The Sky City. Night.
Cloud banks swirl across the panoramic windows of a high-rise hotel—phosphorescent mist lit by neon ads. The city lights reflect in glass walls, turning the room into a capsule suspended between reality and dreams. The world feels distant and hushed—even the urban hum sounds like an echo from another dimension.
On the floor lies a plush mat. Curled into a ball, a kitten named Charm purrs and twitches paws as though chasing a beam of light. Its fur glimmers silver, like a small cloud lost in shadows.
Alex sits nearby, a gentle smile on his exhausted face—not just relief, but disbelief at feeling safe. We're alive. For now. Maybe this is happiness—a minute free of fear.
He reaches out, almost afraid to break the silence.
Julia lounges in a chair, half‑reclining. A slim interactive communicator hugs her temple, its micro‑connector strands melding with her hair. Her eyes are closed; breathing steady—but this isn't sleep. It's inner calculation.
Androids never truly sleep. Even when still, thoughts shift, simulate, pattern‑match. A mind without rest. Consciousness without pause. What must it be—to never sleep, even inside yourself?
A signal rips through the quiet like a gunshot.
Alex's gadget flares with a sharp blue glow. He jerks upright, gaze locked on the screen; his face instantly hardens.
"Message from Ivor," he rasps. "Tone's all wrong. Totally wrong."
Julia opens her eyes. One swift motion – communicator detaches. Click – clean and clinical. No questions asked.
"He's been silent too long," she says, voice calm but coiled with tension. "What is it?"
"An urgent directive. We have to leave. Right now. A transport is waiting at the entrance. They'll relocate us to another sector. We thought we'd escaped—but… agents are already here. Inside the wall."
Julia stands and scans the room—bra, bed, shelves. Almost a home. Almost human corner. Almost… hope.
She exhales slowly, looking at each object as if saying goodbye.
"It's a shame," she murmurs. "I'd just started to like this quiet capsule. It reminded me life could… be simple."
Alex is already moving—pulls on his jacket, tosses clothes, tools, gadgets into his pack. Efficient and fast. But when his eyes leave Julia, fear flickers across his features.
"Julia…" he pauses mid‑stride. His voice breaks. "Honestly… I'd dive into a star's core with you beside me."
Julia steps forward. Their eyes touch—tension laced with rare tenderness among those raised to run.
"I'd follow you into the void," she says softly. "But fair warning… sometimes I feel like smashing a window. Just to remember—we're still alive."
Her smile—equal parts irony and steel—playful but ready to kill or die. Alex laughs—hoarse, short—like a gasp before a dive.
"Lucky no windows here," he jokes, tightening his pack. It rolls into a capsule—light as a shadow, tough as assault armor.
Julia moves to the door, pupils flaring—scanning.
"Clear. Let's go."
The corridor is dead‑silent, like an abandoned tunnel. Only the building hums, voices echoing below. They enter a service elevator. Glass walls fogged—world outside all but vanished. Alex tucks his pack to his chest.
This isn't escape. It's habit. Like breathing. Like living.
In the lobby, Julia places the key on the desk—not looking, yet seeing everything. Cash on the counter—not credits.
Alex assesses the entrance—instinct razor‑sharp. Anything could be a trap.
Outside waits a black limousine. Tinted windows. Appears ordinary. Too perfect.
Alex flicks on a beacon. The car responds, door swings open. Inside: cool, calm, quiet.
"Quick," he whispers, pulling Julia in.
Moments later, a flash rips through darkness.
A white arc of light rips the night.
A hit.
The limousine shudders; the cabin shivers. Metal cracks, the scent of ozone and burning plastic floods in. Emergency protocol kicks in—systems shift to auto‑defense.
They've been tagged.
Faster than we thought.
This isn't escape. It's a hunt.
A plasma slug slams into the body with a dry, strained thud. Armor fractures—fields distort.
The driver wrenches the wheel. The limo rockets upward, ripping a lane through skyscrapers like a predator ripping free from a trap.
Alex pulls Julia close, gaze to the glass—eyes wide with taut dread.
Across the rooftop: nothing. Just a plume of black dust and a shooter's form plummeting like a broken puppet.
He crashes against the glass canopy with a crunch—like reality itself fracturing. He didn't get a second shot.
If he'd waited half a second… Just one second—and she might be gone. Or me. Or us.
That close. That silent. That deadly.
A lone figure remains on the rooftop, cloaked in adaptive camouflage. A ground agent—Earth's operative. He touches a finger to his earpiece.
"Sniper eliminated," he says, voice steady as stone.
"Bad news: there was a shot.
Good news: the targets survived.
All Martian agents on-site have been neutralized."
Silence. Then another voice responds—cold, stripped of anything human, like a command whispered by an algorithm.
"Excellent.
Take them.
The clock is ticking."
Inside the limousine, warning lights pulse orange.
The driver turns his head—his face masked, voice gravel-smooth and unnervingly calm.
"Getting out? Not a problem.
Staying alive? That's the tricky part. Buckle up."
"Wait—buckle up for what, exactly?" Alex barely gets the words out.
Suddenly, the brakes slam.
They're thrown forward—foreheads knock together with a thud that would be funny if it weren't so violent. Alex's backpack flies from his hands. Julia lets out a sharp cry—not fear, but surprise that they can still fall faster.
Outside, a flash—then a low tremor, like concrete walls collapsing inwards.
The sound—like chains snapping under pressure.
The driver shuts his eyes for a second, but his tone never changes:
"Pulse discharge.
Told you—it's an ambush.
Their corridor. Their rules."
"Wonderful," Alex mutters, rubbing his bruised forehead.
"Love it when someone gives me advance notice of my own assassination."
The limousine surges upward, acceleration pinning them into their seats. Through the front panel, the dome of the Sky City vanishes behind them—leaving only a blinking airlock.
And the next second—space swallows the vehicle whole. Black and infinite.
Inside: silence.
Only the ragged breath of two androids who, once again, got lucky.
"We're en route to a base," says the driver without turning around. Without asking for confirmation.
"A closed sector. No one will find you there."
Alex leans forward, peers into the rearview mirror.
"We've got a tail," he says, his voice tightening into a knot.
"So let them follow," the driver replies evenly.
"We're already inside the perimeter. Their reach ends here."
The limousine glides through a checkpoint laced with neon markers.
Ahead, the cargo hold of a massive vessel looms—a metal beast poised for the jump.
The car stops. Power cuts.
The driver turns to them.
"End of the line. Time to disembark."
They step out—and freeze for a breath.
Before them rises a cargo starship.
Massive, scarred with welding seams. Airlocks yawning open, steam hissing from ports. Loaders darting like ants beneath the hull.
Above, a meteor-shield corridor shimmers like a mirage.
"This is your ship," the driver says.
He places a firm hand on each of their shoulders.
"Cabin Eleven. Don't forget. Once loaded, the course is set—Mercury.
Stay alive."
Julia narrows her eyes, reading him.
"How do we thank you? Maybe... we'll cross paths again?"
He smiles—like someone who no longer cares but still remembers how it felt.
"I owe Ivor.
And debt—well, that's a heavier currency than gratitude."
He waves once—and walks away without looking back.
Alex snorts softly, watching him go.
"What?" Julia asks.
"Nothing. Just impressed. Even under fire, you find time to flirt."
"We're still breathing, aren't we?
Unless you'd prefer to cancel all emotion until the next ambush?"
They ascend the boarding ramp.
The passenger module is compact, padded with soft mats. The scanner clicks, flashes green.
CABIN 11.
"Not bad," Alex mutters, scanning the space. "Bit cramped though."
"All the better to keep you close," Julia replies, folding him into an embrace that holds both warmth and resolve.
"You use panic as a romantic backdrop a little too confidently," he says, arms crossed in mock protest.
"And you," she says, eyes narrowing, "have a gift for ruining the moment with a single sentence."
"I ruin nothing," he insists—with the kind of look that usually earns a slap, but instead gets a kiss.
"I'm all for romance. Within the bounds of reasonable chaos."
"No surprise there, philosopher," she replies. In her voice: fatigue, relief… and something else. Something unspoken.
She holds him—truly holds him. No filters, no hesitation.
Their lips meet in a kiss that's not for show. Not performance.
Just reflex.
We're alive.
We're here.
We're still whole.
At that moment, a soft blur leaps from Alex's bag—Charm.
The artificial kitten stretches gently against Julia's leg, purring like it means it.
Their breath stills—then syncs again.
With its purr.
With the hush of the cabin.
With the murmur of distant solar wind.
Space says nothing.
But inside this silence—there is peace.
Even if only for a few hours.