Then he turned and the hatred she felt welling up inside of her melted into sorrow. His face was covered in blood, streaming freely from a gash at his hairline. But it wasn't that which tugged at her heart, she was sure she and her mother looked no better, it was the look of grief and loss that his face had contorted into. Tears streamed down his flesh and his hand clutched at his chest. He looked right at her, and she could see his mouth move, but because of the lingering after effects of the explosion and the howl of the wind, she couldn’t hear his words. She didn't have to because she knew what he was saying to her without being able to hear him. He was apologizing to her.
Her hearing came rushing back in that moment and the sound of her father's sobbing and the crunch of glass as he fell to his knees now easily heard,”…sorry jita!"
Her heart broke. She began to crawl through the field of glass that separated them, the pain from her damaged legs forgotten and tears flowed freely from her as well. Her mother screamed after her. The sound of her protests being overwhelmed by a fresh new hell.
The doors to office exploded inward with a shower of sparks and smoke, her adrenalin fueled brain slowing down the perception of time to the point where she could nearly discern the shockwave rippling across the shattered glass carpeting the floor and pushing out into infinity. The smoke was disturbed by a hazy figure leaping through what had once been the doorway. Light itself seemed unable to touch its surface, but the figure could be seen because of the haze that enveloped it. Painfully slow she watched as it raised what looked to be a weapon, though just like its holder it seemed to exist only because of the dense concentration of smoke and free-floating particles.
As the weapon leveled at her father, a burst of flame exited from around the end of the device joined by a flash of crimson laser light only noticeable due to the condition of the air. The beam struck the weapon, burning through it and into the figure's right pectoral and out the other side. As if flipping a switch, whatever technology at play that allowed the person to be invisible deactivated, revealing a black suited person falling backward to the floor and landing amid the debris of the destroyed entrance. Her perception of time returned to normal, and she turned her head in the direction of her father, fearful of what she would see.
Her father still knelt where he previously had, but now he looked down to his chest. In front of his heart was Tobor's left hand, clenched in a fist. Its other arm extended toward the figure now laying upon the floor, the high output laser projector protruding from its forearm. When her dad looked up, she no longer saw loss but pure and undiluted rage burning within his eyes.
"Bring him," he hissed through clenched teeth.
Toby opened it’s left hand and a piece of flattened and deformed metal fell to the ground. Before it could make contact with the surface, Tobor was already striding toward its prey, leaping the last thirty meters and landing beside the person whose hand was reaching for another weapon strapped to his right thigh. Tobor closed the distance quickly, reaching the person just as he removed the pistol. Tobor grabbed it from his hand and ripped the top part of the weapon from the bottom with a loud snap and hurled both pieces away. The person attempted to swing his leg into Toby's in an effort to bring the robotic assistant to the ground, only to watch as the machine deftly leapt over the attack and brought its heavy metal foot down with enough force to break the person’s femur. A stomach-churning snap filled the air, and she could hear the howl of pain of a man from behind the black visor of the helmet.
Tobor grabbed both sides of the matte black helmet and dug its fingers into the material. It cracked as its digits penetrated the resistant shell. The man inside struck Tobor's arms from above and at the elbows in an attempt to break the grip, but against the robot’s great strength and with his right arm disabled from the severing of bone, muscle, and tendons by Tobor’s laser, it was all to no avail. With fingers fully curved inside the protective head gear, she watched as Tobor’s artificial muscles flexed and bulged and with a wrench ripped the helmet in half exposing the bruised and bloody face of Sean, the young man from the base.
Gripping the back of his neck Tobor hauled him into the air and eliciting a strangled scream along with fine spray of blood from his recently damaged lung. The robot carried the boy across the distance to her father, his feet a meter from the ground as Toby carried out the task effortlessly with only one arm supporting all the weight. The strides of the machine were long and powerful, transporting his prize to her father within moments. Dropping the soldier to the floor at the feet of the patriarch to the Patterson family, Tobor's strong grip never left the young man’s neck as he knelt down to retain contact.
Her mother crawled beside Maria. Her blouse shredded and ripped, her mother looked in every way that Maria felt. She wondered if she had the same thought upon looking at Maria.
"Come baby," she rasped and grabbed her arm, putting it over her shoulders and bringing both of them to their feet. The two women staggered over broken glass and debris and fell to the floor exhausted behind and to the left of her dad, who stood over the young man that Tobor was forcing to look up by manipulating his neck. Dangerously close behind them was the edge of the towering building, the sounds of the battle raging below seeping up to them.
"You made this happen!" her father raged at the prostate soldier. "You and the disease that your kind represent," he said throwing his hand outwards in a sweeping gesture.
"Do you know how much planning and work it took to rebuild our world and save our species? The sacrifices I had to make!"
Anger washed over Sean’s face. "What the hell would you know about sacrifice?" he yelled, specks of blood falling on to his chin. "You killed my parents and billions of others. What have you lost?"
Her dad began to laugh as he responded, "Your parents had the luxury of death, of a clean conscience. Those that died made the easiest sacrifice possible for our people, they just had to die."
"And yet you're still here. You got to live! You got to have a choice!”
Her dad turned and walked to the edge overlooking what had once been New York City but was now reclaimed by nature. He had often admired this reborn landscape only now it was stained by black smoke and devastation below. Tobor lifted Sean again and took him to the edge his feet dangling over the immense drop. If Tobor released his grip, Sean would fall to his death. The young soldier desperately twisted his working limb behind himself to try and grab at Tobor’s forearm. His other arm hung limp the tendons and muscles needed to control it having been neatly severed by Toby’s surgical precision.
Dad spun on him. "I sacrificed my soul, a future with my wife and child to see to it that they and all generations to come could live in a perfect world," he said as his fist began to beat his chest as a display of the raw emotion that coursed through him.
Maria's blood ran cold. "Daddy," she whimpered. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mother bend her beautiful copper bracelet, streaked with bands of jade, off her wrist. The pointed gap between them opening to let her hand free. She then used both hands to start flattening the accessory.
Her father stepped right next to both Tobor and the boy. "I am fixing the mistakes of old and bringing about a new world. I may have billions on my conscience, but I will resurrect millions from the ashes, reborn without the disease of discourse that flows through your veins and the corrupted ideologies of the past that permeate your culture.”
Maria felt all the guilt come racing back. How could she ever accept him after killing almost the entire human race? How many of those he killed were children like those below the surface, awaiting the end of the battle above? How many of them cried out for their lost parents just as Sean had? She was the product of a monster.
Her mother moved fast. Maria didn't understand what was happening at first as she lunged at her father, the copper bracelet now fashioned into a crude stabbing implement. A shriek of pure hatred escaped the older woman as she thrust outward toward her husband only to have him spin and sl
ap her aside with his closed fist. Her mother fell to the floor, inertia carrying her away from the man she had shared her life with and toward the edge. Maria flung herself on top of her and stopped her from going over.
Her father was upon them in a blink of an eye. "You betray me!" he raged, his fist rising into the air. Maria threw her hands up and placed herself between them.
"Daddy stop!"
"You killed my family you bastard!" her mother yelled.
He halted, shock on his face. "I told you that I tried to save them, but the unrest forced my hand." Desperation began to fill his eyes.
Mother pulled herself up onto her knees, forcing Maria to the side. Her left eye was already swelling, but she fixed him with a stare that could cut steel. "You orchestrated the whole thing. You could have brought them here with us before it all went into effect. You could have saved them, but you didn't want to because they didn't fit into your perfect vision of the future." Tears steamed from her eyes as she openly wept.
Her father looked as if he were about to respond when mother threw her arms out at the chaos around them and demanded, “Look at your daughter."
He instinctively looked away from Maria. “Look at her you cowardly piece of shit!” she screamed.
Slowly he turned his gaze upon her, the stress of the moment clearly weighing upon him; however, Mother was in no mood to let up. “You took her freedom from her. You made her an accomplice to your murderous plans and cast her into a fate that she never would have wanted.” Mother pointed to Sean, dangling in midair. “They want to kill Maria for what you have done. You took her future, my future, and you took her family!”
It was an almost imperceptible shift in the corner of his eyes, one moment his eyes were soft and then next harder. She knew in that moment that her father, the man she had nearly worshiped was gone and that was to come next would be nothing she would recognize. He knelt down, his hand gently cupping the bruised side of her mother’s face, she never flinched. "Would you prefer I had let them live only to kill them in front of you both?" he asked, a perverted smile curling his lips. Maria felt another blow to her emotional strength, watching as her father devolved before her eyes. Consumed by the stress of the battle raging around them and having to bear the weight of guilt that comes with murdering ten billion men, women, and children, only to have all that he had worked so tirelessly for nearly taken from him just as he was about to secure it. He was going mad and she was unfortunate enough to bear witness.
As her mother was about to respond, his hand suddenly gripped down tightly, his palm pressing up into her jaw and fingers digging into the bruised tissue along the ridge of her eye eliciting a clack of her teeth and a whimper of pain from her. "Your family, just like mine, are a product of a broken species. Remember mine died in the war as well. We must be rid of everything from the old world including us."
Her mother’s eyes fell upon Maria, and her father’s glance followed, seeing the look of terror on her face. He sighed and released his grip on her mother, who began to weep. "Do what you think you need to us but don't hurt our baby,” she said desperately.
Disbelief flashed over him. "I would never hurt Maria... I sacrificed my soul to ensure that she would have a world where she could make her own choices, not one where dictators used their might to bend her to their will. I thought you understood all of this!”
He stepped back toward her mother, who didn’t give even the smallest bit of space. “She’s the bridge between the future and the past, without her the children below and those that follow would be vulnerable to anything I didn't foresee," he said with stressed laughter as he motioned to the young man who still hung suspended above the abyss. "They need a shepherd who has the ability to defend the flock but without the desire to rule over them. You and I can’t be sure of our motivations because of the culture we grew up in but Maria, we raised her so very well." He finished looking at her with a smile of pure love, the one she had grown up with her entire life, and she knew once again this man would do anything for her.
Mom shook her head and asked, "Then what? Was I supposed to be the Eva to your Hitler? Was I expected to let Toby harvest my DNA, so I could be cloned and fixed? Is that how this was to end?"
"No sweetheart, not long from now you and I were to leave this place and go somewhere so far away we couldn't ever negatively influence those we left behind." He paused, "That was before I learned you wanted to kill me. I'll have to come up with something else for you now."
He stood and walked over to Sean, who remained in Tobor's vice like grip. "Enjoying the view boy?"
Sean laughed and said, "Yeah, looks like we're kicking your ass, almost pushed your units back to the walls."
Dad nodded. "You certainly have a nice assortment of advanced weaponry at your disposal, that fancy power suit, artillery, and tanks."
Sean simply glared at him. "What I found most impressive were the SL-HV Mk. 2 missiles used to breach the walls and give you an entrance. Very fast, can cross North America in less than an hour." He stopped and looked out over the raging battle below. "I was so impressed with them that I improved upon them after the plague and made sure my aircraft were equipped with their propulsion units. That mobility has always let me outmaneuver my enemies and in other cases given me the speed that I need to adapt to unforeseen events."
"Do you enjoy listening to the sound of your own voice because that’s all you're getting out of this. We know you're fully committed in Europe, Africa, and Asia; that's too far away for units to get here before we take you down."
Her dad nodded his head in agreement. "That's true... if I sent my forces across the Pacific that would be the case. Let me ask you, are you aware of what an ICBM is?"
Doubt crept into Sean’s expression as her dad explained, "To shorten the time between what used to be Russia and the United States ICBMs would often be planned to fly over the North Pole. So, look up boy and listen to the sound of justice."
The glass along the floor began to shake and the roar of new aircraft engines began to rattle everything. UCAVs, at first the small and fast variety designed for air dominance, ripped the air as they passed the tower and began to strafe the army below. Surface to air missiles leapt from the assortment of military vehicles and the Patterson’s drone aircraft began to be ripped to pieces and fall out of the sky, but not at the rate that the human warriors below needed. Larger craft began to fly past, their speed appearing slow when compared to the small craft that had first arrived. Turrets could be seen on the lower half of these, short and stubby barrels sticking out of each. They swiveled rapidly from one target to the next and lines of fire erupted in the fields as the powerful laser weaponry incinerated anything that fell into their path.
She looked up and watched as two of their largest class of transports came around, one heading into the hangar bay of the Spire and the other hovering over the forest path that the soldiers were using for their escape route. Hundreds upon hundreds of ground combat drones rained from the ship. Missiles streaked toward it, trying to shoot it from the sky, but the interceptor systems on board swatted them from the sky.
The human warriors were now trapped between the Spire walls and the drone force advancing from the tree line. Soon the units at the wall would be reinforced from the recently landed transport in the hangar. The drones from that likely would eliminate the small force in the building in no time, and then they would press the trapped army from two directions as well as attacks from the air. Her father had managed to turn a situation of near defeat into one of victory. Sure, the forces he had rushed back here to defend the family had been pulled from some other battle, but she had no doubt the rest of their vast and combined military was still wreaking havoc on the other families. Her father's dreams and ambitions would be achieved. At one point that would have brought her joy, now it left her with a sense of revulsion.
"You see child, within the hour your friends down there and the rest of your special forces team trapped in the hangar will be d
ealt with. I'll then interrogate the survivors and track your force back to wherever you’ve been nesting for all these years and put a permanent end to your interference and then... after less than a week, I’ll have everything repaired, and it will be as if none of you ever existed."
He looked at Sean. "Normally I would collect DNA so those that died could be reborn but I suspect based on your actions that in the end allowing any of you to exist in any fashion would be detrimental to the species as a whole."
He turned to her mother. "I'm afraid there's no room for them in the new world and even less for traitors."
Maria gasped and latched onto her father's leg. She looked up at him and through the blood, grime, and tears pleaded with him not to hurt his wife, her mother, "Daddy please forgive Mom. She wasn't thinking!"
He frowned and knelt down. "Maria, you don’t understand," he said soothingly.
She shook her head and wailed, "I do Dad, I do. She hurt you, so you want to hurt her back. The world disappointed you, so you got rid of it, but you don't have to. People make mistakes; we all make mistakes!"
He smiled and guided her to her feet. The wind had died down and a gentle breeze tugged at her hair. The smoke from the battle below had been blown away from the tower and the sun shone beautifully as it began to set. He placed his hands on either side of her face. "Maria, I gave them so many chances to fix their mistakes and what did they do when they needed to work together the most, they fought and killed each other. They want to continue with their tribalistic ways, us versus them. They don’t want to be saved. But you baby, you aren’t like any of them. You have strength and the will to do what is right, but you also have compassion and intelligence to be a fair and wise leader. This world will be yours and the children that we have rescued from the clutches of their violent heredity."
She couldn’t control the tears that rolled down her face. She placed it against her father’s chest as she embraced him. Every fiber of her being wanted her to feel protected, to accept the protection of her father’s presence and ideas but she couldn’t. “What if I don’t want to be this… messiah you’ve set me up to be?”
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