The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense (15 page)

The car roared to
life.

“I won’t be able to control
the brakes,” Damian said. “You’ll have to sit in my lap and
drive.”

“Why don’t I just put you in
the passenger seat?”

“I liked my idea better, but
suit yourself.”

Luke had driven the old
sedan out of the chaos of the city and to Malibu. The Super
Soldiers did not seem to have made their way north of the city yet.
Still there were police cars everywhere.

“Where should we go?” Trista
said. “I don’t think going to the lab is a good idea.”

“It’s a good idea and it’s a
bad idea,” Luke said. “The lab is concealed in the hills. Most
people do not know its location.”

“I think we should go to the
lab,” Mandelie said. “Luke’s right. It’s too dangerous being out in
the open right now.”

“I can’t believe this is
happening,” Jake said. “Are androids really going to try to kill
everyone?”

Brigite put her hand on his
knee.

“Not all
androids.”

Luke smirked as he caught
sight of Jake’s face in the rearview mirror.

Lina and Ledia were sitting
silently in Damian’s office when they heard a loud, panicked
banging on the door.

“Mr. Foster, are you in
there? It’s Tony! Let me in!”

“Tony’s alive?” Ledia said
in astonishment.

“It’s Lina!” Lina said.
“Hold
on, Tony.”

She and Ledia moved aside
the huge pieces of furniture in front of the door. Finally they
opened it.

Tony stumbled inside. His
face was covered with sweat.

“They got Derrin,” he said.
He shuddered.

“Sit down,” Lina said,
steering him to the couch.

Tony sat on the couch, in a
daze.

“How depressingly ironic,”
Damian said, looking at the backseat as Carlie drove the Jaguar
through the besieged city streets.

“There’s a wheelchair folded
up back here, Carlie. I guess whoever owned this car must have been
handicapped.”

Carlie did not say anything.
She was too busy looking around with aghast eyes at the police
officers who swarmed the sidewalks, exchanging gunfire with the
Super Soldiers running through the city.

A bullet crashed through the
window, narrowly missing her arm.

Carlie screamed.

“There’s bullets going off
all around us, Damian,” she said. “Where should we go?”

“Let’s head for my lake
house in Tahoe,” Damian said.

Carlie shot him a
disbelieving look.

“I’m not suggesting we take
a vacation, Carlie. We can lay low there. It’s rural. It’s on a
lake. The androids won’t pay any attention to it.”

“Alright,” Carlie said. “I
just want to get away from here.”

Chapter 37.

Luke parked the sedan as
quietly as possible in front of the laboratory. The trees around
them were shrouded in darkness.

As Mandelie got out of the
car she felt the same eerie, unsettling feeling she had the
previous time she had come to the lab.

“This is where you came
from?” Brigite said to Luke.

“Yes,” Luke said.

“Let’s go inside,” Trista
said.

Mercenare stood on the roof
of the Adventis building, the wind rushing over him. A group of
Super Soldiers stood a short distance behind him.

Mercenare raised his head as
a helicopter descended from the sky. It landed on the
roof.

A white-haired man with a
sharp sallow face, dressed in a gray suit, came out of the
helicopter. He was followed by a Super Soldier, pulling a
blindfolded man along with him.

Mercenare saluted the
white-haired man.

“The building is ours?” the
man said.

“Yes,” Mercenare
said.

The white-haired man turned
to look at the hostage man.

“Welcome to the future, Dr.
Miles.”

“Anyone brave enough to go
raid a Jack in the Box, or a McDonald’s?” Jake said.

The five of them were lying
on blankets on the floor of the laboratory. Trista was staring up
at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep. Mandelie was sitting with
her back against the wall, leaning her head on Luke’s
shoulder.

Brigite looked
confused.

“Why would you want to raid
a … oh.”

“You lucky androids can’t
feel hunger,” Jake said. “But I’m definitely feeling it right
now.”

“I have to admit I am too,”
Mandelie said.

“There’s a grocery store
down the street,” Trista said.

Luke turned to
Mandelie.

“I can go get food for all
of you,” he said.

“No,” Mandelie said. “You
can’t go there by yourself. I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll go too,” Jake
said.

“Fine,” Luke said.
“Mandelie, Jake, and I will go to the store and bring food back.
Brigite, you and Trista stay here.”

“Alright,” Trista said. “But
if you three aren’t back in two hours, we’ll come looking for
you.”

Luke looked around
cautiously as he pulled the sedan into the parking lot of a
brightly-lit, but apparently deserted supermarket. Grocery carts
were strewn everywhere, some of them with bags of food in them, as
if people had left them in a panic.

He parked the car and he,
Mandelie, and Jake got out.

“The doors are open,”
Mandelie said. “That’s a good thing.”

“Let’s not waste time,” Luke
said. “We’ll go in, get what we need, and get out.”

They walked quickly and
quietly into the store.

Jake immediately ran to the
chips and candy aisle and began filling his arms with bags of
candy.

Mandelie grabbed a grocery
cart and began throwing food into it haphazardly, as well as
bottles of water.

Luke looked back towards the
doors of the store, keeping an eye on the silent parking
lot.

“Hurry up,” he
said.

Jake joined them and threw
his bags of candy into the cart.

“I’m all done.”

“Let’s get out of here,”
Mandelie said.

The three of them froze when
a police car pulled into the parking lot. It came to a stop and two
police officers got out.

Luke, Mandelie, and Jake ran
into an aisle and ducked behind a stack of cracker
boxes.

“They’re cops,” Jake said,
in a low voice. “Maybe they’ll let us go.”

Luke said nothing. He was
watching the cops with narrowed eyes.

The police officers looked
up and down the aisles carefully. As they drew near to the aisle
where the three of them were hiding, Luke turned to Jake and
Mandelie.

“They’re androids. Adventis
androids.”

Jake looked pale.

“When I say so, run to the
car and don’t look back,” Luke said.

Mandelie felt her legs
shaking.

The two android policemen
walked up to the stack of boxes.

“Run!” Luke said.

He jumped up over the stack
of boxes and slammed bodily into the two androids.

Mandelie and Jake raced
towards the front of the store and out into the parking lot. They
jumped into the car.

Mandelie looked into the
store, where she could see Luke punching one android in the face,
while the other one had him in a chokehold and was pulling out his
gun.

“We need to help him!” she
said. “Start the engine!”

“I don’t know how to!” Jake
said.

Mandelie did not think. She
ran back into the grocery store, grabbing one of the carts. She
charged at the two androids and knocked them off their
feet.

She grabbed Luke’s hand and
pulled him up. The two of them raced out of the store and into the
car.

The two android policemen
rushed up to them. One of them jumped onto the car, as Luke started
the engine.

The sedan barreled into the
street, with the android policeman holding onto the top of
it.

“Drive!” Luke said to
Mandelie.

She grabbed the wheel and
Luke pushed himself out of the window. He climbed onto the top of
the car and grabbed hold of the android’s leg.

The android whipped back and
punched Luke in the face. Luke did not let go. He grabbed the
android’s face and tried to push him off the weaving
car.

The android reached up and
put his hands around Luke’s neck, trying to break it.

Luke reached for the gun in
the android’s belt. He grabbed it and shot the android in his
forehead.

The android sagged. Luke
picked him up and threw him from the car.

Then he jumped back down
through the window.

“Adventis made police
androids?” Mandelie said, her voice unbelieving.

“Yes,” Luke said. “Our
situation has just gotten a lot worse.”

Chapter 38.

Jason Miles stumbled in the
wake of the Super Soldier dragging him along, unable to see
anything. The white-haired man and Mercenare were walking down the
stairs from the roof ahead of them.

They arrived on the floor of
Damian’s office.

“There are humans in there,”
Mercenare said. “But they were doing such a good job of keeping
themselves hostage that we left them alone.”

“Now you may open the
doors,” the white-haired man said.

Mercenare took out his gun
and blasted the doors with bullets. They crumbled into
dust.

He and the white-haired man
stepped over the broken pieces of wood and into Damian’s
office.

Lina, Ledia, and Tony were
backed up against the wall, their faces filled with
terror.

“Good evening,” the
white-haired man said. “I trust the three of you will all give us
good reasons to keep you alive.”

“What happened?” Trista said
in alarm when Luke, Jake, and Mandelie returned, looking disheveled
and grim.

“We got attacked by a couple
of android cops,” Jake said.

“Great,” Trista said. “More
good news.”

Luke sat down on the ground
heavily. He looked exhausted.

“I am going to put myself in
a sleep state,” he said to Mandelie.

“Do it,” Mandelie
said.

Luke closed his eyes. Jake
looked at Mandelie.

“We’ve still got to get some
food and water.”

Mandelie pulled a bag of
candy out of her pocket and threw it to him.

“I don’t know how that got
there, but you’re welcome to it.”

“Let’s split it three ways,”
Jake said.

“My name is Cargio Lataun,”
the white-haired man said to Lina, Ledia, and Tony. “I am the
president of the Society of the Future.”

The Super Soldier ripped the
blindfold from Jason Miles’ face and pushed him roughly towards the
other three captives.

Lina caught Dr. Miles and
steadied him.

“Cargio,” Dr. Miles said,
breathing hard. “These people are innocent. Let them
go.”

“You’ll do well to be quiet,
Jason,” Cargio said. “The revolution has only just begun. There
will be many more deaths of so-called innocents before the night is
over.”

Mandelie drifted to sleep
with her head on Luke’s shoulder. Trista and Jake had fallen asleep
as well, Jake stretched out on the floor. Brigite was dozing with
her head slumped.

Luke opened his eyes. He
gently shifted Mandelie aside and laid her down on the
blanket.

He got up silently and
walked to room 1.

He opened the door and
looked in at the Mind Portal box. It stood silently against the
wall.

Luke placed his hand on the
lid. He tried to open it.

After a moment, he took his
hand off the lid. He stared down at the box with narrowed eyes, his
thoughts running furiously.

“You don’t know what you’re
doing, Cargio,” Dr. Miles said. “The Society will never be able to
forgive itself for these crimes.”

“We are not the ones who
need absolution, Jason,” Cargio said. “Humanity needs to repent for
their selfishness, for their greed, their petty wars and hatred.
They need to finally face the consequences of their divisive
actions. If they cannot govern the world with reason and
intelligence, instead of ignorance and hate, they will be wiped
from it. Our Society foresaw this a long time ago. Now we are
bringing humanity face to face with its future.”

The Super Soldier grabbed
Lina and forced her on her knees.

“What are you doing?” Dr.
Miles said in fear.

“Demonstrating the lost
cause of humanity, Jason,” Cargio said.

He placed a gun in Tony’s
hand.