Collateral

Rose is lying on her stomach on one of the benches in the diner. Ellie is sitting next to her, and Mr Johnson is doing his best to suture her wounds.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call a ripper doc?” He asks.

Rose grumbles. “I hate ripper docs. I have bad experiences with them.”

Mr Johnson sighs. “I am gonna need to call one anyway, cause we have to remove your implant.” He taps on Rose’s arm.

“You can’t remove it.”

“Are you saying you want to keep it?”

“No. Every person that had in removed died immediately.”

“Now I certainly want to call a ripper doc. If you have an implant in your arm that kills people.”

Ellie shakes her head. “Sophia’s dad is right, Mom. Why did you even get it implanted?”

Rose sighs. “Ellie, can you wait in the other room? I want to talk to Mr Johnson in person. Or better yet, go lie down in the boot over there and get some sleep.”

“But, Mom, I wanna –”

“Ellie, it is late, way past your bedtime, you need to sleep.”

Ellie sighs. “Can I at least grab my blanket from the car?”

“Of course.”

Ellie slowly stands up.

“Ok, Mom, see you in a minute. Will you miss me?”

“Of course, I will miss you, little angel. I love you.”

“I love you too Mom.”

With those words, Ellie walks out of the diner.

Mr Johson sighs. “You have to explain to her what you are doing for a living one day.”

“Does Sophia know what you do?”

“Not everything. But quite a lot.”

“I just, I like to shield Ellie from that life. I don’t want her to worry about me. She is a child. She needs to focus on her future.”

“I am just saying.” Mr Johnson says, “She is a smart girl. If you don’t tell her, she is going to figure it out on her own one day or another.”

Rose sighs. “The later that happens the better.”

“If you say so. Okay, all sutured up.”

Rose sits back up. “So, what do we do now.”

“We get you to a ripper doc and see if we safely can remove that implant, and then we -”

Rose spots some movement outside of the diner, in the parking lot, in the corner of her eye. She looks outside the window. Is someone outside?

“Rose, are you listening to me?” Mr Johnson asks.

She leans over and takes Mr Johnson’s gun out of his holster. “I think I saw some movement in the parking lot.”

“Rose, you know it is very rude to just grab someone’s gun, right.”

Rose ignores him and sneaks to the door. “Ellie is still outside.”

Mr Johnson sighs. “I know you are worried about her since everything that happened the last few days, but I don’t think that -”

Rose exits the diner and walks into the dark parking lot, shortly followed by a frantic Mr Johnson. Three large figures and one small figure standing near her car. In a split second, she realises that the small figure is her daughter. The two security guards and Doctor Hall are standing next to her. One of the guards is putting his gun to Ellie’s head.

“Drop your gun, Sidney” Doctor Hall says.

Rose keeps her gun pointed at Doctor Hall. “How did you find me?”

“You think we don’t put a tracker in our prototypes?”

Ellie looks at the guard next to her. She smashes him in the abdomen with her plastered arm. He screams and falls over. Rose uses the moment to put a bullet between the eyes of the other guard, and as the guard next to Ellie scrambles to get on his feet, Rose puts a bullet in his head too.

Rose walks up to Doctor Hall, adrenaline rushing through her body. Her heart is pounding, and her breath is fast, but she doesn’t feel scared. It feels like a high. She is finally in the position to take revenge.

Doctor Hall raises his hands and begs her not to kill him, but Rose doesn’t care. A smile forms on her lips, and she puts a single bullet in his head. His body drops to the ground, lifeless. A wave of catharsis rolls over her, relieved that he can never hurt another person again, that she made the world a safer and better place, a place without him in it.

Then she regains her composure and looks at Ellie, who is sitting down on the pavement and is quietly sobbing. Rose runs over to her.

“O no, Ellie, Are you ok?”

Ellie looks at her Mom. “I think I am.”

“Never do that again.”

Ellie starts crying. “I am sorry, Mom, I was just trying to help. I am sorry if I did anything wrong.”

Rose hugs Ellie. “I am just glad you are safe.”

She looks at Ellie’s arm.

“Ellie, your plaster is cracked. I need to take you to the hospital.”

Mr Johnson shakes his head. “Take Ellie to the hospital and make sure you get checked out too. I will deal with the bodies.”

Rose smiles. “Thanks.”

September 2077