Human After All

Beau never thought he would hate seeing light so much. Light was supposed to mean hope, freedom, a way out. Light was something to look forward to, for it was a almost like a deity for those who were lost. Light was the answer to everything.

But for Beau, light meant that they were coming back. It meant that the sailors were returning to his empty and barren chamber to torture him yet again. The lights were usually dimmed in Beau's chambers, so he could see the clock and the digital calendar on the wall, also so he could position himself on his bed and use his bathroom. Whenever the sailors were in the room, though, they turn the lights up to full power so it's nearly blinding if you look in its general direction.

That was why Beau hated the light. It was daunting, intimidating, and downright cruel. He had never wanted to live in darkness as much as he wanted to at those moments.

Mr. Rager walked into the room, already shining something on his knuckles. He smiled at Beau as others walked in behind him. They didn't do much when the time came. Mr. Rager was the only one who really liked to torture.

"Hey, Beau." He nodded. Beau didn't budge from the corner. "C'mon, let's get on friendly terms."

"Fuck. You." Beau spat. Mr. Rager laughed, pulling the towel away from his knuckles to reveal almost a silver color. Beau gulped audibly. He had only seen pictures of such things in history books. It was a weapon of the past, really only that thugs used. They were illegal, and dangerous. They could kill somebody. They were called brass knuckles.

"Really, Beau, we should be used to this right now. I mean, it's always the same thing. I walk in, I try to be nice, then you cuss, and then, well, I gotta punish you."

"So fucking do it already!"

Mr. Rager shrugged, throwing the towel behind him and walking towards Beau. He jerked him off the bed as though he were a doll and brought him to the middle of the room where a post awaited him as usual. Mr. Rager pulled out a rope from his back pocket and tied Beau's arms behind the post. It seemed so old fashioned, but the pain Beau had experienced on that particular post proved that even the oldest of things could cause the worst pain any human should never feel.

"Where is he?" Beau mumbled. Mr. Rager looked down at him, his eyebrows furrowed slightly. Beau sneered, scrunching his nose up angrily. "Where the hell is Joshua?!"

"Oh." Mr. Rager said as though Joshua was nothing else than an after-thought. "Him. Why do you care where he is? He's only a robot."

"Where the fuck is he, damn it!" Beau snapped. "You took him from my arms! He was mine, he was my mate, and you just took him from me!"

"He was a—"

"He's a kind soul!" Beau shouted, clenching his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to fight the tears. "He would never hurt anyone or anything, but you-you stupid fuckers are targeting him." A ball formed in the back of his throat, making his voice crack and it almost made him sound weak.

"You would never understand." Mr. Rager said. "So, what do you think? Maybe five punches, one for each time you cussed? I think that's about fair. Then we'll talk again." He smirked, already landing one punch on Beau's cheek. At first, it felt like nothing had touched Beau's cheek. Then in a matter of seconds, a searing pain shot through every vein in Beau's body, making him numb to everything else but the pain that came from his cheek. The misery grew more intense, making Beau's knees buckle underneath him. Beau's cheek throbbed while he watched a pool of blood form on the ground as he was forced onto his knees.

Another punch landed on his stomach, and Beau was sent into hell again. Coughing out blood, nearly choking on it at one point, Beau felt a blow land along his eyebrow. The pain shot through his entire head, but it was numbed quickly while Beau's eye swelled shut. Three punches, Beau thought. Only two more.

Two punches to the chest later, and Mr. Rager pulled out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket. He flicked the lighter, taking a long drag of his cigarette while it lit. A purple haze fell across the room, leaving Beau almost blind in his untouched eye.

"You're just making this too hard on yourself, Beau. Just tell us where Ethylon is. I wouldn't have to hit you anymore."

"You'll kill me instead." Beau said through a bloody mouth. Mr. Rager laughed.

"Yes, but that's not the point. The pain will stop. You'll be saved from all this."

"And Joshua?" Beau snapped. "What about him? What would you do to him?"

"Deactivate him, of course. Actually, the head has been considering deactivating him anyways. He said it would save a lot of time and effort. Joshua's of no use to us anyways. He hasn't moved in days." Mr. Rager ranted. "Actually, I think we really wanted to get a response from him, and I believe the head decided to show him a live feed of your torture today." A ring of smoke came past Mr. Rager's lips as he played with his cigarette. Beau jumped.

"What?" He said. "You're showing him this?! He's just a kid! How the fuck are you showing him this?" He spewed out maroon colored spit.

Mr. Rager pointed to the corner of the room where a small video camera awaited him. A red light blinked to the right of the lens.

"The blinking means that its streaming live." Mr. Rager explained. "Wave to him. Let him know that you still care for him." Then Mr. Rager laughed. "Whoops, forgot that you can't wave, y'know, with your hands tied and all."

"Joshua!" Beau shouted in the direction of the camera. "Joshua!"

"Don't make this anymore painful than it has to be, Beau." Mr. Rager said. He landed a punch on Beau's jaw, splitting the skin under the brass knuckles. Beau howled, almost passing out from the pain he was being put through. He coughed out more blood, feeling the sticky iron liquid running down his chin and onto his throat. He swallowed hard, trying to keep more than blood from coming up.

"Turn the video off, Mr. Rager." Beau pleaded. "Turn it off. Don't let him see me like this."

"Why?" Mr. Rager taunted. "Why should I?"

"Please." Beau whispered.

"Are you his knight in shining armor? Is this video shattering his idea of you rescuing him?" He nearly laughed in Beau's face while pulling off his brass knuckles and throwing them back to the other sailors along the walls of the room. Beau didn't bother to look up at him, and he didn't feel he had the energy to anyways.

"He doesn't deserve this." Beau said under his breath. "Joshua doesn't deserve to be put through this because of me...." He barely glanced up at Mr. Rager through the hazy purple air and his swollen eye. "I'll do anything to save him. I'll beg. I'll tell you anything you want to know. I'll let you put a bullet through my head," Beau paused, feeling hot tears pool in the corners of his eyes. The tears stung his swollen eye, making it tear up more than the other. They fell out in quick, warm trails. "I'll let you kill me however painfully you want to, if only you don't hurt Joshua anymore than you already have."

"Tsk." Mr. Rager clicked his tongue at the weakling underneath him. "Giving up, Beau? That's no fun."

"Please!" Beau shouted, pulling his hands helplessly at the rope behind him. Then he looked up at the camera. "Joshua, please, look away!"

"He won't look away, Beau. He loves you, and he'd never leave you alone." Mr. Rager said, with what almost sounded to be remorse.

"Joshua." Beau said loudly. "I know I broke my promise. I know I said they would never pull us apart, and that I would never let them get you. I screwed up, okay? I know I've broken promises, but this time, Joshua—" Beau broke into a small sob. He took a deep breath. "I promise you that nothing will happen to me if you just look away."

"Beau—"

"I love you, Joshua, more than you will ever know. But now its your turn to promise me something." He imagined Joshua sitting in front of a TV screen, handcuffed and helpless as he watched. "Promise me that no matter what you hear, no matter what you see them do to me, they will not break your spirit." Beau blinked as another swell of tears poured over his eyes. "Promise me that you'll stay strong, for you and me both." He smiled slightly. "I need you to use that heart of gold to keep us both alive."

Mr. Rager turned to the other sailors. "Cut the feed. That's enough, Beau."

"I love you, Joshua." Beau said again.

"That's enough." Mr. Rager snapped, grabbing Beau by his chin and directing his attention to him.

"He already saw that." Beau said with a weak smile. "Even if you cut the feed off, he'll already have seen my confession."

"Shut up." Mr. Rager said in defeat. For once, his prisoner nearly got the best of him.

"Your cigarette is running out." Beau nodded towards it as the ashes fell upon the ground in a gray pile of soot. Mr. Rager smiled, pulling it out from in between his lips and holding it through his fingers.

"I noticed. Guess I should put it out." He pressed the edge of the cigarette onto Beau's flesh, and Beau couldn't hear anything but his skin sizzle through the air. He groaned as the cigarette seemed to burn continuously through his flesh until Mr. Rager pulled it away and threw it towards the sailors. One picked it up and placed it in a bag along with the brass knuckles and towel Mr. Rager used to polish the knuckles.

But it wasn't over yet. Mr. Rager slipped a knife out from his belt loop, pressing it against Beau's chest, just above his heart. Beau gulped, feeling the knife slip through his flesh like it was butter. With the flick of his wrist, Mr. Rager had cut a four-inch long gash through Beau's chest, but it was only deep enough to make him bleed and pass out, not enough to kill him. The deep, iron liquid slowly spilled over the cut and onto the ground in front of him. Beau felt warm blood building up in the back of his throat, along with the meager lunch they had forced him to eat.

Another flick and Beau felt a mind-numbing pain shoot through his veins while a cut formed on his other cheek, the one Mr. Rager didn't touch with the brass knuckles. Blood mixed in with the greasiness of his hair, leaving only the moist smell of iron in the air. Beau keeled over, throwing up into a pool of blood and releasing the contents of his stomach. Beau thought humorously, I didn't even like tasting it the first time.

A gray haze started to take over Beau's mind, but not before Mr. Rager ordered the other sailors to clean Beau and the room up, and then allow Beau to lay down on the bed and be nursed back to health. Beau knew the health would only last perhaps a day before Mr. Rager tortured him again.

The sailors pulled him off of the post, tugging the rope away from his bound wrists and laying him down on the uncomfortable bed. A woman walked into the room, followed by a small cart of medical supplies. Her nurse's coat fell to her knees along with a pair of lace stockings. What a bunch of perverts, Beau thought, the Capital must be.

She sat down on a stool next to Beau, and she pulled jars of cream out of the cart. Slowly, she opened them, sliding her fingers through colorful salves. Then she mixed them together with her thumb and forefinger, spreading the salve across Beau's eye. The throbbing seemed to disappear, and it smelled like the same salve Joshua used on him at home when Ethylon first punched him.

"How long have I been in here?" Beau asked. He had lost count at four days, which seemed lame, but the thought of being away from Joshua for more than four days killed him.

"It has been eight days." One of the sailors answered instead of the nurse. While Beau felt his eye being soothed, and the swelling disappeared, he didn't want to open his eyes yet. The thought of the light still being there was what frightened him the most. Then a thought came back to mind.

"What are you doing to the girl you captured with me? The human girl?"

"She has fallen into a comatose state. We suspect she hit her head when Rager pushed her off of the bed and then attempted to 'sleep it off'. She hasn't moved since then." The sailor continued. Beau held back a growl in the back of his throat. Jaydin couldn't have been comatose. She just couldn't. Beau denied it, saying to himself that she was merely faking it in order to keep herself from being tortured anymore than she could handle. She was smart enough to do that, Beau thought. Then he wondered if they made Leighlan watch Jaydin being tortured. Then he wondered if Leighlan was still alive.

The nurse clicked her tongue impatiently as she wiped blood away from Beau's chest as well as from both of Beau's cheek. His entire body seemed numb. He could probably be stabbed with a thousand needles now and he wouldn't even know.

"Honey, this is going to scar." She said quietly, grazing her delicate fingers along his chest as well as the cheek where Mr. Rager punched him with the knuckles. Beau's eyes shot open at the sound of the nurse's voice. Before he could even confirm his suspicions, he found himself staring into kind eyes of somebody he thought he had lost before. "The cuts should heal, but the spot where he punched you is going to scar a bit, and your chest may have a bit of a scar from the stitches I'm gonna put in soon." She said. "But that other cut on your cheek should be fine."

"Troia?" Beau said. The nurse furrowed her brows together.

"How do you know my name?" She asked quickly. Beau sat up faster than he should have, because his head started swimming, and the room was flipping, but he didn't care. In front of him sat Troia, the robot that had gotten away.

"Troia, you're alive!"

"Of course I am!" She snapped. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"How can you sit by and let this happen to us?" Beau said quickly. "How can you let your companion be in such pain?"

"Companion?" She sneered slightly. "That's a term for robots."

"You are a robot!" Beau shouted. Troia laughed.

"No, I'm not. Robots can't have tattoos." She said, pulling her nurses outfit away from her thigh to reveal a tattoo, and it was true; robots couldn't get tattoos, they were just too delicate for the harsh ink. Beau stuttered a few times before he felt a needle slip into his arm and touch a vein.

"Poor baby, must be delusional from the blood loss." Troia said quietly, rubbing his cheek with a soft hand. "That should do it. Now go to sleep, you'll be better in the morning."

"But... Troia...." Beau's voice slurred slightly as the liquid that was morphine-like took over his senses and lulled him into a soft sleep. Beau lay helpless as the lights dimmed again, and the room was like he hadn't even gone through what he really had. He only hoped that Joshua was doing his best to ignore his master's pain. Watching wouldn't help at all.



Beau curled himself up into a ball on his bed. The bandages on his chest were soaked heavily with blood, and they cracked slightly at the sudden movement. Beau groaned slightly as his head was still swimming from what had happened just a few hours earlier. He had just seen Troia, the bot that was supposedly deactivated, alive and breathing.

But what was even stranger was that fact that she had no recollection of ever being a bot, and she wasn't actually a bot. She was human. She had tattoos. It seemed like a little thing, but it was actually huge. Robots were never allowed tattoos, mostly because they were too delicate for the needles and ink. If robots could actually sustain a tattoo, Beau would have gotten one for Joshua.

So how was that Troia? Perhaps the robot Troia was modeled after the human? But why would their names be alike?

Beau groaned as a searing pain filled his head again. He was thinking too much, and the aching above his eye had only subsided for some time. His entire body was being thrown into pain again. He could only cuss in his own head, as he was afraid that Mr. Rager would walk back in with the brass knuckles and hit him again. He feared for his life, but not as much as he feared for Joshua's.

The door to the chamber swung open, and they threw another body into the room. Beau rolled over slightly, but didn't bother to open his eyes. Waiting would allow the sailors to leave, and they (hopefully) would let Beau heal in silence. Of course, there was the issue of who was in the room with him. Perhaps just another rebel. They had been in and out of the chamber, so it wouldn't shock him if it was just another one of them.

There was a faint click as the door shut, and Beau opened one eye to find a slightly familiar figure on the ground. He was barely breathing, but his face was in the ground, so Beau couldn't say he knew who it was for sure.

Beau slipped off the bed, slowly crawling over to the boy while pain shot through his body for each movement he made. Beau hissed impatiently, grabbing the edge of the bandage on his chest and ripping it off. Underneath the bandages were deep black stitches, but the cool air of the room almost soothed the wound on his chest. He touched the stitches and watched as a bit of dried blood flaked off and fell onto the ground. They were soluble stitches only the Capital used for the most important people. The stitches would dissolve in another hour or two and his chest would be back to normal, except for a bit of a scar. He touched his cheek as it was bandaged as well. Beau cringed at the thought of how ugly he must look, and how ugly he will look when they execute him.

Beau reached for a water bottle he hadn't touched, placing the bottle next to his side. Then he grabbed the boy's shoulder and rolled him over. The mess of blonde hair over his forehead just proved Beau that everything was over. As much as he denied the facts clearly laid out in front of him, he knew that all was lost. Through the soot on the boy's face, the blood trailing down his chest and the rips and tears on his pants, Beau knew that whatever hope he had was lost.

Ethylon had been captured. Now the Capital had no use for Leighlan, Jaydin, Joshua, nor Beau. Whatever use the sailors had found in each captive, they had lost just like that.

Beau huffed out a loud breath, but allowed himself to open Ethylon's lips slightly and drop a small stream of water into his mouth. His dehydrated lips absorbed most of the first drops before Beau slipped more water into his mouth. Ethylon swallowed, but didn't move his body anymore than needed. Beau took another bottle of water from beside his bed. The sailors left water so he didn't dehydrate, but Beau didn't like to drink it anyways. He usually vomited it all up. His stomach seemed like it couldn't hold anything.

He wiped the ash away from Ethylon's face, then dumped water through his hair and showing the golden locks of hair that Ethylon had hidden often through grease and dirt. Beau didn't even want to imagine what kind of pain they were putting Ethylon through. Mr. Rager once told Beau that there was a liquid they could inject into a captive's body that would bring back any unpleasant and painful memory. He asked Beau one of his most painful memories, and Beau recalled the time he broke his arm when he was six or seven. Then Mr. Rager explained that you would be put through the pain over and over until you recalled another memory to forget about the first one, but the next memory was only more painful than the last. He said it was a trick the mind used a lot, but we didn't realize it.

So Beau imagined Ethylon being lost in his memories of stealing scrap metal, losing his family, not being able to find Yana, the thought of losing the one he loved, as well as his beloved bot, and finally being captured and tortured by the sailors. He could only think about how terrible Ethylon's memories really were.

All of their deaths would be soon. Beau wondered how he, Ethylon and Jaydin would be executed. Quickly, he hoped. No plan in the world would save them now. It was hard to believe that anything could save them now.