Off World Run Around

The thud and click of reinforced nano-fiber slapping against wet ceramic asphalt rang out down the dark allyway in the drizzling rain. After running in the plated boots for almost an hour now, an exhausted man found himself wishing he had gone with a lower level reinforcement or just tak the cyber_prosthetic plunge already. He took a look back over his shoulder, simultaneously slowing his pace from a jog to a brisk walk. Once sure that the way was clear in both directions, he stopped completely, and sank into the shadow created the light from nearby LED sign being cut off by a six foot tall cylindrical trash compressor. It was a sure sign that it was a broke neighborhood, and no money meant no surveillance. He had lost track of exactly how far they had flown, or what places they had barrelled through in the chase over the last hour. Needed to stop and regroup, figure out what his next move was. Being in orbit, and awake, for some where around forty two hours without stopping had definitely taken it's toll, though. it wasn't five minutes before the weight on his eyelids dragged them closed, and he was on his way to dreamland.

As he peered with his mind's eye through himself, familiar scenes appeared before him. Times gone by with friends, some he'd hoped were still alive, and a lover drifting away, whom he was certain had died.

He awoke with a start at the memory of her, and his hand shot under the cusp of his jacket. After a moment trying to stay within the tender moments playing in his mind, the soft sound of his name cooing from even softer lips echoing through all his senses, a low flying vehicle rolled loudly just over the top of the buildings on either side of him, about four stories up. It tore him back to consciousness entirely, and abruptly.

The weight of his situation set in once more. He needed to regroup. The most immediate, and best idea that came to mind was to climb up to the roof and get his bearings. No time was wasted, he shimmied up a dead lamp post and hopped over to a set of rusted old conduit housings running up the side of a wall. When he arrived at the top a minute or so later, his eyes were met with a troublesome scene, that brought him more than a little dread. On one side, he saw over the next several miles, a series of concrete channels about 3 meters wide. Several large concrete domes, smoke and water vapor billowing through the cracks here and there. Some dust blown hills and dunes off beyond that. The other side appeared to be an endless, flat sea of sand, riddled with grey cracks, bathed in a light yellow hazy of light. The morning sun through the straggling clouds of the last night's storm. There was more of what looked like vapor than smoke on this side, however, and it looked to be further apart, dissappearing into the horizon, littered with dunes.

He was standing on the outskirts of the slums, in what had become known as the "Trench". The Trench was a large area of land that had been converted into a massive subterranean construction project that would both help with providing habitat control, and deal with worsening climate conditions. Residential and commercial construtions had only been underway for a couple of years when war and repeating natural disasters, shut all building projects down for lack of finaincial resources. This had left a few hundred square miles of undeveloped platforms, with settlements here and there. Plenty of bandits to spare on top of that. The developed area turned into the domes that lay behind him now.

The craft that had jarred him earlier was still nearby, crawling just over the sand further into the waste. Out of curiousity, he pulled a small optic, with a couple of even smaller lenses attached on the side, from a pouch on his thigh, and pointed it in the direction of the craft. Exactly 867 meters away, as the display read, in the hazy mist of dust and light, the emblem for the Global Union of Spatial & Tactical Security, he saw displayed proudly on the side of the cruiser.

Cursing under his breath, he quickly pocketed the scope, and began descending back down into the corridors below. As soon as his head passed below the surface again, the the cruiser began making a sharp round about. The runner hadn't even made it all the way to the ground before his pursuers roared into place over head, dispensing three tactical androids that sank silently as stone's in the night thrown off a cliff into oblivion. Through the dingy gloom they descended, landing in the grimy water with a soft thub that carried a tinge of finely tune mechanical movement. Upon landing, each droid readied a shotgun, and the second the would be escape artist's boots touched the ground, they all fired. He fell to the ground, siezing, with one dart in his chest, and the other in his left buttcheek, either emitting little sparks every so often. While he lay there, writhing on the ground, an aspiring maggot in the heap of decay, the police robots surrounded him closely, one firmly planting the butt of a shotgun in the base of his skull. Consciousness slipped blissfully away once more.

The sensation of being thrown into a lake in the northern territories just after it had thawed in the spring, brought him back to consciousness.

"Sleep well did we? Had a nice dream?" the gravel filled voice of a man said, the hint of a taunt rolling acrossed the steal table, in a featureless room. "I do hope you're comfortable, and let me know if I can get you anything for you, please."

An attempt to quickly stand up and turn around at the same time left the man just realizing that he wasn't climbing out of a near frozen lake, flopping around, face down on the floor, much like a fish in the same situation. His arms wear tied to the chair.

"You know, I always thought these would be replaced with a newer alternative. Funny how some things are just timeless when they're made, hmm?" the mid sized man, with some notable cyber-proth mods, spoke waving a hefty ziptie like a wand, " I must've felt that way since 2010, soooo, almost sixty years?"

The man idly scratched the grey stubble that encompassed his jawline with an armored robotic hand as he walked over to where the fish flopped, and flipped him back up to the table with ease. He certainly didn't look to be older than forty, but certain mods could slow the aging process drastically, if one had the right connections and clearances.

"You said tell you if I need anything, yeah? How about taking your 'Timeless' zipties off me then?"

Retaking the opposing seat at the table, his new friend reached into a breast pocket, and produced from it, a black heart shaped locket, which he dangled from one mechanical finger.

"Oh of course, but I think we need to discuss this, and a few other things first, no?"

A calm cold set over the room , cast from the eyes of the two, and the clarity of it's implications.

"She's alive?" the captive man asked, as he tried to muster the best poker face his tired eyes could manage.

A grin appeared on the rugged face of his captor, "I think I'll ask the questions, first." he spoke in the softest tone his stone filled vocal cords could muster.