Cridex

Chapter Thirty Four

They lined us up along the front of the steps, and while I stood on my own two feet, Camden, Jonas and Imogen were pressed flat to the stage, their faces hanging over the edge while the rest of their body was held vulnerable to the whims of the councillors. Dane sat kneeling at the end of the row, his cheek bleeding freely.

"On my orders, citizens," Trevor raised his hand and dread dripped down my spine like a bead of sweat, "We will display our newest weapons, ones that have the ability to take down the cyborgs. We will use the Cridex, and expose what really lies beneath our subordinates!"

"Enough!" I shouted, struggling once more as I watched the police men bring forth their own individual wands of steel, "Enough of this!"

The crowd mistook my words for slander against my own people, thinking that as a supporter of the city I had finally come to my wit's end and wished for it all to stop, that I was in fact encouraging the demise of my friends. They cheered alongside my cries of outrage, and Trevor's grin grew wider.

"Councillor, please!" I begged him, trying to catch his eye, "You don't need to do this!"

"Oh, but I do." He shook his head, "Archer ensured that when he threatened to bring our city down to its knees." He scoffed and gestured to the feeble position he had just spoken of now mirrored by Dane. "He did not leave any room for negotiation."

My anger grew as I stood and helplessly watched. "This is cruel," I spat on his shoe, but the crowd was too enthralled by the series of glowing blue rods that were being held above the cyborgs to notice, "You are doing this for attention!"

"Attention?" Trevor waved his hand to the excited horde of people gathered behind him, waiting on the edges of their seats for his orders to begin the process of skinning the cyborgs alive. "I had all the attention I needed. Now, I'm just taking the attention that I want."

"No, wait, please, I can-"

"Now!" Trevor shouted, and with an astounding speed the whirring of the Cridex devices echoed his order, tearing at their flesh and ripping screams from their throats. Blood flowed freely along the elevated platform, impossible to identify a single source, running off the edge as if it were a small waterfall.

Imogen shrieked in short burst and her guard razed the skin off the length of her arm, Jonas growled lowly through his teeth. "You'll pay for this!" He grit out, "You all will pay for the pain of our people!"

Trevor chuckled lowly and glanced over to a defeated looking Dane, whose head was bowed as he tried to ignore the cries of pain alongside him. "Will we? I am not normally a betting man, but if I was, let's just say that I'd place a tidy sum against your statement- however bold it may be."

"They are coming!" Jonas screamed, his rage and anguish tainting his voice and painting it as a roar, "They are coming for us, and they- Ah!" He screamed and I looked away from his torment twisted features as he panted helplessly subject to the whims of the beat cops.

"They will be the ones to tear this city to its knees." Imogen smiled weakly, her teeth stained red, she sobbed, her tears streaking down her face, but she smiled nonetheless. "A-and you'll regret this."

"Enough!" Trevor raised his fist into the air and immediately the guards dropped their assault, and he marched to stand in front of Jonas, who lay on his side, his face pale and stony. "You expect me to believe that in the time you were arrested, you made contact with the insurgents outside our borders?" He scoffed, trying to hide his uneasiness. My chest expanded in hope even as my stomach churned at the thought that Jonas was bluffing- in which case, they would all die, right in front of me.

Camden coughed, as if he was hiding a laugh, and spit a gob of blood just to the left of the councillors shoe. "Not us," Camden shook his head and glanced over to Jonas, "We didn't have enough time."

"But we weren't the only three in that house." Imogen smiled again, her eyes wild, "You missed."

"Missed?" Trevor echoed, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"My brother," Dane spoke up, "My cyborg brother, recovering from an illness was staying with me in my mansion." Dane shook his head ruefully, "He got away, and now we are all dependent on his actions from here on out."

"No," Trevor breathed, and my heart swelled as I too began to believe, "It can't be..."

"Trust me when I say," Jonas spoke, recovered from his spell, throwing Trevor's words back to him, "we have plans for you."

The crowd fell oddly silent, the lack of noise out of place in a gathering of so many people. "A well spun tale," Trevor tried to dispute, "but even your base camp of rebel cyborgs would be no match for our cities arsenal."

"It's not our people that you need to worry about." Jonas struggled to his feet, and balanced on one foot, standing, before the beat up cop shoved him down once more, "It's the others- the ones already posing a larger threat to you than you would care to share with your own precious citizens. Isn't that right, councillor?"

A collective mumble began to build among the hordes of people as they explored the meaning behind Jonas' words. Jonas began to chuckle dryly, before his laughing collapsed into ragged coughs.

"What the councillors do not wish you to know is true!" Dane poke up from the corner of my eye. I struggled to turn and watch him speak but the police man behind me pinned my arms to my sides and had no trouble defending against my actions. Nevertheless, his voice carried. "There is another society of cyborgs- civilized, living in conjunction with one another in a different city just beyond the borders of our own!" a gasp spread through the crowd.

"They didn't want you to know," Camden rasped out, but even then the masses were captivated, "that we are capable of our own self government, our own thought. They hid it from you, they lied to you!"

"And yhey will do it again!" Imogen shouted out, "and again, and again!"

"No, no!" Trevor waved his hands in an x-like motion, "Citizens, we have prolonged their deaths long enough! Let us end this nonsense!"

Individuals amongst the crowd cried out, "I want to hear more!"

"What if they are telling the truth?"

"Are they telling the truth?"

"How do we know, if we kill them off first?"

"Enough!" Trevor tried to calm the rapids, but it was too late to stop the spark that ignited the ramblings of the people. Their volume grew, expanded to the sky as it filled the town square, frantically beating at Trevor's cool facade, and egging my own heart to beat faster. I struggled harder against the cop, catching him off guard.

Breaking free, I ran to Camden, who was closest to me now that they were facing the edge of the stage, "Camden, you'll need to run. Run as fast as you can!" I shouted as I darted past him, whipping the Cridex out from the beat cops pocket and activating it.

The blue tip mirrored my left eye as it began to glow in response to the steel rods' whirring. I sliced it across the guard holding Camden down, carrying my momentum to hit Jonas' and Imogen's in rapid succession. "Go!" I screamed, "Go! I'll hold them off!"

Although staggering, they didn't need any more encouragement to leave the stage- and me behind. Pandemonium struck the crowd as their minds caught up with their eyes. The beat cops circled around my, and I waved the Cridex like a baton, slowly edging my way around the stage to position myself towards the exit.

"Stop her!" Trevor screamed, "Somebody, stop her!"

I laughed loudly as I saw the others disappear rapidly into the swarms of the crowd, and smiled ferally as the cops approached. I ignored the hurt in my heart at their ease of leaving me behind, instead focusing on the boiling anger that threatened to overcome me every time I thought of the Cridex ripping at Camden, Jonas or Imogen's skin. "This," I hesitated, making sure I had their attention, "Is something we cyborgs like to call revenge."