To Be Human: Volume One

Prologue

A/N: The Chapters in this book are long. It is a 175k word book and it can be heavy. I tried to shorten the chapters so they are more bearable when reading on mobile view, I hope it still isn't too much for anyone. I will post more notes here and there when I need to. If anyone noticed any spelling or grammar mistakes that I may have missed, please point them out to me so I can fix them right away. Despite it all, I hope you enjoy the story. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 "Bing, you're a genius, he's going to be playing in there. Let's run those tests again, don't want to see any more errors." Ella said, patting the back of the android she was walking with into the entrance of the warehouse.

   Karma, the third member of the party came in slowly behind them, the hood of his sweater over his head and his hands in the pockets of his grey jeans. His face was not very visible under the hood, and what little of his flesh was visible was pale like no other.

  "It's not showing any of those glitches we had last time. He should be calculating fine." Bing said, tapping away at the tablet he was holding as he walked, not paying any mind to his surroundings as he was running one last diagnostic on Karma's software. He had nearly been killed two weeks prior when there were some unexpected glitches. That was not something they were willing to let happen again.

  "Yeah, that last headware update seemed to have fixed that huh?" Ella said, looking over his shoulder at what he was doing on the screen, trying to suppress the fidgeting she was doing with her hands and instead focusing on making her voice not shaky. What looked like interest was merely a front to hide her nervousness.

   The warehouse looked abandoned by all means. It was old, run down, visually falling apart, decorated with rubble on the floor and broken glass from shattered windows and fluorescent tube light fixtures that line the ceiling in two rows. Only about three quarters of them were intact, and they did a very poor job of lighting the long corridor they were walking down. It smelled of mold and wet garbage, and the flickering of some of the lights that were soon to fail only played with Ella's senses, making it harder for her to focus on what Bing was doing. She heard the sound of glass shards crunching beneath their feet as they walked over them, a sound that made her wince and shudder. It was an irrational distaste for the sound, she couldn't explain it, but she was not enjoying that sensory stimulation on top of everything else.

   What remained of the windows were covered in dust, and Ella had to give credit to the owners for making this place look worn down and abandoned. She was not a fan of the gangster dressed security guards outside which had let them in, even she thought they had the wrong place. However, the whole image did a great job of making sure no one unwanted showed up, and that the police wouldn't think twice to check the place out.

   At the other end of the mock industrial warehouse was a set of elevator doors that seemed to open for them as they got close. Ella had figured it was a sensor, when she saw someone step out alongside three more security guards. It was a woman with long, braided dark hair and tattoos from her neck that flowed all the way down her arm, extending out even to her fingertips. She wore a navy-blue sleeveless blouse and long black pants.

  "Good evening." she called to them as she walked over with her guards behind her.

   Ella and Bing stopped, but Karma had walked past them and the woman. "Piss off." He said in an annoyed, monotone voice. There was zero hesitation, zero care. He only stopped when the guards lined up in front of him, blocking his way to the elevator. His hands never left his pockets, and he didn't even look up at them.