August 7th, 2019
Brenda sat in the corner of my mom's living room. A toddler cuddled on her lap. My daughter. My pride and joy. The oxygen attached to her nose kept her breathing. I needed her to. If I didn't get my hands on two hundred thousand, I wouldn't have much longer.
Watching Brenda hugging Maggie tightly, I leaned against the opened door. The screen was shut in front of me to keep the flies out, but I watched my family through the mesh. What else could I do?
A fist gently punched my arm. I looked down at pale knuckles before meeting the hazel eyes that'd been impatiently peering at me for over an hour.
I blinked. "What, Ruben?"
"You really going to think hard about this? It's gon' be easy money." Ruben slid his hands over his combed-back hair. He pressed a few loose strands flat against his head.
I chewed on my tongue. "I mean..." What could I say? There was no such thing as 'easy money.' When Brenda got pregnant, I decided I couldn't stay in high school; I needed a job to care for them. But cashiering at Slim's store didn't bring much. Neither did hustling. We struggled—a lot. And with Maggie sick, I was at my wit's end. I couldn't lose my baby. No.
"He's right." Mark was next to Ruben. He'd been sitting there listening, nodding to every detail of Ruben's plan. But it wasn't Ruben's, was it? It belonged to the other dude on my porch. Someone I'd never met before. They introduced him, sure, but all I got was his name. Tommy. One of those 'friend of a friend' types of people, I couldn't trust new people.
I looked at Tommy, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, and frowned before turning to my friends. My school friends. And Mark, my best friend. I wanted to believe they had my best interests at heart but. "You came over, with my moms in the house, to talk about robbing people. A bank of all places. You know how much fuckin' time you get if you're caught?"
Ruben shrugged. "We won't get caught."
I gritted my teeth. "At a bank? This ain't the movies. Banks are serious shit. A small store, sure, but a fuckin' federal facility type shit?"
Ruben sighed. He pressed his fingers to his temple. "Bro, you won't get shit at a store. But you can get what you need for Maggie." There he went again. The guilt. He was using my needs against me. The money I'd get would help my daughter. Save her, and I'd have her with me forever. But if we got caught? It was over.
"Look, I can see your face. It's scary, yeah, but we need this. You need it more than we do." Mark nodded, folding his arms over his chest. "Besides, Tommy already cased it. It isn't even a big bank. We'll be in and out in under ten minutes."
I looked at Tommy. He nodded but nothing else. The entire time this guy had been on my mama's porch, he hadn't said a word. Why so serious?
"Look," I turned back to my friends, "just let me sleep on it."
***
Ruben sidestepped away from the door. It worked in my favor. I shut the curtain over the closed sign with him out of the way—no reason to let someone look inside.
"Hey, Gio." Ruben lifted his hands as he chuckled nervously. His face reddened. His elbow bumped into a shelf filled with synthetic oil; one rolled off and dropped to the floor.
When I looked at him and smiled, he jumped and accidentally kicked the can further down the small aisle. "Hey, man," he continued, voice trembling, "how have you been?"
How was I? I could be honest. I spent four years in prison. Another year was spent undergoing experiments. It was fucking hell. But hey, I made it, right? That's what matters? I smirked. "What answer are you looking for?"
Ruben bumped into another shelf. Cans of window cleaner rattled against each other. "I saw you on the news a bit ago."
"Yeah?" I stepped toward him. "Rumors, gossip, shit that isn't real? Sound familiar, doesn't it?"
Ruben didn't drop his hands. He extended them, blocking me. "Real, yeah, um, no—it was weird. Scientific experiments and shit? That's wild. I thought—"
"You thought I was gone for good, huh? Life in prison. Rotting away in a cell." I popped my neck and cracked my fingers. "Nah, I'm not there anymore. It wasn't fair. Do you think it was fair?"
His body changed. My temperature sensors picked up on his heat. Interesting how fear was always associated with cold, but it was the opposite. Terror lit a person up like lights on a Christmas tree. How close did I need to get for him to erupt like a volcano?
"Fair, I—" Ruben looked left. Right. The electronic pulses from his brain pushed into his arms, his hands. Was he looking for something? Nothing in this shop could hurt me. At least, nothing out here.
"Yeah, fair." I wanted to add to the moment. Sticking my arm out, I emptied an entire shelf of car plug-ins, pushing them onto the floor. The tiny packages pinged on impact. Three dropped on my shoe. Unbothered, I kicked them away.
"Look, Gio, you're my boy—"
"Was—was your boy." I stepped closer, and Ruben ran. He hurried down the aisle, knocking cans and bottles along the way. A mess wouldn't stop me. If it could, I wouldn't have ended up in jail.
As I followed Ruben through the shop's back door, I ended up in the garage. My computers picked up on the fumes before I smelled gasoline, oil, and smoke from a car's engine. Two vehicles were propped to be worked on.
"Gio, listen." Ruben stepped behind one of the cars in the middle of the garage. With its hood up, he used it as a shield, talking to me from the exposed gap. "I don't know what you're doing."
I saw the terror in his eyes and laughed. "Funny. For a while, I didn't know either. I sat in prison, thinking about how you, Mark, and Tommy gave me up. Sacrificed my life for a shorter sentence, possibly money. How much was it?"
Ruben cursed under his breath and turned. I couldn't see his face, but did I need to? Terror smelled worse than oil, and he stunk. "You know, Ruben, I wasn't given the whole picture while locked up. Everyone knows how easily snitches get off.
"I didn't snitch!" he called out. "I swear! It wasn't me!"
Maybe it wasn't him. But I wasn't the one who deserved any of it. Robbing a bank—I was forced into it. Grabbing a gun—I didn't even load it. And where did all of that get me? Life. Fucking life. And a lot of rage. That was when I decided what I needed to do. Get my revenge. Use my anger as fuel for the machine implanted in me and take the lives of those who took mine. An eye for an eye, right? A promise I made to myself six months ago. Griff saw this a mile away.
"Sure, maybe it wasn't you." I extended my left hand. My mechanical eye reacted, enhancing the clarity of the garage. I saw through the shadows the cars. Ruben was a sitting duck. Was it fear that made him sweat? Or the engine heat? It didn't matter.
"Adrenaline at one hundred percent. Begin enhancement. Muscle quality, seventy-five percent."
My internal computers told me my vitals. The tiny machines in my body got to work, feeding off my heartbeat. I needed another five minutes—maybe less. Then I could rip Ruben's head clean off.
The sound of metal screeched against the garage floor. Ruben had grabbed something. I switched my vision, and through infrared colors, I made out the shape of a tool. Wrench? He'd need more than that to stop me.
"Listen, man—" Ruben's voice trembled. Still, he didn't stand up. I only saw his outline, a shivering white silhouette against green and black. "I saw a special on TV, right? Not the news. All about this Paxton company. It looked like bullshit. But I saw your face. If it's true, and they pumped you up with metal like Wolverine, then this isn't you."
Wolverine? I liked the comparison.
"Muscles at eighty-eight percent."
I rolled my shoulders back as I moved left. "You don't know me anymore, Ruben." My hand slid over the car's back hood as I got closer. "So whatever you think I feel, you're wrong."
The wrench slid across the ground again. "I'm not wrong. I wanted to see you, Gio. To apologize!"
Apologize?
"Muscles at ninety-five percent. Skeletal structure protected, enabling bone shield."
"You're a liar." I moved around the car and saw him. Ruben sat on the floor, wrench held against his chest. When he saw me, he jumped up, prepared to swing. I shook my head. "No one came. My mama gave up, you know that? And Brenda—well, shit, you know her."
Ruben hiccupped. "What about Maggie? Whatever you're doing—"
My jaw clenched. There he went again, just like he'd done six years ago. Using my daughter's name against me.
"Muscles at one hundred percent. Body fully enabled. Receptors are active. Data initialized."
I balled my hands so tight into fists. My bones cracked. The sound was so loud it echoed. Ruben's eyes widened as he stared at me, but he didn't drop the wrench. He held it higher, opposite of what the pulses in his brain told him to do.
"I'm sorry, man," Ruben whispered. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."
I stretched my fingers, spreading them. All I had to do was hit him once. "Then why is it like this? You tell me."
As I stepped forward, Ruben stepped back. I smirked. "Tell me who's responsible, and I'll let you live."
"I, I," Ruben stuttered as he shook his head, "I'd never snitch. I can't."
Again, I moved closer. I backed him into the second car. The open hood snapped shut. Ruben jumped.
"Because we all know what happens when you do, right?" I rolled my head around my shoulders and cracked my neck. "Who's going to come for you?"
Once I stood in front of him, Ruben slid to the floor. He stared up at me, lip quivering. He said he saw a special on TV, but I'd never seen it. Did it explain what had been done to me? What could I do if provoked? Tomorrow Paxton planned on unveiling me to the public, pulling the veil off my head, and admitting my creation. The world would know the truth of my existence, which was why today was the only day I could do this. The only day these men could pay for my past. If I didn't make it, it didn't matter. After Paxton says my name, I'd be done, forever enslaved by their machines.
"Please." Ruben squeezed his eyes shut.
I lifted my hand high above my head. My fingers closed. All I had to do was slam my fist against his head, and he'd die. I itched to do it.
"I have a daughter," he whimpered.
My hand came down. "So do I."