Reborn Heart of Steel

I was breathless having my back against the wall. “Oh god,” I breathed. “Zoe. We left Zoe. ”

The pain of the situation could be seen in Chase’s face. ‘We’ll get her back,’ he told me, but his voice was full of uncertainty. “We’ll find a way. ”

Alessandro who was semi-conscious between us, spoke something distinctively. I moved my head near to him so that I could hear him.

He had composed himself just well enough to say, “The Architect,” before his voice trailed off. “Oh yes I do. Now it’s not a man, is it? No wait it’s… it’s… it’s…”

He let out a sigh, his eyes rolled back, and he began to lose consciousness, then slumped down on us.

“Alessandro!” I exclaimed softly, trying to wake him up. Another one asked, “Alessandro, wake up. What is the Architect?”

But he was out cold and the secrets that he nearly recalled were once again buried deep in his brain.

The elevator kept on sliding down, taking us from the horrifying experience above but to an unknown future. Zoe was in the hands of an evil-minded, dangerous person. The Raven was free. And somewhere out there the god-like Architect was laying the foundations for a scheme more terrifying than anything we could imagine.

As the elevator dinged, signaling our arrival at the first floor, one thought echoed in my mind:

The first floor of the hospital resembled a well-organized and coordinated buzz. Horns sounded, nurses and other health care workers dashed around to get the patients to safety, and orderlies attempted to enforce security. Chase and I half carried, half dragged the passed out Alessandro through the fighting, both of us desperately searching for a sign of any form of pursuit.

“This way,” Chase encouraged us, and led us from one side to another. “It will be difficult for the patients to survive outside, to avoid it all, we need to leave the streets and look for a place to rest. ” When we step out into the fresh air of night, the change in the skyline of the city is overwhelming. Where once was a building now stands another but unknown kind. Far away through the smoke one could barely make out the black silhouettes of the few trees and houses there still standing. This hell was provided by the constant wailing of the sirens and the occasional bursts of gun fire.

“My God,” I breathed. People start asking questions, each probably thinking to himself “what’s happened to our city?”

Chase’s face was grim. “The Raven’s vision is starting to become real and alive, and I think that we have to shift, now. ”

We wandered through the streets, sharp and narrow, tightly squeezed in the thick of congestion to avoid the main highways getting increasingly dangerous by the minute. Alessandro moved slightly throughout the night, but was for the most part unconscious and would groan incoherently about the Architect.

It took quite a while to get there, and finally we found a rather plain looking apartment block in a less bustling part of the city. Chase took us to a door in the basement. He entered a code on the lock of the door.

Cautious, he pointed at the door and said “Safe house” after a click of the lock. “Morris set it up for emergencies. ” “It should have supplies, they should have supplies. ”

The apartment was quite small, and everything in the house seemed to be very well protected. The doors and the windows were very strong. Chase checked whether we were alone while I put Alessandro on a worn couch which was situated near the door.

“How is he?” Chase questioned as he came back with a first aid kit in his hand.

I shook my head. “Still out. Whatever he thought of before with the Architect really drained him. ”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

Owing to Alessandro’s attention, the harshness of our situation seemed to be rather real. Zoe was captured, and presumably killed. The Raven was free. Now there was only this architect hiding behind a wall that even we could not perceive.

“Chase,” I repeated more quietly than before and much to his surprise. Several times throughout the events in the play, this question was asked: “What are we going to do?”

His face grew serious for a moment as silence filled the room as he pondered upon what had been said. Finally, he spoke. “There has got to be information. They are a powerful force. We must know our enemy in order to beat him. And we need assistance whatever is going on, it is no longer personal anymore. Everything we had known about him feels like a lie. Is the Raven the same person as the Architect? ”

“We need to find out.”

I just barely managed to swallow the lump that had risen in my throat, and accepting the inevitability of facing my dread, I simply said, “Alright. How?”

Chase took out his phone this time with a grimace as he examined the pathetic signal he was getting. “Morris has to be informed, he has the right to know what occurred in the hospital. Then we should investigate the architect. Is it a man or is it something completely different from Alessandro assumed?”

Alessandro woke up as if he was waiting for someone’s signal; he opened his eyes slowly. “Brianne?” he mumbled. “Where… where are we?”

Within seconds, I was by his side. “We are easy targets now, but we’ll survive for now until your last question”. Yes, I do remember something about the Architect, but it wasn’t an entity of the human form.

He struggled to sit up, a ‘frown’ creasing his brow as though he was having to fight to bring back his memories. “It is… It is a system! An Artificial Intelligence, as I presume, but much more than that, it is in everything. ”

Both Chase and I stared at each other while our hearts were pounding anxiously. “What is he ?” The implications were staggering.

“You mean you do not know?” replied the boy with an accusing tone and followed up with another question, “How do you know this?”

Alessandro, being exasperated, shook his head and said, ” No, no, no. ” “I’m not sure. Some phrases and snatches of talk that I heard at most perhaps? But there is more. The Architect is not merely commanding change, it is also reinventing it. “