A yawn takes me by surprise.
After an hour or so my eyes grow heavy. Sleep begs me to follow. The lights from the stars render in and out of focus. Suddenly, I blink and
I’m back at the Delta facility.
The alarms wail.
A hint of gunpowder lingers in the air.
Footsteps are coming up the stairwell behind me.
Long narrow hallways, dimly lit, stand in both directions.
I enter the first door I see. Black paint.
“So, we meet again... I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.” The flickering red and green lights from the servers reflect off Oriyen’s metal arm.
My heart drops to my stomach.
I’m trapped.
I close my eyes and feel myself choking.
They open to his shiny, black shoe digging into my neck.
I can’t breathe.
I’m going to die like this.
This isn’t right!
I’m not Palin.
The lights from the machines flicker more rapidly as the world around me slowly begins to fade.
I don’t have much longer.
“I’m not Palin!” I scream, but it’s useless.
The man with a metal arm pushes down harder.
I’m not Palin…
Chapter 13
The onboard navigation wakes me, interrupting the perpetual roar of the engines to inform me of the arrival at my destination, 34. I still feel as if I’ve lived here my entire life. It’s a strange feeling. Conflicting, yet almost unifying.
The shuttle lands outside the same gate Lethe banished Palin from. I remember it like it was yesterday. Everything looks different now, surprisingly more depressing than before.
My eye finds two sentry droids collapsed at the entrance. A fresh stab wound in each of their cores is discovered upon closer inspection.
About a mile in, like an explorer stepping into uncharted territory, I cautiously wade through the city shadows, not entirely sure what waits for me, but my heart doesn’t care right now.
I’ve always known Lethe had a dark side, a side that I refused to entirely see because not seeing it benefited me, it allowed me to ignore it. After living the life of Palin, after literally walking in the shoes of a living, breathing victim of Lethe, how could I not do everything in my power to help? The way they did those people is wrong, it doesn’t matter how long ago it happened. That could’ve been me.
As I stumble atop the broken concrete with the crumbling Delta Project building, cloaked in a thick layer of soot, in view, I’m stopped in my tracks at the sight of them. Three Lethe droids armed with rifles block my path. Their eyes radiate red, glowing with hostility. They stand upright, silent, their barrels aiming directly at me. They all share the same cold-metal stare.
I never should’ve come here.
My eyes close in submission, quickly opening again after the sound of clanking metal and the sizzle of electricity plunges into my surprised ear.
Hunched over three wrecked piles of metal, stands the child I was searching for. He’s about half my height, still clutching the knife he used to dismember the droids in one hand and a dirty plastic sack in the other. It’s dark, but I can tell this is no ordinary child, as if children were ordinary. Aside from within Palin’s mind, I can’t remember the last time I saw one.
He stands motionless with eyes that pierce. His long hair, dark and wild. Each of us waiting for the other to make the first move.
“Who are you?” I speak.
“Are you one of them?” asks a child’s voice in return.
“Are you?”
“If I were.. you wouldn’t be standing there,” the boy replies, his tone seems more like a promise, his gaze an act of violence. There is no softness in his face. Only a look that conveys a bubbling hatred, disgust perhaps, yet this child is a stranger to me.
“I’m Athan,” he says extending his fist in my direction.
I hesitantly bump my closed hand to his causing him to lash out again, “No, you idiot. Take it!”
It was then I realized he was handing me something.
“That your shuttle back at the entrance?”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t have much time. They’ll be here any second. Take this grenade and grab one of those guns on the ground. We have to get the hell outta here.”
I swiftly do as he orders just as thunder from their rifles cut through the air at us. More Lethe droids approaching fast.
Dodging their gunfire, we both sprint towards the gate. A group, maybe five or six, of them race after us on all fours like metal animals. Their red eyes rapidly closing the distance.
They’re too fast. We aren’t going to make it, but we don’t stop running. There is no other choice.
Heart thudding, the buildings around me sway. Every thought I own is caged. Over the sounds of their blasting terror, a scream. I turn, fumbling the warm barrel of my new rifle, assuming the worst. Through the veil of darkness glows a dozen red eyes, like burning fires seven feet off the ground. Lying motionless in the dirt before them, the boy.
The gun weighs in my hands as I try to find the balance between myself and my weapon. Lifting the barrel in the direction of the approaching horde, I aim. My focus shifts to my target, and with a mind of its own, a virtual path of my bullet’s trajectory is highlighted within my upgraded eye. I didn’t even know it could do this.
I squeeze the trigger and the gun fires with a loud eruption, recoil slamming the stock back into my shoulder. The round tears through the air and lodges in its target. The first droid slides to a halt, face forward. Its eyes glow red no longer.
With every trigger squeeze, another one falls. Until they are nothing more than scrap on a city better left forgotten.
I rush to the still corpse of the little boy that saved my life just minutes earlier. Blood is soaked into his blouse and he’s not moving. I strip the fabric away to reveal the dark hole in his lower
chest. His breathes are shallow and weak, barely a pulse. Deep
