They always screamed.
My target slipped in the mud and twisted her head because she wanted to see if I would catch up to her. I did. Her feet got a grip on the concrete road and she ran. My feet barely touched the ground during the pursuit and my short legs caught up with her with ease.
I jerked her arm. She fell to the ground. The sound that erupted from her mouth was brute and she tried to stand up. I hated the screaming. I grabbed two sets of handcuffs from my belt and put them around her wrists and feet.
'No, no, no, no,' she gasped when I fastened the belt to the handcuffs. 'I didn't do it.'
I wrapped the belt around my hand, jerked it without giving attention to her and dragged her with me trough the street. 'I didn't do it! I didn't kill anyone!' Her movements were wild, almost convulsive, and I turned around, so I could look at her.
'There is still some human left in you, isn't there?' she asked, and stretched her neck to look at the number that was on my wrist. She went numb. Her eyes darted from the 178 on my wrist to my face and she screamed again. No. There was nothing human about me.
The screaming kept going until we reached the shuttle and I pushed her inside with the rest of her gang. The metal bars came rattling down when I stepped away, but she didn't even try to escape. She hid behind two bleeding humans in the back. As far away from me as possible.
I turned around and looked around the slum. The abandoned sand path with poorly constructed houses. One of them looking so skewed that it could fall apart at the lightest touch.
'Wren one hundred seventy-eight,' I said while I readjusted the camera on my helmet. 'Mission completed.' 'Provide assistance to Tom forty five.' said a voice on the other side of my headset. "In persecution in Dallas Street, approaching the corner with Main.'
I sprinted into a alley where I smelled decaying food. I breathed in deeply and held the air in my lungs in attempt to block the horrible smell of the slums.
Forty five ran past me with rips in his pants that slapped against his legs. He left a trail of some liquid that I believed was blood. I caught up with him, and the human in front of us looked around when he heard the sound of my heavy shoes. This one didn't scream. Not yet.
He tripped on some rocks and a knife fell out of his hand. I was so close that I could hear his unsteady breathing when he dove forward to get it. I wanted to grab him, but he turned around and dragged the blade across my stomach. His lips curled into a smirk. I didn't give in to the urge of rolling my eyes.
Forty five got to the fat human and they rolled on the ground. I didn't train forty five and I could tell. He was sloppy and impulsive and not faster than the human. Before I could help, the fat human grabbed forty five by his neck; he pushed the helmet aside and planted the knife in the boys forehead. I was grossed out when forty five gasped and fell to the ground with an empty look in his eyes.
The human crawled up, jumped a few times and cheered. 'Got em'! Do you want something, blondie?' I straightened my headset and didn't comment on the man's attempt to challenge me. 'Wren one hundred eighty-seven. Forty five down.' The smirk on Fatty's face disappeared when he heard my number. 'Continue.' The voice in my headset was unfazed. I stared at Fatty. I wanted him to run away. I wanted to make him trip and to wipe that evil smirk of of his face and smash it to the ground. I took a fast glance at forty five. I wanted it to hurt.
Fatty turned around and sprinted away from me. I looked at him for a while and fought the urge to smile. I would give him a little head start. The chasing was my favorite part. I jumped over forty five's body and fatty looked around. I grabbed him by his shirt and he fell to the ground with a loud thud. He clawed around him for something to grab onto, but it was to late. I put my foot on his back and grabbed handcuffs. I put them around his ankles. Of course he screamed.
'Wren one hundred seventy-eight. Forty five's mission complete.' 'Report to the shuttle,' said the voice in my ear. I wrapped a belt around Fatty's wrists extra tight until he screamed because of the pain and dragged him towards forty five's body. He was young, fourteen years old I guessed, and he had just finished his training. I wrapped the belt around his wrists and didn't look in his empty eyes. I dragged them with me towards the shuttle, while I looked at the closing wounds on my stomach. I pushed Fatty in the black box together with the other humans, who were also afraid of me.
I turned around, look at Tom forty five for a few seconds and pulled the knife out of his head. I walked towards the other shuttle. The door openend and the Reboots looked up from where they were sitting, but their eyes went from me to Tom forty five. I put him down on the floor. I quickly looked around to see my newest recruit, Mary one hundred thirty-five, sitting on her chair with her seat belt on. I didn't see any wounds on her. She survived her first solo mission. I didn't expect something different. My recruits had the highest change of surviving.
I handed the knife to the shuttle officer who looked at me with sorrow eyes. Leb was the only officer that I liked. The only human that I liked. I sat on one of the chairs and leaned backwards. I looked at the other Reboots, but they were all staring at forty five. One of them even cried. The lower numbers cried a lot. Forty five had probably cried too. He was dead for only 45 minutes until he rose from the dead. The shorter you were dead before the reboot, the more humanity you kept. I was dead for 178 minutes. I didn't cry.
Leb walked towards the front of the shuttle, grabbed the edge of the open door and looked inside. 'We are ready.' he said to the officer who controlled the shuttle. Leb sat down and we took off.
I closed my eyes until I felt the shuttle land with a shock. The Reboots stepped on the roof. I was the last person to step out of the shuttle. I joined the line and took off my black long-sleeved shirt. I threw my shirt over my shoulder, spread my legs and put my arms out like I wanted to fly. I saw a Reboot fly once. He jumped with spread arms of of a roof from a building with fifteen floors, landed on the ground and tried to crawl to freedom. He couldn't move an inch before they shot a bullet through his head.
A guard, a human that smelled of sweat and smoke, patted me down quickly. He looked grossed out, so I turned around to look at the slums. The guards hated touching me. I think they bet on it. He gestured with his head to the door and swept this hands across his pants, as if he could wash the dead off of him. No. You can't. I already tried that myself.
A guard held the door open for me and I walked inside. On the top floors from the building were offices for staff and I ran down a few stairs until I got to the 7th floor. The Reboot residence. Under there were two floors where Reboots were aloud, but under those were medical research labs located. They liked to examine us from time to time, but they would use the labs for human sicknesses too. Reboots didn't get sick.
I held my barcode up to show the guard at the door, he scanned it and nodded. While I walked though the hallway, I heard my shoes on the concrete floor. The girls in my wing were all sleeping or pretending to be asleep. Though the glass walls, I was able to look in every room. Privacy was a human-right, not a Reboot-right. Two girls per room, both of them in a bed that was shoved against the walls. Against the bed stood a chest of drawers and in the back of the room was a wardrobe that had to be shared - that was our home.
I stood still in front of my room and waited until the guard had called, so someone upstairs would open my room. Only the humans could open the doors when they were closed for the night. The door opened. When I stepped inside I saw Ever turn around in her bed. She didn't sleep much the last few weeks. Every time I came back from a mission, she was awake. Her big, green Reboot eyes glistened in the dark and she raised her eyebrows in a questioning way. She wanted to know how the mission went. It was forbidden to talk when the lights were out at night.
I put up four fingers of my right hand and five of my left hand and she sighed softly. She looked sad. An emotion I couldn't feel anymore. I turned around and I loosened my helmet. I put it together with my camera and headset on my chest of drawers and undressed. I quickly put on my sweatpants - I was cold, I was always cold - and I climbed in my small bed. Evers beautiful fifty six face was still looking sad, so I turned around with an uncomfortable feeling. We had been roommates for four years, since we were thirteen, but I never got used to the emotions that she had.
I closed my eyes, but the sound of humans screaming was echoing in my head. I hated the screaming. Their screaming was my screaming. The first thing that I remembered when I woke up as a Reboot, was a shrill cry that echoed against the walls and in my ears. I thought; what idiot is causing so much noise? It was me. I was the one who screeched like a crack addict who didn't have a dosis for two days.
Kind of embarrassing. I had always been proud of my ability to be quiet in every situation. I was the one that kept calm while the adults went crazy. But when I woke up in the death camber of the hospital when I was twelve, 178 minutes after three bullets were shot in my chest, I did scream.
I screamed when they burned my barcode, number and human name, Wren Connolly, in my wrist. I screamed when they locked me in a cel, when they brought me to the shuttle and put me in a line next to other undead former children. I screamed until I arrived at the building of the Human Advancement and Re-population Corporation, A.K.A. HARC, and they told me that screaming meant death. That acting like I was still a human child meant death. That not following orders meant death.
That's when I shut up.
A/n: Thanks for reading. If you liked it please vote. Again the credits go to Amy Tintera. An amazing author. You should check her out. If you noticed grammar mistakes please let me know.
Word count: 1974