The metal door slides open with the familiar squealing of metal as Kitt stumbles into the apartment Her hair is a mess and her clothes are ripped. she's clutching her arm, Her sweater sleeve soaked in blood.
From his desk Kyoto swivels around and shuts off his Holo revealing a scoul on his face. His eye blinks white and the florescent lights penetrate the room with a soft buzzing.
"In what world did you think it would be a good idea to bring a baseball bat to an encounter with a private militia?"
"How about the one where I kicked their asses and blew their shit up?" She tries to smile but instead winces and clasps her arm tighter.
Kyoto walks over to the bed and makeshift medicine cabinet. "A pistol would have forced them to keep their distance from you. You wouldn't have been distracted by the first guard and the last one wouldn't have the chance to fire at you,"
"If I fired the first round then they would have been on alert. All 4 of those assholes would have grabbed the heavy artillery and gunned me down immediately," she hobbles over to the bed and lays down. Dispite her brazen attitude she does fight with purpose and authority. Kitt is a thoughtful fighter with years of experience.
"That's not what the premonition read. The outcome would have been the same and you would have come back without any wounds," he opens the drawer and shuffles around, looking for a vile of Xcelerate after a few moments he finds one, but it's the last vial.
"Well then your premonition was wrong!" She frowns at him as he draws the liquid into a syringe,
"The premonitions are never wrong, if you would just trust-"
"You aren't out there! You don't know what it's like to fight. I appreciate your intel and I wouldn't be able to survive this long without you," she pauses for a moment and sits up wincing, "but out there in the field things aren't ones and zeros. You can't predict the exact outcome of a fight with numbers on a screen,"
"Every simulation suggests-"
"This isn't a fucking simulation Kyoto! These are human lives. When someone's life is on the line they think irrationally. They move unpredictably. You would know that if you spent any time outside of this tiny room," she looks him in the eyes. She's rarely this serious but Kyoto recognizes that he's pulled at a string that isn't worth pulling at this point.
"We can't afford any irrational thinking at this point," he gently lays her down on the bed signaling that she needs to calm down before he can administer the shot, "This happens to be our last vial of Xcelerate and it will be a few months before we can safely steal another batch from the clinic," as he finds her vein and begins to stick the needle into her arm she speaks.
"I'll just have to be more careful I guess. I'm ready for anything, and I can take a bit of pain,"
"No," the medicine plunges into her vein. She yelps out and her whole body shivers before going completely still, "You won't be doing any direct fighting until we can make sure that you are able to stay in peak condition. I'll adjust my premonitions to show only the safest options from this point forward.
She wanted to interject and say that the destruction would just come sooner if they didnt keep fighting. All their progress would quickly erode. But her body wouldn't let her move. All that escaped her throat was a half hearted groan.
"Don't try and fight me on this Kitt, I know what I'm doing." He turns around and walks five feet away to his work desk. His eye flickers white again as the lights turn off. At the same time his Holo appears in front of his face and blankets the room in a cool blue glow.
Lines of code fly across his face at an incredible speed. His eyes dart back and forth looking for any break. He needs to find a way to keep the destruction from happening. In the corner of his eye is the small flashing date. 2-5-2098. It's all he can think about. That number. A countdown to the end of his entire life. The lives of millions. And the well-being of millions more. He feels powerless against such an incomparable force. But really he's the only one who has a chance of stopping it. The date flashes again: 2-4-2098. He sighs and tries to shake the thoughts from his head.
He spends hours behind his Holo. Just grasping at straws trying to come up with a plan. After a while he starts to yawn and all the numbers flying past his face begin to blend together, but he can't stop. Kitt was right. He can't fight. He can't stop anything on his own. But he can do this. This is how he fights. He created the means of predicting the future on his own. He can stop the destruction. He has to. So he'll fight from his desk until he dies if that's what it takes. The hours tick away and his eyelids get heavy. He's lost control of his body and he drifts into sleep still sitting at his desk with his holo-deck obscihos face.
The room was old and musty. Patches of mold covered the ceiling and the floor was cracked gray concrete. You wouldn't believe that just outside this room was one of the most technologically advanced colosseums of its age. The room was completely empty except for one bed. Kitt was laying there unconscious. Kyoto walked over to her and looked down on her. She was still in her fighter gear. A black cropped tank top and red sweatpants. Hardly enough gear for a proper battle.
Slowly her eyes opened and she looked up at him frowning.
"Can't I get a single day of rest? I was just about ready to die out there and all you could give me was a single bandage wrap," her voice was weak and soft. It didn't match her physique at all.
"I'm not- no. I'm here to get you out of here," he looked around nervously.
"Ha, don't bother," she let out a half hearted chuckle and sat up in bed, "I'm not even allowed visitors. How did you get in here?"
"It's 1:47 am. At this time you only have one guard and you are always asleep at this time so he believes it's safe to use the restroom without calling in another guard. While standing at the urinal I quickly tased him and forced a sedative capsule down his throat. He will be asleep for one hour and forty seven minutes,"
"Wow ok, who the hell are you," she laughed again not sure whether or not to take him seriously,
"My name is Kyoto. There are some things I need to tell you and I believe you are the only one able to help me at this point in time, but for now it is best if we leave,"
"Now hold on! I'm not going anywhere with you! I've got a good thing here. Free food, a bed, a paycheck. What more could a person like me ask for in life?"
Her voice trailed off into silence as the room started to shake. The mold covered ceiling was beginning to crumble and the walls fell to the ground into a black void. Behind those walls was a bright flash of light. The city erupting in a blaze of blue fire. Entire buildings falling into the street. Hundreds of people running for their lives.
He was one of them. Running like his life depended on it. No it wasn't him running. It was Kitt. He was watching her through his holo-deck. She was running towards the fire. Towards him. He was trapped under a pile of rubble. The metal room they'd lived in for 2 years now ready to become his tomb.
"Ky!" His earpiece screamed out his name, but he couldn't move. "Ky! Answer me! I'm coming to get you! We'll get to safety just don't die," No, he was going to die he knew it. This is how it was always going to be. Every premonition came back the same.
"Hey Ky?" She stops running and stands in the middle of the road another flash of blue light erupts into the sky behind her as more of the city crumbles. People all around her dead and dying, "Why did you make me do this? Why did you lie to me? You said we could fix it. You said we would save people. You could have saved me. You could have let me leave. Now I'm going to die for you." She turns up to look at the sky. A nuke comes hurdling straight toward her, "Goodbye Kyoto," in an instant his Holo flashes a blinding blue aura. He musters all his strength to try and escape his coffin of cement and metal.
"Kitt!" He screams, "No! Please No!"