Bots Among Us

Chapter II

BECKY POV

It had been a fairly normal morning. I'd rolled out from my warm, fluffy covers, made a coffee, and gotten dressed for school.

Just another ordinary day.

Or so I thought.

As I pushed the heavy metal door to the band hall open, the atmosphere felt...unnatural. A sense of falsehood flooded my senses upon my entrance; I decided it was the aura of all the fake people at my school.

I assembled my instrument quickly and found my seat, glancing around at my fellow band members. I took notice in a particular horn player's presence: Jonah Daes. He had been absent from school for a little over a week now, and rumors about his disappearance had spread like wildfire.

"I heard he was hospitalized with an STD," a group of theater girls had murmured to each other in the hall a few days back. I refused to believe anything coming from them, obviously.

"I heard he was murdered and left for the coyotes at Hidden Lake," one of my best friends, Alisa Shybell, had conspired to me. I highly doubted any of the scenarios and went about my week, not putting a second thought into it.

Until today.

"Alright band, let's jig through Cowboy Christmas," Mr. Conaway said, twirling his sacred baton. As the band adjusted our music in unison, a loud creak of feedback erupted through the room. The entire band cringed and groaned, and Mr. Conaway reached to adjust the volume of the metronome. "Sorry band," he muttered, shaking his head in disappointment. Most of the band laughed it off and prepared themselves to play, but I couldn't help notice something...off.

The feedback had not come from the front of the room. The noise had originated in the 3rd row, where I sat, but particularly in the horn section. I scanned my eyes down the row to observe. Gray and Eliza, the other horn players, were aiming disgusted glances at Jonah, who was sitting in the middle of the trio. Jonah showed no facial expression, and stiffly turned his music to Cowboy Christmas.

Now entranced by the sophomore's strange actions, I found it hard to focus on our music. My section began to question me after my 3rd time missing an entrance; I just couldn't keep my eyes off the strange wonder of Jonah Daes. With every movement he made, his posture failed to falter. His shoulders were constantly squared, his feet were spaced evenly apart and flat on the ground, and his eyes never seemed to blink. A root of concern began to blossom within me.

I went about the rest of my day and forced myself to postpone my pondering over the mystery of Jonah Daes. Alisa and I's physics project wasn't going to finish itself.

"I'm so lost. What the heck is a vector quantity?" Alisa sighed in frustration, scanning Coach Jake's messy handwriting on the whiteboard.

"Psh. Don't ask me. I've never been so confused," I laughed and flipped through my nonexistent notes for some kind of answer. "We're gonna have to pull some voodoo magic crap if we're gonna pass this project."

"Do you know anyone who's really good at physics?" Alisa asked, logging on to play Town of Salem.

I thought for a moment. A few people crossed my mind but I wasn't close enough to any of them to request help.

"Not really. Do you?" I said.

"I think Nikki is. She's in the top 10 percent for her grade. She's trying to get an engineering degree or something like that," Alisa said, and a chill ran down my spine at the name.

"Nikki...Huitler?" I strained her last name as I said it, hoping my friend was referring to a different Nikki.

"Yeah," Alisa confirmed, and upon seeing my concerned face she rolled her eyes. "Oh come ON. She's really not that bad. We're kinda becoming friends in BIM. She's chill."

I said nothing and pondered over the idea of being tutored by our intimidating brass captain. I've been told many times that I'm very in touch with my intuition, and it had been whispering to me for months that Nikki wasn't a good person. She gave off a negative energy, a heartless vibe, and I wasn't sticking around to be victimized by it.

"Okay, fine. If it gets me an A for the quarter then I can manage," I capitulated my hesitations. Alisa nodded in approval and agreed to set up a meeting time with Nikki in the coming week. "Crap, I just died," she cried, slamming her computer screen shut. I shook my head and laughed.

The final bell for the school day rang, releasing us from the despised physics classroom. Alisa and I walked down the hall quickly, eager to escape prison as fast as possible.

"Becky! Wait!" I heard a faint voice calling from behind. I turned my head to see Annalee making her way through the crowd to Alisa and I. Just as I turned my head, my chest collided into a person walking the opposite way down the hall. A box-shaped metal object on the person's chest rammed into mine, and I yelped in pain, swerving my head back around to see who was before me.

Of course, it was none other than Jonah Daes.

"My b," the sophomore said slowly and robotically, his shoulders maintaining their square posture. He maneuvered his way past me, arms perfectly dropped by his sides, and continued down the hall. I marveled at the incident, and my friends laughed. "Dude, he's been so weird ever since he came back. Who knows what happened to him," snickered Annalee.

"Yeah," my voice trailed off, and I rubbed the bruise forming below my collarbone. "Who knows."