The October Amaryllis

Chapter 93 - ????

"I called Dr. Jameson to check up on what happened to you. He said that your acetylcholine levels were dangerously low, and that this caused your weakness. He injected some into your shoulder. How are you feeling?" she asked, with her son sitting silently in the room's corner as if afraid to speak.

"What's this acetylcholine you mentioned? I feel a lot better, honestly. Hey, this might sound crazy, but Tobias is dead, killed in an explosion by his son," I said with a tiny smile. The devil finally got served his own dish back.

"It's a neurotransmitter and a neuromodulator in the body; I'm guessing they poisoned you somehow. Dead...?" she said as she started laughing from pure joy. Boy, she laughed for about a solid minute before turning red as a beet.

"They didn't poison me, not that I know of, anyway. Yes. Hey, listen... what do you say we rescue your husband from those camps?" I said impulsively. I knew Arcadia was about to go into full anarchy mode with Tobias dead. It's not like they planned anybody to replace him; dictators don't care about that sort of stuff. I sometimes wonder if he ever pressured his son into becoming a ruler just like him. I couldn't imagine living knowing that my father was a genuine psychopath. They act all charming for the public, but they're the worst people imaginable in private. They build their whole life on pathological lies. Unfortunately, they seem to be quite common in Hollywood... Never take your kids there.

"Arcadia is about to turn into the ninth circle of hell; how do you suggest we save him?" she asked curiously.

"We gotta steal a centipede; it's our only chance. Your husband might still be alive, and you'd never even know."

"What about my son? They'll hurt him if they catch us," she asked anxiously.

"Look, if you don't do it, you'll never know if he's even alive," I countered.

"Fine, we're going to save him," she relented.

"That's more like it," I said excitedly.

"If anyone comes, hide Castor, don't make any sound you hear me?" she said tightly hugging her son, who nearly started crying from being so emotional.

"Get daddy back!" he pleaded.

"We will," I said as we ran outside. There was fighting all around. The citizens were battling the Raven Corps, and the violence was so intense I couldn't tell who was winning. Everything that could have been used as a weapon was, this included broken glass bottles, pipes, crowbars, nail guns, and plasma rifles. Seeing the crowbars made me think of Gordon Freeman from the Half-Life series; he would have given the Raven Corps a nice beating.

We ran past the carnage as fast as we could, nearly getting shot a couple of times ourselves, until we saw an Android who was riding around on a centipede.

"Need a ride? I hacked it," he asked with an uncanny smile. Man, couldn't any of them smile without going into the uncanny valley?

"You're sentient, aren't you?" Audrey asked excitedly.

"Yup, now get on because, in about half an hour, this place will be a ghost town. Can't do too much in those, unfortunately."

We got on the centipede, and the Android told it to go as fast as it could, and oh, boy, it was fast... Try holding onto a robot running two hundred miles an hour, then we'll talk. The morons who made them didn't even bother to add seat belts, which meant that if you were to fall off, you'd hit the ground at two hundred miles an hour. Still, in a strange way, it felt thrilling; it was like riding a scary rollercoaster.

We were attacked numerous times on our way to Romana, but the centipede knocked them away with the force of a tank and sent them into states of unconsciousness. We tried our best not to kill anyone, as we didn't see the point of adding more casualties to the revolution.

"Unlike our past great leader, I do not prefer to use heat rays on civilians," the Android yelled out before going yeehaw out of nowhere. I had almost forgotten that we were in a revolution right now; that part was enough to get me to laugh for a bit. That's the thing with laughter; it numbs emotional pain for just a moment.

Eventually, I heard Audrey scream and saw a throwing knife stuck several inches deep in her leg that a soldier threw at us. Whoever threw that knife had insane reflexes, considering how fast we were going. Some people in Arcadia were honestly closer to machines than humans.

"Pull it out!" she yelled in my direction.

"I'm afraid. What if I hurt you?" I asked anxiously.

"Oh, kids these days..." she said as she grabbed the knife with her shirt and pulled it out herself.

"Give me that," the Android said as he grabbed the knife and started cutting the panel in the centipede's head.

"What are you doing?!" I yelled in shock.

"Setting it to blow up in the next fifteen minutes, we need to blast our way through the camp walls somehow.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Audrey asked cautiously.

"Ma'am, some of the smartest people in the world have programmed me. Do you really think I don't know what I'm doing?" he replied wittily.

"Good point," she said as she became silent.

Eventually, we reached the camp, and in a word, I would call it hell; there was a twenty-foot high barbed-wire fence that no regular person could climb and walls made of what looked like fortified concrete.

"Everyone off and run for fifteen seconds!" the Android yelled.

We got off and ran to the south of the camps until we heard a massive explosion rock the center. Pieces of wire were strewn all around like corpses, and a couple of tiny pieces of the walls hit me, nicking my skin. The formed hole was about eight feet tall and wide enough for a rhino to walk through.

We ran inside the camp, and right away, we saw that all hell had broken loose; the prisoners fought against the guards, stealing their guns and shooting them all down. They prepared the guards for war, but the prisoners outnumbered them ten to one; they never stood a chance despite their training.

"This is all your fault!" Cyrus yelled out, pointing his plasma rifle at me. I thought that I was about to die and at only sixteen when I heard a gunshot ring out behind him and saw Cyrus crumble to the ground. The man who shot him was none other than Audrey's husband.

"Audrey...?" he asked in disbelief.

"Carl?" she asked with tears in her eyes as she ran to hug him. She started crying on his shoulder, and despite being in a revolution, I allowed them to have their moment. However, that was quickly ruined when I heard what the Android said next.

"I'm going to have to blow myself up. I cannot follow you guys; I am so sorry," he said, sounding as if he was going to cry.

"What? Why?!" I nearly yelled out in horror.

"They can track the location of all Androids; I already risked much by giving you all a ride. Run and start a new life away from this hell. Go to Byzantium and stay there until it's safe. I will miss all of you," he said with a shaky voice as he cut open his stomach and pressed a secret button, after which a robotic female voice said, "Ten minutes until destruction."

"Thank you for everything," I said, hugging him. He hugged me back and I for a moment imagined that he was my father protecting me from the evils of the world. I never wanted to let go at that moment, but I knew that if I didn't that I'd be toast.

That was when I realized that there was something incredibly familiar about the robot. In fact, I knew that I had met him before in one form or another.

"You're the robot savior," I nearly whispered.

"Now you know, Clive. My name is Clay, by the way," he replied with a tiny smile as he pressed something on his wrist. I could hear the screeching of tires in the distance, and a neon-orange car pulled up to us and automatically opened its doors.

"Goodbye," I said with a lump in my throat as we got in to escape.

"It's only a goodbye for now; one day, I'll see you again. Never forget the Android Clay! Remember the dream," he replied with a smile.

I will.