x
Raptor's scowled. "What are you doing?"
"Getting my vectors." Lullabied by quick beats, Jessica pondered the state of traffic as she mumbled, "A-polar-signal-could-be-redistributed-through-a-small-slit-in-the-command-console." Upon constructing the scenario in her head, the next series of events played before they happened. "Babel, on!" said Jessica. The Vambrace illuminated and wrapped around her arm.
Valerie jumped back in her seat. "The hell is that?"
"That's what I would like to know," said Raptor.
Hyper-focused, her fingers dialed the interface. "Babel, I need you to latch onto New Sumer's GPS; reroute and synch the command with this vehicle's processor while I mask the outbound data—"
"Raptor." Monarch reentered the channel, a terrible cadence.
Shannon only glanced at her friends before her face, too, turned dour.
"Whatever happens next, Raptor, you keep going."
"Fuck!" stammered Valerie.
One backward glance and Raptor slammed his fist on the dashboard. "The Azareans are going to check the cargo!"
"No," they're not," Jessica assured.
And then Beelz spoke. "Elsa will not freeze our assets. Standby..."
1...
An Azarean officer stepped to the passenger's side of Beelz's truck. His partner approached the cargo hold.
2...
Dexter's car slowly hovered next to the Enforcer.
Raptor watched. "Dexter, stay—"
3...
A sound of thunder.
Jessica violently flinched at the explosive shockwave from the skylane– An Enforcer came crashing down. Despite the blow to her eardrums, she couldn't bring herself to look away. The HUD pinpointed Dexter's car near the billowing smoke.
"Neutralized," said Ike.
"Neutralized," said Beelz. Over by her truck, the Azarean officers had disappeared.
Frightened and curious bystanders hopped out of their vehicles to inspect the kindling wreckage beneath the sky traffic. Black smoke over the superhighway, hands over mouths agape, and many more reached for their phones.
A shadow immediately skirted over the asphalt wreck. Dexter and Ike's vehicle had broken away from Skylane 15, officially on the run, and a sore thumb in the sprawl. Hope collided with reality when precise gunfire penetrated the car, sparked an engine rupture, and brought it crashing to Superhighway 220 in a smoke heap.
Time stopped.
Shannon almost veered off the road. "What the hell is happening?"
"Ike's car is out of commission!" said Valerie.
"Shannon, just get us out of here," Raptor ordered.
Jessica's head jerked back. Disbelief sank down her throat and boiled into fury. She predicted that Beelz and Dexter would eliminate the Enforcers, but Raptor was doing the opposite of what she expected.
"How the hell can you just leave him!"
"He's my brother. I don't want to leave him!"
Sweat dribbled down Shannon's temples, toiling around the eyes. Hers were hesitation. Jittery foot on the gas pedal, she kept a vice grip on the steering wheel.
"The link has been established, Jess," said Babel. "We can unlock software guidance for vehicles within a 20-meter radius."
It's ready. Jessica ran through the last variables in her head.
"Beelz..." whispered Dexter.
The world cacophony muffled, and Jessica darted to the vehicle remains. There he lay, a meager boy crawling out of the fiery wreckage. Dexter carefully inched outside and onto the road, before sitting himself against the dilapidated door of the flipped car. As he did so, a random voice screeched across the channel.
"Everyone, we've got Asgard incoming!"
Sure enough, their airships materialized on the southern horizon. They were little more than dark specks, but the news of their imminent arrival made Jessica's blood rush. The Azarean Enforcer squad would apprehend Dexter before long, only to put him in a holding cell fit for a terrorist.
"We're out of time!" said Raptor.
Dexter spoke frailly, tiredly strewn against a wrecked bumper. "Beelz, you have one chance to get out of here. I'll distract what's left!"
You idiot!
"Boros!" cried Monarch. "Do everything you can to scramble the airships' sensors. Beelz, I want to know everything they're up to!"
"He's on it!" said Beelz. "I've already tapped their comms."
"Play news," said Shannon, and the car radio switched on:
"—bound routes 220 and 15 have been locked down. Terrorist suspects are armed, in the middle of civilians. Law enforcement officials have engaged..."
Beelz's white truck suddenly broke from traffic and gradually gravitated off the asphalt; it generated lift and rear-ended a few cars. Its flight drew the attention of the last Azarean officers, who lifted their snubnosed rifles and commenced firing. But, they were swiftly suppressed by rogue gunfire.
Dexter limped forward, pistol in hand, no regard for himself.
"There are still too many cars and people on the road!" yelled Shannon.
"Lockdown. Manual steering has been disengaged by the city's remote traffic network," Raptor replied, "but you can still engage manual flight, Shann—"
"Not yet!" Jessica said.
"And why the hell not?"
Asgard is closing in!" Monarch's final warning. "Time to bail out!"
Jessica inhaled sharply, finger levitating over the Vambrace. "Sometimes, the best cover is chaos."
Synchronous engines suddenly swept their surroundings. Every single car gently inched off of the Superhighway as one, and before long, an entire fleet was autonomously floating in the sky.
Raptor gawked, awestruck. "What did you do?"
"I unlocked remote guidance," said Jessica. "
"You mean—"
"Everyone can drive their own car."
"Oh, shit..."
Vehicles dashed in every direction, apparently eager to flee the carnage.
"I'm hoping this doesn't lead to more damage!" Shannon mumbled under her breath. "Oh, Jesus and Jackson, please see us through this."
Valerie stuck her head out the window. "This is anarchy right here!"
Impervious to distraction, Jessica leaned against the rear cushion. Dexter had taken cover behind some abandoned vehicles, and he remained there as Azarean officers isolated him with automatic gunfire. He seemed all but lost until a grey sedan descended overhead.
In a flanking maneuver, the car decelerated. Without warning, the doors cranked upward; two gun barrels poked down and out, to unleash a blue hail that tore through the Azarean uniforms. When the enemy lay bleeding on the ground, the random sedan accelerated out of the vicinity.
"Darkstar, you're all clear," said Monarch. "Did anyone else make it?"
"I don't know," he panted when a gun pressed his head.
"Drop your weapon, human."
The words echoed throughout the channel, for Dexter had his hand on the mic.
"An agent," he whispered.
Valerie dug her nails into the suede. "Did he say what I think he said?"
"Everyone, bail out now! Meet at the rendezvous!" Monarch ordered.
Despairing, forward in his seat to peer pensively at the sky, Raptor spoke in a hoarse and hushed tone. "I'll see you on the other side, Dex..."
"Not for a long time, I hope," he replied.
Jessica nearly tore her hair out. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Raptor ignored her, entreating Shannon with hard reality. "If we don't leave now, your friends are going to die." And Shannon's eyes burned in the rearview mirror. Reluctantly, she hit the pedal, and the car bolted forward.
"No!" Jessica cried. She pushed the door open, exposing herself to the rush, then immediately jumped from the safety of her seat and onto Superhighway 220. "McFly!"
"We are still transmitting the virus, Jess," Babel said.
In her race to the wreckage, every engine within twenty meters independently engaged. Every line of cars became a metallic ripple within a rising tide across the superhighway.
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