Juliet could hear the alarms again. Although familiar, the dream was anything but comforting.  It was always jarring: a recurring  nightmare.

She was small, just seven, and she could see their faces. Her brothers and sisters, all strikingly dissimilar in appearance, but sharing the same young, cherubic, guileless eyes and open expressions. Juliet liked India’s shoulder length blond hair much more than her short dark pixie cut. Her own hair barely covered her surgical scar.

She was jealous of Alpha’s lily white skin and smattering of freckles across her button nose, so unlike her own unblemished light caramel complexion. Freckles were cute. Delta had the most amazing green eyes. It wasn’t fair that a boy had eyes like that. They had tiny flecks of gold among the pale green that almost shined when he smiled at her.

They sat in a circle, passing the foam ball back and forth. The rule was that they couldn’t use their hands, only the Gift. They didn’t want to drop the ball. Bad things happened when they dropped the ball. The bright red ball floated towards her slowly when the first harsh sound broke her concentration and her hands involuntarily covered her ears. She fumbled the handover from Delta and her eyes widened in horror as the ball fell at her feet.

“Jay wake up!” Mack’s terrified voice sounded as if she screamed from the far end of a long dark tunnel. So far away and foreign in the confines of the dream. The words made no sense, echoing strangely from cavernous walls, cries of pain and yells of anger further interfering and distorting her voice. Jay struggled to open her eyes, wanted to react, to help Mack in her distress, but she couldn’t. The nightmare kept its strangle hold on her, wouldn’t let her go. She knew what was coming.

No, not again, I don’t want to see it again. Please.

As Juliet looked to the white-coat, she expected him to press the button, to feel pain explode in her head like thousands of tiny needles burrowing into her.

That was what happened if she dropped the ball, or couldn’t pop the balloon, or snuff out the candle or perform one of a hundred different tasks. Pain. If they got through every task, they got something nice like a piece of candy or a toy. But not today. She’d dropped the ball. Today she got the pain. She curled her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller. Instead a harsh klaxon assaulted the air and no pain followed. The white-coat looked at the ceiling, head cocked to the sound, face uncertain.

A harsh boom sounded. That was new. That usually didn’t happen until later in the nightmare.

“What the bloody hell was that?” yelled a powerful baritone. From the vast, immeasurable distance, it sounded like her friend Snake, who played funny songs when she was sad and sang in a voice so mellow and sweet it sounded like warm, melted fudge. What was his voice doing in her nightmare?

“Stay on the carpet,” instructed the white-coat sternly. All the children blinked as their neural tech registered the command. He picked up the phone that hung in the corner and pressed the handset against his ear, frowning. He muttered to himself, jiggling the button on the top when there was no dial tone.

“Someone’s coming,” whispered Alpha, peeking out from behind a curtain of red hair at the others in the circle.

The group turned to look at the doors, ball forgotten. So often Alpha knew things before they happened.

“What?” demanded the white-coat. He walked across the small room towards the door, withdrawing a shinkari pistol from his pocket as he did so. His other hand stretched out for the handle when the door blew inwards. He took the brunt of the blast in the chest, knocked unconscious as the heavy metal door crashed into him. He slammed against the wall, crumpled and bleeding.

A handsome, Asian man lowered his booted foot with a smile of satisfaction on his face. “Told you I could,” he quipped to the tall attractive black woman at his side, as if in answer to a dare. She raised her weapon and hustled into the room as the children watched silently and motionless.

“Get that weapon, China!” It was Sarge’s voice. But she didn’t say that in the nightmare. This wasn’t how Jay remembered it from before.

“By the Monarchs. China, there are kids here. What is going on?” That’s what she said.

“What? But -” China stepped forward with a look of dawning horror on his face.  His features turned pale as the blood left his face.

Another boom echoed down the cavernous expanse of her dream. Wherever the sounds came from, it wasn’t part of Jay’s nightmare. This was happening elsewhere. She tried again to focus on it, to swim back to reality, without success.

“What are you kids doing here?” The black woman demanded, her voiced stressed, one hand white knuckled on the rifle she carried.

“We live here. What are you doing here?” Foxtrot asked, brushing her hair from her face to look at the imposing woman fearfully.

“You live here? You’re the secret project?”

Juliet could feel the woman’s violet eyes on her hair. She was looking at her scar, the only one that could be seen because of her pixie cut.

“What did that bastard Mycroft do to you?” she demanded.

“Sarge,” China swallowed. “There’s no time.” There were unshed tears in his voice as he tugged on his partner’s arm urgently.

The children all looked at them in confusion as she responded stubbornly. “I’m not killing kids China. We’re getting them out. Come with us. Now.” She commanded to the group.

Jay shook her head with the rest of her siblings. No. It’ll hurt if we leave the carpet without permission.

“They’ll slow us down. Sarge,” the Asian man implored holding a gentle and familiar hand against her cheek. “We won’t get away ourselves. We’ll die if we don’t go. The timers are running. I’m going to kill my father when we see him.” He asserted heatedly.

As the black woman looked at the small group of children her eyes settled on Jay. She was the smallest. Jay knew what the woman was thinking. Jay could feel it. “We can’t leave the carpet,” she pleaded urgently. “We’re not allowed.”

As the big, black woman strode forward and picked her up she started crying, anticipating the pain. But it’s not my fault. She thought bitterly as hot tears splashed her cheeks.

The others started crying as well. Delta’s green eyes spilled tears freely as he watched Jay carried away from them. They weren’t allowed to leave the carpet.

Alpha looked at Juliet, slung over the black woman’s shoulder as she turned to leave. Alpha had tears streaming down her face and Juliet heard her sibling mind speak. Alpha knew things before they happened.

:You have to go. Don’t be afraid, you’ll survive, you’re the youngest. Remember us Juliet. Remember all of us.:

That last glimpse, she’d never forget: slung over a shoulder like a knapsack as the pain started and the black woman broke into a run. Sharp pain stabbed into her head while her tears blurred her vision. Except the middle remained clear. A tear-curtained tunnel burned into her memory with her brothers and sisters still sitting on the carpet while alarms split the air.

“How long?” The black woman barked, at full sprint down the corridor with Jay curled in pain and whimpering like a wounded animal over her shoulder.

“Three minutes,” huffed the man, trying to hold in a sob and effortlessly speeding past. “Then Mycroft’s science experiment goes up in flame.”

Jay screamed as fresh pain burned.

Stanford’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest completely. Something had killed Doctor Gillette. Stanford couldn’t see anything, except for that splash of red that hung unsupported in the air.

When Sarge bellowed “Contact” the visitors reacted instinctively, despite their amnesia. Someone watching via cameras activated the alarms and a harsh klaxon sounded.  

Stanford stood there, mouth agape and shocked into immobility while China spun out of the sheets, kicking the overbed table across the ward into where the blood hung mid-air. The broken table struck something hard.

Snake cursed, scrabbling to untangle himself from the sheet and light blankets far more clumsily than China’s effortless display of athleticism. Sarge reached up and tore an oxygen tank straight off the wall with her cybernetic arm and threw it with terrific force. The tank slammed against the invisible assailant with a distinctly metallic clang and propelled the whatever-it-was back into the partially closed door, closing it with a resounding crash.

Mack appeared at Stanford’s side, pushing him down. She groaned, legs trembling and cast a desperate, wide eyed gaze  towards where the teenager still slept.

“Jay wake up!” Mack screamed in terror. As the oxygen bottle hit the ground, three evil looking circular blades spun out of thin air with a whine towards China. He threw himself to one side barely avoiding them.

One blade sliced across Nurse Janet’s leg and she crumpled with a scream of pain and clutched at the gushing wound. The remaining blades buried themselves deep into the wall with a puff of plaster and concrete dust. Stanford had no idea how China managed to avoid the deadly projectiles.

Yelling loudly, Sarge tipped her gurney over and pushed it forward, swinging the closest thing that came to her hand at the enemy only she could see clearly. Her IV tower crashed against the object, striking sparks and bending the thin aluminium pipe whenever it made contact with the disguised attacker.

Stanford cowered by the wall in shock. It was all happening too fast and he jumped when Snake grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him to one side.

“Chuck things at it. Keep it busy.” Snake yelled as he pitched a plastic water jug towards it.

China kicked off from the wall hard enough to leave cracks in the tiles laid over the concrete. His right foot spun through the air towards where Sarge’s gurney pinned their assailant against the wall.

There was a deep concussive jolt as China’s foot impacted and he somersaulted gracefully away. He landed in a crouching position, perfectly balanced in a long defensive stance with an outstretched hand for balance behind Sarge. “What the bloody hell was that?” yelled Snake, following the mini explosion.

Whatever China had done, something sparked with the smell of ozone . Hard angles rippled into view like a heat mirage and coalesced out of the air to reveal shining metal armor covering a menacing, human-shaped robot.

Stanford forgot about Snake’s advice at the improbable sight. A collection of subtly-glowing, red and green eyes topped a faceless head that was more appropriate to a spider than a human. Solid limbs articulated with inhuman flexibility as it worked to free itself.  An armored carapace encased the entirety of the machine.  

Stanford’s mind scrambled to make sense of it. It’s like looking at an evil  Tim Burton version of the Knights of the Round Table. Oh god. No. It’s the Terminator, but worse . . .

Clawed hands gripped the metal frame of the gurney and with a whine of servos, it slammed against the bed, driving Sarge back, almost tripping her over China. The machine produced a strange looking handgun from somewhere Stanford couldn’t see. Like the Weapon Stanford had examined earlier, it glowed in places.

His vision sharpened with a renewed burst of adrenaline and desperation. Fresh sweat slicked Stanford’s hands as he followed Snake’s example and threw a blood pressure monitor at the robot.

The monitor merely bounced off its chest plate. The machine ignored the projectiles, stepping forward with its weapon outstretched as the door behind it burst open. The robot spun at the sound, firing its weapon at the first airman through the door.

A tiny comet of black and silver light erupted from the barrel with a screaming noise. It struck the airman in the chest with a wet sucking sound followed by a dull thump that knocked him off his feet and left a fine mist of red in the air. The airman didn’t even have time to yell. He fell as if a light had been switched off. He sprawled backwards from the impact, dead. His M16 clattered to one side as the other airmen opened fire.

Everyone in the room ducked as the sound of ricocheting bullets sang around the room, cracking tiles and striking equipment. The bullets didn’t appear to have enough force to penetrate the robot’s armor, but it staggered back against the metal frame of the gurney, firing its weapon at the men in fatigues who bravely or foolishly continued to engage the machine at close range.

“Get that weapon, China!” Sarge bellowed, seeing the devastating effect it made. The machine ignored the visitors and Stanford for the moment, while it concentrated on the more obvious threat of armed airmen. Crossing that space infused with flying lead and spinning steel death seemed like suicide to Stanford as ricochets continued to paint their random patterns around the room. One ricochet came close to Stanford and he flinched away instinctively.

The airmen at the door ducked behind the door frame, frantically reloading, and Stanford heard Colonel Hardaker yelling incomprehensibly down the corridor.

I’m gonna die. The thought struck home with a quiet finality that scattered all other coherent thought.

His eyes roamed aimlessly across the room and in a haze,  he watched Mack crawl towards the still unconscious teenager. She stuck close to the ground to reach her companion.

Stanford missed whatever China did. One second, the robot’s gun’s whining report sounded and the next there was another of those concussive booms. Two more whirling blades shot across the room to embed themselves in the far wall. Someone cried out in pain.

Stanford’s vacant gaze swept around the room to see China press one palm against a shoulder that oozed blood as the airmen poured bullets into the armored back of the robot.

Stanford heard a high pitched scream of anguish and frustration which brought his attention back to the teenager. As she continued to scream, small objects on nearby tables began defying gravity, while dust rained from above them. The sheets fell away as the teenager levitated above the bed, her dark hair spread out and slowly rippling behind her like Medusa’s snakes.

What in the world?

Stanford turned, watching in amazement as the robot drone levitated into the air with limbs still, unable to move. Open mouthed he looked back towards the teenager and noticed a hate-filled gaze focused on the robot as she raised her hands and slowly curled her fingers into fists.

There was a sound like the fender of a ‘63 Ford meeting an oak tree at ninety five miles per hour and Stan turned his head to see the robot implode inwards under enormous pressure. The head, arms and legs were forced towards the torso of the machine by an unseen force.  It looked as though the machine had been placed inside a transparent industrial crusher. He stared dumbfounded at the wrecked machine.  All Stanford could hear over the ringing in his ears was a sobbing that presumably belonged to the teenager and what sounded like Mack consoling her.  

Next Chapter: Date:  4th of February 2017Location: 28° 14’ 38.7672’’ N 80° 35’ 59.5644’’ WTime: 3.05am