It was not until the brothers were sequestered to the rooftop that Joaquim came to comprehend the massiveness of Ember's military base. The unbroken blue across his eyesight could be likened to clear skies, but Joaquim knew that the topmost clouds in the atmosphere were beneath them now. Behind him the police robot shoved him forward, leaving him no time to gawk. After the shove the naked sun, the skyscraper collages tinted with blue hues, the steel railing, the concrete rooftop, and its crimson edging came into sight.

  The duration of the elevator ride could have been likened to an eternity, but it came to an end as the doors closed behind Gabe, the police robot, and the levitating arak named Wexil.

  "Who brought you two?" Wexil carried on.

  Gabe stayed quiet. He must have ran out of ways to obfuscate Wexil's questioning.

  "We were adopted by Trickster," Joaquim blurted, garnering a raised eyebrow from Gabe while Joaquim replied back at him with a glare. The police robot summoned an earthplexus screen briefly, logging something away. Joaquim tried to do the same thing out of curiosity with his imagination, but nothing spawned.

  "Why did you log what she said?" Wexil yelled. "You ruined everything!"

  Wexil's fixation on arresting these brothers in particular was quite odd. A high society arak probably had more pressing matters, but then again, the wealthy were known for using their wealth and time for frivolousness and accelerating human extinction. Only the humans that treated them like gods or wished to join their ranks believed otherwise, and eternal damnation in the hell simulation awaited for them too. [/AMEN]

  "I must stay committed to my logging protocols sir," the police robot said, its voice both human-like and electronically monotone. "Everything must be recorded."

  "You already have a camera on you! Goddamn it! I need to work on the prompt I used on you!" Wexil yelled.

  "Negative. The camera did not print successfully," the police robot corrected.

  Wexil expressed his lividness the best way an arak could, arcing his curled tentacles and raising them towards the top crimson brim of the elevator doors. His airborne limbs convulsed before his tendrils opened again. "Just take these terrorists away! I knew better than to trust a human invention!"

  And the machine obeyed. After a moment of calibrating itself somehow to ignore gravity, it floated higher while still holding onto Joaquim's dress and Gabe's handcuffs. While Gabe was oblivious to what was going to happen to him, Joaquim winced at the handcuffs now digging into his wrists midair.

  "Count the platforms Gabe. Try not to close your eyes," Joaquim instructed.

  "You didn't care if I was going to throw up earlier... why do you care now?" Gabe asked.

  "I always care. I am pissed of at you though," Joaquim said. "You never seem to try to be in my shoes, but I always try to be in yours."

  Before Gabe could start the argument, the police robot picked up speed and Gabe had to put his focus entirely on not getting queasy. The nearest platforms lost their blue hues, the police robot's speed becoming alarmingly apparent. Thrown forward from the police robot's sudden stop, Joaquim had no chance to check on how the sporadic motions were affecting his brother.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The perfect blue sky and the cloud sea below them were hidden away. Flying city platforms and its skyscrapers covered every crevice possible, a photo from where Joaquim was suspended from could not be told apart from an image inside an underground city. While the robot slowed to change directions, Joaquim glanced up at the bottom of the platforms' hemispheres. The hundreds of humming hemispheres each had a glowing yellow circle drifting within the midpoint, occasionally lagging to a random direction until it recalibrated. The entrances to the platforms' hemispheres were wrapped in steel railings and stairs by the lower but walkable edges of the platforms. All gates and railings were plastered with ominous warnings with no further directions below them. Well, other than the sheer drop to another platform or the black seams within the airborne districts below.

  DANGER: PERFECT SPHERES

  ELITE ESPERS ONLY

  DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED

  The brothers rocked. A nauseated groan followed. Meanwhile, the robot performed a sudden and stomach-churning dip. Blurs of office windows, magnetic cars, and residential balconies covered Joaquim's eyes. He spotted a medieval platform in his periphery at a brief stop, the decadent cheers of a dense faire echoed behind him.

  They all rocked again. Joaquim heard a rip from his dress.

  "Your clothes," Gabe barely said.

  "You call these clothes?" Joaquim yelled.

  From closed nightclubs for the daytime, to lofty patios and drink clinks, to a gargantuan hologram poster for A Big Satan Under Your Pinky Toe with the main character Eve in the center with her iconic pigtails, to a massive encompassing platform with cemeteries only. Joaquim felt something warm smeared on his shoulder as he spotted lavish tombstones in all directions.

  The brothers experienced another violent rock. The police robot picked up so much speed that now they were now passing hundreds upon hundreds of undecipherable platforms, only blurs and lights were discernable. Skies were peaking out of crevices now, and a fluffy cloud was visible below. However, every direction was still covered with concrete, steel, hemispheres with yellow circles, and crowds. Joaquim was sure the population was much higher than any city on Earth.

  Now that residential platforms could be discerned, Joaquim glanced to his right to find his brother passed out, his wrists florid from the robot's uncaring rocking.

  "Gabe!"

  With the robot slowing, Joaquim prayed that they were reaching their destination. They were reaching the outskirts of the flying city again, but they were definitely very far from the military base.

  In the outermost part of this flying city the three of them have reached, a colossal structure loomed, a monument of dominance that struck awe and trepidation into the hearts of all who beheld it. It almost was absorbing the luminosity of the blue sky, as if a dark metallic aura emitted from the hive. The self-replicating police station, if it could be called such, transcended the mundane realms of human architecture. It was far beyond anything the American suburbs, highways, shopping plazas, and oversized parking lots that were copied and pasted across No Man's Land could offer. When Joaquim could glance at the horrifying height the police robots raised him to, he could see No Man's Land smog coat from a satellite's point of view. Even though Joaquim always dreamed of being in space, he did not realize how close he was to it until now. The flying city was in a spot where dense man-made oxygen could linger and was still at a comfortable distance from the vacuum of space.

  Even though the station appeared anti-human, a jaunter station was at the edge, helping supersoldiers recalibrate the momentum of their jaunts to make sure they were moving at the speed their new locations would be moving to too. And another sign was there.

  Welcome to Ember City

  POPULATION: 51,300,000

  The police robot rocked once more and Joaquim's dress ripped away from the robot's hand.

  Joaquim was now in freefall.