14: War of the Worlds - Alchemy

Tom should have guessed that this was going to go tits up for him. His first time as team leader and had all gone to crap. The annoying thing for him was that it had all been going so well, he really thought that were going to make the four hours.
It had been easier when they got near the sea, that had been a great suggestion as the red weed had thinned out. But they should not have gone to the docks, why had he taken them to the docks?
One of those bloody machines had suddenly come up out of the water and scared everyone shitless. And of course with one of them on the scene comms went down.
Again!
Cue utter chaos as thousands of people attempted to flee. When the crowd stampeded the team had been broken up by the sheer force of the crowd. He had tried to catch a sight of the fliers but he was buffeted too much.
A glint of metal caught his eye. Colossus moved through the crowd, she was being careful not to hurt anyone, these may have been simulated victorians but for the duration of this exercise they were considered as people.
There were more dark faces in the screaming crowd than he would have expected at the late end of the 1800s. But these were the poor of the city so maybe all the ‘bonnet’ dramas his mothers had loved to watch were a bit white biased.
He noted one black guy with blond hair. Bleached blond hair. Now that was definitely out of place.
When the hell had Danny Adeniran joined the exercise?
As strong as the new boy was he was unable to make headway against the throng.
He really needed a flyer to pluck him out of the crowd.