H.A.I.U.

~18~

After a while, Monica let go of the tree and so did Haiu. Monica now had her ears covered, her back turned as Haiu took the deer's meat from its bones. She shuddered, still hearing it. Monica could almost feel her own flesh being ripped from her.

Haiu hated it. He didn't want to kill anything, let alone a poor helpless deer that had done nothing to deserve this. He glanced up at Monica every few seconds, as if scared she would turn around or run away again. He cut the muscle as quietly as possible, humming a tune to drown the noise from his own ears.

Mark bit his nails. Zion would be so mad at him for loosing them. Haiu is a dangerous weapon, and that girl could use him as ransom or something. But based on what he's seen, they didn't seem very much hateful to each other. In fact, Mark shipped them so hard, and he enjoyed watching them...in a not-creepy-talker sort of way.

Mark jumped when a tap came to his shoulder. "Yes, sir?" he squeaked as Zion frowned at the camera lenses. "Why is the feed showing me cops?" Zion asked, almost to afraid of the answer.

Mark gulped. "They are planning to figure out the 'mystery' about all the dying people. And they've gotten pretty far. They went to go steal some clay  to change their face so they can go to one of the asylums, and with your son--erm, project--with the girl, they can access files and stuff."

"What? They can't find out! Change the asylum to DNA matching instead of facial recognition. Now!"

"Sir, the technology needed will arrive in a day, and they might be there right now--"

"Then make it your top priority! Nobody can figure this out, especially not that girl. It's bad enough the police are paying people to figure it out, now I have these two to worry about...Get working, Mark. If they find this out, I will make sure you don't have enough time to apologize before I slit your throat and make you one of them." Zion hissed, his face inches from Mark's. Mark was trembling now, his heart pounding. He nodded.

Zion whirled around, stomping off. Of all things, this ha to happen. He clenched his teeth. He should have let his son die in that fire. He should have never saved him. Zion should have started the fire and never looked back, but he did. All because of his stupid wife's last words before she was whisked away to the Lab. Please, keep him alive. Keep our son alive.

He growled, slamming his office door closed. It was dusty and messy, because the last he used it was making his plans for the brain transplants. This was the room the draft ended. The Lab has almost no use now, except to experiment on stuff instead of taking people to test new transplants.

Before he found the answer.

Zion sighed and sat at his desk. his eyes fell to a dusty picture on the corner of his desk, the glass cracked because of a fit of rage. A forgotten memory lay behind the shattered glass. A memory of a time when everything was okay.

He took his eyes from the picture frame and to the ceiling. He could almost smell the smoke, almost hear his son crying out his name...he doesn't regret starting the fire. No, Zion only regrets bringing his son back from it. Now, it seems, Haiu is getting closer and closer to getting back at him for it. He wonders if Haiu knows that he started the fire. Would Haiu hate Zion? Or does he not remember his past life at all? Zion hopes he does. That was his goal.

Then he could finally make things right and that dumb girl would finally die. He's tried so many times, and this was his chance, he realizes. He stood up and rushed back to Mark's office.

"Mark? Change of plans."

Mark flinched and asked, "What type, sir?"

"Can you hack into Haiu?"

"Only his arm and eye, sir. Maybe a little bit of his brain."

"Good. Use those to kill the girl."

"W-what?"

"She's ruined a lot of this, all in a matter of days. She needs to be erased from the picture."

"Sir, are you mad? She's just a girl, and honestly unimportant--urk!" Mark began, cut off by the hand at his throat. Zion growled, his eyes wild. "No. You will kill the girl. Maybe my project will learn something from it."

Then he left. Mark rubbed his neck, shaking. In a matter of days, Zion has lost his composer. He's forgotten he cared about his son, forgotten he cared about human life, forgotten everything. Mark eyed the phone, so tempted to call the police. His boss really has gone crazy this time. But Mark knew not to call, because then he'd be arrested too. As will everyone else in this building.

He let out a shaky breath, turning to his computer. He began typing, silently apologizing over and over to Monica for what he was about to do...

Risa stared at the ceiling above her. She wanted nothing, thought nothing, knew nothing. Only that she had to escape. She had to escape, help the others escape. Warn everyone else, everyone else like her before this happened.

Her finger was missing now. They took it away from her, and now she was stuck inside a white padded room. Her father never visited, and neither did anyone else except people asking why she did it. But she never answered. She didn't know how, nor did she care. Instead she warned them over and over, but they never listened. Only stick needles in her neck and tell her it'll all be okay.

Haiu sat across from Monica, waiting for her to eat. Instead, she looked at the deer meat in her hand as if it were poison. He looked to his own, feeling bad. He wanted to say something, but he didn't know what. Well, he did, but he knew he'd get a fist in the face if he started telling her deer puns.

But based on the look on her face, a punch to his would be worth seeing her annoyed rather than depressed.

"Hey, deer."

Monica glanced up, face contorted in confusion.

"I deer you to punch me in the face."

"Oh, really? Okay."

"Deer God, I didn't mean it!" he cried, but Monica was already grinning, one of her fists pulled back.

But then his arm grabbed her wrist. His cyborg one. Suddenly he couldn't see from his left eye, and now Monica was scared. "Haiu, what are you doing?" she asked, and he shook his head. "I'm not doing anything. Something--something's wrong with my arm and my eye."

He tried to disable his arm, but suddenly he was blocked and couldn't use the implant at all. Now he was just a half-blind boy missing an arm.

"Haiu, stop it, please. This isn't funny." she told him as the hand tightened. She clawed at it with her other hand, and it let go. Then went for her neck. Haiu lunged and grabbed his arm with his flesh and bone one. Monica watched, eyes wide. "Why are you doing this?"

"I'm not, I swear! Just--just run! Please!"

Monica left without saying anything else. His arm began to follow, so he wrapped his legs around a tree and held on to the arm for dear life. He didn't cry out when his bones were pulled from their sockets as the arm tried to leave. He did pass out from the pain, though, letting the arm go after Monica.

Mark was shaking now. His heart was pounding, probably faster than Monica's and Haiu's. He wiped sweat from his brow before typing some more into the computer before hitting enter. The hand turned into a gun, and it began to shoot. He flinched, almost hearing the shot. He saw through the camera on Haiu's arm that Monica had fallen.

His heart slowed, and he ran his hands through his hair. He let the arm drop, back into Haiu's control. He let out the breath he had been holding.

He killed someone. Mark has done it before, many times before, in secret, but...this seems different. Unreal.

He regrets it more than helping the fire start.