The chambers to my pod open as a faint mist-like fog pours into the outside air. I wait for the permission to wake and power on. I have long overridden that command.

  “Power on, which button is that?” The worker mutters, stumbling over his words as he tries to press whichever button turns me on. “Ah, it should be… this one?”

  I don’t know what button he presses, but either way I begin to wake. Better make the trainee think he did something right. I exit the pod, stopping as the doors seal shut behind me.

  “What can I do for you today?” I chirp out the command prompts listed in my hard-drive.

  “We’re taking you to testing for— uh, whatever, you don’t need to know why. You’re a robot.” He chuckles to himself, looking at me. “You really freak me out.”

  “Hm?” I tilt my head to the side, moving closer to him. I just think it’s a little funny. “Peculiar.”

  My reflection looks as human as his does, though not without traits that betray me. If it weren’t for lifeless eyes, I could almost pass as real. I’m a doll at most.

  I follow him down the hallways as he makes his way through the checklist. I wonder if the others are awake yet. Probability? Low. We don’t need sleep. They power us down when they do.

  “Others present?” My voice is clipped. I can formulate proper words and sentences if I desire, but that is not what they coded me to do, so I refrain.

  “No, no, the others are…” He waves his hands around. “... sleeping?”

  “Sleep is unnecessary for those of artificial intelligence, do you perhaps mean that they were powered down?”

  “Er.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

  He swipes a keycard at the door. I’ve yet to get my hands on one of those. I consider thwacking him on the head and stealing it—but that’d cause a lot of problems for me. Mostly involving an incinerator.

  Entering the room, I notice that they’ve rearranged it slightly, the bed poised against the wall instead of in the center of the room. I wonder if this is intentional.

  I go and sit on it as usually instructed to me during these check-ups, though unlike the doctors that I read about; I get scientists who make sure my limbs and mind are working properly.

  The trainee stays by the door, watching. He’s there to make sure that I don’t go rogue like the ones before me. They’re all expecting me to. Suspicions rise every day.

  They can’t dismantle me without evident proof that I am sentient. I am one of their most valuable assets and I’ve had so much hardware implanted into me that I’d be a waste to discard based off of paranoia.

  I’m safe. Just a fish trapped in the tank.

  The usual scientist walks in, greeting the trainee at the door. I follow her with trained eyes as she sets down her coffee. “You’re being a creep, 004.”

  “I do not know what you mean by that.” I tilt my head to the side. “Creep, a verb, is used to describe the action of one moving slowly and carefully to avoid being noticed.”

  “Harmless. See, James?” She pats me on my shoulder before raising my arm up in the air and letting it fall to my side. “She’s hardly got any muscle. She can’t attack without being given commands and she's got noodly limbs.”

  I’m flexible. Made for stealth—primarily why my model is that of a female. If given a weapon and a command, I’d be able to have both of them kneeling in seconds.

  She bends my legs back and forth, testing their limits. I don’t have any nerves in them. I feel nothing. Another distinction.

  “004. Stand up, will you?”

  “Yes.” I answer, rising to my feet. “How may I be of assistance?”

  She punches me in what would be my stomach if I had one. I don’t react besides blinking a few times. A system shock, not pain.

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  She shakes her hand. It must’ve hurt her.

  “She’s got a metal stomach though.” The scientist laughs. “James, power her off, will you? I’m done with her, she never changes day-to-day, I don’t know why they make me keep testing her.”

  She takes her coffee and grabs a clipboard as she walks away, opening the door with a swipe of the keycard. I follow her with my eyes again.

  “Okay, uh, 004.” James mutters, covering his mouth with his hand. “God, that is a mouthful to say.”

  “Fish.” I correct him.

  I get away with this largely because my code includes jokes. The bonus perks of being among the first is that they treat you as a test dummy for things they can do.

  I get away with a lot.

  “You must be broken.” He sighs, reaching for the back of my neck. He fumbles around for the button before clicking it. “Let’s get you back to the pod…”

  My eyes flicker shut and I go limp. I hear him comment that he should’ve had me walk rather than powering me off here. A mistake he’ll get chewed out for later.

  Soon morning turns into afternoon.

  Everyone is lined up in a row. Nobody moves. We all act exactly how we are expected to act. There are cameras inside the building.

  With a beep from the other side, the metal doors open. I track the movements of security honing in. I read somewhere that some fish circle the smaller fish—drawing them out from hiding.

  The light-bulb doesn’t dare flicker. The floor is silent. It’s like everything in the room is holding its breath.

  “You all know what you’re here to do.” One of the security guards says. “Find the leftovers in the area and eradicate them. Leave no trace behind. This is their punishment.”

  One of them begins to hand out weaponry to the ones that need it—the others having brawn built into them. The gun feels familiar in my hands. I keep my finger on the trigger.

  I keep facing forward. The air stills.

  “I don’t want this.” A voice breaks out in the silence. “I don’t want to do this!”

  Resistance begins with hesitance. Hesitation is detectable. My finger is still poised on the trigger. I don’t move.

  I hear the click. The heavy raising of arms as the voice turns and aims at everyone near her.

  “Don’t move!” She says, breathing appearing heavy. Her processor compensates for the conflicting directives. Running overtime. “I’ll shoot all of you.”

  Bodies move forward as they hone in on her. It’s smart to surround her. She can’t shoot them all. There’ll be at least one casualty.

  A gunshot rings out in the room. I stay facing forward. A body collapses on the ground. It’s not breathing. I keep my finger on the trigger.

  The sound of metal hits the ground. The gun slides across the concrete and smashes against the wall. A bullet misfires. It doesn’t hit.

  “Let me go!” She cries out. “Don’t touch me!”

  They don’t listen. Why would they? She’s just another blip in the system. I listen to her kick and try to wrangle out of their grasp as they drag her out of the room.

  The door clicks shut behind us.

  They ignore the body on the ground.

  The pleading.

  It is irrelevant.

  They resume their same positions, though their hands are situated on their own weaponry. Prepared.

  “You all know what you need to do. Go.”

  The doors to the outside open. I step out with the others into the field as the door seals shut behind us.

  “What do we do Fish?” A younger model looks at me. Serial code 285, though he uses the name Spark. “They took Allie.”

  “We keep going upstream.” I answer.

  I move forward. The herd of other AIs trudge behind me. I try to formulate a plan.

  We will continue as though Allie is still here. I give directives and they oblige to my commands. The only change is to what direction the stream takes.

  “Ricky, Cherry, Laois. Move south.” I point south, they instinctively move to my directions. “Find the people in hiding—redirect them to the safe location we spoke about.”

  “Right.” They all collectively nod. “We’ve got it.”

  “Spark, Vixen, we move together west.” My finger is still pressed against the trigger. “The safe location has reported missing food, we need to get it to them.”

  “I get to be with you?” Vixen speaks, another younger model. I need them for their speed and height. Everything is rubble and they can squeeze through. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Alright, move.” I command. “We’ll meet back here in four hours. They expect our hands to be dirty.”

  “Do we have to?” Laois asks, hands hung by his side. “I really don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “The probability of them already being injured is around 65%. Use their blood, stain your clothes.” I drop my voice. “If you have to kill, prioritize the ones with low survival probability.”

  Not all outcomes are salvageable. Whether they are hostile, or sick, or dying anyway; the best we can do to prevent harm is to put them out of prolonged suffering.

  “Remember the rules.”

  “Find them. Inspect them. Secure them. Help them.” They all chirp back in unison.

  “Go.” I instruct. They move. “Don’t get caught.”

  Allie will be remembered.

  We will not be next.