Free Infinity Rises by S. Harrison

circle, seems to be following me. I stare at it curiously. It’s very large and dark, like a storm cloud. Some of the clouds closer to the center of the circle of memories are misty, like fog; they’re smoother and longer, more spread out and fuzzy at the edges. But this dark one is thick with undulating billows; it seems newer, more vibrant than the others. It slowly shifts out of its orbit and drifts toward me. There are no tiny tornadoes of smoke reaching out from this one. I don’t know why, but for some reason, the thought of a large dog warily approaching a beckoning stranger comes to mind. Could it be the memory I’ve been searching for? Will it tell me how I came to be bleeding on a metal table beneath Blackstone Technologies?
    “C’mon, just a little closer,” I coax. The memory cloud seems to pause, and then, ever so slowly, it begins moving away. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear it had realized that I’m not its owner and was going back to join its pack in line.
    It’s one of Infinity’s memories. So what would she do?
    I quickly clench my fists tightly and focus pure anger at the retreating cloud. With narrowed eyes and gritted teeth, I will it to come to me. I more than will it . . . I command it.
    All of a sudden, a tentacle of smoke spirals out from my forehead and shoots toward the cloud, snaking across the space between us and spearing deep into its side. I feel my anger grow, and the swirling tendril attached to my head thickens as the dark cloud begins to shrink. Murky bursts of color strobe all around me, and there are crunching pockets of pain and blaring alarms in the back of my mind. The writhing python of smoke is getting bigger and bigger, swelling into a giant smog that completely envelops my torso.
    Half-heard words from cracked sentences of garbled voices swarm in my ears. I scream out in confused frustration, desperately trying to decipher any piece of this sensory assault, swiping at the distorted images with my hands, trying to clear a path to something I can understand. I feel the cloud engulfing my entire body and compressing against me. There’s a momentary flash of gray eyes, wrinkled skin, and silver fabric stretched tightly over the shape of a Drone’s upper body. I’m suddenly filled with rage and power.
    The image of Nanny Theresa’s face pasted on a Drone’s body becomes vivid and solid. Bewildered, I reach out again to swat the strobing pictures aside, but instead, my arm straightens like a steel rod, and my fingers spear forward on their own. My hand harpoons through the Drone’s chest, through its innards, punching right out its back in a splatter of thick, synthetic blood. Theresa’s face is an inch from my nose. Her eyes roll back, her cheek twitches, and then her face vanishes, flattening into a shiny black plastic mask.
    I forcefully pull my hand out from the hole, and the Drone’s inert body flops to the ground in an orange-goop-leaking heap.
    “Finn?” says a weak voice from across the room.
    I look over and see a rather pathetic-looking, tousled-haired boy leaning on a chair with an obviously dislocated shoulder.
    Out of battlefield reflex more than anything else, I stride over to him, grab him tight before he can complain, and pop the ball joint of his shoulder back into its socket. He grits his teeth and jerks his head back, but he doesn’t make a sound.
    This one may have potential.
    He looks up at me with a strained smile, and I can’t help but notice his eyes. They’re hazel amber with tiny flecks of gold, but there’s much more to them than that. There’s focus and fearlessness, and a quiet strength deep inside them that I’ve only ever seen in the emerald-green eyes of one other.
    The boy stumbles. I quickly move around to his other side and grab him under his good arm. “Thanks, Finn,” he says, gritting his teeth in pain, trying his best to put on a brave face.
    “Don’t call me that,” I order the boy as I scan the room,