"Dust in the Wind"

Billy shut the backdoor right as Grace fired. Even set to stun, the raygun beam was enough for the impact to shake the door. Even set to stun, the raygun the beam was enough to fry the electronics of anything in its path, X included. A shot that stunned humans was fatal to robots.

X, backpack around her shoulders, slipped over the balcony railing, Billy following after her. They landed a two-story drop with light feet in the parking lot paved with A-Polymer. X’s eyes flashed as she started up her motorcycle.

“Can you drive?” X asked.

Billy had already slipped onto the seat, loose grip on the handlebars. “I can ride a HORSE just fine, so this shouldn’t be too much different.”

The motorcycle whirred as Billy revved the engine. X climbed on behind him, one warm arm around his waist. The other transformed into a freeze-ray, which Billy had only seen once before in Australia (they were getting real freaky that night, hee-hoo!). X froze the backdoor solid, then tightened her grip as Billy peeled out of the driveway. Grace’s reflection was visible in the mirror as she stepped on the balcony, having melted the frozen door with the raygun. She watched them go, looking unperturbed.

The Sunset District stretched far ahead of them, the buildings gradually rising in height along with the hills, two-story buildings here in this low-lying part, giant skyscrapers in the distance. The distant Kingdom of Fine Arts dominated the skyline, with its gigantic Roman columns and marble domes, old toga-clad consuls adorning white cathedrals, stone faces gazing out at the infinite Pacific, waves lapping at the shore…

“Head for the Kingdom,” X said. “There’s Do-Nothings there that can get us in contact with Kajanas.”

Billy put pedal to the metal, zipping down the shore road, the motorcycle climbing hills with ease. Too much ease. Something gnawed at Billy.

“Say,” he realized. “Where are all the cars?”

Indeed, they were all alone on the roads of Saint Francisco.

X made some calculations, jet-black hair whipping in the breeze. “It appears that all self-driving cars have been immobilized by the military.”

Billy gulped, looking at the sky. “There’s no delivery drones up there, either.”

“Indeed.”

The usual lines of drones carrying cargo and passengers across the skies had vanished, seemingly overnight. Only military-drones flew now, recognizable by the pie-tipped rockets each one carried. They soared in V formations, the sky darkening, not just from a storm but by the arrival of Earthling flotillas, including none other than the Asskicker. Shrieks wailed out across the city as the air raid sirens spun up. 

“The military has also blocked Hypernet access,” X realized.

Billy briefly glanced back at her. “You don’t think…”

X’s impassive eyes gave away nothing. Behind her, in the distance, a trio of drones buzzed down towards the motorcycle. Billy gasped.

Grace, riding the lead drone like a cowboy, fired her raygun. Billy swerved down a sidestreet, the beam narrowly missing. Grace and her followers pursued, her with the raygun and two others with pie-guns, firing at will; projectiles struck street signs, awnings, storefronts, all the while Billy nimble bobbed and weaved down avenues, alleys, sidestreets, trying to get away.

“Why’s Grace after you?” Billy asked. “Why is she after anyone?!”

“She claims to be the Caesar-Messiah.”

“The wha…you mean that Hypernet rumor about a savior?”

“Indeed.”

“Her?” Billy scratched his head. “I knew she considered herself to be the smartest in the room, but still…”

“I was curious about her too,” X explained as they ducked below an elevated freeway. “I watched all 4,323 hours of her Eden’s Apple video essays. At one point, she simply liked the story. Then it became her crutch, an obsession. The one thing she felt she could rely on. She began to see deeper meanings within the words. It’s unfortunate for the world that this was the one time that such delusions were true.”

Grace’s drone dove, becoming parallel with the motorcycle around one block away. She fired a long blast; Billy swore and wheeled up an on-ramp that brought him and X to the elevated freeway. He gunned it down the empty lanes; too much open space up here for his liking. When the drones rose up to the freeway, Billy was already taking the exit, down an off-ramp into a tunnel.

Plutonian fractal-ice shadowed them in blue. For a brief moment, it felt like the world only consisted of the two of them. If only it could’ve stayed like that.

X held him close, and explained it all. Some old dude named Jackson Mississippi. Twenty-four formulas spread across twenty-four time capsules. Grace found them all. Once brought together at the control center beneath the Presidio, the formula would activate Project Pi. Ten warp gates would be linked, the A-Polymer covering the Earth sinking it down into the pocket universe, one ruled by the Law of Man.

“Far-out,” Billy mumbled at the end. It sounded utterly fantastical, but considering how doggedly Grace pursued him, and X’s distinct lack of ability to tell jokes, he swallowed and supposed it must’ve been the truth.

A lone figure at the end of the tunnel cast a long shadow. Grace had flown overhead and was now waiting for them at the other side. She and X fired at the same time, the laser-ray and ice-beam cancelling each other out. Billy put his speed to the max, trusting his motorcycle over Grace’s drone, forcing Grace to nimbly fly off, dodging just in time.

Billy swerved beneath an elevated vactrain rail, using it for cover. “So she’s gonna sink Earth into the pocket universe or something?”

“Lawrence will. He’s merely using Grace. Lawrence wants to be God.”

“And what does Grace want?”

“I’m not sure. To kill me, at least. I monitored her for too long. She was able to detect me. She possesses a violent sort of intelligence. She doesn’t want me explaining the truth to Kajanas so he can stop Lawrence.”

A laser-beam shot past them harmlessly, only to hit the support columns for the elevated rail up ahead. The rail groaned, A-Polymer cracking, as an entire section collapsed. Dust coated Billy’s mouth and eyes as he struggled through the falling A-Polymer and rebar. X’s touch was enough to keep him steady until the motorcycle made it out of the chaos.

Billy spat out dust. “Screw this! So what if he’s gonna sink Earth? It doesn’t matter! Who’d want to live in a crummy place like this, full of people who want to play God, who lie and cheat and steal, who support dictators, hurt others, act without thinking? Who cares if technology’s solved everything else? Technology can’t solve people!”

His pleading reflection gazed at X in the mirror. 

“Run away with me,” he repeated. “Who cares about Earth?”

X ran her calculations once more. She brought her hand off his stomach, placing it over his on the handlebar.

“Kajanas already has an incomplete star map from your interrogation detailing Lawrence's experiments with warp gates in unauthorized locations. But I now have a full star map. Lawrence has placed the ten gates at the farthest limits of human expansion. The entirety of human civilization will be pulled into his universe. No part of the settled universe will escape his future.”

Billy mulled it over, remaining quiet for a while, just the sound of the motorcycle and pursuing drones.

“So,” he said. “That’s that, huh? You and I can’t be together unless we get this to Kajanas, right?”

“Affirmative.”

Billy narrowed his eyes, focused on the towering cathedral of the Kingdom up ahead. “What are the odds we’ll stay together forever if we make it through this?”

The calculation was quick.

“100%”.

Billy slammed the gas pedal right as Grace finally made the perfect shot.