Ali

Alistair raced home, panic surging through his veins. He felt numb, and his mind was in a state of shock, so he resorted to his most basic instincts. He ran.

His feet thundered against the pavement, heading towards the Bubble, which held his apartment. It was quite literally a giant bubble floating in the sky, containing over a hundred residences in "the perfect bubble ecosystem." When Ali reached the Pad, he punched in his apartment number and scanned his fingerprint, and his apartment detached from the others to float down in a bubble and grant him access.

He stormed into his home and immediately called out: "Siri, look up today's android shutdown! Four windows!"

The glass wall split into four different screens, with search results displayed across each one, and he blinked at the news report, activating the vision tracker; the first screen started to play his selection. Ali did this for the other three windows, accessing a different website on each one, and in ten minutes, he had all the information he needed. Which made him calmer. To him, ignorance in the middle of a crisis was far worse than finding the horrible truth.

Until a Breaking News icon popped up on the first screen. Ali blinked at it, thereby selecting it, and expanded it to fill the entire screen when he saw that it was about the Infinity shuttle, which had launched just a few days before. The crew of androids must've all deactivated, too. But the anchor was talking about finding the shuttle, abandoned in the middle of a field, with only eleven androids of the original twelve.

Ali could hardly breathe. This meant that one of the androids was alive. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking in excitement; he hadn't felt a thrill like this since the first experiment on his teleportation device. Ali took a trembling breath and let it out.

The fact that they could only find eleven of the androids...that meant there was one who was on the run. And the screen immediately showed her profile: Andromeda Nova, 5'8", female in appearance, specialty in astronautics. There was a photo as well, featuring the android in question; she had wavy red hair and shock-blue eyes. Ali fondly remembered helping to design her, and how friendly she'd been.

Capturing her would be no easy task. She was smart beyond belief; granted, she was an android, but she was also an astronaut, and Ali had put his heart and soul into her coding. He grinned and said, "Siri, shut down the screen, and fire up my teleport. Destination: Caltech, aerospace building."

Andromeda

She knew they'd be looking for her. Andromeda sighed, running her fingers through her auburn hair. This was still the best course of action; waiting any longer to run would've meant more law enforcement looking for her, and before long they'd bring the ISA into matters. However flawlessly genius she was, she didn't stand a chance against a whole administration of geniuses, especially when she had to lug this bundle of wire along with her. She glanced at Polaris, who was busy trying to catch one of the turtles in Caltech's turtle pond.

Andromeda was using the interface in her mind to check off possible candidates in the student database to help hide her and Polaris. They were pretty much all geniuses, of course, but incessantly good geniuses. It was like none of them had ever done anything wrong in their lives, and she wasn't too sure if they'd be willing to help an android on the run, or just turn her in at first sight.

And then she found him, way down in the R's of the database: Alistair James Ramirez.
The corners of her mouth pulled up in a smile she couldn't hold in. Andromeda remembered him; he'd written some of her most advanced code, and she'd looked forward to meeting him for upgrades and training every day, back before Infinity had launched. Kind and funny, with just enough rebel deep inside him to maybe help her out.

She kept scrolling down. He'd been charged only once with downloads of illegal anime from YouTube. She couldn't repress a laugh; if she knew Ali, he'd have hacked into the site so that he could keep downloading it. Perfect 4.0, of course. Of course. He was perfect. Andromeda knew she was taking an enormous risk; it was possible that the ISA had already recruited him to help capture her...but maybe she could convince him to do otherwise. They were friends, after all. And maybe like this, Polaris could finally be put to some use.

With this new plan in mind, Andromeda grinned and closed the interface, to the sight of Polaris smiling up at her.

"You're beautiful when you smile," Polaris commented.

Andromeda felt a sudden rush of heat to her face, but she just groaned and rolled her eyes, her smile gone. "Good to know. Now, I've found a possible accomplice, but trying to go find him will be risky, especially for me. But you...no one would ever suspect that you're an android. I don't think anyone's even noticed that you've disappeared."

Polaris's eyes went wide with shock for a moment, and Andromeda internally punched herself. "Ugh, no, that's not what I meant--I'm just saying, your face isn't on the news like mine is. So you could find him. Just walk around like you're a student, and--oh, you don't know who I'm talking about. Here."

Andromeda closed her eyes, downloaded the file on Ali, and sent it to Polaris easily. They both had interfaces connected to the Internet. Polaris nodded when she received it. "Alistair, huh?"

"His friends call him Ali," Andromeda informed Polaris. "His lab is in the Aerospace building. Room B-29. Check there first. I'm sure he has tons of fans who come to see him; just act natural, and you'll be fine. If he's not there, just come back. If he's there, send me a text, and while I'm coming, stall him somehow."

Polaris jumped to her feet (she had been crouched down petting a turtle) and saluted Andromeda. "Aye aye, captain!" And just like that, she took off.

Polaris

She was so excited.

Finally, she could do something useful! Polaris might not have been as bright as Andromeda, but she knew that she'd done next to nothing to help her, and she could see the other android's...almost disgust toward her.

Polaris understood. She supposed if she were a Novadroid, she'd probably look down on Serfdroids too, although she could never imagine herself in that position. As Polaris navigated towards the aerospace department, she kept track of her position with the online map displayed in her mind.

She reached the door to the aerospace building and pushed it open, beaming at the beautiful, old-fashioned hallway. There were students listening to lectures behind every door, or professors working in labs... The sheer beauty of all of this made Polaris laugh out loud.

She redirected her attention to the map. Ali's laboratory was on level B, the second level. Polaris gaped at the stairs leading up to the second story; even elevators were a rare sight nowadays when Pads could be used as more efficient versions.

Nevertheless, Polaris appreciated the architecture of this campus. She made her way up the stairs and walked to Room B-29.

It was a very simple metal door. Polaris raised her hand to the cold steel and knocked.

Ali

After teleporting into the aerospace building, Alistair had run straight to his lab, not even bothering to avoid people. He immediately began searching for an electromagnetic detector; if that android was anywhere near Caltech, and he suspected she was, then he'd be able to find her. If not...well, he had a backup plan.

Just as he'd found the device he needed (it took him a while; he was disorganized beyond the help of even the best cleaning device), someone knocked on his door.

Ali set the device down on his cluttered desk and moved to the door.

He opened it to find a girl standing outside with a wide smile on her face. "Hello!" she chirped, walking into his lab even though he hadn't welcomed her. "You're Ali Ramirez, right? Ugh, I'm such a fan! Wait, I'm so impolite, I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Polaris! Like the star! Well, I'm actually named after the singer, but I like to think that my parents took inspiration from the star. In the sky."

Ali didn't really know what to make of her. "Um. Hi. I'm Ali."

He cringed at how awkward he sounded, but the girl seemed to take enjoyment from the very fact that Ali had talked to her.

"I know," Polaris laughed. "So I came in today because I wanted to know about your opinion on the android shutdown that happened this morning. I'm sorry if I was a tad overenthusiastic, but I really am a huge fan."

"Okay," Ali sighed. "Uh, I don't know any more about it than you do. The ISA hasn't given me any other information."

"Yeah, but what do you think happened? What about the escaped androids?" Polaris asked.

Ali furrowed his brows at her. "Androids? There's only one."

Polaris laughed almost nervously and shook her head. "Sorry, yeah, only one. Android. What do you think happened with that one?"

Ali's eyes narrowed very slightly, and Polaris's widened in response. He inspected her face carefully. She looked perfectly normal. Perfectly human, and very organic. Ali almost brushed it off as a slip of the tongue.

Almost.

Because that was when Andromeda barged in.

***

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