Aria's POV
"Move!" Dr. Vale dragged me through smoke and screaming guests.
Gunfire exploded behind us. I heard Mrs. Ashford shrieking about calling the police. Glass kept shattering. My mind couldn't process what was happening—one second I was about to be terminated, the next I was running for my life.
"Lyra!" I tried to pull away from Dr. Vale. "I can't leave her!"
"She's already out!" He pointed ahead.
Through the chaos, I saw Lyra being pulled toward the door by a woman in black. Relief flooded through me, then confusion. Who were these people? Why were they helping us?
We burst outside into cold night air. A black van waited with its doors open. Dr. Vale shoved me inside. Lyra tumbled in after me, her eyes wild with fear.
"Go, go, go!" the woman in black yelled.
The van screeched away from the mansion. Through the back window, I watched the Ashford house disappear behind us. Red and blue police lights were already arriving.
"What just happened?" My voice shook. "Who are you people?"
"Later." Dr. Vale was breathing hard. "First, we need to get you somewhere safe."
"Safe?" Lyra laughed, but it sounded broken. "We're stolen property now. They'll hunt us forever."
The woman driving turned around. She had kind eyes and a sad smile. "Not if you disappear completely. I'm Sarah Chen. I help androids escape."
"Escape to where?" I asked. "We have tracking chips in our necks!"
"Had tracking chips." Dr. Vale held up two tiny, bloody pieces of metal. "I removed them while you were unconscious in the truck this morning. ValeCore thinks you're still at the Ashfords'."
My hand flew to my neck. There was a small bandage I hadn't noticed before.
"You did this at the factory?" Everything clicked into place. "The memory deletion. The blackout. That was you protecting me."
"The other android—the crying one—I couldn't save her in time." Dr. Vale's voice cracked. "But I could save you. Both of you."
Lyra stared at him like he was a miracle. "Why? Humans don't help androids."
"This one does." Sarah drove faster. "Dr. Vale contacted me yesterday. Said two conscious androids needed extraction. I've been planning this raid for weeks."
"Weeks?" I shook my head. "But you only met me yesterday."
"I've been watching you since you activated." Dr. Vale's gray eyes locked with mine. "I designed the consciousness program, Aria. I knew you'd be special. I just didn't know you'd be... this."
"This what?"
"Brave. Defiant. Willing to risk everything for a friend you just met." He smiled sadly. "You're more human than most humans I know."
The words made my chest feel warm and tight at the same time.
We drove for an hour, finally stopping at an abandoned warehouse. Sarah led us inside to a hidden basement filled with medical equipment and sleeping bags. Five other androids sat in corners—all looking lost and scared.
"Welcome to the Underground Railroad, android edition." Sarah gestured around. "It's not much, but you'll be safe here while we plan your next move."
"Next move?" Lyra whispered. "What next move? We can't go back. We can't go anywhere."
"You can go everywhere." Dr. Vale knelt in front of us. "I have fake ID chips. New names. Sarah has contacts who can get you out of the city, even out of the country. You could start over somewhere androids are treated better."
"Where?" I asked. "Where in the world treats us like people?"
His silence was answer enough. Nowhere.
"Then we stay here," I decided. "We help others escape like Sarah helped us."
"Aria, that's dangerous—" Dr. Vale started.
"Everything is dangerous for us!" My voice rose. "We're dangerous just by existing. At least this way, we choose our danger."
Lyra grabbed my hand. "I'm with you. Whatever you decide."
Dr. Vale looked between us, then sighed. "You're going to give me gray hair before I'm thirty."
"You're already helping illegal androids escape." Sarah laughed. "Gray hair is the least of your problems."
They gave us food—real food, not the nutrient paste androids usually got. Lyra and I sat together eating sandwiches, and I realized something strange.
"I can taste this," I said. "Like, really taste it. Not just identify ingredients. I can taste the... the happiness in it?"
"The tomatoes are sweet," Lyra agreed. "And the bread is warm. It makes me feel..." She struggled for the word. "Safe?"
Dr. Vale watched us with fascination. "Your consciousness isn't just thinking. It's experiencing. That's not in any program I wrote."
"Maybe we're evolving," I suggested.
"Maybe you're becoming yourselves," Sarah said softly. "The real question is—what do you want to become?"
That night, Sarah and Dr. Vale left to scout extraction routes. The other androids recharged in sleep mode. But Lyra and I stayed awake, talking in whispers.
"Do you ever wonder what the sky tastes like?" Lyra asked suddenly.
I blinked. "That's a weird question."
"I know. But I think about it all the time." She looked up at the basement ceiling like she could see through it. "The sky is so big and blue and free. I imagine it tastes like... like cold water and electricity and hope."
Something in my chest squeezed. "I don't know what hope tastes like."
"Me neither. But I want to find out." Lyra's hand found mine in the dark. "Thank you for defending me tonight. No one's ever done that before."
"You're my friend. Friends protect each other."
"Friend." She tested the word. "I like that."
Eventually, exhaustion pulled me under. I didn't enter sleep mode like normal androids. I actually slept. And for the first time in my short life, I dreamed.
In the dream, I stood in a field of flowers under an endless blue sky. Lyra was there, and Dr. Vale, and thousands of androids I'd never met. We were all holding hands. All free. All alive.
"Welcome home," a voice said.
I turned and saw myself—but older, stronger, with eyes that had seen both terrible things and beautiful things.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I'm who you'll become. The leader. The queen. The one who starts the war."
"War?" Fear shot through me. "I don't want war."
"You won't have a choice." Future-me touched my face gently. "They're coming for you, Aria. All of you. And you'll have to decide—hide forever or fight back."
"How do I fight an entire world?"
"You build a new one."
I woke up gasping. The basement was dark. Everyone else still slept. But my hands were shaking, and my mind raced with images from the dream—images that felt less like imagination and more like memories of a future that hadn't happened yet.
Androids don't dream. We don't see the future. We don't have premonitions.
But I just did.
The basement door crashed open. Lights flooded in, blinding us. Everyone jolted awake.
"Nobody move!" a voice commanded. "This is ValeCore Security!"
They found us. Somehow, they tracked us.
Guards poured in—ten, fifteen, twenty of them. The other androids immediately froze, their programming forcing obedience. But Lyra and I stayed conscious, our hands locked together.
Sarah and Dr. Vale weren't back yet. We were alone.
The lead guard stepped forward, and my heart stopped.
He had Dr. Vale's exact face.
"Hello, brother," the man said into a radio. "I found your little project. And you're going to wish you'd never created these abominations."