Perfect (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

There was a knock on
the door at exactly nine o’clock the next morning. As we turned
toward the sound, my stomach flipped with anticipation. I slowly
got up from my seat and walked toward it. Michael reached out to
grab my hand, temporarily stopping me. “Please. Let’s run away now,
before she gets inside,” he whispered.

I shook my head sadly. “No,” I told him,
reluctantly prying my fingers from his grasp. “You know it wouldn’t
work, anyway.”

He bowed his head and I could tell he was
angry.

I walked to the door and opened it for
Yvonne.

“You ready?” she asked.

I shrugged. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

She looked behind me at Jessica and Michael,
then back to me. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Wait,” Jessica called. She walked over to us
and wrapped her arms around me in a hug. After a moment she stepped
back to let Michael hug me. I hugged him back with all my might,
but it was interrupted when Yvonne tapped my shoulder. I stepped
back from him and followed her out into the hallway.

“My car is parked outside,” she said as we
went down the elevator. “Now, I’ve got everything worked out. You
need to act as if you’re putting up a struggle when I bring you
in,” she explained.

I nodded halfheartedly, looking away from
her.

“I’m just going to explain that I found you
wandering the street alone.”

I turned to Yvonne sharply, a sudden
realization dawning on me. “Wait,” I said suspiciously. “Didn’t you
say you had my tracking device?”

She looked at my quizzically. “I do,” she
replied, although her calmness seemed forced.

“Then why haven’t the creators just been
asking you to hand it over or go get me if they know that you know
where I am?” I snapped.

Yvonne hesitated for a moment. “Uh...I told
them I lost it.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And they bought it?”

The elevator door opened and Yvonne walked
out. I followed her. “Yup. They did,” she answered. “So when I turn
you in, it will make up for me losing the tracking device,” she
explained.

“Huh,” I said after a pause.

We reached the car minutes later and were
soon on our way to the Institution.

“So since you don’t want to get your friends
in trouble,” Yvonne told me, “I suggest that you tell the creators
you parted ways with them a long time ago. Because they’re bound to
ask. I’ll back you up, saying I saw you alone.”

I nodded absentmindedly.

Just then, we turned the corner and the
Institution came into view. My stomach flipped and I felt like I
might throw up. I wanted desperately to reach over, grab the
steering wheel from Yvonne, and turn the car around. How could I
have agreed to this? Wait a minute...I hadn’t.

I felt like punching Yvonne for making me do
this. But knowing her, she would probably just punch me back.
Harder. So I kept my fists to myself.

She pulled her car into the back parking lot
and parked near the back door. She turned to me. “Show time.” She
smiled.

I glared at her.

“Oh, come on.” Her smile dropped. “It’s not
that bad. After all, you’ll get out soon.”

I heaved an irritated sigh. “Let’s just get
this over with.”

Yvonne nodded and hopped out of the car. She
came around to my side and opened the door for me. “Struggle,” she
instructed and as soon as I was out of the car, she had her hands
around my wrists. I started pulling away and making noise.

She pushed me through the back door and down
the hallway. Once we got to the front desk in the lobby and a
creator saw us, his expression changed to disbelief. “Is that...?”
he asked, his mouth gaping.

“Yes it is, now help me,” Yvonne snapped. By
now, I was struggling harder and starting to yell. I was no longer
acting. My heart raced and I felt terrifyingly trapped. I
was
trapped. A few more creators appeared from the doorway
at the end of the lobby and among them was Glen. He smiled when he
saw me, although it wasn’t a pleasant one.

“Drew!” he said as if he were greeting an old
friend. “How are you? And how nice of you to drop by.”

I gritted my teeth and glared at him. By now
a few more androids had come out and were holding tightly onto my
arms.

“Yvonne?” Glen asked turning toward her. “You
found her?”

Yvonne nodded.

He smiled. “Good work. I’ll see you get
rewarded for this.”

Yvonne had a smug expression on her face and
her eyes sparkled.

“Take her back,” Glen directed the
androids.

I looked at Yvonne and saw her watching me
being dragged toward the double doors.
You better get me out of
here
, my eyes pleaded, but hers just stared straight back at
mine, emotionless and uncaring.

A realization I had been holding back and
refusing to see pushed its way to the surface of my mind. I didn’t
know if Yvonne was going to save me. I never had.

Chapter Fourteen

I waited the rest of
the day and night and didn’t see Yvonne. For hours, I leaned my
head against the cold white wall and wondered if I would ever be
free. What would happen to me if I never got out? Through the metal
bars, I could see others in their own cells. Sitting and doing
nothing. Some were crying. Some were sitting there with defeated
looks on their faces. They had given up.

I had already tried breaking the bars but to
my dismay, they were android proof. No one came to see me or to get
me and I hoped that the computers would stay shut down for the time
I was to be held here.

Altered.
Is that what lay in store for
me once their systems were working again? What did that mean
exactly? I had known androids that had been altered. They had
seemed like the same people afterward but a little different. They
seemed new again. Like they had just been perfected. I didn’t want
to be new again, stripped of all memory and emotions.

The next day Yvonne still didn’t come for me.
How long had she been planning to keep me here? But once I thought
about it, it did make sense to leave me here at least a couple
days. Otherwise, they could get suspicious. But it still made me
sick to my stomach—the white walls, the worried faces, and Yvonne’s
absence.

The minutes seemed like hours and the hours
like days in my small, blank cell. How could I stand to stay here
even for just a week? There was nothing to do but listen to the
soft sobs and cries of my neighbor cellmates. Sounds that sent
shivers down my spine every time I heard them.

Every once in a while someone would come in
bringing food. They always skipped me and went straight to the
humans. After all, they knew I didn’t need it. I knew it as well
but I almost hoped they’d give me something. Something to do.

“You’re already one of them aren’t you?” the
girl in the cell across from me said one day.

I looked up, surprised to see her talking to
me, and nodded.

She frowned. “Then why are you here?” Her
tone wasn’t accusatory, just curious.

“Because I helped a bunch of people escape
before being changed. The creators got mad at me and here I am,” I
told her simply, surprised to find that my long and frustrating
saga could be condensed to just one sentence.

“Oh.” She looked down.

“So you’ve realized what they’re doing?” I
asked her, realizing it could sound harsh, but not caring.

She nodded. “I’ve been here...three weeks
now,” she said, counting numbers on her fingers. “I’ve figured it
out and overheard things.”

“How did they get you?” I asked her, leaning
against the metal bars.

Her face saddened. “I was kidnapped on my way
home from school.”

I watched her. Is that what had happened to
me? Had I been snatched away once upon a time? Away from my friends
and family, to be changed into a monster? Had I waited in one of
these cold damp cells, thinking the same things as this girl right
here?

“I wish I could stop them,” I said quietly.
“I want to, but I don’t know how.” My voice was a whisper now.

The girl was watching me, her almost violet
eyes boring into mine. “I wish you could, too. I wish that anyone
could. But I don’t know. They seem powerful and willing to do
whatever is needed to accomplish what they want.”

I nodded. I knew that better than anyone. I
had experienced firsthand the creators’ undying greed for power and
a so-called perfect world.

“I think they’ll succeed. I think that they
will create what they call a perfect world,” she said softly.

I looked up to meet her eyes, her words
frightening me more than anything the creators had ever said. They
could make boasts and proclamations, but once others—ordinary
people—began to believe them, that’s when they’d start winning.

“But I don’t think it’ll be as perfect as
they’re expecting,” she added bitterly, her voice hardening.
“Making you into a robot doesn’t make you perfect. It makes you
less of what you are. It makes you nothing.” She seemed to be
talking more to herself now, playing with a spare thread on her
jeans. I saw a tear roll down her cheek. “I don’t want to be like
that.” Her whisper was so faint I barely heard it. More tears fell
down her cheeks and she just sat there staring at the floor.

We didn’t talk anymore for the rest of the
day. She just sat there, staring at nothing. I leaned my head
against the bars and tried to think of a song to hum. Just anything
I could remember that had made me happy. I remembered a song I had
heard Jessica singing once at school. I didn’t remember the words,
but I started humming the tune.

Suddenly, someone entered the room and I
stopped. I recognized Yvonne and stood quickly, relieved.

“Drew,” she said, coming up to my cell.

I sighed. “I thought you really weren’t going
to get me out of here,” I told her. “I’m so glad you’re here.” I
laughed a little—a nervous laughed filled with relief.

She didn’t smile. “Drew, they’re keeping a
tighter watch on you than I expected. There are guards at the
doorway all the time.”

I stared at her, my smile gone, pure fear
clutching my chest, nearly suffocating me. “You had better get me
out of here, Yvonne,” I hissed, my voice betraying my
desperation.

“I’m trying to think of a way,” she snapped
back at me.

“Well, you should have thought of that before
you got me here!” I nearly shouted, but restrained myself to a
sharp whisper.

Yvonne looked irritated. “I’ll try my best to
get you out, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to.”

I stood there, shocked, staring at her. This
was the first time I had ever seen Yvonne in doubt. She was always
sure of herself and always had a trick up her sleeve. I wondered
how she could be out of ideas, now of all times.

“Just hang on for a few more days. Maybe a
little longer,” Yvonne told me.

I glared at her, my stomach churning.

“I can’t come back to visit you again or
they’ll get suspicious,” she said. “I’ll try my best.” With that,
she turned and headed down the hallway. I watched as she vanished
through the doorway at the end. Then I slumped back to the floor. I
buried my head in my hands and groaned.

Just then, I heard a cry and looked toward
the sound. A boy in the cell closest to the door had a terrified
expression on his face. “I just heard them talking,” he called to
the others, panic lining every feature of his face. “Their
computers are working again.”

Chapter Fifteen

One by one, the
people in the cells around me were being taken away. I watched them
go and many times had to look away as they struggled and screamed.
I dreaded the day when I would be taken.

I still had some hope in Yvonne, but that
hope was diminishing quickly as the number of people in the cells
dwindled substantially and there was still no sign of her.

Then one day, the girl in the cell across
from me was taken away. She didn’t struggle. She didn’t scream. I
saw her silently crying as she was led away and I found myself
crying also. Why couldn’t I do something? Why was I sitting here
helpless and useless?

I knew that I was next. I started to cry a
little harder now. I felt like I had failed. I had not only failed
myself, I had failed Jessica and Michael. I had failed all these
people in the cells around me. My heart hurt and I kicked the cell
bars in frustration.

The rest of the day seemed to pass slowly,
but quickly at the same time. Before I knew it, the door to my cell
was being unlocked and an android was pulling me to my feet.

I didn’t struggle as he led me down the
hallway, our footsteps making a loud, hollow sound in the corridor.
The android waited outside as I entered a room I had seen before. I
felt like I might throw up. It was the room where I had seen the
boy laying on the operating table, unmoving, his arm sliced open,
his unblinking eyes staring and glazed over. I still didn’t know if
he had been alive or dead. It seemed so long ago, but I knew it had
been barely a month. I saw Glen and a few others creators standing
there, watching me come in. I didn’t glare. I didn’t even meet
their eyes.

But just then I noticed someone else in the
room—Yvonne. She looked at me and smiled, although I couldn’t tell
what kind of smile it was. The creators’ backs were to her because
they were staring at me.

“Drew,” Glen said with a sickening smile
dancing in his eyes, but he never got to finish was he was about to
say.

Before I could even register what had
happened, Yvonne had swiped Glen over the head, and the other two
creators standing beside him. They were on the ground now. They had
no idea she had snuck up behind them.

I gasped at Yvonne in shock.

“Run,” she snapped at me. “There’s a gray
truck in the parking lot. The keys are in the driver’s seat.”