Adam (17 page)

“You think I am like you?” She said it with a note of incredulity.

His brow wrinkled. “Aren’t you a cyborg?”

At his question, a hysterical giggle emerged from her that rose and fell in pitch. The madness in it, thickly bound in sorrow, gripped at him. How he wanted to hug her and hold her, this woman who emanated such loneliness. “Of course I am cyborg. I am the most cyborg of all. And also the least.”

The answer made no sense. Not much about this situation did.

And time wasted.

“Hurry it up,” Adam shouted. “We haven’t got all fucking day. Round two is coming. This place is ready to blow, and I mean blow.”

Avion held up his hand with only one finger pointing, and it wasn’t the one that signaled wait a minute. “Ignore my friends. We have a few seconds for introductions. I’m Avion. What’s your name?”
Tell me.

I can’t give you what I don’t know.
“I have no name. Not anymore. They took it from me and renamed me.”

“And what are you called now?

“In here, by them, by everyone, I am simply known as One.”

A numerical identification. How familiar. Avion had one too. All cyborgs did. The first thing the military did in their brainwashing program was take away a person’s identity and replace it with a meaningless string of letters and numbers. “One isn’t a proper name. We’ll have to change that, but the choosing of it shall have to wait. It’s something that requires thought. Now that we are introduced, what do you say we blow this joint?”

“You mean leave?” How surprised she sounded.

“Yes, leave. Are you ready to face the world?”

But the world is vast. So vast. And the biological ones, they are so many.

I will be there, as will my friends. We will get out of here or die trying. Come with us. Retake your lost freedom.

“Freedom.” She uttered the word softly, and he saw the image of a bird, soaring in a bright open blue sky. “Yes, let us find freedom. Let us fly.”

Laura couldn’t help but gasp as they reeled Avion from the odd prison in the floor and then forget to breathe as his rescued burden joined them.

Ethereal appearing, the young woman who unwound her arms from Avion’s neck seemed outwardly human with her platinum hair, snow-white skin, and slim frame. But one had to only look into her eyes that swirled, the colors and clouds in them much like the celestial storms caught by deep space video, to know she was touched by something not of Earth.

A rumble shook the room.

“I do believe the secondary charges to cover our escape have gone off,” Adam announced. “Which means we’re a little bit behind schedule. Time to get moving. Rosalind just pinged me and said the rendezvous ship is about to arrive.”

“She’s alive?” Laura asked as they jogged back the way they’d come through a maze of uniform gray corridors leading to more corridors, most of them doorless. So strange and any other time she’d explore more, but their schedule was too tight, and quite honestly, the longer they stayed, the more likely the military would have a chance to mobilize an offense.

“Rosalind is alive but not happy the military shot down the first ship she arranged to transport us. Lucky for us, a certain ally stuck around.”

“Who?” Laura asked.

Seth knew who and laughed. “Aramus didn’t take off? And to think he keeps claiming he doesn’t care.”

“Oh, he cares. He cares that he wants to be the one to kill you when you finally drive him off the edge,” Anastasia replied with a snicker.

Through huffing breaths, Avion, who held the mystery lady’s hand while Seth guided him on the other side, said, “It’s more likely Aramus heard we were going to destroy some stuff and wanted in on the fun.”

“It is fun to destroy things?” The puzzled query emerged from the pale woman.

“It is if it screws with the military’s plan to hurt us.”

“It is bad to hurt the unmodified beings. It means punishment.”

“Only if you get caught,” replied Avion. “I would know.”

“Less talk, more running,” Adam admonished from his position on point. “Keep an eye open for the enemy.”

Chastised, the banter stopped, a shame because, while before Laura might have wondered at their levity during battle, now she kind of got it.

Things had gotten serious. Deadly serious. The darkness of what they had to do to survive and save each other could mark a person. The banter and lightness they added between those dark moments helped counter some of the worst of it.

Only inert bodies littered their exit, especially around the doorway to the stairwell, the elevator out of commission due to the power outage. Laura made a face eyeing all the steps leading upward. While an easy jog down, they might prove more challenging on the ascent.

Or would have to the old her.

Laura still hadn’t quite come to grips with what was happening to her. She didn’t feel any different than before. Felt just as human as ever—and her emotions definitely hadn’t turned robot clinical, or cynical—yet there was no doubting she had radically changed. The healing of her wounds, and so quickly, was only part of it. Her eyesight, always a blurry mess without her glasses, now saw things with a sharpness and clarity she’d never achieved, even with lenses.

I can see.
And smell on a whole new level, each layer of scent distinctive. Her stamina had seen an increase. Just look at how she took the stairs two at a time and did not run out of breath.

The nanotechnology she’d played with had somehow affected her, so did that make her a cyborg? What defined a cyborg? Was it just the nanos, or did it come from owning a certain metal-to-flesh ratio? She had no ore-based parts. She didn’t have a mechanical heart or internal CPU or any other enhancements the usual cyborgs received. Did this mean she could pass through metal scanners?

What am I?
The scientist in her was dying to find out.

The fear she should have experienced during the moment of revelation, the hysteria at her possible loss of humanity, and the amount of bloodshed and violence she’d seen in the past few days should have sent her to babble and cry hysterically in a corner. Instead, despite the alien technology running through her blood, she’d never felt stronger and more alive.
I am more than ready to face the world and truly experience life to its fullest.

Ping!

The stray bullet ricocheted off the metal banister as soldiers suddenly appeared in a cluster above them. From the top of the stairwell, they leaned over and took aim. Adam positioned himself before her, even as he angled his weapon to achieve a proper sightline.

He and Seth didn’t miss. Nor did Anastasia, who counted aloud to Seth’s amusement, even as he managed to stay one digit ahead.

The skirmish didn’t last long, but it certainly made itself heard and seen. A scream as someone got hit and didn’t immediately die. A wide-eyed, startled expression as a body went plunging past the open middle in a quick, if deadly, descent.

In short order, the gunfire ceased, and they were sprinting the rest of the way, except for Avion. The poor man couldn’t handle the strain. Out of breath, and hunched over, he didn’t protest as Seth slung him over a shoulder and carried him, fireman style, while the woman they’d rescued followed at his heels.

How her alien strangeness drew the eye and begged for answers. Was it wrong that in the midst of a hair-raising escape, Laura compiled a list of questions to ask her, first and foremost being, “Who and what are you?”

Could this frail appearing woman be the origin for the cyborg nanotechnology? Would Laura get a chance to find out?

As they reached the top and the closed door to the first level, Adam held up his hand to slow them.

“We’ve got company on the other side,” he said in a low voice. “Avion, you stay back with Laura and your lady friend. Seth, Anastasia, and I will go first and clear a path. When I give the signal, you follow and you move as fast as you can. Can you run, Avion?”

The blind man nodded. “Just point me in a direction.”

“I’ll guide him,” said Laura.

Before he flung open the door, Adam yanked Laura close and planted a hard kiss on her lips. “I feel an irrational need for luck.”

“How about incentive instead?” She pressed her mouth against his and whispered, “Get us out of here and we’ll have another shower together. This time I get to use the soap first.”

“Hey, wifey poo, can I get the same deal?”

“I will rock your parts, husband, but only if nobody in our group dies,” Anastasia replied with a wink and lick of her lips.

“With that kind of prize, I’ll even get you fireworks,” Seth laughed. “It’s win-win for everyone since dying was never part of my plan.”

“Pompous idiot. Just for that, I’m going to get more kills than you. We all know I’m the better shot.”

“Another challenge? You’re on, wifey poo. I am so going to show you who’s the man.”

And with those crazy words, Seth led the charge with Adam muttering, “I hope I never turn into that old, senile model.”

The door swung shut as the trio dove into danger. Gunfire rang out, fast and furious. Sharp cries of pain also echoed, along with shouts for more soldiers. More firepower. And then the most chilling words of all, “Tell them to drop the nuke. They found the girl, and we can’t contain them.”

Nuke?

“This nuke, it is a bad thing, isn’t it? My definitions have it as a nuclear blast that decimates everything in its path.”

“We’ll die if we don’t get out of here, and quick,” Laura added. But quick didn’t seem in the cards, given the soldiers pinning them down still seemed determined to waste copious amounts of ammo.

“Would you please excuse me? I believe I can help.”

The woman placed Avion’s hand on Laura’s shoulder before boldly stepping to the door.

About to call her back, Laura swallowed her words and watched in disbelief as the portal swung open without her laying a hand on it.

The woman moved into the hall, and the yelling began. “She’s here! Oh shit.”

“Aim for her head. Kill her. She can’t be allowed to escape.”

The panic was palpable. Intrigued, Laura couldn’t help but edge to the door and peek. Why such fear over a harmless seeming woman?

Blonde hair floating in a halo around her head, the freaky lady they’d rescued walked toward the oncoming gunfire, or what was intended as oncoming gunfire. It just didn’t behave the way physics intended.

The woman raised both her hands about chest height, and while Laura couldn’t see anything in front of them, the most logical explanation was the bullets hit an almost invisible shield. Actually, more than a shield, it was as if they hit a curved or reflective surface.

Forget an impact, one second the projectiles headed at the woman, and the next, they’d turned around. Turned around and turned into human seeking missiles!

Not one missed.

Gulp.

As the woman calmly paced past Adam, Seth, and his wife, they stopped shooting to gape at her.

“Is she redirecting their bullets?” Seth asked in awe.

“Yup.” Adam’s eloquent reply.

“You better not be staring at her ass,” was Anastasia’s growled reminder.

“I like my eyes too much to set you off, my deliciously jealous wife.”

“Not jealous,” she grumbled. “Much.”

A nudge at Laura’s back had her turning to note Avion’s intent to leave the relative safety of the stairwell.

“I think it’s safe to follow,” Avion murmured. “While she is able to deflect close missiles, she won’t be able to stop a nuke if it’s dropped on us.”

“How do you know this?”

“Fucked if I know. I just do.”

Then the word nuke hit her.
We have to get out of here before they drop a bomb.

Snapped out of her shock, Laura scurried after Avion, grabbing at his arm and helping him maneuver the cluttered halls. Blood was slippery, and sticky.

Up ahead, their walking shield kept moving, but no more bullets were fired. On the contrary, the soldiers ahead of them ran for the exit, the same one she’d used for months when she worked here.

To distract herself from the corpses, she focused her mind elsewhere and asked Avion, “The girl we rescued, do you know what she’s called?”

“One.”

“That’s not a name.”

“I agree it’s not, but it’s all she has for now. Don’t worry, I plan to change that as soon as we get somewhere safe.”

Adam fell in beside Laura and linked one hand through hers as they followed the blonde wonder, her steps so light she almost seemed to float. Perhaps she did. Her bare feet certainly made no sound and left no trace, despite the swirling dust and splatters of blood.

They passed bodies, too many of them, all dead and all human. Laura couldn’t help but avert her gaze, knowing deep down inside that they didn’t have a choice.
It was them or us.
Yet it didn’t make the carnage any easier to view.

Emerging from the building, and surrounded by wailing sirens and flashing lights, they didn’t encounter any more soldiers, probably because the last of them had escaped, the red taillights of the Jeeps and trucks vanishing in the distance.

“I parked over—” Adam’s extended arm dropped.

Everyone wisely didn’t make mention of the smoking remains of his cy-car, or the fact he let out a very un-cyborgish, “Eep!”

Adam cleared his throat. “Shit. That sucks. Especially since I don’t see any other intact vehicles. There is no way we’re going to make it out of here in time if we don’t find some wheels.”

“Did someone say they needed a ride?” From the swirling smoke and clouds above them, a voice boomed as if projected through a megaphone.

Peering up, Laura stared as a small craft hovered overhead, the low rumble of its motors barely noticeable over the scream of the air raid horns.

A metal chain ladder dropped from the open doorway in the side of the ship. A face peered over the edge, a rough-hewn one with piercing eyes. He was bald but for a metal patch on one side. The man, a charmer if she’d ever met one, snarled, “Well? Don’t just stand there staring. Move your lazy metal asses. I haven’t got all fucking day.”

“And hello to you, too, best friend,” Seth replied just before he grabbed his wife around the waist and tossed her at the dangling ladder. Anastasia clambered up the shaking rungs, followed by Seth at Adam’s insistence.

“Don’t hello me, you back-stabbing metal bucket. I leave you alone for just a few days and you’re blowing shit up left and fucking right, and you didn’t think to invite me?”

“Sorry. It was kind of last minute.”

Adam placed Laura on the ladder next as he saved himself for last with Avion and his lady.

“If it’s any consolation, we could use one last major explosion. That is, if you’re up for it,” Adam shouted as he aided the woman next to the ladder. She clung to the bars and didn’t move, her placid face peering upward then around, as if uncertain.

The smoke hid the human soldier until he stood and fired with a stridently yelled, “Die, you fucking robot!”