There were stories from the older folk. Whispers of the outside world. Things that may have made her eyes sparkle if she’d been in their shoes. But she wasn’t in their shoes. She only had her own. The worn-out soles that had long since stopped fitting. The only gift she’d ever gotten.
“Subject is unresponsive. Should we continue?”
The voices drifted in one ear and out the other.
“Give her a minute. Her cells are recovering.”
She didn’t know where they came from. Or where she’d come from, for that matter. There was only ever that touch of lightning, the sound of metal running through her. A bright light which she’d always assumed came from the sun until Vivica had taught her otherwise. How much had she learned from that woman?
“See. Her scales are malleable. Even without a head, she’s still cognoscente. Only her organs seem to sustain damage. Be careful with those.”
She could feel her fingers again. Her neck. The breeze across her exposed body cavity. It always seemed to close itself if she waited long enough, regardless of her input.
“Regeneration time at 10 seconds. It seems oylian steel can bypass the second layer. Give it a bit longer and we’ll test the other enchanted metals.”
She wanted to just close her eyes and go back to sleep. But the voices always got angry when she did that. Her silver scales eventually closed up the cavity, the layer of green forming over it.
***
Ty wasn’t sure why she’d remember that day now of all times.
Looking out towards her old stomping grounds, she wondered if Big One had killed those scientists. In the chaos of their escape, she’d been more worried about seeing the light of day than getting her revenge. But even afterwards, the idea had never quite taken shape in her mind.
What was she thinking that day? A newly freed slave seeing the sun for the first time in her life. It should have been the happiest day of her life. It might have been if those founders hadn’t shown their faces. If the bombs hadn’t started going off. If she hadn’t flown into a rage.
Thinking on it now, Ty couldn’t help but wonder how different things would have been. But it was too late to turn back now. The woman she was before the escape might as well have been lost a lifetime ago.
Perhaps in that other time, we never would have met either.
The thought made her feel even more like the monster she knew she was. That she’d always known she was. There was no escaping that reality.
The little girl who’d been chopped up and reassembled countless times was now the woman who stood amongst the remains of her closest friend. The only person in this world who’d made her feel like there might have been another way. Another world. Some reality where they were merely close friends. Where she wasn’t a monster.
But she was. And she knew the only way to kill one monster was to find another.
