"Against the Day"

Billy could feel, hear, smell the frying electronics. X’s grip on his stomach weakened.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, oil leaking from the hole in her back where Grace shot her. 

Her grip disappeared entirely; X fell backwards, almost off the bike, but Billy used one hand to grab the collar of her sweater.

“Hang on!” he said, but then the road up ahead began to crumble. They were about to head across an overpass, but Grace’s followers shot enough stale fruitcakes to knock out the support columns down below. The overpass tumbled away, the gap too far for a leap of faith. Billy had no choice to wheel his motorcycle to a stop, sliding perilously close to the edge. 

He gasped; tears started forming. X has stopped breathing.

“I never…breathed in the first place,” X clarified, giving him a light chop to the head. Billy couldn’t help but give an empty laugh.

Grace, Kenny Franco, and Anon6 halted their drones, forming a semi-circle around the motorcycle, reminiscent of horse-riding outlaws standing before the home of a doomed rancher. Grace wore a dark purple jacket, raven hair down to her shoulders; smoke rose from the tip of her raygun.

“No loose ends,” she merely said. “Today’s the big day. We’ll all reach Paradise. Couldn’t have a robot spoiling that for humanity.”

Billy held X closer. “She’s a person!”

Grace tilted her head. “That’s what I don’t get. Nobody likes it when robots make art. Mass-produced schlop, they call it. With no effort, they can achieve something that would take years for a human to do. So why’s everybody enamored when robots make love? Surely, the same issues apply, no? There’ll be no place for robots in Paradise. A true Paradise wouldn’t have any bit of humanity replaced by machine.”

Grace pointed the gun at Billy. “Don’t worry, it’ll just stun you. I wouldn’t want you missing out on Paradise either-”

X shot her. The dripping oil slick and attention to Billy covered the transformation of her hand back into an ice-ray. She managed to freeze Grace’s hand to the raygun right as Grace shot her again, this time through the head.

“Tch,” Grace muttered, stumbling away, her hand turning a gnarly red-and-purple from the spreading frostbite.

There was sudden action up in the sky. Dozens of military drones spiraled to the ground, covered in fire and paint, as none other than the Martian fleet arrived over Saint Francisco. The flagship Vespasian immediately opened up on the Asskicker, covering a long section with a corrosive paint broadside. The Asskicker wheeled away as the sky erupted into battle, the first fleet action in centuries. Already, the pies and paint were creating casualties.

Martian war-bots and drones swooped lower, towards the commotion around the motorcyle. Grace, trying in vain to unfreeze her hand, shook her head.

“If the Martians are here, then we got bigger fish to fry. We still need to secure the Kingdom and Presidio...”

Her raygun, unable to fire, was useless. Grace and her followers flew off as the Martians arrived at the motorcycle. They fanned out, forming a perimeter, several working on opening up a sealed manhole down the road.

Billy was stunned silent this whole time. He slowly slipped off the bike, sitting against it, cradling the dying X.

“Why?” he pleaded, looking into her fading eyes. “Why’d you have to investigate any of this? Get involved? This wasn’t your fight! If you didn’t do this, then we could’ve been together forever! We had our whole lives ahead of us…”

Metallic fingers touched his face. “You still have your whole life ahead of you.”

She smiled at him. “I told you before, Billy. My prime directive has become curiosity. And nothing is more interesting than humans. Had humanity been pulled into a pocket universe, what would be left for me? You certainly wouldn’t be. You’d be down there, too. And besides…I was only in Australia that day because I was investigating this. If I hadn’t been curious and went to Sydney that day, then I never would’ve met you, either. But like you said…they're not coincidences. They’re miracles.”

Two hands now held his head. “Please listen to me. Don’t continue to reject humans. You let the negative actions of a few cloud the positives of the many. People are good, Billy.”

“One just killed you.”

“And trillions more didn’t.”

Billy struggled to find the words. “If you leave me for good…what are the odds I can keep going?”

X gave him one last smile. “Only you can decide that.”

The Martian bots seared off the cover to the manhole. None other than a dirty, pie-splattered Kajanas arose from the depths. He dusted himself off and strode over towards a waiting drone. He paused when he saw the sight of Billy cradling a dead girl.

The Martian stood before him. “Billy Sodenholzer. We meet again.”

He held out his hand. “Let’s get out of here. The government has fallen. We must regroup on Mars for the counter-attack. My fleet’s arrived to evacuate the people from Lawrence’s tyranny-”

Billy shook his head. He gently laid down X across the asphalt, removing her backpack. He handed over the flashdrive. “We need to head to the Presidio.”

Kajanas gazed at the skyline, now burning, the Presidio fortress looming behind the Kingdom cathedral. “For what purpose?”

“To save some good people.”