Sequel: Flare ›
Status: Edited version of Human After All for NaNoWriMo.
Human After All (II)
XIII
It was nearing 8:30 p.m.. Beau was already anticipating breaking the Main with Ethylon and his other rebels, although he wasn't sure if any others were actually going with Beau and Ethylon, rather than just keeping the generator down long enough for Beau and Ethylon to retrieve Troia. It had been a few nights since Beau met with Ethylon, and they believed that night to be the best where they could attack the Main. The new moon assured safety from the empyreals, in Ethylon's mind.
At about 8:45, Beau slipped out of his bed, clothes already on his warm body. He hoped to leave a note on the counter for Joshua should he wake up. He also hoped to be to the Main and back before anybody realized he was gone, but just in case. Ethylon said the operation would be a bit tricky, but other very easy as long as the power was out in all of the towns. Ethylon said he had a girl with plenty of smarts, hacking skills, so she could easily keep the power for at least an hour. That would be enough to, as long as they found Troia within a half an hour of their arrival.
Beau leaned over the counter, pen and paper in hand, when there came the faintest sound of a door opening. Beau glanced at the door, and found Joshua standing there. His auburn hair was messy at the sides of his face, and he rubbed his eye gingerly while staring at Beau. He yawned quietly.
“Master.” Joshua mumbled. “What are you doing?”
Beau dropped the pen and paper. No use in leaving a note now, he thought.
“I'm... I'm going to get Troia. I need you to stay here, Joshua. You have to watch the girls for me.” Beau said, smiling at the sudden squeak his bot gave him. “I promise I'll be back.”
“You're leaving?” Joshua said frantically. “You're leaving us alone? Master, I- I–“
“Shush.” Beau placed his finger on Joshua's lips. “Don't worry. I'll be home in no time.”
“How long is no time?” Joshua asked uneasily. Beau wrapped his arms around Joshua's shoulders, rocking their bodies back and forth in a steady rhythm.
“I'll be back at midnight. Only three hours. And I'll have Troia at my side.” Beau said. Joshua looked up at his master with cautious eyes. He didn't asks his master to do such a dangerous task, and he never would. But Beau took this challenge upon himself, and Joshua couldn't tell him otherwise.
“Please be careful.” Joshua murmured. Beau pulled away from the embrace and nodded. “If you aren't back by midnight, I.... I don't know what I will do, master.” Joshua said weakly.
“I promise.” Beau wrapped his pink around Joshua’s. He had learned of a pinky promise when he was six, and he had been using them ever since. It somehow meant more when you pinky promised, rather than just a verbal promise. “Don't worry. Just stay inside with the girls. But as a warning, Joshua,” Beau paused, “the power will go out sometime around 10 p.m., but you must keep the girls safe. And take care of yourself. I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you.”
“Yes, master.” Joshua nodded. “Beau leaned down, and he was tempted to press his lips against Joshua's. They were right there, and there was nothing else going on. Perhaps this would be his only chance to do so without disturbing the girls, or being interrupted by others. In fact, this had been the only time they had to themselves in days as Joshua was constantly frightened in front of Ethylon, and well, Beau was always with Ethylon in Machinatio.
But instead, Beau pressed a feathery kiss to Joshua's cheek and smiled.
“I'll be back before you know it. Go back to bed. When you open your eyes, I'll be right there.” Finally Joshua nodded sleepily, pulling his body away from his master's. He shivered as the sudden warmth from Beau left his body.
“Please be careful.” Joshua repeated before turning his back on Beau and walking into his bedroom, shitting the door behind him after a few hesitant moments. Beau smiled to himself. Joshua had to have been the sweetest bot around.
***
Ethylon grabbed the back of the coffee shop owner's neck, slamming his face into the hard counter of the coffee shop. Cillian, and Beau and Ethylon had learned his name to be, had been closing shop at 9:30 while the empyreals were changing shifts. They had managed to slip through the night without being noticed for the most part. Cillian was Troia's master, the one who had been abusing her. His life hadn't even stopped with Troia being taken away. He was going to order another bot the next morning.
“What's her IP number, fucker?” Ethylon growled, pressing his arm against the back of Cillian's neck. Cillian coughed drops of blood, and Beau stood behind to watch. Ethylon told him to leave the dirty work up to him at this point, and that Beau would have plenty of time to do some when they breached the Main. “I said, what's her fucking IP?!”
“It' –“ Cillian coughed out a few more drops of blood into a pool that war forming around his cheek. “It's 29.182.253.287. Now, let me go!”
“I oughta kill you.” Ethylon growled, pulling Cillian off of the blood counter top only to wrap his finger hand around Cillian's throat, cutting off whatever air Cillian was getting. “Abusing your fucking bot like she's a piece of trash?”
Cillian looked up at Beau who smirked without mercy. He didn't feel bad for Cillian. He despised him with every fiber of his being.
“H-help.” He waved a hand at Beau who just took a step back, spitting in his direction. “You're such a nice guy. Y-you and your bot. The brown haired one. Y-you never act like such a b-brute in front of him.” Cillian said. Beau's nose scrunched in disgust. He knelt in front of Cillian, grabbing his chin with gloved fingers.
“Don't you dare talk about him. You don't know him, you don't know me, and you don't deserve to live.”
“Show some mercy.” Cillian begged. His breaths were short, his chest heaving up and down in desperate attempts to breathe. “Where's your heart?”
Beau stood up, turning his back on Cillian and heading towards the door. “Let him go, Ethylon.”
Ethylon released the weak human under his hold, throwing him down onto the tile floor. Ethylon kicked him in the side, the faint sound of a bone cracking filling the air. Cillian groaned, spitting into a pool of blood on the ground beside him. He dry-heaved before finally throwing up and falling onto the tile ground. Beau smiled at him.
A silent bullet went through the air, into the temple of Cillian's head. Ethylon slipped past the door of the coffee shop, concealing himself from the empyreals who had appeared a few streets away. Beau pushed the gun into a loop of his jeans while Ethylon urged him down an alley few empyreals ever searched.
There they found a staircase hidden by only a few trashcans. How oblivious this was, Beau thought. They slipped past the trashcans and fell into a staircase that led to a place that seemed like total cyberspace.
Underground, under their own feet, were others dancing. The music was deafening, so loud that Beau couldn't even hear his own thoughts. The beats were repetitive, and Ethylon somehow managed to worm his way through crowds of sweat ridden people. Women only wore small shorts and skirts, and a bra, their hair sticking to the sides of their faces. The men were all too confused to tell where their noses were, so they were relatively easy to push aside.
They found a hall leading down to two rooms. One was marked as dangerous.
“We don't go in there.” Ethylon stopped Beau in his tracks. “There's supposedly a bunch of drugs in there that we can't touch. Explicit shit that could kill all of us.” He continued. “We're going in this door.” Ethylon turned to his right where Beau could hear a woman screaming faintly. But she wasn't screaming in pain, nor pleasure, but with shouts of anger.
The door swung open to reveal a brown haired woman, perhaps not a day over 20, screaming a TV in front of her. Her fingers tapped at button on a remote in her hands. Her voice was mixed in with a young man's as well.
“C'mon, c'mon! You're losing!”
“Fuck, I can't move. Leighlan, revive me!”
“You can't stay alive for more than three minutes? Really?”
“Excuse me!”
The voices went back and forth, the girl jumping up multiple times to scream and yell at the TV. The black haired teen shouted along with her.
“Ahem.” Ethylon said. The girl barely glanced at Ethylon, then Beau.
"Take a load off, creatures. We'll be there in a second." She said before taking her attention away from them and turning back to the TV screen. Ethylon laughed under his breath, allowing Beau to walk into the room first. Beau plopped down on a bright purple beanbag, and Ethylon laid down on a neon yellow couch. To the right of them were a bunch of computer monitors with wires that went almost every which way.
"Fuck!" The girl shouted once as the boy next to her smiled triumphantly. They threw the remotes to the ground before the girl turned to both Ethylon and Beau with a smile on her face.
"Welcome to my humble abode! Sorry for my language, force of habit, and since Leighlan here keeps beating me at these games, it just gets worse."
"Hey!" The black haired boy said from his chair, standing up and straightening out his clothes long enough to reach his hand out to Beau. "Nice to meetcha. Leighlan Sumpter's the name."
"I'm Jaydin West." The brown haired beauty said from next to Leighlan. Beau smiled.
"Name's Beau." He shorthanded his sentence. "Beau Homem."
Ethylon snorted from next to Beau, probably because Beau didn't use his full last name. Beau shot him a nasty glance before turning his attention back to Jaydin and Leighlan.
"Whatdya need today, Ethylon?" Jaydin asked, crossing her arms over her chest with a pout on her bottom lip. "Some extra hacking? Lejend need a tune up? What's up?"
"We need a favor from the both of you." Ethylon said to the both of them, hanging upside-down on the couch. He was such a kid, Beau thought. "It'll be nothing for you, though."
"Well, spit it out." Jaydin said.
“We need you to hack the Main's server. Y'see, Beau's bot had his companion taken away. It's a really long story, but we need to get her back. You know that captives are held in the Main.” Ethylon watched as they both nodded eagerly. “We need the power to go out for at least an hour, so we can get in and out of there without a trace, or the empyreals to bug us. That's why we came to you.”
“Is that all?” Jaydin laughed. “We've done that millions of times before!”
“Well, what're we waitin' for?” Leighlan turned to Jaydin with a smug look on his face. “Wanna bet that I can keep the server down longer than you can?”
“You're on!” Jaydin shouted as Leighlan ran over to the kitchen, retrieving a few things for Jaydin. As Ethylon went to help Leighlan, Jaydin sat down next to Beau with a smile on her face.
"You're doing a really nice thing for your bot." She said softly. The entire time they were there, Jaydin had been loud, foul-mouthed, and snappy. The sudden change in attitude made Beau smile. How strange. "I know if anything like that happened to Leighlan, I would do the same thing."
"Leighlan's a bot?" Beau asked. Jaydin nodded quickly. "Oh.... Well, you wouldn't know by looking at him, or by the way he talks."
"Yeah. I don't have anything against people who program their bots to talk all formally. I actually love robots that are all polite and stuff like that, but I'm so rude sometimes." She paused, waving her hands slowly at her chest. "I mean, not to Leighlan. No, we just joke around, but I don't want to say anything that might confuse him. So I just let him pick up on my slang."
"Thanks for helping me. You're risking a lot."
Jaydin laughed. "Our life is risky. What's the fun in sticking to the rules? Live a little." She nudged Beau's shoulders.
"So are you and Leighlan, y'know...?" Beau trailed off suggestively. Jaydin's cheeks tinged with pink, and she grew even quieter than before.
“Nobody's really asked me about that before.” She murmured. “But.... I mean, I love Leighlan a lot. And I think he loves me too. I guess we're just like.... I don't know.” Jaydin finally answered without hesitation. “I guess we're just Jaydin and Leighlan. I don't mind living my life that way.”
Beau smiled. This girl had an entire other side to her that nobody really bothered to look at. Yes, she was a criminal, but every criminal has a background. Just as everybody judged Ethylon so sourly, everybody judged Jaydin just as quickly. To take a minute and get to know her meant creating a bond, one that Beau wouldn't sever anytime soon.
"Let's get started then." Leighlan shouted while walking into the room with four energy drinks at hand, and a bag full of gummy candies. Jaydin shot out of her seat and slid into the computer chair, tapping her fingers against the keyboard in front of her. She was moving so fast, Beau couldn't even process what buttons she was pushing, and Leighlan tapping away didn't help much either.
"All right... Power is set to go out at 10:30 p.m. You have—"
"—an hour and thirty minutes to get the bot,—"
"—get out of the Main—"
“—and haul ass before the backup generators come on.” Jaydin and Leighlan finished each others sentences as though working as one person. Together they hacked into the Main's defenses, breaking down the security the government claimed as “untouchable.” Foolish people, Beau always thought. Hacking was as easy as snapping his fingers, if he was willing to pay the price if captured.
"You got a good hour to get to the Main." Jaydin said. "Get out of here. You'll be there in time."
"You ready, Jaydin?" Leighlan turned to Jaydin with a smile on his face. It was so sincere, loving. Perhaps she did know what they were, something more than just a robot and its master. Jaydin's cheeks flushed, but she nodded.
"Ready." She said. Then she turned to Ethylon and Beau. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go!"
Ethylon started out of the door, and Beau was nearly out when Jaydin called his name.
"Be careful, okay?" She said, reminding him of his promise to Joshua. As much as he liked Jaydin, his promise to Joshua meant more when “be careful” was said. He would rather die than break his promise.
***
The Main always had their lives better than most people in the towns did. While some things didn't differ, there was the case of snootiness that the town had that suddenly made Beau want to sock somebody in the face. Whenever he and Ethylon looked into the streets after roaming the empty alleyways, they saw people with their noses high in the air, pouts on their lips, and a sense of haughtiness radiating from the expressions on their faces. Oh, how Beau wanted to bring one down to his level by punching them in the nose.
Just as planned, the lights flickered on and off at exactly 10:29 before they actually flashed once more and disappeared. People in the streets screamed helplessly while Ethylon and Beau continued to maneuver their way down the alleyways. The captive bion was only a few minutes away. Ethylon already had a way to sneak in, they just needed to wait until the empyreals cleared out.
Beau felt his body shaking in anticipation as the last empyreal cleared away, leaving the bion's doors unattended. Ethylon tugged on Beau's sleeve with a gloved finger before they crouched over and ran to the side door. Ethylon peeked his head inside, but the halls were dark and sounded empty. This was too easy, Beau thought. Too easy to get into a bion.
"Is this how you got out of bion, Ethylon?" Beau whispered. Ethylon laughed.
"Kind of. It's a really long story. I'll tell you about it one day, y'know, when I trust you enough." Ethylon whispered back as they slipped inside of the dark halls. Beau followed, nearly crawling on the floor just to avoid the glass windows which he hoped were empty.
"The rooms should have the first two numbers of her IP address. So it should say "29" on a room on the this flo—"
The sound of loud footsteps coming down the stairs stopped him in mid-sentence. "Get down!" He hissed, falling onto the dirty black carpet, blending in as his pants were a dark gray color, and his shirt a midnight black. Beau usually wore black, so he was very easy to camouflage among the dark carpet.
After the steps retreated, and the sound of a door closing came, Ethylon slid back on his knees, staring up at a few empty rooms. There were no numbers posted on the front of the door, only an empty slide where the number could be inserted.
Through a cracked door, Beau found himself looking at a bot who was unfinished. Only halfway through building him, the power had been turned off, and the only light left was a small emergency light. The thought of seeing a robot like this, so vulnerable, soon to be built and shipped off to the nearest store – well, it scared Beau. How could Joshua, the boy he learned to grow and love after all this time, have looked like this before? He was as vulnerable as this bot right before Beau's eyes. How could he be like that?
"Beau." Ethylon kicked him in the arm. Beau nearly fell on his face, and he yelped quietly.
"C'mon. It looks like her room is right down the hall. Hurry your ass up."
Beau crawled in front of Ethylon, shuffling his knees along the carpet in order to move a little faster. Beau stood up, stretching his legs out and reaching for a doorknob, only to find himself with a locked door. Ethylon hissed after hearing Beau trying to open the locked door, angry because he had forgotten the doors were locked. He stood up with a loud, frustrated grunt, kicking the doorknob twice before it snapped off, and swung open with a loud clunk! Beau laughed to himself as Ethylon pushed Beau inside of the room.
"I'll stand guard. You hurry up and get her." Ethylon said before disappearing into the shadows without another word.
Beau tip-toed into the room, but Troia was not anywhere in sight. Of course, the room was dark, so maybe that was why he couldn't find her. He pulled a small flashlight from the back pocket of his jeans, pointing the light around the room. Tools and machines surrounded the room, but no Troia. He looked around the room for even a glimpse of blonde hair, but still no hints at where she could be.
Finally Beau came to a small gurney in the corner of the room. There laid a body with a sheet lifted over the face. He cringed at the sight of an outline of a body. It wasn't her.... For Joshua's sake, it couldn't have been Troia.
With a shaky hand, he moved the sheet away from their face. Blonde curls fell to the side as her face became apparent. It was Troia.
"Fuck." Beau mumbled, running his fingers along her chin. She was freezing. Beau remembered once when she hugged him, she was warm, but now, she was as freezing as a hunk of metal. And that's all she was.
Then a thought came to mind; How was he going to tell Joshua?
There was a sound of punches landing outside of the door, and Beau planted a soft kiss on Troia's cheek. He almost felt himself tear up. She was like a part of his family, and he had to go home and tell Joshua that she had been deactivated. They would take her body apart, use it for scraps on cars, weapons, things like that. She would be forgotten, nothing more than metal used on a stupid empyreal's car. And for what? For some fake suspicion that she was harboring a fugitive. Ridiculous!
Beau slipped past the door to find Ethylon searching an empyreal's body. He peeked at Beau.
“He's gone. I deactivated him.” He said through pants of breath. “What a persistent motherfucker. He didn't go down the first few times. Practically had to beat his head in.”
They dragged the empyreal's body to the corner of the hall before realizing the time; 11:15 p.m. They only had 15 minutes to get out of the building, and somehow make it back to Leighlan and Jaydin's hideout. They would never make it back in time, or at least, Beau thought they wouldn't. They would be at least a half an hour late, and Joshua.... Joshua! How would Beau tell Joshua that they would be late? He would probably just wait in the house until Beau got home. Beau hoped he did, for his safety.
“We better go.” Ethylon said. “Wait a minute. Where's the fembot?”
Beau shook his head, and Ethylon heaved a sudden breath, almost as though he were going to cry.
"Those bastards."
"We don't have enough time!" Beau said, jerking Ethylon's arm in his own. "Let's get moving!"
They ran out of the door of the building without paying much mind to camouflaging themselves. They only had so much time before the empyreals came back, and what if they were suddenly caught?
“Hey!” There was a gruff shout from behind them, and Ethylon began to sprint with the sound of his voice.
“The good thing,” Ethylon said between loud pants, “about being on the run is that you learn the streets.” Ethylon jerked Beau down the street into an alleyway where there was yet another underground cyberspace. The empyreals would never find them down there.
“C'mon.” Ethylon said, pulling them over to a station where empty tracks awaited them. They could run there unnoticed, since the underground trains were not used anymore. It would take a while, but it would be safer for Ethylon and Beau.
“Don't worry.” Ethylon said as they started the trek down the tracks. “Your bot is smart. He knows what he's doing.”
***
Beau walked down the streets, passing a few solar empyreals on the way down the street to his house. When he arrived back at Machinatio, he found that Jaydin was already asleep and Leighlan told him that he would give her his thanks tomorrow. Leighlan was a great bot, Beau thought. A great example of a human robot because of how real he seemed. Beau still preferred his emotional little Joshua more than any other robot though. Joshua was his world.
When Beau turned the corner, there as only one street light on through the entire street. The generators still hadn't created enough power to get the lights going again. It would be at least another hour before the lights came back on.
And perched on the doorsteps of the apartment was an auburn haired cutie with an umbrella. His shoulders were shaking, trembling from the drizzling rain that had begun while the power was still out. Beau hadn't noticed the rain while he and Ethylon were running. They weren't exactly preoccupied with the weather.
As he stepped closer, he noticed the small figure that he recognized to be his own wonderful bot, Joshua. Beau smiled to himself while walking closer to the front steps.
"Joshua." Beau said after taking one last step in front of his bot. Joshua looked up, his hair completely wet. "How long have you been out here?" His voice was deep through the silent rain. Joshua blinked innocently.
"You were late. You promised, master." Joshua's voice was quiet, hurt. Beau swallowed hard as his bot's eyes were wide, gleaming as though on the verge of tears. "You promised."
Beau pulled Joshua off of the steps, wrapping his arms around Joshua's shoulders. In a few seconds, Joshua nuzzled himself closer to his master, small sobs slipping past his lips. Beau felt terrible already, and he wasn't even in the door yet.
The ironic thing was was that Beau had killed a man without mercy that same night, and yet, when he saw Joshua sad even in the slightest, it made his heart ache.
"I'm so sorry, Joshua. I didn't mean to make you worry." Beau said, kissing the top of Joshua's head. He ran his fingers through Joshua's auburn hair. It was soaking wet, and he felt even worse after realizing that Joshua was freezing, just as Troia was.
"It's okay, master. I was scared." Joshua buried his face closer to Beau's chest. He was warm. "The girls are asleep. The lights aren't on though, master."
"Hush. Let's go inside. You're freezing."
As they walked inside of the apartment, the power slowly began to come back. First the heating, then the small things like the stereo, the alarm clock, everything else like that. The main lights would take at least another hour to turn on though. Beau realized as he walked in that the stereo was playing faintly.
“I'm sorry, master. I was listening to music to calm myself before the power went out.” Joshua said. Beau shook his head quickly as the strumming of a guitar came from the speakers.
"It's okay." Beau sat Joshua down on his lap. Joshua's breathing was steady as he sat in his master's arms, his cheek becoming warmer as he rested his face on Beau's almost dry shirt. Beau stroked his hair softly. It took him a minute to realize that Joshua was crying gently. Although no tears fell, he could hear the faintest little sobs.
"I don't bother on asking about Troia." Joshua mumbled. Beau's mind was stricken with the idea of the Troia. He had completely forgotten, and how? The entire walk home, he was dreading this moment. How had the idea just completely disappeared from his mind?
"I'm sorry, Joshua. They deactivated—"
“Please." Joshua begged quietly. "Please do not explain. At least you made it home safely."
Beau grabbed Joshua's chin, bringing his gaze up to his.
"I wouldn't care if I made it home or not. As long as I'm with you, Joshua, nothing else matters. We could be lost together, and I would be happy." Beau said. Joshua nodded once. "You don't realize what you mean to me. You're.... You've been driving me mad, Joshua. You're the one driving me crazy."
Joshua nodded while Beau placed soft kisses on his cheek.
Inside of his head, Beau was saying, “I love you,” over and over, but the only thing that came through his mouth was, "I'm sorry, Joshua." That was all Beau could do. While Joshua seemed to have forgiven him already, the idea of losing Joshua's best friend was killing him. How could he have failed his bot like that? It was almost like a stab to the heart himself. Beau could only imagine was Joshua was feeling.
At about 8:45, Beau slipped out of his bed, clothes already on his warm body. He hoped to leave a note on the counter for Joshua should he wake up. He also hoped to be to the Main and back before anybody realized he was gone, but just in case. Ethylon said the operation would be a bit tricky, but other very easy as long as the power was out in all of the towns. Ethylon said he had a girl with plenty of smarts, hacking skills, so she could easily keep the power for at least an hour. That would be enough to, as long as they found Troia within a half an hour of their arrival.
Beau leaned over the counter, pen and paper in hand, when there came the faintest sound of a door opening. Beau glanced at the door, and found Joshua standing there. His auburn hair was messy at the sides of his face, and he rubbed his eye gingerly while staring at Beau. He yawned quietly.
“Master.” Joshua mumbled. “What are you doing?”
Beau dropped the pen and paper. No use in leaving a note now, he thought.
“I'm... I'm going to get Troia. I need you to stay here, Joshua. You have to watch the girls for me.” Beau said, smiling at the sudden squeak his bot gave him. “I promise I'll be back.”
“You're leaving?” Joshua said frantically. “You're leaving us alone? Master, I- I–“
“Shush.” Beau placed his finger on Joshua's lips. “Don't worry. I'll be home in no time.”
“How long is no time?” Joshua asked uneasily. Beau wrapped his arms around Joshua's shoulders, rocking their bodies back and forth in a steady rhythm.
“I'll be back at midnight. Only three hours. And I'll have Troia at my side.” Beau said. Joshua looked up at his master with cautious eyes. He didn't asks his master to do such a dangerous task, and he never would. But Beau took this challenge upon himself, and Joshua couldn't tell him otherwise.
“Please be careful.” Joshua murmured. Beau pulled away from the embrace and nodded. “If you aren't back by midnight, I.... I don't know what I will do, master.” Joshua said weakly.
“I promise.” Beau wrapped his pink around Joshua’s. He had learned of a pinky promise when he was six, and he had been using them ever since. It somehow meant more when you pinky promised, rather than just a verbal promise. “Don't worry. Just stay inside with the girls. But as a warning, Joshua,” Beau paused, “the power will go out sometime around 10 p.m., but you must keep the girls safe. And take care of yourself. I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you.”
“Yes, master.” Joshua nodded. “Beau leaned down, and he was tempted to press his lips against Joshua's. They were right there, and there was nothing else going on. Perhaps this would be his only chance to do so without disturbing the girls, or being interrupted by others. In fact, this had been the only time they had to themselves in days as Joshua was constantly frightened in front of Ethylon, and well, Beau was always with Ethylon in Machinatio.
But instead, Beau pressed a feathery kiss to Joshua's cheek and smiled.
“I'll be back before you know it. Go back to bed. When you open your eyes, I'll be right there.” Finally Joshua nodded sleepily, pulling his body away from his master's. He shivered as the sudden warmth from Beau left his body.
“Please be careful.” Joshua repeated before turning his back on Beau and walking into his bedroom, shitting the door behind him after a few hesitant moments. Beau smiled to himself. Joshua had to have been the sweetest bot around.
***
Ethylon grabbed the back of the coffee shop owner's neck, slamming his face into the hard counter of the coffee shop. Cillian, and Beau and Ethylon had learned his name to be, had been closing shop at 9:30 while the empyreals were changing shifts. They had managed to slip through the night without being noticed for the most part. Cillian was Troia's master, the one who had been abusing her. His life hadn't even stopped with Troia being taken away. He was going to order another bot the next morning.
“What's her IP number, fucker?” Ethylon growled, pressing his arm against the back of Cillian's neck. Cillian coughed drops of blood, and Beau stood behind to watch. Ethylon told him to leave the dirty work up to him at this point, and that Beau would have plenty of time to do some when they breached the Main. “I said, what's her fucking IP?!”
“It' –“ Cillian coughed out a few more drops of blood into a pool that war forming around his cheek. “It's 29.182.253.287. Now, let me go!”
“I oughta kill you.” Ethylon growled, pulling Cillian off of the blood counter top only to wrap his finger hand around Cillian's throat, cutting off whatever air Cillian was getting. “Abusing your fucking bot like she's a piece of trash?”
Cillian looked up at Beau who smirked without mercy. He didn't feel bad for Cillian. He despised him with every fiber of his being.
“H-help.” He waved a hand at Beau who just took a step back, spitting in his direction. “You're such a nice guy. Y-you and your bot. The brown haired one. Y-you never act like such a b-brute in front of him.” Cillian said. Beau's nose scrunched in disgust. He knelt in front of Cillian, grabbing his chin with gloved fingers.
“Don't you dare talk about him. You don't know him, you don't know me, and you don't deserve to live.”
“Show some mercy.” Cillian begged. His breaths were short, his chest heaving up and down in desperate attempts to breathe. “Where's your heart?”
Beau stood up, turning his back on Cillian and heading towards the door. “Let him go, Ethylon.”
Ethylon released the weak human under his hold, throwing him down onto the tile floor. Ethylon kicked him in the side, the faint sound of a bone cracking filling the air. Cillian groaned, spitting into a pool of blood on the ground beside him. He dry-heaved before finally throwing up and falling onto the tile ground. Beau smiled at him.
A silent bullet went through the air, into the temple of Cillian's head. Ethylon slipped past the door of the coffee shop, concealing himself from the empyreals who had appeared a few streets away. Beau pushed the gun into a loop of his jeans while Ethylon urged him down an alley few empyreals ever searched.
There they found a staircase hidden by only a few trashcans. How oblivious this was, Beau thought. They slipped past the trashcans and fell into a staircase that led to a place that seemed like total cyberspace.
Underground, under their own feet, were others dancing. The music was deafening, so loud that Beau couldn't even hear his own thoughts. The beats were repetitive, and Ethylon somehow managed to worm his way through crowds of sweat ridden people. Women only wore small shorts and skirts, and a bra, their hair sticking to the sides of their faces. The men were all too confused to tell where their noses were, so they were relatively easy to push aside.
They found a hall leading down to two rooms. One was marked as dangerous.
“We don't go in there.” Ethylon stopped Beau in his tracks. “There's supposedly a bunch of drugs in there that we can't touch. Explicit shit that could kill all of us.” He continued. “We're going in this door.” Ethylon turned to his right where Beau could hear a woman screaming faintly. But she wasn't screaming in pain, nor pleasure, but with shouts of anger.
The door swung open to reveal a brown haired woman, perhaps not a day over 20, screaming a TV in front of her. Her fingers tapped at button on a remote in her hands. Her voice was mixed in with a young man's as well.
“C'mon, c'mon! You're losing!”
“Fuck, I can't move. Leighlan, revive me!”
“You can't stay alive for more than three minutes? Really?”
“Excuse me!”
The voices went back and forth, the girl jumping up multiple times to scream and yell at the TV. The black haired teen shouted along with her.
“Ahem.” Ethylon said. The girl barely glanced at Ethylon, then Beau.
"Take a load off, creatures. We'll be there in a second." She said before taking her attention away from them and turning back to the TV screen. Ethylon laughed under his breath, allowing Beau to walk into the room first. Beau plopped down on a bright purple beanbag, and Ethylon laid down on a neon yellow couch. To the right of them were a bunch of computer monitors with wires that went almost every which way.
"Fuck!" The girl shouted once as the boy next to her smiled triumphantly. They threw the remotes to the ground before the girl turned to both Ethylon and Beau with a smile on her face.
"Welcome to my humble abode! Sorry for my language, force of habit, and since Leighlan here keeps beating me at these games, it just gets worse."
"Hey!" The black haired boy said from his chair, standing up and straightening out his clothes long enough to reach his hand out to Beau. "Nice to meetcha. Leighlan Sumpter's the name."
"I'm Jaydin West." The brown haired beauty said from next to Leighlan. Beau smiled.
"Name's Beau." He shorthanded his sentence. "Beau Homem."
Ethylon snorted from next to Beau, probably because Beau didn't use his full last name. Beau shot him a nasty glance before turning his attention back to Jaydin and Leighlan.
"Whatdya need today, Ethylon?" Jaydin asked, crossing her arms over her chest with a pout on her bottom lip. "Some extra hacking? Lejend need a tune up? What's up?"
"We need a favor from the both of you." Ethylon said to the both of them, hanging upside-down on the couch. He was such a kid, Beau thought. "It'll be nothing for you, though."
"Well, spit it out." Jaydin said.
“We need you to hack the Main's server. Y'see, Beau's bot had his companion taken away. It's a really long story, but we need to get her back. You know that captives are held in the Main.” Ethylon watched as they both nodded eagerly. “We need the power to go out for at least an hour, so we can get in and out of there without a trace, or the empyreals to bug us. That's why we came to you.”
“Is that all?” Jaydin laughed. “We've done that millions of times before!”
“Well, what're we waitin' for?” Leighlan turned to Jaydin with a smug look on his face. “Wanna bet that I can keep the server down longer than you can?”
“You're on!” Jaydin shouted as Leighlan ran over to the kitchen, retrieving a few things for Jaydin. As Ethylon went to help Leighlan, Jaydin sat down next to Beau with a smile on her face.
"You're doing a really nice thing for your bot." She said softly. The entire time they were there, Jaydin had been loud, foul-mouthed, and snappy. The sudden change in attitude made Beau smile. How strange. "I know if anything like that happened to Leighlan, I would do the same thing."
"Leighlan's a bot?" Beau asked. Jaydin nodded quickly. "Oh.... Well, you wouldn't know by looking at him, or by the way he talks."
"Yeah. I don't have anything against people who program their bots to talk all formally. I actually love robots that are all polite and stuff like that, but I'm so rude sometimes." She paused, waving her hands slowly at her chest. "I mean, not to Leighlan. No, we just joke around, but I don't want to say anything that might confuse him. So I just let him pick up on my slang."
"Thanks for helping me. You're risking a lot."
Jaydin laughed. "Our life is risky. What's the fun in sticking to the rules? Live a little." She nudged Beau's shoulders.
"So are you and Leighlan, y'know...?" Beau trailed off suggestively. Jaydin's cheeks tinged with pink, and she grew even quieter than before.
“Nobody's really asked me about that before.” She murmured. “But.... I mean, I love Leighlan a lot. And I think he loves me too. I guess we're just like.... I don't know.” Jaydin finally answered without hesitation. “I guess we're just Jaydin and Leighlan. I don't mind living my life that way.”
Beau smiled. This girl had an entire other side to her that nobody really bothered to look at. Yes, she was a criminal, but every criminal has a background. Just as everybody judged Ethylon so sourly, everybody judged Jaydin just as quickly. To take a minute and get to know her meant creating a bond, one that Beau wouldn't sever anytime soon.
"Let's get started then." Leighlan shouted while walking into the room with four energy drinks at hand, and a bag full of gummy candies. Jaydin shot out of her seat and slid into the computer chair, tapping her fingers against the keyboard in front of her. She was moving so fast, Beau couldn't even process what buttons she was pushing, and Leighlan tapping away didn't help much either.
"All right... Power is set to go out at 10:30 p.m. You have—"
"—an hour and thirty minutes to get the bot,—"
"—get out of the Main—"
“—and haul ass before the backup generators come on.” Jaydin and Leighlan finished each others sentences as though working as one person. Together they hacked into the Main's defenses, breaking down the security the government claimed as “untouchable.” Foolish people, Beau always thought. Hacking was as easy as snapping his fingers, if he was willing to pay the price if captured.
"You got a good hour to get to the Main." Jaydin said. "Get out of here. You'll be there in time."
"You ready, Jaydin?" Leighlan turned to Jaydin with a smile on his face. It was so sincere, loving. Perhaps she did know what they were, something more than just a robot and its master. Jaydin's cheeks flushed, but she nodded.
"Ready." She said. Then she turned to Ethylon and Beau. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go!"
Ethylon started out of the door, and Beau was nearly out when Jaydin called his name.
"Be careful, okay?" She said, reminding him of his promise to Joshua. As much as he liked Jaydin, his promise to Joshua meant more when “be careful” was said. He would rather die than break his promise.
***
The Main always had their lives better than most people in the towns did. While some things didn't differ, there was the case of snootiness that the town had that suddenly made Beau want to sock somebody in the face. Whenever he and Ethylon looked into the streets after roaming the empty alleyways, they saw people with their noses high in the air, pouts on their lips, and a sense of haughtiness radiating from the expressions on their faces. Oh, how Beau wanted to bring one down to his level by punching them in the nose.
Just as planned, the lights flickered on and off at exactly 10:29 before they actually flashed once more and disappeared. People in the streets screamed helplessly while Ethylon and Beau continued to maneuver their way down the alleyways. The captive bion was only a few minutes away. Ethylon already had a way to sneak in, they just needed to wait until the empyreals cleared out.
Beau felt his body shaking in anticipation as the last empyreal cleared away, leaving the bion's doors unattended. Ethylon tugged on Beau's sleeve with a gloved finger before they crouched over and ran to the side door. Ethylon peeked his head inside, but the halls were dark and sounded empty. This was too easy, Beau thought. Too easy to get into a bion.
"Is this how you got out of bion, Ethylon?" Beau whispered. Ethylon laughed.
"Kind of. It's a really long story. I'll tell you about it one day, y'know, when I trust you enough." Ethylon whispered back as they slipped inside of the dark halls. Beau followed, nearly crawling on the floor just to avoid the glass windows which he hoped were empty.
"The rooms should have the first two numbers of her IP address. So it should say "29" on a room on the this flo—"
The sound of loud footsteps coming down the stairs stopped him in mid-sentence. "Get down!" He hissed, falling onto the dirty black carpet, blending in as his pants were a dark gray color, and his shirt a midnight black. Beau usually wore black, so he was very easy to camouflage among the dark carpet.
After the steps retreated, and the sound of a door closing came, Ethylon slid back on his knees, staring up at a few empty rooms. There were no numbers posted on the front of the door, only an empty slide where the number could be inserted.
Through a cracked door, Beau found himself looking at a bot who was unfinished. Only halfway through building him, the power had been turned off, and the only light left was a small emergency light. The thought of seeing a robot like this, so vulnerable, soon to be built and shipped off to the nearest store – well, it scared Beau. How could Joshua, the boy he learned to grow and love after all this time, have looked like this before? He was as vulnerable as this bot right before Beau's eyes. How could he be like that?
"Beau." Ethylon kicked him in the arm. Beau nearly fell on his face, and he yelped quietly.
"C'mon. It looks like her room is right down the hall. Hurry your ass up."
Beau crawled in front of Ethylon, shuffling his knees along the carpet in order to move a little faster. Beau stood up, stretching his legs out and reaching for a doorknob, only to find himself with a locked door. Ethylon hissed after hearing Beau trying to open the locked door, angry because he had forgotten the doors were locked. He stood up with a loud, frustrated grunt, kicking the doorknob twice before it snapped off, and swung open with a loud clunk! Beau laughed to himself as Ethylon pushed Beau inside of the room.
"I'll stand guard. You hurry up and get her." Ethylon said before disappearing into the shadows without another word.
Beau tip-toed into the room, but Troia was not anywhere in sight. Of course, the room was dark, so maybe that was why he couldn't find her. He pulled a small flashlight from the back pocket of his jeans, pointing the light around the room. Tools and machines surrounded the room, but no Troia. He looked around the room for even a glimpse of blonde hair, but still no hints at where she could be.
Finally Beau came to a small gurney in the corner of the room. There laid a body with a sheet lifted over the face. He cringed at the sight of an outline of a body. It wasn't her.... For Joshua's sake, it couldn't have been Troia.
With a shaky hand, he moved the sheet away from their face. Blonde curls fell to the side as her face became apparent. It was Troia.
"Fuck." Beau mumbled, running his fingers along her chin. She was freezing. Beau remembered once when she hugged him, she was warm, but now, she was as freezing as a hunk of metal. And that's all she was.
Then a thought came to mind; How was he going to tell Joshua?
There was a sound of punches landing outside of the door, and Beau planted a soft kiss on Troia's cheek. He almost felt himself tear up. She was like a part of his family, and he had to go home and tell Joshua that she had been deactivated. They would take her body apart, use it for scraps on cars, weapons, things like that. She would be forgotten, nothing more than metal used on a stupid empyreal's car. And for what? For some fake suspicion that she was harboring a fugitive. Ridiculous!
Beau slipped past the door to find Ethylon searching an empyreal's body. He peeked at Beau.
“He's gone. I deactivated him.” He said through pants of breath. “What a persistent motherfucker. He didn't go down the first few times. Practically had to beat his head in.”
They dragged the empyreal's body to the corner of the hall before realizing the time; 11:15 p.m. They only had 15 minutes to get out of the building, and somehow make it back to Leighlan and Jaydin's hideout. They would never make it back in time, or at least, Beau thought they wouldn't. They would be at least a half an hour late, and Joshua.... Joshua! How would Beau tell Joshua that they would be late? He would probably just wait in the house until Beau got home. Beau hoped he did, for his safety.
“We better go.” Ethylon said. “Wait a minute. Where's the fembot?”
Beau shook his head, and Ethylon heaved a sudden breath, almost as though he were going to cry.
"Those bastards."
"We don't have enough time!" Beau said, jerking Ethylon's arm in his own. "Let's get moving!"
They ran out of the door of the building without paying much mind to camouflaging themselves. They only had so much time before the empyreals came back, and what if they were suddenly caught?
“Hey!” There was a gruff shout from behind them, and Ethylon began to sprint with the sound of his voice.
“The good thing,” Ethylon said between loud pants, “about being on the run is that you learn the streets.” Ethylon jerked Beau down the street into an alleyway where there was yet another underground cyberspace. The empyreals would never find them down there.
“C'mon.” Ethylon said, pulling them over to a station where empty tracks awaited them. They could run there unnoticed, since the underground trains were not used anymore. It would take a while, but it would be safer for Ethylon and Beau.
“Don't worry.” Ethylon said as they started the trek down the tracks. “Your bot is smart. He knows what he's doing.”
***
Beau walked down the streets, passing a few solar empyreals on the way down the street to his house. When he arrived back at Machinatio, he found that Jaydin was already asleep and Leighlan told him that he would give her his thanks tomorrow. Leighlan was a great bot, Beau thought. A great example of a human robot because of how real he seemed. Beau still preferred his emotional little Joshua more than any other robot though. Joshua was his world.
When Beau turned the corner, there as only one street light on through the entire street. The generators still hadn't created enough power to get the lights going again. It would be at least another hour before the lights came back on.
And perched on the doorsteps of the apartment was an auburn haired cutie with an umbrella. His shoulders were shaking, trembling from the drizzling rain that had begun while the power was still out. Beau hadn't noticed the rain while he and Ethylon were running. They weren't exactly preoccupied with the weather.
As he stepped closer, he noticed the small figure that he recognized to be his own wonderful bot, Joshua. Beau smiled to himself while walking closer to the front steps.
"Joshua." Beau said after taking one last step in front of his bot. Joshua looked up, his hair completely wet. "How long have you been out here?" His voice was deep through the silent rain. Joshua blinked innocently.
"You were late. You promised, master." Joshua's voice was quiet, hurt. Beau swallowed hard as his bot's eyes were wide, gleaming as though on the verge of tears. "You promised."
Beau pulled Joshua off of the steps, wrapping his arms around Joshua's shoulders. In a few seconds, Joshua nuzzled himself closer to his master, small sobs slipping past his lips. Beau felt terrible already, and he wasn't even in the door yet.
The ironic thing was was that Beau had killed a man without mercy that same night, and yet, when he saw Joshua sad even in the slightest, it made his heart ache.
"I'm so sorry, Joshua. I didn't mean to make you worry." Beau said, kissing the top of Joshua's head. He ran his fingers through Joshua's auburn hair. It was soaking wet, and he felt even worse after realizing that Joshua was freezing, just as Troia was.
"It's okay, master. I was scared." Joshua buried his face closer to Beau's chest. He was warm. "The girls are asleep. The lights aren't on though, master."
"Hush. Let's go inside. You're freezing."
As they walked inside of the apartment, the power slowly began to come back. First the heating, then the small things like the stereo, the alarm clock, everything else like that. The main lights would take at least another hour to turn on though. Beau realized as he walked in that the stereo was playing faintly.
“I'm sorry, master. I was listening to music to calm myself before the power went out.” Joshua said. Beau shook his head quickly as the strumming of a guitar came from the speakers.
"It's okay." Beau sat Joshua down on his lap. Joshua's breathing was steady as he sat in his master's arms, his cheek becoming warmer as he rested his face on Beau's almost dry shirt. Beau stroked his hair softly. It took him a minute to realize that Joshua was crying gently. Although no tears fell, he could hear the faintest little sobs.
"I don't bother on asking about Troia." Joshua mumbled. Beau's mind was stricken with the idea of the Troia. He had completely forgotten, and how? The entire walk home, he was dreading this moment. How had the idea just completely disappeared from his mind?
"I'm sorry, Joshua. They deactivated—"
“Please." Joshua begged quietly. "Please do not explain. At least you made it home safely."
Beau grabbed Joshua's chin, bringing his gaze up to his.
"I wouldn't care if I made it home or not. As long as I'm with you, Joshua, nothing else matters. We could be lost together, and I would be happy." Beau said. Joshua nodded once. "You don't realize what you mean to me. You're.... You've been driving me mad, Joshua. You're the one driving me crazy."
Joshua nodded while Beau placed soft kisses on his cheek.
Inside of his head, Beau was saying, “I love you,” over and over, but the only thing that came through his mouth was, "I'm sorry, Joshua." That was all Beau could do. While Joshua seemed to have forgiven him already, the idea of losing Joshua's best friend was killing him. How could he have failed his bot like that? It was almost like a stab to the heart himself. Beau could only imagine was Joshua was feeling.