Chapter 12: Menace
The lights of the makeshift lab dim and wash into rivers in my swimming head. Code runs across my vision as my scanners and programs try to decipher an escape plan and probability of survival. I don’t need them to tell me I’m losing nanosolution too fast. I feel it.
It doesn’t matter that I’m trying to fight the torture and heal myself with every trick I’ve learned, every built-in program, and the mutation of my nanos that were corrupted by his programming ages ago. The sheer number of times he’s jabbed blades and voltsticks into my synthflesh makes it difficult to know what’s damaged and what’s not. And yet he still finds an untouched spot for the barbed tip of the electric baton that thrusts fiery threads through my right leg.
Creator Quris grins at me with inhumanly white teeth. He comes close to my face, so close I can feel the warmth of the air around his body scream like hot iron against my shredded synthskin. “I’m going to make this really easy for you, Menace. I want you to grab Fracture, pull him back into his Titan form, and make him talk to me. I know you can do that.”
“Why would I?”
“Because we have your human.”
My human.I reel at the idea of Sefina being mine. I forget the pain as I linger for a breath on the memory of feeling her in my arms.She’s smart, right? She’ll find a way out.
I hope she leaves me.
She isn’t mine and doesn’t know how much she matters to me, how much she reminds me of a Titan in the way she fights and emotionally endures, no matter what.
Please get out of here, Sefi. I don’t want you caught by this maniacal bastard.
Something wet drips on my dry lips. It’s warm and tastes of iron and the sweet mint of nanosolution.
Nanosolution?I try to resist licking it up, but survival programs are running. I’m dangerously low on fluids and dizzy, my vision rocking side to side. And as I drink it in, I choke up, knowing whose it is. I try to turn away from it. The taste is human. My insides cramp, every motor and component straining for a portion of the liquid.
“Oh, don’t get so upset. I made you to like it. It’s long past time that you accept it,” Quris remarks.
Blood drips from his arm as he snickers in delight. My teeth elongate, and hunger grows.
“Good. We’ll bring your human in when you’re good and hungry.”
Not Sefina. No. I won’t do it!
My teeth retract.
“Aw, you have a soft spot for her?” he coyly asks. “How adorable. A corrupted Titan and a human guard-turned-anaja for the Solcrue outlaws—that makes sense.
An anaja for hunters and junkers?
I close my eyes, hating the idea of anyone using Sefina.How did I not sense it?
No. He’s screwing with me. Has to be.
But deep down, I know it’s entirely possible. And just the thought breaks me.
Sefina is tough for a female, but I think she hides her pain under the cover of anger. She doesn’t like being touched and wants to carry and protect her stuff. Every sign points to someone abusing her, and I suddenly feel so much worse.
“Neither of your kinds want you,” Quris spins his voltstick on the palm of his hand like he’s had far too much time to play with it. “I guess I’ll just have to drain a little more out of you so you won’t be able to fight it when you see her.”
Without warning, he jabs a throwing blade into my shoulder and twists it.
I bang my head weakly against the metal as my shoulder pulses, sending fingers crawling like hot coals around my arm. My body finally gives out and hangs from the metal cuffs he’s stretched me into.
How did I get here?
I remember falling and electricity, then there’s nothing.Must’ve used his Titan EMP to knock me out.
Damn Creator tech.Our makers are our worst enemy when they’ve turned on us.
“You know—” Quris backs up and paces in front of me.
