Anax ih dehnt algernee

Ed and Alice ran through hallway after hallway, through door after door. She seemed almost gleeful in their escape. Ed thought he heard her laugh a couple of times. The caterpillar was a good distance ahead, having more legs to move with, and he was beating a path for them to sprint through.

Eventually, the caterpillar stopped at a door much like the others they had ran through, but there was an important difference. This door led to the outside. The Caterpillar held it open. Sunlight poured into the hallway. There was the sound of birds and nature, and a smell unlike anything Ed had ever experienced, in the best way possible. It made him remember every dream he had ever had for himself. He wept.

"Quickly, we have to get somewhere safe. In the open you can both ride on my back."

"Oh Pill, I'm sorry, I know how much you hate this."

"Just get on. I'll nurse my pride when we don't have to worry about being lynched."

Alice jumped on, Ed wiped his eyes and climbed on behind her.

What in god's name was going on? He was weeping at smells and riding on a caterpillar. He wrapped his arms around Alice and sighed deeply. The caterpillar trundled out the door and into the sunlight.

They burst through the doors at full speed, barrelling down a long winding path. Ed looked back at where they had come. It was a massive cave, set into the side of a mountain.

"Jesus." Ed said.

"We will see him back at headquarters, Mr. Cavendish."

The echoing sound of hooves and gunfire rattled from somewhere deep inside. A "Yee-haw!" was clearly audible amongst the noise.

"Get us to shelter, Pill."

Pill scrambled up the sheer rock on the left side of the path. Within moments they were hundreds of feet above the path, hiding on top of a small outcropping.

The Cowboys burst from the cave with the same speed as the caterpillar had. To Ed they seemed to have been fired from it, like a posse-bullet. Fifteen cowboys and their horses, hootin' and hollerin' to beat the band, sailing through the air and skidding to a stop some fifty feet beyond the cave's entrance. They reared their horses up and fired wildly in the air. One waved his hat around in the air.

"Let's get 'em boys! Them polecats ain't got the sassafrass to outrun the Cowboy clan!"

"YEEEEEE-HAAAAAW!" replied the rest of them. More firearms were discharged into the air.

Ed peered over the edge of the cliff at the strange group below. Everything about the Cowboys, from their shining spurs to their ten-gallon hats, was exactly the same. Even their horses, down to the last dapple, were identical. They all wore vests, stitched with a symbol on the back. It looked like a snake eating its own tail.

"What the fuh--"

Alice placed a hand over his mouth. She whispered in his ear.

"Be silent. They may look like a joke, but they are amongst the most dangerous forces that the Corporation commands."

The cowboys below began to settle down, their horses stamping the ground impatiently. There seemed to be some dissent as to which course of action to pursue. The one who had waved his hat pointed down the path, and a section of the posse broke off and started full speed down the path. The remainder stayed right where they were. They began to dismount.

"God, they're going to camp out here, to make sure we can't escape back into the factory," Alice whispered.

"Why would we want to go back in there?" Ed was distracted by the scenery.

"We could hide out in those hallways in relative safety if they didn't have a trail to follow. Now we're stuck here until they decide to leave."

Alice propped her head on her hands.

"We're gonna be here a while. That one's getting out a cook stove."

Ed was finding it hard to be concerned about the whole situation for some reason. Something about the high mountain trail, the way sun played off the trees.

Cowboys? Who cared? He felt intoxicated. Maybe is was because his near-death experience level for the day was several, whereas his initial prediction for the day had been none. He had had enough insanity for one day, and did not like the idea of sleeping on a rock 200 feet in the air.

"We should just start a landslide or something and wipe them out. That's what Clint Eastwood would do."

The caterpillar was exasperated.

"We can get one cooked up for you real quick. I'll just poke at the solid rock with my spear. "

The caterpillar punctuated his sarcasm by doing just that.

Tink! Tink! Tonk.

Cracks spiderwebbed out from where the caterpillar had struck the stone, and ran up toward the top of the mountain. It expanded outward until there was a terrible screeching sound, like the sound of a thousand ice cubes cracking in a thousand glasses of warm water. The top of the mountain crumbled and started to roll down toward the valley, just to the left of the outcropping on which our adventurers hid. It rolled by them like a parade of destruction, safely contained in an avenue of stone, and hit the startled cowboys like, well, an unexpected avalanche.

It was over almost as soon as it had begun, and at the base of the mountain where a moment before had been a posse out for murder, there was now a pile of rock with little bits of murderer sticking out of it.

The three stood at the edge of the precipice and stared down at the carnage. The caterpillar and Alice looked over at Ed.

"I...um. Hm." said Ed.