Ten Birds but no Stone

Chapter 5

Two weeks later, I found myself in a truck racing through the streets. Robots flew after us like magnets. Alex sat in the trunk with a new weapon that he had created, a vibrobow that reloaded with energy arrows instantly. He was skillfully shooting down the Purifiers.

My wound had mostly healed, thanks to special healing chemicals and my enhanced healing factor. I was driving, even though I was too young to drive. The truck was going way too fast to be within the speed limit, but hey, the government already wanted us dead, what are they gonna do? Send more robots? Of course, the moment I thought that, more robots appeared in front of our trucks. The survivors had sent a few groups to destroy the hospital that was giving people the HEP procedure, and this was one of the groups.

We had traveled multiple kilometers to the nearest hospital, it was a large, wide building with multiple stories. The sunlight reflected off the large windows painfully into my eyes. I swerved into another road, and the two swarms of robots combined and followed.

I parked crookedly near the entrance of the hospital and Alex and I jumped out. The other groups in the trucks drove to the other entrances so we could proceed with our plan. Alex and I burst into the entrance we had driven to. The hospital wall was filled with civilians. "What if they attack us?" I whispered to Alex. "Who?" "All these people," I replied, I wasn't ready to attack innocent civilians. "We'll have to run, so let's hope they don't," Alex responded. He pointed his bow at the people inside, but I knew he wouldn't actually shoot them. The people inside watched us warily, but they weren't really scared. The HEP has made them stronger, they outnumber us, if they fight, we can't win.

But then an explosion from the other side of the hospital could be heard, and all the civilians turned their heads to look. Alex took those few seconds and dashed down the hall, pulling me like a child with him. I shook off his hand as we reached the elevators. Alex ran over to the sign on the wall that told visitors and patients which floor to go to. Alex traced his finger up from the first floor to the twenty fourth floor, the uppermost floor. I walked over and saw the words: "Human Enhancement Program" next to two large curly digits that together showed the number twenty-four.

"Let's go then."

Inside the elevator, we stared at the small screen above the elevator door that showed the floors as we passed with glowing ominous red digits. We slowly rose through the building with an eerie hum and the numbers slowly grew as we watched impatiently. At level 9, the elevator stopped with a cheery ding that didn't match the creepy theme of the elevator and our mission. As the doors opened, the people on the other side joined us, making the elevator cramped and uncomfortable. Man, I hate being at the back of a stuffed elevator.

Everyone in the elevator watched as the elevator passed floor 11 and then 12. Then I noticed a fist heading towards my head out of the corner of my eye as the elevator reached level 13. I ducked back just in time and the person's punch slammed into the elevator wall, making a dent and a reverberating thud. Then everything around me whirled into chaos. The people inside were fighting us! I dodged another blow by a man and then grabbed someone's leg as it hooked towards me. I swung the person into the wall, and a woman leaped at me, kicking my head into the metal walls. I ducked and weaved through punches, blocking kicks, and intercepting others. One person jabbed me in the stomach while another charged at me.I barely managed to dodge, causing the person who was charging to slam into the wall.

I briefly saw Alex as he caught a man's punch and pulled their arm around behind their back. He flipped onto the man's back, ran along the wall and jumped, landing on his feet. All the while pulling the man with him and into the wall.

I ducked under someone's kick, appearing behind them and knocking them over. I pulled someone around me as they tried to punch me, then I slid under someone else's kick, tripping them. The elevator dinged as it reached our stop. Alex knocked people aside and leaped out, I followed diving through two people, barely avoiding someone as they tried to grab me. We rolled to a stop and the elevator's doors closed.

We raced down the hallways, passing many doors, some open and others closed. Some empty and others with patients waiting for the doctor to arrive. "We need to find the doctor's room, it's their break time," Alex reminded me. I pulled my sword out of its dormant form. Alex pushed his back against the wall on one side of a room labeled: "Doctors". I mimicked him. He nodded to me and I jerked the door handle, pulling the door open as he spun and threw three smoke bombs inside the room.

We ran inside, we had to capture all the HEP doctors or kill them. The latter wasn't the one I wanted. I pulled one doctor into a chokehold, as he flailed around I chopped the side of his neck with my hand, hitting his pressure point. I slammed a device into him, and pulled my hand back as ropes shot around him, tightly binding his arms to his side. I kicked another doctor behind his knee, making him drop to the floor. I repeated the process with the binding device and went to capture another target. The third doctor wasn't as easy to capture. She fought back and was armed with a knife, attacking in large sweeping movements. As the smoke cleared, I caught sight of her face and gasped. It was the same doctor that had put me through the HEP simulation. She recognized me too, "YOU! I'VE BEEN PUNISHED BECAUSE YOU INTERRUPTED THE GOVERNMENT'S PLAN!"

"Or maybe you weren't good enough to do it correctly," I replied as she charged at me. I swept her feet out from under her, managing to slip out from under her so I wouldn't stab myself. I kicked her knife away and slapped the roping device on her back so she was restrained. Alex had secured the other two doctors, thankfully without spilling blood. "We're ready," I spoke into a miniature microphone in my ear that all the survivors on the mission were connected to. "So are we," someone replied. I nodded to Alex and we pushed the doctors out the window. Defenestration be like. I calmly looked out the window to make sure that they would get down safely. I saw parachutes sprout from the roped up victims, landing them in the trunks of three trucks.

"The robots are entering," a female voice warned through the mics. Most of the survivors on the mission had the job of fighting off the robots, but the droids kept on swarming in, no matter how many warriors were fighting, the robots kept on coming. Alex had also heard the caution, we ran to the elevator, but someone was already there.

Remember the robot that took off Damian's hand, killed eight survivors, and stabbed me? Well it looked like he duplicated. Two of the specialized robots were standing at the elevators, waiting for us. "It's almost like they're hunting us specifically," I said in a conversation-like tone to Alex. "They are," Alex replied, "And I thought you were smart. Haven't you figured it out yet? They're hunting you." Ouch.