Freegans part 57

Matt
It was one of the longest walks of my life, even though I knew it had to be less than an hour long. There's something about knowing any moment you could be attacked by evil Drone cyborgs, and possibly killed, that really makes time crawl. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing almost completely on end, and I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from shaking. We were in the belly of the beast, and we had to get out soon.

I looked at Cara, to gauge how she was handling the situation. She was staring straight ahead, her teeth clenched. I gathered she was still feeling steamed at Paris. I understood how she was feeling, but thought maybe she should let it go. Don't get me wrong, I felt it had been out of line for her to spy on Madiza like that. But it seemed to me that we shouldn't blame her for Project 112; they probably would have done it to Madiza regardless. Besides, Paris seemed genuinely remorseful for what she had done. Yes, I know, the definitive word being 'seemed'. But I like to think of myself as a pretty good judge of character, and I could see no deception in her face. She was really concerned for Madiza.

Speak of the devil, I looked at her, to see how she was doing. She was still in the crook of Ben's arm, scrawling away on the paper as if her life depended on it. Her big green eyes stared vacantly into space. I gave her another glance; it was funny that I hadn't noticed it before, but her eyes were basically the same color as Cara's! That was odd. You didn't see that many green-eyed people. It almost made me think- I dismissed the idea. That would be waaaay too far-fetched, right? Even for such a convoluted, wild story as ours. It had to be a coincidence.

Kestrel and Ox led us almost effortlessly through the corridors; every time we came across a Drone, Deep Thought would reprogram it, whistling cheerfully. In a way, this was happening a little too easily. I began to wonder if any moment we might get caught, or be heading into an ambush. My fears were confirmed when we got down into the docking bay, and came face to face with an entire squadron of soldiers, surrounding the perimeter, with plasma rifles drawn, and pointed right at us.