contAIned

Chapter Four

Lex's PoV

Security had swarmed around Bradley, ready to deal with the rebel group, but the moment one of them had typed into a tablet, three quarters of the humanoids crumpled to the floor with a clatter.

"What the fuck?" India whispered, Melody's hand coming to her mouth to silence her.

"Has he just overridden them?" I whispered to Aidan, whose face seemed to mirror sadness. He let out a defeated nod. "Oh no..."
Moments later, the humanoids were back on their feet, their eyes now red as they scanned the room.

"Kill Bradley Prince." The tablet holding rebel called, shouting out as he pointed to Bradley, whose face contorted with fear. The humanoids voices were now more robotic.

"Scanning area, detecting Bradley Prince. Location found." One female humanoid spoke. She then repeated, as if it'd been recorded on her system. "Kill Bradley Prince." Those newly programmed Humanoids took off into a sprint, everyone jumping out of the way, screaming and crying as these humanoids disregarded any human in the path between them and Bradley. One person was shoved into a wall, another flung to the side, some even sustaining injuries from their encounter with the humanoids.

"This is bad. Really really bad." India said. "We've got to get out of here!"

"Stand these robots down or we will have no option but to open fire." Humans screamed as the security pulled out a myriad of guns. "Any humans please leave this room now." Aidan and Melody nodded firmly as they grabbed hold of us and led us further into the room, behind where Bradley was stood, cowering into his team of security.

"Bradley came through this door." Aidan gestured, hurriedly tiptoeing us out of sight of the humanoids and security teams. He opened the door slowly and quietly, allowing India and I through before Melody and himself. As soon as the door shut, we all took a moment to look at each other, knowing this was a doomed situation, before we nodded resolutely and began to take off down the corridor.

"What the fuck did they just do?" India's voice was ragged as she ran, her breathing breaking up the sentence word by word. Neither of us were the fittest people in the world, and we certainly didn't expect to have to run down the back end of the town hall with killer robots about. The two AIs ran ahead of us with flawless athleticism, barely seeming to stumble as they turned corners and leapt over things. India and I were more like Bambi on ice.

"Please, keep it down. It's not safe." Melody's eyes scanned India's worried face and offered her a comforting smile. "We'll help you get out of here." A few corridors later, we had made it to a side exit of the town hall and were back on the street. For a moment, when the cool air hit our skin, we seemed to forget that we'd just witnessed the rebel group put a hit out on Bradley Prince. We stood still for a moment, taking a second to breathe, before the world seemed to start up again. We heard shattering glass, thumps, screams. It was horrifying.

"Scanning area for threats." Melody announced.

"Scanning recent alerts." Aidan said as the two of them stood motionless for a second, their eyes moving left to right slightly as they downloaded information. The screams seemed to draw nearer. India and I pulled ourselves closer to each other and held each other tightly.

"You were right." She quickly admitted. "It's my fault and our lives are in danger." She looked at me worriedly. Now wasn't the time I was hoping for where I could spin round with a smirk and told her 'I told you so'. "I only went because Josie said-" India suddenly paused, her eyes widening as we both realised we may have left Josie in the town hall unknowingly.

"I didn't see her." I was quick to shut down my running imagination, picturing her backed into a corner as red eyed robots ganged up on her. "Maybe she hadn't arrived yet?" India's eyes scanned the road, she began to take some instinctive steps back towards the town hall. "Wait... India!" At the sound of my alarmed tone, Melody's gaze moved towards us. She quickly noted our facial expressions and rushed over, grabbing hold of India.

"Josie could be in there... she-" India began, worry lacing her tone. She brought her hands up to her face and let out a sob. Melody shook her head.

"She wasn't there. I did a register for Bradley." India's hands fell instantly.

"S-she wasn't?" India repeated and Melody shook her head once more. We both let out a collective sigh of relief. I'd only met Josie maybe twice but she wasn't a bad lady. In fact, her and Melody shared a resemblance. Maybe that's why India took to her so much better than Daniel.

"Download complete." Aidan's voice was more robotic for a second before he blinked and came back to life with a start. "It's not good news. We need to get further away from here." He grabbed my arm and tugged me towards him, gesturing for Melody and India to follow. He led us further down the road, away from the town hall, and through some back roads until we appeared to be in an underground car park for a block of flats.

"What do you mean it's not good news?" India piped up once again, always wanting to know the news no matter how bad. Aidan sighed and caught Melody's gaze for a second. She too began to frown. This was going to be very bad.

"The rebel group, they aren't the best of hackers..." Aidan said as if he were all knowing. I scoffed at the statement.

"Well they took down half the humanoids." I said as if he hadn't been in the room witnessing it with me.

"Actually 82% to be precise." Melody added, my jaw falling open at her factual response.

"Right. So they're not good how?" India jumped in, hating the waiting.

"They programmed them to take down Bradley Prince, but did not finish the code correctly. Once Bradley has been taken care of, they will turn on all other humans. They typed the command as a human and then went on to describe Bradley for them to find him but once he's been eradicated, the command falls to just human." In the pit of my stomach, I felt unease, nausea, fear even. 82% of Bradley's robots were about to turn on humans as soon as Bradley was dead. How were we going to get out of this? Help Bradley stay alive? Ask the hacker to retract the command? Run and hide?

We had a lot to think about and not a lot of time to do it. For once, India and I were ahead of the game but this time I'd wished I wasn't.