• I can't believe I've made it this far. I'm so close, but it could all end now... I've worked so hard toward this goal. Now it's right here and...

    "Vienna," I snapped back to reality and turned away from the door I had just closed.
    "Hello, Doctor." I looked up at the doctor. He had his hair slicked back and had his usual disgusting smile plastered on his face.
    "How are you doing?" He asked, going through a drawer and pulling out a file folder. I rolled my eyes. He sighed, "Alright, I guess I'll get to the point. I have the file you wanted."
    "You don't think I still need to read that, do you?" I said, lifting an eyebrow. "I already know..."
    He frowned, "Then why fight all this time...?"
    "I wanted a cure!" I said, shaking my head. "But now I know your 'cure.'" I clenched my fists. The doctor held out the files anyway. I sighed and took them, then I turned around and opened them, flipping through the pages.
    "So what are you here for, then?" He smiled. God, I hated that smile.
    I snapped the file folder closed and sighed dramatically. "I'm... tired," I bit my lip, "and I just want this... game to be over." I turned back around and watched him go through a drawer.
    "You know what, Vienna? I agree." He had taken a needle out. I smiled, so ready for the ending. He continued smiling, so, so dumb. "Aren't you so glad this game of cat-and-mouse is over?"
    He came closer with the needle, and I smirked. He thought he was all set.
    In a flash, I was behind him, holding the needle to his neck.
    "Ah, the convenience of speed." He said almost cheerfully. But he wasn't smiling anymore. He wasn't ready for the ending I had been anticipating.
    "Doctor, aren't you so glad this game of cat-and-mouse is over?" I injected the fluid in the needle into the artery on his neck and let out a laugh. "I know I am." I let him drop to the floor, dying, and I stepped over him, opening the bag I had over my shoulder and putting the files inside. I opened the drawer he had been going through and saw a whole lot more of the needles. Jackpot. I took all of them and put them into my bag.
    An announcement played over the intercom, "Attention to all staff. We have a runner. KY-13. Considered armed and highly dangerous."
    Looks like someone beat me to the chase. I frowned. I was really looking forward to a fight, but I wouldn't pass up an opportunity for at least one clean getaway in my lifetime.
    I stepped back over the doctor and went out into the hallway. For once, it was empty. Everyone was probably working to get the runaway. That meant that all the people watching the security cameras were probably focused on the runner, and the automated systems were probably prioritized on this person. After all, a KY-13?
    I opened the door to the main reception area, and the receptionist was the only person there. She looked up and asked, "Checking out?"
    I smiled and knew if I, someone who's supposed to be dead by now, checked out, it would ring some bells. And it's not like I didn't like ringing bells, I just thought I could try the easy route for once. "No, I was just visiting the doctor."
    "Oh," she said with a sweet smile, "How is his patient?"
    "She's done." I said. The receptionist nodded knowingly. So even the receptionist knows what's going on. That was just a bit sickening. "So, good bye."
    "Bye," she said politely and she turned back to her computer.

    I walked out the front door of the "clinic," for the first time since I was a little kid, before the testing and the death and the war...
    I didn't want to be seen out on the streets, so I walked out around the back, and was shoved into a wall by a clone guard. They're KY-11s. I noted. He ran past around the corner and I followed, just walking. It was the first Saguire guard that hadn't tried to kill me since I escaped the facility way back in 2097.
    I watched the guard run with two more fully-armed guards after a kid. That's it? A little kid? He was awfully cute. But armed and dangerous? Didn't look like it. They denied the existence of a KY-13 series anyway. I thought. I watched as the guards closed in around the kid, and they backed him up to the edge of the canal running behind the clinic. Two more guards ran up. I couldn't see the kid, but one of the first three guards fell back, as if hurt. What the hell?
    Then, suddenly, the guards backed down, and I heard the kid yell. The guards left, and I realized that he had fallen into the canal.
    This canal wasn't just a water-carrying ditch, it was one of the deep main canals that ran all the way through the city and drained into the countryside. That kid was as good as dead.

    I stood in shock for a second, then I realized that they had probably noticed the dead doctor and the fact that my dead body wasn't there, so they were probably looking for me now. I saw the clone soldiers approaching, and I crouched behind a nearby dumpster as they walked by.
    It was time to be on high alert again. I needed to get the files and needles back to my home.

    ---

    [FILE: SAGUIRE CORPORATION, RESEARCH/EXPERIMENTATION- SH VIRUS.]
    SH VIRUS
    history: The "SH Virus" is a mutated strain of a silicon-based bacterium discovered by the Saguire Corporation's research scientists.
    The original, harmless bacterium was dicovered by saguire CO.'s biologists and medical research scientists. Before the discovery of this bacterium in 2072, the idea of a silicon-based life form was considered fictional.
    Saguire Co. didn't hesitate to experiment with this new, virtually harmless bacterium. They tested on human subjects, even, and found that it could be used as a catalyst for gene mutation
    They thought they had found all the answers left behind from the mass-cloning operations KY-1-9.
    They continued to experiment, seeing that all trials had no ill effects, adn very few had any effects at all.
    What the scientists at Saguire Co. didn't know at the time was that by isolating this bacterium and only exposing it to human subjects, they were depriving it of the things it needed to surivive. This forced the bacterium to do something it hadn't needed to do for eons:
    evolve.