The Last Red

Chapter 9: Omnia

"Physical attack detected," my Omnia speaks and, instantly, Kent starts shaking as if being electroshocked from within.

"Stop!" I squeal but to no avail. Every violent gesture is punished within the block. It's the only way to keep the peace.

Five seconds later, he collapses to the ground, and I rush to kneel beside him. "Let me explain..."

He tries to move his lips, but no sound comes out.

"How did you find out?" I whisper in shame.

He almost snickers, his finger pointing at his wrist chip.

Of course. He told Omnia to perform a thorough body scan.

"You must understand," I lower my head, "they'd kill me if I didn't do it."

"W-" he clears his throat, "what?" He frowns as if I am a crazy person. "Who would?"

I look around - there are hundreds of people passing us.

I shake my head. "I can't tell you."

"Because you don't trust me," he utters with a strained voice, "or because you don't trust her?"

I know her is Omnia. And I don't know if I do. I don't know if I should. "Because of her," I nod once.

He seems unpleased. "What did you take from in there, anyway?"

"A mini-jet," I furrow my brows in apology, "You were the only one who had it."

"Why the hell do you need a mini-jet, Kay?"

"Please don't demand info I can't share."

He squints in suspicion. "This was your plan all along. Wasn't it?"

"Yes," I look around, afraid that guards are coming to get me. "Did you report me?"

He shakes his head.

"Are you going to?" I swallow hard.

"Tell me one reason I shouldn't."

"If I go through with my A.S...I'll be dead by end of day tomorrow."

"You're breaking o-" 

"Shh," I put a hand over his mouth.

He gets himself to sit up, looking away from me. "Everyone has to go through with A.S. Why do you think you'd die? That makes no sense!"

I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off before I can reply. "Let me guess," he hisses angrily, "you can't tell me."

I shut my eyes in affirmation.

"So," he hisses, "am I your only casualty?"

I look him right in the eyes and decide to be honest. "No. Someone's gonna change some code for us..."

He shakes his head in disappointment, anger visible in his face. "Who?"

 "I can't tell you, Kent. He won't get punished. Besides, you don't know him."

"I cannot believe you."

I clench my jaw. "I'm not planning on dying, Kent."

"Well," he reaches his hand out towards me, then pushes something into my palm. "This has protected my slim self real well over the years."

I open my palm halfway, squinting as I inspect a thin razor he tucked in.

"H-how?"

"You'd be surprised what a stone and a high-pressure jet can achieve."

"Kent..." I look into his dark warm eyes, "I should've told you what I needed," I realize. "Just because I wasn't your real friend... doesn't mean you weren't mine."

"Damn right it doesn't. Keep it, Kayla - you'll need it out there. Still," he gets up to his feet. "This doesn't mean I forgive you."

I nod, looking to the floor. "Thank you," I whisper.

He scans his wrist for the door to open, looking at me with empty eyes. "Good luck, Kayla." 

Then he clicks on the manual button to shut the door.

I rush from him before I start crying. I can't lose focus off my mission.

The mass pushes me in the wrong direction and I fight it to reach the hallway leading to the Hygiene Area - where we're escaping from.

As I approach it, I see Keet and Kory both leaned against the wall behind the people standing in line to schedule their showers.

"You're early," Kory notes.

"And you look... terrible!" Keet watches me in shock.

I put a hand in my pocket and grip the knife Kent gave me. "I had some...troubles on the way."

"Oh?" Keet scratches her head. "Do we have the weapon?"

"Two," I smile. "Got a knife as a goodbye-I-don't-ever-wanna-see-you-again present."

Keet slants his lips in approval. "A portable mirror would've served you better, but we'll take whatever we can get."

Kory fails in trying to suppress laughter. "Stop it, Keet. You're horrible!"

I wish I could find it in myself to laugh. But I feel absolutely awful for how I've hurt Kent. 

The knife he gave me is currently my most valuable possession. In the wild, I used to make spears out of wood for hunting phigees. But this is so much more useful.

"Have you scheduled a shower?" I check in with Kory.

She nods. "I was also early. Didn't even have to stand in line. We've got twenty minutes to go." 

I look at Keet. "Everything set with Kriss?"

Keet's still staring at my messed up wig. "I don't know if I ever told you this before, but... I now understand why you shave your head."

My heart races for a second. "What?"

"Yeah, it probably got stuck so bad one morning, you couldn't comb it out, so you just decided to cut it all off," Keet nudges Kory and both of them burst out laughing.

I exhale in relief. "Oh, yeah," I feign some laughter. For a moment there, I thought they were onto me. I know we're very close friends, but you never know what one might do if a reward was good enough. Because of the myth that albinos bring good luck, rogues have been cutting off light-skinned people's limbs and trading it for food for centuries. My parents told me so. They said never to trust a hungry person - no matter how good-hearted they were.

"Hope you're not mad at us," Keet nudges me. "We're just throwing off some steam."

"Of course. We're all tense," I check the air around us.

"I could barely sleep last night," Kory confesses. "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to wake before the chip did, and I had a nightmare that there was no showers available until 2 o'clock," she shakes my head. "Then robots came for me to take me to the Screening and... that's when I woke up."

"Mhm, thank God for the nightmare, girl," Keet waves his finger.

"Alright, let's go through the checklist," I take off my backpack. "Did you mix the explosive solution?"

Keet nods.

"Do we have two stones from the yard to make fire?"

"Right here," Kory taps her backpack.

"How long did Kriss say the reboot delay will take?"

"He couldn't tell," Keet shakes his head. "He seemed pretty unconvinced."

"Don't tell me he's onto us."

"I don't know, girl. The other day he was super excited to get the morphine, but yesterday he was very sketchy about the whole thing."

"Oh my God..." Kory mouths.

"I know, we never should've involved him," I inhale deeply.

"No," she says, "two robots coming."

My head shoots back. 

Oh, no.

"Keet Thompson," one of them says as they approach. "Come with us."

"He didn't do anything!" I demand, my eyes big in shock. 

"Please step forward," they ignore me.

"What for?" Keet looks afraid.

"He's not leaving unless you tell us what this is all about."

The other robot's hand starts emitting blue light - an electroshock warning. 

"It's fine," Keet steps forward, sliding his backpack down as he does. He looks at me meaningfully, subtly handing me the backpack.

"No," I say determinedly. I'm not leaving him here. 

I put my hand in front of him and step in front. "He has a shower scheduled. Let him at least get his sh-Aaargh!" I crumble to the floor as the robot electroshocks me.

Kory kneels down beside me as I fight for air.

I gasp, opening my eyes, and see Keet's feet walking between the two robots'.

"He's never gonna make it back in time," I yelp.

"I know," Kory's voice shakes. "He knew that, too," she then reaches for something behind me -Keet's backpack. "He left it for us, Kay."

My eyes grow big. "No," I sit up, "We are not doing this without him."

"Kay... He didn't even receive his A.S. invitation yet. He still has time to break out. We don't."

I look back towards where they were, but a thousand people are in my way now. "We don't know what they'll do to him, Kory. Maybe Kriss ratted him out."

"Kriss had no idea why he asked him to do what he did. Besides, he still hasn't done anything. So no harm done."

And no benefit for us - the robots won't be delayed.

"I never should've let him involve him."

"Your shower is now free to enter," Kory's Omnia announces.

"This is not your fault, Kayla. We have got to leave. Keet'll be fine. Nothing was done yet. He'll live."

I know he'll live, but... how long? And where?

"C'mon," she lends me a hand to help me up. "Our shower's up."

And I do. I get up.

Am I really going to leave him behind? 

I have to think of us now. 

I look at Kory, then nod. "We're taking that shower."

We walk toward the entry line, three backpacks in our hands. "Excuse me," I say as we cut the line, "They called on us."

We enter the shower corridor and walk all the way, till the last shower cubicle in the line. Then we walk inside it together. The deed is followed by various comments from the crowd.

"Woo-hoo!"

"Eww, get a room."

"You go, girls."

"That's gross!" 

We close the cubicle door and I immediately push the small button on the Wall that says stop water. Just in case.

"We only have nine minutes left, Kay."

"I know," I throw the backpacks on the floor and take us two stones out. "You mix the solution, I'll make the spark to light it."

She nods and takes two plastic containers out of Keet's bags. 

I lay a piece of cloth on the floor, then start rubbing stones against each other.

Kory opens a third container, an empty one, then places the smaller one inside it, full of some sort of liquid.

"This is a highly flammable liquid, Keet said," she notes as she opens the lid of the grey powder from the second box. 

"It's flammable, but will create a boom only when mixed with gunpowder," I say. "So keep the lid closed until you pour it in.

She takes the liquid back out and closes it, then pours the gunpowder around it, into the larger container surrounding it. 

"What now?"

"Now we wait until I make fire." 

Just as I say it, the first spark appears.

"Open the lid!" I instruct her. "Be careful not to drop powder in it or we'll explode along with this cubicle!"

"Don't pressure me!" she yells as she opens the lid with shaky hands. "I double wiped the lid with this wet cloth," she yelps as she finally gets it off, then crosses her fingers.

"Perfect," I say just as my piece of cloth catches fire, then I take it and dip it inside the liquid.

"How long did Keet say we'll have before the plastic melts?" Kory asks with a shaky voice.

"Twenty seconds."

"We better hurry then," she squeals.

"Take your bag!" I say as we rush out of the cubicle and close the door. 

"Time to get our chips out," I say and she hands me a sharp thin blade. I stand in front of her to cover the views of others, then clumsily pour some disinfectant over the blade and the skin of her wrist and neck - where we've got our microchips - healing infected wounds in the wild does not sound appealing.

Just then, we hear a muffled boom, followed by a slight shaking of the ground.

"It worked," she exhales just when I make a cut on her neck to extract the smaller chip. She barely even whimpered.

The crowd starts whispering.

"What was that?"

"Did you hear that?"

"I felt the ground shake!"

I make the second cut on her wrist, then push her back inside. "Hurry! We gotta go."

I pray that the hole in the Wall is large enough as we enter back into the cubicle.

I exhale with relief when I see that it is. My eyes fill with tears.

"Keet did well," Kory smiles.

"I know," I nod. "He never failed me." Like I failed him.

"Quickly, take your chip out," she instructs me.

"Move," I hear a robot's voice outside. "Guards passing."

Shit. "There's no time," I urge her. "Go!"

She pushes through the hole as I stick a piece of wood (part of my leg desk) over the door and against the wall, hoping it would delay the robots at least for a few seconds.

Then I follow suit, covering my wrist with the aluminum plate Koben gave me.

Robots are way faster than humans and catching up with us will be no problem. Even if we could outrun them, they do not tire. So we've got no chance of them losing us. 

I hug my textile bag as I run behind Kory. This is when the water jet comes into play.

We run to the nearest rock, then hide behind it. 

"You go," I tell Kory. "I need to get Omnia out of me if I ever plan to lose them."

"Meet me over that hill," she points to a small mountain two miles away.

"Done."

As she runs away, I look at my wrist - at the place where the chip is and I go in closer with the blade. 

"Goodbye, Om," I whisper with shaky hands.

"Goodbye, Kayla."

What?!

I freeze at once. Drops of sweat drip off my forehead as I move the scalpel away, my eyes wide open.

"Wh-what do you mean?" I stutter.

"I am giving my farewell," she replies with no undertone or intonation, as always.

Suddenly, I'm out of air, feeling like my chest has been kicked hard. How could I ever think she didn't know I was escaping? She's omnipresent - outside of me just as much as inside. Her ears are my ears and her eyes are my eyes. And they sting as tears collect in them - she didn't report me.

"I can't bring you with me," I justify. "They could use you to harm me."

"I know," her machinist's voice replies. "Our client network functions only within a five-mile radius of the Block."

Five miles. "Is the same true for robots?"

"I cannot share that information."

Of course. In any case - I might only have five miles to freedom.

"What will happen to you once I'm gone, Om? What happens to extracted chips?"

I can't believe I care what will happen to a machine. One that exists in millions of samples. 

But I don't care about them - I care only about this specific one. Will its information be stored on the server? Possible to be extracted to a new client?

"I don't have that information. The client devices are never extracted - they are only re-programmed."

"Hasn't anyone ever escaped the Block?"

"No one has ever escaped KTL."

I see two robots get out from the hole we escaped from. s**t.

I run towards the set of trees, then hide behind one, putting the aluminum over here, once again, so robots can't track me down.

I pity laugh at myself. "You are not real," I whisper. "I mean...you're real, but you're not a person."

I uncover the aluminum and bring the blade close to my skin again, then fail to make the cut. "I don't even know what you are," I say in a desperate bid to ease this annihilation.

"I am a personalized client device programmed to use human language to process server and or user commands," her machine voice speaks.

"Point is," I clear my throat, "you don't care about me."

"I am programmed to care for you, Kayla Terrell L."

I shake my head. "You don't have feelings," I hiss. "Not real ones. Tell me, Om."

"That is correct," her machinist voice says.

I cover the chip once more, taking deep steady breaths. Why is parting ways with her harder than it was leaving Keet or betraying Kent? This is not normal.

I try to remember my Orientation when I first entered KTL. All transfers were gathered in the food court, led by a robot who gave us an Orientation...

"Omnia communicates with users and measures their physical and emotional state in every situation that occurs. This data is garnered and processed into meaningful information that allows her to make proper predictions of your needs and desires. You can and should rely on her to help you in fulfilling their execution," the robot had said as we all watched him in awe.

I look at the robots outside the KTL once again, my throat feeling dry, then run more into the woods.

I uncover my chip one last time. "Why haven't you reported me to the server?"

"I am not programmed to report such information. Doing it would clash against my purpose to serve my user," she reassures me with an unemotional robotic voice.

"That's it," I conclude with relief. "You care about me only as much as your programmer wanted you to care. If you were like a human... you'd have a choice. To choose sides or even rebel against your code to help me, but... you're only a machine," I make a quick cut and growl in pain as I pick under my skin to grasp the little chip. 

Shit.

The chip produces a dull sound, then laser red light turns on. 

I throw it as far away from me as possible just in time to see it explode in the air, its micro remains joining the sand, unable to be distinguished anymore. 

Fast movement grabs my attention.

Two robots are now running towards me.

My hand runs to my neck as I make another cut, clumsily squeezing over both sides of the cut for the auxiliary chip to come to the surface as if popping a zit.

It does.

"You were never really programmed to help me, Om," I whisper holding the last thing I have from my Om.

I just open my fingers and let it fall to the ground, then instantly start running through the trees.

"Stop!" a running guard's voice echoes in my ears, but I do not cease running. Only one thing is on my mind now.

Freedom.