Perfect (17 page)

“Michael has one at home,” Jessica said. “Do
you think androids would be swarming the place hoping to find us
there?” she asked anxiously.

I bit my lip, thinking. “Not sure. They might
be. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take, if you are.”

Jessica nodded solemnly. “I never liked that
paintball gun,” she muttered. “Until now.”

* * * *

Jessica and I hurried down the street,
glancing continuously around for any sight of androids or creators.
Jessica’s neighborhood seemed identical to the last time I’d been
here, although I knew practically everything had changed. The world
was falling to pieces around them, whether people knew it or not.
When Jessica’s house came into view she quickened her pace, and
after thoroughly checking the perimeter to find no creators or
androids, we ventured inside.

I sensed Jessica’s disappointment to find
that her parents weren’t home, but I couldn’t help but feel
slightly relieved. They’d only want to get involved, and learning
about Michael’s predicament would only make things worse.

“Michael always kept the paintball gun in the
garage,” Jessica explained as we headed in that direction. Once
there, she grabbed it from where it hung on the wall and stuffed a
few dozen dark colored paintballs into a bag.

“We should hurry out of here,” I told her
when she stopped to look around. “There’s always a chance the
creators could be keeping surveillance on this place.”

She nodded, although reluctantly, and we
hurried on our way. “You know how to shoot one of these, right?” I
said to Jessica, realizing I had never asked.

She smiled and nodded. “I never thought I’d
be glad that Michael made me do paintball wars with him.” She
giggled slightly, but then seemed to remember that Michael wasn’t
with us and her smile instantly dropped. “We’ll get him back,” she
stated, more determined than I’d ever seen her. “We have to.”

We soon reached town and were getting closer
to the Institution. I felt my feet dragging in dread, but ordered
them to pick up the pace. As Jessica said, we had to save Michael.
There was no other alternative.

I thought I felt someone watching us again,
but when I turned, no one was there. I shook my head, trying to rid
myself of this reappearing feeling, and walked on. It had to be my
imagination. After all the creators had put me through, I was
beginning to feel paranoid. But suddenly I heard footsteps behind
me and whirled around as quickly as I could. My mouth dropped open
in shock—and recognition. I heard Jessica say my name quizzically
and follow my gaze.

“Drew,” the girl said as she smiled at me,
the same quirky smile I had seen on her face what seemed like ages
ago. “Sorry I ran away from you those other times.” She flipped her
long, curly, red hair out of her face. “I just had to make sure you
weren’t, you know,
too perfect
.” She shot me a knowing
glance.

I nodded numbly. She was an android. How had
she become an android?

“I need to talk to you, Drew,” she said, her
smiling face turning serious. She gestured to a coffee shop a few
doors down. “Do you have a few minutes?”

I nodded again, suddenly feeling as if
talking to her were urgent. After all, what were the chances of
meeting up with her again? How had she even found me? I looked over
at her. The same smiling eyes, crazy hair, and distinct appearance,
even as an android. How could I have missed her?

I smiled.
It was
Beatrix.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“
Once again, I’m
sorry I ran away from you all those times. I probably had you
really freaked out,” Beatrix told me. “But we had to be sure you
weren’t working for the creators and wouldn’t turn me in if I
talked to you.”

Jessica, Beatrix, and I were sitting around a
table in the corner of the coffee shop. I’d explained to Jessica
how I had known Beatrix. She had gone to our high school, so
naturally she knew of her, but I had also been ordered to bring her
in to the Institution to be changed. I had devised a plan to break
her out and my plan had worked. The last I had seen of Beatrix was
when she had been running out the back door of the Institution. But
obviously, looking at her perfected android body, the creators had
eventually caught up to her.

“What happened?” I asked her quietly, and she
didn’t need any more information to know what I meant.

She shrugged. “They got me. It was scary to
say the least. They changed me, and I remember being different from
the way I am now. I soon started to behave irrationally, as they
liked to call it.” She rolled her eyes. “I regained my personality,
and they declared me flawed. Something that needed to be
destroyed.” I saw her jaw tighten. “So I ran away.”

Flawed.
That word.
You’re
flawed!
The phrase rang through my mind and I struggled to
remember where it had come from.
The Institution.
When I had
been running away, one of the creators had yelled after me, and he
had called me
flawed
. “A creator called me flawed once,” I
said softly.

Beatrix nodded from across the table. “It’s
their word for the androids that regain their personalities or, in
other words, become human again. While the ones they order to
murder us are considered perfect,” she spat, and I could see the
hurt and anger in her eyes.

“How did you get away?” I asked her.

She looked up from where she had been staring
out the window. “Well, that’s the good part,” she said, a glimpse
of a smile returning to her lips. “You see, I’m not the only one.
We aren’t the only
flawed
androids.”

I tilted my head in confusion. “Well, how
many more could there be?”

“Not tons, but I wouldn’t call it rare,” she
replied and I stared at her, surprised. “There are so many androids
that become, as they say, flawed. All over the world. There’s a
group of them here, in hiding from the creators. They were the ones
who helped me escape.”

I nodded, letting everything sink in. It made
sense. It made sense that I wasn’t the only android who had
experienced these feelings. I thought back to high school, to the
day I had impulsively spent the night at Jessica’s, rebelling
against the creators and the things that had followed after that. I
had thought it abnormal to be feeling all those things, but now I
understood that I hadn’t been the only one.

“We look out for each other,” Beatrix went
on. “That’s why, when we heard about you, and especially after what
you had done for me, we decided to try to reach out to you.”

“Thank you,” I said, realizing how much
better I felt after hearing all of this. “I’m so glad to see you’re
okay. And I’m glad to hear that...that I’m not the only one,” I
said with a smile, and Beatrix smiled back. “How many are
there?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Right
now about thirty. That is, only here in this area, from this
particular Institution. But we’re getting more constantly.”

Jessica leaned over to me. “Drew,” she said
quietly, “we should be going, if we’re going to do this,” she said,
the Institution and Michael flooding back to my mind. As I thought
of his face, dread filled me at the possibilities of his fate.

I nodded, biting my lip. I turned back to
Beatrix. “I’m sorry, but we need to go. Is there...” I tried to
think of a way to get in touch with her again.

“After you’re done with whatever you’re
doing,” Beatrix jumped in. “You can meet up with me—I’ll find you.
I can take you, all of you, to where we’ve been living,” she
explained.

I breathed a sigh of relief and all of a
sudden I didn’t feel as nervous or empty as I had this morning.
“Thank you.”

She smiled. “No problem.” We stood and pushed
our chairs back then headed for the door. Once out on the sidewalk
Beatrix turned to us. “I’ll be seeing you,” she said and walked off
down the sidewalk, disappearing into the crowd.

We turned and started back on our way. As the
Institution came into view I sent up a quick prayer, hoping that,
even if I couldn’t get away, Jessica and Michael would. We avoided
the outside security cameras and hid in the back parking lot. We
crouched behind a large van, looking over at the back door.

We sat down for a moment, catching our
breath.

“You ready?” I whispered to Jessica, and she
nodded, although a little shakily. I pointed to a camera above the
back door for her to see. “Can you get it from here?”

She nodded, looking determined, although I
doubted she had ever had a target of such importance before.

“As soon as you hit this, we’re going to be
running the whole time. They’ll know something’s up once you’ve
gotten a few cameras. We’ll only have a matter of minutes,” I
explained. I took a deep breath. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I saw Jessica aim the paintball gun, hold it
there for a few seconds then shoot. I watched as the dark purple
paintball shot through the air and hit the security screen, sending
paint splattering around it.

We ran. I forced our way through the back
door by snapping the handle, hiding in the security camera blind
spots while Jessica shot the screens.

“I feel like a spy in the movies,” Jessica
whispered next to me. “Like when they blow up the cameras with
guns, only we’re using paint.”

I stifled a giggle as we ran down the
corridor, glad for something to take my mind off of the enormity of
the situation. Jessica hit all the cameras while I swiftly knocked
out the one guard they had stationed to this hallway. I knocked out
the other one at the front desk in the lobby and we were soon
barreling our way down the corridor that led to the cells. I
couldn’t help but feel surprised that their security hadn’t
improved since our last visit. But I pushed the thought aside,
however unsettling it was. Jessica waited outside the door while I
ran into the room at the end of the hallway, in search of a
key.

Unfortunately, two creators occupied the
room, and I groaned internally, having expected, but not wanted
this. I breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed they hadn’t been
perfected and I lunged toward one of them. Before the other could
even call for security, I had knocked out the first one, leaped
over his body, and ran toward the second. I knocked him out
swiftly, with a blow to the head. Unlike how Yvonne would react, I
didn’t care if they knew who I was. They already knew I was flawed,
that I had rebelled against them, deceived them, thwarted their
plans, and greatly disliked them. They had also taken Michael. What
more could they learn that could possibly cause me to suffer?

I knew where the keys to the cells were and
the security code, so I grabbed them. I sprinted down the hallway,
meeting Jessica. I fumbled for the right key, shoved it into the
lock, and opened the door.

Once inside the long hallway covered with
cells on either side, Jessica took the keys from me and hurriedly
went to unlocking all the cell doors while I gave the prisoners
instructions.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” I said first,
frantically scanning for any sight of Michael and feeling my heart
practically break when I realized he wasn’t here. Nevertheless, I
continued talking. “We’re here to get you out.” The humans all
looked terrified, but their sad expressions lifted slightly once
they heard my words. “Once you’re out of your cell,
run,
” I
said simply. “At the end of this hallway, once you go into the
lobby, go through the front doors, and get as far away as
possible.” The few people whose cells had been unlocked darted for
the door and were gone in an instant. “There’s also another exit
down the other hallway in the lobby in case you need to use it.” I
told the remaining captives.

Slowly, one by one, prisoners were fleeing
their holdings, racing down the hallway and out the door. I hoped
they would get away.

My heart started to beat faster and I knew it
was only a matter of minutes before the creators would get here.
Jessica had now finished with one side of the hallway and was
making her way up the other.

How long had we been in here so far? I
couldn’t be sure. A few minutes at the most. Hopefully the creators
were mistaking the black screens for a sign of a system failure.
Hopefully. My heart was beating painfully.
Where was
Michael?
I could think of no other place. I was frantic beyond
belief and I could tell Jessica was as well. Her fingers fumbled as
she turned the locks. Her hands began shaking, so I took the keys
from her and continued. In less than another minute, all the cells
had been opened and all the captives were gone. A few had stopped
to thank us, but most had just run. I couldn’t blame them. Any
second of delay could cost you your life. Or at least, your
individuality.

The last human sprinted from the room and
Jessica and I were left in the silence. I could see her hands
shaking, hear her voice quaver. “Where is he?” she whispered.

I quieted my breathing, starting to get more
nervous. We needed to get Michael and get out of here as fast as
possible. But where was he? Alarm sprang through me. Something was
wrong. Dangerously wrong. The guards were too easy. We got in
too easily
. I turned, ready to hurry out into the hallway,
adrenaline shooting through my veins like fire, and we were just
about to exit through the door when a voice sounded across the
room.

“Looking for something?” That horrible sickly
sweet voice that I used to love and then tolerate, and now
hated.

I turned around to face her and she smiled at
me. Her dark eyes danced with the pleasure of seeing me once again,
at her mercy. I glared into those sly eyes. “Where is he?” I said
slowly, my voice low.

She laughed a short laugh. “We knew you’d
come back for him, Drew. You’re so predictable.” She acted like she
was talking to a child, and feigning pity.