Cridex

Chapter Nine

Imogen's grip on my upper arm was firm and warm, but with every passing step away from Jonas and the room we had left behind, I felt as if it grew tighter- in a vice like grip- and hotter- to where her palm was burning my skin. I felt my throat tighten, and as we turned the corner down the passageway, my heart gilded over in stone casing. "Stop," I croaked, watching as we approached a small cell door, "What are you doing?"

"Giving you time to think," Imogen spoke softly, but her grip was still steely, "Giving you more than enough time to think." She repeated and shook her head.

"I did not do anything, I-."

"-You refused to answer their questions... You refuse to help your own kind."

"I am not one of you!" I shouted, contempt lacing my voice, "I owe you nothing! You killed the only family that I had, and ripped me from everything that I have ever known, all for what?" I was breathing heavily, and saw Imogen open her mouth to respond, but I cut her off as I continued in a ferocious whisper that scratched its way up my throat. "You may ask your questions, but you will never get a straight answer from me."

Imogen angled her head to the side, examining my face as though she could see through me. "No," She shook her head once, reverently, then continued her careful examination of what lay between my ears. "No, I do not think that you will refuse to answer, once the truth comes out, once you can no longer run away from the evidence." She gently placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed in what might have been a comforting gesture had it not been for my knowledge of the wiring and mechanics that lay under her skin.

"Get off," I grit out, shrugging away from her grip. "Do not subject me to your twisted sympathies. They will not work on me."

"I am not your enemy, Ellery," Imogen glanced down the corridor, warily looking about our surroundings. "You will see, they will come soon enough."

"They?" I spat out in a bitter question, "And who would they be?"

"Your people, the people that you claim to be apart of," Suddenly her wide eyes shuttered and she looked down at the tiled floor, raising her palm to my forearm once more to direct me into the cell. "They will come, and they will come soon. Then you will see why we rebel, why we choose to defend ourselves..."

"Unprovoked defense!"

"Are you truly so blinded by your own bias that you refuse to acknowledge one simple truth? One simple, irrefutable truth?" Imogen's ire was clearly rising now, and she guided me further into the cell. "They are hunting us- because we provide a stable, free labor force- and they are killing those who refuse to comply."

"You are cyborgs," I eyed her squarely, setting my jaw, "You are supposed to comply."

"We are cyborgs," she shook her head and with a final, gentle, nudge, she closed the cell door and locked me inside. "And I believe- I have to believe- that we have a choice, that we have the ability to fulfill our own free will."

I stumbled backwards against the hard, crumbling cement wall, its surface craggy with erosion scratching at my shoulder blades. Remaining silent, I refused to look Imogen in the eye, only staring at her shoes, or the tile surrounding them. I heard her sigh, take a few steps backwards, before she fully turned around to walk away from me- to leave me in the cell, alone.

"You know," She called back, speaking over her shoulder with her palm raised to the door knob when she had reached the threshold, "You are mistaken if you believe that your mother was not the only family that you had left... We are."

Her footsteps echoed about the concrete, long after she had gone. Sliding down the wall and ignoring the abrasion that it would have left behind, I circled my arms about my knees and held on tightly. "What am I going to do?" I whispered to myself, a note of hesitation in my tone. "What they want me to do? Can I even go back?"

My head pounded and I rested my eyes upon my crossed forearms, shaking my head from side to side in a soothing gesture.

"No," Another voice spoke up from across the cell, from outside the bars. The baritone filtered through my ears and I sank further into myself as I recognized its owner. "You can never go back, not for fear of us chasing you down, but rather because they know what you are, Ellery."

"Jonas," I stated, bitterness coloring my tone.

"Me," he stated, "Coming to warn you."

"Warn me?" I scoffed, and kicked out lazily at the cell bars, rattling the door in its frame. "Warn me of what, exactly? You?"

"We have spotted soldiers from the city coming towards the rebel camp," He leaned casually against the opposite wall, eyeing me from the corner of his eye as he pretended to examine his surroundings "We will be under attack soon- Oh, I would say in just under an hour."

"What?" I sat up, confused at his nonchalance.

He took my confusion in stride and pushed off of the wall, coming to stand closer to the bars dividing us, "They will come, with guns and malware, and they will attack the rebel camp."

"They are coming for me," I scrambled up, speaking in a hushed whisper. Jonas raised an incredulous eyebrow. "They are coming for me," I restated with confidence, rushing out as I paced the width of the cell in front of him, "They know what you have done, and they have somehow found out where you were, and-."

"They are not coming for you," He chuckled, shaking his head. "It has become a form of routine for them, really. Each month, about the same time each month, once the survivors from the previous attack have relocated, they seem to find us again. The attack, a few of our kind are decommissioned, and we move on." He leaned forward and looked directly into my wide eyes, "It just so happens that you arrived the day before they were planning to attack."

"I do not-."

"Understand?" Jonas scoffed, and grabbed the ring of keys from the opposite wall, inserting it noisily into the keyhole and turning it swiftly to the side. With a groan the door swung open on its rusted hinges.

"They are not coming for you, sweetheart," Jonas winked haughtily at me, grabbing me roughly towards him so that he could direct his fiery gaze to mine, "They are coming for us- and they do not plan on taking any survivors."