Edit: Just realised I had a scene in this chapter that assumes that Ralph doesn't even know Alice and Kara's name even though Kara was asking for her earlier.

Chapter 9

There was a rumored part of the city that was left uninhabited by people. Those who dwelt there were outcasts from various affiliations.

One rule in the city of Detroit, disobey any of the rules established by the city then you either 'died' or were sent to that place.

Kara had heard it had only been a haven for very bad people. For those who killed, murdered or robbed.

Since there was no way in telling who was android and who wasn't, Kara couldn't ask anybody in the main city for help.

Most androids were programmed to report disturbances especially if it disrupted the peace. Talking to a human while difficult on it's own wasn't the hard part. It was making sure that androids didn't overhear it.

Right now, she didn't trust any androids at the moment.

The three made it there just as it was starting to rain.

The uninhabited part of the city was blocked off by link fence that was covered in plastic material. One part of this fence had been tampered with.

"Kara, why are we heading here? You know this is no place for a child to be much less two defenseless adults."

Kara sighed.

"We have no other options. Do you really think it's worth gambling our lives to ask someone for help. You seen what those androids did. It's a matter of time before they tell everyone else."

Kara pulled it aside moving the plastic with it.

"Come on."

Alice crawled underneath the fence. Luther followed after her careful not to jostle his shoulder.

Kara pulled the gate enough to hoist herself under but winced as the metal fence grazed her shoulder.

"You alright?" Luther asked.

"I'm fine. I just grazed my shoulder that's all."

"You're bleeding," he said reaching for her shoulder.

Kara flinched.

"I'm fine, Luther."

Luther frowned. Kara saw hurt present in his eyes.

Still the man said nothing more as the three headed to an abandoned building.

"Kara, I really don't like this place," Alice murmured softly latching onto Kara.

"We have no other choice. They'll find us if we remain in the city."

Kara and Luther scouted the outside of a boarded building looking for a way inside. The door one of the only entrances left intact.

She tried the door but it was locked.

"Luther, help me find another way inside. I'll take Alice and look on the other side."

"Alright."

With that the two split ways.

As she was scouting the right side of the building, Kara heard a clunk.

"Kara, what was that?" Alice asked, her eyes wide with fright.

"Sounds like it was coming from the other side."

Kara broke in a run, eyes frantic.

"LUTHER!"

Once she made it to where Luther would be, she was horrified to find he had disappeared.

She glanced around noticing Alice hadn't made a sound.

"ALICE!"

Suddenly she felt pain hit her in back of her skull and everything faded to black.

Kara groaned as feeling the world spin as she slowly got up. A blond raggy-haired man with a bushy beard glanced at her.

"Finally awake? You slept like the dead."

Panic hit her. This guy could have been a criminal for all Kara knew and she was just lying in front of him unconscious for maybe hours.

She couldn't find any of her possessions. Luther nor Alice were nowhere to be seen.

Still it was better not to panic lest this man use any weakness against her. She faced him with a stony face.

"Where's Alice?"

"Is that what you said to someone who takes you into their home? I didn't have to bring you here."

"Where's Alice?" she asked again, iciness seeping in her voice.

The man sighed.

"She's in the other room along with that boyfriend of yours."

Kara got up and headed there.

Luther was strung on the floor as if he was tossed there as an afterthought. Alice however was sitting up by a fireplace looking at Luther, horrified.

It turned to relief the moment she caught sight of Kara.

Alice ran up to her.

"Kara, you're alright."

"How is he?"

"I don't know. I was brought here while he was still unconscious."

The two headed back where the blond man was still sitting.

"Do you have our belongings?"

He shrugged.

"Yeah, why would you need them?"

"They got our blankets and clothes."

"One of the bags had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, scissors, a hairbrush, matches and toothpaste. You look like you came equipped to survive the wilderness."

Kara contemplated telling the man the truth.

'I still don't know if he intends to harm us though.'

"How long have you been staying here?" she asked cautiously.

"Been here for a while. Don't get much visitors. Do you three have names or what? I already know the little girl's name."

"I'm Konnie and the guy in the other room is Alex," Kara supplied.

Alice looked at Kara with a look of distaste.

The blond man looked at Kara for a second.

"You don't look like a Konnie to me. Konnie always struck me as a name only reserved for whores not for a respectable woman such as yourself."

He smiled.

Kara smiled in return though inwardly she was panicking. Her heart was pounding at a fast pace. Nothing about this interaction seemed right, she only hoped he wouldn't do anything too forward.

"What about you? What's your name?"

"It's Ralph."

"Why are you in a place like this?"

Ralph looked as though Kara was accusing him of something horrible. He looked affronted.

"I'm no rapist, robber or murderer. I was just looking for a place to stay. At least here the rent's free. No android surveillance. It's peaceful besides the occasional riot."

Alice glanced at his shirt.

On Ralph's shirt was a picture of a taxi cab.

"Nice shirt. Do you like cars?" she asked.

"Not particularly. Why? Do you like cars?"

Alice smiled.

"Yeah. My dad was a taxi driver. I want to be just like him when I'm older."

Kara glanced at Alice.

'That's right. She's probably missing her father right now.'

Still the thought of Alice returning to him caused her heart to ache.

'She's so sweet. If only I had a daughter like her.'

She immediately thought back to Luther.

'What was that look all about anyway?'

Kara glanced at her shoulder. The blood had dried from where it had ran down her arm.

"What happened to him?" Ralph cut through her thoughts.

"Someone captured him and they want to kill us."

Kara tensed.

Ralph smiled softly.

"Well you should be safe here. I'll protect you."

Alice smiled in return.

"Y'know you three ought to think about getting disguises in case you run into trouble."

He did have a point. Perhaps that's why Luther had packed the hydrogen peroxide in his bag and the pairs of scissors.

Ralph took out the bag handing her the hairbrush, the peroxide and the pairs of scissors.

"I brought some hair spray too."

He handed her the bottle of hairspray from her bag.

"There should be some bowls and bottles of water in the kitchen."

Alice joined her as she took a couple bowls and some bottles of water from the kitchen before they made their way to the bathroom. Kara locked the door behind them.

Inside the bathroom it was dark. The interior walls were covered in letters. Help was written all over the wall in dark red letters that almost seemed reminiscent of paint.

Kara uncapped the bottle of peroxide pouring it in the bowl before uncapping the hair spray dumping it in the other bowl.

She carefully poured the peroxide in the spray bottle before spraying it on her hair cautiously.

"I should do your hair too."

Alice's eyes widened in panic.

"No, I'm fine. I'm highly allergic to that stuff."

Kara frowned.

"I see but I can at least cut your hair."

She stammered.

"I-I could do it myself."

Kara smiled.

"Alright, alright, you win."

Alice sighed with relief but Kara noticed she was tense.

"Kara, sometimes I wish you could be my new mother but I don't want you to die too."

"Alice, I'm not gonna die."

"Mom died because she knew too much."

Kara turned to glance at Alice.

"What are you talking about?"

"That's why me and dad were running."

Alice explained the story to Kara.

"My mother worked as a secretary at Cyberlife because my father wasn't making enough money to support us."

Sarah Williams had worked for Cyberlife nearly five years. The building she worked at specialized in custom made androids. She was involved in their business meetings.

One particular evening, they were expecting a visit from President Warren to discuss the future of Cyberlife.

Mariah Stern, the CEO of Cyberlife was also present at the meeting.

"How's the work on the new military units?" Warren asked.

"Still a bit faulty. They are not really good at obeying our orders," Mariah said.

"Continue working on them."

"What would the people say knowing that you use the people's taxpayer dollars to make support the creation of the very things they despise?"

"It's worth the risk. We are a country at war."

"I don't have room to judge but why start a war with Russia over thirium?"

"You know that my approval rating hasn't been the best. What better thing to do then stir up a little drama. Let everyone blame the androids for their problems. They don't need to know what's going on. You know we need the thirium if we're going to continue running this operation."

"She was happy at first but one day she came back looking sad. I tried to cheer her up but nothing I did helped. Sometimes it looked like she was scared of me," Alice said.

Her mother had flinched whenever she was in the room. It didn't seem to help that the kids in her class often teased her. The class had been writing in their journals about the people they admired. Alice wrote about her father.

'...I want to grow up to be a taxi driver just like my father. I love the way he helps other people when they need to go somewhere..."

After class, people just laughed.

"What kind of job is that?"

"Who in their right mind would want a job like that?"

"They just take people's money because they can't afford to get an actual job."

One day she had slapped a girl in the face after she called her father stupid and her mother was called.

"Why don't you act like other girls?"

"She was only trying to defend herself," Todd said.

"Why do you always defend her?" Sarah asked, her eyebrows furrowed in anger. "I can't handle anymore of this."

"Calm down, Sarah."

Once Sarah had gone, Todd walked upstairs to her bedroom and knocked softly on Alice's door.

"Alice, can I come in?"

"Yes, daddy."

Todd opened the door.

"Have you and mom stopped fighting?"

He frowned kneeling in front of Alice.

"Alice, it's going to be alright. Mommy is just a little overwhelmed at work."

Todd sobbed pulling Alice closer.

"Daddy, are you alright?"

"I should have got two jobs. It was probably too much for her."

"It's not your fault, daddy," she said softly.

A memory flashed in Kara's head. Luther's sister worked in that same building. Kara had dropped by the office intending to pick her up after she had called her.

On the way back a woman with short curly blonde hair walked briskly towards her, her face frantic.

"Are you an android?" she asked.

"No, I-"

She grabbed her hand.

"I need you to hide this."

"What is it?" Kara asked.

"If anyone asks, you never saw me. If you see my daughter, Alice tell her I'm sorry."

The next Kara remembered seeing her, it was a corpse out on the sidewalk. Pieces of glass all around her.

Her ID was next to her.

'Sarah Williams.'

That piece of paper...

'Where did I hide it?' Kara thought.

Probably thirty minutes had passed.

"What time is it?" Kara asked.

"It's been thirty minutes. It should be ready to rinse out," Alice supplied.

Kara sighed.

"Alright."

She opened the bottles of water on the sink and began rinsing her hair out thoroughly and carefully making sure none of it got into her eyes.

After she was finished she looked in the mirror. Where she had originally had a darker blonde shade was now an almost whitish platinum blonde color.

She took the scissors and began to trim her hair when she heard someone knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Kara asked.

"Thank goodness you're here. Kara, it's me," Luther said softly from the other side of the door.

"Luther, we'll be out in a minute."

After finishing the last touches on her hair, Kara looked in the mirror. She was now sporting a boy cut.

'It's better than nothing,' she thought.

With that the two stepped out. Kara saw Luther had sported a black eye.

"What happened to you?"

"Got in a bit of a tassle. Thought the man in the room beat you two black and blue."

"Where's he now?"

"Should still be in the living room in one piece. Once he managed to get a word in though I had to see if he was telling the truth," Luther said.

He glanced at Kara, the corner of his lips twitching in a soft smile.

"I'm glad you two are alright though."

It was only then that he seemed to realise something. He glanced up at Kara's hair.

"You bleached your hair."

Kara chuckled.

"Do you like it?"

"It's fine but did you really have to cut it all off."

Kara raised her left brow.

"I guess you prefer that I wear it long?"

"Are you more comfortable with it short?"

Kara shrugged.

"Who knows? It might grow on me."

Luther chuckled embracing her.

"I'm just glad you are alright," he whispered softly into her hair.

Kara and Alice walked back into the room with the fireplace.

Luther returned with Kara's bag.

"I asked him for some blankets, pillows and some matches so we could start a fire."

He handed the bag over to Kara who smiled.

"Luther, you're a genius. Can you find some firewood so we can start the fire?"

Luther set out to do just that while Kara fished out several sleeping bags and some pillows before preparing Alice's bed on the wooden floor in fireplace.

Alice laid down on the bed while Kara covered her up.

Luther returned with wood setting it in the fireplace before taking out a box of matches and setting it ablaze. He set the wood on fire before blowing the match out.

The fire grew more intense by the second as Alice curled more into her covers.

"It's not much but at least you'll be warm."

"I wonder if I was ever good enough in my mother's eyes. Before she died I always seemed to be doing something wrong," Alice said.

"Alice, you did nothing wrong. Your mother wouldn't want you to think like that."

She glanced at Kara.

"How do you know?"

"I remember speaking with her. She told me to apologise for her in case she never saw you again."

"You mean you've seen her?"

"The details are a little sketchy but when you told me about your mother, I had a flashback. I remember meeting her at work. Believe me Alice, she never thought you weren't good enough."

"Then why did she leave me?"

"I think she was protecting you in her own way but that doesn't mean she never loved you."

"If she just told me, I would have understood. I just didn't want her to leave me alone."

"I know."

She glanced at Kara.

"You'll never leave me right?"

Nothing about this would lead to a happy ending. A secret government conspiracy was one thing but being cast out from the main city to a forbidden part of it where all kinds of outcasts lurked from the bad to the ugly would leave one if not all of them dead sooner or later.

If they headed back to the city, they'd always be on the run from those androids trying to kill them. Even if they were happy for a little while, Cyberlife would never let them go free.

They could never be free as long as they had control over everything. Even androids taking over the world was an optimistic way of life than this.

Cyberlife wouldn't relinquish it's control. Why relinquish so much power when it had the corporal and military world under it's thumb.

Kara sighed.

'Sounds bleak.'

"Kara, did you hear me?"

"What did you say? I forgot."

"You won't leave me right?"

There was hope in her eyes even despite everything.

'What's telling the truth going to accomplish? Do I honestly think it's better that she knows this world is a doomed one? I certainly don't want her to live in a world like that.'

She glanced at Luther who was smiling.

'Should I lie just to make her happy though.'

Kara remembered she also was a little girl once. Her teachers were kind to her, sometimes complete strangers. When her mother died it felt like she was stabbed in the chest with a knife.

The police never found who had killed her mother. She remembered hating it when they tried to sweep her death under the rug. No one seemed to understand. As she grew older it was easier to accept that injustice was just the way things worked. Nothing in life was fair, wanting any kind of fairness was selfish and based off the desire to project her own ideals on other people's perceptions of life.

'No, I can't accept that kind of world for Alice. I have to be strong and fight for her.'

"I can't promise you that," Kara said. "But I can promise that I will try my best to never leave you."

"If we ever part will you promise to come find me?"

"Definitely."

"Even it takes you forever."

"Especially."

Alice reached out and hugged her.

Kara tucked her into bed kissing her on the forehead.

"You got to sleep. Sleep tight alright."

Once Alice had fallen asleep she turned to Luther who was warming up in front of the fire.

"So you remembered something?" Luther asked.

"Yeah, I met up with her mother at your sister's work place. She gave me a note," Kara said.

"I know. You told me about it before your accident."

"Do you know where it is?"

"I'm holding on to it. I had a feeling they might have been looking for it. You told me to keep it a secret from anyone. Not even my family knew about that note. Whatever it says Cyberlife wants to get ahold of it."

"Can I see it?"

Luther retrieved a letter from his coat pocket before handing it to Kara.

She skimmed through the note.

'To be delivered to Caroline Phillips.'

"Looks like she intended to give it to the press and spill the whole thing."

"Guess Cyberlife stopped her before she had the chance."

"We gotta deliver this to them."

"Kara, that's suicide. You know as well as I do."

"She would have wanted this for her daughter."

Luther's frown softened into a sad smile as he looked away.

"I know."

"Well I'm heading to bed. Good night, Luther."

"You too, Kara.

Kara cuddled in next to Alice.