A hurtful addon

The moment Xiba and Arren were almost losing hope, they saw a positive sign. Edra was trying to breathe but was failing to do so. Arren knew what it was caused by, excess air was trapped inside the pleural space surrounding the lungs and it needed to be released. Arren grabbed another needle and stabbed Edra right into the cavity where the air was trapped in his chest. Edra took a long breath after that and was able to breathe normally.

“Thank god I knew what it was, it could’ve ended rather abruptly.” Arren sighed in relief, and so did Xiba.

Edra woke up after a minute and gasped.

“What happened?” I asked Arren.

“You were almost dead.” He smiled and shook my hand.

When I looked at Xiba, she was in tears. She came near me and hugged me. “I am glad you are fine.”

“Me too,” I replied. I knew my life had a much bigger influence on her life as well, I could not afford to die in this situation.

“I guess it was worth the shot at the end, hun?” Arren was happy that his method had worked.

I was trying to stand up using the support of the coffee table in the middle of the living room but as I pushed on it, it broke. I will right back to the floor.

“What just happened?” Xiba questioned. She looked at me and right back to the coffee table again. She checked my hand, she probably thought I transformed again.

“Don’t worry, I am good. I just somehow broke the table.”

Arren was giggling in the background. Seemed like he knew what was going on.

“It has definitely something to do with what you injected now, am I correct?” I asked.

“I guess there is no hiding it. I actually injecting some new drug I was working on; I think it will help you use your new strength without transforming. But do remember it will only work if you are not stressed, plus it’s not like you won’t transform, it’s more like you don’t need to every time. You can be more creative with your combat. Your memory issue, I think it’s still there. I don’t even know why it’s happening to be honest.”

“Well, it’s good enough for me. Can’t do anything about it.” I was just happy that we made some kind of progress this time. I got up carefully and tried moving a bit. It felt better and now I didn’t have to worry about Shin controlling me.

“Thanks, Arren. It was a major help we needed.” I went to him and shook his hand. He smiled back and spoke. “Don’t worry about it and yeah, I wanna see you succeed through and through. I will be helping you a lot in future too. I just love this kinda stuff you know, I mean working on this type of stuff.”

“Hey, where is Soya? Haven’t seen her in a while.” Xiba inquired.

“Oh, her? She has been busy this whole time doing her own stuff. She will be joining you when you’ll start hunting Shin. And don’t worry she wants to end this too.” Arren looked at his watch and disconnected his nanobots from the outside control unit as well. He didn’t want anyone to hack the controls or alter them.

“I hope it will help you as much as possible.” He said enthusiastically.

I was somewhat happy for the first time in this mess. I had hope, which was bright enough to lighten my mood. Xiba and I were still doubtful about Soya. Who knows? Maybe she will pull some kind of stunt when we will confront Shin. We wanted our plan to accomplish through and through, failure wasn’t an option. We wanted Shin to spell what he did and about all his plans to us before we do the deed of finishing him. Xiba wanted it to end soon.

We set up a meeting with Soya so that we can confirm her intentions instead of guessing her moves. We met her at a different place this time in the north of Jahan. It was a small town with a low density of population, the whole area was covered in snow. It was one of the only locations in Jahan where snow was present 365 days of the year. Everything looked beautiful and I was spending most of my days with Xiba, whom I didn’t even know about a few months ago. Thanks to her I got some motivation to do something and fought for myself.

Xiba and I were sitting on a bench at a local park, Xiba was covering her face with the hands she was wearing gloves on. I eyed to my left and saw Soya coming from that direction. She was wearing a full coat and shades. There she is, I thought.

I stood up and was ready to greet her, she came near me and put her hand on my shoulder. “How have you been Edra?” She asked.

“Still breathing and trying to lay low,” I replied. Xiba then took her hand from my shoulder and said, “Nice to meet you too, Soya Harisha.” She was smiling awkwardly.

“You don’t need to be so protective, plus we are already friends, aren’t we Edra?” She looked toward me. I was puzzled and eyed Xiba with a surprised expression. My face was spitting, ‘What is she talking about,’ clearly. Xiba grinned.

“Ohh! You will be surprised to know that Edra has no memory of meeting you in the past, especially about the school days.” Xiba said while keeping her arm on my shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s true. I don’t know anything about you and how I met you.” I suspected I had met her before earlier as well.

“It’s okay, we can be allies this time and to be honest, that’s for the better that we can start fresh.” Soya was happy about it.

“So, you wanted to know my intentions, was it?” Soya questioned.

“Pretty much,” Xiba answered while raising her eyebrows. “We would also like to know if you were such a nice person as you are trying to be. Why did you attack us and tried to take Edra from The Hope then?” Xiba asked while keeping her eyebrows raised.

“Your doubt is reasonable, why would you trust someone who tried to hurt you in the past?” Soya sighed soon as she finished saying that. I personally wasn’t aware of what they were talking about, thanks to my corrupted brain.

“I thought you people from Hope would try to create bioweapons, experimenting on innocent people, and the news of it being successful touched our ears. Bio-Switch is also in the same business but we don’t cross lines or use unorthodox immoral methods to reach our goals. We follow guidelines given by the government and try to do our best to improve our quality of life. I was just trying to collect him that day. We just wanted him to help understand what was going on around him.” Soya emphasized.

“So, you guys aren’t bad? We can’t only take your word for it but guess we don’t have any other choice.” Xiba said with a doubtful expression.

“Well, who told about that?” Soya was onto something.

“Shi-”

“Shin did… I see. That explains everything, do you really believe him? He manipulates people, and you know that.” Soya made sense. Shin was indeed a manipulator who wanted nothing but personal benefit. Nothing great in that even if he says so.

“I think everybody deserves a second chance and you are no different.” I entreated her to agree with me but Xiba was thinking to herself as soon as I said that. “I know there are a lot of things we can point out, but I think we can trust Soya. If she does anything weird, we will just kill her off.”

“You will what?” Soya did not see that coming, especially from me.

“I mean you are trustworthy, why should you even care?” I said.

“Yeah-well-” She was trying to figure out what some kind of answer, was she hiding anything from us? Only the future reveals the truth. We both agreed on trusting her, we both had gotten another partner who could help us in this dire situation and make us less miserable, she was a lively one to keep around. Xiba nodded in agreement and so did Soya, three of who would’ve never met otherwise were carrying the same goal with different motives.

While Edra, Xiba and Soya were allying, another person was watching them from a distance. Wearing a grey surgical mask and transparent shades, who was that person? Can it be that someone from The Hope or Bio-Switch is spying on them perhaps noting their moves and keeping an eye on them?

“Ahh, I am glad we got things cleared, don’t want any kind of major setbacks now,” I uttered and gave Xiba a warm look., It felt like we accomplished another goal that was holding us back.

Hoping for the best for what was next to come, we didn’t realise our war had just started. We heard gunshots near the park where we were standing in. Xiba and Soya both got alert and tilted their heads toward the sound of the gunshots. We looked at each other and nodded in agreement to go there and check the situation ourselves. As we got closer to the epicentre of the sound we also heard people screaming. The shot continued and then stopped as soon we reached there. There were bodies of dozens of people on the roadside and inside the shops, killed ruthlessly without any mercy. There were kids, women, men and a few old people among them. It was impossible for a small town like this, which had no history of any crime, and for it to be attacked while we were in it, it wasn’t a coincidence.

When we moved a bit forward, we saw three dudes near a shop holding guns, they had stopped shooting and were trying to loot everyone whom they killed and the shops they broke into. It was almost unbelievable.

Xiba, Soya and I thought about helping the townspeople, we were qualified enough to fight goon a or two. We had an advantage over them as we were also three members. The odds of winning against them were rather high. So we engaged in the fight without thinking or planning anything about it, we were confident that it was gonna be an easy fight. Oh, man were we wrong.

The person I approached first was inside a gifting shop, looting all the money from the cash counter.

I knocked on the door so that we can fight even, which is what I thought I would do but then I remembered that there was no reason to be even with these types of monsters. It was better to attack from behind. Soon as I attacked, it was evident what I was about to crash into. He managed to evade me without even looking or tilting his head, those were some strong senses. When I fell down the counter I quickly adjusted myself and stood up, laying down in front of an advisory like this can be lethal. When I got a clear look at the face of my opponent, I was shocked.

Edra, Xiba and Soya all were shocked to encounter a similar opponent who was none other than a humanoid military robot, given only to a certain platoon in the military. Very few people had the access to control them. Those were generally used in critical missions like deactivating a bomb or in a war or extreme weather. To see those here in the open, killing and looting people seemed out of order. It was clear that those 3 robots were not after money but after Edra all along. Why did they even kill those innocent people if they had business with these three? It was a complicated question whose answer can be only found after taking them down.