The Hope Of Humanity (Discontinued)

Chapter 5: Taken Apart

After our family reunion, things went in a sort of excited blur. Shorty ordered the men to get Issac out of the cell, and then we were take upstairs to 'The Room'. It sounded like a bad omen. As the door opened I wasn't sure what to expect. However, Shorty went in and closed the door without letting us in. I wasn't sure what was up, but I knew we'd probably have a bad time when one of the guards whispered this into our ears.

"Listen, boss is kind of a nutball. Thinks she's a man. Only call her by male pronouns, he, his, sir, ect."

I raised an eyebrow. "If he wants to be called 'he', why did you call him 'she'?"

The man tightened his grip on my wrist and scowled. I decided to press my luck again, even though it was stupid of me.

"You guys are a pack of idiots. Ever heard of gender identity? Clearly he's transgender. Accept it. If he's your boss he's definitely not going to let it slide once he knows your talking behind his back."

His grip launched into an alarmingly painful position. "You blackmailing me, girl?"

"I'm not a girl. I'm something called 'gender fluid', jerk, and right now I don't feel like any particular gender, so buck off."

His grip tightened so much I thought he might squeeze my hand off at the wrist. I cried out and Issac called my name in alarm.

Suddenly there was a loud gunshot and the grip lessened. I looked behind me to see a pool of blood pooling around the man's head, a bullet wound in his forehead. My eyes widened and I turned back to the door, which now also had a hole in it.

It flew open and I hear a voice. "I was getting sick of Bradley's back-talking. Glad to finally have a good reason to put him out of his misery."

I see a tall female in an orange jacket and cargo pants. Several belts held it up and she also wore combat boots. An eye patch covered her left eye and a weird looking knife hung out of one of the belts on her waist. Her hair was shaved close to the head on one side, and the other side hung slightly over her right eye.

She looked way good for a transgender.

I stood up, much to the dismay of my brother. I was feeling a bit cocky at the moment. I walked over to the trans and stuck my hand out.

"Name's AJ. I'm gender fluid. I hear you're transgender. I respect that. Mind telling me your name?"

The trans grinned and grabbed my hand and shook it lightly. "Name's Sam, but most of my soldiers call me Ash. I like your spunk kid, and I'm glad you're one of the few out here who can respect gender identity. Come on in. Tell your brother to come in too."

I tilt my head backwards at Issac. He's staring at me with a dumbfounded expression. I don't know why. He should be used to my personality changes by now. I flicker my gaze over to Sam as a signal, and he stands up and walks over in reply.

"AJ and Issac, both alive during the beginning of the end. At least, that's all the info I've gotten so far. Anything else I should know? Petro, care to tell me where you picked up the GF?"

At first I thought he meant GF as girlfriend for an alarming moment, but with a quick intellectual deduction I realized he meant gender fluid. Then it took me a moment to realize that Shorty was Petro. All the name changes were making my head hurt.

"Well, Sam, AJ there happens to be a vault dweller."

Sam leans against his desk. "Oh? And the parts?"

"Most likely done by them, but I can't be certain of that yet. Further investigation is needed to prove they are involved."

I fold my arms and start to open my mouth, but Sam raises a finger. "No. The door needs to be closed before we can talk freely. Though I'd trust most of my soldiers with my life, information is sold at a higher price."

Petro walks over, but hesitates at the door. "Shouldn't we wait for her? Is she coming?"

Sam shook his head. "I sent her on a mission, lover boy. Close the door." He did.

Sam walked over to me and started to examine my arm. He lifted it up and twisted it a little. Suddenly he made a sound of satisfaction and pressed something on the underside of my forearm.

There was a loud whirring noise and my shoulder was launched back unexpectedly. I cried out in alarm and fell backwards. When I looked back up, my arm was now in gun form again.

"Eh, it changes easily. Hasn't been used much. You'll have to clean it regularly if you want to keep it. If it rusts you could get an infection where it's connected to your shoulder. I have a feeling you have more metal in you than just your eye and arm, especially with that big jerk in your shoulder. There's got to be some mechanic work there and probably some plating it other places on your body."

Sam lifts me up and then looks into my fake eye. "Yep, glad I had her clean it before she left. It was still frozen a bit on the inside, for whatever reason. I had my female protégé take it out and fix it. A true mechanic, that girl."

I had to wrap my head around that sentence. "What, your protégé took out my eye?!"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Well, yeah. That's the only way to fix that thing."

Suddenly a thought occurred to me. "How long was I out?"

Petro spoke up. "Well, after you passed out it took me an extra day to lug your butt over here. Then you stayed asleep for seven more days, bringing it to a total amount of ten days, give or take a couple hours extra. I thought you might of had some metal in your head and maybe it blew. When you didn't wake up the fourth day I almost regretted bringing all of you with me."

"All of me...?"

"Well, yeah. Organs and functioning metal parts go for pretty high prices in these parts."

At that point I passed out again.