Honey, I cursed the kids! (... and also humanity)

*movie announcer voice* In a world being torn apart by unholy dark magic, one extra-dimensional android and a 13 year old with the blood of kings are all that stand in the way of certain doom. Coming this September get ready for...

“You lost him,” stated Inspector General Wilkins a second time, once again grinding the superintendent’s stammered excuses to a halt. The former stared out of the latter’s office window as he shifted papers awkwardly.
“Well… yes, if you wish to be blunt Inspector, we lost him,” Dr. Kratz nervously wiped his brow. When the police department had sent the message announcing an in-depth investigation on the matter of the escaped patient, he’d assumed he’d have some time to prepare. But the Inspector General himself had arrived within an hour of the telegram. “I would like to reiterate that the boy is suffering from the same bouts of violence as the rest of them, and my staff is only human, furthermore due to the mounting epidemic-“
“Due to the mounting epidemic you are stretched thin, yes doctor, you have told me this three times now,” he interrupted the doctor without once turning around to face him. “I would like to reiterate to you now that the Des-Lasier Mark 19s the government has so generously donated to your hospital are, in fact, military grade. Sufficient to guard any and every possible route of egress you yourself planned for. The blame is still squarely in your corner.  You lost him. Tell me how, and then tell me where I will find him once more.”
Dr. Kratz suppressed a nervous shudder.  He knew that Wilkins was pressing on his psyche, that not  showing him his face would leave his fury to the imagination. He was a psychologist, he could read the tension and rigidness in the other man’s posture and know what it meant. That didn’t make it any less intimidating.
“There was a riot down the hall from his, er, cell. The automatons were called in to assist, as well as several orderlies. After we had finished with the… well, two of our patients had mutated further and become too violent for any hope of a cure. I’m sure you understand.”
The Inspector did not give so much as a grunt of sympathy. Dr. Kratz swallowed. “Well, uh, it was actually one of the Des-Lasier who had realized it. The boy had sensed the commotion and forced open his door, and from there simply… simply left in the confusion. According to some street witnesses, he’d left screaming. Running to the west, I believe.”
“That is all?” Dr. Kratz nodded nervously, aware that Wilkins had been watching him from the reflection on the window.  He could see the whole office, but due to how the Inspector’s hat blocked him, he could still not see his face.
“And you are sure that the child broke open a solid oak door on his own? If he got help from another one of your poorly guarded patients it would imply cooperation. That is something we cannot encourage.”
“The door was securely locked if that’s what you are implying sir, but…” and the superintendent paused, as if to try and find a way to spin it so that his hospital was still not at fault. He failed. “There was no deadbolt. Despite a previous injury to a nurse and the psychosis, Lucas was our best candidate for recovery until the night of his escape. We observed nothing that would have indicated a deteriorating mental state other than some more withdrawn, possibly introspective behavior. We’d hoped that loosening our hold of him and letting him relax more would encourage him to come to terms with all of… this.  It-“
“Did not. It made it worse doctor, that much is readily apparent from the nature of his escape.” Kratz opened his mouth to defend himself and the hospital but found nothing coming out. He slumped his shoulders, defeated.
“The files I asked for, are you done assembling them yet.”
“Yes, locations and blue prints of the Pendragon estate, psyche evaluations, and a list of the family’s known alternative residences. I assume you will be passing this onto the hunting squads?”
At this the Inspector finally turned, his face… curiously blank. Anger or distaste was not present in any observable amounts, quite counter to his following words. “That is the difference between you and I doctor. You only see your patients as those that could be cured or those that cannot and must be exterminated. I see Lucas as something other,” he said, taking the folder in gloved hands.
“I dare say, you may be expecting too much of this child Inspector. Certainly, he may have come closer to being cured than any other, but he was certainly not immune.”
“Psychosis is one thing Kratz, but he is unmarked by mutation and he survived his family. The estate was torn apart by the rest of them, but he is whole. For the good of humanity, I need to find out why.”
“Well, I-“ this time, the intercom machine on his desk interrupted the superintendent.
“Dr. Kratz? I have a visitor for you.”
“Pardon me a moment Inspector,” apologized Kratz before pressing a button on the device.  “Give us a moment and then send them up Belinda, I’m nearly finished with the Inspector.”
“Sir? The visitor waiting for you is Inspector General Wilkins sir. I don’t think he would like having to wait.”
“What the devil Belinda? I already have-“
Suddenly the man in Kratz’s office leaned in to speak into the microphone. “Send him up Belinda, the doctor will have many questions to answer,” he said in a much more feminine voice.
“Who the blazes are you?!” shouted the superintendent. “Guards!”
“For a psychologist you are decidedly unobservant,” spoke the man before his face flickered and revealed a bizarre blue lens surrounded by engraved golden metal.
“What are you?!” exclaimed Kratz, running around behind his desk as the entity marched towards the office doors. “Who is speaking through you? Talk villain!”
“Still a fool,” muttered Chataknya just before the doors burst open and two Mark 9s pushed through.
In the time they had adjusted to their new environment Chat was already upon them. She grabbed one by the shoulder and used it as leverage to pull it onto her other fist, which literally knocked his block off. A surprisingly simple fix once they replaced the broken eyes; Mark 9s were designed to sustain damage to their head area without injuring any major systems.
The other automaton reached out with clamping hands towards her, But Chat deftly swept them aside and pulled the machine off-balance. They both tumbled to the floor, where she quickly curled her legs between them. As soon as her back hit the ground, she bend at the waist and kicked strongly, hurling the heavy machine towards the reinforced window. Upon impact the glass cracked in a huge star, though it still stood.
It remained as such for only another few moments. Chataknya flipped onto her feet and hands, her sharp claws protracting through the cheap leather to dig into the hardwood and cement floor. A bare second was enough for her to build up a burst of energy through her limbs and jump like a shot. She punched through the damaged window with enough momentum to latch onto a nearby tree.
From there she jumped down and gave a mock salute to the remains of Dr. Kratz’s office before sprinting off across the lawns and into the nearby woods. She would easily jump the fence she knew she’d find there, and from there, the true race would be on.
Lucas Pendragon would be confused and searching for someone to help. She had to get to him before one of the hunting parties did. Somehow he’d survived, and she intended that survival to continue.

Chataknya watched from a nearby rooftop. She’d reverse engineered their primitive communications systems and built devices of her own that would intercept messages. It had been a simple matter to catch the alert that a possible psychotic matching Lucas’s description was in the town square. A far less simple matter was getting to the child before the hunters. Chat had thought he would return home, his lucidity surprised her.
He already knew they were dead and had tried to warn the people of the things he’d seen. By the time she’d ran through the city, a squad of hunters had already snatched him up. They were carrying him bodily through the streets, their gruff expressions and silver badges preventing any question of their authority. Chat followed them from the connected roofs. The “catchers” as people thought they were called enjoyed a great deal of independence, and marched through the town to bring undesirables to the various asylums in the area.
How little these people knew. The second a squad encountered one of the former humans, they took out their pistols. If it was an early stage, there was a small chance (sometimes decided by a literal coin toss) that they would simply beat the creature and drag it off to the nearest holding pen disguised as a ward. From there, the doctors would experiment until such time as the being became too violent and was put down.
It seemed that these hunters had decided that if the boy was strong enough to escape once, then he was on his way to full monsterdom. Completely idiotic, but it meant that they were bringing him to a back alley instead of a transport cage. The joked with each other while Lucas pounded feebly at the giant holding him. The poor boy was weak, though Chat didn’t know how or why. He’d been strong enough to break open a door when the madness had engulfed him. What was different?
She’d find out soon enough. The squad split up, two pairs watching the entrance and corner of the alley, the other four arguing about who would take the shot. They were not evil men, precisely, they just needed to do evil things in the name of protecting their people from the epidemic. It would be noble were it not for the innocence of the child they were about to put down.
With that last thought, Chataknya stepped off the roof and plummeted downwards. Her metal body was made of surprisingly light alloys, but it flattened the trash bin she landed on nonetheless. Before anyone could react, she’d landed a precise punch to the side of one’s head, knocking him out cold. The other was kicked against a wall, the wind driven out of him. The other two pulled their guns, but were disarmed and similarly KO’d in a flurry of swift strikes. Chat snatched a flash bang grenade for one of their belts and launched it at the mouth of the alley. Before it blew, she drew one of her own pistols from her belt and pointed it in the other direction.
The grenade went off, stunning the guards. The last two rounded the corner right after the explosion, guns blazing in panic. Chat leapt onto Lucas, keeping him covered while she returned fire. Her laser pistol flashed purple, panicking the hunters as the cobbles under their feet were shot loose. The stones was shattered and turned blazing hot by the plasma, scattering painfully, though non-lethally, on their legs.
The shooters danced back out of view, hoping to find better cover. Instead, Chat crab walked to the side, and carefully shot at a pile of detritus near the corner, setting it ablaze. That would complete her distraction.
She stayed crouched and went back to check on Lucas. He’d fainted in the commotion, though a finger to his neck revealed a strong and steady pulse. She sheathed her weapon and picked him up in one arm. The boy was no infant but she was far stronger than all but the highest class of this world’s automatons. Her other three limbs were more than enough to jump from wall to wall until she was back on the roofs.
She kept low, taking cover behind clothes lines and chimney smoke whenever possible. She didn’t know if the men she’d taken out had the authority to radio for aerial machines. Either way, best not to risk it. She could run however she liked once she got to the safety of the woods.
Once there, she’d make camp, and wait for him to wake up. Then she’d decide what to do with him.

Chataknya sensed Lucas stir behind her, but continued to tend to the task at hand. When he was well enough to speak, he would. Certainly, the child would not be brave enough to run a second time. Probably. Organics were weird and emotional.
“State your service,” came his high-pitched voice. If she had eyebrows she would cock one at him. Higher caste children were so demanding. She would know, she worked for them for so long.
“State your master’s name!” he demanded again. This time her fictitious eyebrows would have narrowed in anger. Presumptuous brat. Artificial sentience must have not been discovered in this dimension yet, but still. It rankled.
She finished arranging kindling she’d scavenged from the forest around them, and begun stacking thicker sticks and branches around the pile. She would have preferred to make the fire log favored by her survivalist friends back at Hub, but she lacked the necessary saw blade. Her own Shard might do the trick, but this was a new forest anyway. No logs. Bluh.
“State your current commands,” finished the Pendragon child. His expression was the same that a bored teacher would give to an ill-liked student when asked to spell something obvious. She decided to surprise him a little.
She took a small oak splinter and raised a section of her outer armor, exposing a part of the inner working. Intense light leaked out, as well as a fair amount of heat; usually recycled, now left to vent. The splinter caught fire quickly, and Chataknya quickly stuck it into the heart of the kindling, waving at it with a piece of bark to encourage the flame.
She then spoke in her natural voice; a metallic and accented (though thoroughly intelligent) sound that threw Lucas even further off guard, “My current commands hm? Let’s see. Find you: Check. Keep you alive: In Progress. Find the cause of this epidemic: In Progress.”
With her last point she swiveled her head towards Lucas so he could see her alien lens of a face, “Save the world from the goddamn apocalypse: In. Bloody. Progress. Now if you are quite finished barking orders at me like I’m a household appliance, come closer to the fire, you’ll catch your death.”
Her posture eased slightly, and she sat back on her haunches, dragging a small sack towards her. “I snatched something from an inattentive butcher on our way out of town. It’s ‘ham’, I think it can be eaten in this state but if it needs to be cooked I’m flame proof.” She offered a small parcel wrapped in brown paper to him, like a peace offering. She regretted the situation they were placed in, and would have rather he be in a micro spring bed, or whatever they used around here. But they would have to make do if they wanted to evade the hunting parties.