Evasion

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Today

Scott watched the top of the officer’s head on the opposite side of the train as she moved forward through the doorway connecting the two trains. He stood rooted in his spot, at a dead end, having run out of trains to escape through.

When her head bobbed out of view as she ducked off to her left to take the short flight of stairs to the lower section and head in his direction, Scott shot forward and raced up the stairs to the upper section.

He only hoped that his footfalls weren’t so loud that she could hear him crossing over-top of her. He figured the ambient noise of the train and the low rumble of conversation of the commuters might be enough to keep her from hearing him.

He made it to the other side and raced down the stairs and toward the door to go back into the car they had both just run through. When he looked back he could see her on the mid-level on the opposite side, standing in front of the engineer’s booth. She hadn’t yet turned around, but would likely figure out which way he had gone.  There was, after all, only a single possible path he could have taken.

Scott rushed through the doors connecting the trains and then proceeded to race back through in the opposite direction.

As he rushed he glanced out the window trying to determine, based on the scenery, just how far the train was from Union Station. He spotted the base of the CN Tower and knew they were pretty close. Just a few minutes. He could even feel the train beginning to slow down in its approach to its final stop on the morning’s commute.

He figured, with the number of cars he had, he might just make it, so long as he didn’t bump into the other by-law enforcement officers.

He had wondered if they might also be turned; but he figured they couldn’t have been – otherwise they would have, in tune with the female officer pursuing him, have joined in the chase, knowing exactly where she was, and, via her understanding, where he was.

If they had been turned, the three officers could have easily cornered him.

He felt pretty lucky, and, as he raced, speculated about how she could have been infected if it hadn’t been an airborne agent in the train’s ventilation system. She must have been infected earlier. How, Scott couldn’t figure out.

He had to get away, get off this train, to a secure location, so that he could figure things out.

He just needed more than a few minutes to compose the elements that he knew and try to make heads or tails of the situation; why these people – both the people that he knew as well as perfect strangers, had been consumed with the desire to stop him, to kill him.  And, more importantly, who or what was behind all of this?

And, as he ran through another car, continuing to be pleased that he hadn’t yet bumped into the other bylaw officers, and seeing that the train was now entering the tunnel at Union Station, he was thinking he would get that chance. It was likely less than a minute or a minute and a half before the train would stop, the doors would open, and Scott could rush out.

But his luck ran out.

As he was just about to open the doors that would take him onto the next train, he could see, through the glass of the two door windows, one of the other by-law enforcement officers standing in the next car on the mid-level and writing up a ticket for a commuter on that level.

“Shit!” Scott said, turning to look back. On the opposite side of the car, the female officer was coming through the doors.