Daydream

6. The Big Red Button

"Hurry up!" Zezilia shouted at Ernest who was rushing through the street at turbo speed.

"I am travelling at max capacity." He rounded a corner and almost crashed into a woman who was walking by. "The only way to achieve a higher speed would be for me to drop the excess baggage. A fitting end for all of you."

"I rather you don't!" Carlos said and clung even closer to the robot.

"I don't think we're allowed to go this fast!" Karen shouted over the sound of Ernest engine. "The max speed in living areas are-"

"We have more pressing issues than speeding!" Carlos glared at her.

"I'm just saying..." Karen mumbled.

"There they are!" Miguel shouted and pointed ahead of them. The three men from the bar on their hover bike had come into view. "We've almost caught up!" Then the bike took a turn and again disappeared from their line of sight. "Never mind."

"Don't you have some kind of remote for Daydream?" Carlos asked Zezilia. "Because it would be really useful right now if it could fly here by itself."

"No remote." Zezilia answered while tapping away at her computer. "It was sacrificed to appease the ticket writing gods."

"It is called a bribe." Ernest said. "And you still have 42 597 tickets left to pay. The total sum you need to pay off is 965-"

"Yes, yes, I know." Zezilia interrupted him. "You don't need to bring it up, it's not like I have the money to pay it off anyway."

"But you have to pay them!" Karen sounded desperate. "How many laws are you even breaking on a daily basis?"

"None!" Zezilia said with confidence. "You can't break a law that belongs to a system when you avoid the system."

"That is not how it works in a society."

"Thank you, Ernest." Karen made an attempt at hugging the robot, but was unable to due to her being carried on his back with her back facing his. "You're the only sensible thing here."

"You know he tried to steer us to a killer planet, right?" Carlos said nervously. He shot a few worried looks at his sister. Then he whispered to Miguel. "Do you think she has selective amnesia?"

"My memory's perfectly fine!" Karen said before Miguel had a chance to answer. "And it's your fault we're even in this mess! If you hadn't gone into the escape pod we wouldn't be here!"

"No, the only reason this happened is because you came and nagged at us!" Carlos retorted. The two glared at each other and Miguel knew that another sibling quarrel was on the rise.

"Can you fight about it later?" Miguel said meekly. "Like, when we aren't in a hurry to the ship in fear of it being sabotaged?" The two had their mouths shut, but still kept glaring at one another.

"Yes! They'll take care of it!" Zezilia suddenly exclaimed. "They'll even start the engine and prepare everything for takeoff. We just need to get there and then we fly off in the same second. That's such a relief; thank the black holes in the void that they're so reliable."

"What are you talking about?" Miguel couldn't make sense of what she was saying, since when were black holes a relief?

"Oh, nothing much." Zezilia answered and put back her computer in her pocket. "Alpha and Beta will secure Daydream's safety until we get there. Now, keep at it Ernest, we're almost there!"

"How can they protect it?" Carlos looked at Zezilia in utter confusion. "How did you even tell them that? You said they couldn't talk!"

"Just because they can't talk doesn't mean that they can't understand. I sent them a message and they read it. Simple as that."