Program Erin

by Alex Fall

  The energy between our faces grew until his countenance turned to fear, and he silently mouthed 'OK.'

  Letting him go, I snapped my fingers to get Sharon's attention and have her come inside. Ignoring everyone's sideways glances, I went right up to the cashier to order a breakfast. No telling when I'll get food like this again.

  "Is....everything ok?" The young guy asked.

  "It better be," I stated with authority. "Lemon honey burst, with two cheese danishes, Multigrain bagel, and add an order of any kind of cheese or sausage or something." I looked at Sharon. "What do you want?"

  "Nothing," she timidly said.

  I faced the clerk. "Get her a cinnamon bread and an açai fusion."

  I took our drinks and food and brought them to an outside table on account of the glaring guard that I threw against the wall. While I ate, I retrieved the laptop from my bag and began working on its coding. I saved a default program in case it all went wrong somehow, then started reworking the signaling and location tracking systems of the computer. Several minutes into it, I became aware that Sharon hadn't touched her food.

  "Eat."

  "I'm not hungry."

  "Eat," I said with more force. She grabbed the food and started wolfing it down without delay, not because she wanted it, but because I ordered her to. I shook my head and continued working.

  This was taking a long time. It always does though. Computer programming was hard like that. I knew how to work it, but it was slow for me. This would be much faster if I had my tech op with me. After staring at a screen for so long, I finally rubbed my eyes and glanced up. Sharon was looking at me, but immediately broke contact and stared at the ground. Really?...

  "What?" I asked.

  She shook her head, refusing to speak.

  "If you have something to say, spit it out."

  "No."

  I stood, which caused my chair to scoot back. "Sharon! Speak!"

  She backed off quickly and put her arms up in defense. "Do you still think I'm going to beat you? If you don't tell me what's on your mind, I just might have to!" I said trying not to raise my voice too loud.

  "You weren't this mean yesterday!" She said, sniffling.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to vent. I knew that I got irritable quite often, but there's never been a reason for me to mask it. "In case you couldn't tell, I'm having a bad day," I told her as I sat back down. "You'll just have to learn to deal with it."

  The girl stayed curled on the ground for a moment. "...you're not going to beat me?"

  "No...now get off the ground."

  She returned to her seat quickly and quietly. And she pulled herself up, I spotted an old bruise across her ribs and backside when her shirt lifted slightly. Memories of being a Directorate guinea pig resurfaced on seeing it. Her state reminded me of when I was littler, less angry, and infinitely more scared when the Directorates experimented on me. That was back before I stopped being weak...

  Eventually I finished the computer work and uploaded the coding of my GPS. I booted up a search and with the help of the internet signal, it finally downloaded the coordinates of my GPS. At last, something went right today.

  "I need to speak to you." The restaurant guard was standing right behind me, but I blanked my screen out to see in the reflection that there were two more with him. They all were armed. So much for something going right...

  "Why?" I asked without turning around.

  "Take off your glasses."

  "Think VERY carefully about what you're asking," I said in a slow, clear voice. "If I am who you think I am, do you REALLY want to continue this conversation?"

  "You're the burn with blue eyes aren't you?"

  "That's Sapphire Eyes to you," I said while looking over my shoulder.

  "Don't think about it. I'm an armed Bolt," he insisted.

  Standing to face him directly, I took off my glasses and glared at him. "And I'm the best Burn to walk this planet!" I said slowly advancing on them. "Guns can't hurt me, plasma can't stop me, your powers won't affect me, and I have more killing knowledge and experience than your entire army combined! Even if you manage to shoot me, I will melt you slowly and painfully. You're eyelids will peel off and your eyes will boil out, your flesh will bubble off of your muscles, and your organs will liquefy inside of you. No matter how loud you scream, the roar of the fire will drown it out. The smell of seared flesh will linger for weeks, and even if it's my dying breath, your bodies will be so scorched, your friends and family will have only your teeth to identify you by." I stopped and let my eyes pierce into the main guard's soul. Their weapons were drawn and pointed at me. I let my voice drop lower to add weight to my message. "If you TRY to touch me, I WILL kill all three of you, and burn down this restaurant with everyone inside in the process..."

  The three men stared in horror, waiting to see if I was bluffing. What they had no way of knowing is that my body would have so many burns from a stunt like that, I would most likely have to be hospitalized, yet I fought their weak eyes back with my own confident ones. I won't allow them to know I'm bluffing.

  One of them in the back swallowed nervously. The other whispered under his breath, "Geez, girl..."

  Then I heard a crying whimper. Without breaking my gaze, I figured out that Sharon was still obediently sitting in her chair, but she was now crying in terror. The men traded nervous glances. I kept my death stare locked on them.

  "OK....so what happens now?" Asked the main guard.

  "We could always take a hint and a little cash and say we never saw anything," suggested one in the back. The other two shot of him a look to tell him just how stupid the suggestion was.

  "Look, if that's how it's gonna be, I say we just keep looking for Sapphire Eyes and she just keeps going on her way," the third said. With that he raised his arms up to show his stand on the matter and left the stand off. Soon enough, the other two also slowly backed off.

  My clenched fists and tensed body relaxed themselves and soreness returned. I looked back at Sharon, who was staring at me while she cried and sobbed. Crying looks so ugly. Do I look like that when I cry?

  "We need to move. Let's go," I commanded with unphased confidence.

  She forced herself to look at the ground, but a new wave of tears and whimpering came out of the child. She can cry however much she wants, so long as we find somewhere the Greaters won't come after us. I packed everything up, picked a direction, and began to travel with a sobbing girl trailing me.

  Part 6

  This could work. At first me and Sharon wandered around looking for a safe building, but then I started tracking my gear. Turns out that the building my stuff was in was next to an abandoned structure, some sort of warehouse. But perhaps...the warehouse could be our shelter. If it's been abandoned for this long, then no one would think to look here, especially since it's so close to a Greater hub.

  We jumped the chain link fence, found an open door and entered the office. The front office area was basic enough. A large square room with a hall off of that to the left, and offices off the hall that were all pretty much stripped of anything of value. There were two large, automatic swinging doors, the smell of iron wafting out of them, that lead to the warehouse area beyond the front square room, with faded warning labels all over them. To my surprise, I saw almost all of the machinery and goods left in tact back there. Also surprising was the large quantity of dried blood immediately around the door area. My mind went on alert and I froze.

  The blood was old, but still present, perhaps why the smell of metal was in the air. The way it was splattered, it was gunshot wounds. I leaned my head in through the double doors to take in more of the scene, but again I froze when a very high pitch noise of something powered up. It was faint, barely there at all, a frequency that was barely detectable. I could see no light sources from where I was standing, and based on the warning stickers, I assumed it to be some kind of security scanner that still functioned somehow. But bullet wounds?


  Sharon let out a very faint sound that betrayed her nervousness. There's no way I can find out what that noise is, chancing that there may be guns, with a child following me. I left the door alone and warned Sharon not to enter those doors, then we settled down in one of the small offices off of the hallway, one that still had clean carpet.

  I left the girl to settle in and went outside to watch the entrance of the Greater building. Its security was more uptight than the usual Greater places. There were guards inside and two outside that checked everyone that entered. It seemed no one was allowed in the building unless they had what I guessed to be those red bracelets on their arms like the first Greaters I had seen. I'll have to find another way in. And then once I find a way in, I'll have to find a different way out. It's doubtful that my entrance and escape will be the same. Things would be so much simpler if I had my ship...

  "Sapphire eyes?" Sharon asked. She was peeking around the corner, hiding and scared that she needed to speak up.

  "What?"

  "I need to go to the bathroom..."

  I turned around and stared at her. "And this is a problem because?..."

  She looked at the floor and remained silent. Ugh! I can't read this girl if all she ever does is stare at her toes!

  I walked back inside, grabbed her hand, and led her to the bathroom. There was no working water, but at least there was an old bar of soap and tissue paper under the sink. At this rate, I almost expected her to admit she wasn't potty trained, but thankfully she was. Even still, it was annoying to me that this girl couldn't take care of herself.

  After all was said and done, we ate a lunch from the food in my pack while I stared out the door at the building. My mind processed idea after idea about infiltration. After thinking for an unknown period of time, I finally broke the silence.

  "Sharon, I'm going to need you. The reason we're here is so I can get something in that building. I'm going to try to make it to the roof and toss a bag to the roof of this building we're in, so I need you to go to the roof here and get the bag when I do. Got it?"

  She looked outside then at the ground again, then nodded slowly. After a moment, she spoke.

  "Are you going to kill someone?"

  That's the second time she's asked something like that. Does she have a fascination with death?

  "Not for you to know," was my reply.

  Though my body healed quick, my burns were still present and smarting. I wondered about my concussion, but the bullet bruises were negligible. I left my coat behind in case it gave me away, as well as my shoes. I brought my laptop, the two pistols I had, and a flat piece of nearby unknown metal all in my pack, then headed for the the building next door after instructing Sharon how to get to the roof and to watch from out of sight for my bag.

  Just as I suspected, there's an underground parking garage. Older cities like this one still had parking garages for ground bound vehicles. I managed to slip in through one of the slits in the concrete that served as windows for the first floor of the garage. There were cameras, but no patrolling people. I avoided the cameras and found an elevator, forced the doors open (with the help of the metal piece) and ascended the building via elevator shaft. It took much longer than any other way and was cold in the shaft, but there were no cameras or watchful eyes here.

  After climbing for a long and tiring time, I reached the floor that the laptop said my stuff was on, floor seven. I forced the door open just enough to peek out. Nobody in sight, but I could hear people on this floor, plus there was a camera at the end of the hall. Let's make this quick.

  I pointed my finger to aim and shot a small fireball off my shoulder, which I projected parallel to my arm and into the camera. I quickly pushed open the doors and as I pulled myself up, I kicked the elevator cables with my super heated foot, effectively snapping the cable which sent the elevator out of commission and sliding to ground floor. The burn on my foot would slow me down, but I still walked on it. I stood in the hall, which looked like it used to be a police office or something, then turned down my first right. People's voices suggested they heard the noise and were coming to investigate, so the first empty room I came to, I turned in and hid. Two figures rushed past, so I slipped out behind them and turned the first corner. I pulled my laptop out as I walked and checked location. My GPS was up ahead, to the right. I avoided looking into any open rooms with lights in case someone saw my blue eyes.

  "Hey, whoa! The elevator's out!" A guy shouted.

  "Wait, what happened to the camera?" Another shouted.

  A second passed before both the first voice and a girl's shouted, "I bet it's the Burn!"

  Shuffling and running grew everywhere, but before anyone had a chance to spot me, I entered the room I was looking for and locked the door behind me. A surprised young man and I stopped before running into each other. He tensed at seeing my blue eyes, and my blue eyes watched as I whacked him across his face with the metal bar I was carrying. He stumbled back into a table in the room, so I whacked him again. And then I whacked him yet again. His bloody head hit the ground unconscious, so I put my laptop away and began searching the room. Basically, the walls were lockers and there was a couple of tables in the middle of the room with random stuff on them. One of the random things was my shotgun with its ammunition, so I retrieved it back and stowed it in my pack. I raked my elbow across several locks, burning them off, and checked all of them. They all had things of interest, no doubt items that were taken from other people, but nothing that belonged to me. I burned off several more locks, clenching my teeth at the pain of the subsequent burns, and checked those lockers as well. Inside one of those lockers was my body armor, with most of the tactical gear on it, including my GPS. I worked quickly to stuff all of it into the backpack, but to my horror, I discovered that my medicine bag was not here. I grabbed anything else from the other lockers I thought might be useful and pulled out my shotgun. I mentally patted myself on the back for keeping large clips of shotgun shells to load in it, especially since it would come in handy for this situation.

  The handle jiggled on my locked door, so I turned and blasted whoever was on the other side without question. I kicked what remained of the door open and continued blasting anything that moved. My shotgun was not pump action like older ones, so it helped take out even more targets. I needed to find my medicine bag, it was ABSOLUTELY necessary.

  After I hit and neutralized four greaters, all antagonists disappeared just behind corners and out of sight. I could hear some running away from the scene down the stairs, but others I heard planning while behind their cover. Don't let them strategize. No quarter.

  I advanced toward the hallway I originally entered and shot at the wall. As long as there were fighters on this floor, I wouldn't get time to search for my bag, so I had to either scare them off, or neutralize them. As I walked, a grenade was thrown at the wall to my right. As it bounced, I watched the trajectory very carefully, as my life depended on it. The explosive bounced off of the wall, then toward my left hip. It must have been thrown fairly hard, so I let my left hand come down hard in an arc and slap the weapon behind and away from me. It continued in its path with renewed speed, bounced off another wall and around the corner. The explosion boomed, injuring someone trying to sneak around behind me, and sending little stinging, cutting bits of the wall flying past me.

  A face came around the corner in front of me to scan. Still gritting my teeth from the pieces of wall striking me, I gripped my shotgun and jabbed the face with the tip of the barrel. The man reeled back, got shotgun blasted, and shoved aside as I stepped to face whoever was hiding back here. An older dark skinned man (one who had time to equip himself) backed off quickly and raised his arm. He had an odd exterior suit with cables and mechanical joints that spanned across his chest and two arms. It was definitely fitted to him, but on the arm he had raised, there was a flat, rectangular laser attached to his forearm. Turns out that he was a bolt, and the suit fed off of his bodies energy.

  A sustained las
er beam ripped through the walls. I managed to see it in time to pull back behind cover, but the beam could still pierce through walls. I took off down the hall, dodging and searching for a way around. I burned a chunk of wall down to slow my pursuer, but didn't stop to notice how effective that decision was. The man followed closely, and as I turned the corner, he appeared at the last corner I turned. His blasted laser kept ripping the walls open, so this corner, I dropped to my stomach. He came running around and received a shotgun shell to the leg. As soon as he tumbled to the ground, I leapt on him and beat him, making sure to burn his laser off.

  A woman entered the hall ahead of me, so I fired at her also. A wall of ice blocked the shot. Another girl suddenly took a swipe at me from behind with a bludgeon of some kind. All I had time to do was cover my face and superheat my arms. The club smacked my arms and melted to pieces from the heat, but without delay, she gripped my shirt and slung me away. Her added strength sent me into the ceiling, my head hitting first. The world spun and blurred as the pain swept through me and I realized my concussion was trying to make a comeback. I hit the ground as she turned to face me, and she grabbed me up to lunge again. The sound of searing flesh and the shouting of the brute sounded off when I heated my neck up enough to burn her, but amazingly she didn't let go. I shot her foot, then elbowed her in her cranium. She slung me down the hall to put some distance between us, which ended with her getting another scorching as I left. I glanced off one wall, stopped on another, and collapsed on the ground. My vision blurred for a moment, and I was forced to remain still so that I could catch my breath. I hurt all over...

  A new, stabbing pain centered in my back caused me to jump into the nearest open room. The pain stopped as soon as I entered. It turned out to be a spot that the Freeze focused on, so I heated myself enough to correct it, but not enough to meaningfully burn me. There was still a pain there, but at least the damage won't further itself. I reached around in my backpack until I pulled a grenade I found in the locker room. I leaned out and chucked it past the wall of ice, then pulled back in the room as the doorway froze over. Spikes of ice grew off the wall and floor and stuck me in my shoulder just deep enough to be an annoyance. The explosion shook the ground, and the ice stopped growing, preventing the spikes from causing further damage. That could have been dangerous.