Bubble Energy Taken by Force

Police Chase

Frank stomped the pedal to the floor. Barely under the brave driver's control, the police car, spray painted with the words, "PIGS", skidded onto the highway. Amazingly, it threaded through rows of parked cars without a scratch. Without saying a word, he used his full concentration keeping his hard-driven car from flying off the road. To the left passed lumbering trucks honking their horns. To the right a precipice unguarded by any rails threatened. Tumbling down the cliff would be the only warning a careless driver would get from drifting too far towards the wrong side.

Robo-Mentor lectured, "I wish to pass Audrey's correction to you. Women do greatly benefit from marriage to men. For good reason. Uniting man and wife, weddings represent perhaps the most primeval of human ceremonies. For almost every tribe and nation, from naked Tiwi people in Australia to sophisticated city state of British Hong Kong, marriages bond the sexes together in love. The Journal of Global Epidemiology completed a study examining 11,830 American nurses. It took into account multiple factors, including well-being and health before marriage. Age, race, socioeconomic status and other factors were also used for control. It found that married women were 35 percent less likely to die in any way. They were less depressed, happier, more optimistic, and has a higher sense of purpose. Marriage is not men's institution to enslave girls. Audrey has more to say on this when you are free."

"Funny how her office got shot up, she got shot at, the world's about to turn into a flesh eating hellscape, and she's worried about feminists giving her gender a bad name."

"Good new, the reset took less time than my best case scenario. The Superjet is now online and ready."

"That is excellent. Set it to lift our car if we happen to miss a curve somewhere."

Frank ignored the conversations. So fully did he devote his energy toward his mental focus that he probably never heard anything. His world shrank to the steering wheel's delicate movements and the racing road ahead. Everything else became irrelevant.

Stephen doubted that Frank would ever acknowledge anything he may say. He may continue racing ahead even if he took a wrong fork in the road. So far, Frank's instinct was flawless. In according to the computer's scanner, they inched closer to the stolen car. It helped that they hadn't passed any forks yet. In according the map, the nearest intersection was twenty kilometers away. They're stuck on the road unless...

"Turn left. Left! Left! They took a private driveway."

Without bothering to slow down, Frank viciously jerked his steering wheel and sent his car into a high-speed skid. Of course, the computer interpreted that as 'missing the curve' and instantly activated the anti-gravity drive. With very little weight on wheels, his car lost its traction and spun out of control. It slammed through chain-linked gates and continued spinning down the driveway. Orange boulders, dusty bushes, and gnarly pine trees flashed by.

"Yow! Turn off that crazy levitating thing. We're well away from any cliffs. No turn it on. They booby-trapped the road with spikes. Turn if off. We're heading into an ambush."

As they finally screeched to a stop much too late, 18 fully automatic guns, in three groups of equal numbers, swung to face the squad car. They moved as one, fast and accurate.

"Computer, shields up now! Shields up!"

Lead pouring out from way too many barrows mutated into a single malicious force clawing, thrashing, and corrupting the pure bubble sheltering two men. Moaning constellations of hellish flares mesmerized Stephen.

"Look at the length of our skid marks. We certainly made the state's record, maybe even world record." Looping tire marks weirdly marked up the road. Twin black lines seemed to go on and on.

"Stephen! Wake up! Do something before one of those bullets kills us all," Frank yelled.

The computer mournfully announced, "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I need to shrink the force field to conserve power. Apparently, two sub-units inside the cell cluster had weakened during your final attempt to lift the car. They both recently burst, reducing available power to 78 percent of optimal strength."

"Hop onto my lawn chair, quickly! I can't keep this entire car covered much longer."

"Your bubble is shrinking now. I can see its surface nearing my fenders." He had an awkward time crawling over the seat, but with Stephen's help, he flopped to the lawn chair. Cheap aluminum legs collapsed from the weight of two men. Both tumbled into the floor.

"What's that horrible noise? It sounded like metal being forced against the grinder."

Stephen was the first to get up. "It is metal being forced against the grinder. My force field's rather hard on sheet metal. I'm sorry."

The officer helplessly watched his car's front and back ends slowly getting grated as the shield shrank. Metal shavings flung away from the degenerating car. "Horrors! This is impossible. What am I going to tell my chief?"

"Tell him that the Topheth's Sword sect did this."

Vicious gunning continued without letup in the slightest. Torn hood flopped to the ground. Tires burst with multiple reports. Both men nervously huddle closer as more of the car disappeared and abrasive shields neared their bodies.

"Alright! Now that your car is reduced to manageable size, it should be light enough lift off the ground. Computer, move us up, slowly."

Squealing from over-stressed metal, wreckage rose slowly, unsteadily. Smoking metal particles poured from the shield's bottom. With a horrible shriek, crumpling mass dropped two meters, tearing the roof from windshield to trunk. Both men burst outside the car. "Look! Their machine guns are unmanned. That guy holding a large military-green device control them. Let's see how good he can shoot while being chased by a metallic dust storm."

Remains of the police car violently rocked back and forth while the bubble continued to chew and spit. The man holding the controls froze after realizing destruction was stalking him.

"Metal dust is hazardous to one's health. I can't allow you to get within 10 meter of the man."

"Then hover over their machine guns."

Within a minute, the rest of the car was shifted through the force field, jamming every gun. Seeing nothing more to do, the operator threw down his remote, jumped into his Gulfstream G650 private jet and sealed the door shut. One at a time, twin fans began turning as jet engines warmed up.