Wren

I ran through the bleak white corridors and ducked my head out the way as bullets flew through the windows. I had to keep moving. A wave of nausea spread across my mind and I staggered but kept moving forwards. I remembered my lessons. Stay= die. Move = survive. I preferred the latter. I scrambled round a corner and hit the ground as a knife flew past my head. Where were the labs for heaven's sake?! A knife lodged itself into my shoulder and I ripped it out, pushing the pain aside, and the wound closed over. Why did the HARC officers make it so bloody difficult for reboots? Huh. Stupid question.

I heard screams coming from the next corridor over and decided to quicken my pace. If the humans found me now they would shoot me, and I was without a helmet so it would be bye bye one-seventy-eight.

I could do this, for Callum. After all I was the highest reboot to ever live. Or was it die? I never knew.

Finally I reached the long dimly lit corridor, and bolted to the end. What would I find beyond these doors? I went through a mental list of countless scenarios. Dead? Tortured? Mutilated? Or could he be safe and well? No. HARC was not that foolish.

I reached the door and found it to be a large steel door the occupied most of the space at the end of the corridor. It was, of course, locked. However this time it was a key hole not a pin key lock like the other doors. They were my least favourite kind; they fused the system and the door remained locked if you didn't have a code and tried to enter by force.

I took a deep long steady breath and closed my eyes as I drew my gun. A soft click as I flicked off the safety. The cool metal of my hunting knife was comforting against my palm, even though my blood was liquid fire with anger.

Ready ready ready ready ready. Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot.

Callum

Fuzzy. That was the only real feeling I could register. I had been on the operating table for nine hours, in and out of consciousness, every ten minutes or so. The world took on a grey haze so I could only see shapes moving around me. To me that's all they were then. Shapes that prodded me with needles and gave me serums that made the world tilt or every other shape smell like food. Sometimes they made me stand up and they told me to fight the new shapes that came in the room.

It was answered by the pungent smell of vomit, and a swift trip back to the operating theatre. I had been here for a week, and I was starting to lose the plot. For the first week I had yelled and fought and refused to eat, until they became fed up and put me under the drugs that made my vision blurred and my mind numb. I had tried to fight it, reach out to the parts of my mind where I felt most. Memories of wren, and our journey. The time in my old house. The night at the facility in Rosa. I had tried so hard to feel her presence in my mind, and I tried so desperately, but every time I got close to a sob or a smile the numbing sensation closed in and shut off the emotions again.

I thought one-seventy-eight would have come and saved me by now. Why wouldn't she? Did she never care? No. from his memories she seemed to. But then again that was always her best skill, hiding her emotions away and putting on her blank face so nobody can see what's really going on.

A wave of nausea hit again and I collapsed back against the table. Just give in. sleep for a thousand years so no one will find you and the shapes will just melt into the background. That's what wren would say. Feel nothing. no pain, no emotions.

'Do not care for anyone, because they can't be trusted,' says the little wren in my head. 'Why did you trust me Callum?'

'How very foolish of you.'

'I am a killer, and you are an innocent from Rosa who happened to tag along.'

'That is all. Why would you think I would come back anyway, I probably don't even remember you any-'

Then fire rained down from the sky.

Wren

The door was blasted off its hinges and I charged into the room with a scream of fury, pure hatred fuelled my burning lungs. I leapt over a table and shot the first scientist. One down, ten to go. Two larger scientists pulled out tasers and made a charge across the room towards me, so I moved low and slammed my palm into the first one's knee, shattering it and making him shriek and fall to the ground.

I fired a shot blindly over one shoulder, knowing I would find my mark and turned in time to see the second guy's head whip back with unseeing eyes. A tall woman swung a punch to my throat and I moved into the hit grabbing and snapping her arm with a satisfying crack.

I flipped and lashed out at the woman's face with the heel of my foot, making a crunching noise as it connected with her nose. Three ran at me with a chord aimed at my throat and I quickly slid under and shot two of the three from the back, splattering blood over the pristine white walls. I turned to the last one, and I could tell my face was a mixture of blood and rage. The scientist fumbled with the safety catch on his gun and aimed with shaky hands. Foolish, should have shot me.

'One... One-seventy-eight,' he stuttered 'please st-stop, don't k-kill me... I didn't help them I s-swear!'

I could see panic set in after I said nothing. Then,

'so you don't want me to kill you. Like how you were going to murder Callum? Is that right?' He muttered something incomprehensible, and looked up with tears in his eyes

'please.' he sobbed

The walls became an even darker shade of red.

Callum

The sounds of screams yells and gunfire rang out all around me suddenly, and I could see the shapes rapidly hitting the floor, and red splashes of colour merged with the stark white walls. I was confused. Was this another serum?

Seemed like it because no one had talked to me, or decided to slit my throat. Wait...

I could hear her!

'w...wr...'

Why couldn't he say the goddamn word!

'wre...'

come on! Say it or she's gonna kill you all! I saw that the bloodied figure was facing the last two shapes, a sea of blood and bullets. From what little I could see; wren, if it was her, was flying from place to place slashing away at the remaining shapes and cutting chunks out of them. I was horrified. They had put her under some crazy serum and...and? no. no they wouldn't have; this is wren and her dark side, the side that only ever emerges in extreme places. What hatred must she have to be like this? Savage. And she would never forgive herself.

I screamed at her. She had been about to slit a young girls throat. No. this was surely not wren.

I struggled to form any words as an ice cold feeling started spreading from my stomach, and the world was starting to spin again. I leaned over the edge and vomited bile and blood over the floor. Blood. Suddenly I started wheezing and coughing more blood up.

'wren!' I was panicked 'wren!' I was going to die. No. no. no. they had done something that made her this furious. They had poisoned me? Shot me with an anti-healing drug?

'wren help me' I gasped as I started shaking violently. My body erupted into an endless scream. I let go.

This time she heard me.

Wren

Callum had been given the drugs that slow our healing rates, and with him being a twenty two, he would die before he healed fully. I looked at his face. His eyes had sunken in and his cheeks were hollow, with a deathly grey tinge, not a normal reboot colour. His eyes were frantic as he tried to find me around the room. By the looks of things he couldn't see properly.

'Callum' I whispered with a hollow voice.

He continued to panic and scream my name, thrashing against his straps. He was opening the bullet wound in his stomach further as he moved.

'callum! Stop, your killing yourself!'

He continued to scream at the top of his voice. What did they do to him? What if I could never get Callum back? After this ordeal that was not an option.

'callum!' not working.

'CALLUM, FOR GODS SAKE I CAME TO SAVE YOU!' he reeled back on the table shocked. New blood leaked from his nose. I had hit him?

'callum...I'm sorry...we need to go now, do you understand?' I tried to say with as much tenderness as possible.

He stared with unseeing eyes. I looked away

'no. no no no. Callum you have to come back to me! Look at me! Callum... please...' I started to sob

I stayed like that, for at least an hour, slumped against the wall sobbing. Let them shoot me. It's over anyway.

'Wren.'

Was that..? I whipped my head round to see Callum staring in my direction looking shocked and confused.

'Callum! We need to go, can you walk?' my voice had a renewed energy

He mumbled something incomprehensible that sounded like yes so I sliced off the straps with my knife.

'Wren... the knife?' he said unsure of himself

I let my gaze fall to the floor and mumbled my response. The dripping, red knife. His face turned an ashen grey and he frowned deeply.

'You killed them all?' I didn't answer

'You murdered every single one of them! Wren how could you do that, you could have just captured them!'

'DON'T YOU SEE? THEY WERE EXPERIMENTING ON YOU AND SLOWLY KILLING YOU!' I screamed not caring about the war raging outside

'DID YOU NOT EVEN SEE THAT?' I sobbed loudly

'Yes, I did... I had decided to let go.' He said in a small voice. What did that even mean?

'You... you thought I wasn't coming for you.' I said. oh I see, so that's what I was to him. Monster, monster, monster. The words danced round in my head.

'Wren...' I had started walking out the door, hearing the gunfire was a sense of relief. More bad guys to kill. Callum shuffled up behind me and tried to get my attention.

'Just stop Callum! Leave me alone! I came to get you, and I got you, and now you think I'm just another monster!' I pointed out a shattered window in the direction of the HARC base. 'let's just get out of here and then go our separate ways.' I said. He tried to protest but I held up a hand and pulled out my knife. I looked out to the dark sky, there was a thunder storm coming, perfect I thought, let the thunder roll on in my friends. Roll on in.

I closed my eyes and changed my knife for my gun. I spread my arms wide like a bird and teetered on the edge of a crumbling building. Then I flew down to the ground like a beautiful maniac.

Callum

She just jumped. Like a bird of prey, soaring to the ground gracefully and landing in a perfect crouch, guns blazing.

No words of advice or a smile. She just jumped and threw herself into the battle. Well what had I expected? It's not like she suddenly became a beacon of peace and serenity as soon as I was captured. To unite the nations and demand peace! Yeah right. He squinted out the window. Freedom from this hell-hole. Were the deaths of innocent humans, just following orders worth the freedom of one reboot? Well it seemed to be for wren. But go our separate ways? Did she mean they should be apart? Well whatever was happening, it was bloody confusing... one minute she was sobbing because I wouldn't stop screaming, the next she was the one screaming, at me! Its not like it was good fun for him or anything!

I carefully made my way down an empty stare well, checking behind me every so often. I had picked up one taser and a knife from the scientists that now littered the lab floor, and I now clutched them tightly as I walked down the stairs. There were bullet holes everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Up the walls, through the windows, in the floor. Wren didn't really do things half-heartedly did she? I kicked a door down and crept through the hall, the exit was only a short distance away now.

I heard a mumbling from above me, and I quickly scurried down the last of the stairs and slipped out of the door, clutching my stomach as I did so. I rounded the next corner in the winding labyrinth, and sank into a defensive stance, just as I had been taught by wren. Overpower the enemy before they get a chance to strike. The footsteps approached at a quick pace, and the whispers intensified the closer they came. I readied the taser and the knife and stepped out just as they reached the corner.

I stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Addie and Hugo strolling towards me, with the same expressions on their faces as I was feeling. What were they doing here? Were they with wren?

"Callum!" Addie exclaimed, "what are you doing down here, where's wren?" she said with a puzzled look on her face.

I didn't have to speak for them to guess where she was.

"Huh, gone that fast then. Well you should follow us and we can get you stitched up. We were just making sure we had all the reboots out of their quarters." Hugo filled in for her.

We trudged back up the stairs, having to stop every once in a while so I could double over and catch my breath. Damn, when did this stuff wear off? We came outside to a clearing were there were several shuttles waiting for the new reboots, and a perimeter of our reboots guarding with helmets and guns. I shuffled up the ramp and collapsed into a chair while a couple of reboots went off to get a concoction of drugs and equipment to remove the bullet. I sat in silence for a while listening to the frequent blasts of guns from the building. Where would wren be right now, and would she be killing people, or helping the reboots?