Time became treacherously slow. The last time Joaquim experienced time like this was when he first witnessed someone's death. As his downward spin lost momentum momentarily, Ember's financial district came into sight. Adrift was his torn dress inside the flying city gust, dancing like rose petal tatters around his handcuffed brother waking up. Towards his upward spin Joaquim found his brother's wounded wrists trying to reach out to him in vain.

  Now facing earthwards once more, the lively sunlight seized all of Joaquim's senses while circumnavigating any platform shadows, making the financial skyscrapers below resemble golden ingots cut into a neat grid. The euphoria from the vista, the beautiful sun, his free shaved yet coiled hair and blue boy clothes were no match for the fear that competed for his senses too.

  Joaquim finally screamed, the jaunting station long out of sight while the police robot stayed suspended in midair with his swinging captive. It seemed more than capable to swoop down and rescue him, but it observed his fall with its face-faced helmet.

  When he faced the financial platform again, Joaquim searched for any potential rescuers. Ember city, the namesake of the robber baron's daughter that sponsored this city and the conglomerate that would own it all, showed no self-replicating rescuers anywhere on the golden flying platform. Upon the father's untimely death, all this levitating splendor Joaquim was falling towards was passed on to his fashionista daughter, and Ember became the wealthiest human being that ever lived, even though she no longer inhabited a flesh body these days.

  As Joaquim spun up to find the shadowy silhouettes of Gabe and the police robot, he felt a pair of arms emitting numinous air around his back, breaking his fall until he was caught him midair. Garnering a bearing was hard at first. Joaquim became even dizzier trying to find where he was among the blurry swath of white, black, and gray squares until it all settled into an Ember supersoldier uniform. The aloof supersoldier that caught Joaquim had the baggiest eyes he had ever seen, and his skin was a shade away from being considered brown. Mere seconds passed and they were close to the supersoldier's leap destination, and Joaquim looked away from him to find the skyscraper glass roof they were arriving to.

  With a gentle thud hitting the glass, the supersoldier Joaquim just recognized still struck terror into the office workers below them. Some dropped their probably-printed coffee while others began to flee.

  "Relax! There's no fight happening!" Trickster tried to yell past the glass in vain.

  "Trickster?" Joaquim asked.

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  "... you shouldn't call me that in person. You can call me Colonel Felix," Trickster, also known as Colonel Felix, murmured. "Is that who made you fall?"

  Joaquim followed the Colonel's pointed lips, and he glanced up to find two black dots still in the exact same spot. He nodded in response while the Colonel dropped him off to stand on the glass gently. Out of wanting a semblance of privacy he turned away from Joaquim to speak into an earthplexus speaker icon briefly, and Joaquim heard something about jaunting. He barely spotted Corporal Woo before he found himself standing on the jaunting platform by the police station.

  The exhaustion from not sleeping at all was setting in, but Joaquim still held himself up on the metal floor he was now standing on with Colonel Felix. The police robot finally left his midair spot, letting Gabe's feet touch the jaunting platform, perhaps from Colonel Felix interacting with the earthplexus with his mind.

  Why was she such in a hurry?

  "This robot's printing seems to have gone through aggressive reprompting," the Colonel said, leaving Joaquim's side to examine the odd artifacts left under the machine's sheen. He stopped to glance over to Gabe who was panting and hanging his head.

  "Can you let me know what happened? I'll need to investigate this."

  "No," Gabe blurted. After being able to recover for a bit, he revealed his furious gaze and stared right into Joaquim's soul. "What is this about? What are you wearing? Why did you say we were adopted by him?"

  "What's wrong with you?" Joaquim asked. "Seriously?"

  "I could ask you the same thing," Gabe replied. That got a reaction out of Colonel Felix too while he uncuffed him, but he went along with what he was doing and let his arms free.

  "There is no warrant for you, but I do need you to go back to the military base. Can I ask you two–"

  "You said your name was Joaquim or something?" Gabe interrupted the Colonel to continue speaking to his brother. "Did I hear you say that? What's up with that?"

  Joaquim looked away to glance at the sun rising from a residential platform, the glass from an apartment building refracting its light in all directions. He hung his head not being able to come up with a response.

  "Don't follow me," Gabe commanded Joaquim. "I am going to do what's best for you."

  "I'll have to follow you though," Colonel Felix said to him. "I have to make sure you get back safely."

  While Colonel Felix was midsentence, Gabe began running. About six meters away from them was a jaunting platform the citizens of Ember used; a technological marvel created by jaunters, computer scientists, and engineers working together. It seemed he picked a location at random on the hologram screen as he did not even look at it, and he vanished within the center of the golden disk screwed to the steel floor.

  "Stay here," Colonel Felix said, resummoning an earthplexus speaker icon.

  His mind going blank from tiredness and conflicting thoughts, a piece of red clothing floated back to the side of Joaquim's sandals. It was Gabe's red hoodie that was stitched into his dress earlier, and it still had a dried samosa stain by the pocket.

  Joaquim's eyes got glassy while staring at it.