Rose 21: Part 3 of 3
Ashes

For the next two months Rose and I spent as much time in each other’s company as we could. We signed up for as many of the same classes as our differing majors allowed, we ate lunch together every other day, sometimes skipping class on the off days when we felt the need, and there wasn’t a single weekend that we didn’t do things together from dawn to well after dusk.
“If I die do you think God will accept me?” Rose asked me as the sun set during our last weekend together. We had taken her small blue hatchback out to one of her parent’s lakeside tracts of land out in the country. I had been holding her in my arms as we leaned back against a tree at the top of a beautiful grassy hill when she asked her question. Rose always seemed more comfortable with what she was than I was with it, but there were times like now that she got deeply introspective. I looked out at the sunset reflecting off the nearby lake and considered my answer.
“Of course He would. I was there when you accepted Him,” I told her soothingly. She sighed and leaned further back against me, but seemed unconvinced.
“I wasn’t made the same way you were, and I’m mainly just a copy of someone else’s genetics, personality, and experiences. I’m not even sure He made me at all,” she said sadly.
I kissed the back of her head and told her a story I’d heard some time ago. It wasn’t actually more than a short joke, but it answered her questions almost perfectly.
“One time a group of scientists challenged God saying, ‘What you did was nothing special. With our science and technology we can now form a man from the dirt just like you once did. The only difference between you and us now is one of scale, and we’ll get there sooner or later.’
‘Show me,’ God said.
The scientists agreed to do so and went about setting up their labs and equipment. When they were ready one of the scientists bent down and began to shovel dirt into his pail to be used in the experiment.
‘Wait,’ God said to the scientists, ‘before we can be considered equal you have to supply your own dirt.’”
I could feel Rose laughing gently against my chest and could almost see the smile that had surely spread across her face.
“The same stuff that makes up the dirt, and you, and me, and even your fake bones, all came from the same Creator,” I told her. “You’ve met every other requirement He’s asked of you, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about.” I reassured her. “Even if you are an evil cyborg clone,” I said, teasing another laugh out of her.
“I love you,” Rose said looking back to me with a big sleepy smile before nestling her head against my shoulder and drifting off. I stayed awake a while longer enjoying the moment while watching the sun dip fully below the horizon. It didn’t take long before the shallow breathing of the warm girl in my arms pulled me off to dreamland with her. I’d give almost anything to be able to hold her in my arms one last time…
The day Rose was taken from me at first seemed like any other. We had our morning classes together, ate lunch together, then went our separate way for the afternoon. Rose always got home around four-thirty while I got out of class an hour later. I was readying my bike to leave the campus and join her for some evening studying when Bobby called.
“Man, I’ve got to warn you, I think Rose might be in some danger,” he began but his voice was drowned out by a lawnmower passing near my parking spot.
“Hold on, let me get my helmet,” I shouted to him. I pulled my rather expensive motorcycle helmet out of my pack and fit it over my head. It powered up and used it’s external microphones and internal speakers to deaden the sound of the noisy lawnmower, then it grabbed the call from my phone allowing me to speak to Bobby without subjecting either of us to the outside racket. “Okay, go ahead.” I told him in a normal voice.
“I said I’ve got to warn you about Rose. I was having some drinks with some guys and we got to talking about friends and girlfriends and I sorta accidentally let slip about Rose. They know what she is man,” Bobby said.
“So?” I asked, not seeing the danger.
“These aren’t the nicest guys, or the most open minded. They got all wound up and left to ‘go pay her a visit.’”
“It’s not like you told them where she lives, right?”
“Of course not, I tried to talk them out of the whole thing,” Bobby huffed, “but there was a guy there from one of Rose’s classes and he knew.”
A chill ran up my spine. “You really think they were serious?” I asked.
“If you’d seen the way they tore out of here… I’ve tried contacting Rose but she hasn’t picked up or replied. I guess I’m not important enough for her…”
“I can get a hold of her,” I told Bobby. “These guys left from the campus right?” I asked him.
“Yeah, from House 3 maybe five minutes ago,” Bobby confirmed. “There’s five or six of them in a beat up red truck,” he said. I cringed, the residents of House 3 were well known for their rowdy and sometimes violent behavior.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll get a hold of Rose and beat them over there. Meet me at her house, all right?”
“I’m halfway to my car now,” Bobby said, sounding a bit out of breath, “I’ll get to you when I can.”
I hung up on Bobby then spoke into my helmet, “V.A., Contact Rose, use all methods to get her the message, ‘call me’, and retry cell and voice chat every thirty seconds.”
My V.A. or Virtual Assistant sent out my message to every one of Rose’s accounts I had on file. Whatever she was doing she was sure to check at least one of them. I revved my bike’s quiet engine and gunned it out of the parking lot. The digital speedometer on my helmet’s heads up display shifted in color from green to red and began to blink, warning me that I was violating the current street’s speed limit by a wide margin but I ignored it and moved into the center lane to better avoid the evening traffic. Finally, after four retries, Rose answered her phone.
“What’s up, you just messaged me, like, everywhere.” She asked innocently in sharp contrast to the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
“Rose,” I said seriously, “I need you to stop what you are doing and go make sure all your doors are locked.”
“Wha…” she started to ask, but I cut her off.
“Just do it,” I said firmly before explaining, “Bobby accidentally let slip what your are to some friends of his from House 3 and he thinks they may be heading your way to cause trouble.”
Rose cursed, something she rarely did. There were a few moments of bustling over the phone as she moved about her house. “Doors are locked, you’re going to be here soon right?” she asked once she was done.
“I’m on my way there already,” I told her. “Just be on the lookout for a red truck and call the police if you see it.” I instructed her as I slowed for traffic backed up at a light, and pulled up right next to the very truck I was warning her about. It’s five passengers, two in the cab and three in the bed, were loud and wild, drawing the annoyed looks of nearby drivers.
“We’re going to get us a cyborg!” one of them shouted while waving some kind of shotgun or rifle for all to see. This was bad, very bad.
“I just pulled up next to the truck, they’re heading your way and they’ve got a gun.” I told Rose. “I want you to wait for me outside. I’m going to beat them to you and we’re going to get out of there and leave them for the police.”
“Okay…” she replied, a bit of fear evident in her voice now. I again pulled into the center lane and surged forward into the intersection in front of a line of cars turning from the left. Horns blared angrily as I zipped between two cars to narrowly avoid being hit. The red truck, several spots back in the line I’d left behind, shrank rapidly in my rear view mirrors then vanished completely as I made a fast sweeping turn onto the street that ran past Twin Creek Park. Driving at over one hundred miles per hour I reached Rose’s street in a matter of seconds and parked in front of her driveway. She came running down towards me but stopped when she realized she would have to get on my bike.
“Let’s get your car,” I said recognizing her dilemma.
“It’s still in the shop,” she reminded me unhappily. I’d forgotten that she’d had a friend drive her home this afternoon.
“Come on, it’ll be fine,” I said, holding out my hand out to her.
“I can’t…” she said in despair. It was obvious that she wanted to come, but she actually took a small step backwards instead.
I was at a loss, there was nothing I could think of that could get past her fear. I was about to order her back inside when the red truck came careening around the corner. It nicked the curb but straightened out and accelerated towards us. I looked back to Rose but she wasn’t in the driveway. An instant later I felt her climb onto my bike. She wrapped her arms painfully tight around me, as if hanging on for dear life, and shouted:
“Go!”
I tore off down the street with the truck trailing close behind. My bike was the faster of the two vehicles but the truck continued to gain. For a few seconds they had the advantage of simple momentum, but then we overcame it and started to pull away. Rose was whimpering now, with her head tucked into my back, but I was sure we were about to be in the clear. Her street curved gently to the right up ahead then connected to a quiet winding back country road with plenty of room to run and several side roads that we could turn off on once we were out of view. I smiled confidently as we bent around to the right. Cutting a sharp left turn onto the country road wouldn’t be a problem even at high speeds, I’d done it at least a dozen times in the past, but the old truck would have to slow considerably or risk running off into the heavily wooded lot directly ahead.
Then I saw the water.
The owners of the last house on the right were drastically overwatering their yard and sending a large stream of wasted water flowing into the street, right where I had planned the apex of my upcoming turn to be. I squeezed lightly on my rear brake in an attempt to bleed off some speed then leaned into the turn and prayed that somehow my bike would find the traction to stay on the road, but it didn’t. I’d brought the front of my bike around and we were traveling in almost the right direction when the rear tire slipped on the water and slid out from under me. We fell onto our left side and skidded along the pavement until my bike’s tires struck the far curb and bounced us back into the middle of the street. I glanced around desperately for Rose, finding her lying on her side maybe ten feet behind me, and almost directly in the path of the rapidly approaching truck. Its driver attempted to preform the same banking turn I’d tried with even worse results. His front tires hydroplaned on the water sending him sliding straight ahead. The truck missed Rose to the right by inches before jumping over the curb and wrapping itself around a large tree. Bodies went flying into the woods but there were no sounds after everything came to a halt. I watched for movement for several seconds, hoping, but didn’t see any. They must have hit at fifty plus, and as far as I could tell they were all dead.
I tore myself away from the horrific accident and crawled painfully over to Rose. She was still on her side, breathing shallowly, her face contorted in pain. I pulled off my helmet and gripped her right hand firmly with my own.
“Talk to me Rose, tell me you’re okay,” I pleaded.
She returned my grip with ample strength and opened her eyes saying, “Now I’ll know why I’m afraid of motorcycles.”
We laughed together for a moment but then she laid her head back down on the street, her smile fading as the pain caught back up to her. My heart sank as I took in the extent of her injuries. The heavy biking jacket and pants I wore were ruined, but they had afforded me a good deal of protection. Rose hadn’t been nearly so fortunate. All she had been wearing was a thin cotton sweater, her t-shirt, and a tattered pair of jeans. None of them had held up to the intense friction, leaving Rose’s left side badly torn up. She was bleeding profusely and her skin was so scrapped away in places along her left arm and leg that I could see exposed sections of her pale greenish white synthetic bones. Still as bad as it looked I’d heard of worse, and skin was easily repaired. I reached back for my helmet again and slipped it on. My bike should have called for an ambulance after the crash, as should have the red truck, but I couldn’t tell due to the large crack that had spread across the helmet’s head up display.
“V.A., tell me there’s an ambulance coming,” I spoke urgently, but there was no response. Either the helmet was damaged, its battery had been jarred loose, or my phone, where the V.A. Program actually lived, had been smashed in the crash. I reached down to retrieve my phone, but I couldn’t seem to work the zipper with my shaky hand. I started to try again but a noise from the direction of the wooded lot caught my attention. I turned my head in time to see a large, bloodied, and dangerously angry looking student stagger onto the street. He was carrying, of all things, a sizable plastic fuel container in his left hand.
“You killed them you freaking clone! All of them!” he shouted, pointing at Rose. She looked up at him startled, then glanced worriedly over to me. I struggled to get to my feat and head off the truck’s sole survivor, but I was more badly injured than I had first thought. It took all I had just to limp pathetically into his path.
“I’m going to send you to hell where you belong, you… you sick cybernetic abomination!” he yelled again as he continued towards Rose.
“I was the driver! Not her!” I yelled into the boy’s face, trying to divert his anger away to me. It worked, but only for a second. The crazed student lashed out at me with the near full container, swinging it in a fast flat horizontal arc so that it struck me hard in the temple. I crashed to the ground, unable to stop him as he staggered on past me. I tried to get up, but my head hurt so badly I could barely manage to stay awake much less impede his progress. I could only watch helplessly as he uncapped the container and began to douse Rose with gasoline. She tried to kick out at him with her good leg, managing to score one solid hit but he just stepped back and continued pouring. He finished emptying the container then sat in on the ground beside her even as she tried vainly to drag herself away. I could hear emergency sirens approaching in the distance, they would arrive in another minute or two, but Rose didn’t have that long.
“This is for my friends…” her murderer told her as he showed her the lighter he had pulled out of his pocket.
Rose locked eyes with me in the short moment it took him to make a flame. I could see terror in them, but it was quickly replaced by a look of serene kindness.
“Don’t watch,” she ordered me calmly before closing her eyes and awaiting her fate. I closed mine as well just before the tossed lighter hit the ground beside her and set the gasoline ablaze. The heat was so intense that I instinctively rolled over to face the other direction. I don’t know how long Rose screamed in agony as the fire consumed her. After the first minute I covered my ears and forced my eyes shut even tighter, willing myself not to hear so hard that it actually worked. The next thing I knew a paramedic had appeared out of nowhere and was shaking me, trying to determine if I was all right.
The area soon became a major crime scene with multiple ambulances and a dozen or more police cruisers lighting up the dark street with their red, amber, and blue flashers. A police officer questioned me to obtain the basic facts and a medic checked me out, determining that I’d need further attention at the hospital. Before they took me away I risked on last look at Rose. She had curled up into a ball in her final moments with her hands covering her face and her legs pulled up to her chest. Much of her clothing and skin had been burned away leaving little to look at but further areas of her odd colored bones and featureless charred flesh. That memory would haunt my dreams for years to come.