This Comfort Zone was barely half full but it was only early afternoon, most of the people sat around me had obviously come off their different Early Shifts, from their different places of work. They looked tired and worn, just sitting there in their different Comfort Chairs and watching the different vid-screens before them. Unlike the Social Zones, people just came to the Comfort Zones to relax and unwind, usually straight after finishing work, to watch the vid-screens and be waited on by the droids there. I came for the vid-screens. My habitation had none, it was in a Restricted Zone and the charge for it was so low how could I also expect it to have a vid-link?

I always watched the news channels, they were my method of staying ahead. They would always carry the latest story of any hunts or captures, these would tell me where the authorities were concentrating their operations and if necessary I would move myself away from that area. This planet was so far from the main lanes of commerce, being little more then a large mining colony, I did not have to worry about that.

I was watching yet another news-report about the ongoing trial of Frank Mendez, a trial that never seemed to have an end. This one had video from the trial itself, showing him giving his evidence.

Mendez stared straight into the vid-camera as he spoke, though he looked so old. His hair was thin and white, his face was etched with deep lines that looked almost painful, and his eyes were tired and watering. Gone was the blunt and unmoving leader that I remembered.

“What I did was to save our civilisation,” Mendez said. “We were losing a war, a terrible war, and if we’d lost, it would have been the end of the human race. I created the Super Souls as our last line of defence and they saved us, that has been forgotten here!”

A woman sitting behind me swore at her vid-sceen.

“Yes, they were cyborgs,” Mendez contained. “They are a human brain within an ultra-metal skeleton, with cloned flesh and skin stretched over that. They were given many implants and extras that gave them super-human power, that’s because they were created as the ultimate soldier. We needed them to save us!”

I ran my right hand down my left forearm, slowly stroking my fingers over my smooth skin there. Under it I could feel the smooth metal of the bone and the tiny blemishes of the micro-implants and micro-cabling in my flesh. It was easy for me because one of my “powers” is heightened sensitively in my finger tips.

“The children used were all war orphans, many of them had radiation sickness or worse. They were certainly riddled with disease and didn’t have long to live. If we hadn’t given them new bodies they would have died… Yes, we did transplant their brains into the cyborg bodies but we had to. They would have died…”

I felt a flash of anger jump into my mind. Though they were only a handful in number, but I had memories of my childhood and they involved a mother, I was no orphan. Others in my troop had memories of full childhoods. I knew no other like me who had been an orphan. Mendez and his associates had stolen us away from our childhoods to rip our brains out of your bodies, transplant them into cyborg bodies and turn us into adults overnight. I went from a child into an adult with unnatural powers in almost one moment. That was over ten Earth-years ago but it could have been a thousand years, I haven’t aged a day since that was done to me and I still feel as lost as that first moment after I awake from their butchery.

They had finally caught Mendez two Earth-years ago and put him on trial almost straight away, but buried under his words his trial had dragged on without moving further forward.

I felt angry and then nauseous hearing Mendez’s voice again, so I reached up and changed the vid-screen onto the next news channel.

A dark skinned woman’s face filled the vid-screen, she had the look of a rich Earth-born woman or noble family, saying:

“The Regional Government has announced that another cyborg rebel, one of those known as ‘Super Souls’, has been arrested as it tried to flee from the police. This one goes by the name of Hester Dix-Sept. It claims it was only trying to live peacefully but was obviously trying to pass as human, just waiting for its moment to unleash an act of terrorism upon us.

“The Regional Government has also said they intend to neutralise or ‘turn-off’ its implants to reduce the risk it presents to us all, before it is transported to a penal colony…”

Quickly I turned off the vid-screen altogether and for a long moment only stared at its blank screen. Hester Dix-Sept had been a member of the same troop as me when we all escaped from The Regiment. We were one of the last troops to escape. The war had been won and the authorities were soon discussing how to “neutralise” us, we had won their war and now we were no longer “heroes”, now we were the threat. As soon as we were safely clear of The Regiment we’d split up, the safer to escape, and I’d seen none of them since then – but I’d kept eye on what had happened to them. For so long now Hester Dix-Sept and I had been the only ones still free from our troop, well now it was only me.

By one more degree I was even more alone.

Quietly I left this Comfort Zone.

“My first memory is being carried by my daddy, when he still had his hair so I must have been so little,” the girl told me.

She was sat on the lounger next to me. She was pretty, very pretty, and from her plain body language she knew it, for she had always been told so. She sat in a casual position but one she had carefully placed her body into when she sat down next to me. Her back was held straight, best to show off her curving breasts and trim waist. Her legs were tucked up on the lounger, she was almost sitting upon them, to both display her smooth and shapely thighs but also to hide her thin calves. With almost every sentence her hand would brush at her hair, whether it had fallen into her eyes or not; this served to emphasize her rich red hair. This hair was long, falling unfashionably past her round shoulders, it was cut into a layer-style that framed her face in soft waves. Her face was graced with a carefully small amount of make-up, pale lips to make her mouth seem smaller, pale checks to make them seem thinner and vivid blue around her eyes to make them seem far larger then they were. She obviously cultivated an image of causal beauty, a causal beauty that took a lot of work.

She had just sat herself down next to me without any invitation or encouragement from me, and had begun talking. This must be her approach for picking herself a companion. She didn’t want to seem predatory, “good girls” not being that forward, but she was still very much in control. Why she had chosen me I did not know, nor could I guess at.

I had come to this Social Zone simply to have the company of others around me. I didn’t engage in conversation, nor did I approach anyone else, simply having others milling around me was enough company to satisfy me. I would find a lounger tucked away in one of the Social Zone’s more secluded areas, there I would sit alone and watch the others there. From time-to-time I would order a drink from the droid-waiters, always the same clear-water spirit (I know the exact rate my body can metabolise this), but mostly I watch the others. Their interactions, the dance they often did around each other as they tried to secure themselves a companion, fascinated me. I could spend a whole night simply watching them. But this was the closest I ever wished to come to them, any further was not safe.

“For me a happy childhood is so important to the formation of a stable and socially adjusted person. If more people had happy childhoods then we wouldn’t have all this trouble. Don’t you agree?” She said.

“Yes, if you say so,” I muttered.

“I was my daddy’s One Number Girl, that’s what he called me. He always put me first in anything, I came first with him always, and that’s the way it should be with parents. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” I again muttered. My eyes were scanning for a way out of this. To get to the exit I had to move past her.

“It was my daddy who made me the person you see before you and I’m truly grateful to him. What was your childhood like? I bet it was as happy as mine. It always is with people such as us,” she said.

“My childhood was all right,” I told her.

“What’s your happiest memory? Tell me, come on,” she lent forward as she spoke, her breasts pressing against her thin dress and almost pushing themselves towards me.

I have only one memory of my childhood. I was maybe three or four, I was playing in a walled garden. There was bright green grass under my feet, in front of the brick walls were wide beds of growing plants, all different kinds of plants and as many colours as could be possibly be imagined, and above me was a blue sky with white fluffy clouds rolling across it – so it could not possibly be this God-forgotten world. There was also a woman there, a woman with a smiling face and neat blonde hair. She was throwing a red ball for me to catch or run after and she was calling a name to me, calling my name; but no matter how hard I search my memories I can not remember what that name was.

“I don’t have one,” I told her.

“Yes you do, we all do. Now come and tell me,” she said with a careful toss of her head.

“I don’t,” I said.

“Now don’t pull that on me, tell me.”

“Leave me alone!” I snapped as I jumped up from the lounger.

“Don’t you dare,” she replied as she leapt forward, her hand snatched hold of my forearm. “You’re my companion, I found you first. You’re not leaving me like this!”

I looked down at her small hand gripping at my forearm, her fingers were so thin, her bones would be so fragile, so easily broken. I would have to expend such a tiny amount of energy to break her arm and release her grip.

“I don’t even like you,” I told her and then jerked my arm from her feeble grip.

Without looking at her or even looking backwards, I walked straight out of that Social Zone.

Again I pulled my pack up onto my shoulder as once more it slipped down my arm. It contained all the possessions I owned, there were few of them and so it wasn’t heavy, but it refused to stay upon my shoulder.

Once it was again on my shoulder I carried on walking down the narrow side-street. Even in this side-street I still tried to keep myself hidden in the shadows there, walking with my body also pressed to the concrete and iron walls. It was two Earth-hours after curfew and here I was actually on the streets, I’d make an easy arrest for any Police Officer low on their daily rate. I was taking far too big a risk, only a simple bio-scan would have given away my true nature and any Police Officer would do that the moment they arrested me.

My bitch of a landlady had finally thrown me out of my one-room habitation mere fractions before the curfew. Repeatedly she had quizzed me on my background, where I had come from, my childhood and upbringing; and my vague answers had not satisfied her. Tonight, in a fit of anger at yet another of my vague answers she’d thrown me out of my habitation. In reply I’d wanted to reach over and snap her fat and ugly neck with a single movement of my hand, but I’d held myself back. There had been far too many people around in that crowded habitation house, people rushing in before curfew, and I would have been easily seen. So instead I had packed and left quickly.

If I didn’t live so permanently in the shadows, never able to take a registered job, then maybe I could have afforded somewhere else to live, somewhere that wasn’t the dreg of the city, somewhere were there wasn’t a curfew, were I could have gone freely about my life. But that was all too many “what if’s”, tonight I just had to keep hidden and tomorrow I would be able to find somewhere else to live, somewhere without a bored and nosy landlady.

“Hey! You! Stop!” A sharp female voice called from behind me.

I tensed my legs, ready to run without a backward glance, but a flash grenade exploded in front of me. The flash had no effect upon my eyes but it meant that the police were only meters behind me.

“Turn around!” A deep male voice commanded me.

I slowly turned around and found two Police Officers, dressed in their re-enforced black uniforms, with two black Police Droids backing them up. Both Police Officers were holding their Stun-Sticks at the ready, while one of the droids was settling itself after it had fired a flash grenade at me.

“What are you doing out after curfew?” The female officer demanded.

“I was evicted from my habitation just before curfew,” I replied.

“Liar!” Snapped the male officer. “No registered landlord would evict someone just before curfew. It’s illegal!”

“It’s what happened,” I said.

“You’re a vagrant!” The female officer announced.

“No,” I said.

“No. He’s a thief. He’s got tonight’s robbing in that pack,” the male officer said, a smug tone plain in his voice.

“No, I’ve been evicted,” I repeated myself.

“You’re out after curfew in a Restricted Zone, that’s a Class C Felony, you’re under arrest,” the female officer said. “Seize him,” she snapped at the droids.

Both droids strode towards me. I only had a few seconds to act but that was plenty of time. I tensed my limbs and channelled the energy through my metal skeleton. A moment later I released an eletro-magnetic pulse through my body, making my flesh buzz with its energy for a very unpleasant moment, and it stopped those droids in their path. The one on the right stood frozen in its movement, the one on left was in mid-step when it froze but over balanced and crashed to the ground.

“What the hell was that?” Shouted the male officer, as he raised his Stun-Stick.

I cleared the few meters space between them and me in a mere second, then grabbed the male officer’s arm that held the Stun-Stick. With a quick twist of my hand I broke his arm in two, neat places. A moment later he let out a shriek of pain, but I’d turned to the female officer. She too was reaching for her Stun-Stick. I grabbed hold of her arm before she’d raised that Stun-Stick.

“Please, no,” she begged me, her voice suddenly soft and feminine.

It didn’t stop me, the moment I would let go of her arm she’d have shot at me, I twisted her arm until her shoulder dislocated with a satisfying crack. She too screamed, a cry almost theatrical in its tone. I dropped hold of her arm and slowly walked past them. I wanted to turn back and tell them that I’d been one of those who’d actually saved their civilisation and gave them the chance to be authority thugs, but I didn’t. That would have given too much away.

Quickly I walked down that side-street and away from them. I never liked using violence like that but sometimes it was needed to protect myself.