Chapter Fourteen:

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Stryker felt it moments before it struck him. A lightning bolt, brilliant orange and yellow, arcing between him and the tree. He dodged, but it wasn’t enough, his circuits smoldered as an overwhelming jolt of electricity flooded his systems. It burned his clothes, charred his skin, and lit his hair on fire.

He seized. Smoke and his own carnage filled his nose. The smell made him gag just as he felt Norah’s weight fall off his back and the tree under them cracked and split in half.

A scream registered. Norah. And then it was gone, lost amongst the wild storm.

The branch broke and he followed Norah’s descent into the polluted flood below. Stryker shifted right as he hit the rushing water. He blinked down his second set of eyelids, glazed over, and twisted to search for his girl.

His head lifted above the surface.

“Norah!” he screamed. She didn’t answer. The wind whipped his face as he looked around frantically. Stryker fought through the pain that burned through him, the internal technology that had overheated, and the discomfort of brackish water enveloping his wounds.

Where are you? He spun in a circle, his legs hooked together into a tail that he stabbed into the ground. He spotted his pack drift away in the distance but didn’t go after it. He dunked his head and sped around the nearby trees, searching for her heat signature.

His processors went into overdrive as he felt himself go into a frenzy. Stryker pushed himself through the thick foliage and bushes that remained rooted below; his metal body ripped through them as he looked for her.

“Norah,” he yelled again as he came up for air. His voice got lost in the storm. He called out her name again and again and was only answered by the chaos around him. He felt things slide by his coiled body, he saw creatures lurking below, he felt the husks of drowned animals.

But he couldn’t find her.

He could still feel the imprint of her body pressed into his back and he would do anything to keep that feeling. The metal in his body vibrated as he lost control and the sizzling heat of the strike seared the inside of his flesh but all he could think about was her.

Stryker felt the fangs of his snake break through his gums and his human teeth pop out to collect and clink on the inside of his mask. He hissed and snapped. His head jerked as he struck out at everything and nothing, his heavy metal tail slashing and destroying whatever it came in contact with.

He couldn’t find her signature, he couldn’t smell her scent, and try as he might, he couldn’t hear anything but the devil’s storm and the perverse rattling when his tail thrashed in the water.

Stryker called out for her again as he followed the strongest current.

He spotted her bag, caught up against a split open tree. It was in his hands in a blink and the smell of Norah came back to him all at once, but it wasn’t from the bag in his hands.

Beyond the tree was a broken trail up a rocky ledge. It was subtle, but the broken twigs and the foliage were crushed and splintered backward and upward over a precise, flattened ledge that could only be man-made. As if a body had crawled up or had been dragged.

His nose twitched and he bent over the trail. He could smell a hint of blood and it wasn’t the blood of an animal.

His hands tore into the pack until it was ripped down the middle and the rest of the emergency supplies plopped into the water.

And then he heard it, the screeches that could destroy the sanity of a well man.

He was up and over the ledge before another burst of lightning came down from the sky. His body shifted as the shrieks continued and the armor he wore was forgotten, left in shreds behind him. The snake within him was free.

The interior structure inside himself broke out and latched onto his mask, until it was a part of his monstrous body. The quiet creep of his body, expanded into a long metal coil that rose up out of the swamp, his head swayed as he followed the screeches. Stryker made his own awful sounds as the metal bands that made up his beast scraped against the stone.

The human heart inside of him pumped viper blood. Wheree issss sssheee?

Stryker slithered over the walls of the ship and jerked his head in every direction, each movement poised to strike. He heard Norah just as the sky vomited up Axone’s wrath and the minor light that had been gained from being free of the forest vanished.

He was coiled around her tense body the next moment, his and Norah’s sounds deafened by the wind. His tail swung out and cut the shrieker’s body in two. Warm water, flesh, and blood spilled out over his frame. He flicked it off and watched as the carcass slumped into a pile on the other side of the field.

Stryker turned to check on Norah, overburdened with relief and swirled his metal shell around the dark outline of her figure.

“Norah,” he hissed. When she didn’t respond he shifted back into the form she knew and crouched, naked, before her. “Norah, are you alright?”

The wind lashed at them. He did his best to block her body from it.

His hands fell upon her, searching for her wounds. Her body shook as he touched her. The black waves of her hair tumbled over her face, hiding her from his sight. Stryker hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her head.

“Look at me.” She fought his grip and clenched her eyelids tight. “Please, babe.”

Stryker wasn’t above begging her.

Her teeth bit down on her lower lip, drawing out blood.

She can’t stand me. Disgust for what he was filling his systems and it felt like a bullet straight through his heart. He wiped the blood from her mouth with his thumb and would have given his soul just then to be able to soothe her with a kiss.

“I’m going to pick you up,” Stryker slid his hands around her. Please look at me.

Pleassse.

She remained silent, trembling down to the marrow of her bones, but was pliant and exhausted in his hold. He walked through the crushing veil of rain to the electrical source that called to him. Norah bent over and huddled into herself as he approached the lights.

When he entered the passage, he pressed his hand to the interior console and overrode the security system; the door shut behind them. He remained rooted to the spot as a wondrous quiet filled his ears–hollow and heavenly and entirely artificial.

Stryker let himself go within the electrical currents, into the white light and static that had been his home since his creation. He was momentarily overcome with it and leaned back into the perfectly smooth, perfectly cold, machine-built walls.

His back glided down the cold barrier until his butt hit the ground and his legs stretched out before him. Norah twitched and hiccupped.

Stryker opened his eyes to see hers looking up at him. He lost himself in the black pools of her irises, brightened by the light of the hallway to reveal an outline of reddened veins accentuating glittering amber flakes within.

He lifted his hand to cup her face and wipe away the rain from her cheeks. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said, his words loud within the quiet.

“You scare me.”

Stryker leaned his head back. “I know.” Memories flooded his mind, forgotten ones that he had buried long ago, even those he had deleted rose back up to the surface. “We’re made, us Cyborgs, to look appealing from the outside, strong and intimidating, sometimes even weak to lure our prey. To lure the Trentians, even if it’s just with their eyes. And once they get close enough, if anyone gets close enough, the miscreation we actually are comes out. It’s too late by then.” He took a deep breath. “I never intended for you to see what you did.”

“Does it hurt? The transformation?” she asked. He looked back down at her.

“No...it doesn’t hurt.” But he did feel pain, the fire of his hardware frying from the lightning, even with the wind, rain, and water, it hadn’t cooled down his systems.

Her hand came up and caressed the side of his scalp; Stryker leaned into her touch.

“You’re hurt though,” Norah shuffled and moved over him to inspect his damage. “Amazing, you’re healing. I can see you healing.”

“Nanoparticles.” He already felt the prickles of his hair regrowing.

Norah touched him, watched him, observed him with a critical eye as his shallow wounds closed up. Time passed slowly, exhausted as they were, unable nor wanting to continue. Soon, with soft fingers roaming his muscles, the cold interior of the ship seeping over them, and the puddle under their bodies, awareness returned.

We’re not safe yet. Stryker no longer trusted the security of their quiet moments together. He clasped her hand and moved to stand, picking her up with him. “Where’s the medbay here?”

She twisted her head and peered down the passageway. “Down past the ramp, there’s a series of doors just before the lift. First one on your right.” He walked as she led him. “Stryker?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we...can we just leave?” Norah buried her head into the crook of his neck. “I don’t want to be on this planet anymore.”

“You and me both, babe. You sure?” He eyed her wounds. There were many, far too many but they were shallow. He was more concerned for her emotional health because even with the chocolate shades of her face, he could see the pallid look she was trying to hide and the deep weariness under her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

He walked past the medbay and went straight for the bridge. She didn’t want to be here any more than he did. In that, they agreed.