What the hell’s going on?! The words itching to escape my mouth were trapped by fear. The killer android tried aiming at Anna, but my body broke its line of sight. It kept the gun cocked. Anna’s nails dug into my flesh. She was terrified and trembling, unable to process the situation. That little pain seemed to revive my nervous system and override the chains locking my brain in place. I kicked the table down as a barricade, “TS, halt! Place your firearm on the ground and walk ten metres to your right!”

I finally began standing up, but Anna’s hand gripped onto me with titan strength, “D-don’t go! Don’t go there!” I looked back and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, “It’s okay. We’ll both be fine. Trust me, okay?” I asked of her. I guess I wasn’t too believable with wobbling knees, but I sucked it up and stepped out. The TS had done as I ordered.

“State your ID and owner,”

“My ID is TS7. My owner i–”

Huh? It stopped, powering down. Whoever terminated it hit the kill-switch. I picked up some paper towels and hit the manual kill-switch myself, ensuring no hopes of it suddenly resurrecting. “Anna, it’s alright now,” I said to her when I sauntered back to our table. Her arms shot up from below and hugged me, a ridiculously tight hug. “You idiot!” She said, her tears dripping onto my head.

Within a few minutes, sirens were blaring and it had become a crime scene alarmingly quick. Anna and I were put through the barrage of questions, only to continue the questioning down at the police station.

Mom only seemed to care after the fact, so a little of her worry leaked out from her usual persona just to make sure I was okay, then she was back to herself.

The detectives working the case knew about the school attack. They knew I was kidnapped because whoever survived in the staff room must’ve told them. I was under their radar the most, for good reason. All I said to them was that the robot attacked, carried me off, then attacked again, but suddenly shutdown. Thankfully, where it shutdown was in a blind spot from the cameras, so they believed me when I told them I only wanted to see it closer up.

At times like these, I really wished Theresa was there. Two attacks in one day, I didn’t know what to do, what to think, or who to turn to, but there was one thing I was sure of; I wouldn’t be caught off-guard again.

Later that day, I checked out the team of coats under mom’s wing for the first time. What I saw had my mind split, at a crossroads with what my next step should be. Cennet. One simple name made me feel to hurl. Were my past demons finally coming to dismember me and sever their reins of hesitation? Is he really that boy’s father? I wondered, pulling up whatever information I could on him.

Life had funny ways of telling you it could’ve destroyed you at any time it so pleased. Under my nose all this time, David Cennet lurked, the father of the very boy I murdered with my own hands.

What a haunting revelation. I felt like I was hyperventilating with the ridiculous way my lungs expanded and contracted. Over and over, I kept looking at the article detailing the mysterious death of a boy behind a school, futilely hoping the names on the screen would magically change. A vengeful spirit was looming over me, dark and unchanging, malicious and frightening. Do I even have the right to fight back, or to even run away?

The pouring rain outside set a sombre mood. I meandered upstairs, out the basement for some fresh air. The flashes of lightning outside would occasionally light the house a bright azure, and light my mind with flashbacks of my sin. Jonathon, his name was, just a regular kid, yet, still, I let the tip of the lead gash into his throat. If only I’d just taken it, if only I didn’t fight back, he’d have still been alive. The nightmares, hallucinations, flashbacks, and insomnia wouldn’t be so attached to my psyche. Blood stained my hands at only five years old, yet I walked around with not a crumb of suspicion directed to me, or so I thought. Did Jon’s father know all along? Was he keeping an eye on me all this time?

“Dammit, Jared,” I cursed myself softly. How I wished it could’ve been undone. It happened so fast, not even doubt had a chance of saving him. The only thing existing in my simple little mind was to swing at him with all the accumulated choler pouring out; I never once thought the pencil would strike his jugular.

Entrapped in bitter memories, I couldn’t even smell the stench of death behind me, a hot, pulsating pain tearing through my arm. My ear rang for a while, I wasn’t sure what was going on, but that quickly changed when I saw the barrel of a pistol gawking at me. He placed his hand over my mouth the moment he realised I would scream out in pain from the gunshot wound, muffling what could double as cries for help. He pushed my head down onto the counter with gargantuan strength and shot a couple through me leg. My body wriggled in reflex, but the pain and weakness overshadowed the slight second-wind my adrenaline graced me with.

“If you scream,” his low rumbling voice was one I couldn’t place, “the next one won’t be a flesh wound.” More bullets reigned, the torture so insufferable I couldn’t keep track of how many times I was shot. Tears paraded down my face, snot, saliva, and blood crept down my mouth and throat.

Shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t I scream? All those suicidal thoughts tempting me to end myself, wasn’t this what I wanted? Death? Then why was I so scared? Why didn’t I scream? Maybe I was too petrified to do so, but even if I wasn’t, would I have opted for death? The scalding muzzle burned a ring on my cheek when he pressed it against me, “Open wide,” he said. Trembling in fear, I opened it slowly. That horrifying sound mashed through my ears again, puncturing both cheeks. The gun receded. He emptied the magazine.

He released his hold on me and simply walked off, his black coat swaying as he simply walked through the front door. I laid there, still somewhat stupefied, but too weak to do anything. He avoided fatal areas, it was simply to make me suffer, and so I did. The pain was unending, excruciating. I never felt so utterly helpless before. I guess escaping two attacks sucked all my luck dry for the day.

After the attacker left, the servants ran to me, and in a few minutes, I could hear sirens. It was something I grew to hate. I submerged into the sea of unconsciousness many times, picking up a few words here and there. Doctors, I guess.

Then I finally awoke. Like time played a trick on me and rewound itself, I found that similar greyish-white walls surrounded me. Bandages were everywhere. UGO Medical again? I wouldn’t be here unless… I felt for any piece of tech attached to me, but all my hands rested on were bandages.

My vision was blurry, but I could make out the movements of someone sipping tea beside me. “Murderer,” the voice whispered into my ear, despite the person’s distance. I shook my head, my heart plummeting as I realised this person wore a lab coat. “Criminal,” someone said in a grainy, strained voice, the voice of a child. To my left was Jonathon, with a broken pencil sticking out of his neck. He pulled it out, pointed it towards me and swung with all his might. My body jerked, and I jumped out of sleep in an erratic state.

The hell… A dream. When I awoke, Anna was next to me. Pangs of agonising pain rummaged through my limbs and I lost focus on her worried eyes. “What did mom say?” I asked, curious to know her take on recent events. She placed her palm atop mine, “She’ll be here soon enough, Ban. You can ask her yourself. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” I replied flatly, sitting up a little, “Are there any changes to my body I should know about? Any, installations?”

“No, nothing,” she replied. I sat through the pain, thinking of what the point of attacking me was. It clearly wasn’t to kill, so then why? Just thinking back to how helpless I was frustrated me to no end, siphoning a growing worry into my heart.

Minutes later, mom rolled in with the team of coats, and in the midst of them was Cennet, David Cennet. Mayhap it was just my imagination, but he sported a faint devilish grin. I jumped back, and they all looked at me strangely. I was incredibly tense, expecting anything to happen. My eyes darted about the room, periodically stopping on the middle-aged man’s half-rimmed spectacles and scouring his wrinkled face and scruffy stubble. They surrounded me, all of them somewhat relieved to see me. The stubborn muscles in my face refused to form the visage of a weak smile. My nerves denied any attempt of my mind to assuage those around me. There he was, hiding in plain sight and no one but me knew a thing.

My horrid bed hair and aloof reactions to their questions and comments caused a titter from a few of them, lightening the taut mood I projected. The worm smiled and laughed along with them, blending in effortlessly. Screaming my lungs out and pointing a finger at him in my state wouldn’t make the least of differences besides making me look deranged for accusing someone of attempted murder. How laughable that situation was–I couldn’t wait to get away, to get home despite recent events.

Police escort carried me back home after a couple days. The security to the estate was tightened tenfold, not even a fly could get past the gates, and even if it did, armed special forces littered the yard. I sat in the basement, looking at the wounds on my arms, remembering that horrific night. If I was afraid to die, I thought, remembering the dark hollow of the gun, then there’s no way I can ever kill myself. I concluded and sat up, firing up my workbench again. This time, I didn’t work to escape my troubles, but to face them.

I trudged over the concrete floor into a dark corner of the basement and tugged off an old dusty white-turn-beige cloth from a project I casted aside. Just like my bullies, I was afraid of its power. Never once had I thought a reason to use it would present itself–nor had I even fathomed the sheer fortitude to wield it was buried somewhere inside my pusillanimous disposition to every single threat ever presented, like lost treasure.

For all intents and purposes, it was a sword meant for murder, but not remotely close to the traditional ones. This one, was sharp. In the handle was a special type of energy that could be focused in extremely accurate lines. UGO energy, I called it–not having the wits nor the desire to partake in originality. I held onto the silver twin-pylon sword I dubbed ‘Z-21’. The letter because the first cuts I made were reminiscent of such–the number because it was my twenty-first iteration that turned out to be the final product. The real meat of the blade was missing, allowing the energy to run between the sharpened two-feet edges and enveloping those edges with the azure energy it radiated, like a honed and controllable laser. This wrapping of energy around the two edges made it extremely sharp, so much so that cutting through bricks gave little to no friction. Cutting butter with a hot knife was still harder than slicing through steel beams with the Z-21. But, without the energy focused around it, it was just another harmless toy. I made sure the edges were visibly dull and the point was almost non-existent, forming a near flat top.

Defence, however, was another story, not just a one-trick pony like my Z-21. I had homemade grenades, not the kind to kill, but the kind to stop. EMP grenades, sleep-powder grenades, and my personal favourite, hallucinogenic grenades, all self-explanatory. My last finished invention that would probably prove the most useful to me, was a shielder. A vambrace with a small protrusion of the flatter side of a spheroid. It used UGO energy like the Z-21, but formed a semi-spheroid of protective energy around the user when activated like an armadillo’s shell.

I made sure to wear shielders at all times and wherever possible, carry the Z-21. Later that night, I fell asleep, so unbelievably easy you’d never think I was stricken with insomnia in my life. Morning came coupled with the incessant vibrations from my phone. Anna, I read to myself as the harsh light burnt my retinas without mercy. A second earlier and I’d have gotten the call, but I was just too listless to evoke a quick response. The screen switched back to the lock-screen and my eyelids curled up, seventeen, missed calls? What could she have possibly wanted that badly? A hearty yawn escaped my dried lips and I called her back within seconds.

“Jared!” she screamed my name into the receiver. Jared? I wondered why the change of names after a quick retreat from the speaker. She’d always call me Ban before.

“Anna? What’s wrong?” I wheezed the words out, my voice engrained in grogginess.

“Jared!” she whispered, “Your mom! HQ! The TS are… I don’t know!”

“S-slow down,” I sat up, “I don’t understand anything you’re saying.”

She breathed, slowly, deeply and answered in one simple sentence. “The TS we made, something went wrong and now they all have a lot of people hostage!”

I paused, my mind crashing with her last word. Did she say ‘hostage’? Thinking about the incidents of recent, it wouldn’t have been illogical to think some androids held people at UGO hostage. This, no matter how I looked at it, was a ploy to lure me out, but for what reason? To leave the security of my home? I doubted someone with the intelligence to manipulate my TS was someone who waned at the sight of security personnel. This was a call to me, but, one thing bothered me. By now, the perp would’ve known my voice overrides any command given to the TS. He knows this will fail once I get there, so what is he really up to? It couldn’t be to kill me, he’s had multiple chances to do that.

My brain rattled futilely about this matter for a couple minutes, but alas, the unease of sitting and doing nothing got the better of me.

I slipped into jeans and a hoodie, then bolted downstairs to ask the security guys to drive me to UGO, but they readily declined, stating that they were “specifically told not to let you leave.” There was no time to argue with them, so I stole a little idea from my enemy and installed the boosters beneath my personal TS’ feet to kidnap myself. After five minutes, I got them working. After ten minutes, it learned to fly through somewhat limited trial-and-error runs inside the spacious mansion.

I set the flightpath on the map and flew off, clinging onto the TS for dear life. With a less than stellar landing, I crept through the helipad entrance on the roof and made my way down the stairs to mom’s office, preferring stealth than a risky run-and-gun tactic. The office was empty, so my next course was set for the lab. Taking care to remain undetected, I snuck through the halls and peeped around the corner and into the huge glass encasement that held the lab. Not only were there TS with guns pointed at dozens of employees, including the coats, but there were actual hired guns, and judging from their clothing, their training was nothing short of militant.

The entrance was unguarded, horribly so. All their backs were turned to me, which I found hauntingly odd–a trap, most certainly. What now? I leaned against the cold wall and severed my mind from rationality for a moment. Something stupid and flashy was just what I needed. I whipped my phone out and made my TS follow me, activated an EMP grenade and counted the timer. Three, two…

I tossed it right at the centre of my enemies, disabling their TS androids and flying headfirst into the fray, my android clutching me to its side. They turned their attention to me in an instant, and the yellow sparks of death ablaze from their guns' maws.