Murasakino

Going on tour

   I jumped up to greet Cathy as she came in, but she grabbed my arm, pulled me up to her and put a hand over my mouth. Without making a noise, she lifted a finger to her lips and stared at me. I nodded to show that I understood.
   There were no lights on in the big hall, and it was absolutely silent apart from our footsteps, which echoed far too loudly. I tried to shuffle my feet, but ended up making more noise and stopped.

   We reached the double doors at the other end of the hall when Cathy turned to me again.
   Wanna see something crazy? she mouthed to me.
   I suppose, I replied, and to my surprise she suddenly kicked the doors right in the centre. They didn't open, but an alarm sounded from different speakers around the hall. Compared to the silence it was like a jet engine.
   A door at the other end of the room opened and a man came out and immediately began to run towards us.
   "Darn it!" said Cathy, who stepped back from the doors again, before kicking the glass pane of one of them. It shattered completely.

   "Quickly!" she yelled, pulling me through the hole in the door frame. We ran down the steps to the pavement and hurried along it, the man pursuing us being careful not to stand on the glass.
   "Was breaking the door really necessary?" I asked her, trying to keep up. I realised it was the third door I had seen broken in the past couple of days.
   "Well it was locked, wasn't it?" she replied. "This way!"
  
   She was pointing towards what looked like a van but was taller and longer; her band's minibus. Because it was still dark, the street was relatively quiet, apart from a couple of cars driving up and down the road.
   When we reached the large van, Cathy knocked rapidly on the door, causing a man who had been asleep to pop his head up and unlock it for us. Inside, I took a few seconds to look at the three other band members; they all looked the same as on the poster, except they wore regular clothes, one had grown a beard and the one with sunglasses wasn't wearing them.
   "Where to?" asked the man in the front, revving up the engine.
   "Anywhere," answered Cathy. "I mean... just away from here."
   "Gotcha," he replied, pulling out onto the road and setting off down it.

   I had managed to squeeze myself onto one of the seats in the back, next to the other two men, who hadn't quite acknowledged that I was there.
   "Hey Cath," one of them asked. "Who's the new girl?"
   "Oh, right! Sorry Murasakino, I forgot you were there. Guys, this is Murasakino; Murasakino, these are Mark, Diran and Robert."
   "But you can call me Rob," the non-sunglasses wearing man said, smiling.

   We drove in silence for quite a while, until the man in the driver's seat (I still wasn't sure which one he was) said, "Hey, I forgot to put some music on!" He pressed a button on the dashboard and the song that started with a piano playing came on.
   "Aww, don't put our own music on on the way to a gig," Robert said.
   "No, it's fine," Cathy said. "Murasakino hasn't heard it yet, have you?"
   "Actually, I have," I replied quietly. "At Harper's house. She's a fan of yours."
   "Oh, right."
   The song continued.
   "Mark, you look exhausted," Cathy said. "I'll drive if you want."
   "No, no," Mark replied, holding a hand up to her. "I'm fine." This was soon proven incorrect when we mounted the pavement and almost hit a signpost. Mark swore and unplugged his seatbelt. "You're right, you can drive."

   As Cathy was climbing over Mark and into the driver's seat, she spotted something in the rear-view mirror.
   "Oh geez, he's following us," she muttered, quickly getting the van back onto the road and accelerating.
   "Who?" Diran asked, turning to have a look.
   "The guy from the lab."
   Now I turned to look. Annoyingly, the man who had been running after Cathy and I was now driving one of the lab's vans, with a few other people in it.
   "This... concert," I said, keeping my eyes on the van. "It's far away from here, isn't it?"
   "Yeah, it's in a different town," Mark said, yawning. "By the way; what are you wearing? Some kind of exercise... thing?"
   I looked down at myself; i was still dressed in the strange, skin-tight costume.
   "Um, it's sort of a long story," I answered.
   "A story which you'll have to tell later," Cathy said as we swerved past an oncoming car.
   "Do you work at the lab too?" Robert asked.
   "No, but I was built there."
   "Excuse me?"
   "I'm a robot. Cathy hasn't told you?"

   The three men looked shocked, while Cathy sighed and put a hand over her eyes.
   "Well, did you?" I asked her. Surely she wouldn't have kept it a secret.
   "I was hoping they wouldn't find out until you were safe," she replied. "You've basically been hunted for the past few days, and... see? Look over there!"
   We drove past a poster with my face on it. I didn't even look at the text; just seeing my face staring back at me sent a chill up my back, and I suddenly felt so vulnerable. I actually shrank back into my seat.
   "She isn't safe?" asked Diran.
   "Evidently," Mark said, pointing at the poster and the van following us. Then another van appeared in front of us, driving in the wrong lane.

   "Look out!" I shouted, and we swerved again, this time around the second van. The back of the minibus scraped against it as it suddenly stopped. Once we were past it, Cathy pressed the accelerator again and we began to gain speed.
   But the vans weren't finished. They turned round to follow us out onto the busy motorway. The speedometer crept past eighty miles an hour.
   "We're going fast," Mark said, trying not to fall asleep. "Too fast!" He yelled as we passed a police car.
   "Great!" Cathy shouted. The police car's lights came on as it began to follow us.

   We ended up forming a line; us in front, the police behind and the two vans at the back. As we reached a turn-off, Cathy waited until the very last second and turned quickly down it. The police car turned too late and skidded along the road, then the two vans caught up and slammed into it.
   "Geez, you don't see that every day," Mark said, his eyes closing.

*  *  *

   We arrived at a small hotel just as the sun came up. Cathy parked the minivan outside and we went in, Cathy having already booked a room.

   In the room, I flopped onto the bed. So did everyone else.
   "I guess you'll just have to stay wherever the band stays, eh?" Cathy asked. "Sound good?"

   I thought about it. If it didn't involve supetmarkets, wardrobes, being hunted, the lab or Indigo Gardner, whatever happened to me would be fine. I might find mmyself missing Dr Takeda, Dr Kerrett, Harper and the other girls, but out of everybody I knew, I trusted Cathy the most.

   "Sounds good," I replied finding a comfortable position.
   "What's this about you being a robot?" Robert asked.
   "That can wait unil later," I said.
   I had a lot to explain.