Mechanical Gods (lgbtq+)

Chapter Thirty: Hunted

     Tyler gripped the handle next to him so hard that his knuckles turned white, aching his muscles all the way up to his shoulder, and tensing them. He stared at the shadow by the window, who stood as still as a statue, peering inside. Tyler thought he must've seen him, and if not, he would walk away sooner.

     But that didn't happen.

     Something inside drew him in. The shadow tried the panel by the door. That didn't work.

      Isaac locked it before he hid. If Aiden could hack the panel again, he might come in, but he didn't. He peered back into the room as still as a mountain.

     They sat knee deep in silence. No one dared to move, not even Tyler. He couldn't look away from Aiden's shadow, continuously peering in ominously, radiating from the emergency lights behind him. Tyler was breathing like a dog, aware that his pulse throbbed at his temples and the flushed heat rushing up to his cheeks, knotting his stomach painfully tight.

     Why hasn't he moved yet? Tyler wondered. Was it them he saw? He didn't like the thought of that. Their only exit was the door Aiden was standing on, and if things turned for the worse, they had to go through him to get out of there. Tyler hissed a curse under his breath.

     Gregg placed them inside a death trap.

     It took all his energy to pry his eyes away from the door. He wanted to watch him there and track the Android's movements, but fear had gripped him and overwhelmed his senses. He shook with rage from his cowardice, trying to calm his trembling hands as he clasped them both on his mouth, muffling his loud, panicked breathing. 

     Tyler swallowed the lump bubbling up his throat. He bit his lip, kept control of himself, for he was determined not to act like a scared child, almost pissing from the terror and the unnerving silence.

     He tried not to cry. Tears would bring in sound, and in turn, would bring the Android in. He compromised on slowly sitting down the raised pedestal on the 3-D printing machine. He couldn't see the others now, even Amanda. He had his back faced the table. 

     BOOM.

     The door. Glass broke.

     The shadow punched the panel. Tyler could hear the clatter as it reached the ground.

     The piercing noise reverberated in the room like a cymbal, freezing all of them where they hid. Tyler's lungs hiked up right at the back of his trachea, and he almost coughed when it seized the opening of his throat, but he held it in time. That was a mistake. The muffled cough burned like acid.

     The door didn't budge. Aiden's body pounded on the door this time. It didn't do anything.

     Seconds ticked passed, heart racing the longer it went, then another pounding--two successive ones right at the window--then it stopped. Tyler half-expected the glass to crack, and then he could come in, but Aiden's body was too tall and too wide. He wouldn't fit. At least, that was a relief.

     He desperately wanted to take another look at the shadow. His mind fought against it, but his body had a mind of its own, and he slowly peered at the small slits between the crevice of a panel next to him and found the shadow was gone. He should've been relieved Aiden as gone, but Tyler couldn't move or look away. For reasons that he wasn't able to articulate, it made him extremely uneasy.

     Amanda decided to crawl out of her hiding place.

     "What the heck are you doing?" Tyler whispered, but it was loud enough for her to hear.