New Elysium: Breakout

"Who Are You?" **

"Remember ye, not the former things, neither consider the things of old." Isaiah 43:18 KJV

"Father, let wisdom form within, so I no longer have to be on the outside looking in." "Outside In" - Circle of Dust

The kicks hurt more than anything. She couldn't fight back, she couldn't move. The fear was gone, in its place, only a solemn promise remained. I am in control of this. I will get through this. This too shall pass.

She barely registered the pain as the last of her augments moved to block it out. It was all she had left. She felt the table beneath her side, scraping her skin...

The tears came then, hot, running down her face. Once she could have snapped someone like Karik in two. A part of her wished she'd fried him to death before... For now, she had to endure to whatever end...

There was eerie silence and then gunfire...

I told you so, Red. I hope you get out...

She could do little more than lay there, hoping he would keep his word. At least they had a chance, she thought. Please God, get them out if that's my plan in this...

Part of her hoped a bullet would strike home, at least so she could be gone from this place. Or move... Something other than laying here, face to the side unable to do anything but listen to the sounds of men fighting and dying all around her.

She heard the sounds of feet running away, and she knew then... the door had been breached. They were free or as free as they could be. Part of her rejoiced for them.

Surely Red had led them out, taken the boys and gone.

And then she felt his hands on her face. Red?

She heard Dag's voice calling to him from some distance away, but Red didn't leave her side. His arms slid under her jostling her as she felt his shoulder slide under her stomach.

He hadn't left her, he was taking her away with him...

She cried, and tears that were lost as her body pitched forward into nothingness away from Red. Stay with me, please don't go!

____________________

Ember opened her eyes to a familiar site. A prairie, with a warm sun shining down and endless waving fields of grass. The breeze that usually ran through gently wafting her hair around was no longer so gentle. It snapped and bit the grass and her hair whipping it around making it hard for her to see.

It was her mindscape, her own cyberspace inside of her. A world she could step into because she had so much of a machine in her. It was quiet save for the wind...

But she understood what the wind was. Even as she turned and gazed in any direction away from her core, she could see the sky darkening, her mind rendering the assault her body was taking into a form her mind could comprehend.

She was dying.

He'd left her... She sat down, no longer caring what had happened. It made no sense, he'd picked her up, carried her and then...

She closed her eyes, reaching out with her organic senses... A doctor would have diagnosed her as comatose, her augments gave her a small amount of control of it.

And then she heard the voice... Her head snapped up. Amidst the raging storm, she could hear his voice talking to her.

It was muted against her dying senses...

"I don't get you, I really don't understand why you even tried to save me, but damn Ember. I just want you to make it. Please..."

"Red, I'm right here!" She found herself screaming into the wind. She doubted her could hear if she wasn't hooked into anything he'd be hauling around a corpse soon...