They made a run for the door. Monica first, the girl second, Ventura third. Running barefoot, they tried to hop over the flying shards of glass but the girl and Ventura stepped on some particular sharp pieces and the girl let out a scream. Ventura tried to cover her mouth but the girl swung left against the wall. Monica turned and led her into the hall. The wind was harsh and a storm had started. When Monica, the girl and Ventura reached the door, Monica was the one to pull at the knob. When she did this, it didn't budge at first. Ventura peered down at their feet and saw the two shadows were still there. Feet, she thought. "Monica!" She hollered over the wind, before suddenly the door burst open at Monica's pull—and knocked Monica and the girl on the floor while the door knocked Ventura into the wall and sandwiched her. Ventura's face was pressed sideways and she spotted Monica's face go pale with horror as she was about to scream. A shadow fell over her, a gun, and pop-pop went her chest.

The nerdy girl screamed next while Monica shook and looked down at herself, touching her breast with her fingers, rich cranberry juice pouring out her bullet holes. She murmured. The shadow of the gun was swift to move over the nerdy girl now when Ventura suddenly pushed the door back, found space for her leg, and lodged it hard against the door, lodging it straight out and the shadow of the man with the gun flew sideways and the bullets burst somewhere else into the darkness as a huge thud cracked against the opposite wall. Ventura saw the shadow bounce back to retaliate so she kicked the door again and the shadow smacked harder against the wall. Again and again she kicked that door until she heard what sounded like a man behind it squeal like a pig being mercilessly butchered at a slaughterhouse.

The nerdy girl screamed and covered her eyes as the shadow of the man crumpled on the floor and Ventura finally stopped when she saw his gun fall at Monica's feet and his body collapse to the floor. Ventura immediately ran around the door, picked up the gun and shot the man in the head and heart. The nerdy girl stared up shaking as she watched her escort kill this man. But Ventura went on autopilot and turned her attention to Monica.

"I'm going to get you out of here. Come on, give me your arms." Ventura pulled Monica over her back and the nerdy girl looked at her as if worried or relieved that Ventura looked like she'd done this before. But unfortunately, Ventura had never done this before and only seen it happen in the war movies she sometimes watched with Elon at the space hotel. They were at their feet when a loud crash entered through the back windows again and Ventura looked back to close the door when she spotted several men in full black body armor rappelling into the suite with heavy weaponry. She slammed the door shut behind her and ran. After they ran across the hall, the nerdy girl pressed the elevator button but Ventura told her there was no time for that and kicked open the door to the stairs. She led the way with Monica on her back, the nerdy girl racing behind her.

They descended quickly, hoping not to trip with Monica's weight on Ventura. They went round and round on that stairwell. The nerdy girl looked down and saw that the stairwell appeared endless.

(We've got no time time We've got no time We've got no--)

Ventura hoped the guards had taken the elevator down thinking they had because the nerdy girl had pressed the button. That should buy them some time, right?

"Call a cab on your phone right now," Ventura told the girl. "We've got no time."

The girl said okay, she was running out of breath, her stamina letting up. "I don't think I can go much longer."

"You're going to have to or you're going to die."

"But how are you running so fast? Even with all that extra weight how are you doing this?" She slipped as she was selecting a ride on her phone and the second she fell the phone slipped from her hands, cracked on the rail, and bounced over into the stairwell, diving with endless acceleration into the golden-tile abyss below.

Ventura cursed and stopped to turn and see if the girl was alright. The girl was wobbling back onto her feet but her face went into a red bunch as she grabbed her ankle in pain. "I think I sprained it."

"That's okay, you can hop," said Ventura, irrationally thinking if you think it you can do it. "Did you get the cab?"

"No, I dropped my phone the last second and I--"

The doors a few flights above them slammed open with a loud bang that echoed and shook the stairwells to the bottom. Ventura cursed and almost slipped as she pivoted to run down the stairs quicker than she had before. "Hurry," she said to the girl who started crying as she clung to the railing behind her tail, all while painfully hopping down one stair to the other.

The girl was falling behind and Ventura commanded her to start jumping double steps or she was going to get killed. "Faster, faster." Round and round they went.

(Round and round and round and round and--)

"Ventura! Wait!" Shouted the girl, but Ventura hardly looked up for a second, never stopping to wait, when she spotted nine or ten men pelting down the steps in full force and

(Save yourself drop your friend leave the girl save yourself drop your friend leave the girl)

knew she could not wait for her.

"Whatever you do, don't stop! Don't stop running," Ventura shouted, before the bullets started flying and the girl screamed. Ventura's blood was bursting through her veins with such jagged tension it was like an orchestra of violins playing notes so fast the friction and pressure of the horsetails on the strings were about to snap the strings in half. The bullets

(They're gonna kill you You know who they are They're gonna kill you They're gonna fucking kill you)

flew and ricocheted off the walls when she heard footsteps clanging down the steps directly above her head. The girl was out of sight and she heard a paralyzing scream when the girl's giant eyeglasses knocked off the stairs and descended across the well and actually hit the rail beside Ventura and bounced over to the landing in front of a door on the third floor.

Ventura took it as a sign to take the third floor out of here. She grabbed the door knob, kicked the glasses up in a football-like swinging motion to catch them and raced through the third-floor halls with Monica on her back and pressed the glasses in her pocket.

She swung around a corner and heard the door she'd just pushed through swing back open. They were following her.

She pelted down another aisle of carpet and then around another corner when she saw a row of six elevators: one opening, two closing. She ran toward them immediately when she

(Your phone! They found you through your phone! Get rid of it Get rid of the damn thing! It'll kill you!)

yanked her hand into her pocket, the people in the elevator seeing her as the doors closed and started screaming at the sight of Monica's pale bleeding body on Ventura's back, and chucked the phone at them, nearly missing the narrow opening before the doors shut.

The elevator's overhead light read that it was descending to the first floor. Ventura spotted the other open elevator and ran to it. She took it to the second floor. The men would race to the first floor and she wouldn't be there. She'd have to find a way out other than through the first floor exits. The elevator was playing some "Girl from Ipanema" before the doors ripped wide open and she lumbered out, some passersby screaming as she went. But there were no guards.

(Yes, yes, they chased the phone. They chased after the damn phone!)

She raced down the hall to cut a maze as far away from the stairway and elevators as possible. It wouldn't take long before the men found her phone sitting idly on the elevator floor. They would find out she'd been onto them. So, she went around another corner

(and another corner and another corner)

until not even she knew where she was anymore. And the heartstrings kept plucking that horrific symphony. The rain had begun as the storm blistered against a nearby window, black as hell except for a few ominous green outdoor lights. She ran for it

(Jump out that window, jump right out, you can make it you can make it)

but Monica's weight on her shoulders had started to kick in and the strength in Ventura's legs were beginning to give out. "Monica..." Ventura said, trying to get an answer.

No answer came. Ventura's breathing escalated into panting. Then, she heard voices creeping in like ghostly echoes through the halls. Rapid chatter--

(they found me they're on the second floor they're looking for me here they'll find me they'll find me)

--doors bursting, the shout of a man-- "There she is! I found her I found her!" --

But Ventura charged at that window, pulled up the gun she'd taken from the man who'd shot Monica and shot two-four-six bullets through the window shattering it to pieces, inviting the wind roaring through and a mess of street noise and police sirens from outside.

"I've got a clear shot," shouted the man from the end of the hall, "stop, Ventura, STOP!"

The sound of her name sent an electric shock up her spine and she spun on her heel and wasted the rest of the barrel on him and hit him with every shot until the deafening Click! popped. The man collapsed and before anymore guards appeared Ventura tossed her gun down the perpendicular hallway and dropped Monica off her shoulders—held her in her arms, peered out the window and--

(Trees, so many trees throw her in throw her in!)

--she tossed Monica over the windowsill and saw her body break the top layer of fine twigs and collapse into a tangle of long branches. The wet leaves bounced like a trampoline and sent water spraying in all directions.

Ventura jumped out the window next but not before--

(another one bites the dust hey hey)

--something like a thick needle stuck the back of her rib and she summersaulted over and missed the tree completely, she hit a streetlamp directly below her instead and then bounced on some company's sunroof and then landed on a hard mailbox. Her face splashed into the gutter. Rainwater streamed into her face quickly down the walkway's slope.

She could hear the sirens and the people screaming but the sounds were distant. She opened her eyes and realized she was near the far back of the building. The crowds and emergency personnel were likely in the direct front and back then where the main exits were.

She got to her feet and felt her legs and arms still worked but she looked to her rib to find it was bleeding, yes, bleeding. She looked up and saw Monica hanging low in the tree. She ran up to fetch her when bullets rang out and sprayed from overhead in the second floor where they'd jumped out the window. Ventura pulled her carelessly out of her nest, and no doubt gave Monica's arms and neck heavy scratches from the tangled branches but she raced with Monica on her back down the romantic, dimly lit paseo gardens.

Running across the corner, dodging another last spray of bullets, she made a maze zigzagging down that street and around that corner and down that street and around that corner again, when finally, she found a cab and jumped into it. She dialed the furthest away place—San Francisco—that this cab company car would take them, and was sure to toss Monica's phone out the door before they left. The cab sank like a coin falling down a well, and jetted through the tunnel ways upstate, where Ventura hoped they'd be lost forever. She hoped that nerdy girl would be okay, she knew she would, but what was more important in Ventura's mind was getting Monica to a doctor, and getting off this planet, to find Al Zander, whom she knew now ordered for her execution-- and to kill him first.