Enhancement

- - 75 - -

President Hybriad's POV

-- --

BOOM. The ricocheting sound of the final bullet strikes through the air like a knife. The girl, hellish Number 400, falls to the ground, knees buckling before thumping her forehead against the stage. A dark red pool of blood drips from the lifeless body's temple.

Four dead, rightfully so. I straighten my suit jacket and stiffen my gaze across the crowd. Clearing my throat, I step up to the podium again. Business as usual.

"This is justice," I announce coldly. Beautifully terrified faces stare back at me, latching onto my words. "This is where the rebel madness ends. To secure all lower-class areas, Screeners will search, seize, and screen all suspicious citizens at any moment they see fit."

I pause yet again, voice crisp like a whip. "So in other words, remain loyal to your orderly nation or die."

The audience doesn't say a word. I nod icily for the benefit of the film crew hanging behind holographic fence. To them, I'm looking upon a pen of swine when the knife of the butcher already struck. To me, it's another easy victory.

I snap at the Screeners next to me, cuing them to unleash the swine from their pen. Black-clad uniforms out towards the food production buildings and fields, careful to avoid the Screeners' yearns to kick them around.

I've taught my Screeners well: harm those who harm our way of life. The next few weeks will restore order and security, stomping out the rebels for good.

Rebels. None of my top security advisors can figure out where the attacks came from. I shuffled around all my strongest leaders, strengthened surveillance efforts, yet there are still lingering attacks.

The holograms are empty now, the lower-class all gone. I turn away from the empty crowd, striding slowly towards the crippled bodies.

I kick over one of the males, Number 399 to the Project but Number 3 to me. My foot hooks into his stomach, forcing his body to twist unnaturally.

His eyes stare blankly at the sky. "What a shame," I say out loud. "What a shame."

I crouch on my heels, resting my forearms on my legs. Whistling lowly, I continue to speak. "You endured so many tests, so many experiments. Every day I grew more and more surprised that you didn't die. Maybe you have some superior gene or will power. Whatever it is, the Project will never host another experienced veteran like yourself."

I laugh under my breath, turning my Presidential ring on my finger. It's worth more than anything else in the world. "I miss those days when the Enhancement Project was so... simple. The quest for bodily control and Equinox technology are long since over. Now we just manage our subjects and tweak wires."

I gaze across the stage, watching the national flag wave. "That was when the Enhancement Project would be my most difficult and impossible creation. Now I entrust scientists and teams to do my work for me because I have..."

My eyes catch on Number 400. My blood rises a few degrees as I rise. I have so much stress, worry, and anger because of this girl. She ruined everything and fueled the rebels' power, whether she planned it herself or not...

"You cracked my Project," I hiss, stepping closer to the deceased girl. "You pushed my technology to its breaking point, you blabbed your mouth about my Project, and you refused to stop fighting me. You little brat, you even charred my fear-inducing sensors with a table knife!"

My nostrils flare as I take a step closer to Miss Renner. She lays uncomfortably face-down on the stage, like a mangled toy casted askew. Appearing thinner and smaller in her deceased state, I wonder for a moment now such an insignificant speck caused me frustration beyond belief. She was weak, immature, and utter trash.

Growling, I kick the girl squarely, whipping her onto her back. My shoe smears her upper arms with her own blood. Staring down at her, I finally accept the fact that the girl, with her eyes unfocused and mouth cocked half-open, is truly gone from the world. Dead 400 doesn't even twitch a finger at me.

I smile, striding away from the bodies. The blood of Holland Renner, sticky on my shoes, forms footprints behind me, a trail of her own crimson suicide.

I won, she lost. And that's exactly what matters in the nation.

THE END

-- -- -- -- --

Question: Did you like the perspective change?

SEE NEXT CHAPTER -->