The Council bodyshells started to close in. One step at a time, they tightened the ring, shooting down frantic bandits as they tried to break out of the clearing. Their pace was slow, almost like something out of a horror movie.
“Turn back! There’s more this way!” she heard someone shout from the left.
“We can’t! They’re all around us!” another person yelled on her right.
“Break on through!” the boss man ordered, his voice tense with strain. “It’s the only way.”
More gunshots. Tera could hear agonized shrieks coming from all around her. Even in the cacophony of the firefight, she could hear the soft thuds of bodies hitting the earth.
Then it was quiet.
Tera strained to peek, but she couldn’t see anything. The wind blew a bit of dust in the air, which drifted on down the ruined street like a puff of smoke.
“You are under arrest,” she heard a voice in the distance say. “Do not resist.”
“You are under arrest,” another voice said, this time closer. She heard the phrase once or twice more, accompanied by the clicking of handcuffs.
Footsteps started to approach the rock Tera was bolted to. It came from behind her, so she couldn’t see who it was, but she knew the feet were heavy and mechanical.
A bodyshell appeared from around the corner, staring down at her. It was a man who had forgone the standard synthetic hairdo most bodyshells sported for a clean scalp. The police emblem on his chassis was unmistakable.
“Thank God,” Tera said when it finally became clear that the Council soldiers had won.
“You are under arrest,” the male bodyshell said, bending down to secure a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. “Do not resist.”
Tera’s brow furrowed in incomprehension as the officer cut her from the rock and lifted her to her feet.
“There’s a mistake,” she said. “I’m not one of them. I’m a police officer.”
“Be quiet while we gather up the rest of your friends,” the bald I.I. commanded. “You don’t want to make this any more difficult for yourself.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said as he grabbed her upper arm and led her with him. “My name is Tera Alvarez. I’m a Human Liaison Officer in Slumside. You can check your database.”
“I just did,” the Council soldier said after a microscopic pause. “We have an Alvarez on file, but your credentials don’t match her. In fact, our records state that Officer Alvarez was deleted in the same E.M.P. explosion that killed Officer Abenayo.”
“That can’t be right,” Tera replied, stumbling a little as they started walking down an incline together. “Clearly, I’m right here.”
“We will have to verify your identity, then,” the arresting officer explained. “As far as we can tell, though, you’re one of those Raider I.I.s who took control of Council property to impersonate an officer of the law. For these crimes, as well as being an accomplice to the murder of two police units and the attempted ambush of a government platoon, you are being detained and taken to holding within Shell City. There, we will confirm your identity and the proper action can be taken. Until then, I would keep my mouth shut if I were you. You can only make things worse.”
Waking
The simulation got one thing right, Ethan thought. The outside world definitely has flying cars.
He and Gauge had taken what the I.I. called an “autocar”, which was more amazing than the teenager had imagined. It was like a personal helicopter that drove itself, winding through the long avenues that made up the lower city. He pressed his nose up against the glass and looked out, taking in the sights. He felt like his mind might overload at any second.
Gauge explained that the vehicle was arranged to meet them by some friends of his. When Ethan asked what friends he was talking about, Gauge simply said, “You’ll see.” He didn’t like that.
The flight was a long one. Gauge programmed the vehicle to fly slowly in order to avoid suspicion, but even if he didn’t, the city was so massive that it still would have taken a while. Ethan watched the holographic signs pass by, designed to look like neon lights or old-timey cloth banners. There were swarms of other autocars zooming around the air between the ridiculously tall skyscrapers.
Ethan knew civilization had advanced and urban areas had expanded, but he had no idea the true scale of it all.
“Where are we?” he asked. He didn’t take his gaze away from the window.
“Shell City,” the bodyshell replied. “Formerly Denver, Colorado. This is what it’s been transformed into since the humans lost the war. This is what the Council built it up to be.”
Ethan remembered mentions of Denver in his educational programs, but he couldn’t remember much about it. He just knew that it was famous for being a mile above sea-level.
Maybe that’s not even true, he thought sourly.
“What Council?” he asked.
“The elite I.I.s who control the world,” Gauge answered. “There are dozens of places like Shell City out there, and they control every single one. Their local representative is Councilman Harring. Someone had to be in charge of how all the I.I.s were stored and ultimately how life continued on. So the Council stepped in, and now they have all the power.”
Ethan felt dismal. “I was promised the chance to live on Mars,” he said, almost to himself rather than his metal companion. “They said life was just one long vacation and we could do whatever we wanted. No one said it would be like this.”
“That’s the Council’s work,” Gauge replied. “They’re the ones that kept you in the simulation so they could harvest your body. To their credit, at least the program seemed fun.”
“It was all a lie.”
“That’s right.”
Ethan felt like he might be sick. At first, he thought it was because of the shock or the rocking of the autocar as it flew. Then he realized how hungry he was. More than ever in his life, he wanted to
