Longing opens all doors - part 4
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The cyborg let go of the dragon ball and swept in faster than a gust of wind, he dived down into the chasm, shot up again and his hands grabbed the runners from below. The trembling lunch hung just two paces away from him.
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“Lunch!” The urgency of his voice forced her to open her eyes. "Lunch, I'll lift the helicopter and push it onto the safe ice over there. If I shout" Now! "You let go, understand? Nothing will happen to you, I promise.
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"I ... don't know how much longer I can hold on!" Her voice trembled like her whole body. "I don't have enough strength."
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“You can!” Despite this encouraging sentence, C17 cursed in silence. He couldn't hold her and the helicopter at the same time.
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At that moment, Lunch's nose began to itch too. "Not now ... haa ... haatschi!"
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In the first moment of shock, C17 thought that she had lost her last hold due to the sneeze, but instead the blonde lunch had taken over the regiment and pulled herself up with a pull-up so that her stomach was on the upper edge of the runner could lay."We don't have the whole day, C17! Let's go!"
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Relieved, C17 put his tremendous strength in his arms and lifted the helicopter out of the gap. He lifted it a little more so that he could push it sideways away from the chasm on the other runner, which was still on the ice above the chasm. There was a disgusting scratchy sound, but it worked. When the gap to the chasm was big enough, he shouted: "Now!"
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Lunch dropped from the runner and rolled back a few meters with drawn arms. C17 carefully let go of the runner and turned to lunch. "Are you all right?"
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"Just a bruise or two," she said dismissively, getting up and brushing the ice off her suit. "Hopefully nothing broke inside. How about the Dragon Ball?"
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“Oh, goodness!” C17 flew back to where he'd left the Dragon Ball. Of course the puddle was frozen again and he had to melt it again before he could fish the dragon ball out.<br />
By now Lunch had inspected the inside of the machine and checked the fragile goods. "Everything's okay!" She called to him from the machine. "I checked the radar, the next point is in the southeast."
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"At least we can get out of the cold," said C17, rubbing the dragon ball dry and counting the stars. There were three. "Here please," he said, and gave it to her.
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She took it in silence and put it in the backpack that had been kept free. "C17", she still turned her back on him.
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"Yes?"
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"Thanks."
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“It's okay. It was actually really exciting.” He sat down in the pilot's seat, buckled up and began preparing for take-off. "With a little luck we will spend the night on a South Sea beach tonight."
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Not even close...
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A good ten hours later, they were both busy trying to keep the hungry mosquitoes at bay. "Ihhh" Lunch clapped the palm of his hand on her upper arm and pecked the squashed bloodsucker from her skin with pointed fingers."That was number twenty-three. If this continues I'll be an anemic mummy."
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"We'll be gone by then," promised C17 with a grin. "If I had expected the second Dragon Ball to be lying in a swamp of all places, I would have bought us the right equipment."
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"Have you found the right hole by now?" Asked Lunch impatiently. She really wasn't in the mood for "what if" sayings. That wouldn't get rid of the stitches that were slowly itching like hell.
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"Yes, I did," surprised her at 17. "It must be that back there. The ad is clear."
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"I don't suppose the Dragon Ball is visible, do I?" Lunch asked with a sigh.
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"You got it", C7 agreed with her. "I'll sound out the depth and then we'll try a net. Maybe we'll be lucky and fish the ball."
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The attempt remained. The hole was only about three meters deep, but there were so many half-rotten plants in these three meters that they pulled a lot of green stuff in their coarse net in the pale daylight, but not a dragon ball."I'm going to dry up the hole," decided C17 after they were both covered in mud and slime.
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"It's worth a try," said Lunch, stepping back. The involuntary mud packs had one good thing, they cooled the mosquito bites.
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C17 gathered its energy and shot a blindingly bright beam into the hole in question. A cloud of stinking water vapor hissed up and took Lunch's breath away. "I ... can't ... see anything," she gasped.
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"Neither do I", the steam burned in C17's eyes. "We have to wait until it disappears."
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They did that too. After a good half an hour a light wind came up, which drove the fine droplets apart. C17 came up to the boiled swamp hole. The mud at the bottom had been baked hard by the heat of the beam. Somewhere in the cracked gray-green-brown stuff was the dragon ball.
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"Do we have a shovel with us?" He asked Lunch.
<br />“Come on!” Lunch tossed the shovel into the hole. C17 grabbed her and began breaking the ground chunk by chunk. After the third load, which he swung out of the hole, the groundwater pushed in from below and the ground became more and more moist.
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“Where is this damned ball?” C17 was significantly heavier than a person his size due to the metal parts of his body and gradually sank to above his knees into the increasingly soft ground.
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The shovel finally encountered resistance. C17 grabbed her tighter and pushed her under the hard chunk that he couldn't really see through all the mud. He carefully lifted the shovel and shook it gently until the mud revealed an orange ball. "I have it!" He called out to lunch.
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She knelt on the edge of the hole and held her hands down to him. "Great. I'll take it!"
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Only now does C17 notice that he was sunk up to his waist in the mud. "Cursed!“He looked up.“ Catch him! ”And tossed the Dragonball Lunch.
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Her reaction wasn't bad and she got hold of the five-star ball. "Done, but what about you?" She called to him.
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“Don't worry, it takes more than a little mud to hold me!” He gathered his strength and tried to fly out of the hole. But that didn't work because he had nothing to push off, the mud gave way and evaded his strength. Panic slowly rose in him. “I don't want to end up in a boghole, damn it!” Was he really doomed to suffocate in the dirt here?
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Lunch didn't think twice, put the dragon ball aside and ran to the helicopter, which was standing on a rocky hill a good thirty meters away. A rope was found quickly. She tied it to one of the runners and ran back to the hole with the loose end. Damn it! It was just a little too short, it was about three feet away from him.There was no time for long deliberations because it sank centimeter by centimeter. Lunch tied the end of the rope around her right wrist and then lowered herself into the hole. “C17, pull yourself up on me!” The cyborg didn't have to be told twice. Her ankles were just within his reach. His weight was very tugging on her and especially on her wrist. With her free hand she had grabbed the rope above the knot and was trying to take the pressure off her wrist. "Is it okay?" Asked C17 from below.
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"It has to," she squeezed out between her teeth. "So don't dawdle unless you're secretly keen on a mud bath ..."
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C17 grabbed hold of it and pulled himself up. Lunch closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. Bit by bit, C17 climbed up on her, on her knees, and finally on her waist. She bit her teeth even harder. When he reached up and came across something very soft, she hissed at him angrily that he almost fell back into the hole in shock.At last he was completely out of the mud. It pushed away from the still-caked edge and flew out of the hole. One jerk, another and he'd pulled out lunch. Crouching on her knees, she first took a deep breath, then tried to untie the knot around her wrist, which she couldn't really do with her left hand.
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“Let me do it!” C17 knelt next to her and his dexterous fingers quickly untied the knot. He paused when he noticed the blood on the rope. Lunch didn't notice how his eyes widened in dismay as she shook her bloodied wrist and stood up to find the first aid kit in the helicopter. C17 stared after her, helplessly searching for words to make her understand how he felt ... "The dragon ball is over there!" she called to him. Bring him with you, then we can fly on, "she called over her shoulder and was gone inside.<br />
C17 shook off his stupor, grabbed the dragon ball, and followed her.
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In the semi-darkness of the helicopter he could see that Lunch was crouching in the copilot's seat and brushing a disinfectant solution onto his wrist, occasionally sucking in air with clenched teeth when there was a particular burn.
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"Put the dragon ball in the backpack, please," she said without looking up. "The radar is over there."
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C17 tossed the five-star dragon ball to the other and looked from the radar to her and back again.
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Lunch tore open a pack of bandages with her teeth, wondering how unwieldy it was to be able to use only her left hand because she had to hold her right hand still to get the ointment she had applied earlier. In the background she heard C17 running the water in the washing compartment. Somehow this stupid shell was damn tough, it tore it a little tighter.
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"I'll take care of that," she heard C17 say, he took the bandage from her and tore it open.A long, narrow wound pad was pressed onto the layer of ointment as a cushion and with careful but secure grips he wrapped the bandage around her wrist, her hand trembling a little in his. He smiled encouragingly at her. So weak and yet so strong, it must have hurt so bad when he was hanging with all his weight on her. "You know," he said lightly, "you're an amazing woman, Lunch. I really hope the guy appreciates what he has about you."