The First: EVO Uprising (30 page)

The cylinder came to life as beams from the top and bottom of the cylinder constructed a holographic faceless mannequin dummy with Sophia’s height and measurements adorned with a skintight blue bodysuit, and absorption boots with a red and silver color scheme. A closer look at the suit revealed a carbon fiber chainmail pattern to it.

“
First of all,” Sophia said, “get rid of the blue. Let’s go with a black and red color scheme.”

“
Got it.” Lady Tech nodded. “Maxine.”

“
Darker red, like blood red,” she instructed. “And how about a silver pattern on the upper body?”

Erica’s grin grew deeper as a once apathetic Sophia got into the design process.

“
Not a fan of restriction, think you can make it a two piece instead of a one?” she asked.

“
Like a mid-riff top?” Erica asked.

On command, the mid-section was removed from the design making the outfit a top and pants set.

“
Can we add a big hood to the top?” Sophia asked.

“
Why a hood?” Lady Tech turned to her.

“
I like the style.” Sophia narrowed her eyes while inspecting the design. “Not to mention, people forget things. We forget a man nearly beaten to death by people who are supposed to protect us; gunned down for just pulling out his wallet, or sodomized by a broomstick. A child murdered by a punk just for rocking a hood is not something that should be a passing phase.”

The fabricator added a hood to the design, while giving the boots a blood-red color to match the rest of the outfit. Sophia slowly nodded with approval.

“
Maxine, begin fabrication please,” Erica instructed.

“
Total fabrication time forty-five minutes,” Maxine calculated.

“
Well, that should give you time to get cleaned up,” Erica sighed. “Maxine will escort you to our showers.”

“
Should you really have me running around your base like this?” Sophia sneered.

“
We have nothing to hide,” Erica shrugged, “and if we did, could we really stop you from prying?”

Sophia nodded in agreement and followed Maxine out of her lab to get cleaned up.

˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

Minutes later, she was showering in a foreign place for the third time in years. The open gym locker room shower concept felt less uncomfortable than Mountain View or Mount McLoughlin. She realized that it was because she was a prisoner in the last two places.

She washed off the funk of battle and destruction before toweling off. Maxine took her old outfit for incineration. She did not want to bring it back home with her. The less memories she had of what happened in Times Square was better for her.  

It would be another ten minutes before her new outfit was finished; Maxine left her a sweatsuit to wear until then.

She walked out into the locker room area to change, only to see Rosann also in a towel sitting hunched over gripping the long steel bench she sat on. She trembled as silent tears ran down her face.

“
You okay?” Sophia gently asked.

Rosann sat up wiping her eyes. Sophia casually strolled out not bothering to get dressed.

“
Sorry,” sniffled Rosann. “Didn’t know anyone was here.”

“
It’s okay.” Sophia sat down. “First time in a real combat situation?”

“
I’ll get over it.”

“
No, you won’t.” Sophia shook her head.

“
Those animals downstairs should be in a shallow ditch,” she said plainly, “not in a cell.”

“
Yes they should be,” Sophia nodded.

Rosann waited for the ‘but.’

“
You were expecting some moral high ground speech from me?” She raised an eyebrow.

“
I’m not naïve.” Rosann looked down at her feet. “I know there are evil people out there who do cruel things.”

“
It’s a whole different story when you see that actual evil face to face,” Sophia finished her next sentence.

“
They just killed them,” her eyes misted, “without even a thought. Like their lives meant nothing.”

“
Awhile back in the Sudan,” Sophia sighed, “there was a known warlord known as the Sand Lion. Like all warlords in that region, he raided villages, raped women and little girls, murdered the men, and recruited the children, mostly the boys as soldiers in his army. Usually he would force the children to shoot their parents as a display of allegiance to him. During one of his raids he tried to force a twelve-year-old boy by the name of Pubudu to shoot his mother. Pubudu’s mother, full of tears, told him to kill her so that he would live. Pubudu instead decided to throw down the AK-47 given to him and stand up to the Sand Lion in front of his entire village and regime.”

Rosann turned to Sophia listening attentively to the heroic tale.

“
Now, normally the Sand Lion would answer such an act of brazen defiance by shooting or beheading with a machete,” a steeled Sophia continued, “instead he decided to get creative on that day and send a very lasting message. He took four of his American and Soviet Cold War jeeps, tied them to each of Pubude’s small limbs, and proceeded to draw and quarter him in front of his mother and everyone else still alive. He and his regime then raped and sodomized his mother into madness for almost six hours straight in front of his dismembered corpse.”

New tears fell from Rosann’s eyes as she cupped her mouth after hearing the horrid tale. Sophia’s visage did not even flinch after telling it.

“
Those animals downstairs,” Sophia said, “are still a rarity in this world. Monsters like the Sand Lion have been walking this Earth for centuries. And the only time we give a damn is when it’s happening in our own backyard.”

“
What happened to Pubudu’s mother?” Rosann’s voice quivered.

“
I had to pry her son’s dismembered corpse from her arms and bury him,” Sophia answered. “Then I hunted down the Sand Lion, destroyed his entire regime, while liberating the child soldiers under his captive. I then broke both his arms and legs and shattered his ribcage, collapsing his lungs. I left him to die in agonizing pain either choking on his own blood or succumbing to pneumothorax. Six weeks later Pubudu’s mother succumbed to her madness and was found drowned in a nearby lake bed.”

“
How do you keep doing this?” Rosann shook her head.

“
If you’re looking for super hero advice,” Sophia sighed, “again, you’re talking to the wrong person.”

“
You don’t like superheroes.”

“
I think many of them are glorified fan boys and girls living out their wet dreams in real life.” Sophia cut her eyes. “The world doesn’t need people like us causing mass destruction while fighting for peace, justice, and the America way.”

“
What does it need?” she asked.

Sophia focused charging her right hand until a blue glow of pure energy formed around it. She used it to stroke her braids drying out the excess water from them.

“
You may not know this, but I have an older brother,” Sophia smirked. “Growing up, he was known as the “little gentle giant.” He was tall and a bit heavy set. He loved dinosaurs, comic books, and things that had to do with science fiction like Star Wars and Star Trek, and he loved to read; even to this day. He was just an all around geek at a time when being one wasn’t cool.

“
The thing that was adorable about him, made him the subject of ridicule in school,” Sophia sighed, “especially at the hands of this one kid named Mitch Jackson, who was half my brother’s size. Every day he would find a way to taunt my brother, who was not violent by nature, saying some very nasty and hurtful things to the point it would bring him to tears. My brother would go to the teacher and principal, who did very little to stop the obvious bullying. It would stop for a day two, but then Mitch would start again with a vengeance because my brother told on him.”

A hint of anger appeared on her face, which made Rosann a bit nervous, but quickly disappeared as she went on to tell her story.

“
One day my brother came home and asked my mother what a faggot was. My mom was shocked that he knew such a word and explained to him what it meant, and then asked him where he heard this word. He then went on to tell her how Mitch would call him this name several times, especially during lunchtime, because he was always reading his novels. Now my mother, being a God fearing woman, always encouraged us not to fight, but on that day the nasty Jamaican side of her was awaken. And she instructed my gentle, yet very large, brother that the next time Mitch Jackson dared opened his mouth and call him that name again, he was to ball up his fist, and deck him right in the face. She told him that he might hit him back, but to make sure he got one good one in so that the next time he even thought about uttering that name; he’d think twice.”

The smirk on Sophia’s face told Rosann what happened next.

“
Like a creature of habit, ole Mitch walked up to my brother after school in front of me and my little sister, and said, ‘What’s up faggot?’ To which my big, gentle brother who had never thrown a punch before, balled up his near man size fist, and decked that little shit dropping him on his ass.” She began to laugh. “Both him and Mitch were taken to the principal’s office. My mother came to find me and my little sister crying because we thought Anthony was in big trouble. When we told her what happened, she did not even bat an eyelash. She walked right into the school, into Mr. Callahan’s office, looked at my older brother who sat quietly waiting for her, and a sobbing Mitch who had a black eye the size of a baseball; the first words out of her mouth in front of Mr. Callahan to my brother was, ‘You got him good, right?’ A displeased Mr. Callahan, who threatened to have my brother either suspended or expelled, was met with the order from my mother to hand over all three of our transcripts, out right admitting that she commanded my brother to knocked Mitch Jackson out if he ever called him that name again, and then asking our principal how he could stand by an allow a child to use such disgusting language in a Catholic school, of all places and where did he learn it from. In the end, my brother was never suspended or expelled, Mitch Jackson never called him that name or any other name after that, they even became very good friends. The ‘gentle giant’ was left alone and respected from that day on.”

“
Doesn’t sound any different from how I grew up.” Rosann shrugged. “What does it have to pertain to what happened today?”

“
I think it’s fairly obvious,” Sophia said with blunt sternness, “in order to obtain absolute peace, to really stop evil from running rampant, people have to be broken and humbled. Today’s ‘superhero’ remind me of Mr. Callahan. They raise their voice, do a little scolding, maybe give you a couple hours of detention, but do nothing to effect permanent lasting change. History has dictated that the only time humans take each other seriously is through a show of decisive and brutal force. Sometimes we shall overcome is not enough, sometimes you got to clobber them with some ‘Fight the Power’ for them to understand not to screw with you.”

“
So why haven’t you decided to make that permanent change?” Roxann asked. “You have the power.”

“
I do have the power,” she smirked. “I just don’t want the headache that goes with it. People constantly trying to find a way to kill me, going after people I care about, I’d end up dead leveling the planet. Who wants that drama? I prefer the hidden silent truce I have with myself and current world leaders. They leave me alone, and I leave the world alone. I help who I want, when I want, my own way, and the rest of the world is left to its own devices to figure their crap out amongst themselves.”

“
So what should I do?” Rosann’s eyes revealed she was begging for some guidance.

“
What you feel is in your best interest,” Sophia shrugged. “And whatever consequences you feel you can handle. Walk away and never have to see anything like what you saw in Times Square ever again, and no one would blame you for that. Stay, knowing that you are forever locked in the ‘Neverending Battle’ and with the knowledge that there could quite possibly be more scenes like what happened in Times Square and maybe worse. The question that only you can answer at the end of the day, ‘Is what I am doing making a difference and is it worth it? Do the ends justify the means, and can I sleep at night knowing that.’”

“
Does it for you?” she asked.

“
Honestly,” she shrugged again, “I really don’t know. Like I said I’m no hero, so my actions are usually decisive and brutal, and I don’t need to sleep.”

Maxine’s android form strolled in interrupting their conversation.

“
Ms. Dennison, your new suit is ready,” she reported. “I will take you to one of our vacant rooms to change.”

“
Thank you,” she nodded.

Sophia sprung to her feet. Stretching, she adjusted her bath towel before it slipped, as Rosann looked down at the floor again processing what she had said to her.