But when I open my eyes, I see the ground growing closer and the roof of the building and helicopter parked atop of it fading behind the thousands of glass windows that constitute the side of the building. With the bright lights of all the buildings flashing by me at night, I feel as if I am experiencing a bad trip on acid. Every light blurs into one massive field of fire as my body feels like it is going through the spin cycle in the wash.
But the terror doesn’t overwhelm me.
As soon as I orient myself in the air, my body kicks into action. It’s time to survive. I roll over onto my back in mid-air, my speed exponentially increasing during my fall to the ground. If I don’t perfect this maneuver on my first try, I will undoubtedly crash into the ground and die.
With my back shielding the hoverboard above me from a good portion of the air resistance, I use every muscle in my arms and lower back to will the latches in the board around my ankles. Then I use my core to propel my body into an upright position, hoping that by the good graces of the technology gods the hoverboard will have enough time to decelerate my body from falling through the cement below.
As the people still bustling throughout the streets dozens of feet below me notice that I am plummeting to the ground, I hear a chorus of screams erupt. The force of the hoverboard pushing up against my body, the mini-rocket engines at the bottom forcing out a trail of flames beneath me, creates an odd sensation on my body when trying to stop the insane amount of momentum I have towards the cement below.
I close my eyes, the outcome of whether the hoverboard will explode and tear my already wounded, bleeding-out body apart in a high-speed collision with the ground out of my control.
All I can do is hope this works out and hope that the cube in the backpack still strapped to me will survive.
The force dragging me downward subsides, and I open my eyes, part of me wondering if I died instead of actually making it out of that death dive alive.
The piercing screams from the surrounding crowd signal to me that I survived. I am only a few feet above the ground, the surrounding block around me devoid of people as the cars on the street honk their horns, all trying to get away from me.
Once everyone realizes that I survived, the panic briefly subsides to be replaced by awe. Dozens of people have their hologlasses out, taking pictures and videos of the man from the future that one moment was falling out of a building and the next moment is levitating atop a hoverboard. It doesn’t take long for people to recognize who I am.
From all directions, people swarm me. Their applause hits me with greater intensity than the gunfire. People are smiling, others crying, and others still staring up in shock at what the hell just happened.
I wish I had a good explanation for them.
I wish I could tell them that the thing in my backpack will give them a longer, healthier, wealthier life than every technology combined.
But instead, I smile.
And the smile morphs into tears, tears of joy as the realization that I am still living hits me.
I made it out alive. The U.S. government can’t catch me. I will make sure no one ever will.
The thought is certainly arrogant, but in this moment anything seems justified. I am practically invincible. I evaded the U.S. Military then jumped out of a thousand-foot-tall skyscraper and still lived.
With the crowd closing in on my position, many notice the fact that blood is dripping from my legs and back onto the pavement below in one dark rainfall. Some shout in agony, while others use their hologlasses to call emergency responders.
I don’t want them to think I am weak, though.
I want them to know I am strong. I want them to know I will be a strong leader, even if they don’t know that’s even a possibility yet. So, instead of pandering to their sympathetic cries, I give my first and what will hopefully be my only go at performing a trick on a hoverboard midair. I lean my weight forward, my body jerking wildly as I attempt to adjust to the sensitivity of the controls of the hoverboard on the fly. Then I direct my force upward on the ankle straps while exerting my force backward.
My hypothesis is that the torque from this movement will allow me to do a loop-de-loop in midair.
It proves to be correct when I land the acrobatic move (okay, maybe no acrobatic ability was involved in this, but I am still very proud) and outstretch my hands with the crowd applauding wildly.
I’m a superhero.
I maintain an upright posture, feeling more powerful than I have at any moment in my life. The wonderment and excitement of the crowd carry me to a whole new height, one that makes it feel as if I am watching the scene from somewhere else in some wild out-of-body experience that will alter me forever.
“Sam!” I hear his voice above everyone in the crowd, and when I look in the direction of the sound, I notice Jake dragging a parachute behind him as he runs towards me.
The crowd parts ways for him, enough of them able to tell from his urgency that he knows me. I bend over and press a button on the side of the hoverboard. As I suspect, the button results in the engines at the bottom of it gradually fizzling out until I softly land on the sidewalk below.
Jake looks as surprised as me that we both made it out of that hot mess alive. Our eye contact is unbroken by the sirens of the approaching emergency responders and continued clapping of the people as I wrap my arms around him.
A few seconds ago, I feared for my life, but now with all the people around, I feel safe. I should have realized crowds of people don’t mean shit—they are only targets.
My ears instantly recognize the powerful wave of sound as a bomb (I don’t know if this is a skill to be happy about or not, but it’s the truth).
My tough-guy prowess folds underneath the pressure of the ensuing explosion. Right before the bomb connects with the building, I feel like anything in this world is possible. The moment it connects with the penthouse, the massive explosion rocking the foundation of the building hundreds of feet below, I realize the painful reality of the world.
In the sky, I see a number of U.S. Military jets rocketing into the sky at blinding speeds as they deploy from the building. I grab on to my backpack as the panicked crowd of people run for safety, and the emergency responders and civilian vehicles remain at a standstill in the chaos, their horns blasting back and forth to amalgamate into one horrific sound.
The U.S. Military seems to have bombed the building and is now on their way out. Noah is inside there. They are going to burn Noah alive. My body freezes as the thought hits me. I glance at Jake, who seems just as eager to get moving as I do.
We bolt in the same direction of the crowd.
I have no idea where they are headed, or what is happening, but I do know one thing is true: the U.S. government wants to kill me. And they are here. I try to discern the dark metal coating of the planes from the blackness above, but after their initial takeoff, the aircraft blend into the night sky.
They could be headed right for us, preparing to scoop us both from the crowd and hold us hostage for the rest of our lives and I wouldn’t know until they are only dozens of feet above the ground.
“Don’t worry.” Jake puts an arm on my shoulder as I run with the hoverboard in one hand. For something that so easily flies through the air, it is quite bulky. “They aren’t going to get us here. That would mean attacking civilians—that’s cause for war.”
“Anything is possible, man.” I gaze forward at the crowd as it thins out, hundreds of them forcing their way into local shops and restaurants. One person even breaks the glass of what looks like a closed liquor store (it’s hard for me to tell exactly what it is because I don’t read Mandarin), welcoming dozens of people inside with them.
I eye Jake, both of us having the same idea to venture inside, but then I make the mistake of looking up at the night sky again. I expect to see the modern glass skyscrapers poking out from the earth to touch the bottom of the clouds, the thousands upon thousands of lights from the apartments cutting through the da
rkness and illuminating the thin layer of pollution that perpetually hangs over the city.
Instead, I see a ball of fire erupt in the sky. The fire is followed within milliseconds by the sound waves of an explosion that rocks my ears. This time it isn’t a bomb exploding on a penthouse, it is the engine of an airplane combusting. And now that same airplane is headed directly for the streets.
The very same street that we are on.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Jake screams in the way that someone would if they poured hot coffee on themselves or accidentally touched a hot stove.
We both sprint inside, the chaos on the streets reaching an apocalyptic level the second everyone realizes the oncoming danger. I throw my hoverboard on the ground, the bulky thing doing nothing for me but weighing me down as I try to escape. The dozens of cars on the streets cease to honk their horns and instead begin barreling forward, ramming into each other and weaving through any passable space, including the wide cement sidewalks that contain dozens of pedestrians.
Shit.
The adrenaline doesn’t even give me enough time to react. I operate on pure instinct, pushing Jake’s body forward away from the oncoming traffic, as I jump up as high as my legs will allow me to.
A gray car is headed straight towards us. The crunch of the bones of multiple pedestrians right next to me chokes my heart. I want to reach out and help them as they bleed out, crying on the floor.
But I have to survive too.
I time my jump a bit too early. Every movement seems to pass by me frame by frame as my brain goes into hyperdrive, trying to process what is around me. I hear Jake scream, his voice just one of hundreds that is now crying for their life.
I reach the apex of my jump, the soles of my shoes a couple of inches above the hood of the car that is traveling towards me. Except, the force of gravity is too strong. By the time the hood of the car passes underneath me, I will be clipped by the car and left on the cement to be killed in the explosion from the fireball rapidly headed towards the Earth.
So, I readjust.
Which to me means contorting my body midair and swinging my legs upward, hoping that I can successfully back flop onto the hood of the car instead of being run over by it.
The anxiety coursing through me scares my body enough into stretching my limbs in ways that cause a great surge of pain to course through me.
My back smacks against the metal hood of the car, my head slamming onto the metal soon after. A searing pain causes red circles to form around my vision as a rush of blood swathes my brain.
The roar of the engine beneath me vibrates the metal and in turn shakes my entire body. The horn of the car sounds, and I turn to my side to see an old man driving the car, his angry expression appearing a bit terrifying on his wrinkly face.
I smash my fist onto the windshield, my breath coming back to me after having every ounce of oxygen knocked out of me in the fall. Within a second of me being on top of the car, he runs over two more people, their bodies only feet away from me before they collapse underneath the force of the car.
The screams are more horrific than anything I have ever heard, and the crunching of bones becomes so frequent that I mistake it for a horrible rainstorm combined with a dull thunder.
The car is easily moving at sixty miles per hour. Jake is over a hundred feet behind me, the tall roof of the box-shaped car making it impossible for me to see if he ran inside or not.
Whether he did or not, it’s too late now.
I don’t dare look at the airplane as it collides with the street, but I can feel the force of the explosion with every ounce of my being. The heat from the fire tickles every hair on my body and numbs the nerves in my skin, as piercing, desperate screams hit my ears above the sounds of the explosion. It is impossible to tell whether my own vision is shaking or whether the skyscrapers on either side of the street are vibrating in the wake of the explosion.
All I know is that dozens of people just died. And I need to try and save who is left. I bang my fist against the front of the car, hoping to get the driver’s attention to stop driving away from the black smoke and fire eating away at the city streets. He doesn’t even ease up on the gas despite me writhing on his hood, doing my best to grab on to the sides of the car and position my body to block his vision.
Then, a lamppost falls from the side of the street onto one of the other cars making a mad dash through the chaos. We are now boxed in with cars on all sides of us that are either crashed or stuck in the gridlock traffic.
Everyone is running away from the fire, the dark smoke from the explosion stretching across the city streets for blocks in each direction and staining the sides of the skyscrapers with ash. I can barely see in front of me, the smoke burning my eyes and lungs as the terrible sounds of the people crying in agony, the sirens of the emergency vehicles, and the crackling of the fire echo off the surrounding buildings.
I’m so used to killing people, so used to being the one who is somehow involved in causing the destruction, that being one of the only people who has the power to fix it all brings along a new anxiety with it. I clutch my backpack, readying to open it and let out the Chimera Cube, hoping that its magical abilities can clean up this mess and save these people’s lives.
I’m now operating entirely on instinct. The echoes of the dying children are enough trauma to have me briefly forget about the consequences if anyone finds out about this technology.
I can’t let people keep dying. Tears well up in my eyes as I open the bag, the adrenaline suppressing the thoughts of Riva, my mom, and my father that poke against my mind. Then, as I near closer to the site of the disaster, the heat from the flames slowly melting my outer layer of skin, I see a woman on the floor, clutching her toddler, whose legs fell off her in the disaster, in her arms.
Instinct kicks in.
Fourteen million people have been murdered. I’ve killed dozens due to my own direct actions.
I can’t let another one go.
I place my hand on the Chimera Cube as I throw the bag down to the side of her. The mom digs her nails into my shoulder as she screams at me. I can’t understand what she is saying, but I can tell from the horrified look on her face that she wants me as far away from her as possible.
She has no idea that I am going to save her baby’s life.
An ambulance dashes behind us, into the heart of the wreckage where a slew of bodies lies buried beneath the ash and debris. The network of cars on the street turned into what looks like the remnants of the world’s most brutal derby, with dozens of cars either being completely crushed or partly destroyed by the debris from the explosion.
I place my hand on the Chimera Cube and scream into it as loud as I can. “Heal. Regenerate. Save her!”
I still haven’t figure out exactly what command triggers the Chimera Cube nanobots into action. In fact, I likely will never find out. I don’t envision myself having any time to read through those patents anytime soon, and it’s not like anyone has posted a manual online about how to use the world’s most secretive technology.
The cube folds open, revealing the network of chips and flashing devices inside, and I push it forward so that it is right next to the toddler’s bleeding body. The invisible, atomic-sized army of robots descends upon the girl. Or at least, I assume they do, because within seconds after the Chimera Cube folds back up, the nanobots returning to their home inside the facility, the girl stands up, her legs seamlessly joined back to her hip, and all other scratches on her body wiped away.
I stand there in awe for a second, the mother of the child confused, shocked, and ecstatic at the fact that her baby is okay. My reaction is quite similar. My hands shake as they hold on to the dense cube, my mind still trying to wrap around the fact that it is even possible for billions of tiny robots to artificially conduct the process of cellular repair, replace broken tissue, and even rebuild broken bones and blood vessels.
The quantum computers inside it are the most advanced computers in the
world by far, and the power that they can unleash in seconds is nothing short of godly.
But I don’t have time to ponder this miracle any longer.
I don’t even have time to hug that mother, as she sits on the street amidst a nervous breakdown as she continues to process everything around her. I have more lives to save, and I will be a better paramedic than all of the emergency responders combined.
The Chimera Cube makes me practically invincible, and it can make everyone else too.
I run forward deep into the flames, my own skin now burning from the heat. I place my hand on the cube, my mind working way too fast as I try to both analyze the environment and decide how to fix a million problems at once.
I decide the next best thing will be to clear up the fire and the smoke. I hesitate for a split second as I put my hands on the cube. It takes an extra moment for me to swallow my fear and decide that the worth of exposing the Chimera Cube in this instance is worth it.
“Clear smoke within one hundred meters!” I yell so that the audio receiver inside the device can pick my words up clearly. The cube unfolds, and the invisible army of nanobots inside it dispels into the air, this time with the mission of clearing every particulate from the air and increasing the visibility so that emergency responders and the people in neighboring shops can run out into the devastation and help.
The nanobots clear up the air remarkably fast.
The cube folds back up into its standard form. With the air around me now clear, I can feel the dozens of eyeballs stare at me. I hide the cube back in the backpack before it can raise any red flags. I hold the backpack out in front of me and leave it open, letting the fingers of my right hand hover above the smooth, white exterior. Once all the smoke clears, I will tap the cube once so that the nanobots disassemble. I don’t want any Chinese scientists finding the nanobots in the air.
But someone even worse than scientists may have found it first.
With the city lights finally illuminating the darkness that covered the core of the destruction, I can see the military vehicles headed right towards me. They are weaving a pathway through the traffic, one of the massive vehicles able to even drive over the smaller cars without completely crushing them.
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