Fathernator
Continuation of the story, just as my dream continued when I went back to sleep.
Part Two
1: Uncertainty
Nomad had won her battle, but little did she know that the war was far from over. The Goblins had fled, but they could return, stronger than ever. Who knew what new advancements they were devising, right at that moment?
For now however, she had time to think. Her accomplishments had shown her to be a leader, and with Nathan's death, some of the rebels were turning to her for guidance, despite her age.
She was sitting above ground, leaning against the remains of the barn, back at the old base. She could hear birds singing, a rare occurrence during the resistance, even out in the country, but they were singing now. Maybe they could tell that the humans had won a great battle against their oppressors.
'After being on my own for so long,' Nomad was thinking, 'it's strange to be depended on by others.' She was coping, just as Blaize always had with the DKL's. His gang had broken up, as they now had a place with the rebels, and Blaize's place as leader had disappeared. It was as though Blaize and Nomad's roles had reversed.
She hadn't seen much of him since the last battle. She'd been fairly busy, and he'd been making his own explorations of the new base above the old Machine complex. Not many people went underground to the old Machine complex, as it hadn't yet been explored and might still be dangerous, aside from the fact that the Machines had made it a labyrinth.
After a few days at the new base, Nomad had left, seeking that familiar solitude she'd been longing for. She'd come back to the place she'd spent the most time at while growing up, to get away from it all, to comprehend the turn in her life.
She was distracted from her musings by the sounds of footsteps on the gravel path leading to the barn. She looked around the wooden wall she was leaning against, and saw Henry and Mouse.
Since Henry had saved her life, Mouse stayed close to him. She considered him her protector. Henry didn't mind. He'd called it practice; His pregnancy only had a few months to go. That concept required an entire day's thought on it's own! Mouse had no family left now. She seemed to be coping fairly well with Grunge's death, but Henry had told Nomad that sometimes he heard the girl crying at night.
"What are you doing here?" Nomad asked.
"I came to see you, to thank you for your support against the rebels." Henry explained. "And also to see how you are doing."
"Fine. It's been challenging, but I'm coping. I'd hate to be caught off guard, but I think maybe we've done it. Maybe we've freed ourselves. I still want to be prepared though, just in case the Goblins manage to retaliate. You look like you've got something else on your mind."
"I've been checking my old modem." Henry said. "I'm going to lead a team to investigate some strange signals I picked up. Hopefully I'll find out something that will help you."
"What about Mouse?" Nomad asked.
"He wants me to stay with you." Mouse interrupted, tired of being quiet.
"Just as a precaution." Henry said. "No children. It may still be dangerous below the machine base."
"All right." Nomad said. "Just be careful. Mouse isn't the only child you have to worry about." She said, meaning the baby. Henry nodded.
Deep beneath the Machine's former city, Henry's team tracked the signal. Despite Henry's contribution to the war, there were only a few men willing to trust this terminator to lead, so his group was small.
Most of the electricity was shut down there, to ensure no machine defence systems were operational. Henry's terminator strength came in handy; opening jammed steel doors. They found that the source of the signal came from a strange machine with two doors and many flashing lights.
Henry saw something move on the other side and stepped through to investigate. Just as the Goblin scientist hit a switch, Henry disappeared in a flash of blinding white light.
One of the soldiers shot at the Goblin, and hit the machine, though the Goblin was also killed in the blast. A surge went through the machine, the lights flashed, smoke started spewing from it, and Henry reappeared. The machine shut down, it's circuits ruined. Henry looked shocked to be back. He asked the soldiers what date it was, and looked grim when he heard the answer.
"I have to talk to Nomad." He said. He wouldn't say any more, and he didn't listen to any protests as he led the soldiers back out. He looked like a man on a mission. One of the soldiers observed that Henry no longer had a bulge in his stomach. 'Man, that is a weird machine.' He thought, referring to the half terminator.
2: Revelations
"Ma'am?" A soldier asked Nomad, who was in her new office.
"Yes." Nomad answered.
"Reports from the machine city show that some of the people that lived nearby have disappeared."
"How long ago?"
"The first lot went missing almost immediately after the final mission against the machines, but another group of about six has gone missing since. Evidence of spacecraft fuel was found at the spot the people were last seen."
"Goblins?"
"We believe so. They probably took more prisoners to work their machines. There is another thing."
"What?"
"Blaize is among the missing."
Nomad was silent. She'd been hoping to reconcile with him. Apart from during the last mission he'd hardly said a word to her. She'd grown to like him, and she had suspected he'd liked her. But since Grunge's death she felt that he thought her responsible, even though they both knew it wasn't so. She was determined that he and the others be found.
"Is there a team still there?" Nomad asked, her voice steady.
"Yes."
"Make sure they keep investigating. When we have enough men free we're going to do another exploration of the Machine base, and see what we can find. If the Goblins have taken them back to their home planet, I'm afraid there's little hope of getting them back. Hopefully they'll leave the rest of us alone."
"Yes ma'am."
The soldier left the room as Henry entered it. Nomad swallowed back the unexpected tears for Blaize, and steadied herself.
Henry looked grave, and did not sit down as she asked him to do. "I have rather alarming news." He said.
"Is something else wrong?" Nomad said wearily, dispirited.
"Nothing's wrong, it's just rather strange." Henry reassured her.
"What did you find?"
"A time machine."
"Wh-what?"
"The Goblins were working on it at the time of our last attack. Believe me, I've seen it's effects with my own eyes. I believe it was only put to use once."
"Where did they go back to?"
"They didn't. I did. I was accidentally sent back to eighteen years ago. Then a surge went through the machine and it brought me back after a few months there, to a few seconds after I'd left. It was destroyed when the scientist working it was shot."
"A few months?" Nomad had gone a little pale with all the stress of Blaize's disappearance and this talk of time travel.
"That isn't the most alarming news."
"No?"
"I had my daughter." He lifted his shirt to reveal his now flat stomach. "I only got to raise her for a few months before I was pulled back to today, leaving her behind."
"Then, then she'd be around today, grown up, wouldn't she?" he nodded "We'll help you find her, but there is a lot to be done right now. Another issue has come up."
"I have found her."
"Who is she? Where is she? I… I'd like to meet her."
"It's you."
Nomad gaped. "Wh-what? But, I…"
"I knew her blood, as she came from me. I recognised it from the same blood that came from you when you were injured at the old rebel base. The DNA is identical. You are the daughter I carried. You even wanted to protect your younger self, remember, when you let me help you travel to the rebel base, though you didn't know it was you. Eighteen years ago I travelled to the barn, figuring you'd be safe there. I asked the help of a kind old couple, who I assumed would be your future parents, as you said you'd grown up there. I was so surprised when at two months old you accidentally got a cut; I touched the blood while cleaning it and immediately knew whose DNA you had. I realised that I had been meant to find the machine, so that you could be in the right time to lead the rebels to victory."
This was a lot to take in. After so many years, she had family. Not just a father, but he was sort of her mother as well. If he had been a terminator that had turned more human in order to carry her, what exactly was she? Henry had always been a mystery; after all, he'd been a pregnant terminator. She was the daughter of something that used to be a machine! A machine that had travelled through time to give birth to her!
"What am I?" she whispered, partly to herself.
"Special. From the DNA, you are mostly human, but I should have picked up earlier that you had some abnormal, mutated DNA, resembling binary code. I analysed it when I realised you were my daughter, and you definitely will express some strange traits."
"Like what?" Nomad was a little afraid.
"At first I thought you might grow a metal exoskeleton, but the DNA only suggests hardening of the bones, not metal growth. You will be able to grow much stronger and more agile."
"Why haven't I yet?"
"You've got certain hormones acting to delay the reaction. I can tell you that it will be soon though. I gauged that the hormones would only last until late adolescence."
"I'm going to be superhuman or something?"
"I believe so."
"Wow." She said nothing for a moment. She looked up at Henry, who looked fairly calm, though expectant.
"I know you want to take this all in, but you said there was an important issue…" he prompted.
"Blaize is gone." Nomad said, coming back to earth. "He and some other humans have gone missing, they may have been taken by Goblins."
"But we should still try to find him." Henry said.
"We will."
3: A New Man
Nomad personally led the team down to the machine base. Her father accompanied her, along with some soldier volunteers. Mouse was left back at the base with one of the families, though she wasn't happy about it.
All was quiet on the surface, not a creature stirred. They entered through the northern gate, and split into three groups. One would skirt the city's borders from the left, Henry would lead another group to the right, and Nomad would take her group right down the centre, and hope to come across clues of the missing people's whereabouts.
They had the feeling of being watched, but they did not see the figure, silently spying on them from a watchtower. They progressed through the city, and the figure followed, jumping from an impossible height to land on the ground, unscathed, to follow the group that went to the left. Another figure also jumped from the tower, to follow Henry's group.
A few minutes later, Henry looked back to find that his rearguard had disappeared. He backtracked until he came across the body, eyes wide in shock, the head twisted at an impossible angle. Henry raced back to his group and sent up a warning flare, He was just in time to see one of his men dragged around a corner, and was quick enough to see something jump away from him when he ran to help. The man was scared and injured, but alive. Henry helped him up and supported him. The leaderless group had already lost two men, and the remaining ones raced back to meet Nomad and Henry's groups at the site of the flare.
Once together, they aborted the mission; they were not ready or equipped to handle whatever predator was preying on them. They took the quickest route possible out of the city, and as Nomad was at the rear, no one noticed when she was pulled through a trap door with it bolted behind her.
She kicked out at whatever had hold of her leg, and switched on her torch, trying to catch a glimpse of her attacker. There was no point shooting at something she couldn't see, because there was a risk of gas pipes. For a moment the figure avoided the flashlight, and then decided to her see him. Nomad gasped at the man who stood before her.
"Blaize?" He had metal covering part of his face, and was wearing a terminator's uniform, but it was definitely him. What had the Goblins done to him?
"Surprised?" He sneered, in a sadistic tone of voice that was unfamiliar to Nomad. He approached her and she lashed out, grazing her knuckles against his very hard face. He laughed at her, and grabbed her wrist when she tried to hit him again.
"What are you?" she asked, feeling betrayed.
"Don't you trust me anymore? Hmm, and I thought you liked me." He said, clearly not caring whether she did or not anymore. To creep her out further, he lifted her slightly bloody knuckles to his lips and licked them, enjoying the look of horror on her face.
Then his smug expression changed into one of shock, as his internal computer analysed the blood. "What are you?" he demanded, echoing her question. "We were not notified that you had been made one of us, why do you have terminator traits?"
"We?" Nomad asked.
Blaize sneered, and released her hand. "Nomad, allow me to introduce an old friend."
Another figure approached from behind Blaize and stepped into the torchlight. "Why haven't you killed this bitch yet?" A repaired and upgraded Becca asked.
"Taste this." Blaize told, her putting his finger to his lips and offering it to Becca. Her eyes widened.
"She is not human, but she's not one of us." Becca said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "The Goblins will want to analyse her." She said, and Blaize stepped towards her menacingly.
Nomad kicked out, hitting him in the chest and knocking him back into Becca, and at the same time the trapdoor was wrenched open and a hand was thrust through the opening. Nomad jumped for it and was pulled through be Henry, who'd come back for her when he realised she was missing. They bolted the trapdoor from the outside and ran for it while the two inside pounded against it. It didn't escape Nomad's notice that she was running faster than she ever had before.
4: Improvements
Nomad was pissed, upset, confused and distraught, all at once. She jumped up and kicked the boxing bag, completely snapping it off the chain holding it to the ceiling. She imagined that she'd hit Becca, and smashed her face in. Henry had just walked in, and noticed the three other bags that lay on the far side of the training room, their chains also broken.
"I take it you've gotten stronger?" he asked. Nomad didn't answer; she didn't trust herself not to start swearing out of frustration.
Henry stood beside her, while she stood still, trying to control her emotions.
"Normal terminators aren't good enough any more." He said, almost conversationally. "They've been upgrading both original terminators like Becca and experimenting on how to make humans into stronger soldiers."
"Then whatever they did to Blaize, I'll rip it out of him and shove it down the Goblins' throats." Nomad said bloodthirstily. Henry didn't comment.
"I'm going to kick Becca's face in, after I've pulled her arms off and beaten her to pieces with them." Nomad continued in a gruff, violent voice, while punching another boxing bag. Her punches slowed down after a moment, and she sunk to the floor. "I let them get him, and now he's gone." She said quietly, but with his non-human hearing, Henry had heard what she said.
"It's not your fault." He said, going towards her and putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "At least he's still alive."
"That thing was not Blaize. He's dead, and a machine has his body now. If I let myself think it's him, I won't be able to do what I have to." Nomad said resolutely. " I won't be able to terminate the thing that wears his face."
"Terminate?"
"Well, I am a terminator, or at least partly one. Maybe I'm the upgrade they were working on that got away. Whatever the reason for my existence, I will make the Goblins regret ever crossing paths with me. I'm this strong and fast already, and I have a feeling I've only just begun to improve."
Nomad quickly found another interesting improvement to her abilities. She had sufficiently de-stressed herself in the training room, and was repairing some old equipment. Among it was Henry's old modem. Nomad was trying to adjust it to pick up the Goblin frequencies, as the Machines no longer existed. Of course, it needed to be hooked into a machine for it to emit anything resembling a message, but Nomad thought that a radio would do just as well. She had exposed a wire in the modem so that she could make a connection between the two devices, and her finger grazed the unprotected strands of metal. She immediately heard code in her mind, and a second later her brain decoded it and she could understand it. She learned some very interesting information, and decided to take action.
5: Unplanned Action
The Goblins made another raid on a couple of farms, and that ship headed back to their home planet.
Nomad made sure that she was among the captured. She had gone alone, but she'd left a note for Henry and the rebels. She had enough faith in her newfound abilities to believe she could handle whatever the Goblins would throw at her. She had to stop them from kidnapping people, and, if she could, she would bring home those who had already been made slaves. She knew how to pilot a ship, and she was an expert in espionage, infiltration and, as Nathan had once laughed, 'making the shit hit the fan for the enemy'. If she waited, there would be too many humans made into Cyborgs for her to handle. Right now, she was humanity's best hope for freedom and victory, and she knew it.
She'd gone along quietly, and had not been searched, which was fortunate, as she had several concealed weapons, along with a computer with an updated modem and a lock-picking kit, in case she wasn't strong enough to break the shackles they put on her.
The journey didn't take much longer than an hour. The humans were herded into an enclosure to await assignment: slavery, or reprogramming for their cyborg experiments.
Nomad discreetly unlocked the shackles, but left them on so that she'd look as though she were being restrained. The room they was locked from the outside. She had to wait until the Goblins came to get one of them. She was going to make sure that none of those who did survived, so that the humans she was with would be safe until she could secure transport to get them out of there, the Goblin city would not be alerted.
"Does anyone else here know how to pilot a ship?" she asked the dejected prisoners. One of the men who'd fought back during the capture looked up.
"Yeah. What good is that going to do us. We're stuck here, we've lost."
"Keep quiet and wait. I'm going to need your help soon. When they come to get us, everybody's got to just act depressed and docile, ok? Shouldn't be too hard, considering our futures if I fail." Nomad shifted a little, feeling a bit antsy with all of this waiting when there were important things to do.
"If you fail what?" The guy asked suspiciously.
"Just wait and see." If Nomad told them the plan, they might somehow give it away if they didn't act normally. And also, there had been traitors in the past, those who would sell-out their fellow humans for a chance to gain favour and privilege with the Machines and Goblins.
She didn't have to wait too long for the goblins to come and get their first victim for reprogramming and upgrading. They locked the door behind them, which was a waste of time. It would be a simple matter for anyone to get the keys if they took out the one holding them. There were three of them, odds that Nomad liked. Another piece of luck, two walked towards a person next to Nomad. They put a chain around the man's neck before going for the shackles. Nomad waited until they had just unlocked the person's shackles and turned to lead him away.
She slipped her wrists from her shackles, grabbed two daggers from a concealed pouch on her back under her jacket and stepped forward to snake her hands around the Goblins' throats to slit them. Before the one at the door could cry out an alarm, she threw one of her daggers to lodge itself between the Goblin's eyes. He slid to the floor as Nomad cautioned the others to be quiet.
She retrieved the keys and her daggers, and unlocked the collar on the poor frightened man, and then went over to the pilot.
"What's your name?" She asked as she unlocked his restraints.
"Ben. Why didn't they search you? Why did you let yourself be caught?"
Nomad moved to the next person. "They didn't search me because a) I didn't fight back, b) I'm just a helpless little girl and c) I hid my weapons well and didn't make it obvious that I had them. I want you guys to stay here for a few minutes until I'm ready to get you to a ship. Then I want you, Ben, to take them back home." She handed the keys to him and took out her laptop, while he freed the others.
"If you could get out of the restraints, why didn't you hijack the ship when you were on it?" a woman asked.
"Because I'm not just trying to save you guys. The only way I was going to get to this planet in order to do some damage was in the Goblins' custody." Nomad used a screwdriver to pry loose a wall panel where she suspected there would be… yes, computer cables.
She hooked up the laptop to it and hacked into the Goblin network. She looked up building schematics and the images for the motion detectors. In minutes she knew exactly where she was going, and where to send the others.
She recorded some images from the cameras and made sure that nothing moved in the footage she had. She then sent that footage back into the network so that it would repeat and not show the Goblins their activities. Her laptop was now the only computer that really saw what the cameras where seeing.
She put the laptop in with the wires and replaced the panel. She then turned on the modem in her pack, linking to the computer. Through a hole in her pack and jacket, some wires from the modem had been taped to her skin. In her mind she could now see exactly what was going on in front of the cameras.
"You're staying here, alone?" Ben asked incredulously.
"Don't underestimate me, that's supposed to become the Goblins' mistake. I've been trained to fight my entire life. I know what I'm doing, and thanks to my computer, I know what the Goblins are doing."
"How will you know where they are if you left it in that panel?" The woman asked.
"Uh, earpiece." Nomad did not want to explain herself, especially since she didn't completely understand what she was or what she could do herself. "I've got someone at home, who's receiving the images via the modem on that computer. He's going to tell me when to go and where to go."
"So when do we go and where do we go?" Ben asked, having freed the last person.
"To the nearest aircraft hangar which is next door, in about eighty seconds. It's almost siesta time for the Goblins. Fewer guards. Most of the other slaves will be locked up, but left alone. I'll be able to free some more before you guys go."
"What about you?"
"I can fly a ship too. I've got some explosives and a gun. I'll do some damage, hopefully enough to at least make them think twice about stealing people from earth, grab as many prisoners as I can and make my way back home."
"What about the Goblins' computerised defences? Gun turrets, electronically locked doors, whatever else they've managed to create?"
"We avoid them, or I explode them with a grenade, once you're gone I'll make my way towards a main terminal and see if I can turn it on them."
"You think you can reprogram an alien defence system?" One of the others asked sceptically.
"Have ye a little faith. They said I couldn't reprogram a terminator, I've done it. I'm not supposed to be able to hack into their network either, but you've just seen me do that. Besides, you'll be long gone by the time I try. If I fail, it won't affect you. If I succeed, the war becomes a little easier. Now stay behind me, stay close, keep quiet, and if any of you betrays me I will shoot you and leave you to die. The Goblins won't try to save you. I am trying to save you, however, so you'd better listen to what I tell you to do."
Nomad slowly unlocked the door, making as little noise as possible as she pulled it open. It was strange to see herself in her mind from the image on the camera that was on the ceiling of the room she stepped into. It was a laboratory, and it was deserted. She walked to an oven-like machine and placed a bomb in it, turning the heat on very low. She opened a door where more slaves were being held and quickly freed them, giving them a similar speech that she'd given the others. They followed her meekly as she led them out of the lab and into the aircraft hangar.
She made them wait just outside, as she snuck around the aircraft, silently and swiftly killing any Goblin pilots she came across with her daggers. When the area was free of enemies, she called in the others.
"Go, go, go!" she whispered as she directed them into a craft that was fast and large enough to fit them all in. "Don't stop until you get back to earth." She cautioned.
"Be careful." Ben told her as he closed the door.
Nomad then made her way to the hangar's main terminal, and opened the doors for Ben. She saw a hand wave at her through the windshield as they rose into the atmosphere. Nomad hoped no one would realise that the ship leaving the planet wasn't meant to be.
6: The New Bitch in Town
With the schematics in mind, she slipped from building to building down the empty streets towards the Goblins base of defence. She had about twenty minutes before the end of siesta, and fifteen minutes before the bomb went off, taking out the lab.
When the building was in sight, she pulled up it's defence system. From here, she couldn't reprogram it, but she could figure out what she had to avoid until she could get to the source in its lowest basement. Her best bet was the ventilation ducts, which she could just fit both her and her pack in. After exposing enough wires to do the same trick with the motion detectors in this building with a spare modem, this time not having to use her laptop as she had no witnesses, she followed her internal map downwards.
She still had two levels to go when the duct stopped, opening out into a room full of terminators and Cyborgs, all of them seeming to be shut down, standing in rows. She had to go on foot the last two levels. She removed the panel as quietly as she could, and lowered herself to the floor. She crept past the machines, their eyes open but unseeing. There were no cameras in this room, so she would not be able to monitor their movements. At the door at the other end of the room she refrained from breathing a sigh of relief, in case their sound sensors were still activated. As quietly as she could, she closed the door behind her and went down the stairs.
The last room was guarded by a gun turret, and there was nothing Nomad could do but blow it up. She locked the door behind her, out of range of the gun for the moment. She attached a bomb to it, that would explode if the door were opened unless she deactivated it first. Hopefully the machines did not have their sound sensors activated, otherwise she would have to rely on the door to keep them out until she finished with the computer. She pulled out a grenade, removed the pin and threw it towards the gun, her accuracy surprising her as it landed directly in the barrel. It moved a little, trying to pinpoint where the movement had come from, before the grenade blew it to pieces.
Wasting no time, Nomad avoided the shrapnel and ran towards the other end of the room, watching herself on camera again as the motion detectors failed to alert the occupants of the building, though she was sure that the machines in the room above her were trying to find out where the noise had come from. Using her strength to wrench open the last trapdoor, she lowered herself into the room, before shooting the Goblin guard who was reaching for his communicator.
She couldn't block the trapdoor, so she moved quickly, knowing that once the machines tried to come downstairs, the door wouldn't hold them for long. At the terminal, she didn't bother with the keypads, she just ripped open the console and grabbed some wires. She braced herself, fighting off the virus and hacker protections that flew through her veins towards her mind. She had been ready for this, and was betting her life on having a stronger mind than the computer. She felt pain as her blood vessels seemed to burn with foreign computer code, but she remained still, determined to be resilient, and fought it back with her own code.
After what seemed like excruciating hours, the foreign code exhausted itself, and Nomad was given free run into the very heart of the Goblin's defences. She removed all programs that saw humans as a threat, and made it so any computerised doors would open on recognition of a human. She created a program that would recognise Goblins and terminators as enemies, and their own defences would fire on them and lock them out. For this program she put a time delay on it, so that the Goblins wouldn't realise what she'd done until she got away from the building. In her mind she saw that she only had a few minutes before the lab's bomb went off, and set the program to coincide with that distraction, hopefully creating some confusion and panic in which to escape in.
Then she had a brainwave. The terminators had modems, maybe she could make them work for her. She modified her defence programs to include only terminators and Cyborgs under Goblin control. She then worked on reaching the modems of the terminators. Any of those awake, she programmed to sleep, just as she heard the bomb go off on the door on the floor above.
"Come on." She whispered to herself. Any sleeping terminators had lowered defences, and soon got orders to shoot and kill all Goblins, and to get humans to the spacecraft to escape, and when they had a full load they were to pilot it back to earth. She woke them back up and hoped for the best. She allowed the programs to filter out into other machines connected to it. She then destroyed the terminal so that no one could undo her work without rebuilding it, and they had to get past terminators and reprogrammed defences to do so. The lab bomb would have gone off by now, but she was far enough not to have heard it.
She left another bomb in the defence room for luck, and ran for the trapdoor, knowing that if her programs didn't work then she was going to have to fight her way out. She wasn't afraid of one terminator, she knew she was stronger and faster and smarter, but there had been many in the room upstairs. She had no idea what kind of effect her program might have on Cyborgs.
She pulled herself into the guard room, noting the open door with a damaged terminator lying on the floor, but no operational terminators were in sight. It might have worked, they were probably off hunting Goblins!
In the motion sensors image she saw a flash of movement in the shadows behind her and reacted too slowly to avoid the kick in her back that caused her to fall forward to lay sprawled on the floor. She rolled over and flipped to her feet to face Blaize. She had thought he was still back on earth.
He kicked the trapdoor closed and gave her a calculating stare. Nomad wasn't going to run this time. For one thing, he'd have chased her down, and for another, she wanted to face him, to end the creature he'd become.
"Have you come to terminate me, Blaize?" she asked, showing no emotion, just like a terminator.
"Well, I had orders to bring you in for examination, but for some reason I'm not receiving any orders anymore, Your work?" he asked, trying to stare her down without success.
"Of course." She replied.
"And if I'm free from orders, I'm free to terminate you." He took a step towards her, but Nomad didn't even flinch.
"Not if you're terminated first." With that she went for her gun in her pack. Too quickly, Blaize reached her and knocked it out of her hands, causing it to break apart as it hit the wall with so much force. He tried to hit her face but she grabbed his arm and used it to ram him into the wall. She grabbed the back of his head and smacked it back into the wall before throwing him away from her.
She went to wipe the blood from her hands as he got back to his feet, but then, as he watched her, she raised a finger to her lips to echo what he had done to her back on earth. She quickly found out his weaknesses. He still had a heart, even if it was surrounded by wiring. He had all of his organs, and if she damaged them enough he would die just like any human. He hadn't been affected by the programming because he was still partly human, and retained some free will.
He jumped at her and she sidestepped his kick, instead kicking him in the back of the neck as he passed her. She had kicked hard enough to snap the wiring leading to his brain as he passed, and he collapsed to the floor. She went to walk past him to the door, but sentimentality stopped her. She looked back at him.
He was lying so that she couldn't see the side of his face with the metal. He looked almost sweet again, as though he were sleeping. She knelt by him to brush the hair from his face. She rolled him over and sat him up, leaning him against her as a tear escaped her lowered lids.
"Goodbye Blaize." She whispered, before gently kissing him on the lips. She felt something respond in his mind and in one split second she realised that he could be revived, and she wiped the Cyborg programming clean from his body. She introduced enough power to his brain to revive it from it's slumber, and the old Blaize opened his eyes.
"Nomad?" he asked. "Where are we? Why can't I move?"
"You're paralysed. Do you remember why?"
"I, I was trying to kill you. I don't feel the machine anymore, what did you do?" He looked innocent again, all sadism and cruelty gone from his expression.
"I freed you. And, as you are now partly machine, I can repair you. But not here, I've got to get you back home. I'll give you answers once we're safe, ok?" She wiped the blood off his face.
"But I can't walk." He said.
In answer, Nomad picked him up as though he weighed nothing, and put him over her shoulder. She left her gun where it was as it was useless. She froze when she saw a terminator walking around the room up the stairs, but it only glanced at her then ignored her, going back to it's task of hunting Goblins.
She knew there was no way she could get Blaize up through the ventilation, so she ordered the terminator to guide and guard her through the building to the outside. It obeyed, opening a door to lead her through the building.
The terminators were ignoring her, but she stayed out of sight as much as possible in case of more Cyborgs. So far they'd only made about twenty, but while she was carrying Blaize she didn't want to run into any of them.
In a different aircraft hanger, the terminator led her to a ship, as others filled with confused humans lifted off to head back to earth. She got in and lay Blaize down next to a frightened woman, asking her to watch him. She then made her way to the pilot. In a bizarre twist of fate, Becca sat at the console. Nomad immediately snapped her neck, and was about to dump her on the ground outside but decided to take her back to be taken apart and burned, ensuring that she could never be repaired again.
With her full ship, Nomad closed the doors and lifted off, to follow dozens of others back to earth.
The End