I walked down the row of curtained rooms, blocking the radiating ache from my legs. It wasn't from the walking - it was from the implanted pieces. It was like I wasn't even moving my legs, but the metal that covered them. I felt like I was on top of the world like a bird who was just given wings. I continued, step after step. When I made it to the tv area, no one was there.
A bit of worry popped into my mind, for Kasey... and it grew when I heard her in one of the curtained rooms. I stepped over, and carefully pulled the curtain back. Kasey was sitting next to the cot, where her brother lay. Half of his head was covered in bandages, with bits of red bleeding through. I slowly entered the room. "...Hey..."
Kasey turned and saw me. Her face was still puffy from crying, but she had run out of tears to cry. She looked back at Kaden, not sure what to say.
I came closer and crouched down a bit beside her. It was far easier to do this than expected... my legs now had all the strength in the world. "What did they do?"
The girl shook her head. "I don't know. He's asleep. I don't even know if he's okay." She took her brother's hand in hers. "I wish he'd wake up so I'd know. But that's selfish. He probably wants to be asleep rather than deal with... this."
I could feel something rising in me. My teeth clenched, and my blood began to boil. I wanted to be here, but these siblings didn't. I got my legs, but who knew when Kaden was going to wake up, or what they had done to him? The injustice of it all really started to hit as I eyed the blood-stained bandage across the boy's face. And the worst part of it all?
I can't do anything about it.
...
...but could I?
I'm on my feet now. I can walk, so maybe I can run. I can leave this place with what I had come for and call for help for the others.
Without a word, I stepped out of the curtained room. I could see guards on either side of the section; I was being watched. I walked slowly over to the tv area, but instead of sitting down to watch, I snuck to the back corner and began to sneak between the curtains and the wall of the hangar. Each step was a crunch of metal against concrete. I couldn't be as quiet as I wished, but I tried my best.
I realized, then, that I could feel the concrete against my feet... maybe it was a mental thing? I reached down and slid my finger over the metal softly, and my eyebrows shot up. I could feel it? It wasn't as strong as I would feel it normally, on my legs, but it was still there - a bit of sensation in what I had assumed to be regular metal. I could feel the rocky concrete under the metal on my soles, and it didn't hurt. I simply knew it was there.
Soon, I was just feet away from the bunker door. I bounced on my feet, glancing back and forth at the groups of engineers and soldiers working on the giant robot, and other various projects. Some of them looked like weapons... man, I needed to get out of here. I gathered the courage and darted for the entrance, and I was soon out of the bunker, under the bright, midday Nevada sun. I'd missed it, as strange as it sounds. It was a sign of freedom.
I started to run.
The pain spiked but I ignored it, growing faster and faster with every step. Each clanking footfall was a beat of a drum that grew faster and faster until I could barely keep track of it. The mechanics seemed to have an intelligence of their own as they repeatedly moved forward, pushing one after the other at a speed that I'd never known and couldn't keep track of. Soon, the buildings and vehicles whizzed by as I headed for the treeline.
I heard shouting. MECH was coming after me, but I intended to leave them all in the dust. I kicked up sand and dust as I went, but I didn't falter or trip up. I had come too far to stop now. The grind of humvees behind me grew closer and closer, but I was almost there. I didn't bother looking back.
Then, I tripped.
The legs failed and I tumbled over myself, rolling across the dust and dirt, rocks digging scrapes into my face and arms. I tried to get back up, but I couldn't. The metal legs had turned into a set of useless weights, pinning me to the ground. I just groaned as the vehicles pulled to a stop near me. I worried about what would happen now. What if they hurt or even killed me for trying to escape? Even worse, what if they deny me the chance to use the device again? I couldn't go back to sitting every moment of every day.
I heard the crunch of boots against the dirt come closer until someone was standing directly over me. I squinted against the sunlight, and to my surprise, it wasn't a guard with a gun; it was Hillary. She glared down with a judgemental face, with maybe a bit of disappointment in there as well. "What were you thinking?" She asked. It wasn't an angry accusation, rather, it was a simple question expecting an answer.
What could I say to that? I wasn't going to say something stupid, denying what I'd just tried to pull. But I wasn't going to admit to trying to escape either. "I wanted to run."
She crossed her arms, the bright sun reflecting off of the metal prosthetic. There was a pause, and then she smiled. "Just a run, yeah?"
I pushed up on my elbows. "Yes." She kicked me in the side. I shouted in shock. "What was th..."
Hillary crouched down and grabbed the front of my shirt in a metal fist. "Don't. Try. It. Again." She dropped me and stepped back, and I was left staring up at the sun again. Part of me wished someone would just shoot me now and get it over with.
One of the soldiers, who I recognized as the presenter guy (I needed to ask his name at some point) came over and offered me a hand up to a sitting position and he squatted down next to me. "Kid, let me explain something to you." He pulled a slim remote out of his back pocket. "This controls your robotics. With the push of a button, I can turn it off or transform it. Now, you either I turn them back on, and you can enjoy running back to the base and we can all get along. Or..." I expected him to threaten to deactivate the legs and drag me back to base in the humvee with guns trained on me. "...I can leave you here where you wanted to be. I'm sure this metal is already getting a bit warm, and after a few hours under the hot sun?" He shrugged. Somehow this option seemed even worse.
"What did you do to Kaden?"
He answered a few seconds later. "We made him better. That's what MECH does, Shilo. We make people better."
An hour later, I was in my room again, lying on the cot, wearing shorts instead of metal on my legs. The nodules didn't bleed anymore, and I was even starting to ignore that they were there. My back, after running and using the robotics properly, was honestly starting to feel okay. The bandages were gone, and I could feel nodules along the lower part of my spine, and something implanted down near my tailbone. I thought back to when I could feel through my metal legs. Maybe, all the nodules had something to do with that? This was no ordinary prosthetics company, after all. They probably connected to my nerves, sending and receiving signals just like my legs were supposed to do, before I got sick. I was steadily growing to hate MECH, but the nerdy side of me couldn't help but be impressed by the ingenuity. This organization was composed of engineers and soldiers committed to advancing technology. They broke the rules and surpassed moral boundaries, but all in the name of progress.
There were rules and regulations for a reason. If someone broke one moral wall, then the others no longer mattered. MECH needed to be taken down and turned into the proper authorities. Maybe, one day, I would get the chance to do it. But for now, I had learned my lesson about just darting off. If I wanted to bring them down, then I first had to gain their trust through at least a bit of loyalty. I could continue to be excited by the prospect of walking, and cooperate with everything. Maybe, if I continued to support all of this, I would one day get the proper chance to tear it all down from the inside.
I wanted to go check on Kasey and Kaden, but for some strange reason, no one currently trusted me to use the robotics unsupervised. Unfortunate. But, after an hour or two, The siblings were at the curtain, and Kasey asked if they could come in. "Yeah, sure... how's he doing?" She opened the curtain more and I could see that her brother was up and with her. "Are you okay?"
The boy shook his head and took a seat cross-legged on the floor, and Kasey did the same near him. I laid on my side on the cot, facing them. He said something. "I can't feel the side of my face. I don't know what they did and I'm afraid to find out." One eye was hidden under the bandages, and the other half of his face was normal.
"Is it still bleeding?" I asked.
"No. I'm tired, but I don't want to sleep anymore." Kaden paused. "They put me to sleep when they did it and I'm afraid they'll do something else while I'm asleep next."
Kasey pulled her legs up to her chest. "They'll have to get through me first."
"Yeah, and that's going to make a difference. You're lucky, sis. You're the only one they didn't do anything big to." There was silence for a bit after this.
I decided to break it by changing the subject. "I ran today. Tried to reach the treeline, but that presenter guy... what's his name?"
"Lieutenant Bardin," Kaden filled me in. "He's the d*head who brought us here."
"Okay, Bardin. He used a remote to turn off the robotic legs. He threatened to leave me out there in the heat, unable to move."
Kasey perked up at the news that I'd tried to run. "How far did you make it?" Her curious eyes were suddenly full of interest.
"Far enough that they had to chase after me on trucks." I smiled as I recounted it. Even if the experience didn't end as expected, it had still been amazing to run. "They made me run back here too... but I don't get as tired using those legs. They do all the work for me." After a couple of seconds, my smile fell. "I wish the world could have good inventions like that, without hurting people to get them."
Kasey and her brother shared a look I didn't quite understand. Then Kasey said something. "You chose to come here, and wanted to participate, but you still tried to leave and they didn't let you. That shows you what kind of people they are."
I nodded. "The best I can do now is to go along with it," I said as my fingers drifted over one of the modules near my knee. I already knew exactly where it was, without having to feel for it. I was growing used to seeing it as a part of myself rather than an unfortunate addition. "And then, when the time is right, I book it out of here and bring back help."
