Cridex

Chapter Two

I frowned at his words, and quickly backed away onto my elbows, scrambling back and picking up my wire basket. I brushed off his grip, and glanced as the two merchants from before finally caught up, gripping him tightly by the arms to force his cheek onto the dirty pavement.

I backed away, brushing at my clothes, before looking up at them both. "I trust your wares are safe? He did not cause too much damage?"

"Yessa," The one answered with a foreign drawl, "None too much, none too much at all."

"You go'im?" The other asked? " How?"

"He ran into me, in all actuality." I straightened my shirt sleeve and sniffed as I looked down on the man, his eyes glued to mine. "I trust you will take on your own affairs," I felt my cheeks begin to burn as the mans gaze narrowed on my figure. "And that you do not need me any longer." I took a step back and nodded at the two peddlers, pivoting on my heal away from them, away from him. "If you will excuse me."

"No! Come back!" He screamed, struggling against their combined strength. "Come back! You do not understand!" I did looked back, to see the first merchant raise his foot and pound it into the ribs of the man. I cringed, as I heard him shout, "Youssa are a verra bad thief," He kicked him once more and I looked away as i heard the merchant shout once more, "Youssa get whats youssa deserva."

I picked up my pace, ran forward, heading in the direction of my home, ignoring the empt wire frame that was supposed to have carried home our dinner.

The rest of the day passed quickly and uneventfully. I had nearly forgotten about the incident this morning as I walked out of the building, heading towards my Mom's office. Crossing the street, I walked to the other side and then went down the block.

Then I stalled, hesitating in my steps, watching as a series of black dressed figures amassed on the roads with fierce expressions. I forced a small smile on my face and walked past them, trying to maintain a calm pace, not too fast to seem suspicious, and not to slow to look like I was spying.

A male walked past me, and one of the black clad people pounced on him, kicking his legs as they swept him down. His hands snapped down to his shirt collar, and roughly forcing the man up as he marched down the street in the opposite direction, to some unknown destination.

I looked away, but I understood what I saw and fear seeped through me at an even pace. The man who had walked past me, the one that I had just scarcely brushed shoulders with, was a cyborg- an man with mechanical enhancements, one that we typically utilized about the house to clean, or in our offices to file. But he had been unmarked, unrecorded, and therefore had to have been an insurgent. My blood began rushing in my ears at that thought, that he could have killed me at any time, or kept me as collateral while he began another violent rebellion.

I shuddered as I watched the man resist, and the person who was holding him captive punched him in the face. A split lip, and a bloody nose with bruises appeared on the man's faces. I quickly left, picking up my pace to leave.

Similar scenes as the first one was happening everywhere along the streets, becoming more and more frequent as the days wore on. I always did my best to stay clear of them and could not help but wonder why this was happening. And who was doing this,too.

I walked by a woman, this time was sprawled on the sidewalk, bruised and bloody. Her eyes were flickering as they were in danger of closing. I gulped and walked past her body, but she did not even react. I did not even think she saw me at all, and I was sure that the men clad in black would clear her from the path at any given moment.

"Help..." Her voice trailed after me, when I stepped over her, "Help." She called louder. I whirled about, and there was no one around us. She was obviously talking to me, or just anyone at all. "Help, help! Help me!" Her words turned into shouting.

"Help!" She screamed, and then coughed up blood. I cringed inwardly at the sight of blood dripping down. "Help me, help me, help me!" She chanted.

As much as I wanted to help, there was no way I could. I knew what she was, and more importantly, I knew the consequences I would face if I did assist her or any of her kind. I had nothing I could do for her, and I quickly turned on my heal towards my Mother's office again, trying to ignore her, trying to ignore her pleas.

"Traitor." She whispered behind me. "You are one too, are you not?" I pretended not to hear her. "You are one." She realized, and I quickly hurried down the street. "Traitor, traitor. Traitor!" I looked back at her once more, and her body grew limp.

"Traitor." She whispered, and then her eyes closed as she slumped onto the pavement.

My hands shook slightly as I ran down the street, trying to erase her image from out of mind, and the words that she had uttered to me. For a while, all I could hear was my own ragged breathing and the sound of my footsteps pounding on the sun-baked pavement.

Finally, I reached my Mother's workshop, her office that she spent many hours in throughout the day. I could recognize the small house anywhere, with it's brick and mortar walls, and the cottage-y look to it. It looked like something straight out of a fairy tale to me, and I loved the homeyness to it.

Pulling a key out of my pocket, I unlocked the door and walked inside. "I'm here!" I yelled. Mom did not reply, and I put my backpack on the couch. Walking around the house, I searched for her.

"Ellery! I need your help!" She yelled, and I walked into the room.

I finally found her in her studio, with mother hair up in a bun as she pored over some papers, furiously scribbling.

"Yes?" I asked. She had her back to me, straightening her messy worktable. "What do you need me to do?"

"We have to go out today and use this." Mom replied, holding out the metal object she had earlier. "I need you to help me look for something." I nodded slowly, and watched as she stuffed it into a cloth casing and prepared everything.

Mom then pressed a button on the machine, and I watched as it whirred to life. "This will detect rebel cyborgs, as I said earlier, the mechanically enhanced mistakes that they are. With this machine, we can find all the cyborgs hiding in the city." She paused. "It is more efficient, safe, and more peaceful than than the activity you saw happening on the streets today."

"They are trying to find rebels?" I inquired, realizing.

She nodded. "Yes. They have some unknown plan. Something targeting the government, that is all we know." Mom sighed. "They act quickly and carefully, and they do not leave tracks or trails. There must be a few hundred at least."

I gasped. "Where do they all come from? Why are we trying to find all of them?"

"For the first question, they are mainly cyborgs who have escaped." She waved a hand at the window, gesturing for me to look outside. "We are trying to find all of them and detain them. They are a danger to society, especially with the threat they are posing."

"Will they harm civilians?" I asked, peering out the window. An inhuman wail came from a possible cyborg on the ground as a man pushed him down to the cement. "They are everywhere. I never knew that they were so numerous. How do they know if they are cyborgs or not? They look like humans to me."

"They will harm civilians if it comes to it." Mom said sadly. "They have not done it yet, but there is no guarantee that they will not. As for your second question, they are just assuming so far. They will take them and put them in cells. Any rights they have will be suspended until proven guilty"

I frowned. "What will they do to them? What if they are normal humans and not cyborgs at all? Then they will have made a mistake..." I trailed off.

"Yes. We can not guarantee that. So, this is why I have created this machine to help us detect cyborgs. This way, we can be sure that all we are capturing are actual cyborgs and not humans." Mom held up the metal machine again. "This is the key to it."

"Okay." I nodded. "You told me to look for something, what is it? What is it that I am looking for?"

Mom fiddled with the controls and then a light came out, sweeping the floor. "You are looking for an unnatural flare of light. It has to be the left eye, or else it wo-" She looked up and gasped, nearly dropping the cyborg detector.

"What?" I asked, rubbing at my face once more. "What is it?"

"Your eye," She spoke, backing away, "It's blue."