All I could see in front of me was an unthinkably large sand desert, with a few rocky plateaus and spires on the horizon. Although most people on Zynima spent their entire lives in the city, there were stories about robots living on their own in their own settlements or buildings far from civilization. Of course, there were big places like Grilith Tower out here, but the number of undocumented landmarks and homes really gave the desert an exciting, unexplored feeling.

I'd be saving that for another day, though. We were on a mission.

“So, we should just be able to drive around Zynima City and get to Grilith that way?” I bellowed at Shock over our noisy bikes.

“Yeah! Don't stray too far from the city!”

I gave her a thumbs-up. Looking back towards the front of my bike, I placed my feet above both pedals, gripped the handlebars, and pressed down on the acceleration. The bike slowly started moving, and as it automatically shifted into the next gear, I turned left to line myself up parallel with the edge of the city.

The terrain directly in front of me was flat and fairly smooth, so I gradually accelerated until I could feel the wind whizzing around me. I'd never moved this fast before – it was exhilarating; a glance at my speedometer told me I was moving at about 90 km/h. I took a peek to my right to see where Shock was, and, to my surprise, she was keeping up pretty well. Naturally, this meant I had to go a little faster. I couldn't let her win.

The bike shifted up again. The houses, scrapyards, and storage complexes to my left were all rushing by, blurred together in a mixture of meaningless shapes and colours. The wind was so loud that the sound of the bike's engine was a mere afterthought.

145 km/h. This ride was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was almost worried my guitar bag was going to fly off my shoulder at this speed.

Ah, there was the huge ramp that shopkeeper was talking about, maybe a hundred feet to my right. That thing was stupidly high – I don't know what kind of moron would take a jump like that. Just beneath the ramp were two robots sitting on bikes of their own, one of whom was presumably the shopkeeper's “ridiculous” friend.

I looked over my shoulder to check on Shock. She was considerably farther behind than earlier, which convinced me to slow down a little bit. I couldn't make this too easy for myself.

Wait – I did a double-take back at Shock. Back behind us, those bots by the ramp had started following us.

Erring on the side of caution, I started slowing down to let Shock catch up. I needed to let her know we were being followed, but there was no way she'd ordinarily be able to hear my cries over the wind. I had a solution, though – audio was my specialty.

“Behind us!” I shouted, recording my voice clip.

“BEHIND US!” I blared incredibly loud through the speakers lining my chest and shoulders.

Success – I saw Shock peer over her shoulder. She must have seen the other bikes, since she accelerated pretty quickly as soon as she faced forward again. It only took her a few seconds to catch up to me.

I quickly glanced behind us again. Damn, they were fast. The other bikes were catching up way faster than I expected. I was almost able to make out details of the riders' pointy, brown and grey faces. I guess being comfortable with speeds like that comes with experience.

Shock was hunkered down on her bike, riding side-by-side with me, paying attention to the ground ahead of her, kinda like I should've been. A bump in the ground rattled my bike a little bit, prompting me to look straight forward and straighten out my path. I opted to coast for a couple seconds to reduce my speed in case of any more bumpy terrain.

Seconds later, another bump shook me up again. Hold on, I was carefully watching where I was going that time. There was nothing in front of me. That's when I peeked to my left.

One of those bikers that were following us had caught right up to me, and was nudging the left side of my bike with their front tire.

“What the hell!” I yelled, not nearly loud enough to beat the volume of the rushing wind. I did what made sense at the time: I turned just slightly to the right to drive a bit closer to Shock, holding out my hand towards her in an attempted “move over” gesture. It didn't work; Shock remained straight on her course.

A small sand dune was coming up, but it was big enough that going this fast over it worried me. 130 km/h over that? Sorry, not happening. That other rider to my left made the same course adjustment I had, slowly sandwiching me between themself and Shock. I firmly hit the brakes (which were much more powerful than I'd anticipated), rapidly slowing me down to a safer pace. Shock must've had the same thoughts about the dune in front of us, seeing as she also slowed down moments after I did.

The biker that was bumping into me apparently did not think to brake, launching them off the dune, catching some incredibly big air. I don't know if they thought it was a race, or if they were just showing off, or what. But– ah. I was a couple feet in the air before I could finish my thought. I braced myself for impact, straightening my front wheel.

Oof. The impact of landing back on the ground was rougher than I expected, but the important part was I hadn't crashed. I straightened myself out again and coasted for a moment, peeking behind me to look for Shock.

She didn't have as much speed as me, but less than a second after she ramped off the dune, the second one of those bikers ramped off the sand and smashed into Shock's rear wheel in the air with enough speed to send her spiralling out of control before she even hit the ground. The biker had enough speed to fly off not unlike how their buddy had.

I slammed on the brakes, sliding down to a much lower speed while the engine chugged noisily as it rapidly shifted down. All I could do was watch Shock fall to the ground backwards.

Fuck. The bike spilled over and flung her to the ground, sending her tumbling through the sand. The bike followed her, sliding straight into her chest and legs and finally toppling over across her body.

I couldn't look away. All I could think to do was scream her name as I watched her fall.

I stopped my bike as fast as I could and jumped off immediately, not caring if it was properly parked or not. Tossing my guitar bag to the sand, I sprinted over to the crash site. “Shock!” I repeated. No response. The sand was loose enough to trip me up a few times, but I didn't care. I kept running.

No. No, no no. She was lying on her back underneath the wreckage. Her eyes were completely blank. Their green glow was gone.

As soon as I got over to her, I grabbed onto a handlebar and the seat of her bike, and started pulling it off her with everything I could muster. It was far heavier than I expected. I couldn't pull it off.

I kept pulling. “SHOCK!” I blared, playing my recorded voice clip from earlier at an obnoxious volume. I could only lift the bike off her a couple inches at most.

She wasn't moving. I screeched the voice clip again.

Pulling the bike off my friend was futile. I bolted around to the other side of the wreck. Could I push it? Lift it, maybe?

No, I couldn't push it hard enough with all the loose sand under my feet combined with the awkward position of Shock underneath the bike. I couldn't lift it without stepping on Shock's face, either.

I heard a small noise. I looked back down at her.

Her eyes lit up with two green, horizontal lines. Was she okay?

“Sh-Shock?” I stuttered.

Another small mumble. It was coming from her.

“Wh... fuck, I... damn,” she mumbled.

“Are you okay?!” I shouted, kneeling down beside her, unable to break my gaze from her face.

“Yeah, I... I don't know. It... fucking hurts.” She paused, wincing. “Get this... get this off me.”

“I-I can't...” I whimpered.

“Shit, Aural, try!” she pleaded with an exasperated breath.

“I have been!” I stood up and went to where I was pulling the bike beforehand. I kept trying to pull it off. Same result – no more than a couple inches.

“Hold it... hold it up!” she groaned.

“Okay, okay, I got this!” I frantically replied in an attempt to reassure her.

I was able to lift the bike just enough to allow her to scoot backwards through the sand, away from the bike. The blue beams on her back clearly made it difficult for her to move in her current position, but she looked like she'd be able to get clear of the wreck without too much of a problem.

“Don't you dare drop that,” she scowled. I was far too relieved she was even alive to be put off by the tone of her voice. I steadied my grip on the bike and pulled a bit harder.

A few seconds later, Shock was clear of the bike. I lowered it to the ground as gently as I could (which is to say, not at all).

I ran over to Shock and crouched down beside her. She'd propped herself up on the side of a sand dune, still wincing, holding her left leg with both hands.

Her white trousers were stained dark red near her shin.

“Oh, shit...” I muttered, stepping over closer to her wound.

“Help me lift this off it,” Shock asked through clenched teeth, tugging at her pant leg.

Carefully, I rolled up the fabric of her pants where the wound was, so as to not rub the injury at all. It looked bad; her shin had been sliced open, red fluid covering the area.

Shock took a couple deep breaths when she saw it. “My bag. Get it for me,” she ordered, surprisingly calm.

Right, I almost forgot about the little satchel she'd brought with her. I took a quick glance around, but... I couldn't see it. I walked up to the top of the dune Shock was sitting against and surveyed the area again-

Aha. It was a few dozen feet away, launched in the direction we were driving in before the crash. And, way far away in the distance, those two bikers were still kicking up dust and sand. I couldn't tell which direction they were heading, and I didn't plan on waiting to find out. I ran over to the bag, snatched it up, and ran back without delay.

“Here.” I passed it over to Shock, who immediately unbuttoned it and dumped the contents on the sand beside her. Vital packets, energy packets (the blue variety), a spare technician's cap, some other miscellaneous tools I couldn't identify, a roll of fabric...

Putting her hands against the ground by her sides, she yelped in pain as she pushed herself up into a proper sitting position.

“Do you need help?” I asked.

“No,” she bluntly answered. She grabbed her thigh and pulled her wounded leg closer with another loud grunt. It was hard watching her suffer like that and not do anything to help, but I wasn't about to cross her.

“Give me a minute, Aural.”

“Are you sure...? Will you-”

“Yes. I'll live.”

Damn, she's stubborn. Seeing no other option, I complied. I awkwardly waited and watched her for a few seconds before standing up and taking a look around once again.

Oh. My bike had fallen over, probably when I rushed off it to help Shock. Great. If I couldn't lift hers up, I doubted I'd be able to lift mine. My only option might have been to ask Shock to help me, but I sure wasn't going to ask her when she was hurt like this.

I couldn't help but feel guilty. If I hadn't have pushed so hard to go to Dukes and ride to Grilith, Shock would be okay right now. We'd be playfully ribbing with each other like we always do instead of sitting in a desert fixing injuries. And we still weren't safe yet – we were stranded until Shock was good enough to ride again. Would she even be okay?

But I couldn't be all mopey like this while Shock was hurt. I had to cut off my rambling thoughts – I needed to pretend I had lights and cameras on me. It usually worked when I needed to pick up my mood, but this was a rather dire situation. My circuitry was overwhelmed with a flurry of emotions.

I took another look at the ground and lightly kicked the arid, yellow sand. Yep, definitely still hated this stuff.

“Nano-patch gauze,” Shock blurted out, grabbing my attention. “I can't stand this stuff.” She was wrapping her leg up tightly using the roll of fabric from her satchel. She sighed midway through it. “But it works. Even if it feels weird and... gross.”

I hadn't heard of nano-patch before, but it didn't surprise me she'd know about it, given her field of work.

“Will you be okay?” I couldn't help but ask again.

Shock nodded. “I... probably shouldn't move this too much right now.” She looked a bit shaky.

“Do you hurt anywhere else? Like...”

“Aural, I'm fine. I'd know if I had other injuries. I'm just sore.”

I trusted her, but couldn't help but worry about her phenomenal stubbornness. All I did was hum in response.

“It's going to be a few minutes before we can go anywhere. This'll take a bit of time to work its magic,” she explained, looking down at her leg, her face incredibly tense.

“A few minutes? That's all?”

“You'd be amazed by how fast nano-patches work. I just hate the feeling of nanomachines doing their thing. Like nails down a chalkboard.” She clenched her eyes shut and her hands shook for a moment.

Hmm. I walked over to Shock and plopped myself down beside her in the sand.

I pointed over to Zynima City far off in the distance. “See that tower over there?”

“Yeah. You live there.”

“Can you believe I jumped off that all the way down to the desert?”

I got a nearly inaudible chuckle from her. “Honestly? Hard to believe you actually did that.”

“Yeah. Still gotta repair my door, too.”

Oh no. I suddenly remembered something, causing me to I freeze totally still. Shock said something, but I was too distracted to hear her. I'd completely forgotten about the performance I was supposed to put on at my club tonight.

Fuck. “Oooh, fuck,” I voiced my thoughts, putting a hand on my head.

Shock looked at me and gave me a concerned hum.

“I'm supposed to perform tonight at my club.”

“Oh. Damn.”

My spirits sank again. Were we going to be able to get back to Zynima in time for my club?

“Yeah, wow. That's rough, buddy,” Shock continued. “Think you should cancel it? Or... is this all even worth missing a performance?” She shrugged.

“Two robots throw their lives away to hunt down a killer robot,” I sarcastically announced, as if it were the title to a book or movie. “I mean... I guess one performance wouldn't hurt. It's a pretty frequent event, and it's not like it's a massive concert...”

Man, I was good at second-guessing myself.

“Even if you miss it, it's not the end of the world.”

“Yeah, I guess, but it still sucks. I'm just scared of what people will think of me.”

“No use worrying about it out here in nowhere-land. Whatever you decide on, nothing we can do until later today. We're on a mission, right? We have to stay focused.”

Shock's blunt honesty could be a little bit grating sometimes, but she was never unreasonable.

“But, uh, thanks for the distraction,” said Shock in a sincere tone. “I really hate these things.” She gripped the area of her shin around her bandage.

“Ah, glad I could help!” I was happy she noticed my efforts.

However, as if life knew we needed just a bit more hardship right now, I heard the distant chugging of those bikes again. The catch: it was clearly getting louder. Shock and I both looked in the air with awkward expressions before we realized what it was we were hearing. The eyes on my visor widened a bit.

“Shock, stay down.” I instructed her. The beams on her back made it difficult to move without some effort from her current position, so she opted to just lie on her back.

Shock's crash put us in a slight dip in the terrain between a couple of small dunes. They weren't sizable by any means, but there was a good chance we could take cover behind the dune Shock had been sitting against to block us from view.

At least, that was my plan. The bikes weren't in the most hidden location, but maybe they still wouldn't see us...?

The distant engines were drawing closer by the second. It was unreal how fast they must've been going to be approaching us this quickly. Speed junkies, no doubt.

I laid down as flat as I could against the dune, turning my head to the side so I could see Shock. She was crossing her fingers. Not a bad idea; I did the same.

The following minute was the longest minute I'd felt in a long time. My friend and I stared at each other in silence, occasionally glancing towards the top of the dune and making troubled faces. As expected, the rumbling slowly intensified until it was nearly on top of us, and just as it sounded like it was...

The bikes flew off the dune we were lying against at a ridiculous speed, spraying a thick flurry of coarse sand all over us. Shock squinted and coughed while I laid there wondering how the hell I was going to get all this sand out of my system.

Did I ever mention my hatred for sand?

That aside, I looked back at where the bikers were headed, and they showed no signs of slowing down. Excellent – this might've been our opportunity to get out of here.

“Shock, you okay?” I asked her for what was probably the third or fourth time in the past 20 minutes.

“I ever see those fuckers again, I'll...” Shock inhaled sharply, leaving me to wonder what she was going to say.

I slowly stood up, totally covered in miserable desert powder. However, much to my excitement, Shock stood up too, with very little struggling on her part.

“Hey, you can stand!” I blurted out the obvious.

“Whole body still hurts like a son of a gun,” she began, “but I should be okay to keep going. I'll keep this wrap on my leg until we get back home.” She shook her vest out and dusted off her trousers before leaning over and rolling her pant leg back down over her bandaged shin.

It was moments like these that made me thankful that I was never programmed to experience pain. I can't imagine what Shock was going through, and I don't think I'd ever want to.

“Think you'd be able to help me lift these bikes up?” I glanced between both of our toppled machines. She seemed much better than earlier; I no longer had any qualms about asking her for help.

“Probably, yeah. I shouldn't put pressure on my leg though.”

“Of course. I just need a little boost to help get these back upright.”

“Just a little boost? Maybe it would be better to just overcharge you, then. I don't need to use my leg to do that.”

“O-overcharge? What do you mean?” I'd never heard that term before, and the cheeky smirk on Shock's face was beginning to concern me. It was nice seeing her in good spirits though.

“Haha, yeah. You know how these beams channel ton of electricity, right?”

Oh no.

She started walking backwards away from me. “I figured out that with just the right amount, it can actually be quite helpful for giving robots extra bursts of energy. Ready?”

Before I had a chance to protest, she raised a hand towards me and launched what looked like a miniature lightning bolt at me (from her hand of all places) with an deafening CRACK.

I yelped in surprise and blanked out for a second. It felt like my entire system had just rebooted in the span of a millisecond, and my whole body felt weightless and invincible. What did she just do to me?

“Lift these bikes up before it wears off!” Shock yelled, followed by a hearty laugh.

I ran over to her bike, grabbed onto it and wrenched it off the desert floor with one powerful yank. I hardly had the mental capacity to stand still to make sure it didn't fall over again. I had to move! I bolted over to my bike, still a good couple dozen feet away. Plowing through the dusty sand was a breeze while I felt like this, and as soon as I reached my bike, I repeated the same motions to lift it right up without a problem.

“Shock! What did you do?! This is crazy!”

She belted out some more laughter.

Just as quickly as this energy took hold of me, it rapidly started fading away. With every passing second, my system felt more and more normal again, and I suddenly felt a bit exhausted. Was... was that even real?

“Glad to see it works on you.”

I put a hand on my visor, still trying to comprehend what just happened. “Wha... you're saying that might've not worked?”

Shock shrugged, the smirk returning to her face. “Think of it as revenge for putting me through all this desert bullshit.” She walked over (with a slight limp) to her satchel and bent over, scouring the sand for the items she'd dumped out of the bag. “C'mon. Grab your guitar. I don't want to stay out here any longer.”

I was still standing in the same pose, unsure if I'd snapped back to reality yet. “Yeah, let's... go,” was all I could think to say. This was the day I learned Shock had some neat tricks up her sleeve with that electricity of hers. I imagine this “overcharge” thing would probably be useful in the future.

I shook my head and walked over to my guitar bag, swiftly picking it up and slinging it over my shoulder. Next stop: Grilith Tower. I prayed we wouldn't be interrupted this time.