Evie and Phoenix finally reached the airlock to re-enter the repair shop. They both panted heavily into their helmets after running the entire way back.
“What do we do now?” Phoenix asked while gasping for air.
“We got to tell Kepler to take us the hell out of here,” she wheezed in response.
The doors to the lobby opened and Evie was relieved that no one could see her panicked face through her dark helmet. As they stepped into the waiting area, they realized the same thing. Jet and Kepler were gone.
“Where’d they go?” Evie whispered.
Phoenix shrugged and they both glanced around, trying to spot them.
As Evie took another step forward, Phoenix suddenly brought out an arm to stop her. “Wait.” He gestured towards a group of androids in the lobby that were white and glossy in appearance. They kept scanning the area with the dark lenses they had for eyes.
“What? Aren’t those maintenance robots?” she asked.
He shook his head. “The robots that work here aren’t that clean and advanced. I recognize those new designs. Someone with a lot of money sent them here. They could even be sent by the System government.”
The androids continued to scan the area, obviously looking for something. Phoenix took a slow step back towards the airlock, and Evie followed his lead.
One of the androids suddenly locked lenses on them and started heading their way. They both dropped their subtle escape to sprint into the airlock and seal it in time to prevent any robots from getting inside.
“Okay, so we’re in trouble now,” Phoenix said nervously.
Evie nodded in agreement before the doors to space opened. They were once again hurrying down the crowded streets between the blocky eroding structures.
Phoenix noticed a small alley between two of the structures and he pulled Evie into the dark narrow passage. They kept their backs pressed against the wall and watched a few of the sleek shiny androids rush on by, standing out amongst the rundown street.
“I’m sending Kepler a message,” Phoenix hastily stated. He typed into the screen on his suit and then they waited, hiding in the alley.
---
Jet and Kepler sat in a silver booth as their train departed above the city, headed for structures that were more outdated and chaotic in how they were jumbled together to become various districts. They both kept their helmets sealed so that they could speak to each other on a private headset channel.
A circular hovering drone with a design to signify that it was used as a conductor floated through their train car, scanning the screens on aliens’ spacesuits for tickets. The drone stopped at their booth and said into their headsets, “Tickets, please.”
Kepler pulled up the tickets on their screen to be scanned by the drone. After the drone scanned them and continued on its way through the train cars, Kepler checked their screen and said, “Oh, Phoenix sent me a message while we were in Satellite.”
“Were they caught by Roswell’s androids?” Jet asked.
“No, they’re both in hiding right now.” Their leaves sighed in relief.
Her ear twitched as she looked at Kepler. “I can’t believe you’ll risk everything to save two strangers.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t put yourself in danger to save my life,” they challenged.
Jet turned her eyes to the window and watched the bright lights of the city below pass by. “I didn’t feel like watching you get yourself killed,” she stated plainly. “And as nice as Roswell’s deal sounded, I didn’t trust that he’d take care of us just for doing one job for him.” She continued to stare out the window before saying, “We’ve got to get out of this city fast.”
They perked up a bit. “We?”
She scoffed. “Satellite’s gonna be after me just as much as you after what we just did. We need to go as far as we can from Q-23.” Jet then stood and said, “You contact the repair shop and make sure we can retrieve your ship by the time we get back. I’m going to get a coffee.”
She then left Kepler alone in the booth and headed down towards a different car on the train where they provided beverages.
As they watched her exit the car, a few of Kepler’s leaves shook excitedly. They couldn’t help but feel gratified that Jet was sticking with them.
The train kept speeding down the glowing tracks, within the skyline of the vast luminous city. The city’s bordering space stations hovered closely above the train.
Later, in an empty passenger car, Jet had the front of her helmet detached as she was busy chugging a cup of coffee while frantically pacing. The caffeine made her more on edge and jittery, but she needed it to stay alert.
The anxiety over the new situation she had somehow gotten herself into wasn’t helping. At one point Jet gritted her teeth and held her forehead as she felt a migraine start to come in. The earthy bold scent of the grounds overwhelmed her senses, adding to the headache. Maybe she did have too much caffeine. She glanced down at her cup and noticed that it was empty. Or maybe it wasn’t enough.
Jet hurried to the car door to get back to where there was coffee, but as the door automatically opened, she came to face with a familiar blue screen.
BL-A1R’s screen made a face as she said brightly, “Hello! :D” Her android body then punched Jet in the face before she could react.
Jet stumbled back and fell to the floor, feeling the agony of the robot’s hit ripple through her.
She stepped into Jet’s car, laughing in her automated voice. “That will make you think twice before you go against Satellite! Now your only options are to surrender or perish!”
Jet brought a hand up to her face and found that her nose was bleeding. Her heart was pumping loudly in her eardrums and the nerves swelled until she felt numb. Fueled by a wave of panic, she sprung to her feet and started swinging at BL-A1R with her metal fists.
BL-A1R took a couple of the hits and brought up her arms to deflect some of the others. Jet kept fighting while continuing to feel light headed. She yelled through the feeling to remain in control of herself and maintain her persistent attacks.
She punched the android’s head, which spun in place before BL-A1R reached up to hold it still. BL-A1R then spun her robotic torso around to punch Jet with unnatural strength. Jet could barely process it when she fell, feeling more consumed by her agony than fueled by it. Her vision grew blurrier as the migraine became overbearing and a ringing returned in her ears that made her feel deaf.
Jet didn’t have the capacity to react when BL-A1R dragged her limp body across the floor towards the car’s emergency exit. Her helmet closed as her suit prepared to enter space.
As the airlock to the emergency exit opened, Kepler barged into their train car and shrieked in surprise. They sprinted to the exit and made it into the airlock just as it sealed itself from the rest of the train. The other side of the airlock then opened to reveal the city skyline rushing by.
BL-A1R threw Jet to the floor, forcing her to remain prone. From her perspective down below, Jet watched the others fight in a blur before BL-A1R chased Kepler out of the airlock and up the side ladder to the top of the train.
Waves of agony and nausea pushed through. She was back in the dark place, forced to endure the torment. Sparks flew and she squeezed her eyes shut to make them go away. Jet blinked and tried to focus on the blurry moving skyline. She brought attention to her breathing until she could hear it over the ringing in her ears. She remembered the flash of light and flinched. That wasn’t happening now. Kepler was in trouble and needed her help.
Familiar panic swelled from within, giving her enough of a push to get her to her feet. Jet put a hand against the wall for balance as another wave of nausea took over. She gulped down a breath and shook her head, trying to conquer the feeling. She focused on the train’s exterior ladder and started climbing. Her muscles ached agonizingly, and she found it much more difficult to climb than she expected.
On top of the train, Kepler and BL-A1R were locked into a fight. The tops of cluttered structures and neon lights sped by while space stations hovered dangerously close overhead.
Kepler reeled back from a painful hit from BL-A1R and then dodged to narrowly miss the next punch. They didn’t really know how to fight, and at the moment it felt like BL-A1R’s android body was made for this.
They ran back from the robot to avoid more attacks and then desperately used their vines to grow out one of their arms, allowing them to hit BL-A1R with more power. BL-A1R stumbled from the force before charging forwards to attack again.
They could only bring up their hands defensively and a second later Kepler was lying on top of the train, writhing in pain. BL-A1R looked down at Kepler with her face making an “>:D” image. “On the behalf of Satellite, I welcome you to your demise!”
As BL-A1R said this, Kepler noticed a figure run across the top of the train car from behind her. Sure enough, it was Jet, who used her horns to bash into the robot. BL-A1R’s antennas buzzed with sparks as she wavered from the impact. They continued to flash with electricity as she turned around to take on Jet.
Jet could barely see as she punched at the android with her own robotic fists. BL-A1R continued to stumble backwards as she was thrown off by each hit again and again. Jet panted heavily as she felt nothing but her own fury, which ignited each move she took to damage the android. BL-A1R stopped moving back when she reached the end of their train car, with the gap between the next car directly behind her.
As Jet drew back her fist for another punch, BL-A1R quickly grabbed both of Jet’s wrists and held them on either side of her head with an iron grip. The voltage igniting between BL-A1R’s antennas grew more intense as the robot said, “Target acquired.”
“Jet!” Time moved too fast for Jet to processes what was happening. She just heard Kepler shout her name and then suddenly she was tackled down from behind. The very next moment, the train was traveling through a tight space between the top of the skyline and the bottom of a very close space station. BL-A1R’s body fell to her knees when her head was taken clean off by the station.
As the train continued to speed away, a distant explosion of electricity flashed. BL-A1R’s automated voice screamed in anger as she was not able to electrocute Jet in time and was instead stuck floating away into space as just a head. She furiously exclaimed to nobody, “I will have vengeance! >:0”
Back on top of the train, BL-A1R’s body jolted to bring herself to her feet and then she brokenly stumbled towards Jet and Kepler with clenched fists. Now having more of an awareness of her situation, Jet grabbed Kepler’s hand and pulled them towards the side of the train. “Hang on!”
“No!” Kepler dug in their heels to stop Jet from pulling them any further. “We are not jumping off this train! You can’t just keep diving off of ledges and expecting me to follow!”
She groaned impatiently. “I actually have a plan this time.”
“Oh, you have a secret plan?” Their vines shook bitterly. “That makes blindly trusting you totally worth it!”
“Fantastic,” she said dryly. Jet then ran off the side of the train, leaping into the emptiness of space and dragging Kepler along with them.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“That was sarcasm, you fool!” they shouted angrily.
Their gravity-regulators couldn’t find any nearby objects to connect to and the two of them floated away from the speeding train weightlessly. Jet instructed them to turn off their gravity-regulators to keep them in their weightless state. “Hold on tight!” she yelled. Then Jet’s boots powered on and flaming rockets erupted from the bottom of her shoes.
She flew through the top of the city, dragging Kepler behind her. Kepler could barely comprehend that they were now freely soaring between the bright clusters of city districts. The city stretched on forever beneath their feet, towards another skyline. Jet and Kepler both felt nauseating feelings as they descended to the nearby cluttered district where the repair shop was.
Her rocket boots carried them through the open gaps within the city until they landed in the street closest to the repair shop. They both turned back on their gravity-regulators to hurry inside the shop and retrieve Kepler’s ship.
---
A lot of time passed, with most of that time being spent with Evie sitting while holding her knees close to her chest and Phoenix pacing up and down their small alley anxiously. He kept checking his screen uncontrollably and every so often Evie would ask, “Anything?” He always just shook his head in response.
Finally, Phoenix gasped as what he had been waiting for popped up on the screen. “Kepler sent a message!”
“What does it say?” She instantly got to her feet, having a bit of a head rush in the process.
“Stay where you are,” he read from his screen. He glanced towards Evie and added, “Doesn’t say anything else.”
She felt a wave of disappointment. “That’s lame.” Evie boredly kicked the wall, wishing she could get out of this city already.
“Hopefully that means they’re coming.” Phoenix nervously glanced around, not really sure how to take the message at the moment.
Evie noticed him anxiously fidgeting in place, which was all too familiar to her. “You’re scared now,” she stated, not bothering to phrase it as a question.
He let out a short breath. “I’m supposed to belong here. I spent my entire life on Earth trying to hide, but now I’m up here, hiding again.” He gestured around the alley frustratedly. “I’ve always been scared. But now I’m terrified when I’m not supposed to be.”
Phoenix sat against the wall and pressed his hands to his helmet, remaining in a defeated sunken position. He looked exhausted.
She stood there for a moment, not really knowing how to react before she silently sat next to him. Finally, she shortly stated, “You’re not alone, though.” If anything, she said it to comfort herself. She felt better knowing that she wasn’t the only one terrified for her life.
They spent some time silently sitting together before Evie noticed more of the white polished androids searching by their alley again. Fear gripped her as she realized that they weren’t going to stay safe in this alley for long.
She turned to him eagerly, trying to get him out of the defeated slump he was currently in. “You said you recognize these robots, right?”
He glanced towards the androids in sight. “Yeah, I think they’re Satellite designs.” Phoenix lowered his head again and mumbled, “They’re so cool.” He spoke longingly, wishing he could enjoy the place he had been obsessing over instead of hiding from all of it.
“Hey!” Evie clapped her hands in front of his helmet, trying again to get him out of it. “Do you know if they have a weakness?”
He thought for a moment. “Their lenses are sensitive to flashing lights.” Phoenix suddenly livened up and started typing into the screen on his suit. “You gotta see this video of one of them freaking out from a camera flash. It’s so funny.”
She glanced towards the robots searching in the open street. “Not now, Phoenix!” Evie pulled at his arm anxiously.
“Right.” He looked up and thought for another moment before an idea came to him. He turned back to the screen to pull up a destination on the navigation map. “Yes!” he cheered victoriously. “We’re close to one.”
One of the androids scanned their lens into the alley. Evie scrambled to her feet. “Close to what!?”
He instantly grabbed Evie by the hand and together they darted out of the other end of the alley, away from the androids that were now chasing them.
Phoenix kept glancing at the map on his screen as they dashed around endless turns before they came to his destination.
The place that they stopped at was a dark boxy structure with an extremely faded painted label that signaled this place was originally a compartment of a storage unit. Now this structure was covered in glowing graffiti and the interior radiated with dancing lights, signaling that this place had been transported to this street to be converted into a club.
As they rushed to the entrance, a visibly worn rectangular robot that resembled an ATM slid in front of the open doorway to stop them. “No underage aliens allowed,” the robot droned with a dated mechanical voice. “Must show faces and ID.”
The robot scanned their helmets with a light, which soon started blinking red. “Error,” the robot bouncer reported. “Face not detected.”
Phoenix glanced back to see the glossy polished androids headed their way from the other end of the street. “We don’t have time for this,” he quickly stated.
He tried stepping by the robot to make it inside, but the robot slid again to block him. “Stop. No trespassing.”
With time running out, Phoenix just decided to lower his gravity-regulator to weightlessly climb over the robot and make it inside. “Halt,” the robot commanded with more urgency. “Stop. Please. I need this job.”
Once inside, Phoenix turned back on his gravity-regulator to hurry deeper into the club. The robot bouncer slid after him, blinking the red light and urging Phoenix to stop. Evie quickly followed, knowing that the androids searching for them would get there any second.
Colorful lights danced around the otherwise dark and dingy scene, and the floor was packed with aliens busy moving to the music that played in everyone’s headset. This decaying structure had no airlocks, meaning that all aliens had to keep their helmets sealed. At the club tables, some aliens injected a gas into their own spacesuits to inhale.
Being hidden by her own spacesuit and having the music come through her headset at her preferred volume did make her feel less overwhelmed than she would be at a party normally. While Phoenix pushed through the crowd to get away from the visibly upset robot, Evie stood amongst the partying aliens and did a little shuffle along to the music, somewhat enjoying herself.
She partied alongside an anglerfish alien, who shined on the dance floor with their luminescent fin ray that grew out of their head. A scorpion alien glowed completely turquoise in the blacklight, adding to the illuminated dancers. One of these aliens looked like a bunch of glowing green mushrooms in their helmet. The dimness of the club emphasized how much these aliens were able to radiate in the dark.
Evie glanced back and saw the group of androids enter the cramped party, and their bright advanced designs stuck out against the dark rundown club even more. Several aliens stopped dancing to gawk at the sudden appearance of robots that were rarely seen in the district. As they froze at the appearance of these androids, more aliens noticed Phoenix getting pursued by the robot bouncer.
The rave music hit a beat drop and suddenly the entire place was flashing with strobe lights. The androids’ lenses were instantly overwhelmed and they started glitching in place, sort of in sync with the music. Phoenix pointed to them and shouted, “Look, more trespassers!”
The robot bouncer, who was unaffected by the lights, turned towards the group of glitching androids. A buzzing taser suddenly dispensed from the robot as it declared, “No trespassing!”
The bouncer slid to the androids and tased them, causing them all to short circuit and collapse. The surrounding aliens all started cheering, encouraging on their bouncer.
Evie could only stare at this absurd sight along with Phoenix. Then the robot turned towards them with its taser and started sliding in their direction. “Trespassers must be eliminated.”
They both sprinted away, pushing through the crowd to dash out of the other end of the club, into the next open city street. The robot remained just outside the club exit, guarding it protectively. “And stay out!” it droned furiously.
Evie and Phoenix took a moment to stop and catch their breaths, free from being hunted down by robots for the time being. Then Phoenix noticed at the far end of the street a new group of advanced androids rushing through. Evie also noticed them and she breathed, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
They both ran away from the new group of androids until they reached a street that descended below them at a ninety-degree angle. Aliens moved up and down this street below, seemingly able to walk on the vertical platform. Evie instantly stopped at what she felt was a cliff edge. Her fear of heights gripped her heart and she found that she was completely unable to move any further.
Phoenix saw her freeze and he glanced back to see the androids still pursuing them from the other end of the street. He hastily stepped over the ledge to the next street, and his gravity-regulator adjusted to the change in direction. He now stood on the next platform vertically to Evie. “It’s okay!” he assured urgently as he reached out his hand towards her. “Your gravity-regulator won’t let you fall.”
Evie glanced back to make sure she had no other options before closing her eyes and reaching out for Phoenix. She screamed as she stumbled forward, and after a still moment she opened her eyes to see that she was standing on the next street while gripping onto Phoenix’s arm for her life. She let go and took a deep breath, feeling full of racing nerves.
They didn’t have time to mentally collect themselves or talk about the insane physics behind this, so they just continued to run down the next series of eroding walkways that towered in mind-bending angles.
This city was now revealing itself to be a labyrinth. The roads they dashed through were endless and sprawled in all directions. There was no more sense of up or down, as they were racing through a scattered web. It started to feel like no matter how much she kept running, Evie would remain trapped.
As they ran down the next street, Evie glanced up and noticed the city’s towering screens above their district change to display news feed. The footage showed their escape through the convenience store from a security camera, depicting the exact moment they had their faces showing. Captions all around read, “Humans Spotted in Q-23.” Her heart immediately sank.
Suddenly, aliens started fleeing from the street as they noticed a spaceship approaching, which was flying out of bounds from the permitted lanes of spaceship traffic. The ship hastily hovered to a stop directly above their street and Phoenix instantly recognized Jet and Kepler in the windshield. The ramp detached from the bottom of the ship and he jumped to land on the hovering platform. He hastily motioned for Evie to follow and exclaimed, “Come on!”
Evie quickly inhaled before she leaped onto the ramp, which then drew back in to close. They were now both secured in the ship’s lower airlock.
Phoenix opened the front of his helmet and let out a deep breath, relieved to be safe in the ship again. Evie did the same. They both laughed tiredly, feeling giddy from the fact that they actually made it.
They entered the bridge to find Kepler piloting the ship through the open lanes of Q-23, past all the giant screens and holograms that displayed the news footage covering the recent discovery of humans in the System. Jet was sitting nearby and she turned to them with a bitter expression. “Mind telling us what the hell happened?” she asked coldly.
They both paused nervously before Evie decided to say, “We tried Earth Soda.”
Kepler gasped and briefly turned from the control panel. “I love Earth Soda!”
Jet face palmed in annoyance.
“How’d you find us?” Phoenix asked.
"I can track your spacesuits from the ship!” Kepler proudly declared. “I’m just glad we got to you before those Satellite androids did.”
“I knew those were Satellite designs!” Phoenix exclaimed with a grin. “They looked so cool.”
“No, they look like dumb pieces of garbage.” Jet’s ear twitched irritably.
Phoenix noticed a red stain beneath her nose and he asked, “Are you bleeding?”
Jet hastily wiped her nose even though the blood was already dry. Before she could respond, Evie noticed the city’s surrounding screens start to change. “What is that?” she breathed.
The two aliens both followed her gaze out the windshield and saw images of Jet about to punch the camera with Kepler just behind her. They recalled Jet punching that drone away as they were fleeing from Satellite Headquarters. Beneath these images, captions read, “Wanted: Human Abductors.”
They both froze when they noticed the headlines, and at first they couldn’t say anything out of shock. Then Jet covered her face with her hands and she yelled into them, “FUCK!”
“Yeah, that’s not good,” Kepler said worriedly as they threw their ship into a higher speed.
Evie and Phoenix stumbled from the change in velocity. They buckled themselves into nearby seats and then Phoenix pointed towards the windshield and warned, “Watch out!”
Sure enough, several speeding ships flashing with orange lights were heading their way. “Those are System Agent ships,” Kepler informed.
“Now we’ve got the entire government after us,” Jet mumbled into her hands.
“Ah, so we’re doomed,” Evie stated with discontent.
Kepler’s vines tightened around the ship’s controls. “No, we’re not.”
Kepler pulled a lever and then thrusted their ship out of the permitted traffic lane to speed between the city districts. Everyone else in the ship started hollering from the reckless flying.
The spaceship weaved its way through the webs of towering structures and city streets. It soared right by a giant hologram of a celebrity alien performing, who winked at the ship as the hologram was programmed to react that way with any nearby movement. The System Agent ships chasing them grew further behind as they were not able to fly through these obstacles as quickly as Kepler.
“I hope you’re wearing your seatbelts!” is all Kepler shouted before they pulled another lever and sent their ship spiraling back to briefly flip upside down. Everyone was tossed in their seats from the shift in gravity and then the ship started plummeting straight downwards.
A few of the agent ships just stopped as they watched this insane maneuver and the rest that tried to follow could not descend through the city as fast as Kepler’s ship.
Kepler located an opening for their ship to flee through and they cranked up speed to rocket past the surrounding space stations, away from Q-23.
Now with their ship flying freely through the vast emptiness outside the city, Kepler sunk back into their seat feeling both exhausted and relieved. Phoenix cheered and threw his fist into the air excitedly. “Hell yeah!”
Evie heaved while staring at the floor, feeling like she was about to throw up. She managed to wheeze, “Yay.”
Jet had her eyes closed for most of the chaotic ride while she gripped the armrests of her seat. When she opened her eyes and realized that they were speeding away from Q-23, she pointed at a screen displaying the shrinking city behind them and laughed viciously. “Better luck next time, idiots!”
Kepler felt delighted with the sounds of celebration, not being used to having others surrounding them in the bridge at all. It was a ship full of stowaways that now along with Kepler were wanted fugitives, but Kepler didn’t mind that at the moment. They triumphantly set the ship’s controls in a projection away from the city, towards the endless expanse of space.
---
Back in Satellite Headquarters, Roswell sat in his private office while staring at the screen that displayed the view overlooking an Earthen city. The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up to hear BL-A1R say, “Bad news, Roswell-”
He hung up before she could say anything else. Roswell furiously hammered his fist down on the desk, causing his gloved hand to break off. He watched the glove deflate as green glowing slime oozed out.
Roswell watched the slime pool on his desk before he reached out his arm and had the slime reform back to become his hand. He moved his hand around to make sure he had control over his body and then he put the glove back on.
He then got out of his seat and left his office. This job was going to be more difficult than he expected.