Rubin’s Trail Research Lab:
It had been about an hour since Chaeri Wu had someone call for Adrianne to return to the lab. It was simple enough to get others to do what she wanted. She knew why the young males around the lab looked her over so often. Her position also gave her at least a small amount of power. All she had to do was ask and whatever she wanted would be done. She saw the intern dart for the office phone when she asked him to call Doctor Yu.
AD7’s brain activity was off the charts. This was an incredibly important event for the research lab, even more so for Adrianne. Doctor Yu should be here. Is AD7 a threat? Should they try to help her? They needed to know what to do.
Chaeri knew Adrianne would have flown strait here as fast as she could as soon as she got the news. However after all this time, there was no word. Something was wrong.
Chaeri was Adrianne’s assistant though she simply refused to dress for the part. Her baggy black blouse and matching pants did not do enough to hide her curvaceous figure. Her pale yellow skin was covered in large golden yellow patches and a few pink spots. There was a large golden yellow patch on her face but it only made her look cheery. She was rarely cheery.
The door flew open and she rushed out to the lab floor. She walked briskly to the intern that made the call before, startling him. “Any word from Doctor Yu?” Chaeri spoke in her standard, to the point, tone.
“N… no ma’am,” the intern replied, “Do you want me to call her again?”
“No,” she said pausing for a brief moment, “Call the Sky Guard.”
——
Somewhere in Rubin’s Woods:
Adrianne was moving Silent Blur at average speeds, hopping from tree to tree steadily away from Rubin’s Trail. Judging from where they were and the average range of jamming signals, she should be at least almost out of range. She only had to get out of range and call Rubin’s Trail to get the Sky Guard out to help her. That is, if she needed them.
If the gankers really wanted to find her, she had no hints. No ship flyby. No energy signatures on the short range scanners. No pings for her location. Now that she thought about it, they didn’t even turn when she dove into the woods. They kept going towards Rubin’s Trail as though she were invisible.
Maybe she was imagining the whole thing. She had no real evidence they meant to harm her. They may not have even cared for her in the first place. It was out of reflex that she dived into the woods. She put some pieces together that made sense at the time. Her reflexes had saved her often enough. Every now and then, they made her look silly.
She looked on her short-range scanners again. Nothing was there, only the wild beasts. The beast usually got spooked when something noisy came near; they were calm. She had nothing to tell her that there was anything going on, only her nerves.
She looked at Captain Bubbles as if to ask it where she should go. The little sailboat inside pointed behind her to the city. However, she decided to play it safe and go the extra twenty meters before calling. That would put her well outside a radio disruption signal if they were not following her.
She continued a steady pace. She was about to climb the tree to get a better view and a good signal for the city. A sudden large energy spike appeared on her scanners; really close, really powerful. Instead of wondering what it was, she instinctively moved with all her power to change directions.
“BOOOMM” A missile hit exactly where she would have been. The blast shook the limb she was on, loosening her grip for a moment.
Time to go!