Episode 11: Instinct

Warm waters lap at my legs which dangle in our hidden jungle pool. The day is warm and as usual paradise captured in a moment of our making. Feet crunch the ground as Emmie approaches, her thin fingers tracing my jaw and up to my lips. "What's wrong?" I ask, confused by the worry in her face. She is fully clothed. A suit of black and grey. Her lips are drawn thin and her eyes flinty and stormy. She presses something into my hands.

"A gun?"

"Listen Kalan," she say, shushing me. "Your job's not done yet."

I furrow my eyes, still not quite sure what she means. I make to say something but Emmie points to the weight in my hands. I recognize it. The memory is distant. This blocky gun, this weapon, given to me by someone most foul. I want to throw it away but I can't. Emmie shakes her head and my grip firms.

"Your job's not done."

Something sounds (Bot whirring from a fade, the water growing louder.)

"No," I protest, but we both know the truth. She smiles wearily and kisses my lips, its so lifelike, I can almost take the dream for real.

My splitting headache returns, every thrum fracturing the dream into shards of glass, until nothing remains but the blurred vision from the bottom of the pool. My hands are cold, but body feels poised. I kick, gun in hand. Raising it to shoot the moment I break the surface. The Husktaker is literally overhead (Splash, gun click, drone responds, fires).

My shot leaves a green gunk across the armor of the drone. It doesn't even penetrate. Shit. The husktakers eye swivels and its guns level (Swimming, drone firing into the water) I'm going to die. This is it, I think. But oddly enough I find that I have spent a lifetime training for this. No, not the particular scenario, but that particular tenacity ever high level performer has when they know they will fail, but refuse to go gently into that good night. I dive, the streaks of bullet lacerated bubbles whizz by, I think one hits me, who knows, I surface, gasping, growiling, howling, raging against the odds. I can hear oit over me whirring the symphony of death orchastrated by the ratttling mechanics and chatter coded and and engineered within it. Still I don't give up! I may not be free but I am free to choose how I die— (Cfrash exlosion, power down, thrown to ground)

It takes a moment, but I realize that its down. The metal corroding swiftly away ringed by a burning of green gunk, now expaned to the body of the drone, exposing and feasting on the vital circuitry within.

(laugh crazed!)

"I'm alive! Alive!" I howl with laughter. Kicking the husktaker I spat upon it, phlegm dotted in hues of red, gobbering it cracked lens. My happiness turns to ash as I remeber the girl, C72, the job still at hand, and knowing that more of these are surely on the way. Hurrying back to the wreakage above, the adrenaline wears off and I realize I'm seriously messed up. A fractured foot, maybe a bone rib, and certainly an anterially rotated pelvis. Retrieivng my bag, I admisnter another set of rad-meds and a shot of soldier serum—no idea whats in it, but the shit gets me moving like ten pounds of coffee.

"The girl, the girl," I say to myself. Its then that I realize in the drones rampage its bullets had scored the hybechamber, emptying it of nearly all its fluid. "Shit, shit, shit," (computer, typing, opeineing, music dramitc.) Fear turns to relief, though I can;t say why as she is extra in the scope of securing my freedom, but all the same I exhale, glad to see the girl unharmed. She is just starting to stir, but it will be several more hours until she is coherent and able to walk on her own. Grunting, I sling her over my shoulders. Laying my blanket somehwat on top. I wince as I take my first step, my foot throbbing dull and sharp at once. But I hardly notice. My mind is in two other places, one part searching the horizon, watching for another one of those death machines, the other part, mesmerized by the clammy, pruny feel of of her skin. Aside from being punched by Savage Sal and the Brickheads, it is one of the few times I have ever felt another living being against me. She is cold but surely warming. And with the rise in her temparature so to does my heart follow, warming, moving in the direction that all men are designed to follow. All I want is my own freedom but my insitnct knows, well before I do, that what I really want is to protect her.

To keep C72 safe.