Pushing my wrist against the ignition port on the dash, the engines rumble to life. The controls are a bit foreign to me, but I can’t hesitate.
Losing blood fast.
I slam Griffin’s nano-injector into my chest and jerk back on the throttle. The shuttle clumsily takes off the sky-plat as bullets and particle fragments continue to slice through the metal flyer.
On the other side of the shattered glass windshield, I see Oriyen. He calmly steps from the shadow of the entranceway awning and onto the sky-plat below me. I look into his cold eyes and no longer see my friend.
He raises his rifle. Aims with the posture of an expert marksman. Pauses. Exhales. Fires. One round exits his weapon, tearing through the air and into the nose of the shuttle.
Blue flames engulf the dash.
The onboard alarm wails on repeat.
Red emergency lights strobe from the roof of the cabin.
The shuttle stalls.
Over 100 stories high and falling. All systems powering down.
I’m thrown to the back of the cabin as the nose tilts vertically. Sinking faster, the screech of freefall through the busted dash carves through my ears.
An internal snapshot of a neighboring tower is stuck in my eyes. Frozen stiff, I brace for impact. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.
The wild, crashing sound of tearing metal rips me from the loose cargo strap I cling to. An explosion sends pieces of the dash into my arms and face as I smack the roof of the shuttle hard.
The crystalline building, I collide with, gives like wet sand, pulling the tail off the shuttle, spiraling out of control.
The sound is deafening. A gaping vacuum where the tail used to be pulls me towards death as covered crates are sucked out beside me. I’m almost too weak to fight back.
Another explosion.
The entire right side of the shuttle collapses on itself, rolling down the apartment tower, tumbling towards the asphalt.
A scream, I’m not sure if it was me or someone in the way.
Suddenly, the sensation of falling claws to the pit of my stomach. I try like hell to not look down, but immediately I betray
myself. Clutching the back of the pilot’s seat, ready, I expect the worst.
What’s left of Griffin’s shuttle smashes violently to the ground, throwing fire and rock high into the air as it pushes through its crater to a grinding halt.
The sloshing flow of water adds to my crippling disorientation. Sparks of electricity crackle through the billowing smoke I fight as I dig myself out of the wreckage. I’m alive, somehow. Judging by the amount of blood I’m wearing, not for much longer.
The shuttle is destroyed, mangled past the point of recognition. Water from the ruined marble fountain extinguishes the small flames smoldering from the wreck. Damn… I loved that fountain.
Curious onlookers begin to peek from their windows. My upgrade spots at least three of them dialing the emergency line before I have time to reach for a cigarette.
I catch movement. It’s coming from a screen, partly hidden behind the tower Griffin’s shuttle just plummeted through. The massive 2-D billboard screen projects an image of itself on the screen, but it’s somehow being shown from my perspective. When I move, the feed moves.
I snap around.
Different screen. This one suspended from the building the next block over. Same video feed.
Through an open window, another.
Spinning chaotically, I see them all. Every television in Olympia, every monitor, every pixelated screen towering above, the same live stream. Me.
Why…?
How long have they been watching??
Red and white fireworks explode high overhead as the presidential anthem blares, pulling the attention off me and into the air.
My eye zooms in, focuses.
The fireworks and music are coming from a civilian flyer. Hatch open, it coasts through the night’s sky, no regard for law or curfew. The beautiful act of civil disobedience brings a painful smile to my face as I find myself hoping the pilot gets away with it somehow. Fuck Lethe.
It circles in the overcast, coloring the clouds in bright defiance until the anthem sounds its last note. Like a shooting star burning over Olympia, the rebel pilot accelerates, smashing the shuttle into the peak of the Lethe Tower in an unimaginable explosion. It detonates on impact, raining fire and debris in every direction.
I hit my knees in disbelief.
The forcefield surrounding Olympia flickers sporadically a few seconds before tessellating to nothing.
Alarms sound. All of them.
Smoke.
Flames.
People, everywhere, rush outside to see what is happening.
Every screen within eye’s range glitches.
Where my live feed just was, is now white noise, glitching, all but the cold words of Kronos dripping down every screen in red.
The time is now.
“Get in,” orders a hooded woman from the open door of her cycle in front of me. Its pale, slender frame mirrors hers, hovering inches above the pavement. She peers at me with familiar crimson eyes.
“Kalli?” I gasp.
“Actually, I go by Iris now. No time to explain. Get in or die.”
My current circumstances coerce me into the small cabin of her hoverbike. Oriyen will be at the scene any second. I’m not trying to be around when he gets here.
We jet away from the direction of my flat, dodging horror-struck Olympians along our path. Smoke has taken the night with the swiftness of a Lethe enforcer. A dozen of them coast above, scrambling. Off-balance for maybe the first time in their eternal lives.
Ground units patrol the area, going building to building, searching for something to blame, to kill.
Gunfire.
Screaming.
Chaos.
She turns, hands me two clear capsules, and orders me to eat them. I do without question. I’m too cold to argue, too weak and confused.
The faint sound of another explosion ripples across my ears over the low hum of the cycle, but it’s too far across the city to see anything. The city alarms wail on repeat, people cry out in terror, what has this place become?
We brake in front of the Ugly Mug. She cuts the lights and lifts the cycle door.
“Odd time for a drink, isn’t
