Page 10 of Ezra
Two of them are in pieces. A woman’s arm lies separate from a body nearby. She’s still, her upper body ragged and bloodied. I think she may be dead. A few feet from her, a leg is completely shredded right down to the bone. The man it belongs to stares up at the ceiling, pale with shock. He moves, opening his mouth and choking on the plaster dust that covers his face.
“Help . . .”
I’m shaking. Bile rises in my throat. I heave, and clamp my hand over my mouth, swallowing it down. I remove my belt and stagger over to him, then kneel and use it as a tourniquet for his leg.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Help is coming.” I have to stop the bleeding, and I have to try not to vomit. My eyes are filled with stars. I’m so dizzy. But I have to stay awake.
I tighten my belt around the man’s thigh and have to look away from the carnage. Nearby, a young tour guide huddled in a corner is on the phone with emergency services, sobbing as he pleads for them to come quickly.
That’s when I spot Zoey, lying whole but unmoving. She’s near the café counter, covered in broken glass. Her eyes are shut, mouth slightly open, and when I scramble to reach her and shake her awake, she doesn’t respond. I check her pulse, leaning down to see if she’s breathing.
She’s alive. Tears streak my face. Thank God, she’s alive.
Not far from her are the blackened remains of a steel skeleton and an inhuman face. Its clothes, synthetic skin, and hair are completely melted away from the bomb blast. Tentatively, I get up and inch nearer to it, afraid it may yet be operational. It remains powered down, and I push away that fear with reason. It’s far too damaged. Completely destroyed. The state of its body isn’t what holds my attention, but its head.
Crudely scratched into the android’s metal skull is a single word.
Purify.
The New Carnegie Police Department arrives in full force in a matter of minutes, along with the fire department and a small army of emergency paramedics. I’m escorted outside onto the marble steps so I don’t get in the way, and wander with jelly legs down to the pavement before turning and surveying the damage. The museum doors and windows are blown out. Officers barely had time to put up the glowing blue crime tape before the reporters arrived, their little drone cameras flitting through the air and thrumming like hummingbirds behind the barriers, trying to get the best angle they can of the devastation inside.
They bring out several body bags and more critically injured people on gurneys. Zoey is among the last to be brought out and lifted into an ambulance. That gives me hope that my friend is all right.
“Is she going to be okay? Please, I need to go with them all.” Arnold Vaughn is panicked, his dirtied cheeks streaked with tears as he speaks with one of the paramedics carrying her out. The face I’ve come to know and appreciate as always smiling,always cheerful and easy to laugh, is wracked by worry. “They’re my employees. I need to make sure they’re okay.”
“Please step away,” the paramedic scolds, and we both watch helplessly as she and dozens of others are driven to Carnegie General Hospital, sirens blaring and flashing so brightly they hurt my already pounding head.
I don’t know what to think, what to feel, what to do. I’m so useless, standing here like an idiot while paramedics see to the injuries of those who weren’t directly in the blast. Cuts, gashes, bruises. Blood everywhere.
My sanctuary. The one place I was happiest outside my own home. The place where I dreamed of future expeditions, exciting archaeological digs, the papers I’d write and publish on findings of my own.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I murmur. One minute, Zoey and I were planning to sit down for lunch and heckle each other about my distinctly pathetic love life. The next, I’m swallowed up by smoke, dust, debris, blood, and body parts.
This is the second time I’ve just narrowly missed being killed by a bomb built within the confines of a BioNex android. My city is hardly a city anymore; it’s a warzone. I still the trembling in my hands, squeezing them into fists only to swiftly open them again when I realize I’ve still got glass and splinters digging into my palms. The wind picks up and toys with my blue blouse and black leggings. Rain begins to pour.
But I’m alive. Others weren’t so lucky.
The police form a human shield in front of the ravenous journalists on the other side of the tape. I try to breathe, to hold back the flood of tears I want to shed in my distress. All these innocent people, here to learn and expand their horizons. Freeing themselves from the drudgery of their day-to-day lives, from always looking down at their phones and mindlesslyscrolling, and taking time to appreciate where they came from, the world before they knew it. What will they do now?
It’s a miracle the students weren’t physically harmed. They won’t forget today. I’ve been watching parents rush to one of the school buses to collect their frightened children from their teachers. Who knows what kind of damage has been done beneath those little faces?
“Excuse me. Are you Katrina Carson?”
A tall, sturdily built plainclothes detective with deep brown skin approaches me. He clears his throat and greets me gently, not bothering to offer his hand. It doesn’t really seem like the time or the place for pleasantries. “Detective Washington. I’m the lead investigator of the NCPD Artificial Crimes Unit. This is my partner, Ezra.” He motions to the man standing next to him, dressed in a long beige trench coat.
Ezra stares levelly at me with a pair of sharp white irises around his pupils.
Part of me can’t believe it. Here he is, standing in front of me again. My mind is clearer today, and I recall seeing him for the very first time years ago. He was in sleep mode, perfectly still behind a glass display. Back then, I remembered thinking to myself how it was as close to a fairytale I would ever get. A slumbering prince, a powerful automaton. Even handsome. Tan skin, jet black hair.
It’s so strange, seeing someone drawn on a page or on a graph. Like a character in a story. A thought, an idea. Then suddenly science and technology have brought them to life. As close to life as they can be.
Does he know where he really came from? Would it matter if he did?
I calm myself with a long, deep breath. “I know. I remember.”
Washington seems puzzled, exchanging a curious glance with his bionic partner. “You remember?”
“Sorry.” I try to clear my jumbled thoughts, caught between past and present. “I meant Ezra. He was there at the march last year.” It’s impossible for me to forget him. How could I? He didn’t have to help me, but he did. Even after he knew who I was. What I stood for.
