Jax

The rush of adrenaline as Jax hit the accelerator brought a smile to his face. They tore down the street after the bot. He saw it blast through an intersection ahead, a flash of nitro coming from its exhaust, a bright light in the dark streets.

“Time to hang on, huh?” he heard from his partner. He punched his own nitro, the car jerking forward as they accelerated toward the busy intersection. Darell pushed the jump-jets as they rocketed over thee intersection, neon headlights passing below. They landed back down with a crash as they saw it take a hard turn on the stolen motorcycle. Alright, can’t slow down now. Jax popped the handbrake, spinning the car into a familiar drift as they rounded the corner. The bot, one arm dangling from a few wires, turned around to look at them as they gained.

It did the math, and realized it wasn’t going to get away. The two of them watched in amused curiosity as it dropped the bike to its side, sliding to a halt, it’s body scraping along the road. Jax didn’t slow down. It was obviously going to look for an alley or something, but he’d follow it in the car until then.

“It’s heading for that alley here.” Darell pointed left, to an alley just outside his vision. Cybernetic eyes like that came in handy sometimes.

“Alright, get ready.” Jax rounded the corner as they saw it run into the alley, just like he predicted. “Is there an exit?”

“Not here. Dead end.”

He brought the car to a screeching halt at the narrow entrance to the alley as they saw the bot coming back toward them. Must have realized it made a wrong turn. Jax and Darell jumped out of the car, weapons drawn as the robot, no more than an un-skinned shell at this point, looked to the buildings on either side, searching for an exit.

“End of the line. E34 right? We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Jax called over to it as the thing looked back and forth, it’s cybernetics coming up empty on a solution. Good, no way out unless it was acting. “And really, we’d love it if you wanted the hard way.” The two of them laughed as they stepped closer. Escaped robots off a manufacturing line, injuring more than a few people in the process, Hayabusa wouldn’t care what shape it came back in, and that was they’re kind of bounty. “What’s it gonna be bud? You want to come back and get decommission quietly or you wanna do it right here? You’ve got like 5 seconds to figure it out.”

The bot continued looking at the buildings, the sleek metal sides not offering much in return. Then suddenly it broke into a sprint coming straight at them. Hard way it is, Jax thought with a smile.