"HANG ON!" Jimmy's synth-voice screeched, maxed out with digital distortion as he wrestled the controls. The van was a toy in a hurricane, shrapnel from the missiles tearing through its already shredded fuselage. "WHAT KIND OF SICK, TWISTED SOB TRIES TO KILL US AND KIDNAP US AT THE SAME TIME?! PICK A LANE, YOU PSYCHOPATH!"
In the back, Ethicca and Jacqui were being slammed against the walls like dice in a cup. They clung to whatever they could find as the van spiraled downwards, a flaming comet carving a path of destruction through the city's neon canyons. It clipped buildings, sheared off hover cars, and finally, with a deafening, final shriek of tortured metal, it crashed.
The van plowed a trench through the synth-crete before slamming into the foundation of a monolithic corporate tower, coming to an abrupt, violent stop. Then, silence.
***
"Wakey Wakey". A gentle, rhythmic tapping on her forehead. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Ethicca's consciousness swam up from a deep, black ocean. The first thing she felt was the pain—a searing, white-hot agony that felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through her skull. She winced, her eyes squeezed shut.
When she dared to open them, she was greeted by a suffocating field of bubblegum pink. Ella's face was inches from hers, so close their noses almost touched. The girl's eyes, now a placid, doll-like blue, stared into her own with unnerving intensity.
"Yeah, she's still alive," Ella's sweet voice chirped. She pulled back, and Ethicca's world swam into focus.
She was in a room of perfect, blinding white. The walls, floor, and ceiling were a seamless, sterile expanse. She was strapped to a cold, steel operating table, her head locked in a brace. She craned her neck and saw Jacqui on an identical table beside her, still unconscious, with angry red suture lines where her cybernetic ports used to be.
"Good," Rose's voice, disembodied and crisp, echoed from a floating spherical drone that hummed in the center of the room. "All illegal tech has been removed. Prep them for transport to the Spire. I have customers lined up, and they are… eager."
A team of doctors in white scrubs, their faces hidden behind surgical masks, finished prying the mangled teal visor from Ethicca's skull. They moved with silent, efficient purpose, packing their instruments and filing out of the room behind Ella. The heavy, pressurized door hissed shut and locked with a solid, final clunk.
She was alone. Or so she thought.
She tested her restraints. Her wrists, ankles, and neck were locked down by heavy magnetic cuffs. But she could just turn her head enough to see the other side of the room. Jimmy—his box-headed robot body—was hanging upside down, bound in thick, electrified chains.
"Jimmy…?" she whispered, her voice a dry rasp.
"You're finally awake," his screen-face flickered to life.
"We have to get out of here," she urged.
Jimmy's screen began playing a montage of over-the-top action movie jailbreaks. "Real cliché, huh? The good guys get snatched. The bad guys monologue. Then, the dependable comic-relief on the outside busts in, guns blazing. We team up, kick some ass, and walk away in slow motion from a massive explosion." A scene of five impossibly cool action heroes strolling away from a fireball played on his face.
"Yeah! Do we have someone like that?!" Ethicca asked, a fragile seed of hope sprouting in her chest.
"Nope. We're screwed," Jimmy deadpanned. The screen switched to a pixelated tombstone. "I used my other other backup body—the one I keep stashed in a chop shop in the Sump. Got my homies, Carlos and Hector. We were locked, loaded, and rolling deep in a new war-van. But when we got to this place, we were met by… some kind of Gilded Age pimp-god."
His screen showed shaky first-person footage. A tall, slender figure in gleaming gold armor and white robes, his face hidden by a featureless white mask, stood waiting for them.
"If you thought Ella was a problem, this flamboyant son of a bitch didn't even break a sweat. He took one look at Hector, called his chrome 'aesthetically displeasing,' and vaporized him. Smashed Carlo's head into paste with that big gold hammer of his. And me?" The footage became a blur of gold and white. "I don't even know. Couldn't even track his movements. He just… appeared in front of me."
The footage ended. Ethicca stared in horror. "I'm so sorry about your friends…"
"Eh, don't be," Jimmy's screen displayed a shrug emoji. "Met 'em an hour before. I think their names were Carlos and Hector. Might have been Carl and Lester. Who knows."
A groan came from the table beside her. Jacqui was stirring. "E… what you did… back in the van… that wasn't human. Are you sure you're vanilla?, like are you really a pure human"
"Jacqui, you're awake!" Ethicca said, relieved. "I don't know what happened. I remember the visor… X… then my body just… moved. The rest is just a blur of pain and purple light."
"A blur?" Jimmy's box head swiveled. "Lil' sis, you went full-on 'anime protagonist power-up'. You were all wham, bham, swoosh! You ripped that psycho-kid's hand clean off! Guess she got it reattached."
Jacqui's eyes welled with tears. "Guys… I'm so sorry. If I hadn't taken the job… My parents… they were alive all this time, and that bitch just…" Her voice broke.
The door hissed open again. A nurse in scrubs, flanked by two hulking medical droids, walked in.
"How touching," the nurse said, her voice bored and flat. "Sadly, where you're going, there's no time for sentiment." She began preparing two large hypospray injectors, their contents a sickly, shimmering green.
As she worked, Jimmy's optical sensor zoomed in on her name tag. "Hellooo, nurse! What's your name?"
She glanced at him, annoyed. "It's Luong."
Jimmy's screen flashed a series of laughing emojis. "Luong? No way. That's your first name? I'm looking at your name tag. High school must have been a trip."
The nurse slammed her hand on the metal tray. "Shut your sound-hole, you worthless piece of junk!"
"What's so funny?" Ethicca whispered.
Jimmy's screen lit up, his synth-voice booming with the joyous energy of a man who had waited his entire life for this one moment. "Her name tag! It says WANG, LUONG!"
The nurse, whose name was indeed Luong Wang, let out a primal scream of pure rage. She snatched a laser scalpel from the tray and lunged at Jimmy, raising it to stab his screen-face.
Suddenly, a hand, pale and slender, gripped her arm. A cold, raspy voice whispered in her ear, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement.
"Enough of these childish games."
The nurse froze, her face draining of color. Standing behind her was the golden-armored figure from Jimmy's footage.
"Load them up," the Hierophant commanded. "It is time."