Human After All (II)

Imprisonment was nothing for Beau to talk about. He and Ethylon were under constant supervision of the officers, in maximum security cells. They had two hours to talk to each other each day, but nothing more. Beau wasn't sure if he missed the social interaction at all. His own thoughts kept him company, and the idea of Joshua being returned to him with all of his memory, his natural emotions, his life back, just thrilled him to no end. Of course, Beau still had another month of imprisonment left, and then the four months of house arrest. House arrest was easy though, because all he had was an anklet, that alerted the officers he was out of his moving range. If he wanted to go to a different district, all he had to do was call an official, ask for permission, and then wait an hour. Then off he would go.

Ethylon slept quietly in the cell beside Beau. He could tell by the way the officers had relaxed some. They didn't have to be on guard while he slept.

Pain raked its cold fingers on Beau's chest, icy trails of fear left in its wake. Beau shivered, and then grasped at his chest as a sharp ache made its way through his scar. Phantom pains had never left Beau alone, and he thought they probably never would. Oh, how he wanted Mr. Rager to die slower. More painfully.

The guard tapped at the door of the cell. Beau looked up, and was greeted by a sweet nurse's face instead. She entered quietly, her white high heels clacking against the floor. She brought in her hand a cap filled with two pink, marble sized pills. Beau heaved a sigh, pushing his head into his pillow.

“I saw you grabbing your chest.” The woman said. “We don't want you in pain, here, Beau. You had enough of that already.”

“Really, I'm fine.” Beau murmured. She shook her head, pushing a few buttons on the wall. She grabbed a water bottle that slid down a chute beside Beau's bed. “You don't have to do all this. It's just a little heartache for Joshua.”

“Beau. Take the pills, and I'll leave. I promise.”

Beau groaned, pushing himself up on his good leg, and taking the two marble sized pills. The nurse warned him not to take both of them at the same time, but he did it anyways. They stuck in his throat, until Beau chugged down the bottle of water as if there were no tomorrow. The nurse shook her head in discontent.

“When you leave, I don't know what I'll do with myself.” She said. Beau looked up at her, quizzically. “You, and Ethylon, are probably the only prisoners I have ever had who seem remotely sane. Everybody else in here acts like they were born in a barn, and they surely don't respect a lady.”

“I'm... sorry?” Beau was unsure of what to say. He hardly knew this nurse, yet she admitted she would miss them. She was going to miss two criminals.

“Don't be.” She said quickly. “I'm actually glad you two will be getting out soon. This is no place for a couple of geniuses such as yourself. No, no.” She wagged her finger in front of Beau. She looked behind her, to make sure there was no guard standing at the door, listening. She then checked the corners of the rooms very quickly for voice recorders. She smiled.

“Our world isn't a perfect place, and it never will be. No matter how many lies they tell us, the public, the government, and anyone else who will listen, it won't be. But you two...” She paused. “You two can change the world. And I want you two to get out of here as quickly as possible, and change. Because if you don't... who will?”

***

Drops of rain pitter-pattered into the lakes around the college campus, distracting Beau from paying attention to his class work. Perhaps it was the amazing scenery that grew around the town now that the officers weren't wrecking it constantly, or the fact that three months had already passed and Rowan had called him just last night to say that the process would be finished a bit earlier, that distracted him from paying attention in class. Maybe it was the fact that just a few months earlier, Beau had looked death in the face multiple times and smiled. It honestly could have been anything of those experiences.

The fact that Joshua was in the Main, instead of with Beau, just killed him. Beau had plenty of homework, and he had started to work at a bar during late shifts in order to push himself away from his parents (who didn't know when to stop asking if he was all right), so it wasn't like Beau could just hop on a train to the Main whenever he felt like it. He also had to notify an official when he wanted to visit Joshua, since he was still on house arrest. Beau did visit Joshua a month ago to leave a few roses, amidst many notes and gifts from others who felt sympathy for their situation.

Beau turned to the board the teacher worked upon while her words were transferred into words on the screen. He couldn't pay attention much to watch what she was writing, though. An aching pain upon his back kept him from truly focusing on the work. Beau had forgotten to take his medication that morning, and now aches and ghost pains lingered upon his vulnerable flesh.

The Main had given him a bit of expensive medicine (courtesy of Rowan). The clear liquid had to be taken twice a day, once in the morning and once before sleep. It always burned on the way down Beau's throat, but it did help his pain more than expected.

A sharp needle-like feeling struck through his leg where the bullet had entered his flesh at one point. Beau hissed, rubbing the back of his leg with a tender touch. The woman next to him popped her gum, watching as Beau massaged his leg.

"You're the one who was in the Main, right?" She whispered. Beau nodded, brushing his long, and almost wavy tendrils of hair away from his face. "Was it scary?"

Beau scoffed at her.

"What?" She asked quickly. "Was it not scary? I heard you got shot, and your mate too. Is that scar on your cheek from the empyreals? It's pretty deep. What did they do?" She paused, and Beau thanked an imaginary deity that she finally stopped asking questions. Then she took a long breath. "Don't you think it's a bit suspicious that President Gile just let you do whatever you wanted, and let you and Ethylon barter with her? I mean, wouldn't she have more important stuff to do to you, like fine you more, or imprison you for longer?"

Beau held his hands in fists under the desk, turning away from her. The other woman next to him noticed how annoyed he was becoming, and she tried to whisper something to Beau in order to calm him. Beau just smiled vaguely at her, turning his attention back to the girl who rambled on.

"I heard she only let you go because her re-election is coming back up. Can you imagine how bad it would look if she just denied you freedom, and then tried to get re-elected? But I'm still confused as to how she was magically in a helicopter at the exact same time that you were attempting to escape. I think she probably heard something about these rebellious kids, and then she thought she'd use it to her advantage! That would be smart. Y'know, I also heard that..."

Beau tried focusing on the board yet again, but her chattering got the best of him, and Beau focused intensely on her words. Even the pain upon his flesh almost became almost numb as anger and rage filled his entire body.

"Honesty, I think she's gonna do something in the future. I mean. it's not like she's the best president we've had, but we didn't have any better choices back then. I heard there's a better candidate this year, and Gile really wants to beat him." She paused again. "I wonder if he got elected if he would put all of you and your friends back in Bion. Y'know, for his own reputation. Anyways—"

Beau slammed his hands against the table in front of him, pushing his chair out with a loud screech. Both women gasped beside him, while the others turned and watched intently. The professor called out his name, though Beau paid no mind. If the woman next to him wanted his attention so bad, Beau would give it to her.

Beau pulled her out of her seat, forcing her to keep her gaze level with his.

"I have scars." Beau said. "I have visible scars all over my body. To be honest, I don't even care about them much. But it's those deep rooted, emotional scars that will get me for the rest of my life."

"Beau!" The professor’s voice rose shrilly.

"I keep having this dream. It's not too strange. Just this thing where I'm tied up to this post in the middle of a room, and this... dictator shows up. At first, my body is really numb, so I can't feel anything that he's doing. I can see him moving, his hands are jabbing a knife into my flesh, but there's no feeling, no sensation of that knife sliding through your flesh like butter. I get used to the numbness for a while. And then, all of the sudden, there's this huge rush of pain that floods through my body, through every single little vein." Beau said with pauses between his last few words. "I try to keep myself conscious, I can hardly keep my eyes open."

"Beau Homem-Christo, if you do not sit down, I will have someone escort you."

"Then there's this blood curdling scream that sounds like fingernails slowly dragging against a black board." Beau imitated the screech, making everybody in the class shiver and groan at the thought of it. "The noise is my bot screaming after screaming for hours. My precious, precious bot, that I care for with my life, is dying! And I can't even move to save him, because I'm still tied up, being beaten by that fucking monster."

The woman swallowed hard in front of him.

"When I do wake up, the pains come back. O-on my chest, my cheek, my back and my knee; they all burn. They feel like I put acid all over them, and I can't- I can't feel my limbs anymore. All the pain is focused in my chest, and then it feels like my heart is going to explode. Then... it stops. My heart is pounding, and I can feel this pulse within my head." Beau finished his story with heavy pants of breath. "So no, I haven't had all the time in the fucking world to think about how suspicious Gile was acting. I've hardly had time to breathe. I thought coming here would help, maybe take some of the pain away by becoming normal again," He took a long breath, "but then I come here and meet people like you, and I can't even—"

"Beau." A nurse pulled gently on his arms, tugging him away from the woman. The teacher had called her in a matter of seconds as Beau was yelling at the woman. The nurse murmured small reassurances to him in order to make Beau move his stiff arms away from the girl's collar. When Beau finally did move his arms, it felt like he had given up. His hands went limp, and his knees practically buckled underneath him. Beau realized he went too far with the girl. She was just another curious person. He couldn't blame her. Perhaps it was just the constant meddling from others that had been piling up over time that made him so angry that he just burst.

"Sorry." Beau muttered to the woman before the nurse gently coaxed him into leaving the class room.

"I told you that if it was too much to be here, Beau, that you shouldn't have came." The nurse said. Beau finally looked up at her pudgy figure to find that it was Aberdeen, one of the nicer, yet still strict nurses of the school. When Beau first entered the school, he was treated like near royalty, though he told them not to. He was only as human, if not less, than any of the others in the class. The only person that didn't treat him as royalty was Aberdeen. She never thought of anyone as any more important than the next. Beau deserved the same care as the person next to him, no more and no less.

"I know." Beau replied quietly.

"You are still very scarred, Beau. I say you just go home and rest."

"But when I rest, I'm in pain." Beau said with fear dripping in every note of his voice. "I can't. It comes back. And the worst part is that nobody is there."

"I'm sure you could find a nurse to keep on call."

"No." Beau said quickly. "I don't need a nurse. I just need someone to be there, Aberdeen. Just someone to tell me I'm still human."

"And how long has it been since the incident? How much longer?" Aberdeen hinted at Joshua's situation without actually saying his name. She would avoid any chance of upsetting Beau at the moment, and just the thought of Joshua was enough to make Beau depressed. He had been handling the situation a bit better than before, though.

Beau sighed, knitting his brows together in frustration. "I think two months and three weeks, almost three months...."

"Well, I'm sure it will seem like time flew by before you realize he's back." Aberdeen said. "But now you need to rest a bit. Do you wanna go home, or you just wanna rest in my office?"

Aberdeen placed the backs of her hands upon Beau's cheeks. They were burning, though also unnaturally pale. She pursed her lips slightly, wiping away beads of sweat from his brow.

"I think you should go home. Take an extra dose of medication when you get home. You need it."

"No, I can stay here. Just give me a few minutes in your office." Beau argued, nearly tripping when his bad leg gave out on him. Aberdeen crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently, to which Beau replied with an innocent, "What?" She pursed her lips even more, and Beau sighed heavily.

"Fine, but you have to excuse me from my school work. I can't get it done if I'm not here to learn about it, Aberdeen."

"Okay then." Aberdeen agreed easily before telling Beau to get his bag from the last class he was in. She made sure to follow so he didn't snap again. It didn't take much anymore to make him angry. It seemed like everybody had an opinion about him and Joshua, and it was usually negative. Others would tell him that Joshua wasn't worth the fight, that he was only a bot that could be made like any other. No matter how many times Beau explained to them that they were genuine people at one point, none of them seemed to care. Things were only about their benefit.

Being in the Main changed Beau as a human being. His life wasn't about games and petty differences between robots. It was about the lives that had been lost on the day of the rebellion. How many of them had never said goodbye to their family members, only to be awaken and be some other thing completely? Sure, they wouldn't remember their previous lives, but they were humans at one point, and Beau would never forget that.

After Beau picked up his bag from the back of the classroom, he started down the hall with the slight limp from his bad leg. It had yet to heal entirely, though it didn't really bother Beau anymore. He had grown used to the slow skip in his step.

***

"Beau, honey, are you sure you're okay?" His mother asked. Beau scoffed, nearly hanging up on his mother as she was always ridiculously annoying about his health. Even though he had a mother who loved him and worried for his health, there was a time where asking if he was okay became too much. Beau wasn't going to get better in a few nights. Beau wouldn't be healed even in a year. Some of the scars were permanent, both mentally and physically.

"I'm fine, mom."

"Are you sure? Oh, honey, let me make dinner for you. I'll pick up some pasta, maybe a little bit of—"

"Mom, I'm 19 years old. I can take care of myself."

"Apparently you can't because you haven't slept in a few nights and you haven't eaten in who-knows-how long, and then there's—"

"Mom." Beau snapped. "You're smothering me."

"I'm only smothering you with love."

"You're smothering me with your stupid problems!" Beau's haste got the best of him, and his voice grew in tone as well as anger. "If you suffocated me with your problems any more, mom, I'd be dead. I know you just want to take care of me, but I'm not going to get better in a day. When you call every single day, it doesn't show you love me, it just shows that you don't know what I'm going through and you think I should feel better in a few fucking days." Beau cussed, something he didn't usually do in front of his mother. She always thought Beau was her little boy, but Beau had grown far from it. If only she knew.... "You need to stop calling me. Pretty soon I'm just gonna stop answering."

There was a small sob from the other line of the conversation after minutes of silence, and guilt flooded through Beau's veins, though he didn't murmur anything of apology. His mother knew he loved her, but there came a time where she would have to admit that this is the best her son is ever going to be."

"It's all that bot's fault, isn't it?" She said through sniffles. "If you had never gotten that stupid bot, you wouldn't be speaking this way to me. You wouldn't have ever met that criminally insane boy, Ethylon, and you would still be my boy."

"Mom, shut up!" Their voices overlapped, though Beau was far more angry. Not only was she saying Ethylon was crazy, she was calling the love of his life stupid? Beau could care less if she was crying, or if she was 'trying to be a mother'. There came a time where it was just too much. "You just don't know when to be quiet. Now I have a migraine, thanks mommy dearest!" Beau's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Beau, I'm bringing food— I don't care if you don't want it. I am your mother, and you shall respect me as such."

"I'm not gonna open the door." Beau said. "Don't bother. I-I gotta go to bed, mom."

"Okay, honey, I lo—"

Beau hung up on her before she could finish, or else he would somehow manage to get in another argument with her and only further the ache within his head. It throbbed like a heartbeat that wouldn't slow down.

Not even the comforting sound of his other bots, Dahlia, Kiyah and Leslie, playing in the living room came because they had been lost within the Main building. Beau didn't want to imagine what they were used for. Scrap metal, guns, cars, anything useful to the Main; whatever they were turned into, Beau could never find them again. He only regretted not looking harder for them.

The pulse of pain continued from Beau's head down to his chest where Mr. Rager had once cut him. The scar ghosted with pain of a knife slicing through the flesh like butter. Then, as Beau fell into a deep, numb sleep, the nightmares came back, beginning with that one, piercing shriek from his only surviving bot.

***

There was a knock at the door.

Beau pushed himself out of his bed with sweat around his face, making some of his hair stick to his skin. He slipped on a loose white t-shirt, forcing himself to open his bedroom door and trudge across the living room. Beau thought he should be thanking the person behind the door though, because there came a new memory from the Main that was forming to be a nightmare. Beau dreamt of Joshua being shot for the first time, though it was cut short because somebody had knocked.

From the stereo in Beau's bedroom came the sound of a faint guitar playing, though he couldn't tell what song it was. He could tell it was from one of Joshua's favorite artists, but the track was still unintelligible.

Another impatient knock and Beau huffed.

"I'm comin'!" He replied lazily, unlocking the door without checking to see who it was behind the door, unusual because Beau was very paranoid after escaping the Main. Anybody could hurt him, or so he thought. Perhaps his laziness got the best of him tonight.

"Hey." Ethylon said quietly. Beau raised his brows slightly, stepping aside in pure shock. Ethylon hadn't been out in two weeks, or at least that was the last time Beau saw him. They had grown apart after the incident. Beau suspected it was because Ethylon had been through as much, if not more than Beau had in the Main, and he needed to process it all. "It's been a while."

"Yeah." Beau replied softly. "Come in." He motioned. Ethylon made his way into the familiar apartment, glancing at his surroundings.

The living room had blankets and pillows strewn across it, while a few pain pills sat on the small table in front of a television, which hadn't been touched in nearly three months. Everything on TV was about "the boys who escaped from the Main", and Beau wasn't too interested in it anymore. They made Beau out to be an amazing hero who saved millions of lives, when he didn't do anything close to that. In fact, Beau was more of a coward than anything. Not facing any of the officers, not saving other bots, or staying by his friend Leighlan. No, Beau just ran, and that made him despicable, or at least, in his mind it did.

Moving onto the kitchen, which was completely untouched. It usually had dishes all around it from Joshua's constant cooking, but Beau had avoided using it much. Coffee seemed too strong anymore (Joshua made it just fine, Beau thought). Takeout food was Beau's standby.

Joshua's room had remained untouched for the entire three months. Beau didn't like to look in there because it felt so empty knowing that Joshua wasn't even in the same town.

"Sorry about the mess." Beau murmured, pushing his shoes out of the living room, along with layers of clothes and blankets. Ethylon laughed.

"You should see my place. I'm lucky Lejend is there, or else I would have died from garbage suffocation."

"She cleans?" Beau asked.

"I told her not to. But I think she has this obsession now with being clean. Ever since we got that little house, she just started cleaning shit." Ethylon snickered.

They avoided the topic that was actually screwing around with their heads. Neither of them knew what would happen after this, especially since the election was coming up, and small rebellions throughout each of the towns were a reoccurring incident. They had started a movement, and they couldn't stop it unless they became the government's dogs. Beau knew for certain that Ethylon would never do that, and Beau wasn't so sure he would be up for it either.

"When we first got the house, I cleaned her up with a towel, and it was like she was a completely different bot. Her face was so perfect. I guess I just never realized it until a while ago."

"But they couldn't transfer her?" Beau asked. Ethylon's eyebrows furrowed, and he sighed gently.

"Yeah.... I mean, they could have transferred her if I wanted... B-but...." Ethylon paused, chewing on his bottom lip. "Rowan offered to transfer Lejend's memories and stuff i-into August's body."

"Oh shit." Beau said without thinking, covering his mouth with a rough hand.

"It's fine." Ethylon nodded. "I said the same thing. But I just couldn't do it. Ya know? August was.... August still is the love of my life. I think it would feel like I was defying her if I moved Lejend into her body." Ethylon nodded to himself. "Yeah, so that's why I didn't do it. And besides, Lejend is my bot and best friend, and her being human wouldn't change that at all."

Ethylon sat down on the couch, to which Beau sat down on the ground across from him, continuing their conversation that seemed to dance around a troubling subject of the future. Beau thought he should bring it up, but in all honesty, It was nice to act oblivious to everything around them. It was like the world was almost normal again, and sound of mind was one of many things Beau appreciated from Ethylon.