The Reclamation and the Lioness

by Robert D. Armstrong

  No one responded.

  Luther crossed his arms. “Very well. Then my decision is that we use the nomads’ thirst for vengeance to our advantage. The androids stole their DNA and ours. We have common ground. We will be cautious but smart,” Luther warned.

  Then a guard rounded the corner. “Sire,” he said respectfully.

  “What is it?” Luther asked.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but the doctors request your presence in medical immediately. It’s Neona, sire,” he said nervously. I noticed his eyelid twitch as he informed his Engineer.

  Luther turned toward his knights. “Get some rest. Meet me back here in exactly four hours,” he said just before storming away.

  “My lord, would you like for me to escort you to medical?” the guard asked.

  “I know the way. Carry on,” he said. I followed him as he hurried down the hall through a winding path and took a shortcut through a hidden entrance I had never noticed before, a metal hatch I assumed led to a storage locker. It turned out to be a long, cramped corridor. It was dark with grated metal floors and red lights as the only illumination.

  At one point, he slowed down and glanced back at me. There was a vent on the floor beneath him, blowing up steam that obscured some of his mask. “Be prepared for anything,” he said.

  I grabbed his hand. “Okay.”

  He approached the hatch and gripped the handle. He stopped for a moment, looking down. “Pray I will have the strength to do what is necessary,” he muttered. I put my arm on his shoulder just before he pulled the latch across his body.

  “You won’t have to, Luther. I’m here,” I said.

  I heard screams as soon as the door opened. They echoed down the hall as a nurse ran past us frantically. She noticed us standing inside the door. Her eyes widened as Luther burst through the door and followed her. I watched as she turned inside a room about thirty paces ahead.

  I couldn’t keep up with Luther as he dashed forward so quickly he nearly ran over the nurse.

  “No!” I heard Luther yell. I caught up and turned the corner to a terrifying sight. There were several nurses and doctors crammed in the room. They were pleading with Neona. She was holding a doctor and a nurse by their throats, one in each of her cybernetic hands. She noticed me enter the room and tossed the doctor at me. I sidestepped as the doctor’s head smacked against the wall, knocking her unconscious.

  Luther stepped in front of the medical staff. “Out of the room. All of you!” he roared. They scurried past me, terrified and confused, picking up the unconscious doctor before exiting.

  “Neona, please, let the nurse go,” Luther pleaded.

  Neona’s eyes turned white as she pulled the doctor close. “What did you do to me?” she demanded, opening her mouth wide. Her gums began to bleed as knife-sized fangs forced their way through. “Ahh-h-h,” she called out in agony. “What’s happening to me?” she screamed.

  I ignited my sword. Luther’s head whipped back toward me. He put up his open hand. “Not yet. Put it away,” he begged. I saw a father’s desperation. I hesitantly complied, disengaging my weapon.

  Neona leaned in to bite the nurse, but Luther lunged forward and knocked her out of Neona’s grasp. The nurse gasped for air as she rolled and crawled out of the room. Luther slammed Neona into the wall and held her there. “Stop this!” he yelled. Neona began to claw and chomp at Luther like a wild animal. He slammed her onto the bed. “Get me the straps, there in the corner,” he said, pointing beside me.

  I picked up some thick leather straps that reminded me of belts and hurried over as Luther held her down. I arranged the six bands across the bed and tightened them down as she struggled to move. Her head thrashed side to side violently as she drooled black saliva and screamed in a terrifying electronic voice that reminded me of a cross between an exorcism and the Mave drones I’d heard before.

  “Get the fuck off me!” she shouted.

  Luther sniveled under his mask as he held Neona down, attempting to brace her head so she wouldn’t hurt herself. “I-I don’t know what to do,” he said. Luther kneeled and put his arms around Neona as I fastened the last strap. Despite all his might, he was powerless.

  He began to weep under his breath as I put my hand on his shoulder. For whatever reason, I began to pray, asking a higher power to give Neona peace. I noticed some of the medical staff and two guards peeking inside as the bed continued to rock back and forth as she growled and hissed.

  After nearly five minutes, the storm began to calm. Neona’s eyes closed as she took in a long breath. Her body continued to jolt as if an electric current was shocking her.

  As I looked down at her and Luther, I felt a sense of obligation to Neona. She was the little girl my husband took in as his daughter, and even though she wasn’t technically my child, I could not help but have a deep sense of compassion for her. It hurt me to see Luther and her in so much pain.

  An older Arabic doctor entered the room. “Sire.”

  Luther held his stare at Neona for a couple of seconds before looking up at him. “What do you know?” he asked the doctor.

  The doctor put his hand in his lab coat pockets. “Not much. It’s still very early. The nanobots have altered since the Architect’s demise. They seem to be waiting for instructions,” he said.

  “Instructions for what?” Luther asked.

  “Who knows? Whatever it was that she was ordering them to do. Think of it like a computer booting up. In their current form, they seem stuck at the boot-up screen without a command prompt. For now, they operate like normal medical nanobots for the most part, repairing injuries and damaged cells. Her Mave count has reduced slightly since our first blood test, but we’re not sure what that means,” he explained.

  “What did she say when she woke up?” Luther asked.

  “She seems to think we’ve done something to her. Her behavior has nothing to do with the Architect. She’s confused how this happened to her. So are we. She was never infected that we know of. She woke up all of a sudden, unaware of how she got here. There’s a gap in her memory from the time the Architect took control of her. She demanded answers. Unfortunately, we don’t have those answers yet, and she spiraled out of control from there,” the doctor replied. I could relate somewhat: I knew the feeling of waking up in a state of confusion all too well.

  “Do you have any idea how or when she was infected?” the doctor asked.

  Luther and I met eyes. I was reminded of the moment after Vlad’s death, when we decided to keep the possibility of her infection a secret. We thought it was best, but I wasn’t sure it was the right decision anymore.

  “I have... suspicions. When I found Neona, she was a captive of the Architect,” Luther answered, lowering his voice.

  The doctor narrowed his eyes. “I remember that. I was a young doctor then. But I also remember vividly that we tested your children thoroughly for any signs of the Mave infection and other irregularities. There was nothing,” he replied.

  “I know. It must have been something undetectable, something new she was working on,” Luther mumbled, staring back at Neona.

  “If that’s the case, we shouldn’t be seeing the Mave nanobots in her blood, but we do. The only thing I can I think of is, the virus was somehow dormant for all those years,” the doctor guessed.

  Luther sighed loudly. “What can we do?” he asked.

  “Monitor her. Love her. That’s all we can do while we wait,” he said. Luther nodded slowly.

  The doctor stepped closer. “That reminds me, sire. We have almost twenty other infected we’re monitoring in various stages of transformation. It seems the infection isn’t overtaking their bodies, but it’s paused. As you know, Legion law has only granted one exception to infected individuals,” he said.

  Luther stood up, walking toward the doctor as he stepped back. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I-I... Nothing. It’s just we’ve always turned the infected over to the knights for—”

  “For what?
Are you implying we execute these people after the Architect has been slain? You said it yourself: the infection has evolved, right? You said the infection isn’t contagious anymore. That means it isn’t the Mave, not as we knew it when the law was written, right?” Luther demanded.

  “Um. We haven’t found any cases that the Mave is infectious anymore but it’s all so new. We’re in uncharted territory, my lord. I just want to maintain our laws. Some of the infected are completely transformed and—”

  “Contain them. I don’t care about the level of their transformation. Keep a watchful eye on them until we learn more about this,” Luther ordered.

  The doctor slowly backed away. “As you wish, sire,” he said, exiting the room.

  I pulled up an old metal chair behind Luther. “Hey. Please. Sit down,” I said. Luther glanced back at the chair and lowered himself. I grabbed another chair that had turned over and sat beside Luther. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it as he held his stare at Neona. A few moments went by without anyone saying a word.

  “When Leo’s father and I first rescued the children, Neona was the youngest, of course. I could hold her, right here,” he said, extending his right arm. He pointed about halfway down his thick forearm.

  “Who were her parents?” I asked.

  Luther shook his head slowly. “I didn’t know them. A woman at the orphanage said Neona’s father arrived at the Legion alone. He was a nomad from northern Italy if my memory serves me correctly. His wife was Russian, and she died in childbirth with Neona,” he said, lowering his voice.

  “And what happened to the father?” I asked.

  Luther shrugged. “He went back into the wilderness. I often wondered if he survived just long enough so that he could make it here,” he said.

  “What do you mean? So he could still be alive out there somewhere?” I asked.

  “No. Our hunters found his body a week later, frozen. He was sitting under a tree on top of a hill that overlooked a beautiful vista. The hunters said it looked like he just went to sleep and never woke up,” Luther recalled.

  I glanced at Neona. “Does she know the story?” I asked.

  “She never wanted to know. From day one, I have been there. Neona, much more than Vlad and Victor, saw me as her real father. I think it’s because she has no memory of her life before me. She stayed here on the medical wing for months. The doctors ran test after test on all my children to be sure there were no signs of experimentation from the Architect. I thought we went the extra mile,” he explained.

  I nodded slowly and scooted my chair closer next to his. “You did. There was no way you could have known. I just wish I could have helped you raise them. I feel grateful that I arrived when I did, but at the same time, there’s such a gap, so much that I missed—the children, especially,” I said.

  Luther propped his chair back against the wall and leaned his head on it. I moved beside him, putting my head on his shoulder. The cold steel from his plated armor touched part of my face.

  I moved my head to his chest. Through his armor I could hear his heartbeat slowing. He put his arm around my shoulder. Neither of us said a word for a few minutes, and before I knew it, I was dozing off.

  “VIC, WAKE UP,” LUTHER whispered. I rubbed my eyes and leaned forward in the chair. I couldn’t believe what was in front of me. Surprisingly, Neona was sitting up in bed. She was staring ahead at nothing. Luther was beside her, holding her hand.

  “She’s better,” I said.

  Neona shifted her eyes toward me. I noticed her pupils were white. She sighed, turning away from me. “I barely remember anything that happened. I recall losing control of my body, my mind. But you’re sure the Architect’s dead?” she asked.

  “With absolutely certainty,” Luther responded.

  “What happened?” she asked. She seemed panicked.

  “The knights killed her in a combined effort, along with Victoria and help from the androids,” he replied.

  She closed her eyes. “I don’t know what is going on, but the flashes in my head stopped. All these images of people dying, suffering in nuclear holocaust. It was repeating in my mind. I saw the world before, your world. The great cities, all the buildings, automobiles, millions of people living their lives without a care. Then they were all burning. Their skin was melting like the sun was cooking their flesh. Mothers and fathers tried to shield their children from the flash, but it wasn’t enough,” Neona said, her lip trembling.

  Luther touched Neona’s shoulder. “You don’t have to talk about this now.”

  “Father, I saw the old world, all the nuclear weapons, thousands upon thousands. Even if the androids didn’t pit our nations against each other, isn’t it true we would have eventually destroyed ourselves anyway?” she asked.

  Luther looked away. “There’s no way to know for sure, Neona, but understand this: everything you saw is a result to her own paranoia. She wanted you to see that any alternative to her crazed solution to suppress our humanity would result in a holocaust,” Luther said, lowering his voice.

  “Yes. The Architect’s voice cried out to me. She told me the Mave was the only thing that could prevent that from happening again,” she said, weeping. Luther leaned forward and held her tight. “She said I was selfish for not giving up my flesh to save all the millions that would suffer the same fate again in the future.”

  As I looked at Neona, I gathered the reason she wasn’t transformed into one of those drooling, ravenous creatures was because the Architect needed a bargaining chip. I think her plan was to taint Neona’s mind but leave her appearance intact so she could use her as a hostage.

  “Sire,” a deep voice erupted. Knight Renheart was standing in the hospital room’s doorway.

  “Yes?” Luther responded.

  Renheart took a long look at Neona. “Sire, uh, could I have a word with you?” he said.

  Neona put her hand on Luther’s. “Go ahead, Father. Please. They need you,” she insisted. He nodded slowly, squeezing Neona’s hand.

  He and I both stood up, closing the distance to within two paces of Renheart. He glanced at me before holding his stare at Luther. “Sorry to interrupt. It’s good to see she’s improving,” he whispered.

  “What’s the problem?” Luther asked.

  Renheart arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t expect this so early, but there’s a crowd at the docks, maybe a few hundred.”

  “Why?” Luther asked.

  Renheart looked past Luther at Neona. “They’re discussing the decision to keep the remaining infected alive. They’re afraid of another outbreak. I’m sure someone from the medical staff leaked the information,” he said, shifting his eyes toward the doorway.

  “Are they still there?” Luther asked.

  “As of a few minutes ago, yes,” Renheart replied.

  “Thank you. I’ll address them at once,” Luther said. He walked over to Neona. “I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time,” she said.

  Neona’s eyes widened as Luther tightened the leather straps that bound her to the bed. “It’s only a precaution, for your own safety,” he said, turning away from her in a hurry.

  “Would you rather me stay here with her or go with you?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “You can come,” Luther answered. Three abreast, we walked with Knight Renheart down the medical wing. Ahead, two nurses stared at us as we approached. They were standing beside a guard. They quickly looked away and moved inside a hospital room, leaving the sentry alone.

  Luther stood in front of the guard. “I want you stationed in front of Knight Neona’s room until I return. Make sure she doesn’t leave that room,” Luther ordered.

  “Understood, sire,” he replied.

  The door the nurses went through opened into a large space. There was a jail cell that occupied over half its space. Inside, there were dozens of Mave with their hands bound. Some of them were lying down while others were sitting. They were immobile, possibly drugged. I noticed that one of them was convul
sing.

  “Shit,” I mumbled.

  The Arab doctor that spoke to us about Neona’s condition was standing on one side of the cage, staring inside and holding a small tablet. As I looked at him, he turned around and did a double take as he met eyes with me. To the left of him was an operating table. There was a woman’s corpse on it. It appeared that her body had been dissected. I could see heavy cybernetic growth within the flesh.

  There were four armed guards inside the room. I noticed one of them was Corporal Dinu. His back faced us.

  Luther glanced inside before looking over at me. “When the infection first broke out almost twenty years ago, they converted this wing from a prison into a medical wing. They left the cell in this room just in case. It served its purpose, but it hasn’t been used like this in a long time. After it was apparent that a cure was a long way off, the Elders ordered the termination of all infected individuals immediately,” he explained. A chill went up my spine as I thought of Colonel Drake.

  Renheart took in a deep breath. “We didn’t have room for all the infected. It just simply wasn’t feasible. The Legion doctors attempted to use the documents the Architect left behind to help us better understand the virus, but it was nearly impossible. She destroyed a large percentage of it before her plans were discovered by the Engineer,” he added.

  “And Micah,” Luther clarified.

  Renheart raised his eyebrows. “Of course, sire. And Micah,” he said.

  “Did they bring you here after you were infected?” I asked.

  Renheart and Luther met eyes briefly. “Yes. This is where they brought me—initially. I stayed inside that cage for several days with the other infected. I watched as the men next to me lost control and transformed into cybernetic beasts. I waited for my turn, observing my hands as bits of cybernetics began to surface. All over my body, the nanobots surfaced, but then it stopped. It was like a switch turned off. Within hours, the Mave started attacking me. It was as if they were aware I was different,” he said. I gulped. This was another side of his story I had never heard.