The Pandora Index (Older work)

The Return

Daniel Walker

The room grew silent at the sight of what hovered over Midas's uninjured head. The large android's claw had not hit its target, instead the claw sat, creaking and groaning in the grip of the man in android armor. The large android adjusted its round eye onto the new target. It screeched and growled. The man pushed the large abomination of a machine off of him. The android screamed in protest, and swiped at him with a razor sharp claw, the man was much faster than it so he easily dodged the attack and managed to jump onto the android. The android screeched as the man brought his fists down onto its head, it suddenly started moving erratically, swerving, and almost stomping on Angela, it suddenly charged across the casino and down the hall that led to the hotel rooms, taking the man in android armor with it.

"Enough of this," Snow said, irritated, "We will be leaving now."

He spun on his heels and calmly started walking towards the front door with me in tow.

"Don't worry Daniel, we'll find you!" Angela called after us.

Snow pushed the door open with a grunt and we both stumbled out of the King's Court. The light practically blinded me. He dragged me over to a large, black armored truck with tinted windows. The same kind of truck that I had ridden to New Detroit in with the other agents.

He pulled open the back door of the vehicle and pulled me up into the truck. The truck looked like a mobile tech lab, the flashing monitors showed images of the area surrounding the King's Court and a picture of my face. He dragged me further inside the truck until we reached what looked like a glass isolation chamber from a prison. He quickly shoved me in and locked the door behind me.

"I'm so sorry for any inconveniences," he said through a slot in the door, "I wasn't expecting your captures to put up such a fight."

"Excuse me sir, is there a problem? Do you require medical assistance?" A public service android had seen the commotion and had come to investigate. It amazed me that none of the actual people on the streets were coming over to help, a few people stopped to look for a second but soon kept walking once the android walked over.

Snow closed the heavy doors of the van, ignoring the android. He walked over to one of the monitors and punched in a series of codes, when he finished he glanced back at me with a strange wide eyed smile, he looked down at his still-bleeding shoulder as if just noticing it and hobbled towards a general aid kit that hung from the wall. He quickly dressed his wounds with the precision of a master surgeon and walked up to the front of the truck and hopped into the driver's seat. The truck's engine revved up and the vehicle lurched forwards.

I felt my hands begin to regain control of themselves, my body wasn't feeling tense anymore either. I pushed myself up onto my feet and leaned against the glass wall of my cell, "Hey!"

It looked like he didn't hear me.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!"

Snow looked over his shoulder as if surprised to see me. "How interesting," he remarked, "You should still be completely incapacitated from that dose I gave you..."

"What do you mean, dose?" I shouted nervously, "Did you poison me or something!?"

"I injected you with a weak paralysis inducing toxin, nothing to be concerned about health-wise," he explained, he rolled up his left sleeve revealing a mechanical arm with rubber fingertips, "I made it myself, it's covered with thousands of micro-needles designed to inject a small amount of my chemicals upon contact with a surface; like your shoulder for instance. I also design all my androids myself." He said with pride as he pulled a red leather glove over the prosthetic limb using his white teeth.