M.A.I.D.S. [season 2]

Episode 10: Pandora's Box

M.A.I.D.S. [season 2] Episode 10 - Pandora's Box

"She's not following us," Adam reported. Robobot chimed once, a tone that was understood to signal agreement.

"Why?" asked Pandora. The streets practically squealed under the tires of their commandeered CROW vehicle. The night's rhythm had gone from bad to worse, though the weather had done the opposite. Adam perched in his seat, turning so frequently to check behind the car that he might as well have sat backwards. Pandora's bioengineered eyes, flickering as rapidly as birthday candles, divided their time between the road and the vehicle's mirrors. Even Robobot seemed on high alert.

"We have to get to Judas as fast as possible," Adam stated needlessly. He needed to hear a voice, any voice, just something other than the hum of the car as it whipped along back roads and crossed highways with unusual rapidity. Pandora's driving is going to tip somebody off, he thought, but we're not going to be safe until we find Judas.

"There," Pandora said, indicating a nightclub. "That's where we are going to meet Judas."

"In there?" Adam looked at his clothes, then at Pandora's, and he couldn't keep the doubt out of his voice. There was no way they would be admitted to a swanky establishment in their current attire unless they used force, and he was fairly certain that was exactly the opposite method Dr. Judas had intended for them. He kept his mouth shut, though, as a wave of pain and nausea swept over him. He was still reeling from his treatment at CROW headquarters.

CROW. To keep from retching in the stolen car, Adam focused on his recent capture and imprisonment by the CROW mercenaries, lead by his old comrade-in-arms. Coleman was in charge of the local CROW agency, and was in cahoots with Wilner. Though it made his bile rise, Adam was forced to accept the fact that Monroe had betrayed him, as well. The list of people Adam could trust had fallen to zero with such speed that the G-forces it generated left his head spinning more than CROW's torture methods.

Not zero. One. Adam corrected himself, glancing over at Pandora. Hopefully two.

"Dr. Judas's instructions are for us to meet him in the alley behind the club," Pandora said matter-of-factly. "There is the possibility that this is a trap; I am worried that you are not ready for such action."

"Well, just like before, I'll fight if I have to," Adam replied.

"I believe that we can trust Judas," Pandora said with more confidence than she felt. "I just want us to be ready in case it turns out that we cannot."

"I understand," Adam said. He glanced over at her, his eyes tracing the curve of her jaw, the shadows playing across her neck, the sparkle in her eye. He had created her because he wanted to know what it would feel like to love a woman, to know the kind of love that existed before World War III nearly led to the end of the human race.

No, he thought. M.A.I.D.S. almost led to the end of the human race. World War III just helped it along.

Adam was brought out of his internal rehashing of history by Pandora's gentle touch on his arm, light as a spider's footfall. He smiled at her and nodded to show that he was ready. Pandora squeezed his forearm reassuringly, then scooped up Robobot and deposited it in her duffel bag. The pair exited the vehicle and walked around the corner, into the claustrophobic alley behind the thumping nightclub.

"That's far enough!" came a voice from above the pair. Pandora stopped short, but Adam swooned, and she had to lunge forward to catch him. Once she had steadied her man she cast her eyes up, searching the night for the voice that had commanded her to stop. She found him on a fire escape three floors up, clad all in black and staring down the barrel of a high-powered sniper rifle. Pandora's biomechanical heart skipped a beat.