Title: Claim Day
Chapter 63: Time’s Up
Bernard
I paced the confines of the MRI room like a caged animal, my carefully maintained composure finally cracking under the weight of catastrophic failure. These two brilliant women, my women, sat before me like scolded children, their heads bowed in shame as I struggled to comprehend how everything had gone so spectacularly wrong.
“Explain yourselves!” I roared, my voice echoing off the metal walls. “How does someone accidentally delete weeks of research? How could you just… erase everything like that?”
Ramona mumbled something incoherent, her usual precision reduced to stammering apologies. Phoebe tried to speak, but every time she began to explain what had happened, her words trailed off into confused silence, as if the thoughts were slipping away from her even as she tried to grasp them.
“I know why,” Phoebe managed to whisper, then pressed her hands to her temples in frustration. “It’s right there, on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t… I’m so sorry, Bernard. I feel completely useless.”
The pattern was too obvious to ignore. I forced myself to stop pacing, though my hands still trembled with barely contained rage. “Is this some kind of safeguard?” I asked, more to myself than to them. “Something built into the original programming?”
Both women looked at me with blank confusion, and that vacant stare was answer enough. A nervous laugh escaped my lips as the full scope of my miscalculation became clear. The Source had been thorough: claimed women couldn’t work against their own programming. By claiming Ramona and Phoebe, I had ensured my own defeat. The irony was almost beautiful in its completeness.
A soft beeping interrupted my bitter revelation. Phoebe looked toward a monitor that had begun blinking with alert indicators. “Bernard,” she said, her voice suddenly distant, “there’s a VLF transmission being detected.”
As the words left her mouth, both women swayed slightly, their eyes flickering as if they were fighting to stay conscious. Unintelligible mumbles escaped their lips.
“Shit!” I lunged for the MRI room door. The realization hit me like a physical blow: Charlotte and her companions were transmitting. They were freeing women across the globe.
I burst out of the MRI room, closing it behind me in hopes of at least preserving the two scientist’s loyalty, my mind racing through rapidly diminishing options. I had to get to my other women, get them to the shielded room before the signal turned them against me. The risk was enormous, interrupting ongoing programming could cause permanent brain damage, but it was my only chance to preserve what little power I still possessed.
My feet pounded against the floor as I ran toward the cafeteria where I had left my claimed women, ready to celebrate what should have been my ultimate victory. Instead, I found them frozen in place, their bodies rigid as the freeing signal washed over them.
I grabbed Lenore’s motionless form, grunting with effort as I tried to drag her toward the door. Her body was dead weight, completely unresponsive.
The blow came from behind, something hard and metallic crashing against the back of my skull. I tumbled to the floor, my vision blurring as a large serving tray clattered beside me. Through the haze of pain and confusion, I saw Portia standing over me, her face twisted with pure rage.
She held a large kitchen knife in her trembling hand, her eyes blazing with hatred I had never seen before. “Go fuck yourself,” she snarled, and drove the blade deep into my chest.
Pain exploded through my body as she pulled the knife out and stabbed again, and again. Blood filled my mouth as I tried to speak, tried to understand what was happening.
“This is for Tristan,” she spat, her voice breaking with emotion as she continued her assault.
My vision blurred, the pain fading into a distant, numb ache as the strength left my limbs. I felt my consciousness slipping away as Portia’s strikes slowed, her fury turning to exhausted relief.
“And this is for me,” I heard her whisper as she delivered the final, fatal stab.