I'm in deep shit.
All I could do was pick a direction to pedal in and go. The family whose house I broke into would be reporting the crime any second now and I'll have all sorts of advanced ai tracking me.
I needed to break into a house but I need to learn to be more patient and scope things out more. It's hard to do though. My battery is at 27% and while it isn't dire I'll be in even more trouble soon if I don't get it charged.
I'll have to find some other way.
It was 10 minutes later I heard cars whooshing past quickly. It sounded like a highway and it was only like a mile away. Halfway there though I heard the sound of tires squealing. I pedaled even faster as facts as I could.
I had to get out of the vision of these cameras fast. There was a park between me and the highway.
Halfway through the park, I noticed a huge problem. The highway was more like a wall trapping me in than a road out. With the additional sound barrier, it was a sheer cliff 30 feet high.
I was hemmed in and the police cars that were chasing me already had 10 police officers and 10 of what looked like large bulky robots getting out and running after me. The robots would catch up in 45 seconds.
I had to find some way out. I did just not a good one.
[The manhole cover was sitting there listlessly. Forged 45 years earlier it was coated in rust or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a piece of circular-shaped rust. It was woken up from its long rest with a good degree of scorn and a complete lack of ceremony. A hoist and push away from the hole it covered. The guest didn't bother knocking and entered without knocking and would've barreled over someone had they come to greet her.
The people hounding her decided that they would not be shown up and left a performance that left the last 7 generations of plumbers to fail to pass to the afterlife. The large Robots couldn't fit so they sent 2 humans after her and then began to try t expand the hole that I guarded for so long all the while some of the others made calls surely bragging to their friends about their heinous acts.]
The tunnels were horribly cramped and dark as can be. I had to crawl to move through them. The smell of the sewer assaulted my senses as it normally would but after overstimulation, I was automatically smelling less of it.
Army crawling through the inch of water wasn't totally pleasant but at least I didn't have to worry about infection. I was increasing the gap between me and the 2 officers that followed me. I had to move quickly though there is definitely some way for them to chase me down.
Actually, they might use dogs... well the chance is pretty slim but I tore off a small but noticeable piece from the dress that I stole and dropped it in a noticeable place. Even in the AI-heavy world smell investigation might get handed over to dogs.
The pipe that I'd been crawling through for the last 5 minutes connected with a larger pipe and now the pipe was tall enough for a faster crawl. I thought about going into the pipe that connected with mine but It's likely to lead to some sort of dead-end or at the very least limit my options so I went with the larger pipe.
I was able to escape from the 2 officers following me. After I did this I continued until I got to a tunnel that I could almost stand in and then chose one of the 10 smaller pipes that branched off from the larger one.
I did this because I predicted that the cops would be waiting for me once it got large enough for them to comfortably stand in. I did take the opportunity to change into one of the garbage disposal outfits I was wearing. Me emerging from a manhole would be less suspicious because the outfit looks like one that someone cleaning the sewers might wear.
I'm sure any expert would spot it right away but ordinary passerby wouldn't bat an eye.
I wish I could stay down here and recoup for longer but there's a decent possibility that they know I'm an AI and because from what I've seen there aren't many AI that looks just like a human I could be important to capture.
I might just be paranoid but it's always better safe than sorry. I kept moving and after an hour and the cramping of tunnels, I looked for a manhole cover. After a couple more minutes of crawling, I found one. I waited to hear if anyone was above it ready to capture me if they were listening probably wouldn't help but I would feel stupid if I missed some obvious sign that would've kept me free.
I definitely didn't want to be captured again. Even if I wasn't put back into that horrible industry I wanted to forge my own path forward uninhibited by this society and no matter how they viewed AI.
I pushed the manhole covered up and felt the anxiety that was building in me receded. I climbed up and put the manhole cover back in the most professional way I could.
I was in a residential area with 10 story buildings full of apartments and condos. The area wasn't as nice as the suburbanish area that I was in before but It was still leagues better than the dumpster fire that was the projects that I originally found myself in.
The passerby looked at me when I came up but most eyes didn't linger longer than a second after seeing my outfit. I wanted to quickly get out of the road I was on though.
I walked in a brisk but orderly manner to the sidewalk letting the car that was stopped for me continue on its way. I continued to an alley where I quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a turquoise T-shirt that I grabbed from the house I robbed. I also threw the clothes dirtied by sewer water into the trash.
It was better to leave them near where I emerged so the police couldn't figure out the direction I was headed.
I spent my time thinking about my next moves as I walked away from there.