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He tossed the bound hundreds into the bag; blue-banded stacks of ten-thousand, the half-frowning faces of Franklin staring up at him. Eighty, ninety, three-hundred, three-ten, three-twenty, three-thirty, three-forty, three—“How much you got, bike boy?” Barked Red-mask from the door of the safe.“Three hundred-fifty and countin’.”“All right. Get out of here; that’s enough for insurance. We’ll get the small bills. Don’t wreck. Or drop the bag.”“I won’t.”He zipped the backpack, pushed his arms through the straps so that the bag was in front of him, and walked briskly out of the safe, past Red, duffle bag in hand, past Purple and Black, covering the tellers with shotguns, and out the front doors, held by Orange and Blue, equipped with bulletproof vests and AR’s—Blue holding the civilians whimpering on the floor, Orange watching the parking lot.“Ride like lightning, kid,” remarked Orange, as he walked out of the automatic doors, clapping him on the back.He nodded in acknowledgement.Out onto the asphalt, jogging lightly, The motorcycle helmet shouldn’t arouse too much suspicion; people would just assume he was late for something. He began to sprint across the street, and saw the police cruiser round the corner at the end of the block, lights on, siren off. There were two cops in the front seat and presumably more in the rear, leaving no doubt as to what they had come to do.“Well, fuck me.”He looked about for any pedestrians and other traffic. None—main street appeared deserted besides the approaching cop car. Walking out into the middle of the street, he flipped up the helmet visor and stood legs apart in front of the approaching vehicle. The black Dodge halted twenty feet away, lights whirring, engine humming. Then the intercom crackled on:“Set down your firearm and put your hands in the air.”His gun—a jolt of remembrance hit him, and he reached down and slung the TEC-9 up from where it hung on the shoulder strap.“Drop the weapon imme—“He pulled the trigger then, praying that it wouldn’t jam. Once, twice he fired, stepping closer to the car with each shot, watching the tempered glass of the windshield shatter into a black net of spiderwebs, blood spattering the backside of the glass when a shot hit.The TEC finally jammed after the twenty-fifth shot or so, and he released the clip and racked the slide back abruptly, feeling the hot metal through the thick leather of the motorcycle gloves. He was shaking all over, his hands and arms jerking wildly from adrenaline. No sooner had he ejected the bad shell then his radio crackled on. Someone cursing in the background, probably Orange—“The fuck is goin on out there? You good?”“Cops,” he replied, hopping on one foot, then the other, putting the near-empty magazine into his left boot, and pulling a fresh one from his right.“Shit. Shit. Shit. How many? They dead? You hurt? What did you unload on them?”He slid the mag into the smoking pistol—“They’re dead. Probably more coming. Glad you made me load the gun with armor piercing rounds.”“You bet your fucking share there are more coming. Now get the hell out of here.”“How did they know about the robbery?”“That’s my problem, not yours. Ride.”The radio clicked off.Gunfire from inside the bank—full auto, so not from any of the civilians.As he ran back towards the Honda, a middle-aged man came charging out from one of the stores, a drawn revolver in his hand. The two men looked at each other for a moment. The fat one was quicker, and had no safety.The shots came like thunderclaps, three going off before he could flip the safety off, one whistling by his head. The fourth bullet tore through his thigh, and he felt the hot rush of blood down his pant leg, his knee buckling—but the safety was off. The fifth shot missed, and it was over. The man knew, and stared, revolver drooping. Eight shots he squeezed off—two missed—and the man slumped against the store front, head lolling, blood gushing from his nose and mouth in a great crimson river onto the pavement.And then his leg throbbed where he’d been hit, drawing him back to the present. Not a dull throbbing, but an acute, jabbing thing that tore up his leg and into his spine. He looked at the dead man and threw up inside his mouth.The cops are coming, he thought to himself. Just go. Go.He swallowed the bile in his mouth, grimacing. Dragging his right leg behind him, his boot filling with blood, he limped over to the bike, swung his leg over,—key, ignition—and the engine rattled to life, throbbing beneath him. He flicked the kickstand up with his heel and spun out of first, reaching back to flip the false license plate up, his only thought being the freeway and escape. II. It was a CBR 600, a 2004, with a rattle can paint job over the factory coat and an exhaust note like a rasping siren. Some kid’s first bike, dropped, scuffed—disposable. But when he hit the onramp, the throttle responded, screaming up to five thousand and the powerband. He shifted, and the four-cylinder wailed up to 10k, the front tire lifting ever so slightly into fourth.The red needle of the tachometer rose swiftly, vanquishing the little white digits while the numbers on the LCD climbed accordingly. He tucked down beneath the cowl, impaired somewhat by the backpack strapped to his chest, and began the weaving he knew so well, ‘twixt the trucks and tractor trailers of the early morning traffic—clutch in—and he pushed on, past 120.There is a certain point where a sport bike relegates normal traffic to stationary objects you simply have to steer around, and in the bright morning light, the young man hunched over the black Honda arrived at that threshold, and man and machine thought as one. He took the bleak offramp, and leaned over to the right, turning onto the deserted two-lane road of potholes and mutilated macadam. He kept on the road for ten minutes or so, riding past farmhouses and ranchers built in the nineteenth century, populated by the remnants of the early twentieth.Taking the turn-off onto the gravel driveway, he rumbled down to the enormous hay barn, behind the farmhouse. The door was propped open a crack, and he steered the bike in. Must and old Alfalfa hay lay in the half-darkness. He guided the bike over to the stall side of the structure, and switched it off, flipping the kickstand down. Pulling the helmet off, he marveled at the lovely freedom from its confines, and tried to dismount.The pain surged up his right thigh like an electric shock, and his leg gave out almost immediately. He fell to the dirt floor, cursing, clutching at his leg. Why he hadn’t felt the gunshot wound during the ride was beyond his understanding; perhaps it was because he hadn’t use the rear brake once during the ride—but he felt it now, and that was all that mattered. The man lay there for a minute of two, letting the acuteness fade to a dull throb, then, reaching down, he began to remove his right boot. Like a sticky, red wine, it had run down the inside of his pant leg and his boot was half-full. Gritting his teeth, he tore off his other boot and unzipped the leather riding pants and jacket, stripping to the sweat-soaked jeans and t-shirt beneath.“Fuck,” he remarked, staring down at the blood-darkened pant leg.He knew there was a first-aid kit in the back of the getaway vehicle, a black Volkswagen Atlas parked at the opposite end of the barn. And so he began to drag himself and the backpack over to the SUV, using his helmet for support.He had to stop twice on the way, clenching his jaw, arms shivering in protest. Reaching under the trunk latch, he released it, and the interior lights of the VW came on, dousing the twilight of the barn with an artificial glow. He heaved himself up into the trunk and tore open the first aid pack. Cutting away the denim surrounding the bullet hole, he then doused it in alcohol, gasping as it stung white-hot. Wiping away the blood, he surveyed the wound. A clean hole, punched right through the fleshy part of his lower thigh. A .44 Magnum, maybe, he thought, watching the dark liquid pump lazily from the wound. A solid slug of lead, not a hollow-point, thank God.He splashed it down with Hydrogen Peroxide, just to make sure, then inserted a syringe of tetracycline, and wrapped the wound with gauze. For all the good it would do.He wondered where it had all gone wrong. Perhaps a few years ago, when the drugs started feeling decaf. Perhaps when he had first held his baby girl in his arms and known that he would do anything, even kill, to ensure she lived a happy life. Maybe it was when Leah left them one night and never came back, stealing his savings. But he supposed it didn’t matter. His child was at daycare now. And the rest of the guys would come back and kill him because buying a half-decent doctor was not something they would spend money on. It was a bad wound. He would either die of blood loss before they arrived, or Orange would blow his brains out when they came in the van.Chloe would grow up in foster care, told that her father was a killer that had cared for no one. He sighed, his face slack, tired. He leaned back against the third-row seats and tried to sleep, backpack in one hand, empty syringe in the other. III. His mind was adrift in the white. A voice spoke.“Hello, Jason,” it said, neutral and unassuming.“Oh. Hi. How do you know my name? I’m dead, right?”“You are not dead. Far from it in fact.”“Then where am I?”“On the moon.”“Excuse me?”“Yes, you heard me correctly. You are the sixty-fifth soldier of batch 4-C. The year is 3105—we are building an army of genetically enhanced soldiers deep beneath the moon’s surface to take back the Parliament from the Leader. As the soldiers’ bodies develop, we place each one of their brains through aa simulation of life in the distant past to find a motivator—something for them to fight for. It appears that yours was your daughter.”“There’s no way—is this some sort of joke?”“No.”“My God. You can’t do this; it’s not ethical—““I assure you that it is a quite ethical process. You will not remember a single word of this conversation. In fact, you won’t remember anything at all, except your child’s face—your motivator—and then the drop ship will take you to the war zone.”“This is a joke, right? Can you please just tell me this is all a joke? I—I can’t be like this—send me back—please—“ He began to struggle with his mind.“The realization that your reality is false is easy for no man to face. I am sorry.”“Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck is this? The Matrix?”“I’m not sure what ‘The Matrix’ is; I suppose it was part of your simulation. Take solace in this soldier: you’re happier anyway when you don’t know a thing.”Everything went dark.