Chapter 45

“Brian.” Gabriela took a long shaky breath, allowing a sob to pass before she continued. “I need your help.”

“Gab,” Brian’s voice was barely audible. “Where are you?”

“I didn't want any of this to happen, Bri. None of this.”

“You need to tell me where you are.”

“I just,” Gabriela’s words trailed off as she collected her thoughts. “I just want her back so badly.”

“Who?”

“My daughter.” Gabriela could keep the tears back any longer. “I know that could never happen, but I thought, if I just had the chance to be a mother, I could prove to her, prove to myself that her life mattered, that I mattered.”

Gabriela reached up behind the meta decks faceplate and wiped away her tears. “I didn't kill him. I have never even met Owen Conner.”

“Gab, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me where you are.”

“I’ll be at the Dam.” Gabriela said right before she disconnected the call.

A blinding flash caused her to cover her eyes just as she was about to turn away. The flash was followed by a rush of wind. Gabriela staggered and watched a plume of smoke rising into the sky, high above the buildings of the New City. She sank to her knees as she watched the building's lights flicker before they were snuffed out and toppled into a hole that began to spread around the plume of smoke.

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“No.” She whispered.

“It’s already started, Gabriela.” Angela’s words whispered in her mind. “There is nothing you, or I, can do to stop it.”

This was what Gabriela had done. This was what she had allowed Soma to change in Taurus. It wasn't just to smuggle members of the Son’s into the city. Gabriela had been too focused on what they did with Taurus, she never considered that Taurus was never their goal. Omni-System, the AI that ran the city, was linked to Taurus. They knew that the hack on Taurus would be discovered. They were counting on it. They needed Omni to smuggle in a bomb. And they were allowed to do it because everyone was looking in the wrong direction.

“Inside that building they take more than lives. They take our future. They grow people who will one day grow to pull the trigger and take unimaginable amounts of lives.”

Angela had never intended on freeing children from Ezerite Wombs, she intended to free them from the system the only way she knew how.

Gabriela stilled her grief, pushing it away, allowing the empty space in her soul to be replaced by something more primal, something she could use. Rage.

She drew herself to her feet and searched the wreckage of the bike. She found what she was looking for. The rifle Angela had given her. The weapon was mangled beyond use. Gabriela tossed it to the asphalt. She wouldn’t have been able to use it anyways, not with her broken arm. She pulled out her pistol, and gritted her teeth as she pulled the slide back, chambering a round.

Her ‘Benefactor’ was waiting for her at the dam, and she did not want to keep them waiting.