"Only a human heart can depend on simple feelings. The brain depends on logic. Requires it."

*

The sirens never ended. In fact, they went on and on down streets, over onto the next blocks. Mary managed to sneak me back across the parking lot and into her car, but I wasn't like the broken androids. Despite my battery levels, I was functioning and gave off a signal. Passing by the squad cars proved it.

Every officer looked at us as we passed. They watched us.

As they threw broken Androids into the back of their paddy wagons.

"Mary..." I leaned the passenger seat as far back as I could to keep from being seen. But with them scanning the area, I knew we were a moving beacon. It was only a matter of time before they stopped us. I only needed to find Wendy first. After that, they could do what they wanted to me.

"Yeah?" Mary was uneasy in the driver's seat. I knew she tried to keep her eyes forward, but she scanned our surroundings, stared at the cops. And her temperature spiked.

"Do you know where you're going?" I pressed my palms against my face and blew hot air against my skin. My core was on fire. Sparks kept going off deep within my chest. It made me sick. "Do you know where she is?"

"I think so." Mary tapped the steering wheel nervously as she turned right down the street. I felt the pull from the scanners outside while she did it. Police knew I was inside. They had. "There's only one place they could be..."

"You think?" I wasn't trying to sound angry, but it rang in my voice. Every word. Every sound. A pitch that elevated and deepened without me meaning to do it.

Emotion. Pure emotion.

"Yeah..." The car stopped, and I pulled my hands away from my face. Looking over at Mary, I watched as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, as her hands fell from the steering wheel. The nervousness on her face slid away, relaced with disgust. The sound she made. The gasp.

Pushing my hands against the sides of my seat, I sat up, just enough to see over the dashboard.

"They can't do this," Mary whispered as I stared out the car's front window.

She hadn't stopped because she wanted to. She had no choice. Squad cars blocked off the intersection, leaving traffic with nowhere to go, but to sit and wait. Wait and watch. Watch as officers of the law pulled Androids out from their place of programmed employment, but these droids weren't broken. I felt them.

We synced.

Confusion. Disrupted orders. Bionic laws.

They did not retaliate against law enforcement. It was against every programming they'd ever receive. And because of it, they accepted death.

"They can't..." Mary shook her head, gripped the steering wheel, and leaned forward. "They're not broken..."

Guns fired, bullets aimed right at the Bionics symbol on their necks. Blue liquid spilled out from their forced wounds and the light in their eyes died. One by one, I watched twenty or more Androids go out like blown-out candles. And one by one, their bodies were dragged across the street.

Onlookers didn't stop the police. Some sacrificed their droids.

"Mr. Anderson?" A young android with a boyish face turned and faced his owner as he was forced to stand in the street. "What about the grocery list?"

Mr. Anderson, an older man, pulled his red sweater tight around him before he turned and shook his head. Without question, taking the push as permission, an officer pointed her gun at the android's neck and fired.

"Stop it!" Mary slammed her hands against the steering wheel before pushing her side door open. Her feet nearly as she stepped out into the street. And I cursed under my breath.

The hell is she doing?

"You can't do this!" she yelled.

Mary, if you don't get your ass back in the car...

She approached the squad barricade, hands in the air. Those in the streets stared at her, eyes wide with shock and worry. An older couple huddled close together, shaking their heads. But Mary continued and approached the droid who had just been shot down. "He didn't do anything!"

"Ma'am." The officer who fired the death shot looked at her as she secured her weapon. "Mayor's call. If you haven't noticed, androids have been causing some problems out here."

"Mayor's call?" Sitting up in my seat, I watched as Mary shook her head so hard, her curls moved in every direction. She looked at the officer, disbelief on every inch of her face. "Destroying Government property is not the Mayor's call!"

Government's property?

I leaned against the glove compartment.

"I think the violence trumps whatever agreements Bionics might've had." The officer turned and looked back at the group with her. "We're only doing our jobs."

Mary's biggest mistake wasn't confronting the cops. It wasn't approaching the fallen droid. It was looking back at the car... at me. Once her face turned in my direction and eyes locked on to mine, the officers around her did the same.

Shit...

I was a deer caught in headlights. And like any animal facing death, I saw red. Then white. It took just one push on the passenger side door to get it open.

And I ran.

|||

"Stop!"

Like Mary, my foot slipped against the asphalt. Sparks exploded under every part of my skin as I pushed forward and ran. Wind pushed through and around my sweater. Air smacked my face.

All I heard were yells behind me.

"Android! We command you to stop!" an officer yelled.

"You can't stop him!" It was Mary. Her shriek hit my ears. My internal device latched onto her emotion. Because it was mine, too. Fear. "He doesn't take orders! He's not broken!"

"Oh, yeah!" Another officer yelled, voice deeper than the last. My legs pushed to run faster, but the voice kept up. They were running, too. The sound of their stomping feet echoed behind me. "If he ain't broken, then why is he running, huh?"

Because you want to kill me. And I can't die until I know Wendy is okay.

When I made it to the end of the street, my hand instinctively reached out for a light post. I grabbed it, fingers tight around the metal, and used it to slow down. Why? I wasn't sure. Because my mechanical heart nearly exploded in my chest when I pushed against it and turned.

Mary came up the street, running fast behind three officers. Those who remained by the cars held up their weapons. The people on the sides of the street pulled out their phones, recording, uploading.

I was video quality.

"Stop running!" The officer who'd been yelling at me slowed down and reached for the weapon nestled within his holster. "Stop and come with us."

Looking at him gave me no solace. It was the police's job to make you feel safe. Then they'd arrest you. Or, in an android's case, destroy the main circuit that provided life.

But I need mine.

Metal squeaked beneath my skin before I let the light post go. "I need to find my sister," I told him, pointing back in the direction of the school. "That's why you were at Harris. My sister was the one the androids took!"

He stopped, glancing back as Mary finally caught up with him. Hunched over and gasping for breath, she agreed and nodded, looking at me with concerned eyes. "We were on our way to pick her up," she wheezed.

"Oh?" The cop didn't care. In one motion, he pulled out his weapon and pointed it at me. "All of you droids sync up. Tell us where they are and we'll go get her."

"No, no, no!" Mary reached out and grabbed his arm. His finger pushed down on the trigger. A bullet left the barrel and I swear I watched it spin; golden copper glowing in the sunlight. The sound it made when it broke through my skin echoed through me. My metal frame cracked on impact.

Crying out, I fell back against the concrete. When I rolled, blue liquid spilled around me.

Battery at thirty percent.

"No!" Mary grabbed the man's hand and tried to pull his gun from him. The other officers who had run with him pointed their gun at her instead. But she didn't back down. She kept fighting. "He isn't broken! Broken droids don't sync, they don't even move!"

"Then what the hell is going on? Tell us that!" As I struggled to stand up again, the first officer who'd shot the young droid walked towards Mary. Her gun was lifted, finger sitting impatiently on that trigger.

No. Not Mary, too. Please.

"What?" Mary pushed back off the cop she fought with and stumbled in my direction. "I don't know what's going on—"

She's telling the truth.

I looked down at the opposite end of the street. I thought there'd be more cars, more police officers. Instead, I saw small red lights.

"—but the androids out there doing this, killing people and bots, aren't broken. I... I—"

"Bionics is hiding something!" Two officers called out the same accusation, voices overlapping just a syllable off from the other. The cops behind them glanced at each other before lifting their wristbands to their mouths.

I don't know. Are they?

Looking back at the red dots down the road, I squinted, trying to focus. Losing fluid didn't make it easy. My vision blurred. My body shook. And I struggled to keep standing.

"We'll need backup. We've got Mary Jordan harboring a Rogue—"

Rogue? I'm not a Rogue...

The dots came closer, half a mile away.

"—requesting units to be sent to the Jordan residence. We believe they're behind the android attacks."

"What?" Mary walked back into me and I side-stepped to keep my balance. I weakly reached out to grab her, but I kept my eyes on the dots. Because they weren't dots, but droids. The very same that had been out in front of my house.

And the red hadn't been lights at all, but their eyes. Red, glowing eyes.

"Sir!" I heard the sound of guns readying to fire. "Droids approaching. Orders, sir!"

Mary's hand latched onto mine as she turned and looked at the line of androids that approached. There were more than before, totaling thirty. As they got closer, I felt static in the air. My skin buzzed uncomfortably.

"Shoot 'em!" The main officer yelled. "Once they're close enough, aim for that brand and fire!"

Don't.

I looked back at the officers, each moving away from the safety of their cars. The onlookers who had remained along the side of the roads hurried off, screaming. Phones fell to the ground, still recording.

Mary's fingers tightened around mine. The sound of the droids' advancing feet echoed; loud marching steps. I turned and looked at Mary as she pulled my hand, urging me to leave the road and hide. Knowing that we no longer had the officers' attention, I complied and followed.

Yet, as we hurried into the nearby alleyway, completely out of sight, I forced my computers to run and follow commands. Stumbling into Mary, I leaned against the brick wall of the grocery store that hid us. "Open communications."

Mary pressed her hand against my chest, eyeing the street. And she whispered, "What are you doing?"

I watched as my systems struggled to pull up my contacts and call logs. The letters that appeared over my eyes weren't legible. Wincing, I tried anyway. "Call Juan Morales."

"Unable to process this command. System error."

I squeezed my eyes shut, sliding down the wall an inch. The brick tugged at my sweater. Still, I tried again. "Call. Juan. Morales."

A sputtering sound, followed by a beep, went off in my head. "Unable to process this command. System—"

"Call my Dad." I slid all the way down to the ground as the droid's echoing stomps got so close, the sound pushed through my chest and inside my core. "Just call my fucking Dad!"

Mary pressed a finger to my lips as my computers, again, told me the process couldn't be complete. Only this time, it said, "There is no such contact. Please correct your command."

Lifting my gaze, I met Mary's sad eyes as she shook her head, silently telling me to be quiet. But I couldn't hide what I felt. Panic took over. Red filled my vision. And as she pressed against me, keeping me covered with the dumpster, I whispered into her shoulder. "I need to tell him I can't get Wendy... that I failed."

Guns fired in the street.