Falling Cities

V-e-r-i-s

I've only ever seen a helicopter in our lessons. I've never.. ever flown in one.
Foster walks next too me. But he's a few feet away, his nose is swollen. Its my fault.
He's not as cute with a nose like that..
Lucinda is nowhere to be seen. Emmet leads us out of the woods and then unto the abandoned road.
I've been focusing mostly on the black tar below my feet, until I hear Lucinda laugh. She's running toward us and there's a strange creature behind her with black fur and blue eyes.
It darts between her legs and starts to sprint toward me.
"Veris!"
As it bounds forward, pink tounge dripping foam, me and Foster start to back away, until we accidentally collide and fall.
The creature is upon us before I can find a weapon.
It's.. licking me. Foster has scooted away and is staring intently as the animal stands on my chest and licks my face.
"What is that?"
Lucinda and Emmet are quite literally rolling with laughter.
"HELP!" Nobody comes to my aid.
"Calm down. It's just Rudy." Emmet assures, walking toward me.
"What's a Rudy?" Foster asks, who is now standing and brushing himself off.
"It's a dog." Emmet picks up the dog by the middle. It looks up at him affectionately.
Lucinda tows me to my feet.
"He's a husky." She says. "He's gorgeous isn't he? He's supposed to be a guard dog.. but he isn't much help unless licking is an effective defense."
He trots over, little claws clipping on the road. I tentatively reach out a hand, he slides his head under my palm before bounding back over to Emmet.
Foster whispers to me after Lucinda walks away; "Emmet looks a little like his dog.."
It was true, besides the eyes. Emmet had dark skin and a friendly demeanor.
"You coming? Or do you wanna walk?" Lucinda calls as the chopper starts.
Foster meets my gaze and smiles.
"Ever wanted to fly?"
My cheeks grow warm, I hope he doesn't notice. My skin's always been as light as paper and the fact that I'm embarrassed is probably stark as ever.
"Sorta."
A word I've never used. What was happening too me?
I'd never had feelings for a boy, never gotten that pleasing flutter in my stomach before now.
I've never wanted to fly.. until now.
I was changing. I wasn't a citizen of TIB anymore.
I was human.
The chopper begins to rise several feet. Foster grabs my hand and we close the distance between us and the chopper. With one final leap, we're scrabbling up the side and unto the flying machine.
And I notice something in Emmet, in Lucinda. A sparkle? It's a smile that actually reaches their eyes.
It's not the fake smiles like the doctors in the city had. It's not a fake smile like my quote "mother" and "father" had when I passed my final exams.
It wasn't the fake smile I pretended to have when the officers came to my door and offered to remove my chip.
I didn't know why I smiled anyway.
But I was smiling now, and for the first time in my nineteen years of life, it was real.
"WOO HOO!"
And this Foster yells at the top of his lungs as we sail high above the road and into the Colorado mountains.
"AND I'M STILL MAD AT YOU FOR BREAKING MY NOSE!"
But he's got the smile on his face, the real one.

Your human Veris. You didn't use to be.
In your studies you where taught that homo sapiens where just animals, more intelligent than the others.
It isn't true. We aren't animals. We are humans.
Humans have something that other organisms don't have.
But humans are soft.
TIB protected you, but now she's gone, and she's hunting you down, Veris.
She'll hunt you down with every fiber of her metallic being, every copper wire, every computer chip.
She'll use machine guns, knives, explosives.
But remember something; You are human, she is machine.
And do you know why she's hunting you Veris?
Because you have lived in both worlds now. You have been two different things.
Free and enslaved.