Circle of Fate and Pain
by Elliot Bowers
Chapter 14—Him Again…and Again
1.
Walking along this sunset-illuminated sidewalk, Sieben and Jack Bent were looking for someplace safe to go and plan their next course of action. They couldn't go back to that night-club—especially since those strange short men had taken it over. Also true was how there was another Sieben in there. So... Where could they go? Exactly where, Jack Bent could not exactly be sure. And exactly how they were going to deal with this problem of things going wrong, he did not know. So he asked the replicate-girl.
"Like... Hey! Don't ask me!" exclaimed Sieben. "All of this weirdness is really getting to me! I'm still trying to get over how there's another me out on a date with Kyrie. Jeez, is this really happening?"
Now there's a 10,000-chip question! Jack Bent barely understood himself what was going on at all. All he had in mind were distant and haphazard memories of something about someone screwing up karma and machinery that ought not exist: strips and swaths of thought about a whacked-out scientist whose favorite past-time was somewhere between cosmic science and flan consumption. Then something very terrible happened, and it happened again, happened again... It would likely happen yet again—an event to obliterate this part of the universe to make it go around again.
"Why in tarnation did that freak-ball scientist have to muddle and fuddle with karma?" asked Jack Bent aloud. Sieben tilted her head to the right, giving Jack Bent a sideward and vaguely curious look. "What I mean is, why in Hell's Bells would a scientist fiddle and muddle around with karma? It's not like nuclear power. You can't use it to easily make electricity or power one of those space-ships from the War. You can do that with fusion power—easily enough. Or if you like it dirty and dangerous, you can for fission. Fooling around with karma... It's a great big Why?"
Sieben looked ahead again, looking in the direction they were walking. She gave a quick shrug, gold-colored open jacket flapping. "Like... Maybe the scientist was bored and stuff. There was this old saying about bored hands being the workshop of evil. You're talking about somebody from Zalem, right? So the bored scientist probably found something to do, you know?"
To this, Jack Bent shook his head. "Well, golly! He must have been thinking, 'I'm bored! I think the thing to do now is to analyze and draw out one of the critical forces of the fabric of reality. Then I'll fool around with it until something especially freaky happens!' Yeah, and he must have had at least six bowls of flan to go with the thought, too."
"Maybe he didn't know any better, like a curious kid," countered Sieben. "Like, what I'm saying is, where would the world be if everybody just stopped doing new stuff and just kept going on the same-old, lame-old way? Maybe he thought he was doing something good for the world...for once."
Jack Bent refused this, too. Saying, "Nope, that wily haired scientist must have known at least a little what kind of freak-boy danger levels he was running. There had to be some way he'd know what he was doing." He and Sieben went on a few more steps without talking. Then he added, "Look, scientists have always had some kind of signs that what they were doing was crazy dangerous. In the past, scientists doing dangerous experiments have always had warnings. Warnings, like people-getting-hurt sort of warnings. The first experiments with radiation killed some of the original scientists involved. And when nuclear bombs exploded, people were made blind, sick, full of cancers, and dead. All of that was just the universe's way of letting humanity know that certain forces needed some extra care. Little signs... I'm thinking of little signs. So why did he have to go ahead and slam the big red button labeled ON, eh? Or maybe..." A thought came to mind about that. It made Jack Bent stop walking and smile like a goofball.
"Like, why are you stopping?" asked Sieben pointedly, stopping herself. "And why are you smiling like a goofball?" She put her hands on skirt-covered hips. "You could tell me, you know! It's not like I can open up your head and find out what you're thinking. Or those jerks in the gold-colored coveralls could maybe do something like that... Those little freaks, by the way, could be watching us right now!"
"I've got to figure out how we can get back to the bar," mumbled Jack Bent. "That's probably the only other way I can see it. Hmm yeah… And another one of her drinks could really help me out. Okay! Let's go!"
"What the Hell!" exclaimed Sieben. Then she clenched her fists and impatiently stomped her left foot. "How can you think of drinking beer at a time like this!" The replicate-girl began to impatiently tap that left foot—the sound of her right mini-boot audible because there was no traffic on the city road. Tap-tap-tap-tap… "Look... If you get plastered now, you'll be slobbering and staggering all over the place. Then what are you gonna do if those little guys in gold coveralls come for you?"
"No, no, no...! Don't be silly. I'm not talking about getting drunk!" countered Jack Bent. "The kind of bar I'm thinking about isn't just that kind of bar. Something...else always goes on there. It's..." Sieben kept giving that look "If you're not going to give me any trust, Sieben, at least give it to me on loan. This place isn't the sort of place a person would want to get drunk in, even if a person could figure out how to get to this place at all. This kind of bar... You don't find it. It finds you."
"Okay, Mister I-Don't-Like-Making-Sense Man," commented Sieben, hands on leather-covered hips and big shiny dark eyes wide in annoyance, her voice higher pitched than usual. "So, like. Where is this mystery place, huh? Wait... Is it just in your imagination? Really! Well, gosh! Let's just climb into your head and get lost! Just hold still while I bash open your head... Or you should take some drugs and imagine you were there. Now where's a junkie-dealer when you need one?"
The curly haired man in tee shirt and slacks looked past Sieben. "Well, I'll be snookered! I'll tell you what. The bar's not far from here. You could even say that it's pretty darned close." Jack Bent smiled. He looked past the pretty replicate girl. "Could say that—because it is."
"Like, what are you talking about!" impatiently exclaimed Sieben. Then she whirled around—her long dark hair fluttering and gold-colored jacket flapping. Having turned around, she could not immediately believe her own eyes. "Where'd this come from!"
Indeed, there so happened to be a certain place-in-question that she didn't notice before. Nobody could have missed this place—because there were letters written in three-foot high neon letters. The Crimson Circle. Drinking places hereabouts in Scrap Iron City had odd names at times, some in different languages. Except this one had a name that even felt weird.
It wasn't just the name. No... There was something else about this place. It just wasn't here a second ago. In fact, this was just a food shop or something: windows, signs and all. Now it was the two-way entrance to what was most certainly a drinking establishment. Only bars had this kind of door. Even if a person didn't know how to read--as many in Scrap Iron City didn't--a person could look for a picture-sign of a beer mug or look for this kind of door. Drinking bars most often had the same kinds of doors. There was no way that this doorway could have just appeared
Wasn't here a second ago, thought the replicate-girl... A careful step brought her towards this door, a sort of something-isn't-right sort of feeling inside her. She leaned forward and reached out with her left arm—metal fingers reaching. Then a haze of static...fazed over her vision. "Oo-h-h-h..." complained the replicate-girl. She began to feel a little woozy. Something...was interfering with her bio-chip mind. Both her hands went to the synthetic skin of her forehead, and she staggered back. "Hey...! Like, what's going on? My brain is malfunctioning. I... I can't think straight. Really dizzy…" She staggered backwards.
"Your brain's not working right? Heh, since when is that news?" asked Jack Bent. "Only fooling you, cutie! Alright, I don't know how long the door's going to stay open. We have to get in there. Heck, we're lucky it appeared so conveniently at all. Let's boogie!"
A hand grabbed Sieben's right wrist—where the metal emerged from the right sleeve of her leather jacket. "What...? Wait a sec!" complained a woozy and confused Sieben. "I'm not sure I can go through there... Hey!"
It was too late to stop now! Her words were swallowed up the second she was taken beyond the open doorway. Opened, the doorway itself was a tall rectangle of darkness that seemed to also swallow any and all sort of light that shone in. There was no seeing beyond the doorway from this side. And since both people went in, the door shut.
Then it was just an ordinary front entrance to your typical store-front market for food—nothing odd about it. There were lots of store-front businesses like this throughout Scrap Iron City. Also true was how most of them were a little more broken down-looking. There were no foodstuffs in the carts set to the left and right of the door, but there were little bits of leaves and grain-bits from when there was food being sold. A great big window to the right of the door showed a view inside of crates where there actually were stocks of food set up for customers: sacks of corn, boxes of crunchy dried beans and the sort of fruit that could go a while without refrigeration... Nope, there hadn't been a bar here at all. One certainly didn't appear for ninety seconds. And no one certainly disappeared beyond the darkened doorway to go into here.
They were now standing near the entrance to this bar. Reddish-colored sunset light slanted in from the windows to illuminate tables. "You big jerk!" exclaimed Sieben. She shoved Jack Bent, making him go Whoa and fall down. "Like, what'd you have to do that for? I wasn't ready to go yet. What if the radiation would've messed up my brain? My brain case is tough against most things, but I'm still more sensitive than fleshies to electromagnetic interference and stuff."
"Well, golly... Sorry 'bout that. But we had to go," explained Jack Bent as he stared across the main room. There was the red-haired female bartender again—slender and pretty in tight-fitting black pants and white blouse worn with black vest. "Hey! Thanks for inviting us!" He then began to stride over towards where the female bartender was standing and waiting. Sieben followed.
"'Tis thee yet again," commented the female bartender. She glanced at Sieben walking over here. "Did ye involve yet another to thy cycles 'round thy circuit o' existence? Or do ye seek to drop the ball?"
Now both Sieben and Jack Bent "I'd drop it most definitely," said Jack Bent. "This game's getting too red for me to play anymore. Now I want out. We both want out. Right Sieben?"
Sieben began saying, "Like... I don't know about this game you're talking about! I just want everything to get back to normal." She put her right hand to her neck—lengths of delicate machinery there that resembled human neck muscles. "I remember feeling my head being yanked off of my body. Next thing I know, somebody in some weird dark place fixed me back up. It was some place somewhere else or something... I come back, and things start getting weird."
Suddenly, the female bartender's hands were on Jack Bent's shoulders—close to closing around his neck. "Ye did verily take thy mechanical wench to the Other place? Ye did such as that!" shrieked the female bartender. "'Tis not in the plans! Ye did verily trifle with th' dark machines! Verily, thou hast undone us all!"
A confused look to her face, Sieben looked to the female bartender, then looked at Jack Bent. The female bartender still had a grip on Jack Bent... "What! What's going on? Hey lady! Like, let him go! He saved me! He..." Thwack-k-k!
When the static and damage lines cleared from her vision, when her systems recovered, Sieben realized that she was now all the way across the room. Something must have hit her—something hard. She was nearly to the windows that let in the sunset-colored light. Somehow, this happened without her crashing into any of the tables. The replicate-girl made a quick flexing maneuver to snap to her feet. Then she ran towards the bar. Thwack!
"Ee-eigh!" shrieked the replicate girl when she was stuck again—flying to go smack against the wall, bouncing off it and landing on the floor. This left her lying on her side with her left leg drawn inward and both arms splayed, a side of her long dark hair obscuring her face, her jacket askew. Something very fast and very powerful must have hit her to make her go flying.
Troubling as that impact was, there was no real damage—other than her pride. Sieben's feminine electromechanical body was designed for agility and endurance—able to take hits. And since she had a bio-chip for a brain, there was no concussion. Still, there was a slight haze of static to her vision now. She was actually more confused than hurt. And she was a little frightened, too. Still, the replicate-girl stood shakily up. "What'd I ever do to you, huh? You didn't have to hit me and stuff! And let him go before I kick your ass, invisible attacks or not!"
"Wa-hey-y-y! Everything's cool, Sieben," said Jack Bent, staring into the eyes of the beautiful female bartender. Though seething with anger, the female bartender still retained a look of beauty—even as her fingers began to sink painfully into his shoulder-muscles. "You can't do anything against her in this place, anyway. This is her reality." Speaking to the female bartender, he said, "Look, I couldn't do it alone. Somebody had to help me. Besides, things can't get worst any faster than they are."
"Nevertheless, 'tis not the place o' the likes o' thee to trifle with th' dark machines o' th' Others," insisted the female bartender. "Ye couldst' obliterated what little consistency remained o' the universe. 'Tis contribution to their plan. Besides, ye've interfered with th' destiny o' the lass."
"Now wait a second," insisted Jack Bent. "It wouldn't matter what happened to Sieben anyway. The replicate-girl was going to end up being taken to the Other place, anyway. You know what happens there. And what about Sechs, huh? Sechs isn't supposed to be here according to what's 'supposed to happen.' The Sechs replicate is working for them now. If they could use a replicate, then why can't I use a replicate to stop them?"
For a moment, the female bartender still kept gripping Jack Bent. Her seemingly delicate fingers actually were supernaturally strong—still gripping deeply into Jack Bent's shoulders. This made the man grimace a little. Red wetness began to soak around the areas where the fingers dug into tee-shirt cloth and shoulders... Then she let him go.
"Aye... I'll grant ye that," said the female bartender. She suddenly looked sadly to the left—looking out the sunset-colored windows. Other than the sunlight, the city-scape out there looked...darkened. It was as if the world beyond this bar was somehow...changed. Or it was about to be obliterated, as if what little sunset there was out there kept everything from being overtaken by the forces of darkness and night. "'Tis little in the vast sway o' this universe. Ye didst verily partake o' their dark stylings."
"Well, you can afford to be all high and mighty in attitude because you don't have to go out there and face them," said Jack Bent. He sat down atop one of the bar-stools. "The little bastards seem to be popping up everywhere. It's bad enough that they got me already. I don't even know what they did to me when they did—though my stomach hurts like Hell sometimes... Maybe I'm dying right now because of them. All I knew is that I needed some help to do what I can to keep them from fulfilling their master plan."
"Wait a sec..." said Sieben aloud. "I wanna get back at Sechs. Sechs, that freak! That thingought not even be allowed to exist! Whose idea was it to make that monster, anyway?"
A person would believe that a replicate is merely a bio-chipped being with a with a slightly altered bio-chip body. Except Sieben was still a person—her mind programmed to emulate humanity, emotions and all. And right now, some kind of emotion was telling her not to face Sechs again or anything associated with that nightmarish replicate. Then there was how Sechs was partnered with all of those short freaks!
Something began to happen outside. Something was beginning to cloud up the sunset-toned light shining through the large picture-window of this place. "What's happening? What's that mean?"
Even as Sieben watched, more things were happening beyond the barrier of glass that separated this bar from that other world outside. The sunset-colored light darkened and weakened. Outside, the buildings began to darken, crumble in places—as if rotting somewhat. Concrete debris was strewn in the street. Some of the buildings even had their tops crumble out of existence, as if they were being eaten by time. Across the street and looking into that sunset-colored place, slight views of dark shadowy shapes were moving along... The sights of those dark shapes made Sieben feel sick with dread.
"Do ye see?" asked the female bartender. "Now, ye shall verily see the culmination o' their plan. 'Tis the darkness o' th' final oblivion. 'Tis the end o' the universe, 'tis their dark plan." She nodded. "Aye... The life o' humanity has been but a dream. Now comes th' nightmare. Watch more closely, lass and lad alike..."
Watch what? Sieben kept looking out the picture window. Soon, she noticed something else. There were faint streaks of a glowing crimson—faint and barely noticeable. If the female bartender hadn't told her to look more carefully, Sieben would not have noticed them. Now she did. Then there was how those shadowy things became a little bit more clear to see: dark shadowy forms that barely hid the bodies of distorted creatures that could have once been human a long, long time ago. The things were walking around as if they owned the city now..."
"No!" screamed Sieben, hands pressed to the glass. "I don't want the world ending up that way and… Oh my gosh! Kyrie's out there!" Sieben began to pound the glass of the window—though somehow unable to break it. It was as if this glass was stuck in another universe.
The female bartender gave a slow and wise nod. "'Tis naught to do but resist. Go forth, assist Jack Bent. Thy comrade requires assistance in saving thy world. If not..." She looked beyond Sieben and out at the view outside: a land of darkness. "Th' darkness has not won out yet. There is yet the golden light o' hope still"
2.
They stepped outside of the one-story city building—Sieben and Jack Bent. It was still somehow the same time of day out here when they left, oddly enough. Slanting sunlight from the sky made for sunset-colored illumination. To the left and right sides of this street, the tops of buildings set in the low gold color of the dying day. It was all illumination of the dying daylight as night was coming darkly on. And given the angle of the sunlight, not only did it make for most things being cast in softer tones, it also made the shadows much longer. The darkness was on its way.
Darkness, shadows... There was also a sense of abandonment and evacuation to everything. Other than Sieben herself and Jack Bent, there seems to have been just empty streets. Wind howled along the emptied city streets, howling between buildings. It seemed especially lonely to Sieben and made her feel a little scared. This replicate-girl turned around to look back at the door they stepped through, wishing for a way back.
Except the door wasn't there. It figures, she thought. Maybe the thing wasn't really there in the first place. That sort of thing would have bothered her before. She was just getting used to little things of that sort. It all seemed to make its own kind of sense. Fwap-p-p!
A section of sidewalk just flipped open. There was just enough time for Sieben to think, What...? And in that sliver of time, she just so happen to see at least a dozen of those short muscular mutants in gold-colored coveralls suddenly start scrambling up out of the sidewalk-hole. It was a section of sidewalk that was just two meters from where Jack Bent was standing.
"Elkric!" came a voice from behind. Sieben turned around. Even more of those short muscular midgets in gold-colored coveralls were coming out of a darkened alley. Combined with the ones climbing up out of the sidewalk, they were very soon surrounded. "Satya-a-agraha! Oblama—larb-lotom! Larb-lotom, elkric!" they chanted—among other things Sieben could not understand. And that was when they got Jack Bent.
Swish-thunch! One of the little freaks swung a very big hammer—the head of the hammer actually the size of a human head. It struckJack Bent in the chest and made for some kind of awful wet crunch sound. The curly haired man took an unsteady step backwards as the hammer dropped away from his crushed chest.
There he stood, a surprised look on his face. His mouth moved... The curly haired man in tee shirt and jeans was trying to say something. Or he was trying to breathe. He could do neither. Instead, he coughed once and collapsed to lie down on the sidewalk.
There, the man clutched his broken chest while writhing on the sidewalk. This can't be happening. He wasn't looking up at Sieben. Nor was he at all looking at the short muscular being in gold-colored coveralls that did the deed with the hammer. His surprised, wide-open eyes were looking up at the gold-colored low glow of the sunset-colored sky above. Then he began to shake his head, his mouth still open with no words or breath moving through. This can't be happening, he seemed to be thinking, slowly shaking his head in denial. No... No... This isn't happening at all.
"Jack...?" exclaimed the replicate-girl, sinking to her knees beside the fallen curly haired man. She found her focus narrowing to just Jack Bent lying here on the sidewalk, ignoring the surrounding buildings, ignoring the muscular mutants in gold-colored coveralls that were even closer. "Jack! Please get up!" Her caring hands—hands of metal—sought his gnarled flesh hands."Like, come on, dude!"
He could not get up. Instead, the man clutched Sieben's hands while squirming on the sidewalk. The twisted pain and misery on his face showed the misery within as dark fluid colored his shirt. Briefly, he looked at Sieben—before he looked away and stopped moving.
This was his death. There was no graceful, choreographed collapse to the ground. It was not a clean and beautiful event for the man. Instead, there was just misery and pain. It was his own inner Hell until surrendering to the final darkness and madness.
"Arm-m'raka, elkric!" declared one of those midgets in gold-colored coveralls. "Oblamah!" At least six of them all bent over to take hold of Jack Bent. All sorts of big strong calloused hands grabbed his wrists and arms, more grabbing ankles. Oh yes, they most certainly got him. They got him good. Now they were starting to take him away.
Sieben snapped to her feet and began fighting. "Let...him...go, you creepy little freaks!" She began to swiftly kick and punch at the muscular short men, her legs and arms beginning to strike and kick—her long dark hair following her like a banner. Her leather skirt ripped up a side in the process, and her leather jacket flapped about as she struck and moved about, kicking and hitting.
Every one of her blows broke flesh and smashed the bones beneath muscle. She must have landed over two-dozen hits on the mutants. Tearing her leather skirt only made it easier for her to move around, even if her leather jacket hampered her a bit.
And the replicate-girl kept fighting, kept kicking and hitting. Every one of her strikes impacted the flesh of an enemy, hitting with machine-speed. The replicate-girl was sure that her attacks were doing serious bodily harm to these short men in gold-colored coveralls. But for every one of them she must have knocked out or killed, there were at least three more to take each fallen one's place.
They were everywhere. She could feel them bumping into her, rubbing against her legs and hips, more of them touching the back of her leather jacket, a crowd of the freaks all jostling and such. Even if they did not hit back, just the sheer press of their numbers insured that she could not beat them all. "Elkric...! Satyagraha, lottor-lob-mo!" they said some more. "Arm-m'raka!"
Then they suddenly began going away again. Droves of them began to hobble over to the darkened alleyway. More of them began going down into that flipped-open section of sidewalk. Overall, they were getting away from here after doing what they came to get done. Some of them stayed behind long enough to grab their dead and fallen comrades by the ankles before running away.
The last of them disappeared into an alley. And that was it. There were no more of those short muscular guys in gold coveralls. No more of them swarmed all over the sidewalk. All of this sidewalk and the street suddenly became especially abandoned—except for the breeze. The wind howled once before quieting.
Where were they taking him? "Jack..!" exclaimed Sieben. She looked anxiously around. Again going to her knees, easier to do since her skirt was ripped, the replicate-girl crawled along the sidewalk as her metal fingers touched and scraped for the opening. When there was no way she could find which section of sidewalk flipped open, the sudden will-stealing streak of fear and worry seemed to rob her of her strength, making her sit down she sat down hard on her butt. She tilted back her head to scream. "Answer me-e-e-e-e!"
The only thing that answered her was a slight and distant echo of her own voice. It did sound pathetic and distant. Even that was snatched away by the how-w-wling of the city breeze. The breeze now seemed to be the only other thing here—a solitary replicate-girl among the buildings.
So of course there was no answer from him. There was no sight of the curly haired man in tee shirt and shorts. In fact, there seemed to be no one on this city sidewalk but herself. He's gone, came the dark thought to her mind. Except by gone, the replicate-girl had the idea that—where Jack Bent was taken—he would likely not come back. They killed him. Then they took away his dead body.
Sieben began to feel her willpower breaking down. As a fully synthetic replicate person, both her body and mind were robotic: an electromechanical body shaped like that of a cyborg female, her brain a bio-chip designed to make her seem as if her mind was human. Synthetic skin made for a realistic face, with polymer strands for her long dark silky hair cascading from her scalp, ocular-shaped cameras for eyes. As a replicate, she ought not be really afraid of anything. So why did she feel a little bit shaky? Something else was making her feel this way.
Then the replicate-girl began to feel something else... The static lines began to...blur over her vision a little. It made for her feeling even more odd, a little bit numb all over. Something else was wrong here. She only knew what was wrong when a certain symbol appeared within a corner of her mind. It was an Ancient symbol made with a circle, with three triangles inside—the triangles in a tri-formation, their apexes touching in the middle. That symbol represented dangerous levels of radiation.
The place where Jack Bent was taken away, into the sidewalk... This place was heating up with dangerous levels of nuclear radiation. The radiation was damaging Sieben's insides right now—the radiation interfering with her bio-chip mind and maybe damaging it. It was hurting her. It's hurting my brain.
The thought was enough to spur Sieben into standing on shaky legs... For once, she regretted having long legs: nice stylish legs to look at, but just a little ungainly when things were troublesome. At least the thigh-length tear in her leather skirt made it easier for her to get up and go away. That radiation symbol flickered lower in her troubled mind as she stagger-walked away. The feeling was still all over.
And Sieben kept going that way—the sunset-golden light shining on her face and coloring everything. There was dizziness and numbness all over her from the radiation. Only when the replicate-girl made it about forty meters away did she begin to feel a little better. A look back at where she was on the sidewalk... That made for a deep red glare to her vision, so she looked away again. It was the sort of radiation from inside nuclear fusion generators or from outer space: gamma ray radiation, beta rays, out-of-control X-rays...those kinds. The sun gave off multiple kinds of radiation, sure. Yet the atmosphere around the planet had a layer that blocked out most of the worst kinds.
It was the sort of energy that made terrible things happen: invisible, silent and harmful. Those forms of radiation gave humans all kinds of cancers, made them sick or blind. Those kinds of radiation could also make humans give birth to miserably deformed children. In other words, those would be mutants. Though replicates and other kinds of robots never had to worry about cancer or deformed children, there was still the damage that could be caused by radiation. The wrong kinds or too intense levels of radiation could cause severe interference and damage. That was why Sieben was worried and walking away.
Sieben's mind was a bio-chip and somewhat less vulnerable than general electronics. Also, her chip-brain was hardened, shielded. But still, if she wasn't careful, the radiation could damage or wipe out parts of her mind. It would leave her a mindless thing, leaving her body to fall down like a life-sized dead doll. And there she would stay, never to rot or die, her internal power supply on and leaving her like that for hundreds of years. Since her body was made of various advanced metallic alloys invincible to rust, severe impacts and even most kinds of bullets, her body would lie there for at least twenty thousand years more: her mind damaged and body paralyzed. At least when humans died, they were dead—everything going into darkness or something They went away. And when they died, where did they go?
Elk-ric! Sieben looked around in searching for the source of that sound. That was most certainly the voice of one of those muscular midgets in gold-colored coveralls—a harsh voice that sounded as if it was from a deformed throat with cancer in it. Where was the little bastard? They were likely hiding. Oblamah... That was another sound, coming from another direction to echo among the sunset-colored buildings and hard street. Then the wind howled, fluttering her light leather jacket and playing with her hair.
It also howled in her ears. Go find Okotonz. "Who said that!" exclaimed Sieben. She put her right hand to right ear: hard metal fingertips on a delicate synth-flesh earlobe. She thought that someone just whispered something in her right ear. Of course there was no one around here now.
Maybe the radiation was beginning to interfere with more of her bio-chip mind. In that case, the thing to do was to get away from here. Sieben first began to move quickly. Then her movement turned into a light jog... The jogging turned into a run
Flashes of that moment of Jack Bent's defeat flickered through her mind as she ran. It still was something terrible, even if she didn't know him for too long. The last thing Sieben remembered of poor Jack Bent was him sadly shaking his head, a trickle of dark and strange-smelling fluid seeped from his mouth. It had to have been blood. But it didn't look that way. It was something darker than blood—something like a dark fluid. Was Jack Bent something else?
No, it had to have been blood. The fluid leaking from inside Jack Bent had to have been red in ordinary light. It had to have been a trick of the light, especially since the tones of sunset were a deep gold color. Yeah, it had to be blood—not something else.