Darwin's last words ring in my ears. Get out. I raise my arm against the blaze. I can feel its heat from inside our cell, and just as I wonder how we're supposed to avoid burning up down here, the overhead lights shut off. It's almost imperceptible, because the fire glows brighter than the dull bulbs, but I see the moment the lighting turns completely to a red-orange flicker. For a second it reminds me of Darwin's eyes, and I stare, mesmerized.
Then I hear a click overhead, and the door of our cell swings outward a few inches. Murmurs rise over the steady roar of fire as the others notice their freedom too. Davis grabs me by the elbow and hauls me to my feet; my palm scrapes over the tiny diamond on the floor, and I grab it instinctively, shoving it into my pocket.
"Come on!" Davis shouts, pushing me forward. He stops as most of the cells swing fully open, all but a few remaining simply ajar. Darwin's is one. The motionless man's is another. The third belongs to Ruby.
Davis grabs her door and yanks it toward him. "Let's go," he calls over the fire. "We don't have much time!"
"No," she agrees, "you don't."
"Wh—?" Davis squints at her, not comprehending.
"This is my home." As she stares up at him, the flames cast eerie shadows on her face, turning her dark irises to obsidian fire pits. "Sven is my home. He will come. And when he does, I'll be a hero."
With that, she lunges at us. Her fingers claw at my shoulders, bringing me down hard on the floor. The wind rushes out of me, leaving me in a state of shock. I could struggle, I could push her off, but it doesn't occur to me to try. It doesn't occur to me that she's a lost cause, that she'll fight us to her death because it's what she's programmed to do.
For Sven.
Davis grabs her from behind and throws her off me. I come to my senses and scramble away as she catches herself from stepping right into the spreading fire, then turns back toward us with a sinister smirk.
"Run!" Davis yells, shoving me toward the elevator. Ahead, Maven is heaving Darwin's body over her shoulder and struggling under his weight; Davis runs ahead, throwing one of the robot's arms across his own back. Darwin's head lolls, and I catch his eye just as it flickers like a ruby gem.
My panic vanishes, stuffed away under Darwin's logic as he becomes me once again. This time, though, the only raging heat comes from outside as I turn back to the inferno. I block an advance from Ruby with one hand, and then, before I can comprehend my own actions, I reach for the control panel.
I scream as fire sizzles away at my hands, but Darwin won't stop fumbling with the wall under the control panel. He ignores the raw coughs that rip my throat, singlemindedly ripping at the wall until it finally gives way under my touch. I can't even feel the object my hand closes around, but when I withdraw from the heat, I clutch a gun.
As I stare at it, I feel Darwin's fighting spirit rise strong. For a moment, my hand tightens around the metal grip, but the pain that radiates from my fingers shocks me back to myself. As I stare at my hands, the skin burnt and melted away to reveal the metal and circuits underneath, reality slams into me like a semi-truck.
Here is undeniable, indisputable proof that I am not human. I'm not alive, and in an ironic twist of fate, the realization makes my heart pound louder than ever in my ears, muting the crackle of the fire.
"Ronnie!"
I turn back to the others with a sharp inhale that turns into a coughing fit as I breathe in the smoke. Davis looks torn, like he wants to run to me and help me forward, but Darwin's arm rests heavily over him.
Maven meets my eyes, hers unreadable, and jerks her chin at Davis. "Give the gun to the human."
I stand frozen as she motions to another android, and he steps forward. "You, get Darwin's other side. You"—she swings back toward me, he lips curling in frustration—"give the gun to the human."
"But—," someone else starts to protest.
Maven cuts them off with a hand in the air. "But nothing," she says, her eyes still on me. "He's the only one capable of using it. Give it to him."
I give Davis a helpless look as he's forced out from under Darwin, and then I have no choice. Under Maven's glare, I hand the gun to him, butt-first, my hands trembling so much I'm surprised he can grab it.
I bite my lips, sealing them against each other as some unknowable force tries to escape my throat. My heart flutters as I stare at the weapon in his beautiful hands. I don't even know if it's loaded, and I doubt he does, either. He's a programmer. His strength is in his mind, not violence. This isn't who he is, but it's who I've forced him to be.
Then we're moving, crowded out by the flames and growing smoke. My eyes sting. Tears have sprouted on the faces of a few others, but I doubt they share the duplicity of mine. I am crying, and I don't know if it's for Davis's loss of innocence or my own, but I know that even if we get out of here alive, nothing will ever be the same.
We make a beeline for the stairs. Davis coughs beside me, his fingers tightening involuntarily around the gun's trigger. Behind us, Maven and the other man—whom I now recognize as Linus, the one Davis pointed out earlier—haul Darwin up the flight as fast as they can. Another pair carries the second broken android.
I grab the banister, wincing as my shredded and burnt fingers touch the cool metal. I avert my eyes from Darwin before he can take over again, and we skid to a stop on the first-floor landing.
We pant for a moment, Davis gathering his courage before nodding to me. I pull the door to the stairwell open, and before I can object, he leaps out, holding the gun with the fake bravado of someone who has no idea how to use it.
I have no concept of the time that passed while we were downstairs, but I'm surprised to find the lobby completely empty, with the black of night beyond its windows. That doesn't stop the sigh of relief that escapes me, just before a security guard rounds the corner.
Smoke billows out the door behind us, and Davis shouts again for us to run as he aims the gun at the man. His knuckles are white, his mouth tight. I hope the man is too focused on the gun to realize how useless it is. I barrel to the exit and hold the door open for the horde of androids behind me, watching through the window as Davis wavers, trying to calculate the soonest possible moment that he can run without risking any of our lives.
And then we're all outside, woefully unequipped for the blasting cold winds that buffet us as we run. My lungs burn, my legs burn, everything burns except for the pain in my fingers, which recedes as they steadily freeze. I follow Maven and Linus now, letting them set the pace, wondering how they can keep their footing with the gale and the slippery patches of ice coating the sidewalk. I chance a glance behind us, looking for both Davis and the security guard, but have to return my attention forward when my feet almost slide out from under me.
"Come on," Maven grunts. I don't know if she's talking to me, or to all of us. She leads us to the train station, which looks as empty as a ghost town. She slips out from under Darwin at the turnstiles, then jumps over. It takes three of us to maneuver his body after her, and then Linus follows. I hesitate, then awkwardly clamber over the bar, trying not to leave the blood-like substance oozing from my fingers on anything.
"I don't think the trains run this late," I mumble as I land on the other side, glancing up at the blank board that normally shows the time and schedule.
Maven just brushes herself off and takes a firmer hold of Darwin. "Good."
"Where are we going?" I ask. Davis appears beside me, and my hand finds his, prompting a rush of giddy weakness as we both squeeze. With the sleeve of his other arm, he wipes away the grime we left on the turnstile.
Maven nods at the limp form between her and Linus. "He told me about a place. Come on, it's not far."
We descend further into the station. Maven takes us to the southbound platform, and when she jumps down onto the tracks, I hesitate with my toes on the yellow warning line.
The trains don't take passengers this late, but what if one is still running as a test or something? The platform is just over her shoulders; if we all get caught down there, we won't be able to scramble back up in time, especially not with the two invalids in our midst. Not to mention—I gulp as I look to the left and right—the station narrows into tight tunnels just beyond the platform. There's nowhere to step off the tracks once we commit.
Davis jumps down, and I forget to let go of him, so I stumble off the edge. He tries to catch me, but we both fall in a heap, my body draped over him like a sack of potatoes. The gun skitters away on the tracks.
I bite my lip as pain brings tears to my eyes. My already-abused hands have caught my fall, and the thought of using my palms to push myself up makes me want to vomit. Davis makes no move to rise, either, just stares up at me with an unreadable expression. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something—something quiet, something private—but Maven clears her throat somewhere above us, breaking the moment.
"Your budding interspecies romance is adorable," she says, leaving no doubt that she thinks the exact opposite, "but unless you want to get left behind, you need to move. We're not staying here to watch you have your moment."
I use my elbows to roll off Davis, surprised at her vitriol. But before I can frown and call her out on it, she and Linus rotate, and I'm staring straight into Darwin's eyes once again.
The world telescopes out of focus, and the flashes of memory return: I'm in a hard hat, unlatching the catch of a box mounted to the wall of the tunnel and switching on the flashlight inside. I shine its beam along these very walls, searching for leaks, cracked tracks, and broken signals. I know these tunnels like the back of my hand; the official repair crew logo on the left breast of my shirt is a testament.
"You're going the wrong way," I blurt.
Maven rounds on me again. "Don't tell me where to—"
She stops, and I know she's seen the crimson in my eyes.
"Mavie," I chastise. "We can talk about this later. Listen to me. We go northbound on the southbound track. Half a mile in, there's an abandoned track on your right. Take it. In case I...."
My voice fades as Davis stands behind me, sending gravel scattering from under his shoes. He grips my shoulder, almost like a crutch, and the winding tunnels in my mind's eye start to fade.
"Darwin, wait!" Maven cries, lurching forward, but Davis pulls me back out of her reach. Darwin flops uselessly across her shoulders, and as the last of him seeps away from my consciousness, I purposefully look away.
"You heard him," Davis says with finality. "Let's go."
I follow blindly as we begin the trek into the darkness. With only the red flicker of Darwin's eyes to guide our way, we drag our hands along the right side of the tunnel's walls. The distance stretches out in the tarry nothing, and I wonder if we've somehow missed the turnoff Darwin mentioned. It must be more than a half mile we've walked now. It feels like at least two, maybe three. But finally, my battered fingers fumble on thin air, and I stop.
"It's here," I say.
We feel our way through the darkness. A piece of Darwin's memory rises to the surface, and I grope in the darkness on the right side of the opening until I find a latch. Throwing it open, I feel the shape of a flashlight, and I grit my teeth as I switch it on. Light floods the tracks, and I try not to blind anyone as they all blink, squinting at me. I see alarm, like they think we've been caught, but it settles when they realize who's holding the light.
I swing the beam back toward the box buried into the tunnel's wall. A book of matches lays on the bottom, and I snatch them and slam the box shut before moving on.
The walk is interminable. Half of me relaxes with each step—the farther we are from civilization, the safer—but the other half wants to curl up and die. I want to fall asleep and never wake up, because the nightmare is life and dreams are the only place where I can pretend that none of it happened. That I'm real, that I'm human. That I'm just a boring software engineer who cares a little bit too much about silly things. A few weeks ago, my biggest worry was a label straying one pixel from its designated position. Now, I would take a million crash reports on Carlos's inaugural launch.
Finally, my light lands on something other than dirty cement. A platform slices the tunnel ahead of us, and a few cheers break out as we emerge from the claustrophobic confines of the underground. We're still subterranean, but there's open space here. The tracks are in splinters under our feet, littered with old newspapers and potato chip bags and a few empty beer cans. It smells stale, but it's an odd comfort to my nostrils. No one has been here in years.
Maven climbs up onto the platform, and Linus passes Darwin up to her. Davis follows and extends a hand to me; I grab it and let him pull me up, too weak from the pain to manage it myself. I collapse onto the tile. It's not warm, but at least it's not freezing, either. We can survive here.
"Where are we?" someone asks as we all start to catch our breath.
Maven sighs, surveying our new surroundings under the beam of my flashlight, and nods once to herself.
"I guess we're home."