08. For Hope

 

Professor Gideon stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at them.  In his hand was the large shadow of an automatic rifle.  Though none of them had ever seen one in real life, the knowledge they were born with told them what it was.  Associated with a gun were death, pain, and fear.  All of which were running through the scared teenager’s minds.

 

Much to everyone’s surprise, Professor Gideon smiled.  It wasn’t a very friendly smile, but it wasn’t cold or taunting.  “My Forties, my dear Forties,” he said slowly as he walked down the stairs.  He took the steps one at a time, each time placing his foot down carefully and deliberately.  Each step brought him closer to the four, who were backing against the wall.

 

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, still smiling eerily.  “I’m not going to hurt you.  The bullets in this gun are not meant for you.  They are for intruders; people who are against our work here in our laboratory; people who want to sabotage us.  I wouldn’t dare shoot my precious experiments.”

 

Axie let out a low growl from her throat and shoved her way forward.  “We don’t have time for this!  We’re tired of being used, Professor Gideon.”  She said the word ‘professor’ with a sneer dripping with hate and sarcasm.  “We’ve come all this way for freedom, and I’m not going to let you stand in our way.”

 

The professor stopped walking, but his smile broadened.  “Forty-Four, you’re a clever girl.  Of course I’m going to stand in your way!  I have been anticipating this from the time you were created.  The burning desire to escape was incorporated into your personality. All of your personalities, actually.  We knew that someday, you would try to escape.  We’ve just been waiting for the time.”

 

“You’re lying!” Axie screamed.  In a flash she was holding the professor by the collar of his white coat, slamming him against the wall with ferocity none of her friends had seen in her before.  “We don’t act like this because you programmed us this way!  We’re living breathing creatures, you asshole!  We act on our own free will!”

 

Professor Gideon only smiled a little more.  “You only think so, because you were programmed to.  Everything you do has been preordained!  You can’t help acting the way you do.”

 

“That’s a lie!”  She threw him against the side of the stairs again, growling in frustration.

 

The same voice that interrupted them so many times before interrupted them once more.  “She’s right, you know.”  Ran walked calmly down the stairs, carrying a clipboard holding papers covered in his scrawl.  He stopped before Axie and the professor, who were blocking him from going further down the stairs.  “Yes, you gave us preset personalities, but we are still somewhat unpredictable.  It’s degrading to you as a scientist to lie to your experiment.”

 

Despite being held against the wall so tightly that he almost couldn’t breathe, Professor Gideon let out a wheeze of a laugh.  “Forty-Two, I thought I told you to stay up there and continue taking your notes on the night sky.  You weren’t supposed to be seen by this lot.”

 

Ran shrugged one shoulder.  “I had to point out your little lie.”

 

Axie glared from the professor to Ran and back again.  “Okay,” she hissed, cat fangs bared.  “So how much of this was set in our personalities?  Were we supposed to escape?  Were you really expecting us to escape?  Or was that something surprising that we did on our own?”

 

Professor Gideon sighed, which, from his position, sounded more like a dying cough.  “Well, you were all supposed to feel the need to run away, but we honestly never thought you would do it.  But that doesn’t mean that we weren’t prepared.  If it hadn’t been for Forty-Two here,” the professor motioned to Ran, “we wouldn’t have known when you were to make your daring escape.  You might have gotten away if we hadn’t know when you were planning to leave.”

 

Now all eyes were turned on Ran.  He only smiled at them coldly through his thick glasses.

 

“You,” Ex growled, starting up the stairs.  “You gave us away!  You fucking bastard!”

 

“Now, now, now, Forty-Three,” the Professor said, shoving Axie aside.  In one swift motion, he held the automatic rifle up to Ex’s head.  “Don’t be so rash.  Don’t touch Forty-Two.  It’s clearly apparent to us that he will be the only one to survive his experiment.  He’s intelligent and strong.  His genes will be the ones used to create the new species of humans.”

 

Ex turned his glare on the professor.  “So you’re saying that the human race is going to be turned into a bunch of pretentious bastards walking around quoting a physics book?”

 

Ran started to say something snide in reply, but the Professor clicked the safety of the gun off.  “You’ll do as you’re told, Forty-Three.  Shut your mouth and keep it that way.  The four of you will all be marched back downstairs, and put to sleep.  We can’t have you all blabbing to the other experiments of what you’ve heard and learned.”  He pushed the barrel of the gun against Ex’s head, who only flinched a little.  “Understood?”

 

Another high-pitched scream sounded, though this sounded much more like a howl.  Axie was yelling. “Leave him alone!”  In an instant she tackled the man aside.  His finger slipped, and the gun fired.  Everyone was shouting and yelling in a flurry of motion and confusion.  Cari was crying, Kibo was covering his mouth, and Ex was staring wide-eyed at his sister’s blood on the stairs.

 

Axie laughed hoarsely and stumbled to her feet.  She was holding her arm, or where her arm should have been.  “You fucker,” she laughed as she fell against the wall.  She then used it to support her on her unsteady feet.  The professor stared at her, shocked out of his intimidating calm.  His hands were still clutched around the gun, which was now his only protection.

 

She moved forward towards him.  He backed away, making incomprehensive noises of fear.  Axie opened her mouth to say something, but only blood came out and fell onto the professor’s already stained coat.  With the back of her only hand left, she wiped her mouth.  Her smile was hungry.  “You are going to let my friends go, and you are going to let them go safely.  You are not going to hunt them down once they escape.  You are going to give them their freedom.”

 

The professor was backed up against the wall now.  Cari and Kibo had moved away, wanting to get as far away from him as they could.  Professor Gideon didn’t know what to do.  What he did was yell, “Get back, you filthy cat!”  Another gunshot fired.

 

Axie bit her lip, a new hole ripped open in her stomach.  With effort, she looked up at the professor again and laughed.  “You can’t kill me.  Not as long as we’re not free.  I won’t die until I see my friends free!”

 

Professor Gideon screamed for all that he was worth.  “How can you still be standing?” he stuttered, staring at her like she was the devil himself.  “You’re not human!  You can’t be human!”

 

“No shit,” she laughed, her voice scratchy yet soft, making it all the more powerful.  “I’m a cat.  I’m a human.  You made me.  You should know what I am.”  She ignored the afraid, hurried remarks her friends were making.  She ignored their efforts to try to get her to stop before she killed herself.  “You tell me what I am.  You made me,” she continued, staring at him with chilling resolve.

 

“I’ll kill you all!  All four of you!” Gideon yelled wildly, spinning around and aiming the gun at all four of them.  When he finally stopped turning, his gun was leveled at Cari’s neck.  He laughed hysterically, clicking the safety off again.  “I’ll start with you, you pretty little kitty.  I’ll start with you, Forty-Seven!”

 

Cari stopped moving; she was almost holding her breath.  She couldn’t think of anything as she stared into the black hole of the gun that meant death.  She couldn’t move with the gun pointed at her.  Kibo wasn’t close enough to knock the gun from the professor’s hands.  Ex was even farther away, already halfway up the stairs, where he had tried to get to Ran.  Ran was watching from above with apathy.  Cari lost all hope.

 

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Axie screamed.  She threw herself against the professor as hard as she could, knocking him down to the bottom of the stairs.  Cari dashed aside, where Kibo grabbed her and began yanking her up to the safety of the open sky.  The two friends turned away, both crying silently as the sounds of a horrific struggle sounded below them.

 

Man and experiment screamed and shouted.  There was no way to distinguish one cry from another.  At least four gunshots joined the chorus of pain.  Then everything was silent.  It took everyone a moment to get the courage to open their eyes and uncover their faces.  They didn’t want to see.  They didn’t want to, but they had to.

 

What they saw was Axie looking down at the professor, her eyes full of something that looked like sadness.  The gun was propped upright, held tightly in her one hand.  She was using it to hold herself up.  Her legs were bloody and useless, lying at an angle that legs should not be able to lie in.  Her torso was ridden with bullet holes, but she was the one left alive.  The professor lay beneath her, a hole in the middle of his forehead.

 

When she felt their eyes on her, she looked up at them.  She smiled, and for a moment they could actually imagine her face.  Clean of the blood, clean of the wounds; just Axie’s smiling face telling them a joke to lighten up the mood.  “Don’t worry,” she whispered in a voice that none of them could hear.  “I’m okay.  Go get your freedom and justice for all.”

 

Slowly, her eyes closed and her head drooped.  Her hand let go of its hold on the gun, finger by finger slipping off.  Rifle and girl fell to the floor, gently landing next to the professor’s body.

 

The only sound following that was Cari’s sobs.

 

Gently, Ex pulled Cari further up the stairs, fighting the tears as best he could.  “Come on, we have to get out of here.  Everyone will be out here any minute.  We have to get out of here.”  Finally, Cari gave in and let Ex pull her along, followed by a quiet Kibo.  Ran stepped aside, staring at the two bodies below him.  His eyes were blank of emotion, so they could only guess what he was thinking.

 

As the three experiments walked across the barren ground, lit by moonlight, their tears watered the ground.  Cari was leaning against the two boys, her face in her hands.  “She died…f-for me,” she cried.  “She didn’t have to g-get in the way.  S-she could have saved herself.  I w-wouldn’t have minded dying.”  She pulled her fists away from her eyes, watching the cracked dirt underneath their feet.  “W-when I thought I was going to die, I-I didn’t have any hope for myself.  B-but then Axie stepped in and she saved me.  S-she-” But she couldn’t speak anymore.

 

“I know,” Ex whispered quietly, rubbing Cari’s back comfortingly.  “I know.”

 

Kibo looked up to the night sky, the beauty of it almost lost on him after the bloody affair.  As he stared up at the almost full moon, he cracked the most miniscule of smiles.  “But we’re all alive.  That’s what she died for, huh?  We’re free.”

 

“Yeah,” murmured Ex, looking up too.  “We are.”