Zephyr slowly opens her eyes and feels better than she has in a very long time, maybe as good as she has ever felt in life. She realizes that she is lying on a firm but comfortable bed and hears the voices. She sits up fast, fear and panic running through her as the memories of the creature and the man who killed it come flooding back. She looks around and feels her mouth fall open. She is no longer in the African jungle.
The room around has no overhead lights, but it is lit by a dozen screens that cover the walls. On them are broadcasts from around the Reich Empire, from news to sports, which are all controlled by the government and, therefore, propaganda filled. I'm the center of it all: a huge, brightly lit table that currently has a hologram of Africa floating above it. Standing at the table are two figures. One is the man she had seen before, now dressed in a black t-shirt, jungle camo pants, and combat boots. He had said his name was Axel. Beside him, and this quickens her pulse, is a black robot. It has a shiny, metallic black body that resembles a humanoid figure. Its surface is smooth and polished, reflecting light and giving it a slightly mirror-like appearance. Its eyes glow with a bright blue light. When those eyes turn on her, she screams and pushes herself back against the wall behind her. Terror floods her body because she has witnessed the horror the robots of the Reich can inflict. She witnessed that horror firsthand during the raid. She had watched as one ripped Lewis's head off his body and used his spine to cut Henry's stomach open. She leaps from the bed and starts to run, not knowing where she is going, but she has to get away from this-
"Calm down, Zephyr," says Axel, his voice soft but somehow full of more authority than she has ever heard.
She freezes mid-step and slowly turns to look at him as he walks over to her. He stops a few feet away and towers over her. She knows on an instinctual level that this is the most lethal being she has ever met, but at the same time, she is comforted by his presence like she was by her father's and grandfather's. Somehow, she knows that he is here to change things. To save her and everyone else that has been used and abused by the Reich Empire. She has no idea how she knows this, but she believes it utterly. She rushes forward and wraps her arms around him as she cries harder than she ever has in her life. All the pain, terror, and anger she had felt for fifteen years poured out of her as, for the first time in her entire life, she felt completely safe in a world where slavery or death were her only options because of the color of her skin.
"I have you, Zeph," says Axel as he wraps her in his arms, "I am here now. Now, I will bring them a war like they have never seen. Now, you are free."
She breaks down completely, and he just holds her through it all.