Chapter 10 chapter Ten

They fly over the roof.Hamid shivered as the morning chill chilled his wet clothes.The sun was already over the horizon, but it wasn't shining enough to keep Hamid from the cold.The house casts long, clear shadows on the ground.Looking down, the interior of the warehouse can be seen at a glance; although the light inside has been dimmed, a few flashes of light can still be seen from time to time.More red-gray squares floated from the ruins.Fire trucks and armored vehicles were parked in the middle of the yard in front of the warehouse; a number of people were running in and out of the guardhouse, and a group was moving towards the warehouse's flank.The two men next to the armored vehicle spotted Hamed, and the others stopped too, staring gapingly at them, watching the "not a dog dog" hang with its owner under a parachute flying in the wrong direction.Hamid, who has watched a lot of "cops and thieves" and the like, knows that these guys can take them down with ease, and in a variety of ways.He saw a man climb into the armored vehicle.If they're as willing to shoot as those two guys in the warehouse...

Half a minute passed.The scene below gradually shrinks, shrinking between Hamid's feet.The croaking stopped, and the cold air seemed to have no effect on it.Quack put his head and neck on Hamid's shoulders, turned left and right, looked around, and kept saying softly, "Wow, wow." See you later, baby.They floated and floated under the anti-gravity pads, and they kept shaking more and more!After a dizzying spin, the sky and the earth switched places.Hamid found himself buried headlong into the cushions.He struggled to lift his upper body: now they were not hanging under the mat, but lying on it.It's crazy, how do you keep balance like this?In less than a second, it would turn over and hang them down again.Hamid hugged Quack...but the shaking stopped.It seems that it is even more difficult for them to maintain balance when they hang their heads.This is yet another proof that antigravity materials are self-aware, with processors that use their own laws to produce seemingly impossible results.

This ghost thing is really a flying carpet!Of course, with so many knots on it, the cushion was wrinkled and twisted badly.Therefore, their mounts are far from the flying carpets in the mythology, but more like croaking nests in an apartment. The warehouse area is no longer visible.Overhead and all around, a lot of anti-gravity material is rising with them.Some are only a few meters away from them, and some are just specks in the sky.To the west they were on the same level as Margate's tall towers, with their brown or ivory walls and large panes of glass reflecting the morning scenery.To the south, the cross-shaped streets of the small town of Ann Arbor are almost completely shaded by bare trees; the sidewalks of the college and school are clearly visible, and there is a striking red dot, the Moral Building.Seen it almost every time he flew back to the farm, but now... there was nothing around him.It's just him and Quack...and the sky seems to stretch infinitely.Hamid swallowed and didn't look down for a while.

They are still rising.The wind was blowing straight on their heads, and it seemed to be blowing harder and harder.Hamid trembled uncontrollably, his upper and lower teeth began to fight, how tall is it now?three kilometers?four thousand?Hamid was frozen, and so was his jacket: Whenever he moved, he could hear the ice cracking in the jacket.Hamid felt dizzy and nearly threw up.In China and the United States, if you don't bring oxygen, 5 kilometers is probably the limit.He figured he could control the anti-gravity pad; if not, they'd have to fly off into space with the other pads. But what he has to do is not just slowing down the ascent or descending.He looked up at the worm's barge.The distance was getting closer and closer—it still had to move two hundred meters to the east.If he couldn't get the thing to move sideways, he'd need the bugs to take the initiative.

He thought about it in the warehouse—about five seconds in all.If the anti-gravity material was only lighter than air, Hamid and Quack would be doomed.A balloon without propellers and jets, just let the wind dictate and hope it gets you exactly where you need to be.But when he picked up the first mat, it did slide horizontally towards Hamid's grip... He crawled to the edge of the mat.The anti-gravity pads buckled under his knees, but the rocking was as small as a smooth boat.Beside him, Croak was sticking his head out of the cushion, looking straight down.It shook its head from side to side, carefully observed the scenery on the ground, and kept saying, "Wow".Could she really understand what was in front of her eyes?

The wind has changed a bit, and now it's blowing a bit from the side instead of directly above.He can really control the direction!Hamid grinned, his teeth chattering. Their flying carpet flew faster and faster.The wind blowing down seemed to come from the arctic, and it was extremely cold.Their speed may be fifteen to twenty kilometers an hour.The worm's gigantic barge hangs over their heads...almost parallel to them now. God, they flew over it!Hamid pulled out the knife and pulled the blade away with numb fingers.The knife jerked away—almost bounced out of his trembling hand.He chipped a few bits off the edge of the mat, but the wind from the sky didn't abate at all.He cut as hard as he could at the pad, a big piece, two big pieces.The wind has subsided...and stopped.Hamid stooped over the edge of the mat to look down, swallowing the dizziness hard at the same time.Great.They were directly above the barge, approaching it.

The pressure chamber closest to them was already within sight; in fact, it was so close that it blocked the other three.Hamid can also see human settlements and meeting areas.They will land on a large flat field next to the pressure chamber.The location couldn't be better.Presumably the worm was also adjusting, aiming the barge at its own guests. A gust of hot air came, and immediately after, the flying carpet seemed to be hit by an invisible fist.Hamid and Quack somersaulted, lying on the mat for a while, and hanging under the mat for a while.He glanced at the barge.A streak of yellow and white gas is gushing out from the uppermost pressure chamber, which is what the leakage of ammonia and hydrogen looks like at a thousand atmospheres after the pressure chamber ruptures.The hydrogen also reacted with atmospheric oxygen, enveloping the spear of ultrahigh-pressure gas in pale flames.

The pad swayed again, and the barge disappeared from Hamid's view, leaving only the rumbling and searing fog.Hamed hugged Quack tightly and wrapped them both as best he could with the cushions.At last the mat stopped somersaulting; they were packed head to foot.Hamid quickly observed the surrounding situation: "Overhead" is a farmland in late autumn, a drab brown and gray.Margate was on his left.He bent his body hard and looked towards the sky.Where!The bug's barge was several kilometers away.The uppermost pressure chamber continued to spew flames and water mist, but the lower pressure chambers seemed to be safe and sound.Pale purple sprayed between the two pressure chambers.A moment later, a huge boom echoed in the air: the bugs started to fight back!

He wriggled in the tangle of cushions, trying to get a better view of it.In the north...a bright blue light flew south...the blue light split into five dancing tracks, and the color also changed from blue to orange and finally to red.It's a beautiful sight... but it's kind of like a claw cutting through the sky.The part of the claw tip gradually faded and disappeared, but the things emitting the light continued to fly forward.They fought back the bug's onslaught, battering the northern part of the barge, distorting the surface of the barge like plastic trash in a fire.The pressure chamber below didn't look like much of a problem, but if the visitor's deck had been battered like that, Larry probably wouldn't be alive.

Several times, the sonic boom shook their flying carpet.A lot of things flew in front of them, but they were too small and too fast to see clearly.The cannons on the bug barge were still glowing purple, but the barge was already rising—Hamid had never seen such a ship go so fast. After a while, the flying carpet turned somersault again, and they were finally able to sit upright again.The morning sky has completely changed.Above and around him were strange clouds, some of which were burning.Some were glowing, all brown with nitrous oxide.The foul-smelling ammonia gas burned his eyes and mouth.Quack was also choking and coughing.This time, instead of using the diaphragm, she coughed with her mouth.

There is a small dot in the sky in the distance, that is the bug's barge.The tourists left early, and the other anti-gravity materials were gone.Only he and Guagua remained in this cloud.Maybe there are others coming soon.Hamid started fiddling with the anti-gravity pads: tearing off one piece, feeling the updraft, then pulling off another piece.They flew through the clouds and into a drizzle; this rain burned and burned the skin.Hamid let the mat fly sideways, out of the rain and fog, and they were finally able to breathe freely in the sun again.Large swathes of cloud now cast dim shadows over the fields, but other than that, the surrounding landscape was little different from usual. Where should we land?Hamid looked down from the edge of the mat...and saw the enemy waiting for him.It is a cylinder with tapered ends and a pair of small wings at one end.It floated across the shadow cast by the flying carpet, and Hamid realized that the enemy plane was very close.It is less than ten meters long and less than two meters wide at its widest point.It descended silently and synchronously with the flying carpet.Hamid looked up—there were four identical shadows.They surrounded them like piranhas smelling their prey.One of them flew right above them, so close that Hamid could feel its base as soon as he reached out.On closer inspection, there were no hatches or gaps in its dull surface, but there was a red gleam in the middle of the wing, and Hamid could detect a wave of heat. The strange procession marched like this for a minute, five killers staring at them.Croak's head kept turning with them, his eyes widened, and he kept making the terrified whistle of last night.Hamid felt a slight updraft, presumably caused by a carpet descent.Beyond that, the air seemed to stand still.But maybe it was his illusion? ... the hissing sound from Mr. Claw's phone call from last night came back, from all five killers at the same time, louder and louder.There was something in the voice, so subtle, so hard to detect, that you wouldn't hear it at all from an ordinary telephone. "Quack." He stretched out his hand to caress the neck of the quack, it bit his hand, and its fangs penetrated deeply into the flesh.Hamid gasped in pain and stepped back quickly.The hairs all over the body of Guagua stood on end, it was now fully doubled in size, like a huge carnivore, with murderous looks in its eyes.Hamid had never seen it like this.Its long neck is constantly shaking, trying to monitor all the aircraft at the same time.Its front and rear paws made long gashes in the mat.It crawled to the thickest fold of the mat, screamed at the killers...and collapsed. Hamid couldn't move for a while, all he could feel was a razor on his hand and ice blocking his ears.Then, he struggled to crawl to Gua Lala's side: "Gua Gua?" There was no answer or movement.He touched its body: Guagua's body was as soft as a newly dead animal. In two decades, Hamid Thompson has never had a close friend, but he has never been alone either.until now.He turned his eyes away from Croak and looked at the hovering shadows. One of them flew toward him, and something appeared in its belly, big and dark.Alone at an altitude of 4,000 meters, Hamid felt helpless.The darkness enveloped them, swallowing everything. Hamid had never been in space before.If it hadn't happened for what happened just now, he would be so happy that he couldn't get carried away.Once, he was in low Earth orbit.Seen from there, China and the United States are as beautiful as a dream.But now, lying on his stomach in a cage, looking down, China and the United States are just a small bluish dot, almost submerged by the sun's rays.Hamid pushed hard on the soft floor and rolled over with difficulty, lying on his back.He guessed that the acceleration of the mother ship was about four or five Gs... and it had been flying like this for several hours.