Through the Lungs and Back

Chapter Eleven

 "Hey, wait up!" The security guard yells at us. He's wearing a hazmat suit, but there's a badge pinned to it. A break in the material we could use to our advantage. "Guys, I think we need to climb." I say. When I look back at the other two, they're already on the wall. None of them are agile enough to climb, so they look like they're just scraping up the wall for no good reason. "I'm just here to test you for the disease." The guard says. He's dragging a huge metal box with needles sticking out. Ellis and Aline jump off the wall. They weren't even a foot up, so they had no trouble. "Let's make a deal." Ellis says. He's holding a knife. "You can test us, and if we're safe, you let us go outside." Ellis says. He wipes the knife on his shirt so it shines. "Look kid, I can't strike a deal with you." The guard says. Ellis moves closer to him, and the security guard pulls the giant metal box in front of him. "Cut it out, Ellis." I step between him and the security guard. "Our friend went outside, and we need to find her." I explain. "She went outside the barrier?" The guard asks. He nearly drops the handle to the huge box. "Yes." I reply. I can hear Ellis take a step back from behind me. "Is she an android?" The guard asks. Both Aline and I say "yes" at the same time Ellis says "no." Both Aline and I stare down Ellis. The security guard's eyes dart between us. "She's seventy something percent metal." Aline clarifies. "So she is an android." The security guard mumbles. "Then she's most likely doing it for work." He informs.

"We can still look for her, right? We're volunteers, after all." Ellis steps up when the guard turns his back. "Maybe. I'll have to disease check all of you first, though. Then I'll talk with someone higher up to see if you can go out." The guard says. He drops the metal box he was holding, and prys it open. There's another machine inside, and the needles are attached to it. There is one digital screen on each corner of the machine, one screen for each needle. Ellis holds out his arm. "I'll go first." He says. He sticks out his arm, and the security guard sterilizes the needle. He presses a few buttons on the machine, and then he sticks the needle through Ellis's vein. The machine beeps a few times, and the digital screen shows four zeros. "You're not sick." The security guard says. He points to me. "You're next." He directs. I walk over to him, and I stick out my arm. He uses a different needle to test me. The machine beeps a few more times, and another set of four zeros appear on a different screen. "You're not sick either. Before the security guard speaks, Aline steps up. "Can we get our own tester thing?" She asks. "I don't know. You'll have to ask someone higher up than me." The security guard says. He sticks Aline with the needle. There are only three zeros, and the last number is a four. "What does that mean?" Aline asks. She points to the four. The security guard brings his hand further in the hazmat suit, and he pulls out a walkie talkie. "We've got a less severe case out here." He says. He puts the walkie talkie back where it came from and sticks his arm back in the sleeve of the hazmat suit. "We will have someone come and put you in a separate room, and they'll treat you with old medicine. You have the original, and not the variant. We will use old medicine to cure you, and you will have built up your immunity in a few days." The guard says. A few other hazmats come to us from the two other sides as the building. They don't intend to harm us. They just want to take Aline.

She doesn't fight them when they come. No one fights. In some way, I feel defeated. I feel helpless when the hazmats take Aline away. We didn't even try to negotiate. We gave her up. Is this really the best course of action? Is the security guard just sugarcoating her condition? A part of me doesn't want to know. I don't want to hear about how bad it is, but I know any good part is nothing more than a hope. The number was low on the tester, and Ellis and I both had zeros, so shouldn't it be good? Maybe the guard wasn't sugarcoating anything. No one knows if it is possible to overcome the disease, because the last outbreak ended in acid. Maybe it is possible.

The hope I have makes me feel sick.

I lose my train of thought when the security guard clears his throat. "Since your friend had the disease, neither of you can leave." He says. "Protocall. I'll have to take you guys back inside." He grabs Ellis and I, then leads us to the front doors. Before we get to that side of the building, I can hear people yelling and pounding on the wall and doors. "Looks like we're going to take a different door in." The security guard says. When he leads us past the entrance, the crowd begins to throw things at the doors. They look like nothing more than a crowd of savages, just short of reaching freedom. I wonder, will I join them? The only difference between me and them is I know a way out. I can get there on my own, thanks to a little slip of plastic.

The things Molly could do with her computer and her robotic parts were a wonderful thing to have. It seems like I missed her abilities more than I missed her. Aline, on the other hand, was mostly dead weight to the team. A person who is easily scared. Any abilities she has, someone else here can outdo them. But I miss her regardless. And now it's just Ellis and I. Since there's no one for him to team up with, he can't double-cross me or pull anything shady. One less thing to worry about. It doesn't quite balance out the loss of both Molly and Aline.

Ellis looks at me from behind the security guard. He mouths the word "robot," then tilts his head to the guard. I don't believe him at all. If he was a robot, he wouldn't need to consult people higher up to see what to do. He wouldn't need to wear a hazmat suit. Robots can't get sick, after all. The security guard is holding my wrist and the disease tester with the same hand. It's almost like Ellis sent the idea of knocking him out to my head. I couldn't think of something violent like that on my own.

Could I?

Ellis starts counting down from five, silently, so the suspected robot doesn't hear. When he gets to three, I yank the tester from his hand. It's much heavier than I thought. Sixty pounds is my guess. I can't quite lift it above my own head, so the highest I could manage on the security guard is his neck. When he falls, I drop it on his head. "Good work." Ellis says. Dropping the disease tester on his head must've knocked him out, because he isn't trying to get up, and he's not moving at all, for that matter. Ellis pulls the disease tester off of his head. He struggles a bit more than I did, and I feel a sense of pride for that. I rip open the hazmat suit to a bloody wound on his head. Looking at the wound hurt both my eyes and my stomach.

There's blood and flesh, just like a real human's head. "Ellis, he's a human." I say. "I'll be the judge of that." Ellis replies. He reaches into the wound, and it makes a horrible squishing noise. It almost sounds like stirring pasta on the stove, and it makes me nauseous. "Look." Ellis says. He wipes his hands in the grass. The man's head is full of circuits and wires.

I didn't kill anyone. I couldn't kill anyone. The thought of ending a human life makes me feel awful. I'm fine with admitting I'm too soft to kill someone. It doesn't make me a weak person. It makes me a normal person.

But I did have the nerve to kill an android. And on certain levels, a human and an android are the same. So, after all, maybe I do have the nerve. It doesn't make me feel confident at all. It makes me feel like a bad person. Not quite like a murderer, though. That title is reserved for Ellis. I have no doubts he would receive it with pride.

"And now we're getting out. Do you know how to climb this thing?" Ellis points to the wall. "No. Can you?" I ask. Based on his performance earlier, I don't think either of us can climb the wall. "No. Let's just go back inside. Maybe we could build something that let us communicate with Aline." Ellis says. We start walking back to the basement window. "Don't we need Molly for that?" Before I finish my sentence, Ellis stops in his tracks. "Aline is a Tech Wizard. I'm a Tech Wizard. You're not stupid. I think we'll be fine." Ellis says. He smiles a little bit. Ellis and Aline are on the same robotics team, the Tech Wizards, and I'm not. So I didn't take much offense in him calling me "not stupid." Plus, we usually make fun of eachother all the time. It's a friendly thing, and it's not meant to by offensive. He's just trying to lighten the mood.

From there, we skip the main entrance and go straight to the basement window. Getting in is much easier than getting out. I jump in the window first, and Ellis follows on my cue. After walking up some stairs and opening some doors, we're back on the main level. The light didn't feel artificial until now. It makes me wish I could have been outside for longer. Maybe I can go outside later. "Let's go back to the base. There's gotta be something useful there." Ellis says. Before we head back, I look in the direction of the cafeteria. The man who passed out isn't there, and a good portion of it is sectioned off. Regardless, there are people relaxing and children playing. Most of the population is pounding at the front door. Hazmats on the other side are barricading it by building another brick wall. Ellis and I walk past that, and we go straight for the technology hallway. When we reach room eleven, Ellis unlocks the door. When I stick my hands in my pockets, I feel the speaker Ellis gave me yesterday. Maybe we didn't have to build some weird machine. "Hey, Ellis. Can't we just use these speakers to talk to Aline?" I hold mine up. Ellis's face lights up. "I forgot about those." He says. He searches through some drawers and a bag on the floor, and he finds his. He presses the red button. "Aline, this is Ellis. I just wanted to know where you are and how you're doing. Out." He lets go of the red button. "And now we wait." I say. Ellis smiles at his speaker. "Yeah, I guess."