Migration

Bots

Mo had swayed and rotated silently in the dark of the Chute for over an hour. There was only quiet from the room above him now, the faintest hum from various bits of tech that sat waiting for interaction and although he listened as hard as he could, he couldn't hear gunfire anymore. He'd had plenty of time to think about what the hell was going on, but despite running through every conceivable idea, he couldn't come up with anything that made sense.

Lifers? No, they were definitely Drones doing the shooting, and there was no way Lifers could take control of them. A crackdown by AarBee? Sure, but of what and why would they want to kill Zayn of all people?

Mo could see them having it in for him, although it still seemed pretty harsh, but Zayn was exactly the kind of dick they loved in AarBee's paradise. He was prime meat.

He wondered what had happened to Maddie and felt a wave of guilt that he'd sent her off into that shit on her first day, but perhaps she was OK. Perhaps it was just him and Zayn, and everybody else was just waiting to come back into the Disposal Suites and carry on.

Whilst Mo puzzled over who might be where, it occurred to him that AarBee could easily track him down with the bots in his blood. His hiding place might have worked as a short-term solution, but if he really was a wanted man, for reasons unknown, he would have to deal with his ID bots. They kept stems in the Sync rooms, it was the only way to get them out, so Mo would have to venture down the corridor if he wanted to flush them out, or to find out what was going on.

He listened his hardest for another ten minutes, moving his eyes around in the dark as he focused his hearing, but there was nothing. Slowly, conscious of every creak and rumble as his body contacted the sides of the Chute, he dragged himself up over the edge of the drop and crawled towards the hatch. The edges glowed like tech store neon into his dark, death-scented hideaway. It was hard work and by the time he reached the top and had grabbed hold of the maintenance hook, he was sweating profusely.

Mo lifted the hatch a fraction and dropped his cheek onto the smooth surface of the Chute to peer underneath. Sweat pooled around his nostrils and tear ducts, stinging as it blotted across the surface of his eye. He blinked hard and rubbed it out with the back of his hand. From his strange viewpoint, peeking out at a sharp angle from the counter top across to the far corner of the room, Mo could see nothing apart from the headrest of a chair and the bolt gun hanging motionless from the ceiling. Nothing moved. He opened the hatch a little wider, but his view still didn't improve. He would have to stick his head right out if he wanted a clear view around all four corners of the space.

He dropped the hatch again gently and then, with his heart pounding in his throat, pushed his head straight out into the room. He looked left and right quickly as he went through and brought his arms down swiftly onto the counter in a kind of comical pounce. He figured that once he was visible he might as well go all the way, as retreating was not an option and surprise – at least – was on his side.

He was alone. The trolley in the room was left untidily in the middle of the space, but other than that, everything was as he'd left it. The air felt fresh and clean in his mouth and lungs compared to the thick and oily oxygen in the Chute, and for a moment he crouched in the stillness whilst it cleansed and cooled his insides.

He wriggled out of the Chute and swung his legs around to plant his feet on the floor. AarBee would have sensed him moving already, so he had no time to waste. He rifled in the storage cupboard under the counter and retrieved the large alloy spanner used to strip down the bolt gun, it wasn't much, but it was the only weapon he had and would at least be useful up close. Gripping it firmly in his fist, he made for the door which slid quietly open as he approached it.

In the corridor nothing had changed and nothing moved. The broken trolley was exactly where it had been when he was last here, bits of it still scattered across the otherwise pristine floor. It felt like life had paused, a glitch in time waiting to be reset once fate had decided which future he would have. He moved quietly but quickly up to where it rested and peered in through the still-jammed-open door of Disposal 9. On the far wall, close to the ground, dark blood exploded violently upwards, not thinning out until at least waist height. There was a matching pool on the floor that smeared slightly towards the middle of the room, but no body. Mo glanced suspiciously around the rest of the space before quietly moving on, forcing himself to be part of the stillness.