Caged

Apprehensive (2/3)

Eden

I've just placed the lid back on the box when an ear-splitting siren fills the room, making me cover my ears and squint hard. I hear Linux over the sound, screaming obscenities. For a fifteen year-old, he cusses a lot.

"What happened, Linux?" I yell over the noise. The other two runners have rushed over to meet us, covering their ears too.

"I tripped an alarm," he says, kicking a box lid across the room.

"We need to get out. The AI answer alarms in about thirty-"

The door behind us is blown off its hinges, and I cover my eyes at the blinding light that fills the room.

"Seconds," I finish, bolting for the back door.

The humans around me draw whatever weapon they've been given for the day. The AI don't carry weapons that kill, just paralyzers. We, on the other hand, carry grenades and old handguns. They shoot to capture; we shoot to kill.

I duck behind a stack of boxes right as the AI start firing, illuminated blue bullets zipping through the air like bees. They make a gentle humming sound. When the bullets crash into metal, the electricity splits through the boxes, shaking it before they die out, light fading.

"Linux, get them out!" I scream over the sound of metal being fried by the bullets. It's a loud sizzling sound, and I'm surrounded by it as the AI enter the room. It's likely that there are more of us than there are of them.

I can barely see Linux's elbow from where I crouch. He has kneeled in front of a box ahead of me. The others disappeared when the chaos erupted. I clutch my weapon--a tiny green grenade--against my chest, holding the pin with one hand.

If I throw this and I'm too close, I'll be blown to bits. I watch Linux move, crawling from box to box, more heads joining his. I won't be the only one destroyed by the fall out, though. The supplies held in the room will be obliterated, leaving us with another destroyed supply building. I tuck the grenade away. It's better to run today than let the people at home suffer over a lost supply.

The AI are nearby. They chirp noisily at one another like birds, speaking in the mechanical language shared between machines. I hear the hissing of suspension systems and the clicking of joints as they walk. Pressing a hand to the tiled flooring, I feel the ground tremble from their lumbering, yet silent, footsteps.

Not looking to see how close they are, I sprint for the back door, passing Linux and the others as I lunge for freedom into the back alley. The sounds of their guns firing again fills my ears and I duck, rolling onto the black pavement.

On my hands and knees, I look back inside where Linux is attempting to herd the other two scared humans out the door. One of them stands, looking back at the two AI watching them with black, bottomless eyes. I cringe.

Paralyzer bullets pepper the first girl, waves of electricity dancing across her skin as she seizes up and falls to the floor. She's facing me, eyes frozen open, forehead creased, mouth poised with a half finished sentence.

I see my parents in her, their fear and horror etched in their statuesque faces on the day we were found. I watch the edges of the girl's hair burn and remember the smell of my father's coarse beard searing. Tears well up in my eyes. I have to look away, or I'll be sick.

The memories are barely two years old, but they are alive in my mind, rearing their nasty heads every time another human falls.

As I hear the second boy fall, too afraid to look back at the scene, I wonder if they have anything desirable about them that the cyborgs might want. Was the girl unusually tall or skinny? Was the boy a redhead? Did he have strange birthmarks on his body? Nothing makes them stick out in my mind, which means they will be harvested. The next time I see them, they'll be half machine, void of any personality, memory, or uniqueness.

Something slams into me, throwing me back on the pavement. The air rushes out of me, but before I can recover it, the person is up and moving towards the door.

"Up, Eden!" Linux barks, jerking at my arm. I watch more bullets meet the solid door, spiderweb electricity spreading through it and leaving black char marks.

"We should go back home," he says, stopping to catch his breath.

"We can't," I say, shaking my head.

"And why not?"

"Your bags are empty. If we go back without anything to show for the two bodies you cost us, Cyrus is going to be pissed."

"What would he really do to his baby sister?"

"Chew me out," I say, rolling my eyes. "It doesn't matter. He put me in charge. End of story."

Linux crosses his arms, glaring at me. Arguing with me would do him no good. I'm a brick wall. He knows that. I cross my arms to mimic him, staring him down, unblinking.

"Alright, whatever," he mumbles, picking up his empty bag. "Just fix your disguise. Your wig is crooked."

I push past him to take the lead, twisting the wig around on my head. It barely fits with all the hair piled up under it. Tucking away a few black strands, I lead us back out into the street, making sure my movements are rigid again, that my feet fall heavily and I don't breathe too loudly.