The Lost Children of Andromeda: 2052 Ends With Z

Chapter 4 cont'd

The vehicle whined as it slowed, a giant beast wrestled to its last breath. The trailer, momentarily airborne, slammed back onto the street and scraped the pavement as it swung sideways. But the truck finally wrenched to a stop. The whole thing steaming and smelling of friction and agitated rubber.

Allister couldn't feel his hand, though he cringed at the sight of it. Next, the dizziness would arrive—in part a reaction to the gruesome injury: flesh revealing traces of bone beneath scraps of muscle and connective tissue. He stumbled back, feeling the dizziness do more than sneak into him—it was starting to take over—a common side effect of his regeneration potential working on overdrive. The muscle and tissue began filling back in, threading itself around his fingers until his hand was stitched back to completion. The pain was constant, an abundance of stinging and burning. It reminded him of the way the truck had arrived: fast, ruthless, seemingly unstoppable.

He held in his tormented screams. The healing would be over soon, he reminded himself.

How soon?

Seconds later, layers of fresh skin appeared on the length of his forearm and filled in past his wrist, restoring the pigment.

The pain began subsiding in slow waves.

He was swathed in relief, hunched over with his hands pressed against his knees, imagining his face was a sweat-soaked blend of washed-out brown and distressed red.

The drones continued to buzz overhead, and loud sirens signaled the arrival of authorities.

He had to get out of there before someone shot him, but he could barely stand, let alone walk, let alone run.

Instead, he watched as soldiers in strange uniforms surrounded the truck and shot off the driver's side door. The public didn't seem to care when the yelling troops dragged out the driver nor batted an eye when the alleged terrorist screamed out misinformation concerning false democracies and the crooked caste system.

The driver was tossed face-first onto the pavement, then held down as the soldiers shackled his arms behind him. A woman moved among the commotion.

Allister gasped when he realized who it was.

Sunset Turtleneck.

Now in authority's company, she injected a needle into the suspect's arm. The liquid sedated his sentiments, some of which Allister knew the population believed and would never vocalize.

"C20 will be salvation," the man slurred as he went unconscious.

But where were the twins? The orange-eyed cyborg?

Sunset Turtleneck's violet eyes fixed on him. No red flash this time. She first nodded in his direction, taking calculated, confident strides to a vehicle suspended just above the street by four ground-facing thrusters, then she ascended that vehicle's rear platform and disappeared without so much as a smile. The suspect was dragged up the platform behind her, after which it was sealed shut. Rising swiftly, the vehicle became a blip in the bustle of the airborne highway.

And zoom.

The vehicle sped away.

Hushed whispers swept the square in its wake.

Allister rubbed his head, blinking the scene beyond the demolished truck into clarity. What he saw was his valiant effort transforming into a fatal mistake.

The gathered crowd's faces ranged from skeptical to disturbed to terrified. They clutched their own bloody, dusty bodies and stared at him, their wrists upright. Allister realized then that the connected devices of the District's populous were recording his past, present, and soon-to-be movement. Before this moment, he had been an awkward and sometimes reckless citizen of the District, but now he would forever be seen as a wobbling, barely conscious Evolutionary.