We were soon back onto Winchester road and hurtling forwards up the incline towards the train lines at a breakneck speed. Snap bounded along on her hands and feet in a feline way, her ink-rubber-suit giving her the bounding strength to cut through the air with each controlled dive to the concrete followed immediately with a superhuman bouncing bound upwards.

Likewise Clang thundered along to my right, steam gushing from his mouth and eye sockets and from his back. His pseudo-metallic-gold body was strong enough that it could not only withstand the punishment of sprinting like a machine at a superhuman speed, but could also strike the main road concrete hard enough to leave small pot holes.

I crouched lower on the resin-board to ease the amount of wind resistance trying to slow me down. A traffic jam rapidly blockaded the way up ahead.

Pap! Pap!

Zip!

Thwunk!

I used the rear end of the car blocking the way ahead as another anchor for my resin-threads, and then as a ramp to soar up and over.

Thwunk! Thwunk! Thwunk!

I sailed across the roofs of the traffic-jammed cars one after another, hardly losing any speed.

There were throngs of school children in their black and gray school uniforms running along the pavement on either side of the road in the opposite direction to us.

"What's the plan?!" Clang's voice rang as we neared the train lines.

"Keep people safe and find out what's going on," I resonated back.

I caught sight of the African men on their motorcycles driving across the train lines, and a momentary glimpse of the snow-white-skinned, rose-patterned-costumed young woman trying to get away from them. That strange mass of flesh which had sprouted out of whatever that device was before was still latched onto the lower right portion of her body, and was slowing down her bounding leaps.

What is that? I thought.

That flesh has the properties of a teratoma, Slip resonated inside my head, a teratoma is a type of tumour that contains several different kinds of body tissues – from muscle, bone, hair, or even bits of organ tissue.

Gross, I thought, remembering back to the Wedder Gorge facility and seeing the twisted mass of human flesh the Adam-George-Amalgamation had become.

I noticed also that the snow-white-skinned woman had been holding something cylindrical about the size of a briefcase in her left hand.

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There were even more children near the train lines fleeing in different directions along the pavements, with some making mad dashes across the roads. There were also adults, trying to usher the children or otherwise get themselves to safety too.

The train lines were down, the lights flashing yellow and red and the siren-bell ringing to ward off anyone who might try and attempt to cross.

Throughout all this chaos I noticed something which made my resin-blood run cold.

A half dozen secondary school children had just climbed over the train lines in a bid to race over the other side.

"The kids!" Snap shouted.

Clang and I had already spotted them. The three of us pushed ourselves even faster towards the train lines.

The train was coming, and wasn't pulling into the station, but instead was going to barrel onwards without losing any of its colossal speed. Already I could hear its distant warning cry as it drew relentlessly closer. One of the kids had fallen to the ground, and another two were trying to get him to his feet. And the rest were still far too slow in trying to cross to the other side.

"Two each!" I resonated.

Snap and Clang shouted back quick 'yeahs!' to affirm they understood.

The train screamed closer, and I could see it growing from the right-hand side.

I made it over the first train barrier, using the zipping thrust from the resin-threads to propel me faster.

In the moments leading up to trying to reach the children, I had slowed time in order to figure out how I might grab them without breaking their spines from the impact, because there was no way I could cancel out my own speed and scoop them up safely in time.

The solution came to me, and even with my time perception slowed I used every micro-instant to act on what I needed to do.

I aimed the resin-staff at Clang first, and a great rush of foamy resin covered the front of his golden chest plate armour. Clang, who I could see was also using slowed-time perception, was only momentarily surprised by what I was doing. And then he understood.

I then did the same to myself, willing the power to create another rush of resin foam through the other end of the resin-staff.

I couldn't hear anything except for the train as its shadow, and the uncompromising force of its great metal front filled my right-side periphery, as well as Clang who was brushing shoulders with me.

Over the opposite train barrier and onto the other side. After willing the resin-board to lose its frictionless quality, the resin-board, with me on it, came to a scraping stop.

The two secondary school boys I had caught were stuck in the foam that I had sprayed across my chest. They couldn't breathe because they were face-first in the foam.

Foam-off, I thought, willing the foam to disintegrate.

A moment later the foam eased away as if evaporating, and the two boys collapsed to the ground. They breathed heavy panicked breaths, but they were very much alive and unharmed.

"Slip!" Clang's voice rang, drawing my attention.

He was standing with two more secondary school children face-planted into the foam.

"Ah, yeah," I resonated, and I touched the foam with my resin-wrapped hand and willed for it to go.

Like the two boys, the boy and girl pair that Clang had saved breathed a little more desperately after being freed from the foam after being stuck in the foam longer than the two I had saved. Much to my relief the boy and girl pair were also unharmed.

"That was really stupid!" Snap shouted.

For a moment I feared she was reprimanding me, but then I saw she was standing over the two remaining secondary school students she had saved. I had figured correctly that, due to her rubbery nature, catching the students at high speed wasn't as much of a problem. I noticed one of the students yanking some sticky specks of ink-blood-rubber from his cheek.

I breathed another sigh of relief, but the sound of nearby gunfire and motorcycles reminded me that trouble still lay ahead.

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