Tables Turned

"Mira. Mira, someones at the door."I groan, mentally telling the voice in my head to shut the hell up. Sharp knives poke at my brain, bright light burning my irises from within. I want to close my eyes, to shrink away from the glare, but my eyes are already closed. The red indicator is back. Beeping in my head like a siren, flashing like a gong in my head, wreaking havoc. My brain's being torn apart from the inside, ripped apart by its seams."Fuck," the voice mutters under its breath.Cool water touches my brow, along with the sensation of being lifted off the ground. That finally wakes me. My eyes shoot open, and I hit the ground hard.Elias is kneeling over me, a wet towel in his hand, his arms outreached like he was going to pick me up. I scream, scrambling backwards on the ground. How did he get out of his handcuffs, and what was he doing with a towel? Was he trying to suffocate me in my sleep? Strangle me with the towel?I have a blaster in my hands in seconds, and Elias doesn't react."You should open the door," he says again.But before I can reply, a loud bang shakes the room as the door is kicked off its hinges. Both of us are on our feet in an instant, and men in black uniforms rush into the room. I raise my gun, then lower it after I realize who they are. Fathers men."Hold fire!" I shout, raising my hands into the air. But they don't listen. A blaster goes off, and I feel a heavy impact hit my shoulder, sending me crashing into the opposite wall. I feel the warm trickle of blood down my chest, before I feel the burning pain. The beam had burned a golf-ball sized hole into my left shoulder.They must finally recognize who I am, because no more shots are fired at me.I'm about to shout for the men to not aim-to-kill, but the words falter when my world comes back into focus. The man who shot me is now on the ground, his blood pooling around his head.Through my buzzing ears, I hear screaming. They fire their blasters, and they click uselessly against Elias. He picks them apart like ants. Bone shatters under his punch, and he doesn't stop. Not after the fourth punch, or the fifth. He keeps going, more and more blood splattering the wall with every passing second.With my right hand holding the wound over my left shoulder, I throw my blaster at Elias's head as hard as I can. His momentary pause is allI need to lunge forward and kick his feet from under him. He crashes to the ground, and using my left hand, I hold him by the collar of his shirt while I launch a fist into his face. He catches it, and blinding pain from my left shoulder sends stars into my vision. His body hits the floor with a thud as my left hand gives out, and I stagger backwards.Unfazed, Elias gets up, wiping blood off his face. There are holes in his torso and chest, and he still has wounds on both legs from where I had stabbed him yesterday. Surrounded by bodies and covered in blood, for the first time, I see Elias for what he is. He isn't a man, but a machine. Devoid of any morality and inhibitions. A machine with a purpose none other than to kill.My breathing turns shallow, sweat dripping down my neck as I debate my probability of survival. My fathers men didn't last ten seconds. He takes a deliberate step in my direction, those empty eyes locking onto me.I lurch for the door, sprinting as fast as I can down the hall, making a beeline for the stairs. My steps pound heavy against the ground, deafening the empty stairwell. The door slams above, and I hear the unmistakable sound of chase. I reach the lobby in seconds, stumbling as I burst through the door. The desk receptionist screams, and the lights begin to flicker as Elias closes the distance between us. Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck!Every business door is closed, the mall virtually empty at this hour. The small time dial in my head reads 2:57 am. My legs ache, and my wound from my shoulder has soaked through my entire shirt. I want to stop and hide in an alcove to catch my breath, to turn around and assess the distance between us. But I can't stop running. If I stop running, he catches me.I don't turn to see if Elias is following me, because I know he is. I can feel it with every footfall, with every drop of blood that drips from my open wound. And it's only a matter of time before he catches up.I'm at the docking bay in mere minutes, and I find my pod instantly. I pry open the doors, slamming my fist into the control panel."Come on, come on, come on," I hiss, pushing random buttons when the wake up button doesn't work. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a crowd of people forming, and behind them, Elias. Even across the entire bay, I can see his eyes are locked solely onto me.I hit my fist into the control panel again, and this time it shatters, sending wire and metal flying everywhere. And Elias is closing in, fast, his strides confident and livid.I give up on the pod, running out to survey the other ships around me, looking for one I could hijack. But the bay is nowhere as crowded as it was last morning. There are only a couple dozen meters separating Elias and I. The crowds surrounding him grow, the bizarre scene of a bloody man stalking through the empty mall drawing law enforcement and other civilians. Policemen point blasters at him, their commands echoing in the empty expanse. To my relief, Elias doesn't turn his blaster on any of them."Mira?" I whip my head around, meeting eyes with Shelly and her two girls. In each of the girls' arms, they have two full iron vaults."You have got to be kidding me! You sold us out to law enforcement?" Reyna's voice dies out when she turns to look at who the policemen are trying to apprehend."Crazy ex?" Shelly shouts over her shoulder as she helps Reyna carry the vault into their ship. Then Shelly takes a good look at Elias, the color draining completely from her face."I think I might have to take you up on your offer," I rush out, helping the other girl with her vault."What?" Reyna's shout of disbelief rings through the entire bay, drawing more eyes onto us. "With that crazy bastard chasing you? Shelly, you can't be serious! She's going to get us all killed!"Shelly doesn't say anything, and when she rushes down to help with the last vault, I know she's letting me board.The last thing I see is Elia's furious blood red eyes fixed on me, then the doors slide shut, and the Tiara is shot into outer-space."What. The fuck. Have you done." Reyna stalks towards me, her fist raised as if ready to punch me."Calm down, Reyna," Shelly says, coming in between us. "I told you this would happen didn't I? It was in our morning reading.""This has nothing to do with your senseless tarot readings! This is real life, Shelly. And now we have a psycho, whatever the hell that thing was, chasing us, along with the law enforcement!"Shelly opens the door of a room adjacent to the airlock, and we all enter the foyer silently. Reyna continues stalking past us, then points across the hall."We're talking in private. Now." Shelly looks like she's about to argue, but then relents, following Reyna into a separate room. The other girl, who I remember Shelly had briefly mentioned was Sadie, moves to sit into one of the empty couches. The leather is a light pink, and heart-shaped pillows overwhelm every surface. She pulls out a screwdriver, and starts picking away at the outer corners of the silver vaults."So uhm, what's in the vaults?" My attempt at conversation goes ignored, drowned out by the argument drifting through the too-thin walls of the ship."We talked about this, Shelly. I told you, we don't need a fighter. And even if we needed one, that girl outside is not the one!""Rey, we can't keep doing this.""We're doing absolutely splendid, Shelly.""You nearly lost your entire arm! And remember what happened in Juno? That can't happen again.""What happened in Juno was a mistake, one that we aren't going to make again. It doesn't mean we have to-"I reach for my ear, and turn the dial down, not caring to continue eavesdropping in their conversation."You're getting blood all over Shelly's pillows." Sadies voice is quiet, and I'm forced to turn my dial backup. "I'll wash them. You should go wash up too, the showers are down the hall, door to the left." Sadie has mousey brown hair, framing light green eyes focused intently on her work. "If you'd prefer to go to the med-bay, it's the door right across from the showers.""Where's your mechanic's room?"At that, Sadie lifts her eyes up, staring at my shoulder wound, along with the broken metal and wires surrounding it. She lets out a slow breath."That's certainly new."She gets up from the coach, gesturing for me to follow as she leads me to the mechanics room. The room is rather small, but has everything I need. Sadie grabs me disinfectant towels while I settle onto a bench, pulling my shirt down to view the damage. Using my teeth, I rip apart my shirt while I count the number of damaged wires. Sadie doesn't say anything, watching me silently work.I don't have time to wait for a secondary intention wound to heal. I need my shoulder patched up, and patched up now. With the help of Sadie, I get my shoulder fully stitched together in four hours, held together by titanium and more wires, and the little skin left around the wound."I'm not sure if this makes Shelly's point more valid, or less," Reyna says when she enters the room, eyeing my wound with distaste. "What the hell are you? A cyborg? Android? Are you even real?""What matters, Rey, is that she's a good shot. Better than all of us combined," Shelly says, joining us into the mechanics room."I'm as good a shot as anyone else," Reyna scowls."Well that's because you haven't seen Mira shoot yet," Shelly states with a wink in my direction. Then she gets a full look at my wound. "Holy shit, did your ex do that to you? And you have a mechanical arm? Sick! Explains a lot. Do you have an aim bot installed or something?""He's not my ex," I clarify. "And yes, I have homing software, if that's what you're asking."The room bursts into chaos again, Reyna shouting something at Shelly while she yells back. Sadie works in the background, cleaning and returning materials."I'm going to shower," I say to no one in particular, and no one tries to stop me when I leave the room. I strip quickly, tossing my dirty clothes into the sink. I try to avoid my appearance in the mirror, but in Shelly's bathroom, I can't. Her mirror is practically a wall, and there's no aspect of my body I can hide from it.My eyes are sunken in, black circles making it look like I had been slugged in the face. Bruises and cuts line every surface of my body, and the sight is almost depressing. Nothing about me screams fighter. From my small stature, to my large brown eyes, I look more like a college student in environmental studies. The face and body of a victim, not a fighter, my father had told me. No one will ever see you coming. And when they do, you'll be the last thing they see.Shelly's ship has hot water, but I turn the settings to freezing. I wait for the shock to burn the memories of Elias out of my brain, but it doesn't. He had never been trapped to begin with. He had been toying with me, and like a fool, I had let him.I shudder, and it has nothing to do with the temperature of the water. Thinking about how easily Elias could have broken free and killed me at any time, makes my veins turn to ice. Thinking about his empty, lifeless eyes, makes me sick.I'm about to turn off the water, when blinding pain consumes my head again. I hold back a scream, my knees nearly giving out in the shower. The red indicator returns, beeping and crossed over the progress bar.98%Then the download stops, and gigabytes of corrupted files flood into my mind. It feels as if my brain is being shredded alive, my artificial aspect fighting with my biological aspect for dominance. My knees hit the tile ground, and my hands pull at my hair, trying to stop the war raging in my head.After several minutes, the pain finally ebbs, and I'm left shaken on the shower ground, sweating under the freezing cold rainfall. One file remains incorrupt, one memory left behind by whatever Elias had done to me. And its nothing but a white room.