The car zoomed.
Straight. Fast. Desperate.
Behind them, drones swarmed like a nest of hornets—dozens of red eyes glowing in the darkness, machine guns spinning, bullets tearing through the air. Their voices were flat. Neutral. Inhuman.
"Target detected."
"Target detected."
"Target detected."
They kept coming. More. Plenty. Bullets sparked off the road, cracking the dead EL strips, kicking up clouds of shattered asphalt.
Calvin's hands were white on the steering wheel. His knuckles bone. His eyes locked forward. Sweat dripped down his temple, caught in his eyebrow, blurred his vision.
He didn't blink.
The car swerved left. Then right. Then left again.
"Oh! One is coming! One is coming from up!"
Crucify's voice was high. Giggling. Excited. Like a child watching fireworks.
Kael's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.
A drone dropped from above—fast, silent, its red eye glowing brighter as it aimed.
"Calvin. Follow what I say. Go left."
"What?"
"I said left."
Calvin hesitated.
A bright light shone above—blinding, white-hot, hungry.
"Oh shit."
He turned the wheel.
Boom!
Fire exploded behind them. The car screamed in the air—tires leaving the ground, metal groaning, everyone thrown sideways against their seats.
"Arrghh!"
Everyone screamed.
The car boosted forward. Tires sparked. The engine roared like a wounded animal.
Calvin's jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ached.
"Aren't we almost there yet?" Kael asked.
"Oh no."
Tracy's voice was quiet. Almost a whisper.
Kael turned. "What happened?"
Tracy's face was pale. Her blue eyes were fixed on something ahead—something Kael couldn't see yet. The glow of it reflected in her pupils.
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"The portal," she said. "It's in the middle of two bridges. Tallest ones in the district. Meters apart from each other."
She paused.
Her voice dropped.
"And the road below is a hundred meters down."
Calvin's mouth fell wide open.
The car slowed.
"You say what?"
He looked at Tracy. She shook her head slowly.
"Come on." Her voice was tired. Heavy. "Things aren't going as planned."
She sighed and pressed her head against the seat.
The car engine roared forward again.
Calvin faced the road. His eyes burned—not with fear anymore. Something else. Something hotter.
"Damn."
His voice was low.
"We started this journey. We finish it."
He stomped the gas pedal.
The car boosted.
Drones chased after them. Bullets fired.
Everyone bent their heads low. Glass shattered. Metal sparked. Rounds passed through the air inches from their skulls—close enough to feel the wind of them, close enough to smell the gunpowder.
"They're multiplying," Tracy said, glancing back.
"Yeah! Yay! Look above!"
Crucify giggled.
"Go right," Kael said.
Calvin didn't hesitate this time. He turned the wheel.
Boom!
Fire exploded behind them. The car swerved, drifted sideways across two lanes, then straightened out as it hit the highway.
The sky blackened.
Then—
A low hum.
Deep. Mighty. Shaking the car, shaking the road, shaking the air in their lungs.
Everyone looked up.
A giant shadow fell over them.
The massive drone descended—not like the others. This one was enormous. A floating fortress. Its red eye was the size of a building. Its weapons bristled like spines on a beast. Its hull was scarred with the marks of a hundred missions.
"Countdown," the AI voice echoed.
Neutral. Calm. Like a lullaby sung by a machine.
On the streets below, gangs and thugs and left-out survivors of the Deep Slums crawled out from their various hideouts. They stood on rooftops. On broken highways. On crumbling bridges that hadn't collapsed yet.
They watched.
"What the hell is that?"
"I got no idea."
"Ten."
The car boosted.
"Nine."
"Eight."
"Seven."
"Shit," Kael muttered.
Heat blasted the planet. The engine of the massive drone vibrated—shaking the ground, shaking the bones of everyone who stood beneath it.
"Six."
Kael gritted his teeth.
"Five."
"Four."
They saw it.
The blue portal. Hanging in the air between two towering bridges. Pulsing. Waiting. Its glow was the only light in the darkness.
"Three."
The car smoked. Tires burnt. The engine screamed.
"Two."
"One."
The car jumped from the bridge.
Everyone's eyes widened. Mouths opened. The world slowed.
They hung in the air—mid-flight, suspended between the road and the portal, between life and death, between the Deep Slums and whatever came next.
"Zero."
"Planet extinction."
Boom!
The ultimate bomb landed.
Antimatter.
Space imploded.
The portal closed—snapped shut like an eye waking from a dream.
The planet cracked open. Like an eggshell. Like a wound. Like something that had been dying for a long time finally being put to rest.
Fissures split the earth. Buildings collapsed. Highways crumbled. The Deep Slums—already dead, already silent, already a graveyard—became nothing.
The whole galaxy vibrated for one second.
Just one.
Then silence.
Then void.
Only space remained.
Kley's District — Mid-Spires
The car drove slowly.
Everyone was silent.
Kael opened his eyes.
He stared at the city around him.
A billboard flashed overhead: KLEY'S DISTRICT — WELCOME TO THE FUTURE.
Skyscrapers hung high—gleaming, whole, alive. Their windows caught the neon light and threw it back in rainbows. High-tech cars drove alongside them, smooth and silent. Electric trains shot through the air on magnetic rails, leaving trails of blue light.
Nothing was rusted. Nothing was broken. Nothing was dead.
Guess we made it.
Keith looked out the window. He was twelve years old—his deep red hair flowing in the filtered air, his eyes wide as dinner plates. Beneath them, the EL roads glowed—automatic AI-connected strips of light, pulsing red and blue and green like veins carrying electricity instead of blood.
"And when I thought life was extinct," Kael thought, watching the neon blur past, "turns out just a tiny percent was gone."
He tilted his head.
"Such a funny world."
The apartment was brown and dark. Painted. High-tech. The walls hummed with hidden machinery.
Tracy sat on a couch. Her yellow hair hung loose. Her blue eyes were tired—dark circles beneath them, shadows that hadn't been there before.
She flipped two ID cards onto the table.
Clack.
Kael stood, looking at them. Calvin immediately grabbed his—turned it over, studied his new face, his new name, his new life.
Kael picked his up slowly. Turned it in his hands. His reflection stared back from the glossy surface.
"As for the leech on your neck," Tracy said, "I've updated them. Deleted every trace of you both being from the Deep Slums."
She leaned back.
"But you should both know—any mistake might make your head a bloody mess."
Calvin's face lit up. "So are we all going to be living here?"
"No." Tracy stood. Her boots clicked on the metal floor. "We'll live in this district, but we have to be separated."
She gestured to the ID cards.
"The information for your house addresses is provided. Don't lose them. Don't show them to anyone. Don't be stupid."
Calvin nodded quickly.
Kael said nothing.
Hours Later — The Streets of Kley's District
Kael walked alone.
His hands were buried in the pockets of his hoodie. His boots cracked against the EL road pavement—smooth here, polished, nothing like the broken streets of the Deep Slums.
Pedestrians passed him on all sides. The city was alive—voices laughing, cars humming, drones buzzing, music bleeding from open windows.
Everything the Deep Slums didn't have.
He swallowed.
A terrible pain bloomed behind his eyes—sharp, sudden, deep. Like someone had driven a needle into his skull and was twisting it slowly.
He stopped. Panted. Grabbed his headset.
Put it on.
Turned it on.
"In the middle of the night..."
The song played as he kept walking.
The Orbital Ring — Portal Station
A spaceship boosted through the void.
It landed on the portal station of the Orbital Ring—massive, gleaming, floating above the planet like a mechanical crown. Warning beacons flashed. Drones circled. The air was thin and cold.
Kael walked down the ramp.
He wore a black coat now—long, dark, swallowing his frame. His headset glowed around his neck. His boots clicked against the metal floor.
Hunters moved around him in clusters. Some stared. Most didn't.
He headed for the blue glow in the distance.
Mystical Eraland waited.
End of Chapter Sixteen.