P L A N B E T A

Chapter Nine

July 30th, 2042

Wagner

The plan was, to wake up in the morning and head down to the main security room. There we would be able to have Jack Peter hack into ACA's online files and research everything we needed to know. We could also access the autopsy reports from Austin's body. Which we thanked the past generations for coming up with more advanced medical technology in the last thirty years than had ever been done before.

So that's what we did. The next morning, July 30th, 2042, we made our way down to the security room and took to the computers. Arabella and I were lookouts.

"Can one of you go get me the actual ACA files on paper? I need them in front of me or it'll lag. Also, I might need the same person to head on over and get the autopsy reports, please," Jack Peter asks, stretching out the 'please'.

Arabella looks at me and gestures to the door, but I shake my head and do it to her. She does it back to me and we go back and forth for a while.

"Girls!" P exclaims. "Focus!" Ara and I look over at him and then back at each other. I attempt in shoving her to the door but she does the same thing to me, except harder. I fall back and hit a server, which is what is believed to start this all.

"Three-fourths of Plan Beta," says a deep masculine voice that echoes through the security room. "You have disobeyed, and now, you will pay." Our necks snap over to them, Arabella runs over to try to sound the alarm but before she knows it, she has two men nearly on top of her, which is something she had been trained to get out of. But wasn't ready for.

I look over at the main entrance and see five more people standing. There are two females and the rest are males.

"Where is he?" One of the girls' commands.

"Where is who?" I exclaim and attempt in getting the men off of Ara but I'm no help. They grab ahold of my arms but I jump, putting my full body weight on their heads, hoping that it will knock them unconscious. To my pleasure, it works.

Ara emerges from underneath them and kicks one of their noses. It utterly confuses me why they are just standing there like robots, silent.

"The smart one. The one that knows how to do everything. The threat. Agent 43B. Where is—oh. It is a male. There is no other one. It is you," she says, and slowly walks toward Jack Peter. He gets up and Arabella and I get in between them.

Ara tries to kick her but she flips Ara onto the floor. It is then just me in between them until Ara gets back up a second later. The female just rolls her eyes and throws something at Ara. She starts to shake violently and I have to decide then and there which life I should attempt to save.

I look back at Jack Peter, teary eyes and all, and whisper, "Run as fast as you can."

I run toward the female as fast as I can and try to elbow her face but I miss. I run toward Ara and kneel next to her. I attempt to find the thing that the female threw at her. "Ara come on, come on where is it, tell me, point, do something!" She takes a shaky hand and rolls onto her side, where I see a small metal object that looks as if it has grown into her skin. "This is going to hurt," I said.

As soon as I touch the metal object, it zaps my hand, but I don't let go. I get a good grip and pull as fast and as hard as I can. An ear-splitting scream comes from Arabella. My eyes are tightly closed until I open them a moment later to throw the object at the unconscious men.

I look around and see Jack Peter upstairs on the balcony running away from the female. The other people are still standing at the door staring blankly at different objects in the room.

"Agent 43B!" I scream. "Jump!" He doesn't even think about it. He swings his body over the rail, I run over to where he would land and look up. The female now has his shoulders in her hands.

"On!" she commands. Suddenly I hear marching toward me, I look over and see all of the people marching toward me, but I stay in place. I hope that he hurries, but as soon as he jumps, my vision goes into slow motion. The people are now running, one of them picks me up and throws me over their shoulder. For a second, I see our parents at the door, their faces are nearly purple and full of panic. Our mothers are yelling, our fathers are running toward Arabella to aid her. I look back up to see Jack Peter halfway down and falling closer and closer to the people whose arms are now laced together to form a trampoline sort of formation. My throat feels as though it's closing and one of the last clear things I see is my mother rushing toward the person holding me, I start to fall behind the person. My legs are at a point where I am able to get ahold of their head with my thighs and flip them. When they're flipping, their shirt goes up, and I see a green and blue power button on their hip.

My vision isn't in full speed but it's a little faster now. I kick their hip and watch as their 'skin' melts off like paint, revealing a grey skeleton like figure underneath. I whip my head around to look at what's going on with Jack Peter. Shannon and Cassie are prying the people apart and Jack Peter is nowhere to be seen. My head gets light and my vision gets slower.

They carry Jack Peter off somewhere and I run as fast as I can after them I bang on their hips trying to turn them off but it doesn't work, nothing seems to work. Through blurry vision, I see a door to the outside world open and a small-ish orange space pod.

The only boy I have ever known to love with my entire heart is thrown into the pod, and I watch as the door closes and he bangs on the small but thick windows. I try to run toward it, but two arms are wrapped around my torso and I am turned around, but I can still see the reflection of the orange and yellow flames from takeoff against the wall of headquarters. The yelling and weeping of Cassie is all I can hear. That, and the sound of exploding metal, I know now, that after the given mission was to be completed, the androids were made to self destruct.

My mind is then set on full speed and I look at the person holding me, Orren is towering above me with his face scrunched up. Through my sobs, I ask, "O?"

"Yeah Mai?" he responds quietly.

"Is—is he gone?" I ask. "Is he dead? What's going on?"

"He's not dead, Mai. He's just... away."

Away goes the raven, that sits upon the willow tree. He sits for hours observing the calm neighborhood. The life of a bird is that of freedom, but when disturbed, it can be that of loud crowing on a rainy day within the quaint suburb.