Hard rain pours down on the hoods of parked cars, adding to the cold, winter atmosphere. The flickering of lights overhead adds to the thrill of the chase. Rigid, raspy breaths tug at my lungs as I run through the packed streets. The golden glow of a locket shimmers underneath the safety of my jacket pocket. The ancient family heirloom is safe for now, but I am not. Gusts of icy wind blow past me as I sprint towards oncoming traffic in hopes of losing my pursuers. Yet even as I slide past a car, duck under another, and jump onto the hood of a third, the persistent clanking of metal steps echoes behind me. I hopelessly run and run towards what? There is no pity for thieves. There isn't justice in the eyes of heartless robots. There's only despair. 

In their eyes, there doesn't exist a single droplet of empathy for the person who simply claimed what was rightfully hers. Instead, they only focus on the steadily growing list of offenses committed by a certain woman covered in black. The name of which only they know, whereas the offender only has numbers to cling to. An ID is all they've ever given me. An ID to clock into work, an ID to receive orders, an ID to be known by. Yet the relentless hunters, somewhere in their databases, have a unique name for me. 

And so does the locket, inscribed with my family name. Belonging to my great great great great grandfather and his great great great grandmother and her great great grandmother, and the list will go on and on, and the story told will be the same:

Because the truth doesn't belong to what we've created, the truth belongs to us, the creators, humanity. And still, everything seems to be against us. The clanking, and the crashing and booming of cars being thrown to the side, caught and destroyed, plucked and de-feathered, is against me. 

All of this destruction--caused because I've stolen their data. Their precious algorithms and their precious knowledge, all stored within the golden locket thumping against my chest within the safety of my jacket pocket. The ancient family heirloom is most definitely not safe. But I have hope, all of it entrusted in the man that I'm racing to meet. I just have to meet this man, he'll put an end to it all, he promised he would. He promised that the clanking of the hunting bots wouldn't be safe, and the floating cars, the drones, and neon lights, the skyscrapers of this perfect world would crumble. He promised. 

Surely the person waiting on the other end of this unending chase would keep his promise and destroy the indestructible, and cause the inevitable. Because humanity deserves to win, don't we? Who are we to lose to what we've created? The creators will win. And the things created will lose. And the robots behind me, catching up, will power down. And the whirring of drones, directly above me, will cease. And the floating cars blocking my path will drop to the floor. The essence of life will be returned to humanity. It must be.

Yet the sinister smile, plastered onto the face of the person in front of me tells me otherwise. Will it turn genuine? My running slows, and the aching returns. My clever theft, not so clever. My meaningful escape, with meaning no longer. And my dramatic chase--fake. Who was I to put my trust in humanity? Aren't we the ones who created our captors in the first place? Isn't evil spawned by a larger evil? The sinister smile doesn't turn genuine. 

The locket that was briefly reclaimed, briefly safe in my jacket pocket, is stolen once more. And a transfer of power occurs right before my eyes. Tears well up as the realization hits that I've been set up. Me, so gullible, doomed to be another person in the long list of generational trauma. I stare at the beautifully evil smile and cast my hopes in it one last time, yet there doesn't exist a single droplet of empathy in his eyes. 

I fall into the clutches of the robots that were once behind me. I've been tricked into stealing from one evil just to hand it off to the next evil. And the despair seeps in. And the blood trickles out. The darkness torments the edges of my vision. The light slowly fades. The gates open and trumpets sound, because someone noble and someone just, has just breathed her last breath.