Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
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"Let's go," Ty said, rushing up the hill.
He stumbled over a root, but quickly gained footing.
"Wait."
Damon was planted on the hill behind him.
"I can't wait." Ty motioned to the building, to the figure he knew to be Sam.
"Someone else is there," Damon cautioned.
Now two figures hugged the building. They inched along, hands up.
"They looked armed."
The duo bloomed into a quartet. Four people crept along the back of the compound, stopping when a ring of search lights flooded their space. They were dressed similarly, in an odd, shapeless bag-looking thing.
"They caught them. We have to go," Ty said.
"Wait."
"What---?"
A din of voices carried over the wind. Ty did as his little brother suggested. He waited, head down, trying to catch what was being said. The voices rose louder, shouting.
"---indecent coupling!-------Law!"
Ty raised a brow, but Damon seemed unsurprised. He raised a hand in a halting gesture.
"Wait."
More shouting. Ty grabbed a tree root to position himself better. From his new vantage point, he spotted a squat building with a small gate. Several men with State gear shouted from one side of the gate, and another band of less organized men shouted from the other side. Guns were leveled, and further threats were hurled.
A bulky man outside of the gates positioned a hand to his chest, asserting "That won't stand!"
One pop. Then another. A score of shots crackled across the air.
"Go!" Damon shouted, his voice barely cutting over the fire fight.
Ty broke into a run. There would be time to question his brother's old-Mage, all-knowing role, but it wasn't now. He grabbed root after root to finish the ascent over a shifting carpet of leaves. Gulping in air, he swept the back of the building where the four escapees had been.
