Throwing the unconscious doctor into the backseat of the Auto-Taxi, Anna climbed in after. ‘How is he so heavy?’ She grumbled.

“Greetings Ms. Miller. Where-”

“South.” Anna interrupted the CI. “As far south as you’ll go.”

“Understood. Routing to… South. Thank you for choosing Auto-Taxi number 34123” The CI said, pulling away from the curb and merging seamlessly with the traffic flowing by. “Could I interest you in any music for your journey?”

“...Some lofi. I need to calm down.” Anna said, exhausted.

"My pleasure Ms. Miller"

Anna watched as her apartment building faded into the distance behind her with some relief. She finally sat down fully and relaxed as the calming beats came out of the speakers, soothing and reassuring her.

Glancing over to the passed out healer beside her, Anna sighed. ‘Now, what to do?’ She asked and moved her gaze to look at the cityscape passing by. ‘We need a place to stay. Someplace that’s not going to ask too many questions. We can find that in southern LA.’

Southern LA was well known as a less than savory area of the city. Home to drug pimps, gangs, drug dealers and users, the horror stories that Anna had heard were... not good.

Not good at all.

But that might be exactly what they needed right now. Somewhere were they'll be lost in the craziness...

'That's how it works in the comics at least.' Anna worried. Looking down at the V-screen around her wrist, Anna grimaced. ‘I’ll need to get some cash and get rid of this too.'

V-screen’s had replaced smartphones almost fifty years ago when cheap holographic technology became publicly available. They were essentially smartwatches with holographic projections in the place of screens. And like smartwatches and smartphones, they risked being hacked, tracked, and infected by viruses.

‘Not something we need when a government or megacorp is after us.’

“Who were those guys anyway?” Anna mumbled to herself. Gazing back out the window at the city going past.

‘Gen-hanced? Maybe. But they hadn’t moved like them at all. They were almost robotic.’ Anna thought back to the one she’d seen standing outside her bedroom. ‘That one didn’t even seem to breathe.’

‘They hadn’t moved like they’d had mechanical enhancements either. Too light, too flexible. That one I slammed into definitely hadn’t had anything mechanical in them.

‘A combination maybe? Some sort of mechanical Gen-hanced? Are those even a thing? I mean, I can’t imagine why not, but why haven’t I heard of them? Top secret? Possible.’ Pinching her nose, Anna wished that she could get up and pace.

'It probably doesn't matter anyway,' she told herself. 'Even if they were Gen-hanced, they'll probably be out of the count for at least a week. Especially that one that I shot in the back.' Anna winced as that scene played over in her head.

“They'll be fiiiiinnnne," she said, trying to reassure herself before starting to mull over the fight.

Anna hadn’t really had a plan. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, she’d just failed to come up with one.

Planning wasn't really her strong suit.

Her ‘plan’ had basically boiled down to, act as bravely or stupidly as possible to catch them off guard, and hope ‘luck’ did the rest. Of course, the ‘luck’ was actually just Anna altering things with her powers, but no one would know that except her.

Anna had even pretended to drop her round to sell the idea that she was really just lucky to anyone watching.

As for when the round had rolled out into open ground…

‘Totally a part of the plan.’

That had not been a part of the plan.

As Anna stared out the window she noticed a few drops of rain fall across the window. ‘Fucking great,’ she thought in exasperation. ‘Just what we needed.’

“CI, where's the closest ATM?” Anna asked, leaning forward.

“The closest ATM is at the charging station on the corner of Blank Ave and Cover Street, approximately six hundred feet west. Would you like to reroute there?”

“Yes, and hold the car close by when we arrive. This isn’t our final stop.”

“Doing so will incur additional fees do-”

“Yes. I know.” Anna interrupted, losing patience with the slow speaking CI.

“Understood. Rerouting to the corner of Blank Ave and Cover Street.” It responded as the car moved over into a space that opened beside it.

It only took a few seconds for the car to pull up at the charging station. Getting out, Anna looked around.

While not in southern LA, the station clearly showed evidence of being close. Faded and chipped paint. Small amounts of graffiti hung on the walls. Not large enough for maintenance bots to remove, but just big enough to be noticeable.

The neighborhood also looked… rough.

The buildings surrounding the station weren't much better than the station itself. In the alleyways, Anna got the sneaking suspicion that she was being watched and her hair stood on end.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

This was not an area that you wanted to be in after dark.

Sadly, Anna wasn't just in it after dark, she would have to go deeper into it after dark.

On foot.

While carrying an unconscious body.

With a gun that didn't have any ammo.

'Maybe I could throw it at 'em.' She thought self-deprecatingly with a snort.

Walking towards the ATM machine, she pulled up her V-screen and linked it. Telling the machine to transfer her five thousand.

Anna hadn't really used the bribe money she'd gotten from the megacorps almost… 'Wow, has it really been three weeks?' Anna asked herself, surprised.

'Let's see… five days of research, a week of waiting for the world to calm down about Coeldisium, then there was the Advent and the-' Anna shivered as some unwanted memories cropped up. 'The, ah, Molts Massacre, after that, I laid low for about a week, had that meeting with Eve four days ago… so,

'About twenty-three days.' She concluded. 'I've been a god for about twenty-three days. Almost twenty-four when you count the rewound time. I've been a god for about a month…'

Anna sighed. "Time really flies, I guess,” She commented as she collected the money given. Making her way back to her car she got inside and told it to continue her route.

“Understood. Continuing route,” it said as it pulled away from the station.

The rain picked up, eventually becoming a noticeable downpour. The pattering of the rain on the car roof and the faded beats of the lofi lulled Anna into a relaxing trance. She was eventually pulled out of it by the CI announcing that they’d arrived.

The car rolled to a stop and Anna checked the street around her through the wet windows.

It looked abandoned. No one was walking the sidewalks. She couldn’t see anyone in the alleyways. A few lights were on in the windows but most were dark.

‘Normal people wouldn’t walk around at night anyway, I suppose. That’s a great way to get mugged. Plus, with it raining, no one would want to be outside unless they had too.’ Anna reasoned.

As Anna opened the door she was almost immediately soaked by the rain. Grumbling, Anna got out fully and made her way to the other side of the vehicle.

 Pulling the door open, Anna grabbed the gun and pulled the unconscious doctor out, letting him fall into the flooded street.

Anna grabbed his foot and dragged him into an alley to get out of the rain before Pulling off her V-screen.

Taking the very expensive device, not allowing herself time to really think about, Anna walked over to a drain and dropped it in.

Going back to that comatose Jamie she stared at the body before having an epiphany.

Checking his wrist Anna facepalmed.

‘The idiot still has his V-screen on. It’s no wonder they tracked him down.’

Snatching the locator off of him, Anna moved over and dropped it too down the drain.

Picking up the body, Anna slung him over her in a limp piggyback and started to shuffle her way down the alleyway, before she paused.

‘Where the fuck am I going?’ she asked herself, realizing that she probably should’ve checked and saw where the nearest hotel was.

And probably her own location.

As she also had no idea where she was.

At all.

Turning back to the alley entrance in hopes that the Auto-Taxi was still there, she was disappointed as she saw that it had already sped off.

If it had stuck around Anna could have used it to find a location where they could stay. The Auto-Taxi wouldn't have taken her anywhere, but it would have at least given her directions.

And now it was gone.

“Well… fuck.”

Anna shook herself and tried to ignore the cold seeping into her limbs.‘This is fine. I just need to ask. Where is the nearest hotel that won’t ask any questions?’ She questioned, pausing as the information filtered into her head.

‘That’s not too far,’ she declared to herself. ‘I can do that! I just have to make it there in the dark, while it’s raining, with a man draped across my back, and not get mugged along the way. Simple right?’

Anna sighed and began her journey.

Taking only alleyways as to avoid the security cameras at intersections and along storefronts, Anna kept an eye out for anyone that might try mugging her. While watching for anything people shape, stepping over puddles when possible, and walking past stinking piles of trash, Anna slowly made her way toward her destination.

Finally making the last turn, Anna laughed in relief and began to stumbling approach the love hotel.

To Anna, in her tired, cold, soaking wet state, the cheap neon signs were like the pearly gates of heaven. They were like salvation given form. 

So enamored was Anna that she completely missed the rock in her path, which caused her to trip and fall face first into the greasy puddle in front of her.

Making the laser beam miss entirely.

At first, Anna hadn’t even realized that she’d been shot at. But as the smell of burned bricks perforated the atmosphere around her, Anna’s previous weariness disappeared and adrenaline flooded her system.

Getting up in a flash, Anna dashed for the only location that she could see that would protect her from incoming fire from most directions. Climbing up as another flash of heat hit the wall behind her, Anna almost tumbled into her sanctuary.

Into the dumpster.

Anna had just jumped into a dumpster.

‘Just when I thought this night couldn’t get any worse,’ she thought as she settled into the wet and soggy trash, staining her already dirty and tore up clothes.

Anna shook off her disgust and tried searching for a weapon she could use in the garbage around her. She’d dropped her gun when she’d been shot at… along with Jamie.

‘Jamie will be fine,’ she reassured herself. ‘They tried to take him alive before, they won’t just kill him now.’

Anna paused in her scrambling as she heard footsteps echo through the rain.

Footsteps that were coming towards her.

Cursing under her breath, Anna kept searching, growing more and more panicked. Tearing open trash bag after trash bag, she growled in frustration before stopping as silence descended.

Only rain could be heard.

Slowly turning, Anna saw a one-armed figure staring down at her, standing on the edge of a dumpster impossibly balanced. Lightning flashed and illuminated the blood-red armor the figure wore and the las-pistol they had in their hand.

Frozen in fright, Anna watched as they stood, silently, still as a statue, watching Anna back. Both waiting for the other to make a move. Them waiting for Anna to flee, and Anna waiting for them to fire.

The hunter and the hunted.

The predator and their prey.

And just as they tensed to fire, and Anna prepared to dodge...

They both faltered as they heard a metallic pounding.

Like metal pounding against metal.

Growing louder and louder as a lull in the storm made the rain fade into the background.

Finally, it stopped and Anna heard an almost seductive voice call out.

“Hello there... Tell me, do you want to experience paradise?”

Thunder roared.