by T. J. Quinn
Bretdon rubbed his face, trying to make the right decision. If he tried to escape, his programming would attack him immediately and subdue him with severe pain. His other option would be to set course to the farthest military base he was able to find and look for someone to open up his main control system for him to free himself.
That way, he might be able to fool his programming and avoid the pain. Of course, there was always the possibility of being found by the soldiers following his tracking devices, but he could allege confusion at the moment of his capture.
Determined not to waste this opportunity to escape, he set course to the furthest military base, using the roads as much as he could, so they couldn’t accuse him of hiding in the woods. It would also give him a better chance at finding someone he could persuade to help him.
He walked for several hours without spotting a living soul. His programming system kept showing him the coordinates to much closer military bases and though ignoring those suggestions caused him some pain, it was bearable, since he wasn’t escaping per se.
He was about to lose hope of ever finding someone on those deserted mountain roads when he heard a vehicle coming his way.
Ophelia grumbled for the hundredth time. It had been a bad decision driving all the way up to the mountains, especially when the government had announced the presence of Taucets in the area. But she needed to go visit her mother and driving there had seemed the easiest way to do it. Ever since the war had started, commercial flights had been forbidden, since the Taucets could easily take down the flights, and the same happened to trains, so the only way for you to travel around the country was by using a car. Of course, the government didn’t encourage such journeys but they hadn’t forbidden them. It wouldn’t look good for their alleged democratic ways.
The trip hadn't been easy from the start. Most of the roads were destroyed at some point and she had to make a lot of detours in order to continue and that had made her lose a lot of time she didn’t have.
Her mother’s constant calls didn’t help her much. The older woman loved to complain, and Ophelia’s delay had given her a lot of reasons beyond the usual to complain. Ophelia lived too far; she was still single; Ophelia would never give her the grandchildren she had been waiting for her whole life; Ophelia’s job kept her too busy. The list was endless.
She was talking to her on the phone that afternoon and that was surely the reason she didn’t see the man until it was too late. She hit the brakes, but the car only slid on the frozen road, hitting the man before hitting the trees on the side of the road.
With her heart drumming on her chest, she jumped out of the car and ran to where she had seen the man standing, just a few seconds ago, sure she had killed him.
But to her surprise, he wasn’t dead. In fact, he was pretty much alive, standing next to her car with a huge weapon in his hand, pointing it at her. “Were you trying to kill me?” he snarled at her.
She took a step back, scared as hell. The man was huge, easily over six feet, with massive muscles. Quite an imposing figure. “No… no… I’m sorry… I didn’t see you… I didn’t mean to hurt you…” she mumbled.
“If I wasn’t fast enough I would be under the wheels of your car,” he grumbled, exaggerating on purpose. He wasn’t going to let her go before making her help him.
She raised her hands, helplessly. “I really didn’t mean to. I can take you to the nearest hospital, though I haven’t seen a hospital in miles. But perhaps there’s one up ahead…” she babbled, too nervous, as she wrung her hands. It was too dark for her to see the man in detail, but she could tell he wasn’t like any man she had seen before.
Breton smiled. He had her exactly where he wanted her.
“Lady, lady, please stop! You’re making me dizzy with all your mumbling,” he groused, closing the distance between them. “You’ve damaged one of my circuits. All I need you to do is fix it,” he added, with a wicked smile.
She took another step back, more scared than ever. What the hell was he talking about? Circuits? Was he an alien? He didn’t look like one. She gulped, gathering the courage to ask. “Circuits? What do you mean by that?”
“Yes, lady, circuits. Haven’t you ever seen a cyborg?” he asked, mockingly. He was sure she hadn't. The Government did their best to keep citizens away from cyborgs. They didn’t want them to realize they were more human than their propaganda claimed.
“I have a name, it’s Ophelia, so please use it,” she grumbled, still trying to assimilate what he had just said. “A cyborg? A real cyborg?” she finally asked, amazed.
“Yes, lad… Ophelia, a real cyborg. Now, can you help me, or will you leave me here hurt?” he asked, lying blatantly. Her car hadn't touched him, and if it had, the car would be more damaged than him, but she didn’t need to know that.
“No, no, of course, not. Just tell me what I have to do and I will help you,” she assured him, taking a deep breath, before taking a step closer to him.
Smiling, he grabbed his knife and handed it to her. “I need you to cut the skin under my armpit to access my main control system,” he explained, feeling a jolt of pain rushing through his body, just for pronouncing the words that would free him.
“What? I can’t do that! That’s insane!” she protested, in shock. How could he ask her to do that?
He frowned. “I thought you wanted to help me.”
“I do, but, cut you? Why? There must be another way.” It sounded so barbaric, so cruel, not to mention she hated the sight of blood.
“There isn’t. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt me,” he lied, blatantly.
“Are you sure?” she insisted, feeling her stomach getting upset at the simple idea of cutting the guy up.
“Yes, I’m sure, lady. Just do it,” he grumbled, raising his arm and exposing the area he wanted her to cut.
“Oh god. This is a bad idea,” she whispered, putting the tip of the knife on his skin.
“Just make a clean cut, in a square shape, and I’ll take care of the rest,” he said, barely able to speak. This time the pain wasn’t faked.
She took a deep breath and moved the knife across his skin, as fast as she could, doing her best to control her nausea.
She couldn’t. She managed to cut half of it and had to drop the knife and turn around, unable to look at the red blood coming out of the wound.
“Hey, don’t stop,” he protested.
“Sorry. I can’t,” she mumbled, covering her mouth with her hand trying to control her nausea. “I can’t bare the sight of blood.”
Bretdon looked at her, astonished. Was she for real? Shaking his head, he grabbed the knife and tried to finish the job himself, but the jolt of pain sent through his whole body threw him to his knees.
“Damn, this can’t be happening” he spat out through gritted teeth, dropping the knife and looking at the wound.
It wasn’t big enough for him to access the main control system.
“I’m sorry, I really am,” she apologized, worried with the pain written in the man’s face.
He looked at her, with a stern expression on his face. “Listen, lady, Ophelia I don’t care if you throw up all over me. Just finish cutting. I can’t do it on my own,” he ordered.
“Please, don’t ask me that. I’ll take you to a hospital or something,” she almost begged, still feeling nauseated.
Chapter Two
Bretdon lost his last thread of patience. He couldn’t let her walk away from him, and clearly, he couldn’t let her take him to a hospital. It was time to get rtough.
He raised his gun and pointed it at her. “Pick up the damn knife and finish the job, or I swear you won’t be able to do anything else,” he was bluffing, of course, but she didn’t know that.
She paled visibly, even in the dim light of the sunset. “There’s no need to─” she started saying, but she didn’t sound as scared as he expected.
In fact, she sounded enraged. “Yes, there is, you can’t leave me like this, bleeding and unable
to access my control system,” he pointed out, in an ice-cold tone, handing her the knife again. “Just do it!” he snarled.
She grabbed the knife and for a moment, Bretdon thought she would use it on him. She didn’t. Instead, she grabbed his arm and finished the job.
Ophelia was so mad at the man, she finished cutting his skin without even feeling sick. Who the hell he thought he was, threatening her that way?
“There, it’s done. Happy now?” she said, dropping the knife again.
“No, but I will be,” he mumbled, reaching the main control system and feeling the buttons.
She looked at him intrigued. “What are you doing?”
“I need to enter some codes, but I can’t see what I’m doing,” he explained.
She looked at the small panel and back at him. She couldn’t believe she was about to say that, but what the heck. “Tell me and I’ll do it for you.”
He looked at her surprised. “I thought you couldn’t look at blood.”
“I guess your gun cured me,” she shrugged. “Tell me the codes, before I change my mind.”
Chuckling, he told her the codes and she punched them in, one after the other, releasing him from the chains that enslaved him to the humans. Once she had punched the last code, he jumped to his feet and held the patch of skin against his body, and allowed the nanocybots to do their job. A couple of minutes later, the skin looked as if it was glued to his body.
“Thank you, you were quite helpful,” he said, picking his knife and his gun.
“You’re welcome.” She looked at her car, still against the tree and sighed. “Do you think you could help me out with my car? I doubt I’ll find a crane around this place.”
“Sure, why not? I need a ride out of this place,” he agreed.
She looked around at the growing darkness. “I’m not going anywhere at this time of the night. I just need you to take the car from where it is, and I’ll set camp right here,” she replied, shaking her head.
It was too dangerous to drive during the night. There were no lights and no one ever knew when they’d hit a destroyed section of road.
He ignored her words and walked to the front of the car and pushed it away from the trees, as easy as anyone else would push a toy.
The vehicle was a bit damaged, but he was sure it still worked perfectly.
“We can’t stay here. This is my last known location and if we stay here, we’ll be caught,” he said, putting the vehicle back on the road.
“What? Who would catch me? What the hell are you talking about?” she protested, looking at him with a deep frown.
“The soldiers. I don’t have time to explain, right now, so just get in the car and let us get the hell out of here,” he ordered.
“No, I’m not going anywhere. It’s too dangerous to travel at this hour,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It’s too dangerous to stay here,” he said, opening the passenger’s seat door and walking towards her.
Before she could guess what he was about to do, he picked her up in his powerful arms and carried her to the car, securing her in the seat and locking the door.
He was behind the driver’s seat in a blink of an eye.
“Hey, you can’t do this, this is my car and I decide if I want to leave or not,” she protested, struggling to free herself from the safety belt.
He glanced at her, with such an ominous expression on his face that she stopped what she was doing. “Consider your car seized. Now be a good girl and enjoy the ride.”
Ophelia looked at the man, furious. He had turned her into a virtual prisoner, in her own car. It was outrageous.
“You have no right doing this, it’s my car, not yours.”
“I believe we’ve been through this, already. It’s my car now, and you are my hostage, in case I need one,” he explained in a very cold tone.
She looked at him as if he had announced the end of the world, and started struggling again with her seat belt.
“We’re traveling at more than eighty miles per hour. If you jump out of this vehicle, you’ll die,” he said, in a stern tone.
“I rather die than become a toy in your hands,” she started saying.
“Oh, please, quit the drama.” He interrupted her, though the idea of playing with her was so hot he almost groaned. He hadn't been with a female in too long. “As soon as we get far enough away, I’ll give your car back and I’ll let you go,” he interrupted her, impatiently. “I just need to get as far as possible from here.”
