The city was different, and not just because of Rex Tyran’s New Tomorrow initiative. In the past, Nono Rodriguez would have been out because of her parents and friends. This time she was out on the city on her own. After seeing closure after closure while driving around for other purposes, she had started to worry about how many of her old hangouts and which of the Pony haunts were still open.
The city was different, but it felt like she was seeing with new eyes as well.
This is what growing up is like. This is what maturity is like. I guess?
She was walking out of the old cake shop when Emma pulled up in the parking lot, driving a well-worn but sleek-looking electric sports car. It was a convertible model, and the top was down. Emma pushed a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses down her nose and grinned. “Hop in, you tall drink o’ water, we’re going hot-rodding.”
I guess we’re all done growing up, Nono realized in bemusement.
“You stole this car,” Nono concluded, deadpan.
“I paid for it with stolen cash,” Emma shrugged. “Get in.”
Reluctantly, Nono put the bag of cake boxes in the back, climbed in the passenger’s seat, and belted herself in.
Once the car was underway, Emma grinned. “Yeah, I stole it.”
Nono sighed at the predictability of this announcement, and punched Emma hard in the arm. “Why are you like this?”
Behind them, the sound of sirens alerted Nono.
“Mask on,” Emma said tersely, and handed over a balaclava. Nono instinctively took it, pulled off her glasses, pulled the mask over her head, and adjusted it. With her glasses back on, she could take time to look behind the car.
What she saw were two Tyran-type security robots, built like tanks with a humanoid torso on top. They had treads and armor and everything. They were maneuvering with dangerous speed and grace through the traffic behind the stolen car, and both had sirens out and flashing.
“Pull - Over - Immediately,” the nearest robot announced via loudspeaker.
“I’m like this because we’re gathering intel on Tyran Enterprises,” Emma answered. “Now pay close attention. We’re learning how the bots operate.”
The electric car accelerated sharply, thanks to the Annadyne T-36 engine under the hood. The bots sped up in turn.
Nono felt a lump, moved around in the seat, and fished up a paper bag. Peeking inside, she found prescription bottles and pharmacy paperwork. “Someone was picking up their stuff when you stole their car,” she growled at Emma. “They’re gonna need this back. Peoples’ medication is really important!”
“Don’t pay attention to that, pay attention to the robots,” Emma said through gritted teeth, and yanked on the steering wheel. The car swerved sharply to the right, and Nono’s seatbelt pressed painfully against her skin.
Behind them, the chatter of gunfire could be heard. The robots had just missed.
“What did we just learn?” Emma yelled.
Thoughts ran rapidly through Nono’s head, sped up by the sudden escalation in danger. “They shot at us. They shot at us in a stolen car. They shot at the car? Um, um… they don’t really care about returning the car unharmed to the owner!”
Her triumphant finish earned her a thumbs-up from Emma, who used her other hand to jink the car left and right. “And what does that tell you?”
“I don’t know?” Nono said, uncertainly.
Overhead, they heard a new voice. Nono looked up and recognized a member of the Chosen - Kinetica. The young hero was flying above them.
“Want to pull it over before the Tyran toys take you out?” she asked, and Nono wasn’t sure if her tone was sarcastic or scared.
“If we surrender, they’ll find out about our Pyrrhic activities. We’ll be put away for life,” Emma cautioned Nono, as quietly as she could in the middle of a car chase. “That old civilian life you remember is burned up. It’s gone.”
Nono thought very fast. She turned back to Kinetica. “Uh, listen, we can’t surrender for complicated reasons. But listen. Someone got their prescription. Can you take it back to them?”
“Sure. After I stop some car thieves with a bad comedy routine,” Kinetica shouted back, and dived for the vehicle.
“Take over,” Emma shouted, and gestured at the wheel.
Nono unbuckled and slid over. Emma climbed into the backseat, making room, and began to weave a curtain of flame to keep Kinetica at bay.
Once in the driver’s seat, Nono’s foot went for the accelerator. She slid one hand into her purse and came out with a flow patch, and slapped it on her bare arm. If she was going to be driving dangerously, she’d need it.
The change in drivers allowed the robots to get closer. Nono could see them in the side-view mirror. The rear-view mirror was taken up by Emma’s rear view. Without the ability to see threats clearly, Nono could only guess where they were. Well, she’d just have to improvise.
“Brace yourself!” Nono shouted, and pulled hard at the wheel. The car veered into opposing traffic, and Nono had a heart-racing few moments dodging oncoming cars. But she could see clearly in both side mirrors. Okay…
“Maybe I should let the robots have you!” Kinetica shouted.
“We’re not hurting anyone!” Nono called back.
“Yeah, buzz off!” Emma yelled.
“Wait! Don’t buzz off!” Nono remembered the medication. “Uh - uh - Firebrand! The prescription!”
Emma let out a long, exasperated sigh.
“Just do it! It’s important to me!” Nono insisted.
With exaggerated weariness, Emma scooped up the paper bag and held it out toward Kinetica, still flying some distance behind them. “Two choices, hero! Take this bag to its proper owner, and leave us to the robots. Or come at me, and get barbecued!”
The halo of flame surrounding her and the car intensified and pulsed for emphasis.
“Are you serious?” demanded Kinetica.
“Look just take the fucking bag,” Emma begged.
The negotiations were interrupted as Nono swerved and swung around a semi-trailer.
At last, Kinetica shrugged and grinned. “Fine. I’m coming down. Flag of truce.”
Emma nodded. “Fine.”
The flying hero touched down, with some effort, on the jerkily moving car. Emma handed over the bag. Kinetica peeked in, saw the contents, and nodded. “Good luck, joy-riders,” she grinned, and launched into the sky.
That just left the robots, who as though reminding the girls of their presence, launched a volley of micro-missiles. Emma’s fire-screen disposed of them in a cataclysmic explosion.
“I can’t get a clear shot at them with all this traffic,” she told Nono.
“I’ll get on the Interstate,” Nono said.
“That’s behind us. Where the robots are.”
“I know.”
Nono, feeling the rush of her flow patch, did a move she’d seen on television, and had worked out in her head via physics. She yanked the wheel and went for the emergency brake. The car spun. She heard and felt Emma fall into the back seat with a loud “oof!”
She put her foot on the accelerator, hard, and let off the brake. The car’s tire traction was good enough to launch it, rather than spin out as she’d feared.
“I realized what it means!” she shouted into the back seat, hoping Emma would hear.
The electric car zoomed past the robots. Their tank treads couldn’t pivot the way car wheels could, but their torsos could rotate, and did. Weapon fire filled the air.
Nono could see the security cameras lining the streets, up on buildings and stoplights. She could see the pedestrians on the sidewalks, watching the scene or ducking out of the way. She could see people holding up their phones, collecting footage.
“Human heroes would never go this hard on us. Before the invasion, people wouldn’t have accepted this. But now they do. So the Tyran people think they can use that.”
Her foot was on the accelerator like a lead weight. Her left hand steered, and her right held down the horn to get people out of the way. The car sped up the ramp and onto the Interstate, catching a few inches of air in the process. It landed roughly.
Nono laid off the horn. She could see Emma sitting up from the back seat, looking behind them.
“It means New Tomorrow is going to be a pretty bad place for regular people.”
“And the cost to learn this was one stolen car,” Emma said.
The robots burst onto the Interstate.
“When I say brake, hit the brakes hard,” Emma commanded.
“Wilco.”
The pyrokinetic watched, and gauged, and shouted. “Brake!”
Nono slammed on the brakes. The car decelerated savagely. The robots, already going at top speed, drew alarmingly close–
Emma threw out her hands, and tremendous gouts of flame erupted. The security bots were engulfed in the blast.
“Drive! Now!” Emma shouted, and Nono obeyed.
Behind them, an ammo cookoff caused the robots to explode.
“Now we ditch the car,” Emma grinned, and hopped back into the front seat.
The pair got some distance from their stolen ride, by taking a route through buildings and sewers and elevators.
Finally, Nono smiled. “Stealing a car is against the law. But you stole it to figure out what they were like. You didn’t just do it to gratify yourself.”
“If I want to gratify myself, I have a hot girlfriend,” Emma smirked. “But, yeah… I lecture you a lot about villains, and how the powerful are above the law, don’t I. But I listen to you too. I’m getting better about respecting people, aren’t I.”
“You are. And I’m proud of you,” Nono said with a smile, watching her partner with wide eyes.
It felt really nice, to be listened to, appreciated, cared about. This, Nono realized, was the feeling she wanted from being “Agent R”. Not the fighting and infiltration and gadgets. She’d had all that. But she was starting to figure out how the world really worked, and make a difference, and belong to something and someone. It was a scary life, but it was a life where she had a place.
All it had taken was a run-in with a supervillain.
Nono kept looking at Emma as the other girl kept talking.
This is what I want. This is who I want. It’s scary…
She remembered the sounds of her parents arguing. She remembered the hopelessness, the helplessness, the isolation, the anxiety.
But life was scary before.
