Evanescence - Hello
Taylor sat at her mother's vanity, brushing out her wet hair. The house was deathly still around her, but it had been for years. Her mother had fired a gunshot and blanketed it with silence ever since. For her, the house had been silent since she was nine years old.
No one would look for her here, at least not at first. She had booked a hotel yesterday and moved everything she brought to Detroit there. By thae time anyone thought to look for her, they would check there before they came here. She didn't plan on being here when that happened.
She knew Markus was probably marching in Detroit right now. He'd told her that she couldn't come. She'd dropped off two androids with one of her contacts at the edge of the city. That's why she'd come back to this house, because there was still an old car in the garage that wasn't self-driving that belonged to her mother.
Her eyes kept glancing at the bed in the mirror. It wasn't the same bed her mother had died on. That would have been macabre, and anyway that bed hadn't been salvageable. No, just some ostentatious four-poster in place for the sake of having furniture in the master suite.
She could still picture her mother's corpse stretched across it either way, the gun curled in her perfectly manicured fingers, brain and skull fragments splattered over the white silk sheets.
Taylor placed the brush down on the vanity, staring at her face in the mirror, at her mother's eyes looking back at her. She wondered if it would be easier to sleep here, in this room, than in her own room. Would the night terrors find her no matter where she slept, slipping over her like water, drowning her?
She would sell it, she decided. She'd held on to the house for years, clinging to it, a festering and jagged wound that refused to heal. If she could burn it to the ground, she would. She considered donating it to charity, but she couldn't imagine it as a shelter, or anyone coming here seeking safety.
She'd left her phone at the hotel, switched off. There was no cable service at this house, no internet. She was at a total disconnect from the wider world right now, and she found it both terrifying and wildly freeing. She had no idea, however, how Markus was faring at the moment.
Eventually, she made her way back to Jericho. The sun was just starting to set, the cold already setting in. She took the car, a classic red Corvette that had once belonged to her father. Her mother had kept it, for sentimental reasons, even after she remarried. She never talked about it, never drove it herself, but had never once considered selling it.
Taylor supposed they were alike in some ways.
As she pulled up near the docks, she began to feel uneasy. Like her house, the docks felt unusually quiet as she closed the car door and slid the keys in her coat pocket. Pausing, she ducked back into the cab and took her gun out of the glovebox. Despite her apprehension, she picked up her pace as she made her way onto the freighter.
The peaceful exterior of the ship was a mask for the chaos of the interior. Everyone inside was in motion, and it took her a long time to make her way through the pulsing crowd of slightly panicked deviants toward the hold. No one she attempted to stop could give her a straight answer on what was happening.
A huge weight shifted from her when she finally caught sight of Markus, in his usual spot overlooking the hold. It was another few moments before she could make her way up the stairs to where he was. When he finally turned and caught sight of her, she couldn't stop herself from crossing the remaining distance and throwing her arms around him.
Her senses returned to her a beat later and she pulled away again. He was looking at her with puzzled surprise, and she felt herself flush. "Sorry, I just... everyone looked panicked when I got here. I thought something had happened to you."
"It's okay," Markus placed his hand on her arm, his face relaxing into a smile. "I'm fine. Did everything go well with you?"
"Yeah. No problems," Taylor waved him off impatiently. "Tell me what happened today. You know, with the protest?"
Markus appeared amused by her eagerness, but he inclined his head for her to sit as he recounted the events of the day. His face was somber as he told her of the swat team opening fire, of the androids who had died while they fled.
They sat next to each other in silence for a while, Taylor tapping her fingers steadily on her knee, thinking. When she looked over at Markus again, he had his elbows propped on his knees as he slouched forward, his brows drawn down in concentration. "What if we can't do this?"
"You can." Taylor rested her hand on his arm. "I've never believed anything more. No matter how this ends, people are paying attention. People are listening. You're making a difference."
"I don't imagine that will be much comfort to the people who are dying right now," Markus said quietly, his eyes moving out across the hold, to the androids who had grown in number even that day. Her fingers tightened gently on his arm, squeezing, trying to offer any sort of comfort.
"No," she agreed. "I suppose not." She bit her lip, staring down at her shoes. "I'm not any use to you like this. I can't help, I can't even tell you what people are saying. I'd be more useful outside of Jericho."
"And you wouldn't be safe." He said firmly, shaking his head. "Anything could happen to you by yourself in some hotel room. Do you have any regard for your own safety?"
"But I could be doing something," she protested.
"You have done something. Out there you could be getting arrested." They glared at each other for a few seconds, but it wasn't long before guilt started gnawing at her. She backed down, glancing away.
"You look exhausted." He said after another few minutes passed in reverent silence, only the bustle of the hold around them, letting the moment of tension go. "Did you sleep at all last night?"
"Not much." Taylor admitted. After she'd left Kamski's it had already been late. She'd spent a few hours pacing the hotel, deciding what she was going to do, and the couple hours she'd managed had been fitful.
"You should find somewhere quiet and get some rest. I'm going to round up North, Simon, and Josh and figure out what we're going to do next." He stood, and she did the same, smiling up at him.
"I'm not sure 'somewhere quiet' is doable at the moment, but I'll try." He smiled. She hesitated before pulling him into another hug. "Thank you, Markus. I'm glad you're okay."
She didn't know how many hours had passed when she woke up to screaming. Disoriented, she thought at first that maybe she was the one screaming. She'd been having a nightmare, a recurrent one where she was drowning and each time she almost broke the surface, a hand closed over her face and shoved her back down.
There was a cry in her throat when she rolled over, staring at the rusted wall of the freighter. She had tucked away in a tiny room away from everyone and fallen asleep stretched out on her coat. There were no beds, none of the androids needed to sleep after all, so she'd curled into a ball on her side and made do with her exhaustion.
As Taylor blinked herself back into reality, staring into the darkness that surrounded her, she heard the screaming continue, and the unmistakable sound of gunshots. Her heart starting to pound as she sat up, listening.
There were people running outside of the door. Had they found Jericho? She glanced down, to the handgun she had placed off to the side. The one thing she hadn't left behind in the hotel. She had tucked it into her coat pocket when the anxiety had struck on the docks, not wanting to leave it in the car.
Now she stuck it in the waistband of her jeans as she stood, making sure the safety was on. She was both grateful and slightly terrified as she pulled the door open a crack and saw the androids running through the halls of the freighter. Every now and then, she caught sight of men in what appeared to be full riot gear, assault rifles and all.
Shit. Taylor backtracked to slide her jacket on. She had to find Markus as quickly as possible and try to get him out of here alive, if she could. Somehow. She let out another silent stream of curses as she slid out into the hallway, right into the fray.
Making her way through the tight quarters, androids bumping into her at every turn, she tried to head toward the upper decks. She had no idea how long she'd been asleep, but Markus had been planning on meeting with North, Simon, and Josh. There had been dozens of deviants in the hold and it would have been impossible to talk there.
She stumbled and almost hit the floor, ducking as the sound of automatic gunfire ricocheted above her head. More screams echoed in her ears. Scrambling, she tucked herself into a doorway, hearing the bullets still pinging off the metal walls.
After a few moments, she continued making her way up. Her luck ran out as she rounded the corner, colliding into another person, the sounds of gunfire already echoing in the hall. Her hand found the handle of the gun, and she raised it as she backed away a step, ready to fire.
All of the air left her lungs. For a fraction of a second, she almost didn't recognize him, beanie pulled down over his brown hair, CyberLife suit gone. But his brown eyes were unmistakable, and they locked with hers instantly, widening in shock.
As quickly as time slowed, it sped up again. She kept the gun trained forward, shouting, "Connor, move!"
He didn't hesitate, just threw himself aside. The soldier was raising his gun, not bothering to register that she was human. She squeezed the trigger once, twice. Inhaled. The sound of metal clattering filled the hallway as the soldier dropped the rifle, then the thud of his weight as his whole body followed. Taylor lowered her arms, her eyes stuck on the soldier, the puddle of blood blossoming from under him.
"Taylor?" Connor moved to block her view. He placed his hands on her upper arms and pulled her to the side, out of the hallway in case any more soldiers came along. His chocolate brown eyes scanned her pale face, her hands still clenched on the gun, knuckles white.
Gently, slowly, he placed his fingers over hers. She flinched, a shudder crawling down her spine, her blue eyes wide and fixed. "What are you doing here? Where have you been?"
"What are you doing here?" She asked, finally looking away from the dying soldier and trying to keep the tremor from her voice. She took a step back from him but couldn't bring herself to raise the gun. Not at Connor. "Are you with them? Did you bring them to Jericho?"
"I didn't mean to. They followed me." His face was a mask of guilt. She wasn't sure whether she should believe him or not. His mouth pinched into a frown, eyebrows furrowing. "Taylor, I'm a deviant now."
She stared at him, dumbstruck. Now that he'd said it, though, she could see that there was something different about him, something more than the clothes she had noticed initially. There was real desperation in his face as he pleaded with her to believe him. Emotion in his eyes, lining his brow.
"Markus went to blow up the hold," he said after a moment's hesitation where she didn't, couldn't respond. His hands tightened on her arms and he pulled her toward the door. "We have to go."
"Wait, you saw Markus?" Taylor allowed him to tug her into a run. Connor didn't bother to answer, just continued to haul her along, navigating them through the hallways and away from the soldiers.
They turned another corner, meeting back up with Markus and North. The brief moment of excitement was quickly smashed as more gunshots sounded from down the hall. North cried out as one of the bullets struck her in the leg. Markus immediately ran forward, picking up a piece of metal that he proceeded to use as a shield, deflecting bullets.
He covered North, protecting her from the gunfire, as Connor rushed the soldiers. In a series of movements that was almost too fast for her eyes to follow, he subdued the group of them. The reprieve lasted for a few seconds before more soldiers came down the long hallway, opening fire.
"Run! Come on!" Markus placed North's arm around his shoulders and practically carried her away. There was a hole in the side of the freighter just ahead, leading out into the cold night air. Bullets were flying all around them. Markus didn't hesitate to leap out into the water with North.
Taylor pulled up short, her chest heaving, staring down at the churning water below, the icy cold air hitting her face. Connor almost barreled into her at full speed but managed to stop just short. He glanced between her and the water, then behind them at the soldiers closing in.
"We have to jump," he told her, though she already knew that. She couldn't make her feet move. She was remembering her nightmare, drowning in the freezing cold water, wondering if the hypothermia would kill her first.
Connor placed his arms around her and lifted her off her feet, as easily as if she weighed nothing. He jumped, somehow, even while she was twisting in his hold. She screamed the whole way down, clinging to him, until the water swallowed them both.