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Melissa runs.
Her chest hurts, feels like it is going to burst. Her bruises ache. But she runs faster than she has ever ran in her life, adrenaline pumping through her body.
She is out of the facility, out of the compound. She ducks behind signs and walls, running to the city as fast as she can go. She doesn’t stop for anything. She needs to get there.
Once she reaches the city, she hesitates. Where does she go now? She wants to go straight home, but what if they follow her? She should go to the police. If she goes to the police, they can protect her. They can lock up the bad guys, and she will be safe.
She finds the police station and runs through the door. The officer at the desk looks up. “What’s wrong, kiddie? You look like a mess.”
Melissa stumbles to the desk and slumps down. The officer gasps, noticing her metal arm. “I… I escaped. I need help…” She gasps, her body collapsing into jelly now that the adrenaline is wearing off.
“Ok sweetheart, ok.” The cop comforts, taking her flesh hand. “You’re safe now. What’s your name?”
“Melissa. Melissa Chase.” She manages, her eyes pricking with tears. “My dad’s called Richard Chase, he’s the fire chief.”
“Ok.” The woman types rapidly. “Now come with me, we’ll have a little sit down and a chat while I call your dad. And… oh.”
“Oh?” Melissa blinks. The woman’s eyes have widened, she is scanning Melissa up and down. “What’s wrong?” She asks nervously. She has gotten much better at reading signals- she had to, to survive.
But now? She is safe. She is free. And she is never going back there again.
The woman hesitates for a few moments, then smiles again. She clicks a button on her desk. “Nothing, sweetheart. Come with me.” She stands up, offering Melissa her hand.
Melissa can’t help but flinch away. But she takes the offered hand and follows the woman through the door. The scanners beep, detecting Melissa’s metal arm. She squeaks and freezes, but the woman just squeezes her hand tighter. “It’s ok.”
So she follows her down the corridor, into a small room with two comfortable looking chairs. She hesitates, nervous. “Can I sit?”
“Of course.” The woman says. Melissa sits down, feeling uncomfortable, feeling tense. But she can’t help but relax into the comfortable chair, the most comfortable thing she has been allowed to sit on since her kidnapping. “Now, how about you tell me what happened, and I’ll get you some biscuits.”
“I don’t really… feel hungry.” Melissa says. She knows that she is malnourished, is still struggling with the effects of being starved. But right now, she feels too sick with fear and excitement to eat. “Can’t I just go home?”
“Soon, sweetie. But right now, I think that you should eat.” The cop walks over to a cupboard. “Can you tell me what happened to you?” There is a strange edge to her voice.
“Right now? Ok. Um… so, I made some kinda rude posts about V-Tech on V-Net. But I wasn’t lying! I really didn’t mean to do any slander or anything. But then I got kidnapped, and I woke up in this horrible cell, and I was in chains. And they starved me until I signed this stupid contract, and then they cut off my arm, and they keep hurting me.” She wraps her arms around herself. “They kept saying that they were allowed to do that. But that’s not true, is it? V-Tech can’t do that.”
The officer puts a tin of biscuits down in front of her. “Try to eat, sweetheart.”
“Ok.” Melissa takes a chocolate biscuit and starts nibbling at it. “Is my dad coming?”
“Do you need a bottle of water?” The officer asks. Melissa nods. “Ok. Does your arm hurt, kiddie?”
“Not as much anymore. It still aches a little.” Melissa says. “Sometimes the metal bit hurts, even though I don’t have any like, nerves, or anything. I hate it, I hate it, I hate looking at it.” Tears burn in her eyes. Knowing that she is safe, her defences are dropping. “I just wanna go home.”
“Oh, I know. I know.” The cop says. “Do you wanna try a few more biscuits? Good girl. You’re doing so well.”
A tear rolls down Melissa’s face. No one has treated her so gently since she was taken. No one has treated her so humanely. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“It’s ok.” The woman’s voice breaks. “It’s ok, sweetheart. I’m just doing my job.” There is a funny edge to her voice, but Melissa can’t pay attention to that.
The cop’s radio buzzes. Melissa sees her flinch, then relax herself. “Ok, kiddie, can you come with me?”
“Is dad here? Am I going home?” She asks, immediately standing up.
“You… you… you’re going home.” The officer says, taking her arm to guide her out. Melissa’s heart soars. She so badly wants to see her dad, an ache in her chest that won’t go away. She is so close to seeing him, to collapsing in his arms and letting those awful days, weeks, months of torment fade away into a painful nightmare.
But when they reach the door, her eyes widen. It isn’t her dad waiting at the door, but a group of people in white V-Tech uniforms. All of them have weapons pointed directly at the door. At the front of the group are… are Brick and Savannah.
“What’s going on?” She asks the cop, terrified, shrinking backwards. “I can’t go out there, they’ll take me again! Can’t you make them go away?”
The cop sighs. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly, Melissa’s arms are bent behind her back, shoved into handcuffs. She yelps, squirming, trying to struggle. “What are you doing?! Stop! Stop, I haven’t done anything!”
“I’m sorry.” The cop repeats, her voice choked. “But… you signed that contract. Legally, you belong to V-Tech. I have no choice but to return their missing property.”
“What?! No!” Melissa struggles, getting more and more hysterical with fear as she is pushed towards the door. “That’s not fair! I didn’t have a choice! You can’t make me go back, please don’t make me go back, please! Please! I can’t go back, I can’t, I won’t!”
But the officer just hands the struggling, sobbing child to the V-Tech employees. “Please be gentle.” She murmurs. “She’s just a kid.”
“You have no right to tell us how to do our jobs.” The guard snaps. “Mind your tongue, unless you want to end up in one of your own cells.”
The woman squeezes Melissa’s hand once more before disappearing through the door. Melissa struggles, kicking and fighting and yelling. “You can’t do this! You can’t!”
“On the contrary, we can.” Savannah says. “That was a smart escape plan, cyborg. You’re not as stupid as you look.”
Melissa tries to kick her. Immediately a taser is jabbed into her stomach, and she goes limp. “But you’re still stupid for thinking that this was a good idea. A police station? You might as well have walked straight into Verliezer’s office and handed yourself in.”
Limp in the grip of two guards, all she can do is sob. She was so close. So close, and now she has been captured again.
She feels a prick in her neck, and everything goes dark.
———
When she wakes up, she is strapped to a table. Strapped to a table, in the same workshop where her arm was replaced. Her breath hitches.
There are mechanics buzzing all around her, talking in low voices. She takes a deep breath and steels herself. “What are you going to do to me?”
Her voice is higher and more frightened than she would have liked.
Savannah approaches her. “You’re being punished for your escape attempt.” She says coldly. “We are replacing your foot with a mechanical one.”
“What?!”
“You ran away, so we are cutting off your foot. You see, it could be considered a ‘natural consequence’.” Brick adds.
“I don’t think that cutting off my fucking foot could be considered a ‘natural consequence’ by any stretch of the imagination.” Melissa spits.
Savannah rolls her eyes. “Well then, just consider it a consequence.” She says. “You’re going to want to bite down on this.”
She shoves something hard into Melissa’s mouth. Melissa blinks. Why…
And then pain roars through her foot.
Like a broken dam, pain rushes through. Melissa bites down on the plastic in her mouth, thrashing and fighting against her bindings. But she is tied down too tightly to even move, utterly at their mercy. And it hurts, god it hurts.
All she can feel is the pain, growing and growing like a forest fire. She bites down so hard that she hears a crack, but she can’t think about that, all she can think about is the pain. A ripping pain, hundreds of white hot knives stabbing at her foot, her ankle, her leg.
Tears roll down her eyes as her head swims, as her vision goes blurry. She goes limp, sobbing helplessly. The pain tears at her ankle, rips and burns and bites down, her bones turning in on themselves to tear her apart.
As the world goes dark, she is thankful. At least she will feel nothing in her sleep.
———
When she wakes up, her ankle is still burning, burning, burning like dozens of embers were tied to it. She looks down at it, and gasps.
Because her foot is metal. She can see the red, raw skin next to the metal, she can see blood splattered around. And it all hurts, hurts like hell. Hurts even worse than her arm did.
Getting up to her bed isn’t an option. She curls up on the floor, using her arm as a pillow. Her ankle touching the floor feels like it is resting in a campfire, but when she shifts it hundreds of white hot knives stab her. So she stays still.
The pain is all consuming, endless. It is impossible to focus on anything else. Tears roll down her face, splash onto the floor.
“Dad…” Her voice breaks. She wants him. She wants him so badly. Why can’t he be here? Why can’t she go home?