"Control" by Emma Kathryn

Control

Emma Kathryn McDonald

Virgil instantly awoke when he heard the front door slam shut.  He looked around him.  Tytia was gone and the bed was now empty.  He instantly got up, pulling on his jeans and hurrying through to the front room.  He pulled at the front door and found it locked.  In frustration, he slammed his fist against the door and turned to the touch pad locking system which was fitted to the wall.  Virgil tried to remember the code Tytia had used the night before.  God damn it, he didn’t have time for this! 

He ran back into the bedroom where he knew the balcony doors were still open.  Tytia’s apartment was at the edge of the building so he could look down the walkway from her balcony.  There he saw her, walking, still in his loose-hanging, black shirt and her own black lace hotpants.

“Tytia!” Virgil called out, leaning against the railing.  She did not respond and kept walking.  “TYTIA!”  Nothing again.  He looked at the gap between the gap and the walkway then gazed down the drop between the two.  The city was built high above the ground; there was no way he would survive the fall but he needed to get to her.  He glanced down again and watched as she disappeared through a distant door; the door which led to the roof.

Virgil climbed onto the rail, slowly, being careful with his footing but the moment both his feet were firmly planted on the rail a speaker that was fixed to the wall beside him sounded in his ear.

“Please step away from the rail,” the monotonous tin voice ordered him, “nothing is worth taking your life for.”  Virgil rolled his eyes.  He had forgotten that all apartment blocks were programmed with there now due to the high number of jumpers.  Virgil tried to drown out the voice which continued to repeat its recording as he focussed on his aim.  He took a deep breath and took the leap.

He only just made it, grasping the railing tightly then pulling himself over and onto the walkway.  He instantly broke into a run down the long walkway, rushing by the numbered apartments, searching for the door that Tytia had entered.

A few people had heard the jump alert and opened their doors to see the latest poor soul but were quickly shocked when they saw a young man running barefoot down the walkway in only a pair of jeans.  He was of average height with dark blue eyes and silver hair which was blowing wildly about his face.

He reached the door he had been looking for, threw it open and pounded up the stairs.  His head was spinning with questions.  Where was she going?  Why did she lock him in?  What was she up to?  Was it because of last night?  Why was she leaving him?

The run up the stairs seemed like a lifetime and he felt like he was getting nowhere fast but finally he came to the door exiting out onto the roof.  He slammed the door open and came to a skidding halt.

She was directly before him, still walking and nearing the roof’s edge.  Virgil had no idea what Tytia was doing but he was not about to lose her.  He ran across the roof and grabbed her by the arm.

“Tytia!  What the hell are you…”  Virgil stopped as he spun her around to look at him.  There was no expression on her face and her eyes were clouded over with a white mist.  She tried to jerk away from him, her eyebrows beginning to knit in agitation.  He held tighter and tried to find her in those strange eyes.  “Tytia, baby, you have to answer me; what’s happened to you?”  She continued to gaze coldly into the distance and made no sound.  Virgil put his hand up to her face, which was freezing due to the sharp night air, and it was only as he moved his hand under her shoulder length, dark mahogany hair that he found something.

She tried to push him away as he found it.  She was strong but he held her still as he moved her hair back to reveal a micro-chip, about half an inch square and embedded into the back of her neck, blinking out a red pulse.

 “Oh my God,” he muttered before fumbling under her hair until he finally had a grasp on it.

Tytia gasped for air as Virgil ripped the chip away from her flesh.  The mist drained from her widened eyes and they regained their natural emerald hue as her knees weakened and gave way.  Virgil wrapped his arms around her and steadied her trembling body.  He was overcome with relief as she looked at him with those sparkling with those sparkling eyes and spoke his name once more.

“Virgil?” she said in that sweet but quivering voice.  He threw his arms around her and embraced her as he realised that she was safe.  She could feel his heart pounding violently beneath his breast but she had no clue as to what had caused his distress.  All she could remember was darkness.  She felt like she had just awoken from a hellish nightmare.  “What happened?” she asked him with her face buried in his shoulder.

“They were trying to make you jump,” he said told her as he stroked her hair and fought back the tears.  She pulled her head up to look him in the eye.

“What?  How?”  He held up the chip for her to see.  It was a horrible square of metal and plastic with eight metal fangs protruding like spider legs which had been clinging to her neck.

“With this,” he replied.  “A neural-override chip.”

“Oh God,” she gasped, clasping a hand over her mouth.

“They were programming you like one of their machines.”  She lowered the hand from her mouth and looked into his cobalt eyes.

“Did I…Did…Did they make me hurt you?” Tytia stammered.  She was not sure if she wanted to know his answer.  She could not bear to live with herself if she had hurt him.

“Only when I though you were leaving me as a one-night stand,” he said with a quiet but almost pained laugh.

“Oh no, Virgil, I could never, ever, do that to you,” she said, her voice firm but comforting.

“Good,” he sighed as he embraced her again.

“Virgil,” she said, once more into his shoulder.

“What is it, baby?”

“Will you take me back to bed, please?” she asked pleadingly as she stood in her lace hotpants and his shirt.

“Of course,” he said with a smile before putting an arm around her shoulder and leading her back along the roof, glad that she was back in the safety of his arms.