“If you don’t run faster, they will catch us,” Cassandra said as they ran. The prisoner wasn’t as fast on his feet as they needed to be. She had seen him be much faster than this so why was he failing now of all times. “Move those legs now!”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to be drugged to the high ends of the earth three fucking hours ago!” Troy shouted right back. The man certainly had some emotion to his name, though Cassandra still didn’t know his last name. Nevertheless, there were some facts to support his point.

Sending out an order to Jules, she made it carry the prisoner. It caused a slight ruckus to do so but it was easier in the long run. And it made it possible to reach the gate before Grunwald looked at the cameras. The lack of updates from them, and Jules blocking out access to the camera inside the cell, had certainly helped them. They even reached the gate to the police station before the first message came in.

‘What are you doing Cass!” Grunwald sent in a hurry. Looking at the camera herself, it was clear the man was running towards them as quickly as he could. Getting to a car, Jules being put on the task of driving, they began to flee with swift speed. ‘Return this instant!’

‘I am sorry but I can’t do that,’ Cassandra responded before ignoring the next few messages. They were clearly in need of that prisoner and her leader knew that more than even. After so long and so many resources just finding him, they’d finally gotten the prisoner in their clutches. And now she was breaking so many laws to get him out again. Oh, the irony.

Casandra felt her back press into the seat as Jules drove wilder than usual, getting up to more than a hundred kilometres an hour on a very tight street. People were outside in the current time, still gathering various objects thrown about during the earlier riot. That they never splattered a single one on the escape car showed off more skill than anything else.

“Why are you letting it drive again?” Troy asked from the back, the man desperately trying to put on a seatbelt. It looked rather hard to do, the tight swings making it function more as a rope to hold onto. How Cassandra prayed that the low centre of mass would save them from flipping over. Ninety degree turns at the current speed was more luck than anything else, but they couldn’t simply drive through the buildings and neither could they take the main road which had been blocked to stop any more civilian rushes.

“Because we’d be dead by now if I was in that seat!” Cassandra shouted right back at the former prisoners. She reached back and held the man’s knee, holding him in place so he could get the seatbelt on. It worked and on they were Jules speeding up even more. On the long stretch, they reached speeds Cassandra didn’t even know the car could support. There were slight issues when it came to breathing.

‘They’re sending out the automations,’ Jules sent through the channel they had between themselves.

There was no time for cursing but Cassandra did it anyway, as she pulled out her revolver and started loading it. She had enough rounds to take down a few if she could hit spot on every time, though that was discounting the chance they would shoot back.

‘How many are we talking? Five? Ten?’ Cassandra questioned, putting the current rounds into the speed-drawing position. She could reload in under a second if she needed to, at the expense of not having easy access to the paralyzing weapons. She hoped she wouldn’t need those.

‘All of them.’

…

All? Every single one? Cassandra knew she had seen hundreds inside that basement, all ready to be deployed once the time was nigh. But had they all truly appeared at once? No… they couldn’t have.

“Drive faster,” Cassandra ordered, as she disconnected herself from the global network. They would have a harder time tracking her that way, at least. Jules did the same, though it would likely be in a more limited fashion. The automation still needed access to the car cameras, after all.

“Are you sure you want that?” Troy questioned from the back, the man still holding on with all his will. Cassandra didn’t answer, instead of pulling out Jules’ revolver and handing it to the man. If her math was right, those automations would be coming any minute.

“If you see anything coming towards us faster than this thing drives, shoot at will,” Cassandra said. Even if the shots missed, they’d likely distract the automations enough to slow down.

“You might want to start aiming then,” Jules commented from its position. Cassandra had to wonder why until she looked into the rear-view mirror. Like a horde of mindless undead, hundreds of blue-skinned people were spectacularly coming towards their car, each running faster than any human on the planet. The time of machines was night and they were deadly.

Jules opened up the window in the back and Troy began to shoot in all earnest. Some of the shots hit, a few humanoids falling to the ground and slowing the others. Most of the things just didn’t care. But, what were a few losses compared to the hundred that would take their place?

Each swing allowed the creatures to get closer. Each time they slowed the slightest bit, the automations closed in on the distance even more. Cassandra emptied her revolver several times before just giving up with it. She needed to save the last few for an emergency.

“What weapons does this car have in the back?” she asked the driver. Instead of answering, the thing popped open. The woman crawled onto the back seat before picking up a few smoke grenades. They were meant to be thrown into buildings but they would do well to disorient cameras. Throwing them all, she was glad to see the automations slowing down slightly, the smoke obscuring their location. Though that cache was emptied quickly, the automations were forced to lengthen the distance.

And that saved them in the end, the last swing being done and the road into the forest being found. Jules gassed up more than ever, reaching above the safety clearance of nearly all civilian and police vehicles in terms of speed. They’d done it. They had escaped. Now they just needed to keep it that way.

“Where to?” Cassandra asked the former prisoner next to her. The man seemed to be hyper-ventilating which made her sigh. Civilians were too weak when it came to speed.

Troy was not feeling good as he fell out of the car. He had been thrown onto the back seat, made to shoot at a horde of monsters, and had been forced to feel his heart pressing into his back. He was pretty sure he would’ve died if that speed had gone on for much longer. How the woman next to him had looked at Troy with disappointment made him wonder if everybody was just a freak. Their internals shouldn’t have been able to go through such a thing. He had only survived due to higher endurance due to exposure to a very high-level medicinal liquid. What had they gotten?

“This is the place you were meant to meet your people?” Cassandra questioned as she got out of the car more elegantly, no real side-effects from having driven around like crazy. Going above one hundred kilometres an hour on a dirt road was already crazy. Going two hundred and above? That was death. Yet, they had found it fine to get close to three. The police were scary.

“Not here,” Troy corrected, trying to get his beating chest under control. “We have to go farther in.”

They’d built a smaller camp with the help of a few tents after they had left the house a few days back. The thing had been starting to crumble more and more and the dangerous levels of chemicals oozing from a nearby strike had left them wanting safety above anything else. The danger to Dr Hale had also helped them make that choice.

The trio walked slowly but surely through the woods, leaving the car behind so as not to have any obvious traces. By that point, night had already struck from above and the darkness had settled in nicely under the trees. Using artificial light was already barred so they could only travel with the help of their eyes and nothing else. The two officers seemed to have it easy doing just that but there was no helping Troy. His eyes just had to adapt by themselves.

Ignoring the obvious favouritism, the three finally did make their way into the site. Not by seeing it for themselves but due to a certain somebody wielding a very large gun in their face.

“Troy,” Charlie said from the side, pointing an older shotgun towards the two officers. “Why did you bring cops with you?”

The muscled man didn’t look happy with the development, more than certainly not wanting their plan to be ruined at the end-point. But, that wasn’t the case either way.

“It’s one. The other is just an automation,” Troy corrected, the one with blue skin making a small wave while its hand was up in the air. “And they helped me escape, Charlie. Broke a few rules to get me out.”

“... You realize that they could have very easily been lying to figure out where we were?” Charlie pointed out, making Troy wince.

“I considered it but didn’t think they had the guts to do it. They had me right where I needed to be,” Troy explained before taking in a deep breath. “And during the interrogation, it was mentioned that Dr Fidelis was flying in. I couldn’t take the chance of waiting for Adam’s lockdown to start.”

Charlie didn’t lower the gun, instead of sighing deeply. The man could make his point but didn’t like it either way. Taking the gun away from Cassandra’s face, it was instead pointed at Jules.

“This one needs to go. It has GPS built into it,” Charlie ordered.

“I have actually turned that off already,” Jules corrected. “There’s no tracking me.”

“It will turn off the moment that they issue an emergency order which you can’t disobey. I would know. I talked with the guy who made it,” Charlie retorted. Looking over to Cassandra again, the man-made a choice that would haunt the next to them for a good while. “And I can’t trust her until I see some devotion. Whatever your name is, you get the pleasure of shooting it so the automation won’t be doing anything.”

From the side, Troy could see Cassandra getting wide-eyed. The younger man wasn’t happy but he could understand the need. Yet, Troy was also distracted by something. He needed a certain earpiece. Seeing it by one of the tents hidden in the foliage and snow, he went over to grab it. The others were proceeding in their own time but he needed this done before anything happened. He had an idea.