Commonwealth: A Novel of Utopia, part 3, chapter 4
Author’s Note: This is an excerpt from my novel Commonwealth. The rest of today’s installment is free, but only on my Patreon site. If you want to read the next part today, it’s already up on Patreon as well. You can sign up for as little as $1/month, or $2 for exclusive author’s notes and behind-the-scenes material. There’s also a table of contents for all published chapters.
The prison guards were regrouping after the mass breakout. Although they were outnumbered ten-to-one by the freed prisoners, they had the weapons. Armed squads spread out across the grounds to round up escapees.
One of those squads caught sight of Rae and her friends making their getaway. As they ran, they heard an amplified voice on a bullhorn: “Inmates! Cease your flight and surrender! This is your only warning!”
None of them wasted breath answering. Behind them, gunfire rattled and bullets whizzed by, but with the cloak of night to protect them, none of the shots came especially close.
Feet pounding on the hard ground, breath steaming in the cold air, they hurried past the frozen shapes of construction machinery. Up ahead, they glimpsed the bulk of the Owl, a sight as welcome as home and hearth.