Sara followed him. His white hand glinted under the streetlight’s beam. Her black shoes clicked on the concrete slabs. Turning a corner the sudden rush of wind made her hair fall like a curtain, obscuring her vision. Sweeping it aside, she looked for the place where her prey had stood seconds before. Gone, vanished, as they so often did. Agents of darkness so skilled in the art of disappearance one could almost call it magic. She knew this could not be. The experience she had gained from years of hiding trained her to see as they would see. To know the simple fact that no-one can vanish. He was watching her in darkness, information ticking behind dark glasses. Did he know she had seen him?

They’d named her an angel of the rebellion. The leader had called her bluff recently, caught her off-guard. Her lover Marcus Antony – a traitor and informer for the secret service. She’d been blind to it. She’d shot him there and then. No questions. Confession, judgement, conviction and sentence. Death if they betrayed the rebellion. All weaknesses had to be irradiated. If you’re weak, people get hurt, people die. Better one of them than thirty of ours. Now one of them stood before her. Maybe even one who had attacked her village so long ago?

It moved. Just its head. Snapped up, alert. Had it recognised her? What could she do? Fight? Run? She’d run for five years. One area code to another. Covering Europe. Seen sights she’d never dreamed. The Eiffel Tower, covered in propaganda. Buckingham Palace, banners drifting from the once beautiful outline of an iconic building. Now it flew His flag. Single black and red stripes. Some said it represented simplicity; others saw the sun and the night. She saw blood and darkness.

He stepped out of the shadows and she ran. Adrenalin pumping through every harsh heel click. She knew she couldn’t stop. To the right a heavily lit fountain area had no exit; to the left she saw nothing. She heard the squeak of new leather shoes. More than one set. And there they were. Hair the same length, in the same upright posture with the same deadly pale skin. Unknown eyes blocked by those

dark glasses. Each raised their right hand to an earpiece. Then stopped. Heads tilted to the right. One step, two steps. Running. Raring to attack. To lock cold hands around her neck. Snap her like a twig.

She leapt the last three steps and darted to the right. Please God give me a way out. Her belief was gone. Drifted away just like her hope. The day the smoke filled the air. The day they came for her. The screams returned. The little girl yelling, her face terrified. Those dark blue eyes as they put the bag over her head. She was six and likely still alive somewhere. If alive is the word. Labour, torture and death was the life in camps across Europe. People said it was worse outside the great wall. She turned. No more running. She would fight for the little girl she would likely never see again. For the family she would never have. His humanoids reached out in unison. She jolted back, her heels scrapping a change in surface as three hands stretched towards her.

A tower of cold water flashed in front of her face. She continued to fall back on her heels as she felt the pressure of a second stream across her back. The Oids had become confused. Their synchronicity broken as the next blast hit the middle one square on the chin. His head whipped back then sprung forwards. Glasses lost in the spray, Sara saw his eyes for the first time. Pupils fully dilated, flickering in panic. Reality hit fast through adrenaline fuelled recognition. They were human. Altered. But human. She stared in disbelief. His companions and she forgotten to each other.
‘Defect.’
‘Faulty.’
‘Terminate.’ the two colourless voices echoed.
‘No!’ Sara was alerted by the emotion in her own voice. She could see the eyes of a man. She couldn’t let him die. Or could she?

Rosie Newton