[imageeffect type=”lightbox” align=”aligncenter” width=”600″ height=”233″ alt=”Week 1, Tuesday” url=”https://www.herogohome.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/RDRW1-2.jpg” ]
Previously on Run, Digger, Run! – A chase!
Jeff Twain had spent most of his life believing that things generally worked out for the best. Despite his lack of super-strength, his body would generally come through for him when he really needed it to. He wasn’t the strongest guy, nor the toughest, nor the fastest, but he stayed in pretty good shape, and more importantly, when it really counted, his instincts were good. As long as he listened to them, whether they said to fight, run, or fight and run, he usually came out on top. If there was a wall past which he couldn’t push, he had never encountered it.
Until now. All it took was one bad afternoon with a super-powered guy who really wanted to get you to teach you your limitations. And right now, Digger was pushing him right to the wall.
Twain had faced Digger before and bested him both times, thanks to luck supplemented with careful planning. But apparently Digger had been half-assing before, because though Twain thought he had planned this encounter pretty well, too, it was all getting blown to hell.
He just hadn’t realized how fast Digger was. Apparently, being on the lam from the law had really jammed a thumb up his butt. He was, you could say, motivated.
But all Twain needed was a second–one second–out of Digger’s line of sight and in the presence of one or two more people, to put the next phase of his plan into motion. If only he weren’t running on empty. His chest burned and heaved, and no matter how deeply he inhaled, it seemed as if there were no oxygen left in the atmosphere. His legs felt as if all the strength in them had been used up, leaving his muscles flaccid, like a balloon with half the air let out.
His body had let him down.
But he wasn’t done yet. He scrambled under a table strewn with leaflets warning about drug residue in the drinking water, hoping an unexpected maneuver might succeed where dead sprinting hadn’t. The teenaged girl manning the booth yelped and fell out of her chair as Twain scrambled past her bare legs.
He hit the ground and rolled under the fabric back wall of the little tent. His toes dug for purchase, trying to sprint even before he had finished pushing up from the ground. He lunged forward in the tiny alley space between the small fabric pavilions and the brick building forming one edge of the pedestrian mall, hoping for a door he might be able to duck into.
Then he ran into someone who was suddenly just there, someone who was not moved at all by the collision. A hand seized Twain’s shirtfront–a hand with a metal blaster grafted onto the back of it.
And something else:Â a metal strap bound tightly to the forearm, attached to a thick metal disk slightly larger than a hockey puck. A small red LED on the surface of the puck blinked ominously.
Come back tomorrow for our next exciting episode!
To read yesterday’s episode, click here…
And to read the next episode, click here!