Reprogramed

Resting place

Eli was still holding onto Atraya while we walked far away from the metal door that screamed our en slavery.  We finally reach a very large, horizontal scrap metal piece that looked like it was once in a bowl shape before it became crunched and dented.  We decided to take a break and figured that we were far enough from the doors that if the robots had a guess on where we were, we would be able to have a fair enough lead to escape their threatening grasp that they mean to capture us into and still be able to set up a camp for a few days with them still chasing after us.  Eli gently places Atraya down with her back against the tall metal piece and then looks right into my ice- blue eyes, intensely.  His brown eyes looked so mysterious and deep and they pulled on every heart string I possessed every time he looked at me.  He is so handsome with his strong jaw, shaggy hair and muscular body.  A long, scratchy, whimper interrupted my thoughts on Eli and then I noticed the moan belonged to Atraya.  I kneel down in front of her with Eli at my side.  "Well look, isn't that funny?  Sleeping beauty decides to wake up after having me lug her around everywhere when she could have woken at any of those times to let my arms rest, but no.  She has to wake up when all the running is over and she is perfectly rested and safe from the robots." Eli says scowling.

I laugh at that notion but then quickly snap my attention back to Atraya who is now almost fully a wake.  Her eyes slowly begin to rise and I can see her green irises peak through her heavy eyelids.  She looks directly at me with a startle and then at Eli and then she moves her eyes behind us to observe her current surroundings making her even more jumpy.  I notice a very faint, hardly noticeable smile appear from her lips but then, like a switch was activated, her face imitated horror.  "Where... Where are we? And whose that?" Asked Atraya.

"When you got electrocuted every robot was after you so I tried to drag you to our quarters away from  danger."  I say trying to hide my anger towards her.  

I tell her the entire story, explaining every fact and detail but unintentionally explaining the parts that involved Eli as brief as possible.  I was spilling out every ounce of rage I have on her, even though I had the option to leave her and just let them kill her, it's still her fault.  It's so reckless to just react on adrenaline, somehow she must have known that I would never let them hurt her, but how?  Other than from when I turned 16 and became her room-mate, I never really talked to Atraya even though we were working together ever since we were 6, which is the age that the children begin to do the forced labour for the robots.  We have never really known each other, I only ever considered her as the other slave girl who has enough luck as the rest of us as to not be dead yet.  She couldn't possibly know so much about me that she would be able to predicted my every step.  Those relationships take years to practice.  The one thing I know for a fact about Atraya though, is that she couldn't be so stupid as to through her life completely away for nothing.  We are worth nothing to the robot's, so why should they care whether we dye or not?  She had to have know that, there is no way she couldn't after living her entire life as a slave and only know that way of life.   I just don't understand how she could do something like that while knowing she would get punished.  "I'm sorry I caused so much trouble for you" Atraya says, hanging her head down and her eyes locked on the ground.  

"Are you kidding me?" I asked with a baffled look on my face.  Eli was inching away from me now, as if fearing what scary monster I would become. 

 "You risked your life to do what?  Prove to the robot's that you can't be owned by them.  They don't care about us, you stupid idiot!  How could you think you could change anything with that?  You know that you would get in trouble and you still did it, you are so stupid!" I scream at her.

She was now scrunched up as a little ball, her eyes now looking at me and rapidly filling with tears.  I didn't care that she was crying.  Almost killing herself and other people in the process for just a selfish want isn't something that can at all be easily forgiven.  Not even a best friend.  Eli quietly shimmed next to me, his eyes absorbing the scene playing in front of him.  I was quickly getting mad at everyone and everything around me.  Atraya can't play that innocent girl role that I know she truly isn't.  "I... I'm sorry.  I know what I did was stupid and that everything is screwed up now because of me, but... Out of all people I thought that you would be able to forgive me, Syrah."  She said through her tears.

I think about this for a moment.  She had just heard me explain her idiotic deeds and fully realizes that what she did was stupid and not only expects me to forgive her but acted like she has been expecting that from the moment she had been electrocuted.  "For doing the worst thing possible that now completely altered our lives!"  I'm am now screaming even louder at her then I did before.

"Cut it out, both of you!"  Eli yells.  This is the first time I have seen him angry. 

Atraya stop's her crying and looks at Eli with fearful eyes.  I too stare at him, surprised.  "You two aren't going to get anywhere if all you do is fight" Eli reassures us.  "Now we need to figure out what we are going to do, we can't just stay here and wait for them to come to us."

 "We can set up camp here and then continue to move on tomorrow.  We need to get out of this junk yard if we can."  I tell him.

****

We find places for each of us to sleep comfortably.  Atraya and I didn't speak for the rest of the evening so she just fell into a soundless sleep before the rest of us.  Eli helped me with trying to find supplies that we could possibly use in the future.  I don't know why I am falling for him.  We barley know each other.  In the factory, I had absolutely no time to secretly crush over boys, when would I?  I just kept to myself to avoid any trouble, but now I'm in the worst predicament that there could possibly be and still end up falling in love.  I don't know what he feels about me, defiantly not love though.  I sit down, exhausted from everything and then Eli unexpectedly takes the available seat next to me.  "Syrah, we can't keep running.  They are still tracking us and they won't rest util we are found" Eli says in a very scary, calm voice.

"Why do they even want to find us?"  I asked, praying he has an answer.

"They don't want rebels traveling every where, spreading the word that we are able to take a stand against the robot's."  He said.

"Well, we can't just cut the tracker's out.  They had a different formula for us back then, something that wasn't injected in our skin.  The robot's forced little micro-chip's into our blood to scan us no matter where we were.  Now they found a more efficient way to track us with out the hassle of developing all those little micro-chips."  I say, remembering what they taught us when I was younger and first learning how to do my job.  "There is another formula though.  In the Main Control Centre, they have phylacteries that they keep frozen which contain blood.  They found a way to get rid of it."  Eli is now looking at me with a deep interest.  "How?" He asked.

"When they first created the tracking device, they did testings to see if the blood would react in a negative way.  Apparently, from one woman, they came across a certain type of blood that rejected the tracker, so as soon they found that out that it was a potential cure, the robot's killed the woman so that her DNA wouldn't be passed to anyone else and took her blood and hid it in a phylactery so that they could learn from there mistakes and perfect it.  It's still in the Main Control Centre, still frozen and able to use."

"Well, I guess we know where our target is then."  Eli says, his face lighting up with excitement.

"No!  I can't risk your life or Atraya's.  They would kill us and squash us into an oblivion, I can't risk it."  I warn him.  

"Look, this is the only way we can assure our freedom, I am willing to risk my life for that ."  He says grabbing onto my hands and looking at me seriously.

"OK.  Fine, I'll go but we need to sleep" I say to him. I can't resist those eyes, and he already done so much for me and never asked for anything in return except for this.  I owe him.  Suddenly, his expression changed from  extremely serious to ecstatically happy and then pulls me in for a deep embrace.  His strong arms wrap around my skinny ones and hold me tightly against his chest.  My heart skipped so many beats that I wondered what I was still doing alive.  I wrap my arms around his torso and then the world stop's spinning.  There is only two people on earth right now and that's Eli and I.  "Good night." He whisper's in my ear. 

"Good night" I repeat back.

 He releases his grasp on me and then happily stand's up and walks back to his sleeping area.  I too decided that I should relax and sleep from the thrilling experiences that happened to me today.  When I slid down to the ground beside Atraya, I let the soundless world engulf me into it's quiet void.  I start to fall asleep when all of the sudden, I hear the loud cling of metal banging against each other.  My head shoots up to see what preditor is out there stalking us.  Someone is out there, looking for us and I am going to find out who.