Better Living Through Chemistry

        'Hurry up. We don't have much time left.'

        I fumble beside the bed for my jeans, peeking at her smooth naked back while I do so. Her left hand strokes my skin and it is with my best willpower I resist the impulse to throw myself back into her loving embrace.    
       My blue jeans are on the floor next to her lamp. I put my legs through while she fastens her bra with a set of clicks. My shirt is across the room and I go retrieve it, sensing her eyes watching me go. Our faces catch another glance and she smiles instantly, the kind my grandparents used to call a "Hollywood Movie Smile". On impulse I move closer so our lips can be reacquainted but a thunderous noise from outside interrupts us.

        'Too late.' I mutter. 'They're here.'

        I button my shirt and charge down towards the front door. After a hard breath I push it open and see exactly what I expected: hundreds of drone soldiers, all dressed in full rubber body armour and carrying grappling hook rifles. They have gas masks for faces, identical cybernetic helmets for hair and each stand in flawless formation with the exact same posture. How long ago they were once ordinary humans I'm not really certain, all that matters is their presence here and their immediate intentions towards us. I sprint back inside, locking the door tight behind me.

        'Is there a back way out of here?' I ask, arriving back in the bedroom.
        'There's a secret way through my bookcase.' She nods, doing up her belt. 'How close are they?'

        The sound of a smashed window rings throughout the house.

        'Very. Let's go.'

        She grabs hold of my hand and leads me through the bookcase, which spins forward and leads us into a neglected greenhouse. We rush out the doors and into her large back field, the sound of the drones bulldozing through her bedroom closely behind.

        'Into the woods! We'll lose them in there!' She shouts, leading towards some tall crooked trees ahead.

        Just as dozens of greenhouse windows shatter we slip into a thick part of the forest. We charge ahead, stumbling over twigs and rocks with only a full moon lighting our way. After several minutes of running we stop, completely short of breath. The glow of the moon gives just enough illumination for her light brown eyes to shine marvelously in the night. 

        'Is there anywhere we can go nearby?' I gasp.
        'Nothing within twenty kilometres.' She whispers. 'Our neighbours have all been compromised. Maybe down the road we can find---'

        Her words are cut short by dozens of bright orbs appearing in the woods, shining beams of light from every direction. The eyes of the drones, serving as flashlights, to better track us down and close in.

        'Let's keep moving!' I say, taking her hand.

        We rush forward past more trees but their beams only become stronger. She pulls me to the left just as one beam becomes so strong I swear a rubbery hand nearly swipes my shoulder. The lights are so blinding I can only stare down at the ground so to see anything. Somehow she leads me forward, changing directions at the right moments even while the orbs and beams keep doubling. 
        Suddenly we stop. Once my vision returns I see a river blocking our path.

        'Can we go around?' 

        Dozens of orb lights flicker behind us, some of the drones now visible just a few trees away.

        'There's no other way.' She says. 'We've got to jump in. Can you swim?'
        'In an emergency, sure.' I reply. 'On five. One, two... five!'

        Still holding hands, we leap in and hit the water with an impressive splash. The current immediately grabs and carries us rapidly downstream. After a fighting moment to keep myself afloat I find my legs and amateurly tread water, meanwhile she bobs along the surface effortlessly as though the ethnicity of "duck" had been passed down through her family tree. I admire her aquatic grace until a grappling hook misses her head by centimetres, hitting a bush along the river shore instead.
       Dozens of drones are along the side of the river, aiming their grappling rifles. Another hook lands in the water two metres in front of us, forcing us to swim apart from each other to dodge the onslaught. I grab a floating stick and hurl it at a drone about to fire at her, disrupting it's aim wildly onto the other side of the river. She dips underwater and emerges with a large stone, firing it squarely into the mask of a drone who would have hit me point blank.
       The water picks up intensity and suddenly we're both flying uncontrollably fast down the stream. Up ahead the horizon vanishes and my stomach sinks: this is the top of a waterfall. From this view I cannot tell how far down the waterfall goes but the drop looks increasingly fatal the closer it comes.
       A grappling hook suddenly strikes a lonely rock way ahead of us and stays fixed in place, the rope connected to the hook possibily within our reach in a quick moment. My first thought is to grab for it, but her tug on my hand stops me. Thinking how the rest of my life, our lives, will unfold by grabbing that rope: to be hopelessly captured and at the mercy of the drones, perhaps even forcefully becoming one of them. And so would go the rest of existence, an unthinking tool of a faceless machination. Yet we would still be alive, she would still be alive. I reach out for the rope.
       I turn to her face and again see those marvelous eyes, seeming so vibrant by the light reflecting off the water. Her hand grabs onto mine one last time, the grappling rope passes us by, and down the river we go until wherever we land.