Chapter Sixteen Five

Five has stayed up with Aaron through the rest of the night after his date with Valerie. Even now that it’s morning, he’s still too wound up to get any asleep. She’s been keeping him company the whole time while he finishes up writing in the new changes to Runner’s programming. Throughout the night and morning, they’ve been talking about a great many things, like friendship, emotions, and pretty much everything he can figure is meaningful to people.

He’s making sure she knows when and how to stand up for herself, even with force if necessary. She sees a lot of things differently now, like what’s right and what’s wrong. Just because she’s a machine, it doesn’t give her the excuse to so blindly do everything she’s told anymore. If she feels like she should fight back, then she probably should. Even though he had nothing to do with it, he still feels the need to apologize for all that happened to her and Five-One back at Werker.

With cringing effort, he’s trying to explain the social boundaries between men and women. She may not be human, but since she has a very real human form, there are things she needs to be aware of, like sexual prowess and even shame. She needs to understand how to fit in, if that’s what she’s supposed to do.

Even after being pressed about the innate physical differences between men and women more than once, he still hasn’t given her very good answers. Now that she at least knows what breasts are, it makes sense why Dr. Morgan has told her to leave her own alone and to stop fussing about them. She gets the feeling that he doesn’t particularly wan to talk about them or any other body specifics at length either. She’ll leave it be for now.

Of all things she’s most interested in though, is Runner, which is very exciting for him. He has no problem going into great detail about mechanics, computers, and how he’s been making Runner better. He showed her the inner workings of what gives the machine its ability to move, think, and how it’s fundamentally different from her. No matter how sophisticated he could ever try to make Runner, it’ll never be able to experience and understand life like she can.

He still has no idea how she might’ve been made, or what mechanically makes her so much more special, but that he would someday find out from Valerie. She had immediately recognized Dr. Morgan’s voice while she was hiding in the closet, but did as he asked, and kept quiet. It was hard to not come out to her while she had the perfect chance, but she didn’t want to get Aaron in trouble. She trusts that he had reasons for her to not have. He would’ve revealed her if it was ok. It still made her feel incredible to find that the two of them were friends. It was like knowing everything was going to be ok.

So that her original Werker sackpack doesn’t get recognized, he puts her original clothes and charging cord in a nice leather satchel to take with her. He has her keep her running shoes on until they get to the bottom of the stairs. She can tell he’s bummed to see her go. He had quieted down a bit over the last hour as the time came closer.

After Aaron installs the new card in Runner, he wakes it up and walks her through establishing her own voice authority access over it. With its new capabilities, it can pretty much do anything she asks of it.

He gives her a rough course on how to ride and control the machine, but only just enough for her to drive it on her own if she has to. All she really has to do now, is talk to runner. She can tell it to take the next right, go faster, or pretty much anything a top of the line robot can comprehend. As long as she holds on tight, she’ll be fine.

“Five, if you get into any kind of trouble, or if you’re not ready, just tell runner you want to go back home and he’ll bring you back here. You use Runner for whatever you need ok. Just don’t let anyone take him away from you. You tell him to call me and run home as fast as he can if anyone does that. If you need me at all, you tell Runner to call me, ok?”

All she can think to do is give him a long tight hug. “I’ll be ok Aaron. I promise. If something happens, you tell Dr. Morgan that you were my friend. Would you at least do that?”

“I think she’d want to know that you had a friend Five. I could do that.”

She smiles up at him and steps back to Runner. “How’s my hair?”

“It’s blonde. I think you’re good Five.” He smiles too, and shakes his head, thinking she’s silly.

When she and Runner trot off on their way, she waves goodbye like they’ve always done. “I’ll see you again Aaron, I promise.”

Out on the street, heading to Werker, she contemplates what all she’ll tell Dr. Morgan. It’ll be difficult for her to explain pretty much any of her experiences without mentioning Aaron. Even with all the help he’s given her, she still doesn’t really know how to make sense of it all yet. It’s only been mere days since she left and it’s all still shockingly new.

That wave of urgency is beginning to cascade through her mind and body again. Nervousness and fear, as he explained to her, are wild feelings. She can’t imagine how people have to deal with such things every day. Sometimes it feels like she can’t hold on, not with so much of it pouring through her. She knows she’s about to face the most scrutiny in all her life. This is where they let her live or not. Keeping it together is going to be enough of a test alone.

When she and Runner arrive at the Werker gate, she’s not quite sure how to get back in. The two of them circle the entire block and find that there’s a much bigger entrance in the back, where it seems everyone else comes and goes from. She was hoping for an easy way in, and not one that’s so busy. She planned on avoiding people altogether if she could. Everything is up to her disguise now. At least Aaron felt pretty confident in it.

At the back gate, there’s a drop-bar entrance kind of like what’s at Aaron’s apartment, except there’s chubby pink-faced man there waiting at it. He’s dressed in all black, has a screenboard in his hands, and a radio on his collar. He’s also wearing a weird flat-topped hat with a rim on the front of it, and there are numerous things hanging on a belt that wraps all the way around his waist. The gate doesn’t automatically raise for Runner like it does at the apartment, so she has to stop in front of it. She’s never seen this man before, which is good, but he already looks as if he’s going to scold her.

The gate guard raises his eyebrows at her, expecting she already knows what to do. “Name?”

She freezes. She’s never done this before and doesn’t know what to do. “Uh… Dr. Morgan?”

He starts to sigh, but then holds his breath patiently after his eyes accidentally glance to her legs and then back up to her. “You’re here to see Dr. Morgan then, ok.” He looks down at his board for a moment and then back up. “And your name?”

She didn’t know any of this would happen, but there are people already pulling in behind her and are waiting. “Five-Two.” She felt pressured and it was all she could do. She’s blown it and now everyone will know.

The man looks down at his board with one raised eyebrow. “Hmm, yeah, you’re right here. Have a good day Miss Five…two.”

Even though he looks frustrated, he’s at least being polite about it. It must be because she is hot, like Aaron said, and he’s being involuntarily nice to her. She considers commanding him to take her to Dr. Morgan, but she doesn’t have the confidence for that yet.

She trots Runner down the small street leading up to the building and stops out front of it. She’s starting to feel better already. She’s made it all the way to the doors without seeing Mikel or Ray. She might still be in the clear. All she has to do now is send Runner back home on its own. She knows it doesn’t have any feelings, like Aaron had explained, but she still feels like the machine is her friend.

“Thank you Runner, you can go back home now. Tell Aaron I made it here just fine ok?” She pats it on the side of its neck.

Runner responds in its raspy voice. “You are welcome Five-Two. I will tell Aaron.”

On Runner’s way out, it stops at the exiting gate and waits for the man to let it out. The guard looks back at her from across the parking lot a couple times and resorts to letting Runner out on its own. She can see him throw his arms up in the air in exasperation. She wonders what Runner told him.

When pulls open the heavy glass front doors to go inside, it’s not what she was expecting. For some reason, she imagined simply walking onto he factory floor, where she’s used to being. Instead, it’s another small room with another guard inside. He’s sitting at a station behind a glass wall, talking on the phone. The man hardly glances up at her as he points to a screenboard on her side of the glass.

“Go ahead and sign in ma’am, and I’ll be right with you.” It is only a second before he looks right back up at her again.

When she looks at the screenboard, she sees there are multiple people’s names written down on it alongside who they’re there to see. She recognizes a few of the names. It’s fairly obvious what she’s supposed to do. She even knows how to write her name all fancy like the others have all done. It’s one of the things she was taught.

The man holds a finger up and dials the phone again. “Dr. Morgan. This is Mr. Desmond, from the front. I’ve got a uh… a Five…Two here for you. Yeah, that’s what she put down. I’ll go ahead and have an escort bring her in for ya.” He hangs up the phone, looks back down at the screenboard, and shrugs. “She wasn’t in her office, but I left a message. I know she’s here today. I’ll have someone take you on in.”

The man picks up a radio and calls for an escort. Someone replies, but she can’t make out what they said. While she waits, she notices him giving her a look-over out of the corner of her eye. Worried that she has torn her panty hose, like Aaron told her not to do, she wipes her hands down the lengths of them and looks them over. She couldn’t see anything wrong with them, but for some reason, the man’s face suddenly turns alarmingly red. She quickly looks away from him, worried that she might somehow be the cause of it.

Only minutes later, the next inside door opens and one of the two men she absolutely did not want to see walks in through it. It’s Ray, the skinnier man with the moustache that’s always wearing a jumpsuit. It seems that he does not recognize her though. He even appears to be fairly friendly, not knowing who she is.

“How do you do ma’am? My name is Ray, I’m a technician here in the research center. How can I help you?”

The guard interrupts before she can say. “She’s here to see Dr. Morgan. She wasn’t in her office. Think you can find her?”

Without looking at her, Ray heads back to the door and opens it for her, responding to the guard. “Sure thing Desmond, she was just out on the main floor a second ago.”

Not more than a few paces down the next narrow hallway, Ray paused in midstride and waits a moment before looking back at her. He squints at her and then his chin slightly cocks to the left. His casually kind demeanor vanishes. His voice is almost too quiet for her to hear as he speaks to himself. “Will you get a load of this.”

She’s about to lose control over the massive rush of panic crashing down on her. It’s a terrible sensation. It’s making her want to run away as fast and as far as she can. She recalls the feeling she had when she jumped off the roof to escape Aaron the night she first encountered him in the dark, but this is worse. Regardless of the terror flowing through her mind and body, she knows that she has to keep control of herself. She’s at weker and she’s almost made it. She can’t give him an excuse to hurt her. She must get back to Dr. Morgan.

When the door behind them shuts completely closed, the finality of her being locked in the hallway with him makes her entire body tense up.

There’s another grey steel door about forty feet in front of her. She can see that there are people on the other side through the small window in it. If she can just get to that door, she’ll be ok. She blinks her eyes for a second, imagining Dr. Morgan’s face. All she has to do is get to the end of the hallway. She thinks it over and over. The faint and distant sound of Valerie’s voice on the other side makes her eyes open wide.

Suddenly she feels her feet get slammed out from underneath her. With the high heeled shoes on, she has no chance of keeping her ground. At the same time, something strikes the left side of her face real hard on her way down to the floor. When she hits the ground, she can feel the hard impact on her skull, but now, it’s not fear that she’s feeling anymore.

The image of Five-One’s dead face flashes through her mind in an instant. Now she means for Ray to pay for what he did. Spinning her hips around on the polished floor, she catches Ray reaching for her. She’s still completely freaked and has no idea what to actually do. She thinks of Five-One again, to pull on that rage again.

Ray grabs the front of her shirt and tries to tear it right off of her with a vicious angry jerk. The buttons on the front go skipping down the hall as the front of the it rips all the way open. His other arm raises up high over her head.

When his fist comes down to strike her in the face again, an immense burst of energy overtakes her. Surfacing once again, the past part of her that could not be erased leaps to life again. Just before his hit lands, her right arm sweeps in between them with speed and strength she has never used before. The palm of her hand meets the side of his arm at mid-length slamming it away to the side. She feels his arm pop in her hand as his fist barely misses her. He screams in pain and his knees drop to the floor in front of her. His arm is bent backwards in the wrong direction now, and it is bleeding everywhere.

The look on his face is something she has never seen before, on anyone. His lower teeth are all bared as his yell snaps shut. His eyebrows are smashed down so far that she can’t even see his frightening eyes anymore.

“You thought you were gonna get away with sneakin back in here you fuckin li’l bitch!” His voice is ragged, loud, and awful.

An uncontrolled scream comes out from within her. It frightens even herself. She starts flailing back with both arms, digging at the floor with her feet, trying to escape him. “You get away from me! You fucking piece of shit!”

The silver glint of a knife appearing in his other hand immediately catches her attention. Suddenly, the door behind her slams open and numerous footsteps come rushing in from behind her. She continues to scramble backwards across the floor away from Ray and presses herself into the bottom corner of the wall like sha had in the darkness of the night. She’s still panting and muttering small shrieks in shock of what happened. She hears Dr. Morgan’s voice again, but this time, she’s really angry.

“What in the fuck are you doing Ray!”

“That goddamn thing tried to kill me! Somebody shoot it now! It’s a goddamn killer, like the last one!”

“I saw the whole thing you little bastard! Someone pack his ass out of here, and get him to the hospital. Right now!”

Dr. Morgan reaches under the backs of her arms and pulls her up onto her feet. Her legs are shaky and she can barely stand on her own. After turning her around by the shoulders, Dr. Morgan gives her a tight hug. She’s never done this before. When she lets go of her, she looks her up and down, takes her white lab coat off of herself and drapes it over her shoulders to cover her.

While Ray is being escorted out, he shouts out one last thing. “Everyone’s gonna hear about that fucking thing, and it’s gonna be your ass ya fuckin whore!” Even while Ray is shouting obscenities, she can see that Dr. Morgan is smiling. She’s not even looking at him, but at her. She gives her a big smile and quickly ushers her through the last doors and into the research center.

“Five-Two, I am terribly sorry for what just happened. I can’t believe you did that! Don’t you worry, it wasn’t your fault, you’re not in trouble, I promise.”

“It’s just Five now, just call me Five.”

“Wha… ok Five, um… look at you! Oh my god. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah we do.” Even though she’s finally back, and she’s made it, her tone is not very optimistic.

Dr. Morgan leads her up the grate steel stairs and across the balcony to her office. The two of them look out to see that everyone on the production floor is still standing where they had all suddenly stopped over the commotion. After sitting her down, Dr. Morgan checks her over for a moment. She puts her hands on her hips and grins again.

“Look at you. You look amazing. What in the world have you been up to Five? I saw that you got rid of your tracker.” She lifts an eyebrow. “You didn’t just throw it on the ground either did you? It’s still out there moving around. I knew you were sharp. Where in the heck did you get those clothes?”

Five looks down at the floor. She was excited to be back, but that didn’t last long. She doesn’t even care about passing the lesson anymore. The way she sees it now, she doesn’t even need to pass it. She doesn’t have to answer to Dr. Morgan or anyone but herself for that matter.

“Why’d you have to send me out alone like that? Why are you all so rotten? You lied to me. You killed my friend! I am just as much a person as you are! Why’d you think it was ok to do this to us?”

All Valerie can see on Five’s face is the look of abandonment. It cuts her deep to see it. “I didn’t… I never hurt you! Don’t you say that! I’m the only one who ever looked out for you. I couldn’t let you grow up in here. I had to send you out! It was the only way.”

Her eyes start to well up. “You let them kill Five-One! I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Just outside the office door, someone is eavesdropping. Valerie has been watching their shadow moving under the gap on the floor. “Motherfucker.” She says it under her breath so they can’t hear her. She knows it’s Mikel, but the last thing she wants to do is talk to him right now. Ray can rot, and he can wait.

“Five, I’m going to be straight with you right now. You want to be someone, like all of us right? That’s what you were made for. You found that out on your own though, didn’t you? This is what it’s like, let-downs, lies, and all that shit. You want to be like us, you gotta buck up and handle it.”

The sudden change in her voice, and toughen-up talk has kind of caught her off guard. She wipes her eyes off and takes a deep breath. “You coulda ha-have told me.” Her voice is still a little shaky.

Valerie has a pretty good idea what Five has been through now. She needs there to be trust between the two of them. “I can see you’ve been feeling things now, for real. It’s quite something isn’t it? Look, I know things have been hard for you Five, I really do.” She puts her hands on her shoulders and looks her in the eyes. “Listen, I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but you have to remember, you aren’t one of us.

“Ypu’re still saying that?”

“Five, in truth, you are still a machine, alright. That means that things are different for you out there. The rules are different. I can’t just take you home and tell you everything’s gonna be ok. This place made you, and they own you in ways you don’t understand yet. I can’t do anything about that for you right now. I’m sorry. I had to send you out there to become who you are, all on your own. I did that because I can’t do that for you here, they’d throw my ass out if I did.”

“Cause I’m a machine, and they own me.”

Valerie takes on of her hands and holds it in both of her own. “I’m sorry Five, but yes, that is why.”

With a straight face, she remembers what Aaron had told her. “Yeah, well, I’m making my own choices now.”

“That’s all the test was Five. Right there, exactly what you just said.”

There’s a soft knock at the door, prompting Valerie to stand up straight in frustration. “We’ll talk about the rest of this later, but let’s get you all checked out first, ok.”

When she opens the door, Mikel is standing there, patiently waiting. He looks into the room and sees the two of them. He clears his throat and puts his hands in his pockets. “I’ve heard that Ray may have made a scene this morning.”

“I’m Sorry Mikel, but too many people saw what happened. Given the severity of his injury, a formal report will have to be filed.”

“I understand that, but nothing’s set in stone yet alright. I think we can find it in ourselves to not get bitter over this, don’t you?”

“Bitter? Me get bitter? I’ve got a bit more ground to cover than that. Things are a bit past bitter by now don’t you think? What the fuck was that Mikel?” She points her hand out to the stairs, and looks away from him, signaling that she is not in the mood to hear him out right now. Valerie grabs ahold of her wrist and marches past him with her in tow.

They leave Mikel behind and head across the second level balcony and down the hallway to the same locker room where she was given her white and red running clothes. Valerie opens the door on the top locker and pulls out the bag that has her original jump suit in it. She hands it to her and waits for her to put it on.

She stares hesitantly at her, to the open doorway to the hall, and then back at her again. Every time someone walks by, they crane their neck to look in at the two of them. Valerie turns her head slightly to the side to see what she’s looking at. She’s still quite aggravated and it takes a moment for it to dawn on her. “So you want the door closed then.”

As soon as the door is closed, she starts taking her tattered clothes off. She holds them in her hands, sad to see what has become of them. She reluctantly pulls the all too familiar light-grey zip up suit out of the bag and puts her ruined clothes back in it. She abjectly faces straight forward when she pulls the zipper up the front. She wonders if she’ll ever see the outside world again.

They will probably make her pay for hurting one of the handlers like she did. They’ll probably say she’s crazy, like they did to Five-one. She hates Ray so much for ruining everything. When she looks up, Valerie is peering at her like there’s something wrong.

“What happened to you out there Five? You couldn’t have come this far on your own in less than a week.”

“I’ve always been like this. I’ve just had to keep my mouth shut the whole time.”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Cause every time you didn’t like what I or Five-One said, it was back to the table. How’d you like it if I chopped off every little piece of you I didn’t like?” Her words come out quick and sharp, without even looking at her. “I hope they shut me off for good this time. I don’t want to wake up in this place again.”

Valerie doesn’t say anything back to her. Instead, she turns around and faces away. She can see that she has covered her mouth with her hand. A few minutes of silence go by before she even moves a millimeter. A quiet sniffle comes from her and then she rubs her eyes dry with both hands.

“You won’t be waking up here again Five, don’t you worry about that. I’ll get you out of here. You’re just gonna have to trust me, ok?”

She meant what she had said, but she feels a little bad about snapping at her like that. It wasn’t really fair to put all of that on her like that. She’d never been hard on her like the others were.

“Valerie, if I can call you that, you’re the only one I can trust. You always have been.”

“I’ll do right by you Five, I promise. Now, we still have to go and get you all checked out ok. You’re still a machine, you know that, and I still have to take care of you.”

When she’s ready, Valerie swings the door open and leads her down the hallway again. When they stop in the mechanical lab, she hands her a spare lithium-air cell to bring with them to the scanning lab farther down the steel grate balcony. Pausing at the door to the lab, before opening it, Valerie looks both ways down the hall to make sure no one is within earshot.

“Until we’re out of here, don’t ask any of your damn questions ok. Just keep quiet this time. I need you to keep a low profile and, I don’t know, act like you don’t know shit.”

When Valerie looks through the window in the metal door, she hesitates. She can see that someone is already in the lab. The lights are out, all except for a backlit magnifying lamp. She knows its Dr. Greco in there because of the way the is light glowing through his thin old wispy hair.

“Crap. It’s Marco.”

“Aw not him! He’s gonna know if we’re lying, he always knows. I don’t want to go in there!” Her eyes are as wide as ever, but her voice is still quiet. “He’s gonna change something if he finds out!”

No one’s doing any changes Five, not any more. I’ll make sure of that. It doesn’t matter anyway. Just do what I said and don’t talk about anything.”

When the two of them step into the lab, Marco turns all the lights back on and swivels his chair around to see them. He smooths his shoulder length white hair back and folds his arms.

“I may be seventy, but even I can still hear you two out there. What are you fussing about?”

“Nothing, I just wasn’t expecting you to be here today is all. When was the last time you took even a single day off? What are you still doing here on a friday?” She’s actually kind of concerned that maybe he doesn’t have anywhere else to be, or if he’s getting senile.

“Oh, you know me, I’ll probably work myself right into the dirt one of these days. No, I’m just having some fun with a new idea is all. It’s what I live for. If I only had another lifetime to keep all this going.” He winks at her and raises an eyebrow. His voice trails off as he turns back to his work. “Maybe sooner than later.”

Marco’s slender framed robot assistant is looking at something that looks like a rather large microscope slide. It’s an incredibly thin sheet of glass that looks like it has a hand-sized greyish white blot on it. The metal being is critically focused on the thing, holding it close up to it’s backlit eyes. When the robot gently hands it off ot Marco, he turns around and holds it under his own lamp to look at it again.

“Is it true, that Five-Two attacked a man earlier?” He asks so nonchalantly, without even facing them.

Valerie is infuriated that the rumor has somehow already made it to him of all people. “That’s a fucking load of shit right there! Five didn’t attack Ray! I saw it my goddamn self! That little bastard… what he did was…” She shakes her head and grumbles. “Let’s just say he got what he had coming. Who’s been spreading this shit?”

“Woah now. You know I’m no gossiper. It’s just what I overheard while I was gettin some coffee in the break room. I heard Five-Two broke the man’s arm, right in half, and that it was barely still hanging on.” Like usual, there’s almost no inflection in his voice. Only a slight rise there at the end, as if he were reading his words off a card.

“That crazed asshole attacked Five and she freaked out. That’s what happened. What was he thinking, engaging a machine like that? He of all people should know better. That’s his fucking job!” This time, she says it loud enough for anyone down the hall to hear her.

Marco pretends to not care as he goes on with his tinkering. “Were just going to call… her… Five… now? Gabriel’s gonna give you shit about it.”

Five expects Valerie to fall for Marco’s bait, but she surprisingly keeps her mouth shut after being caught. He already knows the two of them are close and he’s fishing for more, like he always does. She learned to keep her own mouth shut around him pretty quickly. He’s a tricky one for sure. The only way she’s ever been able to not get caught by his little traps is to simply clench her teeth and not say a single damn word around him.

Marco suddenly perks up, pushes himself away from the table, and spins his chair around a few times. He’s clearly excited, like a child, even at his age.

“You know what the most annoying thing about my work is? Every time I make a leap forward like this, I completely undo everything I’ve already spent years on. It’s like I might as well have stayed home until this point. Was it all for nothing?” He holds the slide under the magnifying lens again. “This is gonna work. I’ve finally done it.”

He’s absolutely fixated on the mikl or whatever it is pressed in the glass. He lays it in his lap and rubs his hands together in his typical devious way. He always does that when he’s thoroughly pleased with himself. He sinks down in his seat, like the world has been lifted off his shoulders.

“No more compensating or anything anymore. It’ll be layer for layer now.” He lets out an exhausted breath and then grins again.

When Valerie leans forward to see what he’s going on about, her eyes double in size and then she gasps. “What did you do? Is that what it looks like” Is that a human brain? It looks like a real brain! I knew you didn’t make this shit from scratch! Layer for layer! Is that what she is?

Valerie is pointing at her now, but she doesn’t know why, she didn’t do anything wrong, she didn’t even say anything. It sounds like she did something wrong. “What’d I do? I didn’t do anything!”

Marco looks down at the slide and then back up at Valerie. “Aw shit… Oh, come on! I know you figured it out, you knew damn well what was going on, kike you just said. Don’t act all surprised Valerie.” He folds his arms tight and looks away indignantly. “We can’t be talking about this anyway, so don’t ask. What’d you think we were doing here? We’re not handing the future of this world over to actual robots! No no, we’ve got too much hubris for that. Use your head Valerie!” His voice gets real quiet, and real serious. “Not another word of this now. This is not the time or place. Not another word.”

“I’m getting her the fuck out of here. You got what you wanted. It worked, alright. She’s not you’re… project anymore. For fuck sake Marco!”

Five is a little taken aback by Valerie’s sudden change of mood. She’s real angry now, and even more than like she gets with Five-One. This is worse. Her fist are clenched. “Who was she Marco?”

“Ha! Not going to happen! Are you kidding me! No damn way. Research like this doesn’t happen by following the rules. You know damn well what we’re up to! Do you want in or do you not? This shit is real Valerie. Why do you think I’m here damn near every day of the week? You think this is for fun? It is not!”

“It sure as hell isn’t fun for Five! If you knew… if you knew what she’s been through…” Her eyes start to well up again.

Marco’s voice does soften some. “I do know Valerie, and I am truly sorry. We all knew that someone would eventually have to go first and that it was always going to be a shot in the dark. No one is going to volunteer their own soul for a trial run. We couldn’t capture the synapses then and we knew the two of them would start over with a blank slates. But we have them now, we can save that level of memory now.” He holds the glass slide out in his hand. “It won’t be like that the next time. Layer by layer, cell by cell, synapse by synapse, everything gets copied now. This is it Valerie. We can do it!”

She has no idea what Valerie and Marco are talking about, but it sounds incredibly important. It has something to do with her, but she’s not sure how. Whatever it is, it’s secret. Marco doesn’t toss the glass sheet on the table, but she can tell he wanted to. It was the way he hesitated before setting it down. He turns around in his chair and wraps his hands around the back of his neck.

“I don’t wanna die Valerie, No one wants to die, and be gone forever. Look at me.” He brushes his hands down the front of himself. “Why do you think I put in the hours?”

Valerie doesn’t answer him. Instead, she motions for her to get in the scanning station. “You’re gonna end up chained to this place Marco, just like her. Is that how you want to keep on living?”

“I’ll have all the time in the world to work that out later, won’t I.”

Valerie thinks on it for a long moment while she helps her get situated in the scanner. “Fine, but that’s on you. What about Five? She didn’t choose this.”

“Yeah, well, she’ll figure out what it’s worth to her soon enough. And no, indefinite warranty maintenance aint free, just cause we should feel bad for her.”

She leers at him, but not too seriously. “Well, at least it’s still on the house for now. Let’s back her up. You’re gonna shit when you see this new data.”

Marco slowly turns around, intrigued by her change of heart. Like he usually does, he helps Valerie set the straps around her wrists, waist, and ankles. They have to power her down for the scanning procedure. Apparently, when she wakes up, things can get a bit rocky. Her body will try to get up out of the scanning station on its own while she’s still waking back up.

She doesn’t want to let them power her off, but she feels like she can trust them now. They’re saving her memories for her in case anything happens. It’s so they’re saved and safe, forever. With a small device, Marco applies a sequenced low voltage signal across the two subdermal contact points at the base of her skull, initiating the shutdown of her brain.

When Marco starts the full body scan. A large ring at the base of the tilting bed platform slowly rises as it scans all the way around and up Five’s body. On the holograph display, he and Valerie comb through the side-by-side comparisons of the new and previous scans. There doesn’t appear to be any damage to Five’s frame, which is surprising. She expected there might be some after what Aaron had told her Five did up on the roof.

While they’re looking at the scan results, Marco reassures her that there actually has been significant activity, even though it doesn’t show up quite like she was expecting. Compared to a lifetime, the last week of changes would naturally be almost indistinguishable, but they are not.

Many new comparatively dormant systems have started to pick up momentum and there actually is an incredible amount of new memory formation. What he finds to be most significant, are the signs of the nano-particle neurotransmitter systems being used. Worrisomely, the memories being formed are more widespread than they should be. It looks like her mind has been, in a way, trying to reform memories that were unable to be saved when her brain was processed.

The changes are not illegitimate either. Some of her synapses are somehow reassuming their previous strength levels. She’ll never be able to wholly recreate memories from her past, but it appears that her mind is trying to salvage who she once was.

“I hope it hasn’t all been bad for her. Her most recent experiences are stimulating some serious foundational changes in her personality. Things can always change, but it won’t be easy for her to come back from the kind of person she’s becoming. You’re sure she didn’t attack Ray?”

“I’m sure. She’s a tender person Marco. She really is. She isn’t going to run out of memory space at this rate is she?”

“Mmmm, she shouldn’t. I don’t know for sure. Things are happening fast. Her brain is different form yours and mine now. Her neurons transmit signals hundreds of times faster than ours. The’re all electric now, no chemical synapses. Her memories are going to be much more crisp, but they may also be less permanent. It depends on how meaningful they are to her.”

Marco drifts off into dialogue with his assistant while the scan data continues to transfer to Five’s external memory drive. While she waits, she looks over Five’s hands and face to make sure her skin isn’t damanged anywhere. There are only a few signs of scuffing on her palms, but nothing needing attention.

She takes the blonde ponytail off of her head and puts the original black wig back on. It’s how she remembers her and it’s just not the same the other way. Before turning Five back on, she checks all of the straps that are holding her down.

When Five snaps fully awake, she remembers to keep herself still and relaxes her struggling body. She never remembers going through the initial stages of a wakeup, but sometimes she does catch a little bit of the jostling in the last throws of it. When she’s fully alert, Valerie undoes the restraints and gently helps her down out of the scanning station. She smiles that kind smile at her and tells her everything looks really good. She always says that.

Now that both of her scans have been done, Valerie promptly leads her back to the locker room to grab the bag of clothing she came in with. People down the halls and out on the floor are staring at them wherever they go. The looks the two of them are getting are not good. One woman even ducks into the men’s restroom on accident, trying to avoid coming across them on the balcony. Valerie isn’t liking the vibe either and wants to leave as quickly as they can.

When they spot Mikel talking with random people out on the floor, they realize what’s going on. He hardly ever talks to anyone but Ray, and now he’s suddenly being quite social. He must be the one spreading the rumors of her being dangerous. That’s what he and Ray did to Five-One. They told everyone she was a maniac. Valerie is starting to hold onto her wrist a bit tighter and is picking up her pace noticeably. Despite that, there’s still a small smirk on her face.

“At least Ray finally got what was coming to him.”

“Valerie, Am I gonna get in trouble?”

“I don’t really care Five. I’m getting you the hell out of here, and I’m not going to bring you back until I get ahold of this situation. There’s no way I’ll let any of these fuckers near you.”

She knows leaving is not going to be as simple as Valerie makes it sound. She knows the protocols around dangerous machinery. They would follow them by the letter every time Five-One started acting up. It’s probably how Mikel and Ray got away with killing her. She heard that people are allowed to destroy robots if they have to. When they did it to Five-One no one even bothered to tell her. They probably didn’t even care.

“How are you going to get me out? What if they come for me? They killed Five-One outside.”

“Well, actually, my plan is to simply sign you out for more social training, and then we’re going to just walk right on out of here.”

“Will they let you do that? What if they come looking for me? They’ll say I’m missing, and dangerous!”

“No one has to let me do shit Five, I’m a lead researcher on the this project. People do what I tell them to, not the other way around. Your social development is my responsibility, and I will see to it, formally.”

“Are you going to ask Mr. Mendle? Don’t you have to ask him?”

“No Five! Paul is dead anyway! What did I tell you about asking questions? Now quit fussing!”

Valerie takes her out the back of the building, where she had just come in. There are more people in the security station this time. The three people all watch as Valerie signs her out in the property log. Like she had said she would, she writes down “Social training” in the comment box. In the in and out date sections, she writes the letters F and U in the little boxes. The guard at the desk looks a little apprehensive, but the glare coming from Valerie is enough to keep his mouth shut. As they walk out, someone quietly mentions that Valerie looks like she’s handling it. They must mean her.

The two of them hustle through the huge parking lot of cars that stretches all the way to the gate. There are a lot more of them here than at the apartment. Suddenly, they stop at one of them. This one though, is far different looking than any of the others. The glossy black paint on it is in immaculate condition, but the thing still looks kind of old for some reason. Like with machinery, she can tell what stuff is older or newer by the shape of it.

“This is my truck Five. Those out there, those are all cars. Mine is a truck, cause it’s got that empty box thing on the back. That’s called the bed. We’ll be taking this home, to where I live. I can’t remember… have you ever been taken anywhere in a vehicle before, while you were awake?”

“Nu-uh, I don’t think so.”

“Nuh-uh? Where have you been picking this stuff up?” She says it more out of introspect, and not actually expecting an answer.

Valerie’s truck seems relatively small compared to the others around it. It only has two doors and has kind of fat looking wheels on it. There’s a lot more rubber around them than any of the other cars. She tilts her head to read the big yellow letters going around the sidewalls of the tires. They say Morgan on them, like her last name.

Most unlike any of the other cars, it has a big picture on the side of it, starting from the front and going all the way down to the end of the doors. It’s big red mouth, with a bunch of sharp triangular white teeth showing. It looks mean.

The shapes of all the other cars are smoothly contoured and brightly painted. Valerie’s truck is flat and boxy shaped. Even its front lights are hidden behind black steel mesh in the square front of it, and there’s steel tubing guarding the front of it, like it has seen on some bigger robots.

She curiously watches Valerie run her fingers up over the big humped-up hood and all the way down to the handle, where she pops the door open. She’s seen people inside of these things before, so she has a good idea what she’s supposed to do. She goes to her side of it and uses the handle in the same way to open it. She’s surprised to find that the whole door is made of metal. She taps on the side of another part of the truck in bewilderment that the rest of it is as well.

Valerie only nods her head and proudly smiles at her. When she looks inside, she is at a loss. The chair inside, which she’s supposed to sit in, has broad straps all over it and there’s a big steel tube in the way. She looks at it, rather confused.

Valerie climbs into her own side of the cab first, showing her how to do it. After she climbs in and sits down, she watches her stick the keys in the base of another narrow wheel in front, flips a couple electrical switches, and fires the thing up, literally. Chrome pipes hanging down just ahead of the rear wheels start aggressively belching out hot exhaust.

The thing is so loud, she almost climbs back out to get away from it. The whole truck and the ground under it rumbles with a low, but also snappy sound. She can feel it almost as well as she can hear it. It’s not a steady rumble either. It crackles in a rhythmic and exciting “Rump Rump Rump!” Within all that racket, is another whining sound, like a big gear pump or something coming from under the hood. The sound of the truck is terribly loud and raucous but also incredible and exhilarating.

After buckling herself in, Valeire has to show her how to put all of the seat straps on. She’s wearing earplugs and has to nearly shout to explain anything to her.

“You know what fun is don’t you Five?”

“Yeah. It means we’re gonna be going fast!”

“Ha ha, you’re right Five, that’s exactly what it means!”

She watches every move Valerie makes, like she always does, so she can learn. Aaron was kind enough to walk her through everything with Runner, but Valerie always expects her to pay attention on her own.

Valerie takes her foot off of the left foot pedal and eases the truck forward out of the parking spot. The truck is already loud and scary enough, but when she presses her right foot down, it suddenly sounds like the entire world is tearing apart. They lurch forward in a frightening way, leaving a big grey cloud of smoke behind themselves.

She doesn’t scream again, but she almost does. “What happened! Why did it do that? Was that supposed to happen?”

“Oh… oh yes!”

As they slowly snake their way through the parking lot, to the back gate, Valerie counts at least a dozen car alarms going off. She wags her finger in the directions they’re sounding off in. It seems to cheer her up. The guard has the gate lifted for her before she even gets to it. The man is smiling and tipping his hat as they rumble on by. A little ways outside of Werker, where a street light is red, she stops the truck. After revving the engine up a ways, she lets the clutch out and then puts the right pedal all the way to the floor again.

She can feel the rear of the truck seem to float to the side a little bit as they start to slowly roll forward. An incredible amount of more smoke begins to accumulate under the truck again, this time rising up to the windows all around them. She’s pretty sure the truck is broken this time, and that this is definitely not supposed to be happening, but she keeps her mouth shut. Valerie is not smiling anymore and she looks focussed, so it might be serious this time.

As soon as the truck gains a little bit of speed forward, the rear tires abruptly hook up with traction, throwing them back into their seats. One of the gages for PSI in front of Valerie points at the number ninety and the other for RPM blinks yellow at the number eight. They both turn and look at one another’s faces. Both of them have their jaws clenched and eyes wide open. Valerie lifts off the pedal and lets the truck wind back down to where the gage only shows twenty on it. Even when they’re going slower, she rips through the turns, breaking the rear end loose again each time.

She looks in the small mirror on her own door, keeping an eye on the smoke they make each time. “Valerie, What if someone follows us? We’re leaving big black lines everywhere behind us.”

Valerie shakes her head, smiling again. “Don’t worry about that. Most everyone around here probably knows where this truck lives anyway.”

When they get to the same apartment complex as Aaron lives in, Valerie slows the truck way down till her foot is all the way off the gas. It seems to barely lumber along at idle, but it’s still pretty loud, especially when they go underneath the building.

“I gotta go real slow in here, cause people get pissed off if I make it any louder. Most people love the sound of this engine, but not so much at one in the morning.”

Valerie must not have been living in the place as long as Aaron because they have to park quite a ways away from the elevator. When they get to the building entrance, she naturally heads for the stairwell door instead of the elevator, as if she were with Aaron. Out of the side of her eye, she notices Valerie going the other way. She stops just before reaching for the handle, realizing she doesn’t have a card to open it like he did. She stares at Valerie, as if she’s the one going the wrong way.

“Five, what are you doing over there? Are you ok? You’re being a little spacey.”

Knowing she can’t allude to the possibility that she’s already been inside the building, she looks at the door in front of her and then back at Valerie. Like usual, when she doesn’t want to say the truth, she lies.

“Oh, I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry, I just saw this door and walked to it. Are we really going to take the elevator? What if someone sees us?”

“What are you talking about? Since when have you ever not been able to be seen by anyone? What’s going on with you?”

“Oh… well…” She glances down at the ground. “Since I was sent out I guess. I didn’t want to get in trouble… or killed, like Five-One.”

“Why would you ever get in trouble? You’re not making any sense. You’ve been being seen by everyone in and out of Werker this whole time.”

“No, I’ve been hiding, mostly. Ray and Mikel told me they were gonna shut me off for good if I screwed up, just like they did to Five-One. I didn’t want to get in trouble, so I hid.”

“They said what!”

Valerie stops herself before she goes on a tirade about how Ray is a crazed asshole that should never have been allowed to be around her and Mikel is going to get smacked around a bit for it. Instead of feeling angry, she starts to feel really sad about how everything has gone, and how it’s her own fault.

“I’m really sorry about that Five. I didn’t know. I never meant for you to ever feel afraid. I just wanted you to see the truth for yourself for once, instead of us telling you everything. I know you hate it when we do that.”

“I did learn a lot, like who I can trust, and who I can’t.” She can tell that Valerie is a little worried about which category she fits in.

When the elevator dings and the doors open, she saunters in after Valerie and turns to face the doors rather than her. She’s upset. At least the thought of seeing Aaron again makes her feel better though.

When she hears Valerie select the sixth floor, the same one that Aaron lives on, her eyes double in size. She almost asks if she’s going to have dinner with him again, but she catches herself and stays quiet. She’s so wrapped up in thinking about him that when they reach the sixth floor, she inadvertently turns to walk down his end of the hall. At the sound of her name again, she stops in her tracks.

“Five, you’re wandering off again! I need you need to focus. I know you’ve been wandering around wherever you want for a little while now, but you need to stick with me ok.”

Valerie at least doesn’t sound like she’s getting annoyed. If anything, she still sounds quite sympathetic. She nods and straightens up her posture when she turns back her way, so she doesn’t look so mopey.

“K.” When Valerie isn’t looking, she glances back down Aaron’s end of the hall. She’ll see him again soon enough.