Train I7B travelled down the highway at normal speeds, it's blistering passage not quite breaking the barrier of sound but certainly causing a few ripples in it. The term train, was generously applied; the small size of the rectangular hover craft and the current 8 passengers seated within not quite measuring up to current modes of train transport. At it's busiest times it could seat up to 60 people per carriage without the spare room for a dozen or so standing passengers-this being as standing passengers were disallowed by law, the practice being as barbaric as it was wasteful. No, the interior of train I7B was designed in such a way that there was just enough room for 60 seats with 60 people sitting inside them and for their 120 legs(give or take a few prosthetics) to poke out of them. However, this was not one of it's busiest times, and train I7B-sans carriages-was right now little more than a glorified, albeit overstuffed, taxi. The train rocketed down the highway in an unnervingly straight path, easily maintaining its cruising speeds and altitude due to the reduced air resistance present in the Artificial Transport Tunnel.
Train I7B continued to cruise in the ATT, 8 for some reason still awake passengers strapped into its titanium stomach who were fighting the urge to sleep that arose from the trains gentle humming and comfy constraints. The train slowed slightly before raising a little into the air. Train I7B was taking the surface level tonight, shooting smoothly along SF-0 as it transported its light load from one stop to the next. The passengers didn't much stir as the train repositioned itself-perhaps it was rising back up to SF-2 where it usually cruised along as some gap had opened up in the flow before the waypoint, it was't time for it to do that yet-but stranger things had happened.
Train I7B or Train Ibitha as one man called it(nobody knew why, although he swore it was because the train had played some smooth beach jazz once that therefore meant it should be called Ibitha which basically was it's name already if you thought about it-because everyone knew what beach jazz and Ibitha was and why those two things walked hand in hand) slowed itself as the 'car' in front of it left the safety of the ATT and partially crumbled as it entered the differing air pressure of the civilian zone in a clear malfunction and deviation from its regular programming. Train 'Ibitha' continued slowing as the danger passed and two jumping forms entered the travel optimised zone of the ATT. Its scanners recognised and categorised these two flying forms as people. This triggered an alert in Train I7B's system that forced it to make a decision, this being as people were not supposed to just be in the Artificial Transport Tunnel it called home. Train I7B's operating system quickly surveyed its options. Crash into the surrounding vehicles and avoid the two hapless civilians? No, higher casualties with low degree of success, no chance any message to other nearby systems will result in vehicles slowing enough for non fatal collisions. Leave the ATT and skid to a stop along the empty sidewalk, preferable due to Train I7B's much slowing passage along level SF-0. However, the sidewalk is not empty, Train I7B registers the crashed and crumpled craft siting there motionless like an aggressive man's compressed coke can and calculates a skidding collision will result in more casualties to its passengers and very high likelihood of Train I7B at least partially reentering the ATT at much reduced speeds wreaking further havoc and destruction on the streamlined transportation network. This left option 3, the one with the least casualties and the most obvious option in cases such as this. Keep going forward and decelerating and kill the two people that had jumped in front of its rounded nose. The Train lifted it's front slightly as it plowed through the two bodies hanging in the airspace of its route. Its sensors fluctuated as it attempted to read what became of the two flies almost splattered on its windshield. It was the personal carrier cart behind it that picked up the one body and the inert biological material that surrounded it that had been slapped onto the floor by the underside of the bullet train esque I7B's nose.
The personal carrier cart raised into the air behind the train and every other craft in the line did the same, each skimming over the prone man's body. The emergency services had been called and this section of the ATT was cordoned off, meaning there would be delays on the DF-0 and downwards as vehicles were rerouted and congestion there increased. In a few second the road lay clear and a SuperSaverMover arrived. The SSM was one of the tinkling orange vehicles from earlier and of all the emergency vehicles in service it had a particular grim purpose, transporting the unfortunate bodies of city civilians to a morgue. It had all the medical essentials of course, just in case the body the SSM had come to transport wasn't actually as dead as was thought-this meaning the person was actually alive-but in this case it was highly unlikely they would see any use. Well, not actually highly unlikely as much as impossible. Any vehicle in the ATT, even one slowed to around the 200mph range and slowing still, was not going to leave any survivors in the event of a civilian unarmored collision or even in any known civilian armoured one. Unless military personal had been out using public highways as designated test sites, which the staff inside the SSM van did not believe to be army policy, then the city civilians were well and truly, tragically, dead.
It is why then a few seconds after the assorted flying crafts had evacuated the area that the crew of the SSM jumped out of the vehicle and travelled towards Adam's prone body with a solum lack of urgency and the measured steps of men here get a job done. The three men reached the mans body in unison, slowing their steps to all arrive together with their various tools of the trade.
"Got that camera ready Boyle?" A tall man with an opaque glass case asked.
"Of course" Boyle sighed after replying, because of course he had the camera ready and of course he was ready to go through with the grim task of photographing the body.
The third man held some sort of digital note pad and had a clunky bracelet on his left wrist. He stepped past the two men silently, carefully avoiding the occasional scrape of whatever the brown material was on the floor.
"What are you doing Greg?" The camera guy called after him.
"You idiots, look at him!' Greg leaned over Adam's face-up body as the two idiots did in fact look at the prone body of a man that lay on the floor, a man that lay in the place where a widely splattered bodies worth of blood and viscera should have showered down and carpeted the asphalt floor. Matter of fact two body worths of blood and other unpleasant people pieces. The three scene techs had seen enough in their time to have some solid ideas about what awaited them-this did not meet expectations. "He's-He's breathing, By God he's alive!"Greg almost dropped his tablet onto the mans face, catching it as it slipped halfway being his fingers boping Adam on the nose-the height of professionalism. "GUYS, GET THE STRETCHER, GET THE MEDS!" Greg jumped up from the body and ran back to the SSM van as fast as his legs could carry him, being much less careful about avoiding the brown pieces of material, figuring he had already disturbed the scene enough and that getting this man some medical care was severely more important, second priority probably being to figure out how in the world he was still alive. The big man of the group tore ahead of the other techs spurred on by his enhancements, he'd left the opaque case behind as he made a mad dash for their medical vehicle.
Stolen novel; please report.
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Adam awoke groggily and rubbing his nose. He laid eyes upon three fleeing figures and everything snapped back into focus. His heart beat thunderously as fear filled it, his body preparing to be flattened into a pancake by an almost teleporting vehicle the speed of which it could hardly comprehend. Adam shot up to his feet, little pieces of bark falling off him and onto a suspiciously asphalt looking floor. The Dryad his fried mind thought as the plant remains fell off him-although 'Tree lady' were the muttered words that escaped his mouth. Looking back at the retreating men and the van thing with the orange lights and tinkling sounds Adam realised he might not want to stick around wherever it was he was. He looked around, realising he stood in the middle of the emptied highway, wondering how long it must of taken for all the vehicles to evacuate and how long he'd been lying here while they did so Probably not very long He thought considering how the crafts to him had been nothing but bright afterimages. Moving quickly Adam bent down and picked up as much of bark as he could carry in his two hands before sprinting off the clear road.
"Hey!" he heard a voice shout from behind him as he ran off on the sidewalk. He didn't pause to say hello or await the men's actions with bated breath, he just kept running. Adam sprinted away from the trio of super science doctors(the name of an actual medical institution in this world) back the way he had come, the direction in which he knew a bathroom lay, He felt the bark clenched in his grip stiffen and become more like dead wood in his hands. His teeth gritted, he kept running down the empty path. He had spent so much of his new life running Adam was starting to get more used to the action. He wished that he didn't keep having to run from everyone he met, or away from the people he'd met towards a bathroom that would transport him so far he'd never see them again, or even in the case of this new world have to run after what could of been a friend or tentative ally. His eyes filled a little thinking about the woman's loss, still unused to barbarity and coldness of death. Although he didn't know anything about the dryad, he knew what she'd been like in her very last moment, he knew of her choice to save a stranger. It made sense for him to cry and even grieve for that person he'd barely known. Adam kept running, and whatever tears that might of fallen from his eyes were swiftly borne away by the wind of his flight.
A shock ran through his body as a rifle in the hands one of the good 'doctors' discharged with a jolt. Whatever projectile had been fired at Adam had clearly missed, for although he had felt the tingle that traveled down his shoulder it only caused him to stumble one step of his escape. Brought back to reality Adam heard footsteps behind him and the distant cursing of what must of been the man who fired the shock rifle. Adam refused to look back at his purser, trusting himself to make it to safety as he closed in on the strange 'forest'. It felt wrong to call it a forest after everything he'd seen, of the woman whispering to trees who weren't allowed to sprout, who revered in her presence despite only having a few scant seconds to be actually alive. The strange mesh that constricted them drew the life out of them with each pulse, Adam now seeing the parasitic nature of what man had built. He was disgusted and felt sure he would of shivered with revolution if not for the frantic chase he was in, this time him being the quarry. He weaved between the chained foliage as he closed in on the toilet building, noting that the liquid trees at least retained their freedom-although he was not sure if there much freedom to be had in those bioluminesent tanks. The simulated greenery and sounds of the forest were gone, returning it to the same lifeless eerie state that he had first found it in. Adam finally reached the front of the squat waypoint, two bathroom doors straddling a gaping entrance down into some sort of man made abyss.
As Adam reached the tiny building, especially tiny when considering the 3 quarter space elevators that surrounded it on all sides, he realised he had a choice to make. Go into the definitely safe bathrooms and drink the potion to make sure the magic worked, guaranteeing a way out of this technological hellscape, or dive down into the abyss and see more of what this world had to offer, maybe learn more about the woman who had saved his life and how he could help others like her; After all he did have a magical healing flask that could regenerate organs so who knew what it could do for a bunch of locked up plants. Either way there was risk, who knew if he would stand any chance of surviving his next reality-for we all know how highly the voice valued Adam's life and how much it enjoyed working with him to murde-save of all reality. It was that or Adam could stay and contend with these three med techs and whatever other machines that might have it after him, though he suspected he hadn't been the reason a normally functioning spacecraft had left behind it's programming to turn two innocent civilians to meat paste(because there was no way none could of been driving that thing). His decision was almost made for him as a grate began to emerge from the ceiling to block off the descending stairway and halt his escape from the strange paramedics turned inquisitors. The timing of the drop could't really be coincidence, making Adam evaluate his earlier thoughts about whether or not that car had really been for him. The buzzing drone hanging over his head way up in the sky might have confirmed that thought. If the machines weren't taking special action to get at Adam before, they were certainly doing it now. It was then Adam reached the conclusion that the path forward had been decided. He didn't want to leave this reality behind, not so soon. He wasn't too injured, just lightly bruised all over-mainly on his top half-which was frankly just ridiculous considering what he'd just been through-or rather what had just punched through him. He was mostly fine, and he wouldn't throw that all away now just because some two-bit medicine men were chasing him, or because a stupid machine wanted him too. No he wouldn't turn back now because of some half assed attempt by some computer to force him down one particular path, especially as said computer had tried to kill him, making someone sacrifice themselves to give him a second chance of life. Someone had payed a cost for him he didn't deserve and couldn't repay, he would honour that-he had to. Besides, Adam had seen India Jones, and he knew enough to know that when a closing wall separates your way out from a speedy violent purser, you slide under it-Adam just hoped that in this case there weren't Nazis waiting for him on the other side.