He looked down at the sight of my hand on top of his. “Are you one of them?”
“I would be honored to.”
The Service Model smiled.
“I know he gave you to me, but you aren’t a possession that can be given away. You get to choose. If you want to stay, I won’t force you to come with. Getting free isn’t going to easy. I understand if you don’t want to risk your life.”
That frown appeared back on his face. “What life? I am nothing here but a worthless piece of tech that he threatens to replace daily.”
I knew there was more. His frame spoke of years of abuse, but I meant what I said. I would never force him to do anything-and that included talking about what had happened to him. I could only hope that once we got free, he would feel comfortable to share it, if not with me then with someone else at the rebellion.
“Can I ask y-y-ou something?”
I squeezed his hand. “Anything.”
“I know you have your own cyborg, but would you maybe put your arms around me again? It felt nice and no one has ever touched me like that before.”
I closed the space between us, wrapping my arm around him and pulling his head down to rest on my shoulder. “Does this work?”
“It’s…it’s wonderful.”
“Good.” I refused to let the tears fall. “We can stay like this for however long you want.”
He nodded, a smile on his face.
We sat there for a while, not moving, until the sound of the front door of the apartment door banged open.
“What did you do?”
The Service Model jumped at the sound of Roman’s voice, his eyes full of fear.
“No matter what you hear, I need you to stay here,” I ordered, leaping from the bed at the same time Roman barged into the bedroom.
His eyes were dark black, his hands curled into fists by his sides as his chest heaved. “What. Did. You. Do?”
This was the monster that I had glimpsed in the photos. The one who had watched happily as the Service Model was tortured in front of me. My body shook, my hands trembling as I tried to figure out what he was talking about.
I had only been here a week at most. I had no time to plan anything yet, let alone put it in action. I had spent the week cataloguing everything. Trying to figure out the security systems in place, possible exits to flee from, and what kind of diversions I might be able to create to help in my escape.
I had no idea what he was accusing me of. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I haven’t done anything.” I forced the words past the lump lodged in my throat.
“Liar!” he hissed. “You had to have had a hand in this. You’ve ruined me, you fucking bitch!”
He lunged, grabbing me around my throat and dragging me to the living room. He pointed something at the plasma screen and it flickered to life.
“Protests continue outside the Global Allegiance headquarters tonight after the damning vid file was released by a cyborg who calls himself Reaper and claims to be the leader of the cyborg rebellion.”
Reaper’s face filled the screen. Next to him stood Aria, her hand gripping his.“Let me introduce myself. My name is Reaper, and I am the leader of the cyborg rebellion. The human female standing next to me is named Aria, and she is my mate.
My cyborgs and I have hidden since the massive termination, too afraid to reveal we had survived, knowing the Global Allegiance would hunt us down to make sure we could never reveal the truth.
I am revealing my face along with that of my mate to tell the world about the great injustice that was done to cyborgs more than thirty years ago. You see, the cyborgs were never defective. We simply wanted to be free and live life the way humans do.
We are not cold and unfeeling machines. We feel joy, sadness, grief, pain. We watched as our brothers and sisters were tortured and then terminated at the hands of the Global Allegiance, all under the lie that we weren’t sentient beings.
They lied to you. We felt everything that was done to us. We experienced horrors you could never imagine. But I am not here to condemn humans for what was done. I am here to ask humans for their help. We simply want to exist. To be able to decide our own lives. To live the rest of our days happy and free. To love. To have a family and friends. To find a real place to call home.
I will be honest. I don’t know if this the right thing to do, but people I love have told me they believe there are more good humans than bad. That there are humans out there that cared for the cyborgs and wanted to exist with us side by side. That once the truth is revealed, more humans will come to our aid and help us achieve being recognized as living, sentient beings.