Sierra ran, as fast as she could. Every time she looked back, she could see Karl closely keeping up.
Her Novas were flying haphazardly around and behind her. With them, she could detect whoever else was in proximity, and turned to avoid them. Gradually, her signals became more saturated. Security guards had begun to pour into the corridors. All of them had guns. She knew it even without seeing them. The Department had had enough - they wanted to kill her!
All around her were cells, rows and rows of cells. She didn't want to look to each side, fearful of catching the sight of another monster. There was chatter going up between the cells, mutants wondering what was happening, some of them peeking through the bars of their cell's door to watch.
Karl was still behind. He ran with the movements and precision of an athlete. The only reason Sierra could keep her pace up was because of her android legs. As long as she ordered them to run, they would do so, with the speed and endurance only an android could muster.
She came across a flight of stairs. The source of her panic was below her. She had to go up. Higher, always higher, to avoid this sickening sensation.
Shrike's voice kept pounding in her head, telling her to turn around, fight and destroy everything. She repeated it over and over again, always telling Sierra again to fight for her life.
Sierra went up, always up. This building had no end in sight... How many floors had she covered? Where was she?
Gradually, the panic subsided. Only her mother's voice remained. She was far from the source of her panic, whatever it was supposed to be.
A horrid sensation invaded her insides. She lost focus, tripped and missed the next flight of stairs, exiting onto the floor she was on. She recovered, her Nova powers kicking in, leaving her suspended in the air as she tumbled and got back on her feet.
She had entered a new section of the Department. Deep blue carpet covered the floor. The floor was the height of two, with portable walls as high as eight feet to separate the space into cubicles.
She was in a round space, part of it windows looking outside. She realized she was much higher than she thought. The one hundred and thirty-seventh floor of the building looked like it was deep into the stratosphere. Everything else seemed so tiny, so insignificant. To think that there was something down below that could disturb her so much.
She bent over and vomited again. As she collapsed against the wall, she saw Mr. Karl standing in the doorframe of the staircase. She just stared at him, empty-eyed, a trail of the disgusting oiled blood still in her mouth.
Karl didn't move. The floor seemed empty of all life except the two of them.
She staggered to her feet. She couldn't run away again. She felt too weak to do that. Her sickness was incapacitating her.
She stared at Karl, hunched in her position. He had a completely straight and neutral face. No grin, no nonchalant manners - he was like a different man altogether. The worst she could do in her situation was to take him lightly.
Karl stepped forward, a hand in his pocket.
"You done now?"
She shook her head violently, her whole body rocking left and right with her movements.
Shrike had quieted down. Sierra was following her mother's orders. Right now, it seemed like the logical thing to do.
In that moment, she cursed Mr. Karl and his Department of Technology for producing all those monsters. She cursed Reez for his absence during her worst moment right now. She cursed her mother for starting it all and putting her into this mess. If only she could get rid of every single one of them, leave no witnesses and start a new life in a place where no one would know her... If only she could escape and live like the humans lived, and do what the humans did.
She clutched her body and vomited. How much of that stuff was in her?
She sensed an intense heat coming from within herself. A radiant, dangerous energy, as if she was about to explode.
She found a target. She directed her rage against Mr. Karl, the man who had been so secretive and untrusting since the first day on. The man whom she couldn't trust herself, who seemed like nothing but a business shark, bureaucratic and corporationist to the bone.
Suddenly, a Nova shot out from behind her and grazed Karl's side as he stepped away at the last second. The Nova pierced straight through the window, leaving a trail of smoke behind.
It exploded. Sierra screamed in pain as part of her burned and ripped apart, sacrificed in an attempt to kill the man.
"You're a strange little girl." Karl commented. "Nova yourself, and children all around you. Why didn't our tests see this one..."
She backed up against the wall, partly to stall for time and partly to find support. Her legs were fully operating but her actual organic body didn't want to respond.
She spat the rest of the oily blood on the carpet.
Karl raised an eyebrow. "I'm giving you one last chance. Are you willing to calm yourself down and sit in the analysis room like you're supposed to?"
He had lost his accent and quirks. He spoke with a slow, deliberate tone.
Sierra shook her head again.
Karl sighed, with enough noise to allow her to notice. "That's the problem when you've got a brain. You start thinking for yourself instead of the common good. You start getting crazy ideas that lead nowhere. You don't think your plans through. Your emotions are getting the best of you... Is it your second hard drive, you're holding right now? Has it turned itself on yet? Maybe you'd like to tell me what was in there. You know, a last last chance, courtesy of the house..."
Sierra stayed silent.
Karl frowned. "Then as much as I hate to say this, I'm going to have to end you. The guards are on full alert everywhere, we've shut down the elevators and they're only waiting for a signal coming from me to get the drop on you. But they won't just yet, 'cause I know I can neutralize you without killing you. That's one thing guards can't do well, so be thankful for that. I'll be honest: I'd like to know more about you, whether you like it or not." He took his other hand out of his pocket. "You have no way out of this floor but through me..."
He slowly undid the straps of his black gloves, pulled them away and stored them in the pocket of his business suit.
His hands were of a golden metal - the same as standard androids.
As Sierra took on a more assured position, he halfway took a fighting stance and froze in place like a statue, not moving a muscle.
She recalled her Novas. They quickly flew into the slits in her back and went asleep in their places, giving her back some much needed energy. She clenched her fists and mimicked Karl's stance, signifying her willingness and readiness to fight.
He was too close to the stairs and would not move. Sierra backed up towards a corridor. She quickly called upon her Nova powers to get the heat signatures of the floor. Everything that went up and down went through the stairs. There was no other way out, not even elevators.
Karl was right. She had no way out except through him and over his dead body.
She carefully approached the man. If she could somehow pin him down long enough to make her escape, she might just be able to get back to the staircase and seek another way out all over again without causing too much of a commotion. Anything to keep her from having a criminal record. She remembered in a flash that whatever happened, she had to minimize the fault on her. So far, the only thing she could think of was unlawful entry, which she knew wasn't all that bad.
She stepped closer, ever so closer. She examined Karl's face, hoping to discern a movement, a twitch betraying his attack.
He lunged forward, too quick for her, mostly unexpected. As she backed away, he just barely grazed her collarbone with the tip of his finger.
A loud, snapping sound filled the air. Sierra yelled in surprise and fell backwards.
Karl thrust his other hand forward. She pushed herself back with her Nova powers, pushing at an angle to the floor and completely evading the strike.
Karl had moved back close to the stairs, once more at the defensive. He had taken the exact same position as before and frozen in place once again.
"Electricity?..." She thought aloud.
No answer.
She stepped forward, willing to try herself again.
Karl put up a hand, as if waiting for her to touch it all on her own.
"The Department of Technology always gets the last word," he said. "Even if you somehow manage to elude me and the security that comes after, we always get the last word. It might not be today, nor tomorrow or even this year... But we've done it before. We've put a lot of troublemakers to ruin by waiting for just the right moment... Unlike you. Just like the ones who want to cause harm to us, you have no patience. You don't make sure things are perfect to make your move. You act on impulse and conviction. The minute you started doubting me, you started to doubt everything that was associated with me. You don't even know how the rest of the building works. Who knows? Maybe I'm just a bad egg among a bunch of good ones - and yeah, I know not everyone likes me. But have you seen the rest of the employees? Haven't they treated you with respect? The one who gave you a bra for your lady lumps, he was a piece of shit I guess?"
Sierra stopped in her tracks but didn't answer. Karl told more:
"The Department of Technology doesn't just do medicines and genetics. We have military projects too. We build weapons and engines of war. It's safe to tell 'cause it's an open secret anyway. Everyone knows we make discoveries for the government. The first laser gun, that was us. The first energy gun, that was us too. The first energy protection frame, that was us as well. If it hadn't been for the Department of Technology, the Reli monsters would've been at the doors of New Colombus. If it hadn't been for us, your mother would've never raided the bunker that fated her and would've never found a reason to make you. You do owe us something... It's far fetched, I'll admit, but a contribution is a contribution nonetheless. We laid the proper foundations for your birth to happen and you to prosper. It's time to collect the tax."
He stretched out his hand and beckoned her closer.
"Get over here. I don't have all day. If you're so intent on ending yourself like that, then stop stalling for time and get to it. Do what your mother would've done." He smirked. "We know a lot more about her than you think. What do you say to that, now?"
She moved closer to the window, forming a triangle between her, Karl and the stairway. Behind her, a second rocket Nova quietly slipped out of her and readied itself.
She stayed in her stands for a full minute, not moving a muscle, just like him. As soon as she felt the moment was right, she launched the Nova against him.
She hadn't even finished willing it forward that Karl had put his hand forward. He caught the creature and electrocuted it, causing Sierra to scream in pain.
By the time the horrible feeling ended, he had thrown the Nova on the floor. The creature was dry, wrinkled and dead. She couldn't feel it anymore.
Karl took the opportunity and dashed forward. By the time she saw him, it was too late: he had already locked his arms around her, making contacts with both hands into her back.
The energy was too much to take. She screamed again, her eyes wide open, almost launching out of their sockets. Her vision flickered and distorted, static filling her eyes, her arms and legs flinging into uncontrolled motions.
She flailed in all directions, desperately trying to seek an escape out of the grip. In a lucky shot, she managed to pull his back with both hands, causing his to slide out of his grip on her smooth metal. He tried to seek contact on her left arm, but he hadn't even begun jolting yet that she pulled violently, ripping the electronic forearm out of its socket.
She backed up, bumping against the window. Karl threw her lost arm into the staircase and lunged, seeing another chance in the moment she took to recover.
Again, she lost the reflex match. He electrocuted her again, sending her in another volley of screams and flails and firmly pinning her against the window.
She tried one last idea: use her antigrav field Nova powers to push against him and throw him backwards.
She dealt a strong, chaotic push, barely controlled. To her surprise, Karl felt much heavier that she thought. Instead of him tripping back, she was the one who flew.
The window shattered. She fell backwards overboard.
In a last ditch attempt, with nothing to push against to get back, she tried to fling her body forward and catch Mr. Karl with her remaining hand.
Karl had been surprised by the movement and had begun dangerously tipping forward. Her laying her hand on him finished it all.
The two fell for a distance of a hundred and thirty-seven floors.
She pushed against him, gradually moving away. Karl said nothing. All he was did was stiffly trying to regain his balance, his arms and legs moving seemingly at random, his body incapable of understanding the situation he was in.
Just as she reached exactly six feet in altitude, she activated her Nova powers again, and pushed against the ground as hard as she could.
She heard a thunderous crash. She yelled in surprise as her body flung itself into an upright position. Her midsection ripped away from her from the sudden stress and her legs collided against the ground, shattering apart. She bounced up and down as if she had landed on an air mattress. The antigrav bubble of her Nova powers had done its work. Thanks to it, she had miraculously escaped death.
She settled down. The street was dirty and oily. There was an overflowing trash dumpster not too far away from her. It seemed as if she was somehow walled in. There was a concrete wall at both ends of the alley. Her blurry vision could only barely distinguish what was around her.
Karl lay just a few feet away. His body had shattered completely, revealing mechanics, oil and circuitry. The man, stiff and strange as ever, had been an android all along.
She leaned against the wall. The tendrils of her lower body twisted painfully against the ground. She lifted herself up again, hovering at her standing height.
Then, she remembered she was at ground lever. Closer to the fear.
The psychedelic rays of light seeped into her vision again. For a moment, it seemed as if the walls around her bled with that oily blood mixture. A smell filled the air and it made her sick. She felt she was about to vomit all over again.
Her mother's voice was closer and louder than ever before. She spoke from her grave, her voice shrieking filled with echoes, a banshee with only apparent purpose than to scare her own daughter into oblivion.
Her body felt hotter than ever before...
Without understanding why, she plunged her hand into her ribcage. She felt something hard and pulled it. A hard disk escaped her body, covered in oil and her own blood.
With all her strength, she flung it against the side of the dumpster.
"What the hell?!"
"Over... At last!"
The disk shattered against the corner of the dumpster, its myriad of pieces joining the dead body of Mr. Karl on the ground.
The visions faded away. The voice went quiet. All that was left was nothing but an intense pain coming from the newly formed wound in her body.
She floated down again, and lay on her back. She stared at the sky, waiting for time to end, her senses dulled by the pain gradually spreading through her body as she lost her blood.
Something obscured her vision.
"Sierra! Are you alive?!"
"Mm... Yes..." She answered, not even seeing who was in front of her.
All of a sudden, a warm pair of hands settled on her back. She was surrounded in Reez's arms, the young man giving her a tight hug.
"Oh man, oh shit, I thought it was all over!... I thought the whole thing had lasted forever, oh man!"
She weakly put her hand on his back. "You were that worried?..."
Reez released his hug a little, and sat down against the wall of the building, putting her on his lap. "It all happened like a flash. All of a sudden, Mr. Karl had rushed into the analysis room and then I was led outside for absolutely no reason. I kept thinking that's it, she's gone, they got their results or she went bonkers or something. All I knew was that I was worried. I went around the building at least four times just to hope to catch something happening! I... I don't know why - somehow, I knew you were alive somewhere and you were just waiting to get out. It's... I can't describe it. Faith, I guess. I... I..."
She leaned her face against his cheek. "Breathe." She simply told him.
They stayed there for a while longer. Unbeknownst to them, people were looking out through the shattered window, just barely seeing a splatter below. But for some reason, nobody came to catch them. It was as if the alert had died with Mr. Karl.
Eventually, they stepped out of the alley. To anyone else in the street, with her arm around his shoulder and her head against his chest, it was like he was just carrying a heavily lacerated android.
He sat her in the back of his car, and carefully drove home.