Strangers Become Home

[RYDERS PROLOGUE] Chapter 1 - Meet Ryder

"Stop right there!"

Ryder Vance yelled, vaulting over a metal fence and landing on his feet. A few people looked over with surprised expressions as he pushed past them. A few feet away from him was a man with a terrified expression holding a shiny golden vase.

"Who the hell are you?!" The man screamed, almost bumping into someone. "Are you a robot or something?!"

Ryder didn't slow his pace and maintained a focused gaze on the thief.

"Just slow down, man!" Ryder called out in a calm and steady tone. He quickly dodged a group of startled citizens while offering a quick, apologetic nod to an elderly woman he nearly collided with. "Sorry, ma'am!!"

As he closed the gap, the fake sunlight of the facility glinted off the metallic surfaces of the surrounding buildings.
The thief clumsily veered into a crowded marketplace. He scrambled over a low wall, nearly dropping the priceless vase in his desperation.

"Hey, what's your problem?!" someone called out, his shoulder slamming into the man.

"Hey, excuse me! Excuse me?" Ryder said, trying to push through a few onlookers who had stopped. Their eyes widened with a mix of fear and disdain as they recognized the uniform Ryder wore. "I SAID EXCUSE ME!!"

A low murmur rippled through the crowd, carrying the words: "traitor" and "Warden's lapdog." However, Ryder ignored them with a practiced expression.

Ryder's fingers brushed the fabric of the jacket, but the thief let out a frantic shriek and put on a sudden burst of speed, narrowly slipping through a gap in the crowd.

"What the hell?" Ryder exclaimed. Sensing the opportunity, the civilians moved. They surged forward, their shoulders locking together to create a living wall to block Ryder off from the thief. "Hey, move!!"

They didn't care about the vase, the thief, or the Warden. They just wanted to see the Warden's lapdog fail.

"Get him!" a voice shouted, and suddenly Ryder was faced with a wall of people. They pressed in, trying to box him in with expressions filled with a righteous anger. Someone even tried to grab his arm, attempting to anchor him to the spot in a sloppy way.

Ryder didn't fight them. He knew that engaging with the crowd would only waste time and escalate the violence.
His eyes flicked to the side, spotting a heavy metal waste bin and a low retaining wall crafted from fake stone.

With a sudden, explosive movement... he landed his foot on the bin and used the momentum to propel himself upward.

"Don't let him get over the wall!!" someone called out, realizing his plan. Ryder didn't care and launched into the air, his silhouette momentarily blocking the synthetic sun as he cleared the heads of the protesting citizens in one fluid, athletic leap.

"Did he just fly?!"

He landed with a heavy thud on the other side, and immediately sprang back into a sprint. He caught a glimpse of the thief's terrified face looking back over his shoulder, the gold vase shaking in his arms.

"How did you even do that?!" the thief cried out, turning a corner. The chase led them into the deeper sectors of the facility, reaching an artificial forest. The grass here was patchy, revealing the grey, metallic grating of the floor beneath, and the fake clouds above flickered with a momentary glitch.

The thief skided around a sharp corner and desperately tried to duck into a maintenance alley, but his foot caught on a loose cable. He let out a strangled cry as he tumbled forward, sending the gold vase sliding across the floor with a loud metallic ring.