Chapter Two

"...your mother."

"Mmm." Said Emilie as she watched the sun rise out the window. They'd been driving for a few hours and the hovercrafts were now long gone. There was no other cars on the highway and all was silent except for the quiet humming of Stefan's car.

"Emilie, did you listen to me?" Stefan turned slightly to look at her quickly before glancing back at the road ahead.

"Yeah and I just already really miss her, you know?" She cringed at her high pitched voice which portrayed her unconvincing lies and fear. Stefan gave her a withering look before explaining what he had said and which Emilie had been completely ignoring.

"I was saying," he said, "that your mother once made a terrible mistake."

Emilie immediately straightened up from her slouched position on the seat and stared at him wide eyed. Her mother, make a mistake? That never happened before. She snorted disbelievingly. Julie was a perfect woman who made everything perfect and right.

"What did she do?" She asked urgently. "Stefan, what did she do?"

Stefan sighed and looked thoughtful.

"Julie," he began, "was a wonderful woman who rarely ever made mistakes. And during our days, there were stories and legends about cyborgs and their existence. Everything was true, but many people, adults especially, did not believe them-"

"Because it's so unbelievable!" Emilie interrupted, flinging up her hands. Stefan smiled patiently.

"Let me continue, Emilie." He said and she closed her opened mouth tightly. "Your mother however believed them from the start. I didn't but soon did. After all, she was my best friend and I was hers. She read all sorts of books about cyborgs. She researched on them and found how bad they were. Of course the legends told us that they did horrible things, but never in a million years did we know that the cyborgs not only murdered and slaughtered, but even turned humans into robots too. Now, she was sure that they would come one day, perhaps invade, but honestly, I doubted that she was right because why didn't they come earlier and why would they come later? I gave up on researching and studying these cyborgs, thinking they wouldn't come. But Julie, my god, she never gave up. Every time I came to visit her at her home, she was always engrossed in books of cyborgs in her room. She always told me boring information, so I was often pretty bored. But one day, I came to visit her again and as expected, she was researching on cyborgs. She looked up and her eyes were shining with excitement and graveness. It wasn't like any other day when she told me facts, so for the first time, I ask her what it was. Then, to my surprise, she told me that she had figured it all out. And when I asked what 'it' was, all she said was 'it'. Then she sighed said that she knew how the cyborgs were to come one day and that they would arrive in no orderly fashion. They would arrive as a surprise. Like a terrorist attack, but much, much stronger. And the bigger news she had was that she now knew how to fight back to these cyborgs and it wasn't cheap. Cyborgs are immortal, they say, but are they? Their limbs are metal and machinery. Their organs are electrical. So, brilliantly, Julie had figured out that the only way to kill a cyborg is to electrocute them; to zap them. And I'm not sure about nowadays, but back then, the government had loads of electric-shooters, exactly what we needed. So, the next week, we actually went to the prime minister. The prime minister at the time was Clarissa May (Emilie gasped). Her eyes were bright green and she did not blink, nor was very humanly. And I realized when I saw her that she was a cyborg herself. I remembered Julie telling me the looks and characteristics of cyborgs. Very bright green eyes, inhuman stiff movements and pale skin. But evidently, Julie had forgotten was speaking very fast to the prime minister whose lips immediately curled up at what the thirteen year old was saying. I stared at Julie in horror. At what she was doing, what she was saying. 'Julie!' I hissed and she stopped. I glared at her and then at Clarissa. It was at that moment that Julie realized what she had so carelessly done. I will never forget that horrified gasp she let out. She was trembling from head to toe as she excused us from the minister who smirked and whispered, 'watch out'. Then we turned and ran, ran all the way home without stopping. We were terrified and a year later, it was all over the headlines, that Clarissa May had died of cancer. But really? We both knew it wasn't true and that truly, the cyborg had returned to her world to prepare an army or something of a sort to invade. We were so scared and dreadfully waited for the eventual attack. But it never came. So when we were seventeen, we relaxed and assumed that we would be forever safe and perhaps maybe Clarissa had gotten electrocuted. By then, her parents had set her up with a man called John Tilman. He was a good man, and Julie fell in love with him, but he was a jealous bloke because he convinced her that I was a bad dude and tried to hurt him even though I didn't. So from then on, Julie never contacted me ever again. A couple of years later, I found out that the Tilmans had their first child named Emilie. I was okay because I only ever wanted Julie to be happy. But one day, I noticed that it was getting cold and dark. However, for everyone else, it seemed as if it was warm and sunny because they still wore hats and thin clothes whereas I wore thick, winter clothes. Soon, I knew that it had to do with the cyborgs and then I realized that only the people who knew the truth and the future of the world was naturally being forewarned with the weather. That the cyborgs were coming. Worried, I purposely moved into the same street as Julie. But I signed my name when I was buying the house, as Lucas Smock, in case Julie found out about me. And then, the day came. We were getting attacked. Today, well last night actually, the cyborgs had arrived. So I hid for a while and when nothing was near my house, I got my car and drove to Julie's home. No one was there, so I knew that either the cyborgs got Julie-and perhaps her family too-or she managed to escaped. I thought she escaped because the back door was smashed opened. Half relieved, I went back to my car to get away myself. I was driving down the street when I saw you crawling and standing up to scream at me to stop. I thought it was Julie at first because boy you do look exactly like her. But you're young and Julie wouldn't be crawling in the middle of the street, bleeding and screaming. That's how I figured that you're Emilie Tilman, Julie's daughter. And now here we are, driving away."

He sighed heavily and went silent for a while before speaking up again. "Julie is gone, isn't she?"

Emilie noticed that his voice had turned strained and tiny. She thought of her mother in the tight clasp of Clarissa's pale hands. She remembered Julie crying out before drooping into unconsciousness. Yes, she was gone, wasn't she?

"Yes." Emilie whispered through her fingers as her body shook. "She's dead, I think."

Stefan turned and looked, almost glared, at her sharply. "When I said gone, I didn't mean by dead. I meant has she been turned into one?"

She immediately knew he was speaking of a cyborg and shrugged.

"Did you see something go through her neck?"

Straight away, the image of the sparkling green disappearing through Julie's neck ran through Emilie's mind. "Yes, I did! It was green and shining!" She exclaimed. Hope was rising in her and she could feel the rush of adrenaline kicking through her with sheer relief. Maybe her mother wasn't dead after all.

"She's not dead." Said Stefan and Emilie let out a huff of breath. "But she's turned into a cyborg now." This did not affect her much as all that mattered was that Julie was alive.

"But she's alive though, isn't she?" Her heart began to race as she saw Stefan's anxious, white face.

"Yes, but she isn't herself anymore." He answered quietly. Miserably.

"What do you mean?"

"She's being controlled now. She would be better off dead."

Emilie flinched, but did not reply. She knew everything Stefan was saying was true. But truly, was her mother better off dead than be a cyborg? Was she being controlled?

There were questions swimming around her mind that surely Stefan had the answers to. However at that moment, Emilie did not care about anything except for the fact that she no longer had parents. One was dead and the other was worse than dead. What would happen to her?