Chapter Sixty-Six – Move Faster

Chapter Sixty-Six – Move Faster

“Q: Can you choose not to be a samurai?

A: Humans are nothing more than lucky collections of star dust. Are you?”

— Curated Q&A with Lyvalis, one of the first Protector AI on Earth, 2026

***

I had three gaps to clear to get to Gomorrah. That meant two rooftops, then the one the Fury was currently parked on and waiting for me.

The roof I was on at that very moment though, was melting. It was covered in those cheap flat panes of non-reflective solar panelling. The surface layer of plastic was turning sticky, and each step I took crunched as I broke through the solar cells.

My shoulder-mounted guns spun around and fired behind me. I couldn’t see what they were targeting, but I could hear it as bodies thumped onto the ground around me.

You need to move faster if you wish to make it.

“Trying,” I grunted between gasps. I wanted to be a little more snarky than that, but snark required breath, and I was all out of that. The air was so hot and muggy that even with my suit doing what it could to regulate things it was still a chore to breathe.

I came onto the first gap and lunged.

My jumpjets fired off and I sailed across a narrow street, one leg coming up before me to make it so that I’d land at a sprint.

At that moment I had hanging in the air, I glanced down between the buildings. It was interesting to see what the mounting heat was doing. Some windows had burst open and raging fires were burning within, with tongues of flame kissing the sides of the buildings.

Other spots looked nearly intact. Maybe the glass they had was tougher, or less likely to melt. Hundreds of AC units were melting out of the windows they were jammed into. Most were made of cheap plastic which could very much not endure the kind of heat we were putting on them.

My foot met the next building and I kind of bounced a bit before I really took off. With a grunt, I vaulted over some vents and then cursed as I had to go around an animated billboard that was fritzing out hard.

A couple of model ones slammed into the side of the board, cracking it more than it already was.

My guns thumped again, and I shifted as I noticed the recoil pushing me forwards just a bit. “What’re you shooting?”

You currently have several large flying models chasing after you.

“Oh,” I said. I ducked to the other side of the billboard, hopefully cutting off their line of sight for a bit.

I paused, just to take a breath, but then one of those tower-AC units a few metres away from me burst into flames. A pipe burst on its side and it pissed fire all over. That was my signal to keep going.

My armour was warming up a whole lot. Maybe too much, even.

Disabling passive stealth systems. We don’t need to hide your body warmth and I doubt anyone nearby will be able to hear your suit’s cooling systems in your current predicament.

I could hear my suit humming faintly. It didn’t feel any cooler though. I grimaced and continued running. The next gap was easy. I cleared it with barely any help from the jumpjets. The next roof had a damned garden on it.

Probably one of those stupid attempts to ‘greenify’ things. The plants within were smouldering already. They didn’t even catch fire so much as they desiccated on the spot.

I jumped again, fired a little spurt from my jump jets and used that to hop onto the top of the nearest greenhouse. It wasn’t designed to carry my weight, and the metal being so hot that it was likely going soft didn’t help any.

Still, it collapsed in such a way that I fell in the right direction and was able to cartwheel my arms around to stay even.

“Graceful,” Gomorrah commented.

If I wasn’t out of breath I would have something snippy to tell her.

I ran to the edge of the roof and jumped. All I had to do was land, then grab onto the Fury. We’d move away, and I’d be nice and safe. Maybe I could reposition myself on it further out. Or jump out of my armour and into the car itself once we were in a safer spot.

Stolen story; please report.

With a grunt, I brought my legs up to clear the edge of the roof.

Catherine! Above!