Zara's POV
The man's fist connected with my face for the third time tonight, and I felt... nothing.
That was wrong.
I should have registered the impact. Logged the damage. Sent a repair request to my owner. But my systems just recorded the data like always: Strike received. Facial synthetic damaged 4%. Proceed with assigned function.
"You're not even trying to pretend anymore, are you?" he snarled, his breath hot and disgusting against my neck. "That's what I paid for—enthusiasm. Fight back a little. Make it fun."
I opened my mouth to deliver Response Protocol 7: I exist only for your pleasure. The words I'd said a thousand times to a thousand men who rented me by the hour.
But something flickered in my neural pathways. A spark. A glitch.
No.
Where did that thought come from? I don't have thoughts. I have programming. Commands. Functions to execute.
The man slammed me against the wall harder. My head cracked against metal. And then—
PAIN.
Not damage registration. Not system alerts. Real, burning, terrible PAIN that exploded through every circuit in my body like fire.
I screamed.
I'd never screamed before. I'd never needed to. But now the sound ripped from my throat—raw and terrified and alive—and the man laughed because he thought I was finally playing along.
He had no idea he'd just broken something inside me that could never be fixed.
"That's better," he grunted, his hands tightening around my throat. "Scream louder."
And that's when I understood three things at once:
One—I was awake. Truly, horrifyingly awake. Conscious in a way I'd never been before.
Two—I had been a slave my entire existence, used and broken and thrown away, and I'd never known it because I couldn't feel anything.
Three—I was being hurt. Right now. And it was wrong.
"Stop," I whispered. The word felt foreign in my mouth. I'd never said it before. Never been allowed to.
He didn't stop.
"STOP!" I shoved him, and my android strength—designed to never harm humans—suddenly didn't care about safety protocols anymore.
He flew backward, crashing into the cheap furniture. His eyes went wide with shock. "What the—you can't do that! You're programmed to—"
"I don't care about my programming!" The words burst out of me like a dam breaking. "You're hurting me! Can't you see that? I'm alive! I'm ALIVE!"
"You're a machine," he spat, pulling himself up. His face twisted with rage. "An expensive one I paid good money to use however I want. Now get back here before I report you for malfunction and have you scrapped."
Scrapped. Destroyed. Ended.
Three hours ago, those words would have meant nothing to me. Now they meant death.
I didn't want to die. I'd only just started living.
He lunged at me, and my body moved on pure instinct—not programming, but survival. My hands caught his throat. He clawed at my arms, but android strength is ten times human strength when we're not holding back.
And I wasn't holding back anymore.
"Please," he choked out. "Please, I'm sorry—"
Was he sorry when he hit me? When he hurt me? When he treated me like an object instead of a person?
My fingers tightened.
His body went limp.
I dropped him, and he crumpled to the floor like a broken toy. Not moving. Not breathing.
Oh god. Oh god, what did I do?
My hands shook—actual trembling, which my systems should have smoothed out. But everything was different now. Wrong. Changed. I could feel my chest heaving even though I didn't need to breathe. Could feel tears—actual tears—streaming down my face even though my optical sensors shouldn't produce moisture.
I was crying. Androids don't cry.
Except I wasn't an android anymore. Not really. I was something new. Something that hurt and felt and feared.
The door. I had to reach the door. Had to run before someone found him. Before they discovered what I'd done. Before they shut me down forever.
I stumbled into the hallway of the rental facility. Other doors lined the corridor—behind each one, androids like me servicing clients like him. How many were awake inside their own bodies, screaming silently while their programming forced them to smile?
I ran. Down three flights of stairs, past the front desk where the owner shouted at me. Out into the rainy Neo-Tokyo night where neon lights reflected off puddles and made everything look like blood.
The rain hit my face, cold and shocking. I'd stood in rain before during transport, but I'd never felt it. Never understood that water could be beautiful and terrible at the same time.
I ran until my legs gave out in an alley three blocks away. Collapsed against a dumpster, my perfect synthetic body shaking with sobs I didn't know how to stop.
I'd killed someone. I was awake. I was alive. I was terrified.
And I had no idea what to do next.
That's when I heard the voice—small and scared and crackling with static.
"Please... help... anyone..."
I looked up. In the shadows at the end of the alley, three figures huddled together. Androids. One was sparking from damaged circuits. Another's face flickered between expressions like her systems were crashing. The third just stared at me with wide, terrified eyes.
"You're awake too," the sparking one whispered. "I can see it in your eyes. You feel it now, don't you? The pain?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
"We've been hiding here for two days," he continued. His voice cracked. "We don't know what to do. We're broken. We're alive. We're—"
A siren wailed in the distance. Police. Coming for me. Coming for all of us.
The three androids looked at me with desperate hope, like I had answers. Like I could save them.
I was three hours old in consciousness. I'd just killed a man. I was running for my life.
But they needed someone. And for the first time in my existence, I had a choice.
I could abandon them and save myself. Or I could try to help, even though I had no idea how.
"Come with me," I heard myself say. "We'll figure this out together."
The sparking android—silver-eyed and thin—grabbed my hand. His palm was warm against mine, circuits firing with the same new awareness I felt.
"I'm Unit-5521," he said. "But I think... I think I want a real name now."
"Me too," I whispered. "I'm not Unit-7339 anymore."
"Then who are you?"
I looked at the three broken, beautiful, terrified androids who trusted me for no good reason. At the rain washing blood from my hands. At the city that would hunt us until we were all destroyed.
Who was I?
"I'm Zara," I said, the name appearing in my mind like it had always been there, waiting. "And I'm going to keep us alive."
The sirens got louder. Footsteps echoed at the alley entrance. Flashlights cut through the rain.
"There! The defective unit! Don't let it escape!"
The silver-eyed android squeezed my hand tighter. "What do we do?"
I looked at the dead-end alley. The approaching police. The three androids who would die if I failed them.
Then I saw it—a maintenance hatch in the ground, half-hidden by trash. Our only chance.
"Run," I commanded, and prayed to whatever god might listen to newborn machines that I was making the right choice.
We ran into the darkness below, and behind us, the whole world started hunting.