|YA featured story|
Welcome to 2325.
The natural world is no longer habitable, the government has been all but privatised and the 15-billion strong population has spent the last 170 years crammed into a single man-made continent.
When her father's...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I kept my foot to the floor, swerving off the access road and onto a busy street. Headlights blinded me as I veered into a lane of oncoming traffic, almost causing a pile-up. I lurched back out of the lane, accidentally mounting the sidewalk in the process. Pedestrians dove out of my path, the roar of the car's labouring engine serving as a warning as I ploughed through holo-adverts.
I sucked in shallow breaths, my eyes wide and my foot like lead on the pedal. Buildings flew by in a blur as the car sped along the sidewalk like it was an extra lane on the road.
I was Lensless again—which surprisingly didn't scare me as much as it had the first time—even if some directions might have been handy right now.
The car groaned as I wrestled it back onto the road and around a corner, checking in all directions for anything that might give me some idea of where I was—but the towering buildings and their onslaught of digital advertising could have belonged in any territory.
How was I supposed to find Delta if I couldn't even work out where I was?
Maybe I should have stuck with Zaphron.
I took another sharp corner, going out too wide and almost side-swiping a car in the opposite lane. I flinched, tensing in anticipation of a scrape that never came.
At this rate I was going to end up crashing and having to find my way on foot.
I blew out a breath and righted the steering. My heart sinking when I saw the street was just as generic as the last. I was going to have to keep heading in an unknown direction until I found a landmark or a sign. Just as I was about to make another turn, red and blue lights caught my eye in the wing mirror.
The Forcers had found me.
"Shit," I hissed, my foot doing its best to push the accelerator through the floor. I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip on the wheel, willing the clunker to go faster. The vibrating roar of the engine nearly outdid the panicked thoughts rattling through my head.
It was only a matter of time before they caught up to me.
I glanced around in panic, desperately searching for a tunnel or something that could help me make a getaway. My gaze snagged on Zaphron's hov-board in the back seat, and I grabbed it.
The lights were getting closer behind me. I could make out the outline of two Forcers through their windscreen. I probably only had seconds before they would be on me.
I powered up the board. The turbines blasted a brief jet of wind directly into my face and my hand slipped off the wheel, sending the car's steering into a leftward lurch. I bounced up onto the sidewalk again, but this time I couldn't correct it. The Forcers had caught up to me and now occupied the lane closest to the sidewalk—making it impossible to get back onto the road without ramming them.
