Human After All

Joshua never would have thought the Capital was so big. The prison seemed to be endless, but Ethylon knew where to turn and at what time. It was like he had grown so familiar with running around the prison, yet Joshua knew that he had only ever escaped once.

"I heard some officers say Lejend was somewhere on this level." Ethylon whispered to Beau while they pressed up against the darkness of the walls. Troia and Joshua hid themselves in the corner, on their knees to avoid being noticed. Joshua felt bad because his master and Ethylon were doing most of the work. They had already deactivated six different sailors without any help from Troia or Joshua. Joshua just felt a bit guilty that he was laying back and watching while they did everything.

"Jaydin has to be somewhere in the hospital ward then." Beau said. "She's fallen into a coma, supposedly. D'ya think she's just faking?"

"Beau," Ethylon sighed. "She's a good liar, but not that good."

"How do we get her out then?" Beau snapped.

"We grab her and book it."

"Yeah?" Beau said. "To where?"

"Hey!" Troia snapped at the both of them, pushing them against the wall and holding them by the collars of their stolen shirts. "Let's focus at the task at hand, and worry about that when we get to it. If you two get in another fight, Joshua won't make it, and we need him to get out of this alive. Got it?" She said. Beau nodded quickly, as her strong hold on his shirt was cutting off any source of air he had. Ethylon pushed her hand gently off of his collar, nodding once.

Troia knelt down next to Joshua, running her fingers through his dirty, dusty hair while Beau and Ethylon went back and forth, but much more quiet since Troia threatened them. They peeked once at Joshua, whispering to each other before Beau crawled next to Joshua's side.

"Joshua." He said with a small smile. "We need to go down the hall, but... we can't see any place for you to hide."

"Then I won't hide." Joshua said quickly, taking his master's hands in his own.

"I can't risk your life, Joshua. You need to stay here with Troia. I'm sure she can protect you." Beau moved his face to press his lips against Joshua's cheek, but Joshua pushed Beau away with a gentle hand. Beau furrowed his brows together.

"Master." Joshua said. "You wanted me to be treated as an equal. Then let me make my own choices." Joshua pressed his forehead against Beau's, looking into his master's lost eyes. "I wish to go with you, master."

Beau swallowed hard, clenching his eyes shut so he could push away any thoughts of Joshua being hurt. If anything happened to his precious bot, he wouldn't know what to do. Joshua was his one and only, risking his life meant risking Beau's. But he would give that up if Joshua wanted to make his own choices.

"Okay." Beau said, taking Joshua's hand in his own. "But please be careful, and you have to do what I say when we're there, for your safety."

Joshua nodded eagerly, turning to Troia who had already caught most of the conversation.

"Troia, please keep lookout." Ethylon said. Joshua threw his arms around Troia's neck, crushing her in a hug. She patted his back gently, kissing the side of his face.

"Listen to Beau, Joshua." She said. "He knows what's best for you."

Joshua pulled away, straightening his dirty clothes out before taking one step in the direction of the empty halls. Beau and Ethylon led the way down the hall, looking down each corner, then turning and nodding at Joshua. Joshua thought of what he could really do for his master. Not much, he thought, but perhaps, something.



Ethylon peered in room after room, desperately searching for any sign of his beloved bot. Lejend had not been found, not even a small trace of her. Beau supposed Ethylon could have very well heard the sailors wrong about her location, but Beau was a man on a mission, and he wouldn't give up his chance to find his bot for a hunch. Beau figured he wouldn't either, not if it was his own bot.

"She's not in any of these rooms." Beau yelled, as the alarm was still going off. How idiotic the sailors must be, Beau thought, that they were in plain sight, yet the sailors hadn't found them yet.

Joshua wondered to himself what they must have been doing to Lejend. Were they torturing her in the same way they tortured himself? No, they couldn't have been, mostly because Ethylon had only been captured in that same day. He wondered if they were actually torturing Lejend, somehow. Perhaps the Capital had some form of medicine that would torture the robots as much as they tortured his own master. He longed to erase the memories of Beau's torture, but he couldn't do that.

"She's in that room." Joshua walked down the hall they hadn't bothered to look down, pointing at the room down hall. There was only a small, square window in the door. Behind it, a bright white light. Beau peeked his head around the corner to peer at the door.

"But that's an experimentation room." Beau said under a breath so Ethylon wouldn't hear their conversation. "If she's in there, that means they're.... Y'know." Beau gulped quietly. Joshua nodded, though he, once again, couldn't imagine what kind of torture she had been through. What could the Capital do to a bot?

"Perhaps she's okay?" Joshua's voice went slightly shrill at the end of the sentence. He couldn't even believe his own words. He knew they did something to his best friend. Lejend was not a mere companion, but his friend.

"Let's hope she is." Beau said.

Ethylon came sprinting down the hall, grabbing Joshua and Beau by their arms. Instinctively, he turned to the right where the door with the small glass window was. Beau tried to stop Ethylon long enough to get an explanation, but suddenly, he heard a rush of sailor's footsteps sounding from above. They were coming down the stairs for them.

Ethylon let both Joshua and Beau go to smash his shoulder against the door. It barely budged, earning a loud groan from Ethylon. Beau turned on his shoulder and hit the door, moving the door just an inch more. A few more hits and the door was about to crack, but they couldn't get it.

So Joshua, being as loyal as he usually was, turned on his shoulder and timed his movements with Ethylon's and Beau's. With one last push from all three of them, the door crashed open. Ethylon fell in first, Beau landing beside him, and Joshua on top of them both. Joshua pushed himself off, running to the back of the door so he could shut the door and avoid the sailors and their weapons. Surely, they wouldn't go down the hall to this room.

Ethylon coughed, pushing himself up on his elbows. Beau rolled over, clutching his head in hand. Joshua knelt behind Beau, rubbing his head slowly.

"Are you okay, master?" Joshua crooned softly. Beau shook his head.

"Hit my head on the ground. Fuck, this hurts." Beau cussed for the first time in front of his bot for quite some time, but Joshua knew this was not the time to laugh. Instead, he took his master and laid his head on his lap, rubbing his fingers against a small bump that formed on his head. Beau hissed, but chewed his bottom lip raw to avoid cussing again.

Ethylon crawled next to them, resting his head against the steel wall that separated them from the rest of the Capital.

Beau looked around the room. It was created of almost all steel, except for a few padded walls here and there. There was no alarm sounding, so the man (or woman) who experimented in this room must have been quite honored and respected in the Capital. Along the sides of the walls that seemed to never end were long cylinders with tubes connected to the top of the cylinders. There was blue liquid flowing through every large tube, as well as purple dyes and pink acids going through other tubes that were also being fed into the many cylinders.

Ethylon didn't bother to study the room with Beau, but instead, nearly fell asleep in the corner of the room. Joshua allowed Beau to sit up so he could further study the room in front of him. It was so clean, so organized, so precise. He could never live like that, even though he wasn't that messy. He still couldn't be so picky about things like the person in this room so obviously was.

Beau pushed himself up on his wobbly legs, looking around the clean room. Along the room were all kinds of wires and USB's just laying around. Beau was about to walk around the room to study it when the door clicked open, and two men appeared behind it. Beau fell onto the ground next to Joshua, hiding himself from the two, though one was handcuffed. A rebel, Beau thought. Just another rebel. But why were they being brought here?

"Did you say your last good-bye's?" The slender, brown haired man said from next to a shorter, black haired one. Beau recognized the shorter one, furrowing his brows at the sight of him.

"Yes." The voice made it obvious of who it was. "She didn't say much back though." He mused. Beau held back tears while he watched the brown haired one escort the bot to a seat.

"I heard.... I'm sure she will be okay."

"And then they'll execute her." The bot snapped. He turned in the seat, and Beau gasped audibly. It was Leighlan sitting in the seat, and he was only talking about Jaydin being in a coma.

Ethylon crawled forward on his knees, his hands in small fists at his sides.

"This won't hurt at all." The brown haired one said. "Are you sure you're ready?"

"I am." Leighlan nodded.

The brown haired one brought his fingers down to Leighlan's reset button, located behind his ear. Every bot had a different one. It just depended on where the creator specified. Though Beau was confused on how the scientist knew where the reset button without asking Leighlan first. Nobody just knew where a robot's button was, only the creator. But a creator wouldn't terminate one of his own projects... would he?

"No!" Ethylon shouted, bursting through the shadows to sprint next to the brown haired scientists side and pull his arm away, but it was too late. Leighlan's eyes fluttered shut, though his chest didn't stop moving. When Ethylon shook his shoulders, he didn't respond either.

"Leighlan, please, wake up!" Ethylon shouted, trying to hide the cracks in his voice. Beau was sure that Ethylon wanted Leighlan to survive, so he could hold onto the little bit of reality he really had. Leighlan and Jaydin were his only friends when he escaped. He had already lost Jaydin to a coma, and losing Leighlan would mean losing his one chance to keep his first friend since the rebellion.

Beau took Joshua's hand in his own, hiding themselves in the dark shadows. Joshua whimpered in the corner, hiding his face in the crook of Beau's neck. Sure, Joshua said that wanted to go with Beau, to make his own choices, but the sudden rush of danger took him aback. He had no idea how Beau went through this type of danger nearly every single day, most of the time, to keep Joshua safe! How needy I must be, Joshua thought.

Finally, after a few minutes of Ethylon bursting out into near tears, the room grew silent. There was the shuffling of feet before Beau spotted the brown haired scientist grabbing Ethylon by the shoulder and spinning him around. He brought his hand up to Ethylon's cheek to wipe away ash and dirt. Then he gasped, widening his soft eyes to show the tears pooling in the corner of his eyes.

"Ethylon?" The man whispered. Ethylon jumped at the sound of the stranger's voice, but Beau had a feeling that this scientist wasn't such a stranger after all. Ethylon pushed the hand away from his cheeks, rapidly blinking away tears. He shook his head a few times, opening and shutting his eyes before he finally opened his mouth, but barely squeaked out that one name he thought he would never say again in his life.

"Rowan?"