Mechanical (2 page)

“Oh...” I murmured. “I thought that maybe I
had died. I so badly wanted to come back, but now everything is so
strange, I don’t know which state I prefer,” I admitted. What was I
supposed to feel? I wish I knew.

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, this time
it’s much more interesting.” Her eyes sparkled and I wondered what
she meant.

“So, why did they bring me back?” I
asked.

“To accomplish the same mission as me. All
they’re saying is to observe life.” Yvonne shrugged. “They’re
sending us to different high schools to study the kids there.” She
explained as if it were nothing worth discussing.

“Oh ...” I couldn’t understand why this was
so important. The creators had stressed how critical this mission
was, but I didn’t see how it could be. It seemed insignificant to
me, but I had to do what the creators asked. No one doubted
them.

More people entered the room, talking softly
together, more of
us
. They all wore white, like Yvonne and
I. It made us look almost ghost-like against our pale skin and the
ever-present white walls of the Institution.

Yvonne gracefully hopped off the table. “Hey
Jeremy,” she called, walking towards them. “You guys wanna play?”
She gestured to a volleyball lying in the corner. I frowned,
noticing the only thing in the room that had not been put away. My
brows furrowed. That bugged me.

They nodded and soon they were all involved
in a game. I watched from the sidelines, unsure of whether I could
manage such rigorous activity so quickly after I had come back.

They sprinted all over the court returning
the ball back and forth. Rarely did anyone make any points, they
were so evenly matched. I saw Yvonne’s jaw set when she realized
she wasn’t going to win as easily as she had first thought. Her
dark eyes concentrated on the ball like a predator would hungrily
watch its prey. I could almost hear the words playing repeatedly in
her head,
I will win, I will win.

Someone anticipated her move and when she
spiked the ball, he blocked it, shoving it back over the net,
catching Yvonne off guard and scoring a point for their team. They
were in the lead.

Yvonne watched the ball bounce away as
another teammate went to get it. Her black eyes turned sharply
towards the person who had spiked the ball, glaring. Yvonne hated
losing.

I heard voices behind me and turned to see
that two men had been watching us the whole time.

“Better than professional athletes,” one of
them said, staring at us in disbelief, eyes wide with excitement.
“They’re great.”

The other one merely smiled, his satisfied
expression indicating he wasn’t surprised in the least, as though
we were works of art. “They’re perfect.”

Chapter Two

I gazed up at the ceiling, trying to find
shapes in the crumpled drywall.

I tangled my fingers in the snow-white bed
sheets that matched everything else in the room, including my white
apparel. In fact, the only thing of color in the whole room was my
long auburn hair that spread out across the pillow, to me, and even
that seemed washed out and dull.

The room was empty. The other bed,
occasionally occupied by Yvonne, was neatly made. There was a
dresser across the room from my bed and through a door next to it
was a bathroom, white, of course.

I finally gave up searching the ceiling for
the images I had conjured up at least a thousand times. It seemed
like one of the things I did the most. Instead, I turned my
thoughts to the mission.

My first obstacle was that I had never
actually associated with real people outside of the Institution.
But then, how hard could it be? After all, I was perfect, wasn’t I?
Incapable of making mistakes.

The creators had supplied me with clothes to
wear to school. They were much more colorful than anything I had
seen before. Bright blues, and reds and yellows. Until now, we’d
always worn neutral colors, like white, black and gray. The
creators had told us it was less expensive to buy clothes without
pigment.

I sat up in bed and let my legs fall over the
side. I stared at my bare feet, then my ankles and all the way up
to my knees where my shapeless and strictly practical dress ended.
I wasn’t sure if I would ever get over the sensation of being alive
again. After all those years of nothing, it felt so strange.

I got up, walked across the room to the
dresser and pulled out one of the sweaters that had been given to
me to wear to school. I held it up and the bright red garment
seemed to shine in the blankness of the room. I unzipped it and
slipped it on, turning to face the mirror on the door.

I had never seen any other color on me
besides white and gray. The red seemed to make me look more ...
alive. Maybe that was why the creators had told me to wear it.

Don’t let them find out what you are,
they had said to me.

I shrugged, taking off the sweater and
putting it in the drawer.

I went back to searching for shapes on the
ceiling.

* * * *

I stared after Yvonne’s retreating figure as
she walked away from the van and was eventually engulfed into the
crowd of teenagers. She stood out from them with her tall posture
and perfect figure. She was stunning, her beauty causing heads to
turn as she confidently made her way up the steps to the front door
of the West Side Public High School.

Our car pulled away and we drove for about
ten minutes until we reached another building, my mind rehearsing
everything the creators had taught me.

“Here you go,” said the driver as he guided
the car into the parking lot.

I looked out the window and took in the sight
of hundreds of kids milling around the school. I looked up at the
sign above the doorway: Tanager Heights Academy.

“I don’t have all day,” the driver said
impatiently, so I grabbed my book bag and left the van.

Immediately I was enveloped by students
crowding their way to the front doors. I let myself be pushed along
with them until I found myself inside. I resisted the urge to shove
them back and away from me, knowing it would seem odd, but their
constant close contact was getting on my nerves. I made my way to
the front office and breathed a sigh of relief to find this room
much less crowded than the hallways. I didn’t like being touched at
all, which was hard to avoid in a swarming crowd of people.

Don’t let them get too close to you,
the creators had told me.
They
might find out what you
are.
I still didn’t understand why that was such a horrible
thing if, according to the creators, I was superior to humans.

“Can I help you?”

I turned to see a petite woman sitting at a
desk, her dark eyes peering at me from under her red-framed
glasses.

“Um, yes. I’m Drew Martin. I just transferred
here. This is my first day.”

The woman smiled, but her expression seemed
strained. “Nice to meet you, Drew,” she said, standing up. “My name
is Ms. Rodriguez. Let me tell you where everything is and show you
your locker.” She looked around wearily, as though she was already
tired from the hectic morning schedule. The creases on her forehead
gave away her anxiety and her tense body posture made it clear she
would rather be anywhere else. She had a forced smile and a happy
voice, trying to put on a good face for the students. She gathered
a few papers from a pile on her desk and then we left the room.

Unlike the first time I had walked along the
halls, students moved quickly out of the way of Ms. Rodriguez. She
motioned for me to walk next to her and handed me some papers.

“That is your schedule. The room numbers are
written next to the classes and are easy to find. The bathrooms are
there,” she said, pointing as we passed them. “And there’s another
set in the other hallway. Your locker number is 273. Here it is.”
She stopped and opened my locker for me.

“Thank you,” I told her, staring down at my
schedule sheet to see what books I would need first.

“Well, feel free to come and see me if you
have any questions,” Ms. Rodriguez said then disappeared into the
crowd.

I looked around, surveying the chaotic
students pushing along, talking and giggling amongst themselves.
The hallways seemed much too small to accommodate this many kids. I
watched as a few boys started shoving each other around, someone
shrieking with laugher as they watched. It was frankly shocking to
see them all behaving with such immaturity. The androids at the
Institution never behaved this badly. There was no reason to push
each other, giggle about unimportant matters or shriek.

“Hey,” a voice said, jerking me out of my
thoughts.

I swirled around to see a short, brown-haired
girl staring up at me.

“I haven’t seen you here before. You new?”
she asked, fiddling with the combination on her locker.

“Yes,” I said quickly.

“I’m Jessica.” She smiled, exposing bright
yellow braces. Her expression was kind and easy, her eyes smiling
as she talked.

“I’m Drew.”

“That’s a pretty name. Much more unique than
Jessica,” she said with a giggle as she opened her locker and took
out some books. Her bubbly personality shined through her vibrant
smile.

I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I smiled
anyway, turning slightly to get a better view of everything in the
room.

“So, what’s your first class? Maybe I can
steer you in the right direction,” she offered.

I looked down at my sheet. “Theology,” I
said, confused. What was theology? Nobody had told me anything
about the curriculum before I came here. I had been shut off for
years. I had no idea what theology was, but it had to be important
if the school administrators had dedicated a whole class to it. I
wondered how the creators could have left this flaw in my
knowledge. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was turn around and run
back to the Institution where I belonged.

“Hey, that’s my first class, too,” Jessica
said, beaming.

“Oh ... what do I need for it?” I asked.
Suddenly a loud bell sounded, making me look around in puzzlement.
Students started walking faster and filtering into the different
rooms.

“Oh, nothing yet. You’ll get your book in
class today. Hurry, or we’re gonna be late,” she said, grabbing my
arm and pulling me along with her.

We reached the class just as the second bell
sounded. The classroom was not a large one, but it wasn’t small,
either. About twenty-five students sat in rows of desks. Posters
and quotes were tacked to the walls. “Cutting it a little short,
aren’t we, Miss Walter?” the teacher asked Jessica, giving her a
look of disapproval.

“Sorry,” she said, sitting down at one of the
desks. I quickly chose to sit at the desk next to her, surveying
the room once again to catch the students’ behavior.

“Oh, you must be the new student,” the
teacher said to me. “Drew, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“I’m Mrs. Stoll.” She smiled briefly.

I felt it unnecessary to restate my name, so
I merely smiled back politely, following through on what the
creators had instructed me to do in order to seem normal.

“Here’s your textbook. You’ll need it for
every class,” she said, handing me a book. “All right everybody,
open to page 384.”

The class opened their books as I looked
around with uncertainty. I quickly followed their example,
observing and committing to memory the behavior of the students
surrounding me.

The rest of the period consisted of reading
from the book and doing several worksheets on what we read. It was
so easy I was beginning to think this whole school thing wasn’t
going to be as bad as I had previously thought.

After theology, Jessica helped me find my
next class, promising to meet up with me at lunch.

I got through my morning classes with no
major problems. I had memorized the map of the school that the
creators had shown me and was familiar with it. A few students had
tried to start conversations with me but had stopped after a few
minutes, evidently bored with my short and unspecific replies. Once
lunch came, I welcomed it as a chance to take a break and organize
what I’d observed.

I walked into the cafeteria and got in line
for food. The room was big and filled with a nonstop chatter that
immediately began to get on my nerves. At the Institution, the
androids were orderly, consistent and calm. This cafeteria was
anything but that. Students laughed obnoxiously, shouted, threw
things, called across the room to each other and the sounds of each
of these things mingled together to create a loud mesh of just
plain irritating clamor.

I made a futile effort to block out the
immaturity surrounding me as I quietly waited in line, trying to
ignore the couple standing in front of me who found it hilarious to
poke each other repeatedly and steal each other’s trays.

I was able to go without eating and at the
Institution I never ate anything. After all, I was a robot, but I
had been clearly instructed that if I didn’t eat it would look
abnormal. I pointed at whatever other people got and soon was left
standing at the end of the serving line, wondering where to sit.
One glance at the crowd of rowdy students left me searching for
some other place where I could eat.

A waving hand caught my eye. I looked up to
see Jessica smiling at me and motioning for me to sit with her. I
hurried over to her table and found a seat.

“Hey Drew,” she said, smiling. “Guys, this is
Drew. She’s new here,” she said to a few other girls at the table.
“Drew, this is Caroline, and Hailey.”

I smiled at them, wondering once again why
this small and strange action seemed to be so appealing to
humans.

Smile, Drew.
The creators had
instructed me.
Otherwise, you’ll look strange.