ira

Chapter 8: The Wires

Sark lead the way as Ehs trailed behind him. Rowena and I stayed behind. I tried to explain to her about all that was going on, including my past.

"So you were born a human child?" She asked.

I nodded, "Yeah. As human as I could be."

"Interesting. So would you argue you are not human anymore?" She tapped her chin.

"I don't know. I mean, I'm still kind of human, but not nearly as human as someone like Ehs, or Montohar. I'm part robot. I have circuits and wires running up and down my spine. Unless children are now being born like that, I'd say I'm not really that human anymore." I kicked at the sand that swirled around my boots.

Rowena just nodded and remained silent. I noticed her glancing at my arm once and awhile. Out of the blue, she suddenly got behind me and lifted my hair.

I tried to swat her away, "Hey! What are you doing?"

She poked around at my neck and at the exposed wires, "Nothing, don't fret."

"Um, I'm going to fret if you mess something up! Those wires are directly connected to my spine and brain! One wrong tug an----" Just as I was about to finish, Rowena pulled out a wire and everything went black.

I could hear everyone freaking out, but I stayed calm. I didn't feel weird, just very calm. Suddenly, I regained vision and saw Sark pushing Rowena into the ground. I felt my neck and noticed a little bit of blood.

"Sark, let her go!" I grabbed his arm and pushed him away, lifting up Rowena.

"What did you do. What the hell did you do?" I started yelling at her.

She just sighed and lifted her hand up, showing me a small wire that had a chip attached to it, "It's a tracker. You're lucky I know how to take them out, or we'd be thrown in jail before we took another step."

I stared at her, "How did you know I had that? I didn't even know I had that."

"I would say lucky guess, but I'm assuming that would startle you. I had my suspicions, most cyborgs, droids, anything of the sort is bound to have trackers. Why would someone spend years making something to have it be lost? I just needed to see if you had the blue and green wire." She crunched the tracker and it sparked a little, then threw it aside.

I just nodded, "Uh, thanks?"

"Of, course, anything for you, dear. Oh, here's something for the wound," She handed me a small cloth which I held up to my neck.

"I'm going to walk ahead and check the area." Rowena turned into a raven and flew away.

Sark walked up to me and grabbed my arm, "I've told you this before, but I don't like her. If she does one other thing to hurt you, I'm going to hurt her. Badly"

He walked away and I turned to Ehs, who looked confused, "She called you dear? Are you two..."

I stopped him before he could finish, "No, were not. She wants to be but I don't."

He just nodded. We continued on for a while before Rowena came back and trailed ahead a while, guiding us around areas she deemed unsafe.

I had been talking with Ehs but moved ahead to talk to Sark, "Hey. I'm sorry I got angry at you yesterday. It's just... I mean, you gotta admit, you seem to know more about my life than I do. Once this is all over, I'd like you to tell me everything."

"Of course. I'm sorry too, that I didn't tell you earlier, you have a right to know. And I'm sorry I didn't have faith in you and wanted to go back, and didn't want Rowena to come along. This is all so strange, I just got worried." He pushed his hair out of his face.