The parking tower was a multilevel structure. Cars would fly in the top sections or drive into the lower ones, and the AI would automatically find a spot for them. Payment would be charged directly from the owner’s FinMod bank account. Completely automated, and completely unguarded, except for the locked doors at night. When they approached, it denied them access. Either they found a way in through the locks, or they were stuck climbing to the higher levels that stayed open all night.

“Redman, do you have that plasma torch still? Pass it to Xaleyp. Cut through the hinges, and make it fast.”

Xaleyp took the small tool and turned it over in his hands. He had never operated the device before, and he had to take a moment to figure out how to work it. When he pressed a button on the side, an arc of plasma spun in place, like a whirling blade. A soft whirring sound emanated from the machine. The heat radiated onto his hand and face as he stared at it, somewhat awestruck by it. Seth and Redman moved into defensive positions, taking aim down the street to watch for any police or military. Any moment now, they would come out of the Raven and finding them. There were drones on the other side of the wall of buildings, their searchlights methodically moving back and forth, looking for them.

He held the torch up to the first of three hinges. The metal melted at once, dripping to the ground in orange blobs. It groaned in protest with each passing second. Xaleyp had to step back to keep from getting the molten liquid on himself, and Mian yelped in surprise and pain when some hit her hand. She quickly brushed it off with her sleeve, but a red welt was already forming.

As he went through the first hinge, the door shifted slightly, leaning against the other side of the frame. It scraped and squealed slightly as it came to rest. It surprised Xaleyp that an alarm didn’t go off inside. When the second hinge lay limp, the door shifted down towards the ground. A small gap opened up in the upper right corner, revealing the darkness inside.

“Hurry it up, Xaleyp,” Seth said as some of the shouting was getting closer and the drones moved closer in their patterns. “We’re about to have company.”

“Almost there.” The last hinge was proving more difficult. He had to crouch down to get a good angle on it. After several seconds, the door gave way and hit the ground with the screeching of metal on metal. He tried to push it, and it was far heavier than he expected. With a grunt, he managed to topple it over. It hit the ground with a resounding crash. “Got it. Let’s go.”

As he said the words, three officers were rounding the corner to the back alley of the Snow Raven. They yelled out when they saw the four of them standing in the doorway and fired. Bullets pinged off the metal walls. Seth and Redman fired back. One officer fell with a shout. The other two ducked back behind the corner, taking cover. Overhead, the drones whirled around and fly towards them.

“Everyone in. Now.” Seth pulled Redman by his good shoulder, leading him backwards to the doorway. Redman continued aiming the rifle towards the alley, making sure that no one tried coming back out. “Now, let’s find a transport. Fast.”

Inside was almost pitch black. There were a few emergency lights spread sporadically throughout the interior. All the cars they could see appeared to have wheels, not equipped with the repulsor engines for flight.

“We’re going to need to go higher,” Xaleyp said. He pointed out the cars. “Just wheels. No way in hell we’re getting out in those things.”

“No, we’re not.”

Seth ran to the stairs at the far side of the garage, and the rest followed. Their footsteps echoed loudly as they climbed as fast as they could. The floors passed by quickly, and they were soon at the eighth floor, second from the top. There was a gentle purring of an engine towards the other side, and a pair of headlights shone brightly in the area. Seth nodded his head towards it. If there were someone inside, it may be unlocked. A lot easier and faster than trying to break the encryption on one of the already locked ones.

“You two, flank around that way.” He gestured to Xaleyp and Mian then to the left. “Redman, Gareten, and myself will come from this side.”

Xaleyp did a double take to make sure that only Seth and Redman were heading the other way. Indeed, only two people were there. What was he talking about? But Mian pulled him away by his collar before he could question it. Behind them and somewhere far below, there were footsteps and shouting as the officers tried to clear floor by floor. They had a little time, but the drones outside would make the Arcadians’ job a lot easier.

They were on the car faster than Xaleyp expected. He kept his rifle trained on the car while Mian had her eyes on the stairs. There was still no sign of the officers or drones. Inside the car were a man and a woman making out in the backseat, unaware of what was going on outside. Seth banged on the glass with his shotgun and pumped the barrel once. The couple jerked up in fright, and their mouths moved in silent screams.

“Open the door,” he yelled as loud as he dared to not draw attention. The man scrambled up and opened the front driver’s side door. He gestured with the gun. “Get out. Now. Xaleyp, you’re driving.”

“Sir, I have no clue how to drive a car. Are you sure that’s the best idea?”

“You’ve been piloting a starfighter for years. Damn it. Redman, you drive then.”

The couple ran towards the stairs as the four of them piled into the car. Redman took the driver’s seat with Seth in front and Xaleyp and Mian in back. He gingerly picked up a pair of woman’s underwear left behind on the floor and tossed it out the door. Mian tried not to laugh as she took the pack off and put it at her feet. The captain pulled the sword out from beneath his Fabric and passed it to Mian, who took it carefully and laid it across her lap. The runes continued to grow a bright red. Voices began to emanate from it, but Xaleyp pushed them away. Seth grappled underneath his seat and pulled out a first aid kit. He opened it and found a large patch, not unlike that the doctor put on Xaleyp.

“Here, Redman, put this on before we get too far. Don’t want you bleeding out while you’re driving.”

As the car shifted into gear, they were strapped in tight to their seats. The car hovered in the air for a second before shooting towards the opening on the left-hand side of the garage. Xaleyp saw the officers beginning to come out of the stairwell, pushing past the man and woman just as they were about to exit. They fired a stream of bullets at them. The slugs pinged off the metal of the car, ineffective. Soon, it was impossible for the officers to distinguish them from the metal of the buildings they flew by.

Redman flew the car out into the open and aimed for the night sky. Before they got too far, a drone appeared in front of them, its gun beginning to spin. He sent the car into a spinning dive, angling away from the drone. They bolted between buildings, the car protesting each time they were getting too close to the walls. Redman spun the car in dazzling arcs, throwing off the aim of the drone’s machine gun. The bullets tore through the buildings, not caring who they hit, how many lives were ended from their recklessness. After several seconds of the maneuvers, Seth cursed and opened his window. He grabbed Redman’s rifle and leaned out. With a precision that only came with many years of practice, he placed a series of shots into the drone’s engines. It spiraled towards the ground and crashed into the middle of an apartment building with an explosion. Fire erupted from the side, shooting out into the sky in a red-hot blaze, and a plume of smoke began to pillow into the air. Xaleyp stared back in shock. How many people did it kill? How many people was Arcadia going to unnecessarily kill just to get to Seth?

“Head for the hyperlanes.” Seth’s voice was hard to hear with the window open and him trying to shout above the roar of rushing air. “We’ll be able to merge into traffic there and get out of here.”

As Seth said the words, a roaring of engines pierced their ears. It rattled the entire car, and their engines shuddered and lowered them slightly. A squadron of V-shaped drones, larger and bulkier than the ones they had shot down, were streaking through the air above them, their engines flaring brightly In unison, they unleashed a storm of metallic, pod-like objects. Xaleyp watched as they fell, almost as if in slow motion. Some hit the ground, others hit the sides and tops of buildings, but each detonated with a burst of flame. A shockwave erupted in all directions, piercing up and almost grounding the car. The entire street that they had been on was gone within seconds, replaced with a tangled mess of metal from the buildings as they shuddered under the attack. A raging inferno began to spread through the district. Some form of advanced napalm, it ate through the metal as if it were nothing more than butter, then leapt to the next target, as if sentient. The buildings sagged and groaned as they tipped and collapsed. The way the fire moved through the streets, eating everything in its way, was almost like a river of lava. It was a large beacon in the night that shouted one thing: Stay away.

“Holy shit,” Xaleyp whispered. His hand instinctively went up to touch the pendant around his neck for some small amount of comfort. Even through the car, he could feel the heat. Looking at the others, he saw their faces as if it were daytime. Mian had a somewhat vacant expression, as if she couldn’t process what she was seeing. He didn’t really know if he could. After several seconds of the fire burning and showing no signs of slowing, he voiced what they were all thinking. “What the hell was that?”

“Firenanite bomb,” Seth said. He brought his hand to his mouth and wiped away the sweat that had formed on his upper lip. “Hyperia had been working on it for decades. Gave it up when we realized how cruel and needlessly destructive it was. Apparently, Arcadia had their own plan. To the hyperlanes, Redman. There’s nothing left for us here. Absolutely nothing.”

He steered the car in the direction of the hyperlane tunnel. No more drones were coming after them. The ones that had dropped their deadly payload were already disappearing into the night sky, disappearing as no more than little flickers of light from their afterburners. They must have believed them to be dead. Xaleyp looked at Seth.

“What the hell is a firenanite bomb?”

“It combines the explosive and fiery aspect of a bomb with the nanites of, well, nanotechnology. Basically, imagine a fire that can feed and think for itself. It is able to continuously reproduce itself by using the metal it eats through. Given enough fuel, it literally will never end. It’s almost impossible to stop. Regular fire is bad enough. This stuff… it’s dangerous and crazy. The fact they would even think about using it here is bad. They don’t care about how many people they kill anymore. They just want to see me dead. The city will survive as long as they put that fire out soon, but it’s going to be tough to get under control.”

“What a horrible way to die,” Mian muttered. Her voice was barely audible over the crackling of flames and whining of engines. “Burned by tiny robots because your leaders didn’t care about you.”

But they never seemed to care about who died. The Arcadians proved that back at Stariek by destroying all those ships, including the Royal Carrier and Mian. They just wanted power, and they didn’t care who they hurt to get it.

A dozen different cars were erratically flying with them to the hyperlanes. Citizens trying to escape the inferno would at least cover their escape. The Arcadians wouldn’t know which one of them to follow, though the AI would be perfectly capable of tracking them all simultaneously. It was miraculous that the Arcadians somehow didn’t close the entrance to the hyperlanes, leaving it wide open for all of them to enter. Once inside, the area was rather emptier than Xaleyp thought they would be. Perhaps they cared more than he thought and had shut them down at some point in case the fire ate through into it. Regardless, the AI took over and guided them forward at a couple hundred kilometers per hour. It was mostly dark with lights scattered sporadically throughout, mostly at different exits.

“Where are we going?” Mian asked after they had been traveling for almost a quarter of an hour.

“New Alexandria.” Seth turned to look at the backseat. He had a somewhat crazed expression. “Gareten tells me it’s the safest place for us after what just happened back there.”