Duel Integrity

I shut the computer slowly. Inhaling I let my nerves relax. Then I felt her. Tickling my thoughts in the back of my head. It felt wrong. Roe’s presence made me feel like puking. I took another breath and the scent of blood hit me. I needed to get out now. I was losing control and if Roe came back I wouldn't make it out.

I circled around his body staring at the pain I had caused. An involuntary smile lifted my lips. “Stay back.” I whispered venomously.

Soon I was running down halls as quiet as my training allowed, which was silent. I made it back into my room and ran to the cubicle. The phone still lay in the water as solid and working as it had been before.

“You can’t pick it up. You’ll touch the water and I’ll take you back,” Roe said from my lips.

It was true she became stronger the closer to the water but I had taken preventative measures before. I reached in and snatched the phone from the shower of water. Droplets rolled off my arm like it was made of glass. The protectant had worked.

I punched his number in the phone again waiting for him to pick up. “Alyahs?”

“Yeah dipshit, where are you?”

“Whoa no reason –“

“Just tell me.”

The other side of the line was silent for a purposeful moment. “About two hours out. Anywhere safe you can go?”

I mentally ran through the map of my surrounding areas within running distance. “A service road into the desert for some telephone wires. There’s a hill I can wait at.”

“I’ll find the one.”

“Hurry.”

“Oh and Alyahs?”

“What?”

“She’s safe.”

I left the line open so he could trace my location and stuck it in my pocket.

That’s all I had wanted to hear the whole time I’d been awake. My limbs shook as I gave way to pent up feelings. My tears were salty as they rolled down my cheeks to my dry lips.

Who is she?

At first I thought the words had come from my own thinking, but then Roe spoke again. She spoke from within my mind.

Who is safe?

I walked back until I could feel the metal of the cabinets through my scrubs. None of you're damn business you robot!

I screamed aloud and choked at her until I could barely feel her. She was aware of physical and must be kept silent for that. I couldn’t let her see my mind so I closed it firmly. Like a door with no handle and no key hole.

I started running through hallways again until I found the stairs. Then I started climbing as fast as I four steps at a time. I had already figured out the timers on the security camera sweeps and I needed to be fast. I finally made it past all six sub levels and cracked open the first floor door.

I was already out of breath and my stomach rumbled painfully. Beyond the door was another corridor and I immediately recognized the particular scent of the railways. I was in a train stop going across from California into Phoenix this was new to my recollection and they had obviously forgotten to mark it on their inaccurate map.

Now that I knew it was a coded map that changed my plans only slightly. I ran through the dark corridor lit only by emergency lights until I found a hatch to get to the station above. Already I could hear the din of people walking and talking above.

If my memory was correct this type of door would open next to a service door inside the train docking area. There would be at least six workers and they would be trained in the arts for sure. It would have to be quick.

With a heave the hatch swung open and I climbed out landing on the floor in a crouch. I jumped at the first man six feet away, landed on his back and twisted his head with my hands. I let him down gently to the floor. The next man came running at me with a gun and he got two shots out before I let his limp body fall to the ground. No time now, I needed to get out of sight before more came to check on the gunshots.

I ran down the hall a ways and slid my slim body behind an already open door I was sure they’d come through. They did, and when they past I walked through the door, through the empty office room and into the train station.

The people swarmed about like a nest of hornets, all busy and slightly angry. I walked calmly across the side hallway into the foyer where tickets were sold and patrons sat waiting for their train. A young women chatted happily on her phone and gave me the stink eye as I passed.

Sucks to be her, I thought. I snatched her carryon and proceeded to the women’s facilities toting the pink rolly suitcase behind me. The bathrooms hadn’t changed much in the past three years since 2323. There was still the standard sanitizing areas for hands and shoes and the stalls stood erect in their cylindrical shape like they didn’t give a fuck who used them.

I chose the farthest on and stepped inside letting the door slide shut behind me. The sudden closeness of the stall became too familiar and I fell back bum first onto the automated toilets. My breath was already quickening and I could feel my control lessen. It was almost exactly like the cubicles but not at all when you looked at the details. And that’s what I did. I examined the full detail of the stall and reminded myself that I was out.

The circular toilet. The panel for bidet settings, and the screen for seated entertainment while you shat. It had always made me cringe how absolutely hooked society was on technology. Even now I had robot running through my veins. I punched a few buttons on the screen so the surveillance “feature” would turn off and changed quickly into new clothes I pulled from the pink suitcase. I flushed my scrubs down the toilet, those suckers would take anything you gave them, and went out to the mirrors to look like less of a pile of shit.

I used the chatty ladies makeup and did my face up and I looked nicer, softer somehow. The bruises were covered and I had a fresh look. Her foundation was a little dark for my skin tone but I figured I could pull of a tan. I added it to my hands, wrists and neck to complete the transformation.

A whole new me, after three years of living in a shower. I hated how I looked. I looked nice, and perfect and ordinary. It was vomitable, but it would pass the test of getting out away from security and into the desert. The ladies shoes were an exact fit, a talent I had always prided myself on so I walked comfortable from the bathroom pulling the pink bag behind me. I walked past the chatty lady and bumped into her.

“Watch it,” She growled around a New Yorker accent.

I turned feigning alarm. “Oh geez, I love your outfit!”

She squealed at the compliment. “Yours too!”

“Thanks.”
I walked on smiling, letting my hips swing satisfactorily in her black business skirt. People were oblivious.

I left the station with a wave at the doorman and a wink at the valet who was helping a disgustingly furred old women out of her Lexus Centurion. My heels scraped the gravel as I walked beyond the parking garage into the open night air, under the stars and away from civilization.