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"You ready?" Elizabeth asks us as she adjusts the strip of red that obscures her face. She looks around and I take her cue, adjusting the mask on my own face.
The group that surrounds me is made up mostly of strangers. More of these unfamiliar faces - the Anti-Automation League - will join us on the way as we march from Elizabeth's apartment to the courtyard outside the two wing-like metallic buildings that were once the pride of Toronto: city hall.
I recognize only a few faces: Shari, Joe, and Oz, as well as Alexa from the original Movement. It makes me less fearful about striking out on my own and leaving Austin behind.
"I'm going with you," he'd insisted. But Elizabeth protested immediately.
"This could turn hairy," she said - the expression not quite capturing the deep dangers of the day ahead of us. "We just found you and your the League's only doctor. We can't lose you."
"I could be a field medic, sort of," he argued. I winced at his use of a term so tied to governments and their mechanisms. Either way, it didn't work.
"We can't put you in harm's way," Elizabeth insisted.
"But what if someone's injured? They might need help right away."
"You'll have to work on them here. We'll meet back up, bring everyone if we can. You're just too valuable. You need to stay put."
I saw the logic in her argument and know that he did as well. But as he turned and stormed off, flexing his knuckles in frustration, I realized that his argument came from a place of wanting to be with me when the going gets tough. To make sure that I come back okay.
"He'll be fine," I tell Elizabeth.
"And what about you? Can we rely on you tomorrow?"
"Just tell me what to do."
"Find the bots. Tear out their circuitry like you told me you can."
"That was anger. I couldn't control –"
"Oh, you'll be plenty angry. Just look at that asshole and you'll have what you need. Better yet, blast the guts right out of those things. Don't bother using your hands."
She proceeded to give me a half hour tutorial on the use of a black gun-like box that could blast a targeted EMP at the bots and disable them.
When she finished, there was nothing else for me to do but try to sleep and restlessly agonize over the events of the day to come, including seeing Chris in person for the first time in months.
Now, readied with my black anarchist uniform, EMP blaster and red bandanna, I look like one of the crew.
The sound of us is impressive as our heavy, second hand black boots clomp down the narrow staircase and out onto the street. There, others join us as we make our way down Bloor Street from High Park towards the center of town.
It's slow going. We walk, even knowing that would take us over an hour to do so. I questioned Elizabeth's logic at the time - the logic of the group, the consensus that they'd come to. But as we walk, I begin to understand. Our numbers swell. Passersby stop one or another in our group and ask about where we're going, what we're doing.
When they hear the answer, many of them join us.
By the time the two towers of city hall rise in my vision, the mass of people have begun to chant. There's a festival atmosphere brewing, with the drum beat of thousands of feet backing rhythmic voices, melding into unison.
I strain to isolate a single sound: Chris' voice. There are loud speakers in city hall's courtyard or something else amplifying his voice. Even with the crowd surrounding me, even with a cacophony barraging my eardrums from every side, I hear the outline of his voice. Not the words, nor the depth of his baritone that once thrilled me, soul and body. But the higher tones are there, unmistakably his.
"Andrea," Elizabeth materializes by my side. "I need you with me."
She throws an arm around me and her soft palms cup my shoulders. She leads me to the front of the group and the curtain of their bodies draw back to reveal city hall square.
My eyes are immediately drawn to him. There he stands, so changed from last I saw him. Perfectly coiffed with his long locks hacked off, the blond ends now gone and revealing a darker shade of sandiness. I cannot see the blue of his irises over the crowd listening to him. But I can see every expression, believe I can see every thought etched into the lines that cross his face.
Behind him, there's a line of seated dignitaries and politicians, including Robert Newhouse. Elizabeth was right: my anger flares at the sight of them together.
My attention flicks to the crowd for only a moment. They are well-dressed, seated. It's as much as I can glean before Chris speaks up again.
"And our guests of honor have arrived." He gestures at us.
He gestures at us.
It's an ambush. It's no wonder the crowd seems undisturbed by our presence.
At the front of our group, I'm one of the first that the patrol bots descend on. They seem to come out of nowhere, from behind the TORONTO sign that was installed for tourists decades ago, old and rotten now, its color faded by the ever-growing power of the sun.
Metal and silicone hands wrench Elizabeth from me, close around me even as I scream for her. Pull me away from her.
I'm half-dragged, half carried against my will across the courtyard. As I struggle, I feel myself approaching Chris.
My screams are guttural, wordless. As much a protest of coming close to him again as being apprehended. Even as my mind turns feral, I turn my eyes to the man I once knew. He stands above me, looking out on the crowd of us, a smirk spreading on his face.
I wait for him to turn to me. But he doesn't, and I'm being dragged away.
"Chris!" I yell with every bit of strength I can muster.
He finally turns toward me as I struggle against the metal arms that hold me, pushing my face forward until my bandanna finally falls and I look up into his eyes.
I have to know. I want to leave him behind and act as though I never met him - never knew him. But I can't. I'm addicted to the thought of him, and of what we could have had. I'm addicted to my own suffering over him.
I look for any sign. A glint of guilt flash in his eyes. A void of feeling, proving that he was playing me the entire time. A recognition of knowing, of regret, of hate. Of anything.
But there's nothing. His lip doesn't curl in disgust at the sight of me, his face displays no sadness. He looks at me without curiosity, as if he's never seen me before. And then he looks away.
In that moment, as he looks up from my face to assess the state of the crowd and his perfectly planned ambush of us, his eyes flash through a ray of sunlight.
His eyes flash with a glint of electronic, laser orange. I react before I process what it signifies for he and I.
"He's a bot! He's a bot!" I scream, redoubling my struggle to escape the bot that clutches me.
My voice doesn't carry far, swallowed up by the screams of anarchists as they flee or are captured by RoboNomics patrol bots. But Chris hears me, his gaze flicking back to me. Some of the seated crowd nearby murmur. I hear someone say "she's crazy."
Behind Chris, Newhouse makes a wide gesture with his arm over his head. Then it's bedlam. Patrol bots dissent on supporters and retractors alike, sending the besuited, seated crowd sprawling.
There's a clunk, and then another, as canisters land between the anarchists and Chris' supporters. The courtyard fills with smoke, obscuring my friends from me.
I continue to struggle against the bot that holds me, but the metallic digits only tighten their grip. Then I hear a zap from behind me, and the machine falls to the cobblestones with a thud.
"Pull this up, quick." I recognize Shari even with her mask on, as she strives to pull my bandanna up over my mouth and nose. "Come on."
She turns to run. I try to keep pace with her long legs as the smoke wafts towards us. It's hard to see through the growing fog, but I keep the black of her jacket and her long braids, snaking down her back, in sight as I run. I breath deep, coughing once or twice as the gas stinks my throat, eyes, nose, lungs. I feel myself slowing.
"Come on," she grips my arm painfully, but I'm grateful. It's not far: out of the courtyard and onto the street. As the air clears of smoke I can see that the bots have us surrounded on every side but one: a tiny back street that can barely fit two abreast.
I see Elizabeth. I recognize Oz and Alexa. But there are so, so many missing.
"They got Joe!" Shari declares as we join the others.
"We're going to have to leave him," suggests Oz. "We have to get out of here."
Elizabeth nods, turning to go. I continue to cough as I try to keep pace with the stragglers in the group and fail for blocks, falling behind.
"How did they know we were coming?" Elizabeth asks in the distance.
"Mole?" Oz suggests.
I hasten, nearly running as they speed walk. At last, I catch up, still clearing my throat.
"He's a bot," I squeak out.
"What? Who?" She asks.
"Chris. He's a bot. I saw it - I saw his eyes."
"You can't be serious," says Shari.
"You hear that?" Oz calls back to the rest of the group who follow us. "Our new Prime Minister is a bot!"
A mass groan answers back.
"What the fuck," someone's voice rises above the rest. "Our country is lead by a bot?"
"The easiest puppet state to control," I muse. "The canny bot gives an air of legitimacy. Now the Movement has no leader, it's easier to squelch. Chris' betrayal was designed to crush our spirits. All while a machine that they program clears the way for their authoritarian regime."
"It's genius, really," Alexa agrees sadly.
"Authoritarian?" Oz asks, bumping my shoulder softly with his.
"You saw what he did back there. How he turned on his own people."
Murmurs continue in our group. Questions, speculations. But I fall silent for blocks. A realization rises in me. I attempt to quiet the thought, to ignore it. But my pulse leaps at it, grasping it tightly, not willing to let it go.
He didn't betray us, I think. He didn't betray me.
I recall the last time I saw him and spoke to him. How I sank into his arms, and he sank into me. Everything between was hope and pleasure. Neither of us suspected what would come next.
He was mine, then he was gone.
I'm on the verge of the next thought before Elizabeth vocalizes it, my guts twisting with worry.
"But if that's not Chris," she breaks through the silence between us. "Then where is he?"
To be continued in Chapter 52...
A/N:
Hello again and happy Valentine's Day!
And here we are in the penultimate chapter! What do you think of this turn of events??
Chapter 52, the final chapter, comes out this coming Friday, February 16th and I can't wait for you to read it!
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All the best,
Stephanie