Twenty

My gaze glides along all the parts, gears, and wires. “Give me ten minutes.” Up to this point we’ve been completely defenseless, but now I can create something that’ll give us an advantage for once.

Here amongst the lost and forgotten, I finally feel at home. It reminds me of a space I used for repairing things. It was basically a closet with a chair and an old rickety light. I remember the smell of rust and grease, two things I never thought I’d be so happy to breathe in. But something else hits me, too. That I wasn’t always alone when I fixed things. I picture a hand with painted nails handing me pliers, and that ache in my chest is back.

I try to work quickly, tightening screws and securing connections. Without my pinkie, it’s tough at this speed. Wires slip, and I drop my screwdriver more times than I want to admit.

“How can I help?” Seph asks, not in an I-don’t-think-you-can-do-it way, but in a genuinely I-can’t-just-sit-around-please-let-me-help way.

I point. “You can grab that and attach this to it.” I hand him the piece I just finished working on.

“You created your own power source. Cool.” He takes the old battery pack and gets to work. It’s not all that impressive. All I had to do was increase the voltage while keeping the resistance the same so I could get more current out of it. Simple, but effective.

Clara comes up and stands in front of me. “I think we might have one more problem.” She holds up her wrist. The bracelet is still attached.

I wince. Shit. Why didn’t I think of that? They could still track us with it. “Trip. Do your thing.” I point to Clara’s wrist.

He nods, grabs his pack, and pulls out the bag.

“What the heck are you going to do with that?” Ruthie’s face is dead serious, and she has the electrigun that I made in her hands. It won’t kill Trip, but it’ll shock him something fierce and probably leave one helluva mark. What does she think? He’s going to suffocate her?

Trip raises his hands in surrender.

Clara grabs Ruthie’s arm. “It’s okay, I trust him.”

Ruthie backs down. Trip does the same thing he did with me, and the bracelet slides off with ease. He tosses it in the air, a smug look on his face. “You’re welcome.”

I finish making a few more weapons and am working on a large robotic spider, inspired by the ones I’ve seen over and over, to carry our chips and bracelet away. It’s weird—as I tighten screws and connect wires it’s like my hands know what I’m doing before my brain has figured it out. Like I’ve done this before. Mason said I’d remember, but why would I ever build electronic arachnids?

Trip makes a loud grunt and throws his hands in the air. “We’ve already been over this.” He seems to be talking to Ruthie, but I haven’t been paying close attention to them. I’ve been too focused my work. “My dad disowned me. Hell, he disowned me before he disowned me. If I was really here to see that you fail, then why did I have one of these, too?” He holds up the chip. “Why were they fucking with my brain, if I wasn’t ever supposed to be here? Why don’t you tell me that?” He stops and waits for an answer that doesn’t come. “It’s because you know I’m right. If you want to shoot me or stun me or whatever with that, then fine, but I’m getting out of here, too, and then we can all go our separate ways.”

Ruthie lets out a huff. “For the record, I don’t like you or trust you. And I don’t think anyone else should, either.” She turns and stomps away from him.

Sure, Trip might be an arrogant ass, but I don’t believe he’s here to sabotage us. After all Clara, Ruthie, and I fell through his ceiling, not the other way around. There have been quite a few coincidences when it comes to Trip, but he did almost get killed by that beast, and he did have the same chip inside him like the rest of us. If he genuinely wasn’t in here for real, why go through all that trouble?

“I’m not sure I trust her,” Seph mutters to himself, but his eyes are glued to Ruthie.

“What are you talking about?” I keep my voice just as low.

“You haven’t noticed? There’s something off about her, the way she moves. The way she talks. I can’t put my finger on it exactly.”

In my mind I replay everything about her on fast-forward, snippets of memories race through my mind. She does always question everything, and she’s wrong more times than she’s right when it comes to gut instinct. And then there was that time with the strange orb. She picked up that glass ball like it was nothing, chucked it down the hall, and shattered it into a million pieces. I’ve never had a chance to ask her about that, but it was super weird. I watch her now as Clara whispers to her then flashes Trip an apologetic glance. Surprisingly, Trip almost looks hurt from the accusation. The way he’s staring at the ground and how his shoulders hunch forward. But her arms hang at her side, as she stands still. They aren’t folded over her chest in a pout, or crossed in rage. I guess that is kind of strange, too.

But does it matter? We are so close to getting out, and now with this stuff we might actually have a chance. My creations get divided up, and I show everyone how they work. Or, at least, how they should work. There’s no time to test any of them to make sure, but they could be used to whack someone over the head if all else fails.

Of course I keep the best item for myself. I’m not some default skin newb. Unlike the other electriguns, this thing sends out an electromagnetic pulse that, if targeted right, should shut down anything electronic. I hate to have to use this on any WALTER, but there’s something wrong with the ones here. They all seemed glitched and need to be fixed anyway. So shutting them down is actually the best thing for them; they need to be repaired and restarted. I just wish I could be around to make sure it gets done right, but I can’t worry about that now.

Prepped with my weapon, I follow Seph. He studied the map on the SOUL and seems confident that he can lead us out, no problem. Well, no problem as long as nothing gets in our way.

I wish I could say I was confident about this great escape. Especially after everything I’ve been through. But my hands are sweating like crazy, and I’m scared that this will all have been for nothing. It’s bad to think this way. But I can’t help it. Maybe it’s because I’m so close. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to get my hopes up just to be let down.

Seph stumbles out the door first, and I go last to set my little spider friend free with all our chips attached to its back. I don’t know if they have a way of telling if the door opens or not, so we all agreed it would be best to let the thing loose and let them think we went a different direction than we’re going. It might not work, but it’s better than doing nothing at all.

My back is pressed against the wall as I walk single file behind everyone down a hallway, making as little sound as possible but keeping a pretty quick pace. My heart’s thudding in my chest so loud I’m sure everyone can hear it. Ruthie hiccups, the sound cutting through the silence.

“Shh,” Trip hisses.

“Hold your breath,” Clara suggests.

Geez, guys. Why don’t we announce where we are? The line in front of me starts moving faster. My gaze darts back and forth, and my hands are wet and shaking, making it hard to grip my weapon. When Seph gets to the right door and lets us all inside, I’m surprised how easy it was. Surprised and nervous.

Rows and rows of racks with computers are all neatly lined up. Lights dance across the front of them, showing how they’re all functioning in perfect harmony. I’ve been in one of these rooms before. I’m sure of it as I stare down a long bank of racks. Some combination of the smell, metallic and kind of chemical, and the cold air blowing across my skin stirs a memory that must’ve been locked away. A server room like this, but nowhere near as big. Like now, I wasn’t alone, but I can picture those same hands as before helping me—bright red nail polish—but I can’t see the face of who’s standing with me.

A shiver runs up my spine. The AC is really cranking in here. I reach out to touch one of the machines. “This place is a lot bigger than I expected.”

Seph spins around in a circle, taking everything in. “There’s a lot of power in here. Doesn’t it seem like a lot even for this place?”

I do the same. A slow turn, checking everything out more carefully. Servers and switches. Hundreds, thousands of them. There’s more than enough equipment in here to hold all the information in CalTes. Maybe more. Like one massive Cloud Base. People think just because something’s in the cloud means it’s in the sky somewhere, but that’s not true. Everything’s stored in places like this. Except this is overkill for a prison, so something else has to be going on here. “Well let’s do this.”

Trip hands over the SOUL, and Seph and I get to work while the others look out and make sure no one followed us. Each server has a port in the front, so Seph uses some wires he finds in one of the workstations and plugs it in. Except the SOUL is unresponsive. No matter what Seph does, the only thing he can get to work is the map, which proves they wanted us to find it.

Seph rubs the back of his neck. “It’s not gonna work. But maybe this will.” He pulls out Dwayne’s old SOUL and hooks it in. “We’ll use it kind of like using jumper cables. We don’t need to access what’s on the SOUL itself, but we can use it like a monitor and keyboard only.”

I watch his fingers fly across the screen of the SOUL, not even bothering to read some of the prompts. “You’ve done this before.”

He shrugs. “I might be good at computers.”

Good? Who does he think he’s kidding? He’s a pro. The way he navigates through each step. He’s done this before, and if I were to guess, he’s done it a lot. Sometimes when I’d be repairing something, I’d have to call this guy to help me. He was a hacker, one of the best I’d ever seen, and even he wasn’t as fast or as confident as Seph is right now.

Which means he should’ve had no problem getting past a simple authentication on that SOUL back in the cave. But why lie about it? Why wouldn’t he want me to know he was able to get that thing working?

He’s clicking away, entering in command after command. “I’m in,” he says.

I lean in closer to the screen. He searches for all the information that’ll help prove our case. That VolTon is somehow in control of this prison without the government knowing. How they’re testing us, not just holding us captive for our crimes. Maybe that’s what the dates on the bracelets were really about. The countdown to our turn, or something. I’ll need to look more into that. But we don’t have time to go through everything now, so I tell him to grab whatever he can. He’s about to yank the cords out when something catches my eye. “Wait.”

Lists of files come up, except they don’t have any names, only numbers. Model numbers. I’d recognize them anywhere. Having worked on WALTERs, I’m familiar with how they’re categorized. But the weird thing is they’re not all separated here. Each WALTER should have its own independent programming. It shouldn’t be logged this way. Unless…

I point at the screen. “Click there.”

Seph follows my instructions, bringing up the information stored in the file. Except it isn’t only information for this particular WALTER; it’s programming commands, and not just its initial programming. It’s like this group of WALTERs are still being sent messages. But that would mean someone is controlling them. No. That can’t be right. WALTERs aren’t meant to be controlled. They’re supposed to think independently and make decisions on their own, even if they were made for a specific job. A human equivalent. Controlling them would mean that someone would have the force of an army at their fingertips. Is this why they seem glitched? I need more time to dig into this, but I’m running out of it. “Can you copy all of this?”

“I can try,” Seph says.

A scream rips through the air. Ruthie. It’s too high to be Trip and too low to be Clara. Shit. I glance at Seph before taking off to find her. I sprint down a row of servers and turn the corner. Ruthie’s on the ground, an AIRS pinning her down. Her legs thrash, and she bucks her hips. The AIRS tips to the side, releasing one of her arms. Before I reach them, she slams something into his neck and oil sprays everything around him.

No, this isn’t good. Just as I make it to them, the AIRS jumps and throws me against one of the racks. It catches my arm in the same place the piece of game console had been stuck before, and the makeshift bandage Seph made is no match for the force. Warm blood spills from the back of my arm. The AIRS grabs me, and we both fall. My shoulder slams into the ground, sending a searing pain up my arm and through the rest of my body. But it would’ve been worse if he landed on top of me.

“We have to stop the bleeding.” I press my hand against the AIRS’s neck. He’s stuttering, his systems already starting to fail. Crap. If I can get to his control panel I can shut him down so he doesn’t suffer anymore. Most people don’t understand that WALTERs feel pain like we do. With steady hands, I use the screwdriver Ruthie had stabbed him with to pry off the access panel between his shoulder blades. Everything is what I expect to see, except this little blue chip. It’s being used as a jumper between this model’s thought process and control functions, blocking my path to its emergency shutdown. Why would someone do that? Wedging the flat end of my tool underneath, I wrench the clip off, and the AIRS stops fighting.

A combination of his oil and my blood mix on the floor under us as he says, “What’s going on?” His voice is choppy, most likely because of the screwdriver to the neck.

Ruthie and I exchange a glance. A second ago he was trying to stop us, and now he seems confused.

The AIRS’s eyes focus upward as the unit reboots itself. Everything inside me screams this is wrong. “Where am I?” The AIRS blinks.

I glance at Ruthie again, unsure what to say. Do I tell him he’s in a prison and he’s trying to catch us because we’re trying to escape? That doesn’t seem like a smart idea.

“Did I do that?” He points to my arm, then holds up his shaking hand covered in blood and oil. The movement takes too much effort.

“Not really.” I shake my head slowly. “Why can’t you remember?”

His head moves back and forth like he’s trying to repeat my action of shaking his head. “I—don’t—know.” His words are slow and drawn out. I press my hand against the hole in the side of his neck. “All I remember…” But he doesn’t get to finish. His head flops over. Just like humans need blood to live, WALTERs need oil, and he’s lost too much. Now I’m the one who’s shaking. Tears pool in my eyes.

No. No. No. I need to fix this. My hands slide through the oil on the ground as I try and scoop it up.

Seph is there, grabbing my arm, but I wrench out of his grasp. “That’s not going to work.”

No shit, I want to scream at him. I know I can’t put it back in, but I feel so helpless. I can’t do nothing. This is my fault. I could’ve shut him down properly. I could’ve saved him from suffering. But I failed him, like everyone else in my life.

Seph pulls me toward him. This is all wrong. That chip. Those files. The AIRS’s confusion. There’s something more going on here. He might’ve been able to help us, too, but I couldn’t save him.

Seph shushes in my ear, his arms still wrapped around me. “It’s going to be okay,” he says. I’m not sure if that’s true or not. I reach my hand up, and the tips of my bloodied fingers tingle as they run along his stubble, leaving a red streak behind.