Ticking Away Part 7

He entered a room that was set up for his interview. He was wearing more regular clothes. The reporter in the room got up to shake his hand and then gestured for him to sit down, "This will be a pre-recorded interview, Mr. Regent, so make it easier for you."

"Perfect with me."

"Okay, so, 3, 2, 1, Good afternoon, Mr. Regent, it is an honor to have an interview with you."

"My pleasure."

"I wanted to start of by congratulating you on receiving your medal of honor."

"I had it framed, it's very important to me."

"I wanted to ask you about something that might be a little sensitive to you, but it is about the events that occurred at Cityhall 2142."

"Cityhall, 2142, May 2nd, at 13:37, yep, I remember that as if it was yesterday."

"What happened that day?"

"I can't talk about every detail, but I can tell you about my experience," He started, "It happened nearly at the same place as last week's event and well, despite me and my team's efforts, we forgot about one thing, the actual timing of the bombings that we couldn't predict, so when we got there, it was, well, too late, I was with Officer Mark and the bomb was at something like 11 seconds, and I tried, but knowing that I had no time, I pushed him to cover, saving his life."

"And you? What happened?"

"You might have noticed the black sleeve and glove, I was projected into a broken structure," He paused, "A metal rod that is meant to reinforce the concrete ended up going through my left shoulder," He paused and took a breath, "I lost all nerve connections in my arm and had it replaced."

"You had it replaced? Did that evolution change anything in you?"

"Well, I have to admit, that, in my past, I was not exactly open to bots and enhanced members of our society, but now, being part of that part of society, I feel more open and willing to sacrifice myself for those people along with naturals, of course."

"You are more open to bots and enhanced people, what do you mean by that?"

"After my accident, I met a bot that I live with today, before my accident, if you had told me that, I would have called you crazy," He shrugged, "I think that my accident changed me forever."

"Do you think anyone can change?"

"I think that people can change, but it can't happen overnight, unless they want it to," He answered then shrugged, "But I am no social scientist."

"I wanted to ask you about the event in Cityhall last week, are you allowed to talk about it?"

"I am," He nodded, then paused, "A lot of things happened last week, so many in fact."

"How so?"

"The events at Cityhall were, supposed to, attack Bernard Hill's rally, affect the enhanced and bots there before using gunmen," He paused, "They planned on using an EMP bomb to do that, I was with a team of four in a section of the sewers where we predicted they would place it and we found it, but we had several teams deployed as well."

"And then, what happened?"

"With little time for bomb teams to get there, I started to defuse the bomb."

"That must have been hard."

"More pressure than actual difficulty, but still, I had a job to do, and something to make up for, and I wasn't going to fail a second time," He smiled, "After that, I began rushing to get to the street surface but Officer Mark told me we had succeeded, so I simply went back to the bomb and guarded it," The interview dragged on and William let out a sigh of relief when the camera's turned off. He stood up and shook hands with the reporter.

"Thank you, Officer Regent, thank you for your time."

"Of course, it is a pleasure to talk about my story and to share it."

"I wanted to ask you a question without the cameras."

"Go ahead."

"This bot," He leaned in, "Is it Alex Lilly?"

"Yes, it is," He smiled, "Did she talk about it?"

"I believe she did," He answered as William walked with him out of the interview room, "Have a good day, Officer Regent."

"Have a good day to you as well."

The End