Brr. Brr. 

Luna Chu was startled awake by the feeling of a gentle vibration against her hip. Over twenty years of service in the Order of Chance had made her a very light sleeper. She sat up in her loft bed, the top of her head nearly touching the ceiling of her tiny apartment, and fished through the large pockets of her sweatpants to find her phone. That was strange... she usually left it on her desk to charge when she went to sleep, but she must have been so tired last night that she passed out in bed right after getting back from work. She held the phone close to her face, squinting in an effort to focus the blurry text on the screen. 

Official Order of Chance alert: all officers of rank Commander and higher living within ten miles of Arcana City are to travel to headquarters immediately. Failure to report within one hour of viewing this message will be considered direct disobedience of an order. 

Frowning, Chu glanced at the time. 2:42 AM. For security's sake, the Order almost never gathered all its highest ranking officers in one place at the same time... so why were they doing it now, in the middle of the night? Chu had never received sudden orders without a name attached to them- such instructions were usually signed by either a High General or the Prime Minister. 

Everything about this rubbed her the wrong way, but she was well aware that under Nelson's government, she no longer had the advantage of the administration's respect. If she went poking her nose where it didn't belong, she would most certainly suffer the consequences. She wasn't like her Queen... she was definitely a fighter, but being an Order agent also meant knowing when to shut up and follow orders. Taking in a deep breath, Chu shoved her phone back into her pocket and swung her legs over the side of the bed, making her way down the metal ladder and to the floor. 

Fumbling her way to the nearest light switch, she made her way to her desk and grabbed her thick plastic glasses. There wasn't enough time to put in contacts. Sweeping her hair into a ponytail and securing it with the hairtie she always kept on her wrist, she pulled a leather jacket over her thin tank top. 

Chu exited her bedroom and picked up her keys and wallet from the couch where she'd left them yesterday, but before she could leave her apartment, a nagging feeling caught in the back of her mind. Going back to her bedroom, she squatted in front of her battered old dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer. Placed snugly inside was a small black safe. She punched in the combination and at the sound of the telltale click, reached inside to retrieve her gun. Just in case, she thought to herself as she slipped it into her pocket. 

Thanks to the creaking of the flimsy walls and the faint sound of music coming from above her head, Chu didn't feel totally alone as she walked through the hallway of her apartment building. She could barely remember what it was like to be a college student like most of her neighbors were. She genuinely marveled at their luxury of being able to watch their country go through a regime change without so much as turning off the radio. 

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she was greeted by two six-foot-tall androids covered from head to toe in plates of grayish metal armor. They appeared unarmed, but Chu was well aware that it only took seconds for their limbs to transform from humanoid arms to sabers to machine guns. 

"Identify yourself," one of them commanded. Its voice sounded warbled and distant through its thick helmet. 

"Commander Luna Chu, Order of Chance," she said, enunciating carefully for better speech detection. She pulled out her wallet to display her Order ID, holding it in place as the android scanned it. 

"Curfew exception validated. Proceed." 

Chu put her ID back in her pocket and was about to walk past the androids when one of them let out a long beep. 

"Weapon detected. Stand in place and surrender your weapon immediately, or a noncompliance report will be filed." 

Chu balled her hands into fists, very aware of both robots' sensor cameras as they fixated on her. Nelson's Order summoning all its leaders to headquarters in the middle of the night was enough of a red flag in itself, but insisting that they go unarmed... that confirmed that whatever he had in store for them wasn't pretty. She wasn't going to walk into it defenseless. 

Taking great care to keep her hands in view of the androids' sensors, Chu reached into her pocket and retrieved her gun. Slowly and meticulously, she moved it toward an android's outstretched hand, but before its metal fingers could curl around the gun, she angled it upward, shooting a hole in the android's head straight through its front sensor. 

The other android responded with inhuman speed. Before the echoes of the gunshot died down, it tackled Chu to the floor, overwhelming her with its sheer mass. As she suffocated under its weight, Chu telekinetically raised the closest large object- a handicapped parking sign, and squeezed her fist, watching as it rammed into the android's armor. This distracted it enough to allow Chu to roll out from under it and begin the sprint to her car. 

Even as she used her telekinesis and the probs to leave all sorts of obstructions behind her, Chu knew that she couldn't outrun the androids for long. Her mind dragged cars over the curb and toppled plants to block the sidewalk in her wake, but the robots' hand-blades cut through any obstacle she could throw at them. Her nondescript black sedan now in sight, she veered off her path and made a mad dash through the parking lot. When she arrived at her parking spot, she pulled her car door open so hard she was almost afraid she would rip it off its hinges. 

The car started with a roar and Chu slammed her feet on the gas, accelerating through the parking lot only to see both androids standing in her path. Cursing under her breath, she veered around them. Those robots were annoying, but not annoying enough to make them worth hitting with her car. Their master, on the other hand... 

Chu turned aggressively onto a deserted road, the sound of the robots' heavy footsteps still refusing to fade. She had to lose them before she got closer to the city center and gave them the opportunity to introduce her to their friends. 

Zooming through an intersection, she spotted the perfect opportunity just ahead. An open manhole. She'd never been more grateful that the municipal government of Arcana City was considerate enough to do most of its maintenance work at night. 

Bracing herself, she drove rightward until the tires on the right side of her car hiked onto the curb. Sure enough, the two androids followed, jumping up onto the sidewalk to continue their pursuit. Chu easily passed over the manhole- she'd ensured that it was entirely under her car and no parts of her tires touched it. She kept an eye on her rearview mirror, smiling when the android whose sensor she had crippled dropped straight down into the manhole. 

It takes two eyes to simulate human depth perception, she thought to herself with a smile. With only one field of view, she'd expected the android to have trouble distinguishing between a mere shadow and a twenty foot drop. 

As Chu drove back onto the road, a deafening crash echoed through her car as something flew through the rear window. She instinctively leaned left and felt a sharp pain in her right arm before a sharp metal disc about the size of a dinner plate flew out through her windshield and skidded across the road in front of her. She'd forgotten about the second android for a moment. 

Her arm felt warm and she could feel the inside of her jacket sleeve getting sticky with blood, but it wasn't bad enough to keep her from driving, so it wasn't bad enough to make her stop. As she got closer to the heart of the city, she began to spot the occasional military patrol- both human and otherwise. Any minute now, the remaining android could signal to any of them for help and she would be discovered. She had to act fast. 

Quickly turning a corner, she opened the passenger side door and unfastened her seat belt, all while keeping one hand on the wheel. Taking her foot off the gas, she threw herself violently out of the car, shutting the door and ducking into an alley. As she predicted, the android continued to chase the car. It would take a few moments for it to realize the car was decelerating and a few more for it to see that it was empty. Chu was within walking distance of Order headquarters, and a few moments were all she needed.