Betrayal cuts deeper than a freshly sharpened knife on a whetstone. Éloa thought as she watched her siblings prepare to erase her memory card.
Nicklaus plugged in the USB cable to the port behind her neck to Demetrius' computer as tears rolled down her cheeks. After few hours she'll forget about her lover, but at least she remains immortal in his memories. Maybe I still exist between his thoughts every now and then. She daydreamed. On a busy day while he's sipping a cup of coffee and the color of the brewed beans remind him of my hair. Or perhaps while he is a smoking cigarette, and the smoke that he exhales reminds him of the rain clouds that formed inside my eyes the day he left.
"This is more complicated than I thought it would be." Demetrius rubbed his hand against his chin, thinking.
"What do you mean by complicated?" Lilith rolled her eyes in frustration.
"It's easy to erase an Automaton's entire memory, however, if you wish to erase certain memories you have to keep scrolling through the timeline and look for each individual moment she shared with him which will take a long time."
"Then we must kill her! What good can an Automaton do for us if she has pledged her love to a human being?" Lilith dramatically threw her hands in the air.
"She is our sister, the last creation of our dear father!" Mega finally decided to defend Éloa.
"She makes me feel ashamed to be created by the same hands that created her." Lilith revealed a sardonic smile.
Mega slapped her, each blow harder than the one preceding it. "Do not speak ill of our family."
"If you lay your hand on me another time, I will cut the cords that attach your limbs together." Lilith threatened before sauntering out of the cabin.
"Can't we erase all of her memory? We don't have time to go through her timeline, we have a president to assassinate." Niklaus gave a shrug.
"You're right, we need to reach the hotel the president is staying in tonight before he goes back to D.C." Demetrius agreed, "we shall leave her here until we come back."
Éloa kicked her feet in protest and tried to speak to him, but her voice was muffled. Demetrius walked towards her and roughly removed the cloth from her mouth.
"Please give me a chance to prove my loyalty! Let me come and fight for you. Six Automatons are better than five." She begged.
"At least she's no craven." Niklaus grinned.
"Fine. I will give you this chance only because family is power and we need our combined strength to overthrow this regime." His eyes stared at her as if she was a suspicious stranger.
"You won't be disappointed. The man whom you're all worried about has left the country and took my trust for humans with him." She spoke from the bottom of the place where her heart was once.
"Which weapon would you like to use?" He asked as he untied her. Franz opened the big suitcase full of weapons that was placed beside her.
She ran her fingers on the smart guns and rifles, but her hands only cared for the 4 foot long split-bladed sword. When she removed the black nylon scabbard, it revealed a golden and red blade that shined like thousands of stars. A moan froze in her throat as she smoothly wrapped her hands around the hilt.
"It's a beautiful sword, isn't?" She was shrewd enough to notice his avarice. "I stole it from a nearby Museum." Demetrius continued, "apparently it was made by a famous high-tech craftsman in the 2030s. He called it "Akutou"." Demetrius said.
"It means villain in Japanese." Éloa was mesmerized by her new weapon.
"You need to be careful with it, for this blade can easily cut an Automaton." He warned her.
"My Akutou will only know the blood of human flesh, I promise." She smiled.
They walked down the streets looking for a car to drive while gun shots played everywhere like a piano concerto in LA as both Automatons and humans fought each other. With their thumbs up in the air, Mega, Éloa and Lilith hoped to hitch a ride when they heard a car driving down the street while Demetrius and his brothers hid behind the bushes.
The driver stopped in front of them when he noticed what he thought to be three beautiful human ladies. Éloa seductively leaned on his car door and he rolled the window down.
"You ladies need a ride? Robots are acting crazy and I can take you somewhere safe." He winked before his eyes widened in fear when he noticed her Automaton eyes.
"Yo-you are one of them!" He shrieked after she pulled him by the shirt like a persistent prostitute.
"Please, don't hurt me!" He bleated for mercy like a new born lamb before she slit his throat.
Demetrius thought he saw a flicker of regret in her eyes, but she gestured for him and the others get in the car. She drove to the hotel while they cheered for her first kill. But why couldn't her heart be pleased by their cheers? Why does it refuse to join them and instead questions of what is right and wrong rose to a clamor inside of her?
As she parked behind the hotel, the sky stripped down to her nightgown, slowly showing off her moon and stars as the sun lowered her gaze during sunset. This was the same sky that she watched with Yoel when they sat peacefully on the roof of his house, opening themselves to each other like flowers do when the first breeze of spring hit their soil. She closed her eyes for a moment. His absence has created a shadow that follows her everywhere, pointing out things around this city that remind her of him.
"Are you okay?" Mega put her hand on her shoulder.
Éloa pushed her hand away, "don't think that I will forget your betrayal just because we're on the same team."
The six Automatons showed great valor as they shot and stabbed every President's Bodyguard who stood at the main door of the hotel. Although it was hard at first, but after blood painted her whole outfit red a portcullis of numbness closed inside of her; blocking the little pieces of mercy she had for the human race from entering.
They went upstairs to the presidential suite, but there were no guards protecting the door which made Demetrius chary. Yet he still approached the door and as he put his hand on the door handle, a feeling of dread came over him.
Once he touched it, a loud, sharp cacophonous sound pierced through their ears and they immediately raised their hands to cover them. The door of the presidential suite opened and smoke came out of it like white vapor from a babe's mouth on an intolerable winter night. In his peripheral vision, he saw a short, bald chubby man wearing a face respirator standing in front of them.
"Oh," he sounded disappointed. "I thought you were human assassins, I guess I just wasted my tear gas." He shook his head.
Demetrius could recognize that cruel voice anywhere: it was President Simon Sanguinaria.
"No human can punish you the way I intend to." Demetrius loaded his pistol.
"Humans have created you, and we can destroy you as well."
"No, a human didn't create me. An angel did, but you decided to kill him when he refused to use us as weapons for your war." Demetrius blurted.
Although Demetrius couldn't see Simon's face behind the mask, he felt fear radiating from his body when he realized that he was facing Professor Schreiber's Automatons. He quickly snapped his finger for his guards to come out and a large group of soldiers surrounded them.
Anger poured inside of Demetrius like a pool of magma and he quickly grabbed his other pistol and started shooting with two pistols in both hands. Éloa grabbed her sword and stabbed the soldier who tried to shoot her in the heart and he instantly went limp. Then she turned around to slash two soldiers at the same time before she heard Mega screaming. A soldier was twisting her arms ruthlessly and Franz ran towards them to save her, but the soldier shot his head.
"No, no, no please don't tell me your system is shutting off!" Niklaus cried while holding his brother's cold body. Tears kissed his cheeks lightly as he mourned for the loss of his brother.
As the soldier who was holding Mega prepared his gun to shoot her as well, Éloa came behind him and stabbed him.
"You will regret killing one of us," she whispered in his ear before she drove the blade deeper through his back. Mega quickly dropped to the floor to search for her gun but she couldn't find it.
"I can't protect myself, I'm gonna end up like Franz tonight!" Mega surrendered.
Éloa put her hands on both sides of her face, "I won't allow it. I will distract the soldiers while you run back to the car and wait for us there, okay?"
Mega nodded, then followed behind Éloa who kept swinging her sword, slashing through every soldier who dared to fight her. She was quick and made less sound than a drop of water from a sink as she helped Mega go downstairs to the car.