text: [Themes: sci-fi, science fiction, female protagonist]
  
  "We need to get them back for this."
  
  You look back into his eyes as he sits across you.
  
  "Yes. I agree. That would be nice. We can work together as a team one more time then."
  
  Jared nods. His eyes light up once again. Your analysis suggests he feels very bad about the situation that you are both in. But he also feels anger upon hearing what happened to you at the hands of those people.
  
  "What should we even do? Do you know anything about them?"
  
  You shake your head. "No. I don't. They provided me with a way to analyze my surroundings but they knew a way to counter it for themselves, so that I could never use it on them outside of basic functions. I don't know who they are, I don't know most of their names, and I burned down the warehouse they were keeping me at not too far from here."
  
  Jared looks disappointed. That doesn't seem to be the answer he was hoping for.
  
  "Well, do you remember ANYTHING about them at all?" You think for a second before remembering the Sergeant.
  
  "I remember one of them being highly feared. The Sergeant. He was always wearing a military outfit with a lot of badges and patches, suggesting he was a massive higher up. I remember him mention something about being in the Air Force."
  
  Jared's eyes light up once again.
  
  "That's perfect, Lauren! There's only one base here that is for the Air Force and I have plenty of connections there. One of them can get us on base, we can sneak away from him and find the Sergeant and get some answers... and maybe some revenge."
  
  You think for a second.
  
  "You want to infiltrate a military base to try and help me take out a high profile member of the military? That seems highly improbable, and appears to be a suicide mission Jared. Why would you do this? You said it yourself, you have a child and a family now."
  
  The words coming out of your mouth sting, but you know it's true.
  
  "You need to be there for them, I'll be fine."
  
  He shoots back at you,
  
  "No. Listen. No one in a million years could have figured that we would find ourselves in this situation. Who would have ever expected that you would come back to me? And now it's too late, as I've moved on with my life. But I still love you, and I owe you part of my life. So I will do this for you, to prove to you that I still love and care for you, and to prove that though I've moved on, you still mean the world to me."
  
  You realize it would be futile to try and argue with him on this.
  
  "Okay then. Get in touch with your connection, and get us on base. I'll meet up with you tomorrow."
  
  The next day, you and Jared meet up and Jared seems dressed for battle. He wears cargo pants and shoes, and a puffy jacket that you can only assume hides some sort of bullet proof vest under it.
  
  "Watch out for the gun, it's in my glove compartment. I told my connect we were gonna go visit him, he's gonna get us on base and then we can sneak off."
  
  You nod. Upon approaching Los Angeles Air Force Base, you two drive up to him in the parking lot outside. Jared gets out and shakes hands with him as they smile and catch up. He walks over to your window and shakes your hand.
  
  "Hi, nice to meet you! I'm Taylor, Jared's friend."
  
  You smile back at him.
  
  "It is a pleasure, fellow human. My name is Lauren."
  
  Jared face palms behind you, as he then instructs Jared to get into the drivers seat and pull you guys into base so he can show you two his cool new apartment. Now with no roommate! As you drive onto base and he starts taking you to his humble abode, Jared asks,
  
  "Hey, so where do the higher ups around here hang out?"
  
  Puzzled, Taylor responds
  
  "Well, they have their own living spaces if that's what you mean. They're way nicer than ours, we get the scraps over on this side, they get the nice apartments on base, sometimes even their own houses!"
  
  Jared nods.
  
  "Though most of them are on duty right now, it's a busy day today. I'm lucky I'm off at the moment!"
  
  You continue driving and finally arrive at his apartment. You both exit the car behind him and walk into his home. He excitedly tries to get you two to have a seat. Then he offers you something to drink. Jared accepts, and then when Taylor turns around to march over to the kitchen, Jared gives you a sign. You scan Taylor's body and then hit him square on the back of the head, providing just enough pressure to put him to sleep without causing any permanent damage.
  
  "That was painful."
  
  "He'll be fine. He's a big boy."
  
  You and Jared turn back out towards the door, Jared grabs the keys from Taylor's pocket and you two begin to march right out. Something inside you tells you that you need to prevent Jared from leaving this house with you. But he also decided to come on his own free will. You could put him to sleep too, and leave him here safely. Or you could bring him with you.
  
  > bring him with you
  You decide to bring him along. This was his choice, afterall.
  
  "Ok, let's get in your car and go. My systems have created an algorithm of this man's behavior. Going off that, it should be very easy to find him. Let's go."
  
  Jared looks impressed, he gets into his car and you get into the passengers' side. He speeds off as you guide him around the base. A few passerby soldiers give you weird looks, since they don't recognize you, but they're also too busy being miserable and working horrible shifts to give too much of a crap. After a bit of manually guiding him, you approach a nice neighborhood on base.
  
  "Are you sure this is it?"
  
  You nod.
  
  "Yes, my algorithms are almost positive this is it."
  
  After a few short moments, you're proven right. As a car pulls up, and the heat signature from inside it makes your scanner ring. This is him.
  
  "He's in that car. We should cut him off before he gets out and goes inside."
  
  Both of you exit the car, Jared reaches over to his glove compartment and pulls out his already-loaded gun. You run over to him as Jared pulls his gun up and screams,
  
  The Sergeant turns towards the two of you. His eyes drift down as he screams,
  
  "DIANA! It's you! You.. you monster! You killed those people -"
  
  "Diana? Who the hell is Diana?!"
  
  Jared cuts him off. You look over to him and respond.
  
  "Diana is the name this piece of crap gave me. My name is not Diana. It's Lauren. I'm not one of your soldiers, Sergeant."
  
  He looks back over to you, then eyes Jared with his gun,
  
  "I see. Out of the three test subjects we had, you were my greatest disappointment, Diana. You had so much potential. You were going to help us save the world. Think of all the lives you could have saved with your abilities, helping out our boys on the field. But you selfishly decided to go after your own wants and needs instead. I hope you're happy"-BANG
  
  Jared has heard enough. He sends a bullet through the man's skull, dropping him instantly.
  
  "That's enough out of you. Don't listen to a word he said, Lauren. He's a monster, who tried to take advantage of you. Don't fall for it."
  
  You smile back at him and nod, then you grab his arms. The two of you lock eyes and begin to build a mental connection. It is quickly severed however, by yet another BANG. You look up and see a hole in Jared's head. Blood begins to pour out as he groans,
  
  "ohh... no."
  
  and he hits the floor. You look to the side and see a young man, looks to be about 22 years old, crying his eyes out as he sees his dad on the ground. He drops down to his knees and sobs,
  
  Your systems begin to fluctuate. Your anger rises as you look down at Jared's corpse. Your beautiful man, now mangled and deformed. You shriek. A shriek loud enough that it almost causes a small earthquake. The young man looks up at you, and before he can react, the woman with bloodshot eyes leaps at him and begins to mangle him limb from limb. You tear at his throat, ending him rather quickly. Then begin to tear off fingers, limbs, whatever you can think of. Neighbors begin to hear as you listen to the sounds of people loading up guns and rushing outside. Your extend your hands forward and with all of your anger, let out a sonic wave from your fingers so powerful that it causes the floor in front of you to explode beneath everyone. It leaves a crater that is several miles forward, almost wiping out this entire neighborhood and leaving a giant gap in the big wall around the base. You run.
  
  You run as fast as you can, escaping the base. Then keep running for miles, ignoring all the commotion behind you. You sprint out into the wilderness nearby and keep running.
  
  "I should have never came back. Jared's dead because of me. This is all my fault. I'm a monster. I'm a freak. Why did I agree to this? I can't be a part of this society anymore. I need to get out of here."
  
  You run into the wilderness and don't look back.
  
  > A thousand years have passed
  Thousands of years have passed. You have lived many lives. You've married many different times, you've seen your adopted children grow, explaining to your constant partners that you are infertile. The women were easier to explain this to. You've seen lives being born, your loved ones pass away. You've been American, Mexican, Canadian, and even Japanese at one point. You never aged, but no one was ever around long enough to question it.
  
  You also got to see the end of humanity. The great nuclear war of 2900. The world had gone insane, your systems had evolved enough for you to realize that war was imminent, so you hid out in your bunker and came out several years later. The nuclear apocalypse had hit, all life on Earth had been wiped out. You walked around empty fields, took a boat across oceans, traveled to the highest points. The atmosphere had been ripped open as a result and everything had been wiped out. Except for you.
  
  "I don't need air to breathe."
  
  You are the last living thing on Earth. But are you even really alive?