 'She told me. In one of her more sane moments. It really shook her up. It's a wonder that she trusted me.'