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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The series of shots provided the perfect distraction.
A second before, Sam had been sure the spotlight would find them. She was prepared to shoot to save the others, or run at them so someone could escape. A dark scenario ran through her head where she would shoot, point, shoot, point, counting until she only had one in the chamber. She would check over her shoulder, see her friends had gone before placing the hot muzzle to her temple.
But that scenario never had to happen. The spotlight had found them, but no guards flooded out from the bright circle to drag them back.
Something was happening at the front entrance. Amaretto understood their good fortune, and called for Tricia and Duke to hurry. The teens ran in front, unhindered. Sam half-ran, half-stumbled with Amaretto dragging her.
Ahead, a line of trees. Beyond that, a great maw of black.
Sam liked it. The black, the unknown, it was better than what they were running from.
Only her running sucked, and she couldn't keep up. She shoved Amaretto, trying to tell her to go without her, but the words dribbled out with drool and spittle that, to her horror, she couldn't keep in her damn mouth.
"Not leaving you," Amaretto said.
Sam liked her despite the cliché, especially because the sentiment must've taken a lot to say in the face of, well, her bloodied face.
"Go," she said.
It came out more like "Gur," made worse when she ineffectively pushed Amaretto. The very graceful women shifted away. This threw Sam further off-balance.
Her body pitched forward, beginning a painful roll down through the trees.
This is a big ass hill.
Not long after, a punch to the gut knocked the breath from her. One bleary look confirmed that it wasn't a punch, but a bulging tree root that had caught her descent downhill.
Combined with her already aching head, Sam's aching body warned of an impending shut down.
Voices clamored, echoing from far away. Leaves crunched, and the voices grew closer. Hanging over the root, Sam forced her head up. Someone was running at her, a man. Using everything she had left, she raised the gun. Then Damon's face came into focus.
Her entire body relaxed. She dropped the gun, not caring that it was lost in the leaves.
Her little brother was coming to save her.
Oddly, she was glad to be alive to see him, for however long that would last.
