Human Code

13 || T H I R T E E N

"I'll admit, sometimes the extent of my Human Code surprises me. This kind of technology should be impossible..."

*

Theorists got it wrong. Worlds do not crumble in three days under distress. It takes three hours. And if there is a stronger party, they'd plant their feet flat on the earth and raise their flag without questions asked.

Androids had risen every banner ever made in their honor. Bionics proud. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.

As Mary and I stood out back, watching Will rush to grab his car out of the store's small parking lot, I thought the same about me-there was nothing I could do about it. I was an Android in the law's eyes, meaning I was expendable. But to the droids, I was... I wasn't sure. That bot out at the school's parking lot wanted me to find him and took Wendy with him as leverage. It was a game of cat and mouse, I was sure of it.

Except... I wouldn't be the mouse in this game. I was never one for losing, either.

Mary put her hand on my chest to press me against the store's brick wall. I looked down at her fingers, almost pale with fear, before I looked at her face. My sensors picked up on her pulse, heart racing past what was healthy. The whites in her eyes were almost ghostly, as though she were two steps away from death.

Reaching up, I touched her hand, just as Will slowly pulled the car in front of us. "Breathe," I told her.

Will unlocked the doors, nervously glancing around the streets nearby. It was quiet; not a person, not a droid. Fires on front lawns were brighter than streetlamps. Their crackling flames were our only noise.

"I can't breathe," she whispered as she dropped her hand and reached for the car's door. She didn't bother to look at me as she dipped into the backseat. "I can't..."

My hand pulled at the passenger-side handle, pulling it slowly. Like Will had done, I looked up and around the street. There wasn't an electrical rush, no static. We were in the clear.

I hope.

"You can." Closing my side door, I turned back, arm draped over the headrest of my seat. "Breathe with me."

Her emotions sparked. Temperature increased. All while my battery life flashed in the corners of my eyes.

Battery at ninety-one percent.

I hadn't been fixed.

"Can we do this woo-sah later?" Will asked, hands nervously on ten and two. "You guys want me to take you where?"

It was funny how I knew... funny because science or Bionics couldn't explain it. Mary had said she reconnected my systems, so I'd function differently. Because of it, I saw my state map differently than I had hours before. The Bionics facilities, their "drop-off point" for broken droids-I knew them as well as the back of my hand. And no one had to tell me a thing.

I just needed help getting there.

Digging into my computer's files, I retrieved the address we needed to get to. "The I-90." I shot Will a side-glance. "There are a few old warehouses about seven miles down."

"Seven?" Will's hands gripped the wheel. I heard the rubber squeak under his hands. "Seven miles?"

It was clear I was the only one in my right state of mine. Yes, I'd reacted on impulse earlier. And yes, I feel. But when it came down to it, my path was set in front of me-point A. I needed to get to point B.