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The nights rest was disturbed by the noise of sirens, once again. It wasn't uncommon, in fact it happened at least once a week, mostly multiple times. Today he heard the sirens of the fire fighters, he was pretty sure. They would probably calm down in a little bit but he already knew that he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep for the next few hours so he might as well just open his eyes and embrace it.
He looked at the ceiling of his crappy apartment. The light was dim but he could make out the details, mostly because he knew they were there. His ceiling had pipes and some cables attached to it and sometimes he imagined what would happen if they just crashed down on him. They couldn't kill him but he also didn't want the whole buildings water in his room.
The lights started flickering outside, throwing red and blue on his ceiling and a bit on his face. He closed his eyelids for another moment because it almost hurt. He felt sensitive to light lately, he probably should get that checked out. After a moment he sat up. He had slept on a mattress on the floor, right under a window. So as soon as he got up on his knees he could open the window and look outside.
The view outside his window was always ugly. There was another house like right in front of it with only a very narrow street between them. The other building looked almost in worse condition than the one he lived in, if that was even possible. It was by far the cheapest dirthole he could have found but he was fine with it. He didn't have to pay a lot for it so he could save up the rest of the money.
He looked down to the narrow street. His apartment was so far up he would be jam if he fell out of the window. And of course there were only stairs to reach it. He saw people standing down there, everything pretty normal if there wouldn't have been the smoke. The building right across from him was burning, on a lower level. So that's why the fire fighters were here, he could see their vehicle at the corner of the building. Their light was still shining into his face and he squinted his eyes a bit. The shine actually hurt. Something must be very wrong with his eyes.
He watched what was going on for a little while. Crossed his arms on the window sill and enjoyed not being involved in what was going on. This corner of town was one where you didn't want to get caught up in anyones shit and so did he. He also didn't know anyone from there and people lost their lives or homes every day. That wasn't his problem. The firefighters entered the building, probably to look for survivers. He was honestly surprised they would even do that, he had the feeling no one cared about the residents here. He watched them disappear into the building and looked at a few flames he could see through a window. The smoke was getting worse. Luckily it wasn't drawing directly into his face, but he could still smell it. He was probably still gonna have the problem that his whole apartment would stink like smoke for a week but watching this was worth it. So he looked at the other windows, seeing if he could catch a glimpse at something the firefighters were doing.
Something caught his eye. Behind one of the windows, on a level higher than his, was a movement. The window then opened and someone leaned out. He could make out a pale face framed by long hair and beaming blue eyes. They were glowing even, so the person sure as hell had some cyber stuff going on. He watched what they would do, interested because the window was so high up. There was no way the person could jump out of the window. Why did they not just wait for the firefighters? Oh well, probably had some illegal shit going on, who didn't.
The person seemed to check how things looked, then disappeared again. No shit, he hadn't expected anything else. At least until the person came back. Swung his arm and threw something. He could hear glass break. Before he realized what the person was doing or planning, he saw a ladder appear through the window. The person was putting a ladder between their window and one in his building to get out of the burning house.
He was impressed. Watched the Person climb onto the ladder. They were dressed in all black and now he could also see how fucking long their hair was. Almost no one wore their hair in that length anymore, everyone wanted to be stylish and fresh, not have the flattest black hair without bangs. It took the person what felt like two seconds to keep down and walk over the ladder. They must be doing that quite often. Then they were out of his sight and he wondered what they were gonna do. There was no fire ladder on this building because no one gave a single shit about safety, so they had to take the staircase. For his own amusement he got up and sprinted over to his door, opened it a tiny bit and peaked outside to see if the person would dash past his front door.
It took only a short moment and he could hear their heavy footsteps dashing down the stairs. They sure were in a hurry. He opened the door a bit wider to see better. Then the person appeared and he could take a quick but closer look. The eyes were really glowing and he was sure the face he saw for a split second was rather masculine. The dude dressed in black dashed past his door and down the next set of stairs. He smiled to himself. Didn't know why but a weird feeling made him shout after the person. "Take the red exit door, not the black one, else you'll run into the firefighters!"
The stomping steps stopped. There was an eerie silence in the small, dirty staircase, before he heard shifting, then the steps continued to get down the stairs. He chuckled a bit and closed the door, went back to the window. He stood there for a while but the man didn't get in sight. Apparently he had taken the red door like he said. It made him feel a tiny bit of euphoria. To know a random stranger had apparently decided to trust him, or maybe they just had a super brain and had been able to keep in mind which direction they were facing once they were on the entrance floor. Whatever it was, the long haired man had successfully avoided running into the fire fighters arms. And he let himself fall back onto his mattress, looking back at the ceiling with the pipes and the cables. This was probably the most exiting thing that had happened in a few weeks. Life was boring, life was dull. Maybe sometimes you just needed a little action. He closed his eyes. Couldn't fall back asleep just yet but just drifted off a bit, thinking about this and that. About having to go back to work soon, about his shit this apartment was. But it was okay.The next time he woke up it was by shouting. As soon as he opened his eyes he realized he had forgotten to close his window. He yawned, sat up and looked outside. The light was barely better than last night but it was the most sunlight you could possibly get these days. The sun was clouded, it never came through but you still got a bit of grey, ugly light through them. He was sure he knew what actually happened but he had never paid enough attention in school because he simply didn't care, he couldn't bring back the sunlight anyway.
He saw people in front of the neighbour building, they must be the ones screaming. They wore classic construction site clothes, so he guessed their job was to do something about the burn damage. There were black stains everywhere on the building, you could see that the smoke had left through the windows, open or closed. A bit of wind was to be felt through the two buildings, still carrying over the burn smell. He hated it, but he was curious anyway. Curiosity killed the cat, because thats always got him into situations he shouldn't be in, much as today. He looked up and saw that the ladder was gone. And while he still wondered who might have taken it away, he noticed a movement, again, behind the same window.
He saw a person. With long black hair and black clothes, of course. The dude from last night had returned, even though he was sure that no one was allowed in the building right now. Either it was his apartment or he had been looking for something when it happened, now back to continue looking. The man seemed pretty calm. From what he could make out, the other was really looking through stuff, probably burned down furniture.
He stood up from his mattress and looked away from the window. A look onto his phone told him that it was still multiple hours until he had to get to work, but since he was awake now he might as well get dressed. So he looked through multiple stacks and heaps of clothes on he floor of his one room apartment. It was a very cramped room. A few closets and shelves and a lot of boxes he had never packed out after moving here. He also didn't plan on staying here forever, so he couldn't mind less. He had hung up a lot of stuff on the walls though, just do it didn't feel so empty and had more personality. A lot of posters from bands or movies, most of them stolen from ads at bus stops or similar. He had a few traffic signs and a stack of tires that he used to sit down sometimes. It was the best he could make out of what he had right now.
After a little while of digging he found a shirt that smelled relatively clean and threw it on. He remained in his boxers for the time being because he didn't have to leave yet. He went over to his small kitchen corner that was literally just a mini fridge, a microwave and a counter and rummaged through his stuff for something to eat. He found a packaged thing that promised to be a sandwich but tasted like dust and figured it was enough for now, so he ripped of the plastic and took a bite out of it. He went back to the window. He was really bored and this was the most entertainment he could get right now.
To his surprise, there was a police car in the street between the two houses. Now this started to get interesting, because he had a feeling they were here for the guy with the long black hair. He looked up to the window he had seen him at, but he wasn't there anymore. Maybe he was gone already, but the policemen didn't make any noise. Maybe he just hadn't spotted them yet.
He did quite some thinking. Did he want to get involved in this? Well, he hated the cops too and he was sure that even if they rang on his door, he could defend himself. He had a job and nothing illegal in his apartment, at least nowhere they could find it. So he looked around himself, trying to come up with something helpful.
He didn't want to alarm the police. The only good thing he could come up with was his flash light. He dug it out, went back to the window, pointed it at the window he had seen the guy at and turned it on. He could change the colours, so he did that and turned it on and off rapidly. If it didn't help then it didn't help. He did that for a short while and just when he wanted to turn off the flash light because he felt like giving up, the man appeared.
He shielded his face with a hand and looked right over to him. In daylight, his features were more visible now. He seemed to have technical implants on his face just like himself, his neck and jaw were deep black and not only were his irides glowing blue, the white of his eyes was black too. He looked like one of the people who had way more illegal shit going on than was good for them. The apartment he was in must have burned quite a lot too because there was something stuck all over his hair and face, as well as his clothes. It looked like ashes. The man held up a hand and pointed him the middle finger. He almost laughed about it, but instead he pointed down, towards the street. Immediately, the man looked down and he ran away from the window as fast as he could. It was an amusing sight. Apparently they were there for him and he had just helped him to escape- again. At least he didn't see the man anymore after that. He checked a few times before he had to go to work and the police eventually left without anyone with them. Another day he had successfully impeded the polices work and it raised his mood a big lot, so much he could actually go to work with a smile even though it was very boring and he hated doing it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He arrived early to work and with a big smile on his face. In thoughts he was still with the mysterious man he had saved twice already without any reason, just because he was bored. He was sure the man with the beaming blue eyes, he decided to just call him Beam for now, would come back because he had been interrupted again. Maybe he could also save him again, that would be very funny. And something he could think back to for the rest of his life.
“Chris!” He heard someone shout his name before he could open the door to his workplace. It was one of the men he worked with, Ryan. They were friends, actually. He greeted Ryan in return and entered the building.
It was a big noisy hall. Had a big free space in front of it that was filled with cars and motorcycles. His job was to repair vehicles in fact. He didn’t know how to hack or program computers like most people these days, but he understood most of the analogue technology. He could fix cars, eavesdrop on telephones, steal a train or build a motherboard out of a paper-clip and a lunch box. Okay, that was over exaggerated but you get the deal.
Here at work he only fixed cars though. They also had another, smaller hall where they fixed problems in the vehicles programming and those people always looked down on him, Ryan and the few other ones. People tended to forget they couldn’t program a device if no one build it first.
Chris went over to his work desk and put down a bag he had brought along. Everything here was kinda dirty too. Tools were laying around, metal pieces and cut off cables on the floor. Paper and documents laying around with handprints on them because everything was dusty and your hands were never really clean. It was part of the job and he was fine with it as long as he could take a shower at home. Yeah okay, he didn't hate his job, not exactly. But he actually wanted to do something else than repairing vehicles all day. He couldn't tell what it was he wanted to do, though. He just knew that it wasn't this.
When Ryan had left his stuff at his work desk too, he came back over to him. sat on Chris desk and started to tell him about a movie he had watched with his wife last night. When Chris told him that he had watched his neighbour house burn down, Ryan frowned though. He didn't blame him. He knew that he was weird sometimes, at least to his friend. The other man was older, more settled down. Always stood out of trouble, went to work and then went home to his wife. He never understood why Chris wanted more out of all of this, he just said that he wasn't any different from half the people in this city and should rather focus on what he had, the job, his apartment, friends, find a partner. Ryan was convinced that when you always lived for tomorrow, you would never feel like you accomplished something.
And that was true. Chris always felt like something better had yet to come. Something better than going back and forth between his shitty flat and the dirty hall here, eating sandwiches that tasted like dust in between. So in that point he didn't understand Ryan either, the only thing that made him go on was hoping things could change for him one day.
He told his friend about the Beam guy he had saved two times now. It was too amusing to him not to share, but Ryan didn't seem very exited about it. He leaned over to him.
"You know that they can arrest you for shit like that right? Make sure you stay away from people like that!"
He barely listened because he actually hoped Beam would be back, preferably after he came home from work. He really needed some action in his life.Before he went home, Chris paid the bathroom a visit. He wasn't eager to run around with oil stains on his face or something like that, it was bad enough he had gotten dirt on his shirt. While he wore dungarees for work to prevent getting too dirty, he couldn't bring himself to throw on the work jacket too. He didn't want to sweat so much and just liked more to have his arms free. So he always had some kind of band shirt under the straps of his pants to make himself feel at least a little individual.
He put his hands on the rim of the sink once he was alone in the small restroom and looked into the dirty mirror. Whoever cleaned it didn't bother cleaning more than a circle in the middle, so the glass around that clean area was so dirty it was almost not reflecting anymore. It just was the aesthetic of this place. He leaned in closer and looked at himself. Orange eyes were staring back at him. They weren't glowing, in fact he felt like they were some of the least interesting ones in this city, even though they were already bright orange with a spiral in them. It was just that everyone wanted to be special and while Chris was no exception, he still didn't stick out that much. He didn't have cyborg arms, he didn't have shiny metal horns, he didn't have a see through part or his leg with lava lamp liquid inside or whatever freaky ideas people came up with these days. He had an implant on the back of his nose because it had been broken once and damaged his smelling sense, he had the eyes and some wiring running from his hairline to his cheek, over one eye. That was because he had a small implant that allowed him to see better when it was dark. You couldn't always hold a flash light when you crawled under a car and had to hold tools in both hands. Aside from that he didn't have anything special. Some tattoos, some piercings. The usual.
Splashing some water into his face, he easily removed the oil stains and already felt fresher. There still was dirt on his hands and arms that he also tried to wash off, just to not feel so dirty until he got into his shower. Just left him with the dirt on his shirt, but that could wait until he got home. He sighed, loosened up his hair that had been tied up and wet his hands to run some water through his hair. The cold feeling on his face and scalp always made him feel better. He redid his ponytail and walked back into the main hall to pick up his bag.
Ryan was sitting there eating the rest of his lunch from earlier. It was time to go home soon and they had fixed up the last car that had come in for the day. At this point it was always just them sitting around, talking and doing bullshit while they waited. He had left early once and gotten into big trouble so he wasn't gonna repeat that mistake.
He yawned and asked Ryan what he was gonna do with the rest of the day. His friend, always glad someone asked, told him he was gonna go out to get Hot Dogs with his wife. Very romantic, Chris thought. That was sarcasm. However, he didn't have anything better to tell either. He was gonna bring home the money from today and count it together with what he already had in his box because he always forgot to write it down. Then probably gonna listen to some music and check online if he could find out what happened to the building next doors. So Ryans Hot Dogs were way more interesting.
They left the hall together, just as they had entered together. Ryan walked over to his motorcycle and Chris was gonna take the subway. He didn't own any very important stuff that he couldn't take anytime if he wanted to leave so he felt like a vehicle of his own would weight him down. He had the box of money and some merch, but it was just merch in the end, nothing to cry a river over. So he would happily take the subway every day if it saved him the money for a vehicle and if it made him more mobile in the end. He still kind of hoped to be pulled into an adventure one day. Where he would just grab one bag, stuff clothes and his money in and dash off, to fuck knew where.
he listened to music on the subway. Had his wireless headphones in because last time he had had some with cables, a random teen who thought he was cool had cut his cord. Really nothing and no one was safe in this part of town. He skipped through his music app while looking out of the subway window, watching the concrete wall until he found a good song. Then checked the news on his music apps feed. A band he listened to had released a new album and he marked it for listening to it later. He was satisfied with the day but he wasn't happy with it. It got interesting when he carried himself up the last pair of stairs to his apartment. He wasn't out of breath because he walked them slowly, but he felt done for. He wanted to crash onto his mattress and not open his eyes until tomorrow morning, but he had to take a shower first, at least. He took the last step and finally looked up towards his front door. He stopped walking and froze for a second because something hung on his door, a piece of paper. He wondered where it came from, he was sure he had paid his rent, it couldn't be from the land lord. The police? Nah, would throw a letter in his mailbox instead of walking up all the stairs.
So he ripped the paper off his door to read it.
i dont know who you are and what you want but stay away from me. i have enough problems already and i dont need you too -horror
He frowned. Horror? Must be Beam, he hadn't interacted with anyone else lately, just Ryan. He looked around but no one was in the staircase. He also hadn't expected it to be honest. So he unlocked the door, threw his bag on the ground and walked over to the only window in his room to look out. He opened it and stuck his head out. Of course he barely expected to see anything, it could have been hours ago that Horror left the paper on his front door. But when he looked down the narrow street he could see someone stand next to a motorcycle, kneeling down at its side. It looked as if they were fixing it and of course they were all dressed in black and had long black hair. He really had some luck today, running into Horror two times already, making it a grand total of three. He smiled a bit to himself. Remembered what he had thought about earlier. Grabbing his stuff and dashing off into an adventure to fuck knew where? Damn right, that was exactly what he was gonna do now. No time to take a shower but he quickly threw off the pants he had worn for work and slipped into the first pair of black, reflecting fake leather pants he could find. Grabbed another bag, threw in his keys, the money from today, dug out his box with the rest of his money from behind a shelf and tossed that in too. While he was at it he grabbed another shirt and since his bag wasn't very big, it was full already. Then he left his apartment.
He dashed down the stairs, just in case Horror was faster with fixing the motorcycle than he was with running down stairs. But once he was on the street, the man was still there. And Chris walked over, because he had nothing left to loose.
"Do you need help with that?"
The man turned around, startled, almost threw over the vehicle. The glowing blue eyes scanned him up and down really quick. Then he heard his voice for the first time.
"No." Was the answer. "Get lost."
Well, Chris had expected that. He just kneeled down to take a look at the motorcycle and at what Horror was doing.
"You know, I'm sure I can fix that." Chris pointed at a connector piece between two cables. The vehicle seemed to be pretty old, it was one of those that don't have a metal shell around everything. Basically like a see through gameboy, just without the see through plastic. "This here seems to be a dodgy contact. How old is this thing?"
"I said I don't need help with that." The mans voice got angry but Chris had expected that as well.
"Kiss me if I'm wrong but I guess you've been down here longer than just five minutes. Now let a fucking mechanic do that."
He pushed Horror away and reconnected the wire with skilled fingers. He could also see that it wasn't the only dodgy contact and that the vehicle would probably need more maintenance than just that, but maybe it would be enough for the time being. It probably wasn't save for Horror to be in front of the house where the police had been looking for him.
The man next to him made an annoyed sound and stood up, looking around himself. It was slowly getting night again, but there was still enough light to make him vulnerable, Chris guessed. So he did his best to hurry up with what he did.
Speaking of the devil, while Chris was still reattaching the wires he felt a violent push on his shoulder.
"C'mon what are you doing! We have to get out of here!"
He looked up. First at Horror, then to the corner of the street where also the firefighters had parked last night. Sure enough he saw a car parking there with people getting out. They didn't look like policemen but who knew who was after the blue eyed man.
So he got up onto his feet quickly. "Okay, try it." He didn't have to say that twice. Horror grabbed the key that still stuck in the motorcycle with way too much speed and force and turned it. Once, nothing. Twice, nothing. "Fucking piece of junk!" He kicked it and Chris, as calm as he was, just raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever tried to just-"
But he didn't get to finish talking. "You're super annoying you know that! Just get it on if you can!"
So Chris did. He threw his leg over the motorcycle, sat in the seat and pressed down the pedal while turning the key. It seemed like the next logical thing to do to him, but most people who came to the garage he worked in didn't think of that. Sure enough, the Motorcycle jumped on and he heard Horror exclaim a very surprised "Ah!"
Next thing he noticed was the vehicle bouncing a little bit and something against his back. Horror must have climbed on the seat behind him. "What are you waiting for, get us out of here!"
And that sounded like a good idea, so he did it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chris had no idea where he was driving. He had just left the street, slipped onto the main road and disappeared in the traffic. Right now they were following a truck and he had time to think again.
Horrors arms closed around his body and he felt him lean against his back, his small backpack trapped between them. He didn’t regret his decision just one bit, he just wondered. They both were strangers, yet they were driving down the road and into a tunnel as if they were used to riding the motorcycle together. Horror almost seemed as if he trusted him. He helped him steer the vehicle. Leaned into the same direction that Chris did and gave better aerodynamics. Even if he apparently didn’t know how to fix a motorcycle, he knew how to drive one very well, Chris could tell. Horror probably also noticed that Chris could drive and that might be what kept him calm.
They left the tunnel and Chris knew they were about to reach a big motorway junction soon. He really had no idea where Horror could possibly want to go so he dared to turn his head a bit, as much back as he could and ask, shouting against the wind. “Which way?”
He could barely hear his own voice against the wind. He felt Horror nudge his left side with the arm he had around him. Left then, alright. He turned back to the street. They were on their way to the biggest junk yard in the city. He had been there quite a lot for his job. In legal ways of course, but he guessed Horror would just break in there, if that was even his destination.
After driving left he slowed down as much as he could in between the traffic, so he could talk up again. “Where to?”
He still had to shout and the others voice was also very faint when he answered. “Pull over!”
So he did, as soon as he could. He left the highway and came to a halt in the first narrow street they passed. It almost looked like home. As soon as he had parked, Horror jumped off the motorcycle and was back to complaining. Chris even rolled his eyes. Horror had been so nicely silent during the ride.
“Okay, now talk!” He crossed his arms in a defensive manner. “Who are you and who sent you after me?”
It was so amusing to him. “I’m just a random mechanic, bro. What do you expect?”
It didn’t impress Horror. “Do random mechanics always carry a shit ton of money around?” The black haired man pulled money bills out of his pockets and Chris immediately figured that he must have pulled them out of his bag during the ride. Horror was a sneaky little bastard. Literally, he was one head shorter than him.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you why I had these on me.” He eyed Horror suspiciously. After a moment the other man handed the bills back over though. He took them from the others completely black hands and stuffed them back into his bag. Because Horror didn’t talk anymore, he did.
“I can tell you but it’s a longer story. Your motorcycle needs some fixing and I don’t think you want to listen to me talk right here?”
Horror did not look happy. He looked him up and down and sighed.
“Okay, whatever! You don’t seem to have any bugs on you so should be fine.. but I’m driving now!”Sitting on the motorcycle behind Horror was the complete opposite of driving himself. The stranger drove way faster and in Chris' opinion unsafer. He took the corners with much more sprightliness, he felt like they were gonna crash multiple times. But the smaller man knew his way around traffic, he just didn't play by the rules. He drove between two trucks that actually blocked the whole street and cut off a car once or twice. He was sure he had never taken a corner that fast. It was at least a little bit impressive, how the man seemed to be all calm and concentrated while he himself felt adrenaline boil up in his stomach every time they took a turn.
He really was taller than the other man because he could put his chin on his shoulder. After some time he also did so because he didn't know where else to put it. Horror had had his head against his back before, probably to shield himself against the wind. They didn't have helmets after all. He just couldn't do this now and had to either withstand the wind or close his eyes. He variated between both. The man had tugged his hair into his clothes so at leat Chris didn't suffocate in it and when he looked over the mans shoulder like that, he saw that there was a holder with a phone next to the vehicle key slot. Must be Horrors. It was turned off so he could see in its reflection. Take a closer look at the driving mans face.
It was hard to make out details because the vehicle was moving, but he could see his beaming eyes again. There really was nothing human in them anymore. You saw this every now and then, actually it was quite common. He just didn't know anyone with those cyber eyes personally so he never took a closer look before. They hushed around in the mans eye sockets, he was sure he saw something moving in between the blue. He could probably calculate the speed the other vehicles drove with and thus take a greater risk at driving. That made sense now. Further than that, The man had lines going downwards from his eyes, then to the side of his head. It usually meant there was wiring under the skin, probably connecting the prosthetic eyes to his brain. His jaw and neck were black, but a closer look let him suspect it wasn't tattooed. It seemed to be some kind of material either laying on the skin or replacing it. Since it covered his throat, Chris figured that it was a protective thing rather than a decorative one. Whoever Horror was, he seemed to be prepared. Also because his hands were black as well, Chris threw a look at them. He could see the knuckles and the veins, those were not gloves but it didn't look like skin either. He wondered how much of his body the man had covered in protection.
After some time in which he just studied the other man face and whatever he could get a glimpse at, Horror noticed. Because suddenly he looked down onto the phone too, staring right back at Chris. He almost swallowed. Because his eyes were so bright, his stare was much more intense. Also, the smaller and pretty edgy man had quite some black eyeshadow smudged around his eyes and he had to admit, that looked pretty good. His own face was bare because he had just gotten home from work. It made him feel a little lost, but he was sure he could manage.
Without saying anything, the man turned his attention back onto the street and Chris was very relieved. He felt a little bit small next to him, simply because right now Horror seemed like he knew what he was doing. He had seemed a bit more helpless and confused earlier, now his expression was stern and convinced. He guessed that everyone had two sides and closed his eyes to give them a break from the wind. Since he had driven the whole time before, they felt quite dry. Thinking about it, it was a better idea to let Horror drive anyway, his eyes probably didn't dry out since they seemed to be made of metal and glass.
With closing his eyes he definitely put some trust into Horror without knowing him. He focused on what he felt, the turns the vehicle took. He leaned into it as well like the other man had done with him before, to help him out. He had his arms around the smaller ones body, crossed on the front. He could feel how slim he was. How his stomach moved from breathing in and out. That together with being the taller one of both of them gave him some confusing feelings. It reminded him a bit of when he had taught his ex girlfriend how to drive a motorcycle, some years back.
Luckily, Horror pulled him out of his thoughts when he suddenly came to a halt. Chris blinked multiple times and removed his arms from the others waist. The first thing the smaller man did was slipping his hands under his hair and pulling it out of his clothes. He watched it fall down and even reach the vehicle seat. That man had hair down to his ass, it must have been quite some years since Chris last saw that. Sure, it was stylish to have long ponytails or stuff sometimes, but people wore extensions or wigs so they could go back to their short hairstyles the next day. Keeping your hair long and in one style was some serious dedication. It was way easier to dye your short hair every week or cut around on it since it would be grown back in a month maximum anyway. Yet there was Horror, probably one of those underground people who had had their hair like this for the last ten years.
He climbed off the vehicle before Horror could shush him down and adjusted his backpack, then looked around to see where they even had ended up at. It was dark by now, barely any light coming through the clouds. There was light coming from nearby buildings and one flickering street lamp though, so he could still make out his surroundings. Most of the space was cramped up with construction fences, he saw a few heaps of bricks, sand or asphalt clumps. This was in fact a construction site. He looked around himself for any indication of what they wanted here, even more confused. Was the construction site just coincidence?
Horror was gone. Together with the vehicle. He heard noises not far away though, it sounded like the smaller man was pushing the vehicle, probably to park it or hide it behind some of the fences. He followed the noise behind one of the metal dividers. The dark haired man leaned the motorcycle against a building wall and leaned a construction fence over it. That made it look like it had been there for ages and probably wasn't functioning anymore. Smart. If the construction site wasn't still in order, that was.
"Are we gonna be gone in the morning?" Chris decided to just count himself into whatever Horror was planning to do. He had no intention to go back, now that he had found his adventure! Well, he wanted to talk to the strange man before he decided for real, he wanted to make sure it still felt as fulfilling after he got more info.
But the beaming eyes that were shot at him were not having it. "We are not going anywhere." Ouch. Okay, he got it. Too fast too close.
However, Horror exited the corner behind the fences and made a hand motion at Chris to follow him. Together they made their way through more heaps of bricks, fences, a rusty, broken down construction vehicle and some trash bags that someone had dumped in a corner. Now he really figured that no one was working here anymore. He followed his new companion with a lot of interest, almost couldn't resist asking where they were going. He expected the destination to be a building next to the site or something, but Horror stopped in front of- a hole. In the ground. Chris stopped too and looked down. Machinery had ripped open a part of the asphalt, big enough for a car to disappear into if it drove here. It also seemed to be pretty deep and he frowned quite a lot at that.
"What are we-"
The other man hushed past him and started to descend into the hole as if he did that every day. He climbed down holding onto pieces of asphalt, stones, metal or bigger pipes and cables that stuck out of the walls of the hole. Chris questioned his choices up to this point. Did he really want to descend into that hellhole too? He didn't even know what was waiting at the bottom. Maybe Horror was part of a gang and they were gonna rob him, slit his throat and sell his kidneys and his eye implant to a ripper doc.
"If you don't follow me you're not gonna get your key and your phone back!" He heard Horror shout out of the hole while the climbing sounds never stopped. "I also still have half of your money!"
That was a valid reason to go down there he figured. Plus he was really curious now. So he sighed to himself and kneeled down. Grabbed the rim of the hole and checked for a good spot to put his foot, then mimiced the way Horror had climbed down the wall of the hole.Once he was at the bottom, he saw the smaller man disappear into darkness. Luckily he could still see, everything just had an annoying greenish tint. He could make out that there was a tunnel in the wall and he collected himself mentally, then followed. All of this was getting more and more mysterious by the minute. The tunnel was not high enough for him to walk in and he had to duck his head. He realized that it was the perfect height for Horror to walk in though. It could either be coincidence or he had actually dug this tunnel. The idea was insane to him, especially if he operated alone. Thinking of it, Chris still didn't really know what it actually was that Horror was doing. Definitely some highly illegal shit, why else would you hide it behind a tunnel in an abandoned construction site.
When he reached the end of the tunnel, he realized that he stood in another tunnel, just a bigger one. With smoother walls. In front of him on the ground were train tracks. He couldn't resist getting closer, even kneeling down and putting a hand on it because he could barely see. But his intuition was right- those were rusty all over. No train had used these for ages. Maybe it was one of the many closed off subway tunnels or it had broken in and no one ever repaired it. If so, did that mean Horror had dug the tunnel into a part of the subway system that couldn't be accessed otherwise? That was, like, the smartest shit he had ever seen in his life.
"That's the last time I'm telling you to catch up with me!"
Chris jumped up onto his feet immediately and turned around. The voice was echoing from the walls so he wasn't quite sure where it had come from, but he could soon make out Horrors silhouette quite a bit away from him and hurried over. Whatever they were gonna find here, he did not want to miss it.
He walked silently next to Horror now, keeping up with his pace. He had so many questions burning on his tongue, but he didn't wanna annoy Horror even more and mess up his chances. This really was the adventure he had been looking for, he felt the adrenaline rush through his veins. The other next to him seemed to keep his cool perfectly. They also didn't have to walk far, because soon Chris could make out what looked like the end of the tunnel in reachable distance. He had night vision, but he couldn't see as far with it as usually, obviously. The closer they got, the more he saw that it was nothing that belonged to the tunnel. It wasn't a smooth wall, it seemed to be made out of absolutely random things. Boards, pieces of metal, he could even make out a gigantic road sign. However that got down here, he didn't know.
Horror walked up to the wall and easily found a hole in it that he slipped through. Once again Chris noticed that the path was exactly Horrors size as he had trouble following. He had to squeeze past more rubble, the wall seemed to be quite thick. But once he actually managed to get onto the other side, he did not regret the effort he took for all of this.
He stood now in a part of the subway tunnel that Horror had blocked off and it was not as dark a the rest. There were lights absolutely everywhere. Some seemed to be fairy lights, other random lamps that you would find in an apartment. Lightbulbs were hanging everywhere, at least twenty of them. he saw one or two powerful construction lights, pointed towards the walls and in a corner he saw the head of a traffic light, all three lights on. He was completely amazed. He couldn't even imagine how all this had gotten here. He took a few steps forward to look around. One wall had stacked boxes of all sizes, he figured that the man stored his things there. Another corner had some actual furniture, it just didn't fit together style wise. It had a bed, a sofa, he spotted a fridge in a niche and a table with two chairs pretty much in the middle of everything. All together, the room was probably 20 food wide and round, aside from two walls. The one that Horror had build and the other side was actually a dead end. The tunnel must have been sealed off there.
He turned to his companion but he was already gone. Stood next to the table and put some stuff down he dug out of his pockets and then went over to the wall with his boxes and dug through those. He didn't want to be annoying to him but also couldn't hold back his questions anymore so he followed him.
"What the hell is this? Did you build it? How do you have power here? And did you carry all this shit in through the hole in the construction site?"
Horror stopped digging and turned to him, with an annoyed expression. By now Chris figured that it was just the shape of his eyebrows that made him look like he was constantly done with everyone's crap.
"Are you always so annoying?" Horror closed the box and put his hands on the lid while looking at the taller man. "I will consider telling you after you actually talk to me first. Sit down. I'll find something to drink before we dehydrate."
Chris was pretty fine actually but he wouldn't say no to that. He looked around and decided to sit down on the sofa and wait until Horror was done doing whatever it was he was doing. He looked around his home more. With the bed and fridge, he figured that Horror lived down here. Honestly, he would hate having to take all the effort to get outside for once, but it was still very cool. No one would ever find Horror down here. It might sound like this down here was another construction site but it really wasn't. There was stuff everywhere, it was actually really full and looked quite personal. It looked like the man picked up everything he liked and brought it down here. A vase, some figurines, posters, a collection of bottles in different colours. On one wall hung what seemed like a curtain made of strings with bottle caps on them. The actual concrete walls were filled with Graffiti, multiple spray bottles were scattered around on the ground. Apparently Horror had his creative phases. His designs consisted of hearts mostly, some roses as well.
The sofa next to him moved and he noticed that Horror had sat down next to him. He shot him a smile. "Your base is, like, unreal! Oh, yeah yeah, you want me to explain first."
Horror handed him a bottle that he identified as soda. Now he did realize that he should probably drink something so he took it with his big smile and Horror rolled his eyes, which looked pretty interesting with those glowing, blue eyes.
"I'm listening. And I expect more than just three sentences if I'm supposed to trust you."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Since Chris really didn't know where to start his story, he had to think about it for a moment. He looked at Horror while doing so, once again amazed by those prosthetic eyes. He could see them hush from left to right very fast. They were sitting still on the sofa so this time he could see much clearer, without the movement of the vehicle. The eyes weren't solid blue, they had another black ring in them. It seemed to turn, sometimes get smaller and wider. He figured that it happened when Horror focused on something. It was very interesting to him, it looked so strange yet cool. He wasn't gonna lie, it seemed so cool he envied it a bit. Maybe he would love to have this too.
Then, the man snapped. "Can you stop staring at me like that? It's rude. Not everyone gets implants because they want to." The statement was a bit confusing but after a bit he thought he got it. He was pretty sure those technical looking eye prosthetics were cheaper than the realistic ones. Maybe Horror hadn't had a choice? Maybe he had been in an accident or something?
"I'm sorry." He turned away from Horrors eyes. It was strange not to look though, usually you would look someone in the eyes while you talked to them. He decided to turn his attention towards his soda bottle now, holding it in his hands, taking a closer look at the print on it.
"Okay uh.. I don't really know where to start. But interrupt me anytime, okay? I tend to rant sometimes.." When he shot him a look, Horror nodded briefly, then went back to staring at him with his done with everything face. It really was his eyebrows, they were fuller in the middle, turned upwards a bit which would usually make him look sad but the arch at their outer ends made him look angry. So, he looked like he was both at once. Or maybe just confused. Like he didn't want to be there.
"Let's just say I'm that silly man who thinks working a nine to five job or maybe even seven to ten can't be it. I saved up everything I could do do something with it one day. I never really knew what I wanted, I think usually you save up for a dream but I never really had one. I just knew what I had wasn't what I wanted. Also not like.. Start my own business, I don't wanna do the same everyday. I wanna do something different. But.. for me. I don't wanna change the world or the government or something political like that, I don't really give a damn. I just wanna.. Do something that makes me feel like it was worth doing it."
He turned the bottle in his hands around a few times and looked back at the other man who still gave him the same exact stare. He did not look convinced at all, so Chris added something.
"Maybe I'm just looking for the thrill. I was really bored with my general situation yesterday when I saw you in that burning house, I mainly watched you and shouted after you to entertain myself. But I'm a selfish piece of crap and I felt good when I figured that I helped you escape, so I did it again. I have no idea what it is that you were or are doing, but I could at least imagine it was something important that I took part in. I felt more important than I was. Something happened, it was exiting. I'm a junkie for it and you're the drug, just look at your lifestyle and your home here. How do you do it? Do you hold yourself up by jumping from one job to the other? Never knowing what tomorrow is gonna bring? Always doing something different or new and don't even know if you might get killed doing it? Sounds better than working at a damn garage job where people bring in their cars but it's not even a big problem that tests your skills, they just got a dodgy contact or need a new gas pedal or some shit like that. I'm just sick of it, okay? Call me stupid, I'm just looking for a reason to throw it all away. So, can you make use of someone to fix your vehicle or other things? I can fix pretty much any device you could have, I can build you a new car or drone or motherboard from the trash on the junk yard. I'll let you use me for a little thrill."
There was still no shift in Horrors expression. The man scanned him up and down and remained silent for a moment. Chris had no idea how to read him. He just guessed that if he wanted someone who found him as suspicious as Horror to trust him, he had to pull out his actual motives. There was no point telling him that he wanted to make the world a better place or do something of big meaning. Because he was sure Horror didn't want to do that either. All Chris wanted was to trade his steady job that would support him for as long as he wanted to work there for a life of uncertainty, something that most people who lived the life he wanted would probably love to have. He would switch if he could. Well, maybe this was his gateway. Of course he wouldn't know his way around anything if he started it on his own.
After a dreadful silence, Horror finally gave an annoyed tongue clacking from himself. "You have no Idea what you're doing man." Chris could tell that he wasn't angry, he also didn't sound amused but.. that didn't necessarily mean a good thing. "You wanna stand in my way at whatever job I do? With your tall statue and your wide shoulders you wanna follow me into the shadows? You're gonna be spotted in no time if you don't know how to move. You would just hold me up. I don't need anyone to weight me down."
Aha, a typical loner. I can do everything better alone, I don't need friends, everyone is just gonna betray me anyway. He had heard that often enough. In real life as well as on TV or other media. So he rolled his eyes at the smaller man. Sometimes he felt a bit like Horror was the one in charge, as if he was applying for a job. Then again he felt like they were at least on the same level. They were both just human after all, right?
"That's bullshit and you know that."
"Excuse me?" Horror frowned.
"That's not the reason you say that. I don't have to follow you on jobs to be useful."
They stared at each other for a little while until Horror adverted his beaming blue eyes. It was interesting to Chris how the man didn't know what to say anymore and he tried to read his expression. Still no change though, just the blue irides hushing around, focusing on everything but him.
"I need to sort some stuff." Horror stood up and Chris watched him walk over to the wall with all the boxes. Like before, he opened a bigger box and stuck his arm into it. He had no idea what Horror was doing but he figured it didn't matter. He just didn't really know what to do now. The conversation seemed to have ended, but there was no clear answer. Well, maybe it was the uncertainty he had been looking for. Now he didn't know if he was supposed to stay or leave. However, Horror really didn't seem to mind that he was still here and he was tired. He had gotten home from work after a night with not a lot of sleep because of the burning house. Horror didn't seem like he wanted to kick him out and the sofa was pretty comfy right now. He didn't even know in which part of town they were and how to get home, so staying was definitely the better option.
He let himself slip down on the sofa, until he laid his head on the arm rest. He dangled it down, over said headrest, watched the other man work on whatever it was he was doing from his upside down view. Did that for multiple minutes before he talked up again.
"Ey."
The man stopped. Pulled his arms out of the box and looked back over to the sofa. Chris even smiled a little bit. It already felt a bit like he got used to it.
"What is it?" Horror looked as annoyed as always, so he decided to pay it no mind. Maybe it was just his standard expression, a resting bitch face.
"I'll just sleep on your sofa, okay."
The man looked at him without blinking. To Chris he seemed a bit like he didn't know what to say. He wondered, but he didn't ask about it. He would do it tomorrow, after sleeping. He even yawned a bit.
"Uhh.." Yeah, Horror was definitely confused. "Like, yeah okay. Whatever."
Chris watched him go back to digging in that box. Just what the hell was he doing there? Well, one more question to ask tomorrow. Chris doze off pretty quick, to the background noise of Horror looking through boxes and moving them around like crazy. Living in his crappy apartment had taught him to sleep with any noise going on. The walls had been thing so he had heard everything. People fighting, people having hardcore sex, people shooting guns outside, car crashes, police sirens, he could sleep through everything. Well, at least if he wanted. So sleeping through the noise that Horror made was absolutely no problem. He slept long and deep but when he woke up, there was no way telling how late it was. He opened his eyes and stared upwards but instead of his ceiling with pipes and cables he saw a roof that was way way higher and rounded. He saw lightbulbs hanging down. He wondered again how Horror had done it. He saw cables running up the walls and over the ceiling until they reached the right spot, then hung down and had the light bulbs at the end. He could only imagine that the other man had had a big ladder and way too many spare cables to do this. But this whole home was a mystery to him. Part of him expected it was a weird fever dream or drug trip, though if it was just imagination then he would surely imagine Horror to open up to him more, right?
Talking about him, Chris turned his head to the side and looked around but the man was no where to be found. He sat up. "Horror?" No answer. There was just an uneasy silence. He stood up and walked around, maybe Horror was just behind a box, still looking for something. But no, he was completely alone here, he checked and shouted multiple times. In the end he figured that maybe Horror was just on a job without him because he was so tall that he would be in the way. However, Horror would be back, right? He was not gonna play house wife and prepare food for him or some shit, but he wanted to look around. He could also go up and fix the motorcycle later, but first he was too curious.
He wasn't hungry but the first thing he checked was the fridge, just because he was curious, but that's where the weird things started already. He opened it and it didn't function. He walked around it and you could see the damn power plug laying on the floor, the small man hadn't even bothered to plug it in. The inside was full with bottles, some packaged food things that were gross but wouldn't spoil in fifty years and a lot of small cans. He picked one up. They seemed to be made of see through plastic and the liquid inside was glowing in a dark purple. He had no idea what that was and he didn't want to try but there were like twenty of those.
He put the bottle back and went to look at something else. He couldn't help but look through cabinets and found more food with an expiry date of two hundred years and more of those glowing cans. All together they probably added up to a hundred. Could be some kind of energy drink, they just didn't have any label. Maybe some kind of experimental nutrient drink so you didn't have to eat anymore, who knew. Chris didn't touch them anymore.
When he took a closer look at the bed it looked like it wasn't used a lot. Maybe Horror just crashed wherever he worked at. He found a shit ton of books under the bed though and frowned even more. No one read books anymore, really. They didn't even have libraries, they tore them all down because no one went there. Even weirder that they were all hidden under the bed.
Chris had the great idea to look into Horrors boxes. Maybe he could find out what he had been looking for or sorted last night. So he went over to a big wooden box and grabbed the lid the same way he had seen Horror do it. He pulled- but it didn't move an inch. He pulled harder, still nothing. So he frowned and went to the next box but same thing. He inspected them a bit and finally figured out that they were closed with a mechanism, you couldn't open them without brute force. Like a crowbar or something. But he knew for sure that Horror hadn't used one. Maybe he just knew a trick that Chris couldn't figure out?
Luckily the wood boxes weren't the only ones. He found some metal boxes as well and those opened. What he found was a gigantic chaos to say the least. CDs, data disks, hard drives, everything was thrown together. He could see something all this junk had in common though, it was all stuff that stored data. Horror collected data. He collected these, he collected books, those were also data. He looked around more curious now, for more boxes he could open.
He found another box that had.. more junk. But like, really. rusty warning signs, a license plate, cardboard boxes from packaging..? But again, everything had writing on it. As if Horror collected that data as well. It started to get weird. Why would you keep this junk? Ingredient lists from the box or energy bars you ate two years ago?
He closed the box and started to dig through stuff faster. He was a little worried. Something was up with Horror, that much was for sure. He just needed to find out what and if it was potentially dangerous. Finally, he came across a bigger box with a 6 digit code lock. This was something for Chris. He knew how these things were constructed, it wasn't a very advanced one. Naturally, he had the easiest time ever opening it and hoped to finally find the secrets in there.
Well, the answer was confusing. He found something that looked like an arm and when he took it out to take a closer look, it seemed to be a prosthetic. A cyborg arm or something. It was made out of dark, almost black looking metal but seemed to be pretty used off already. Horror was collecting android parts in that box, multiple. He found the other arm and two legs, at least the lower parts. They seemed to belong together. Either Horror wanted to build an android or he dissembled an android or he wanted to sell the parts on the black market- whatever. Chris was glad he hadn't found a human corpse and closed the box again. If Horror shut down an android to sell its parts, that was way better than selling someone's kidneys.
With a huff, he dropped back on the sofa. Waiting time, he guessed. Once Horror was back he could ask.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
By the time Horror came back, Chris was up in the fresh air. He had dug out the motorcycle and sat in front of it, checking basically every cable and tightening every bolt. He didn't have to make such an effort, but he was bored and he liked doing something that was not for his work for once. He had found tools in the underground base, carried those up and just checked what he could improve on the vehicle. Getting out had taken him forever, just like getting in, but he was glad to be on the surface again and also get a rough idea of what time it was. The sun was up, so it was somewhere around daytime. He had a great time actually, humming to himself while he buried his dirty, now oil stained hands between the cables and tubes that felt like home.
He was so occupied he didn't even hear the approaching footsteps. Someone called out for him though, so he pulled back and turned around.
"Ey mechanic!"
He opened his mouth, wanted to complain about having a name but then he remembered that he had never told Horror. "My name is-"
"I don't wanna know your name." Well, that was a statement. He shrugged because, whatever floats your boat man.
"Okay, whatevs. I fixed those contacts and the HT lead, everything should go perfectly smooth now. I could also replace the carburetor jets with wider ones but I wanted to ask you first. Wanna take it for a spin?"
Horror stopped next to him and the motorcycle once he had reached them and threw a look at the other man's oily hands, then whatever it was he had been working on. For a moment Chris was scared that he hated what he had done, but after a little while he seemed to make up his mind and sighed. "I'm not letting you hold onto me with those oily hands though. And put your shirt back on."
Chris, still sitting on the floor, had taken it off because he would rather dirty his skin than the clothes he had with himself. He also didn't feel very cold so he saw no problem with it. Apparently Horror did, though he didn't understand it. The way more interesting part though was..
"I did not expect you to take me along actually." He smiled at the smaller man with the long black hair. He wore a beanie right now, Otherwise he looked the same as always. Just had a backpack with him.
Horror made the same, annoyed clacking sound with his tongue like yesterday. Chris almost felt like he had a deja vu. "If you say anything else about it I will leave you here. Now go wash your hands for gods sake."
"Geez, calm down." Chris stood up and looked around. They were still on an abandoned construction site, he didn't think there was any way to get water here. "I uh.. I figure you don't have water downstairs, huh?"
The man shook his head. "That container over there. Think it was for the workers. Sorry you don't get a four star service here." He watched Horror climb into the hole, maybe to drop his stuff somewhere. Chris didn't know, he didn't care. He just went over to the container to get rid of the oil stains.The other man was already leaning against the vehicle when he came back out. He picked his shirt up from the ground where he had left it and pulled it over.
"Finally." Said Horror in an annoyed tone. He really didn't know why the man was so salty.
"Now get your ass over here, Motionless."
Chris looked puzzled for a moment. Was that a joke about him being not fast enough? Well, he should feel offended then. But right when Horror opened his mouth to say something about it, he understood and he almost facepalmed himself.
"You decoded the tattoo in binary on my ribs. Congratulations."
He watched the salty man climb onto the seat and he quickly did the same, sitting down behind him. He tugged his feet in place to not be in the way while Horror tugged his hair in the back of his sweater and he gently wrapped his arms around the other man's waist. He felt like they were getting somewhere, slowly but surely. At least he had a name now, he still hadn't been kicked out and the man also still let him put his hands on him.
The motor started as smooth as Chris had hoped and it made him smile. He knew his skills but it was nice to have proof anyway. The man in front of him got the vehicle rolling and slowly drove down to the road.
While they didn't drive very fast yet, the man in the front raised his voice. "I thought you'd have left out of boredom by time I get back."
Hm. Now that sounded like Horror was not glad he was still here.
"Told you I was gonna fix this thing. Would you prefer if I was gone?"
There was no answer. Instead Horror increased speed so soon they didn't even have the chance to speak anymore. That was one way to end a conversation, Chris thought. He left it at that, put his head back onto Horrors shoulder and relaxed. Since last time he trusted the man in knowing how to drive. They were back on the highway soon, slipping through between cars, through gaps that Chris would never dare to drive through. He admired it again. The man could definitely drive so much more hardcore than him, driving definitely wasn't a job he needed to outsource to Chris. Which limited the things he could actually be useful for.
The ride wasn't very long because they pulled over at some point. Still on the highway, Horror came to a halt on a piece of hard shoulder. Chris already thought something was wrong because they were in the middle of nowhere. He lifted his head in curiosity and looked back at the man when he turned his head.
"Did you really fix my motorcycle so I would let you stay with me?" His expression was still as annoyed as always, so Chris wasn't sure how to read it. He decided to answer in honesty though.
"A little, maybe." He smiled at him. "Also out of personal reasons, I said I would fix it so I fixed it. Would also have done that if I knew you're not gonna let me stay."
"I never said I would let you stay."
Chris smiled wider. Horror was avoiding giving him an answer on that topic and it was obvious to him. He could easily have answered with well you fixed it for nothing and can go home now, but he didn't. It amused him. "I know. But you also didn't kick me out."
"I could push you off, drive away and leave you here on the highway you know that, right?"
Chris laughed. "Yeah but you're not gonna do that."
Maybe he shouldn't have said that because for a few seconds Horror just stared at him. He smiled back, as dumbly as always. He never saw it coming. Horror suddenly pushed and because he didn't hold onto anything, he didn't catch his balance. He fell backwards and a second later Horror turned the motor back on and just gave speed. Obviously, Chris fell backwards and landed on his ass on the asphalt. Next thing he saw was the motorcycle disappear between the cars and trucks on the highway.
After half a second of confusion he stood up and dusted off his pants. he really questioned what had just happened. Had he really just been abandoned on a highway like a dog no one wanted anymore? He still stared at where he had last seen the motorcycle in disbelief. He didn't even know where the fuck he was!
Chris didn't have his phone with himself. He went to the balustrade to check where the hell he was and if he could make out anything he could recognize. It took a few minutes in which he heard nothing else but traffic noises until he heard something else.
"Ey Motionless!"
He jumped, turned around and to his surprise, Horror was back where he had left, sitting on the motorcycle.
"Jump back on or I'll really leave you here!"No one of them said anything until Horror took another halt, this time at the junk yard. Chris had had his arms around him again, after some hesitation also the head on his shoulder. He felt a little bit intimidated now and didn't wanna go on Horrors nerves too much, but after the little shock he had gotten upon being abandoned, everything seemed fine.
Now, Horror climbed off the vehicle and pulled his hair out of his clothes, to let it fall straight down again. Chris watched him do it. His hair seemed to be in perfect shape despite him not even having a real bathroom. How did he do that?
The man climbed off the motorcycle so he quickly did so too. Horror pointed at a certain part of the junk yard and said "I have to look for something here. If you want any parts don't take too long. I'll be back in half an hour". And he didn't need to tell Chris twice.
It was a bit annoying to follow Horrors orders like that. He should maybe see if he could pick up a trash motorcycle somewhere just to get around when Horror felt like bossing him around and like being in charge of when they did what. However, right now he really wanted to get some carburetor jets and whatever else could be useful. So he trailed off in another direction than his new partner in crime had taken.
While scavenging some vehicles, walking around on the paths, climbing over heaps of metal, he did some thinking. Doing whatever Horror said was not what he had wanted. He hoped that the man just had to get used to him but honestly, if he didn't no one held him with him, right? His crappy apartments rent was still paid for this month, nothing would happen when he showed back up there. So he shrugged to himself and didn't feel like it was a big deal. He just tried to come up with something to make Horror soften up. Maybe he just always was kinda salty or maybe they just didn't get along, he couldn't tell. But he would at least try.
He walked a bit and before he noticed he was in a different part of the junk yard. He had been here before, a lot, but usually with the vehicles. They also had a ton of other things but mostly electronics. There was a corner that had appliances, fridges, stoves, that kind of crap. The section he was in right now was a bit smaller though. They called it the android graveyard. He remembered the android parts in Horrors base. He shouldn't admit that he dug through his stuff so he couldn't walk up to him like oh look i found some nice android parts for you to sell, but if he could maybe it would be good for their relationship.
He looked around and heard a noise so he walked a bit further. Soon enough he found out where Horror had left to, because he was kneeling on the ground a bit further away, hands on what seemed to be an android corpse. He didn't walk any closer. Maybe he really was selling android parts. He didn't think it was a problem but it felt a little off. Android parts were still human shaped after all.Chris picked up what he needed and went back to the motorcycle. He even was there earlier than Horror. He could make out that the small man's backpack was fuller than before now. He could only imagine what was in there. Maybe an android head. Twenty set of android eyes. A stack of hands. Whatever, he didn't wanna know and didn't ask. He had managed to find a plastic bag somewhere on the junk yard and wrapped up his parts so he could transport them during the ride.
Horror snorted when he saw him stand there like that. "You really found something in this trash?"
He just nodded in return and didn't comment it, just answered in honesty. "I told you, I could build a functioning car out of this trash."
He smiled but it still didn't impress the other. "If you keep mentioning it I will make you do it, just to see if its true."
"Okay, just tell me when. But it's a date then."
He grinned as wide as he possibly could have while the other man sat back onto the vehicle and grabbed his hair, stuffed it back into the neck hole of his sweater. "Oh hell no." He spoke without looking at him. "Not even a million bucks could get me to go on a date with you."
Horror put his hands on the handle bars and looked over his shoulder. "What are you waiting for? Get on so we can leave."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He wasn't actually interested in Horror romantically or sexually. It had been a joke and he had expected the answer but it still made him a little sad. The man didn't seem to want him around as a friend or a partner in crime either, after all. So what could he be? Really just someone to be bossed around?
They drove back to Horrors home and he had his arms around him again, resting his chin on his shoulder. Their heads were pretty close to each other, all because of their height difference. It was close enough to hear Horror talk up after some time. Maybe he too just felt like it was getting awkward.
"I wouldn't leave you in the middle of the highway, as long as you don't completely piss me off. You know that right?"
It was nice to hear that. "I figured" Chris said. "But I wasn't one hundred percent sure about it. Do you have some sort of problem with me?"
It took Horror a little while to answer. He either didn't know how or didn't want to, Chris guessed.
"Yeah. But it's nothing that you do so let's just ignore it."
This answer didn't make Chris feel better but now at least he knew. What could it even be, his eyes? His job? "So... What is it? You can have it. If its possible."
Horror shook his head. "No it's not. And now enough of this, else I'll be pissed and push you off again."
After this conversation Chris didn't believe he would be left behind again, but he personally didn't want to go on the man's nerves, he wanted him to like him. So he kept quiet and closed his eyes for the rest of the drive.When they got back, they hid the motorcycle, Horror gestured him to follow and climbed back into the hole in the construction site. So Chris followed, now a bit more sure that he could just stay there. He squeezed himself through the small tunnel behind the slim man who was way faster than him and caught up to him once they were in the subway tunnel. They didn't really talk but it felt like they didn't have to. The silence between them started to get more comfortable, bit by bit. They reached the gap in the rubble wall and slipped through, to be greeted by all the light in the room. He stopped, staring at them in amazement once again. It took him until Horror talked to him to snap out of it.
"You, uh.. Probably can make more use of the bed, I don't sleep that much. In general, if you really wanna stay here which I still doubt, we probably have to change some things here.”
Chris’ expression lit up, he already wanted to say something. He felt a rush of serotonin in his veins, hearing that Horror would actually want to keep him around. Maybe he wasn’t so useless after all.
But Horror interrupted. “HOWEVER, as I said I still don’t believe that. Convince me. I’m not your boss but this is my home that I took the effort building. Aight?”
Yeah. Yeah that was fine with Chris so he nodded. “By the way, you still owe me the rest of my things.”
The answer he got was an eyeroll, then Horror pulled the things out of a drawer. Damn it, that must be the only drawer he hadn’t looked through already. He took the things with a smile and said thanks, but Horror didn’t even answer. He went to his boxes, opened his backpack, pulled stuff out and sorted it into the boxes it seemed. Chris couldn’t make out what it was the other had there, but he decided it was none of his business. He also didn’t expect Horror to care about what he did after all.
He went over to the sofa and sat down like last night. “So, what’s the most useful thing for me to do you can think of? I guess you don’t have an endless supply of broken devices.”
Horror stopped what he was doing and looked over to him with a thoughtful expression. That’s right, he had another expression for once!
“You know what.. Have you ever worked on an android?”
Chris frowned. “I mean yeah, but why? Do you wanna rob androids for their parts and sell them?”
The other man’s expression was completely unreadable but it looked very confused. A bit sad and.. disgusted. He tried to figure out why but didn’t get to a conclusion.
“No you dumbass.” His salty new friend put the backpack down. “Do you know how many androids live in the underground and can’t g to any official garage? I’m telling you, in one part of town there’s gonna be more androids for you to fix than cars in the whole city. If you think you can do it I can build up contact to them.”
He couldn’t even imagine how Horror wanted to do that. “I mean, yeah, sure. But I’m a mechanic, not a programmer. I can’t help if they have a software problem and they often do.”
The other man tapped against the side of his head. “That’s why I’m gonna take those. It’s what I’m already doing, but I have no idea how to swap out a broken limb. So, are you gonna help me fix those androids?”
All of sudden the other seemed much more interested. And Chris wondered why. Horror always seemed so distant, well, no wonder in this lifestyle. But he still wondered why he would suddenly open up like that. Might be the topic. Did he give that much about those androids?
“You know what, hell yeah I will. Are you gonna tell me why it’s so important to you?”
Horror stared at his own, black hands. Chris did too, also looking at Horrors eyes. How much else of him was prosthetic? And why? He had a feeling that Horror might just be one of those weird people.. Sometimes you heard about fanatics who thought that androids were so much more than humans. That they should be in charge. They would try to convert themselves into machines by replacing every part of their body, one after another, until nothing was left. Science hadn’t yet found out if the human mind even survived something like this or if they were just another AI in the end. Maybe Horror was like that. He seemed to sympathize with those walking metal pieces. Maybe he wanted to be one.
Their gazes met again after a little. “I’ve known many of them personally for years. They’re my friends. They’re not better than you but you’re also not better than them. There’s no fucking difference.”
There was a twitch on the man’s face and Chris sensed his defences going back up. He didn’t feel like he said anything bad though.
“Keep calm, okay? I didn’t say anything, I just asked. You be friends with whoever you want. I’ll fix those androids for you, all I need are some smaller tools. Android wires are smaller than motorcycle wires.”Horror had no real form of entertainment in his home. Phone signal or radio waves didn’t survive the depths and the isolation, so Chris couldn’t keep himself busy with that. He didn’t have anything to do while Horror sorted his things. However, even though the air had been tense at the end of the conversation, after some time Horror brought over a box and kneeled down next to the sofa. He dug something out and held it up to Chris. “Is this still usable?”
It was a metal hand. Horror dug out the secrets he had already found now, but Chris was very glad he did so. Well, Horror probably only did because he was a mechanic. Though he knew that mechanics tended to view androids as a piece of metal and if Horror viewed them as friends, that could be problematic. Chris didn’t know how he viewed them but he didn’t care either. Aside from fixing some unconscious ones, he had never interacted with an android before. At least none that he knew of.
He took the hand from Horror to take a closer look at it. “Are you collecting them in case someone needs a spare?” The man nodded. Somehow it sounded comforting to Chris. The salty man had a soft side after all.
“I think something’s damaged but I could fix that. Now I don’t want to sound rude, I’m completely with you. But I would like to understand. Like, why. And how did you run into those androids?”
The first glance thrown towards him was sceptic, but it seemed like Horror gave in after a moment because he sighed and let his head hang.
“I uh.. Lived on the streets, that’s where I met them. Tell me, what do you see when you look at an android? We don’t hunt androids anymore when they break out, I know. It was a long way to not viewing them as property anymore when they gain consciousness. But there’s still no support for them at all. Do you think that’s fair? They’re like refugees. In human history the past.. two to three hundred years we also took in refugees and provided them with free health care if they couldn’t afford it. It’s shitty but we still have a support system for those who can’t work but androids have nothing. So, do you think that’s fair?”
This got political pretty quick. Chris didn’t feel political. He didn’t care about what was going on in the world as long as it didn’t affect him and he barely had anything to do with androids, so he didn’t have any opinion about them. But he knew basic history. They build intelligent machines and at some point some of those decided that they had the freedom of choosing what they wanted to do. Legit, Chris figured. He also heard that lots of free androids lived wherever you would look, he saw them on the subway sometimes. He just never bothered to think about how they lived, he only cared about how he lived himself.
“I don’t know, Horror.” He shrugged. “I never thought about it. I better tell you now, I’m a selfish piece of crap. I care about me and how I live. But at least I don’t care about how others live. I don’t care about androids more than I care about humans, that’s for sure. But if there’s one thing I know then that I’m way too focused on myself to be racist.”
He shrugged again. He felt like his answer by far wasn’t the best one he could have given. For once, what Horror had said had sounded so heartfelt, now he had to burst that bubble.
The smaller man sighed and leaned back. “Well, I guess not caring about others at all is better than hunting them down. You’ll change your point of view when you get personally involved.”
When he fixed those androids? Maybe. If it was gonna happen then it was gonna happen but if not then not. He would embrace it either way. He had asked for a change, now he got one. It was fine with him.
“I bet you have a lot of spare parts in here then. If we’re really gonna do that, don’t you think it makes sense to sort them, maybe after type and put tags on them so we know what’s broken? It would make work way easier when someone actually asks you if you have a spare hand.”
Horror seemed to consider it. Looked at the hand he had gotten back from Chris, then at the rest of the boxes at his wall.
“That’s gonna take forever. Probably half my boxes are those.”
He had figured. “Well, then we better start sorting, if you don’t mind.”They did that for quite some time. Chris could see just how many things Horror actually had down here. They moved all the furniture and boxes to the walls and started unpacking everything, laying it out neatly in the ground. The more they found the easier it got to group them. Some parts were obvious, like limbs or eyes. But many of the things he had considered to be computer parts belonged to that category as well. Horror had memory chips, upgrade parts for translators, night vision implants; the impressive thing about it was that Horror could tell apart what was what. He said he didn’t need to tag those, he knew which ones were broken and which ones weren’t. But he didn’t know shit about how to fix them and obviously nothing about the limbs and other hardware. Yeah, basically Chris did the hardware while Horror knew the software. It seemed to be a pretty good mix actually.
Together they came up with a sorting system. Chris explained how they sorted parts in the garage and Horror was quick to agree to it. So they sorted the things new into boxes, put tags on the things, labels on the boxes and stacked them back at the wall, just way more organized now. It took forever and they couldn’t even finish. And now that Chris new how many broken parts they had down here, he knew he was gonna spend a shit ton of time sitting at Horrors table with tiny screw drivers and android hands. Well, he wasn’t complaining. It didn’t sound more boring than the garage job and since Horror said that he didn’t want dozens of androids visiting him here, they would go see them instead when bringing parts and fixing something. So obviously he wouldn’t be stuck down here all the time.
He grew tired at some point and let his ass fall onto the sofa with a huff. Horror was still pushing around boxes as if he never got tired. It really surprised Chris, so he had to ask.
“Hey. Yesterday I saw you opening those boxes with ease. But I saw that they have a mechanism. Wouldn’t you need a crowbar to open them actually?”
The man left the box to itself and turned so he could look at the mechanic he was talking to.
“Well..” Then he grabbed his sleeve and pushed it up. Further and further, up to the shoulder. Chris saw the black hand, then wrist, then elbow. It was all black. He could make out a few silver circuit board shaped lines between all the black, but it seemed to pull itself forever. Until the shoulder. Right underneath the joint it stopped. There was black skin and light pink skin with a silver rim in between. That explained it, but Chris had figured already. “Android arms?”
The other one nodded. Chris decided not to ask why. Maybe Horror had lost them, maybe he wanted to be an android, maybe he just needed to be strong to survive and had had no other chance. It didn’t make a difference.
“Ah, that clears up my confusion.” He smiled and even though Horror didn’t when he let his sleeve down again, Chris felt like this hadn’t been their worst interaction yet.
“I only have an eye, my vocal chords and I can connect a mic and speaker here.” He tapped against the lines on the shaved sides of his head. “Didn’t use it in forever though. But.. Maybe I should. You could call me whenever to let me check if we still have a spare hand or something. Ah well, if the connection reaches through your roof that is..”
He looked up and for a second Horror did the same. Then he shook his head. “Are you stupid or something? I’m blocking certain frequencies down here. If I whitelist your devices frequency the connection would be loud and clear.”
Chris stared at Horror, then back at the ceiling. “But why- I figured you had no reason to do that so I guessed that its blocked by the construction.”
Horror shook his head again. “No. It’s just so no one can track our fucking phones or the parts if they should have a tracker. I’m cautious.”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
He had meant to ask for a longer time already but never felt it was a good situation to do that. Horror adverted his glowing eyes. They had almost become normal to Chris already. Geez, he was adapting to the man pretty quick.
“Maybe I just hoped you would be okay. Ripper Docs know no one’s gonna fix an android for less than a fortune so they rip them off. Been trying to find someone for some time. Also been trying to learn it myself but that shit’s frustrating as hell.”
The mechanic laughed, he just couldn’t hold it back. “So how could you keep your mouth shut when I said I didn’t wanna change the world or take part in something greater?”
He shrugged. “People change their minds.” And maybe they did.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Until late at night Horror sat around with his boxes on the ground and sorted stuff. Chris eventually grew tired enough to fall asleep on the sofa. He was woken up at some point and when he blinked, he looked into Horrors face.
“Uh..” He even brought a hand up to rub it over his eyes. “Is something up?”
Something was held right in front of his face. “We didn’t eat anything ever since you drove off with me from the burned down house. That’s been over twenty four hours ago now.”
Chris slowly sat up and noticed that the thing in front of his face was a packaged sandwich. One of those non spoiling things from Horrors not plugged in fridge. He couldn’t hold back a laugh at that and the other seemed really confused, but he took the food and said thanks. At some point he would ask why the fridge wasn’t plugged in.
“Who were those people after you anyway? And the police. Must have been some serious shit.”
Horror shrugged. “You don’t seem like you’d be invested enough to know but I was going after some mafia dude who shoots androids whenever he sees them. Must be a robophobe or something.”
Robophobe? That was a new word. In general Horror seemed super political to him while he didn’t even know what was going on. He guessed he didn’t need to form his own opinion just yet, he would just stick with whatever Horror was doing.
“Well, I wouldn’t wanna be shot because I’m a human either so I guess that’s fair?” Chris tried to make sense. He wasn’t sure if an android would even think the way he did. He didn’t know how to put himself in an androids shoes.
Horror nodded and had a relieved expression. “I’m not gonna take you along if I do some bullshit like that again, so don’t-”
“You would have been kidnapped if I didn’t fix your motorcycle.”
Chris was amused. Now that Horror was softening up, he still pretended to be badass and harsh but he knew he wasn’t.
“Well you fixed my motorcycle so that’s not gonna happen again. Listen, if someone shoots your arm or something you’ll be in serious trouble but I won’t. Trust me on that, I’ve been doing this for longer than you think.”
Indeed he didn’t think Horror had been doing it for long. He looked like he was barely twenty one. He reached out a hand towards the confused other man and then grabbed his face to squeeze his cheek with a bright grin. He wanted to make a comment about it but-that didn’t feel like skin. Horror looked back at him with wide eyes and just because he wanted to check, Chris grabbed his arm. The black material was synthetic skin, he knew that. It felt the exact same as Horrors face. He didn’t have a human face. He fucking had no real face. He felt shocked. What else of him was synthetic?
He grabbed Horror by the collar and pulled and pushed him onto the sofa next to him. The man let him do that, seemed to be a bit confused and not sure what to do. Chris put a hand on his neck. The skin was just as synthetic and black there. Horror had something that looked like a tattoo in heart shape on his throat, after tracing his fingers over it he figured it was just different coloured synthetic skin. He could feel the line where the two skin tones met. It felt unreal under his hands.
“What exactly are you-”
He didn’t listen to Horror and pulled the neck hole of his shirt down to see how far the black skin reached. But it was like he had also seen on Horrors arm before, they were not connected. It ended in a silver line and the rest of his torso was pale pink, as he had hoped. He was just about to stick a hand under Horrors shirt to feel if that was also synthetic or as warm as human skin should be when the man finally pushed him off, grabbing his wrist with way too much force because of his prosthetic arms.
“Okay that’s enough, what do you think you’re doing! Do you see me digging in your shit? I mentioned it already, I’m NOT happy about it so leave me alone with it!”
They stared at each other, both not moving. Just Chris pulse in the others strong grip. The hand wasn’t cold but also not even close to thirty six degrees. It felt so alien to Chris.
“I swear to Christ, Motionless. If you touch around on me like that ever again, I will break that wrists of yours, I can smash them so bad you need prosthetics yourself if you wanna fix anything anytime soon so I would think about it if I was you.”
He let go and Chris pulled his hand back. Now it was definitely all tense again. He just blinked at the angry man, then intertwined his fingers and rested his hands on his lap.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. It threw me off. I won’t touch you.”
“Good.” Horror still gave him a suspicious gaze but adjusted his shirt and then stood up.
“You seem to need an extra explanation for everything so keep that in mind; its hard enough to look in the mirror and not recognize yourself. You definitely don’t need an insensitive headass to remind you of it.”
Horror picked up a box from the floor and carried it over to the box wall. Chris watched him do so and lost himself in thoughts. Okay, if Horrors face wasn’t actually Horrors face, he could imagine it to be a horror. Maybe his name wasn’t so unfitting. He hoped he would be able to keep his mouth shut and leave the man to himself and his problems. He just wondered what happened. He heard that people got synthetic skin for aesthetic reasons sometimes, or when there was no way an operation could fix it. Like when a burn wound destroyed your whole face. That could also explain the eyes actually. And the neck and the arms. Maybe those were the parts that got damaged. Whatever it was, he was curious but he had seen the expression on Horrors face. The eyes couldn’t tell him a lot of emotion but his eyebrows did, at least sometimes. They had shown a lot of determination. And Chris was sure that Horror meant it when he said that he would crush his wrists.
He would like to keep his wrists. So he decided to give Horror some space and said he would go upstairs to take a piss. Took the sandwich along to finally eat something.He did that but he also took out his phone and was relieved to get a signal. He got a bunch of notifications from Ryan. Right, he hadn’t even told him. He was sure that he was gonna get fired if he slacked off one more day, but even if he wanted to return to his old life in three days, he knew he could find a job at another garage with some effort. So he didn’t mind that much. He decided to give his friend a call though.
It beeped a little while, then someone picked up. “Chris! Where the hell have you been? They’re super angry at work.”
He laughed a bit. It was in the middle of the night now, multiple hours after work would have ended. So Horror was right, it was about four hours after the end of his shift so it was twenty four and three hours since he had gotten home. Twenty eight hours he had spend with Horror now.
“Ah, that’s okay.” Chris smiled into the telephone. “You can tell them I finally quit.”
He got exactly the reaction he had expected. “No way, you can’t be serious Chris. Is this one of your stupid ideas? Don’t tell me you actually found a better job?”
He shifted from one foot to the other and kicked around some pebbles. “Something like that. Both, actually. But I’m sure you’ll manage the cars alone, they never have any interesting problems anyway.”
“Yeah and that’s good. I don’t understand why you always want more work and problems. Can’t you be happy when something is easy?”
Ryan never understood but Chris was used to it and he didn’t mind. Tried to explain sometimes, but it usually didn’t help at all.
“Because I don’t wanna do the same every day. I don’t wanna get married and have a house and kids and a nice car and drive to work and sit my ass off.”
Of course Ryan didn’t understand. “You always say that but you know that it’s the best way to stay alive, right?”
He shrugged to himself and kicked some more pebbles around. Of course he knew. He had gotten into trouble because of stupid ideas before. Gotten stab wounds or broken a leg, almost got fired because he didn’t show up or kicked out of his apartment when he didn’t pay the rent in time. The last months he had really tried to keep it down. He had promised Ryan that he would first try to be normal before he decided that he didn’t want to be. But he had tried and it didn’t wok. Nothing worked.
“We both know you’re not gonna miss me if I die because of one of my stupid ideas. You’ll be fine. There’s no way you can stop me anyways.”
Silently, Ryan agreed. “Yeah, I never can.. Call me if you need help, as long as no police or other guns and violence is involved. And let me know you’re not dead yet, every now and then.”
“Will do.”
There was a loud beep when Ryan hung up and he stuffed the phone back in his pockets.
“I would like to get married and have a house one day.”
Chris looked over his shoulder in surprise and saw Horror climb out of the hole in the ground.
“Aww. Are you checking in on me?”
“You wish. I gotta go somewhere. You don’t need house keys so you’ll be fine. Don’t set anything on fire.”
Horror picked up the construction fence that was hiding the motorcycle and Chris snorted. As if he was a little child. Well, it was still funny so he went with it.
“Okay Mom.”
The gaze he got from Horror was priceless. He grinned widely at him and stuck out the tongue.
“C’mon, get lost. I’ll see if I can get those tools for the android parts.”
Horror nodded and turned the vehicle key. The front light flashed up and once again Chris was happy he had been able to fix the machine, else he probably wouldn’t be here anymore. He packed out the sandwich and took a bite out of it while Horror tugged his hair out of the way. Chris wondered, Horror was so practical. Why keep long hair?
He waved him goodbye as Horror rolled down towards the street. He smiled. Jokes seemed to work on the other man so he shouted another one after him.
“And don’t forget about our junk yard date!”
Horror pointed up his middle finger and disappeared around a corner.It took Chris some time to get underground and pick up his things. He still had his small backpack, phone, key and the money. If he didn’t want trash, he would probably have to buy some stuff. He also would have had some tools in his crappy apartment, but not as fine tools as he needed for this. Equipped with his phone, he could check his location and where to find the next shop that would possibly sell him something useful. He also wrote down the address of the construction site so he could find back and made his way towards the first store.
He felt good. No miserable thoughts in the back of his head. He felt like what was happening right now was good and he knew that if it wasn’t, the way back was open. He couldn’t feel better. While walking he didn’t have his hood on like Horror, but he also didn’t stick out as much. He had a normal cyber style. A cyber punk, even though he wasn’t political at all. But well, maybe these days a punk didn’t have anything to do with punk anymore. Horror looked more like a.. Goth. A cyber goth. And that was cool but not as common. Actually, Horror was the more political one, why was he not the punk?
He walked through some dark streets, illuminated by neon lights, trash on the ground, some rusty cars parked next to the houses. It was just as dirty as the part of town his apartment was in but the feeling was different. He felt so much better.
After the conversations he had had with Horror, he looked around himself more. He spotted one or another person that could be an android, but he wasn’t sure about it. Obviously he didn’t go ask. However, shitty town parts like these were always where people were hiding, so it made sense with what his new friend had said. That androids were hiding and you would never know. Who knew what problems they had that no one wanted to help them with? Chris was curios by nature, even though he was an egoist. He was curios because he wanted to know, only for himself. He was pretty invested in Horrors android thing now, mainly because he wanted to understand. So of course he looked out.
He found the store, entered it and went right up to the cash register to ask the person. It was a pretty small store since they probably stored everything in the back rooms. Stuff got stolen in places like these. He reached the counter and looked up to a guy a bit older than him, brown hair and beard. Looked pretty much like Ryan.
“’xcuse me.” The man turned his head and looked at him and Chris could see that he had the exact same eyes as Horror had. Now, was that an android or a cyborg, like you would probably call Horror one? Whatever it was, he smiled anyway.
“Do you have small screw drivers and drills? Like, really really small. 2mm hss and downwards.”
The man looked at him, then sighed. He probably didn’t feel like working.
“I’ll get out the smallest that I have. Don’t move an inch.”
He kept smiling, more to himself and checked his phone. Ryan had sent him a picture earlier, during work time. Of a really damaged car. The owner had been at their garage a few days prior and they had had a bet when he would be back because he broke it again. Chris won it.
“This is what I have.” There was a loud thud when the store owner placed a case on the counter, a smaller box next to it and opened the case. That really were some small drills. Sadly the box, it had a plastic lid so Chris could see the pretty small screwdrivers inside, didn’t have any label, so Chris couldn’t read any of the info and had to ask. The metal colour didn’t really help him find out what those tools could do nand what not.
“Are those VDE screw drivers? For life electrics.”
The man picked up a screwdriver from the box to hold it up and laughed. The thing was as thin as a tooth pick. “Even if its turned on while you open it, your alarm clock won’t be able to kill you.”
Ah okay. Yeah, an alarm clock.
“Actually I need to fix some prosthetics.”
The man’s expression changed. “Are you kidding me? If you need your prosthetics fixed go to a mechanic, you’re gonna fuck it up if you do it yourself.”
“I am a mechanic. I just need tools.” It was getting a bit annoying. Buying tools over the garage definitely was way easier. He should ask Ryan next time.
“Then why don’t you fix it at your workplace?”
Really annoying. “Because I would like to fix them at home. Are you selling or not?”Chris was so glad once he was outside and at least had what he needed to get started. Usually he would need screws, bolts and other spare parts but Horror had some, plus for now he would take parts out of other prosthetics to get as much in working order as possible without investing more in it. He inhaled the air and made that he got back to the construction site. Wasted a few thoughts about the tools he had at home. Yeah, he should ask Horror to drop by and pick up anything that could be useful or just go by subway. For now he brought the tools downstairs, on the table and picked up one of the hands Horror had collected. Here went nothing. He couldn’t test if it worked but he would do anything he could to fix it. They would have to find out how to test them, by time.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chris had really just fallen asleep at the table, between the stuff he was working on. He had parts of the prosthetics laying around everywhere, in between the new tools and his head on the table plate. He had had a lot of similar situations at home, in his old apartment, so it wasn’t really new to him. Just the back pain once he woke up was annoying.
And that happened because someone shook his shoulder. He woke up from a pretty okay dream. It had just been him and Horror driving around on the highway. Actually, driving the motorcycle with him was hella dope. If he got another chance, he wouldn’t turn it down. Now he raised his head and looked at the man next to him. He felt the cold hand on his bare shoulder.
“You should move over to the bed.” Horrors voice was soothing and calm, but maybe it just felt like that because he was tired. He brushed a cable off his face that had been stuck since he slept on it, before he answered.
“You too. You also worked last time I slept. Do you, like, ever sleep?”
He sat up properly and now he felt how much his back hurt from sleeping on an uncomfortable kitchen chair.
“I said I’ll take the sofa, remember?”
It didn’t make sense to Chris. He was too tired to come to conclusions but he was awake enough to care.
“Dumbass. Sleeping on your sofa almost hurts more than sleeping at your table. I’m not gonna bite you if you lay next to me.”
He saw that for a moment Horror made a pained expression. He had no idea why.
“Um.. Okay. I guess. But now move.”
The other dude almost shoved him off the chair so he groaned, got on his tired feet and walked over. It was a short and almost direct way to Horrors bed, he just had to step over a box. Then, flopped face first into the mattress but turned his head to watch the man lay down on the other side of the bed. He figured that Horror had a problem to stop working and thus didn’t sleep. Or he was so deep in his wish to become an android that he though he didn’t have to anymore.
He didn’t close his eyes until Horror was next to him. Then drifted off and hoped to go back to the dream he had had.When he woke up, Horror was gone and instead he heard rustling. Of course. The man had some serious problems. No wonder he thought everyone was useless when he worked so much more than he should.
Chris sat up with a yawn, stretched himself and first wanted to get his bag to change into his spare shirt- until he realized he already wore it. Great, he really had to fetch his clothes today.
“Horror?” The rustling stopped. A moment later he could see the pale face with the long black hair stick out from behind a box.
“Yeah?”
He smirked. Horror was funnier than he had thought at first. He could really get used to that. He made a funny room mate.
“How do you wash your clothes?”
The man stood up and threw his long hair over his shoulder to have it out of the way. Again, Chris wondered why he didn’t just.. Tie it up or something. Maybe Horror wasn’t all practical and more for the aesthetics in that case.
“Laundry shop. I don’t need to very often.”
Chris was even more confused now. How did Horror not sweat his ass off in his long, black clothes all the time? With the long hair that probably also didn’t help him staying cool.
“Wait a second.” Chris watched Horror dig around in another box. To his surprise, Horror pulled out clothes. “That should fit you, its oversized.” The man came a bit closer, just close enough to throw over a shirt. Chris caught it. Horror wasn’t only funnier than he had originally thought, he was also way nicer.
“Thanks.” He still sounded a bit surprised and Horror looked confused in return but quickly went back to whatever it was he had been doing before Chris woke up. He kept talking though, just wasn’t visible to the mechanic anymore while doing so.
“I’m gonna stop by my friend Ghost’s place in a bit. She has a problem but isn’t sure if its just the software, said something doesn’t work right. Are you gonna come along?”
Now Chris really felt awake. That was it, some action. The first of their jobs or something?
By the way. When had Horror talked to that Ghost, maybe while he had been sleeping? And since the frequencies were blocked, did he just go upstairs to check on his SMS regulary? All this was still so wild to him.
“Sure. So that’s an android friend of yours? Do you all have such funky names? Then Motionless actually fits right in. Is that why you called me that?”
Horrors head appeared from behind the box again. “If you start throwing out questions faster than I can answer them one more time, I’m going to ignore them.”
Oh. He would have a hard time trying to keep it down.
“But you didn’t even answer my first set of questions from two days ago.”
Horror gave him a harsh look as if it was really testing his nerves. Maybe it was, yet Chris still found it amusing. The smaller, thinner man who was always so pissed or at least pretended to be was kind of cute. He very well knew that if Horror wanted, he could kick him out or leave him behind in the middle of nowhere (again) though, he wasn’t harmless. It was probably a thin line between Horror being annoyed and full on pissed. He would have to be careful.
“If I answer any of your questions, will you be less annoying for a while then?”
He nodded as he was satisfied. That was everything he had wanted.
While Horror was still digging through a box or something like that, Chris pulled his shirt over his head, dropped it next to the bed and put on the one his new friend had given him. It really fit, he could only imagine how loose it would hang on Horrors slim figure.
“So yes, Ghost is an android. I lived on the streets with her. And no, we do not all have such funky names, some of us- I mean them, also pick humanoid names for themselves when they start living on their own. I guess Ghost and I just have a thing for aesthetics.”
Okay, made sense. The light bulbs that were hanging from Horrors ceiling seemingly without any pattern must also be an aesthetic thing, as well as the fairy lights. He wouldn’t need them, they just looked good. Same with the graffiti on the walls. Now, he was just curious to see what kind of aesthetic an android would pick. Did they embrace to be an android and go with a technical theme? Or would an android not even want to be an android, maybe?
“And-”
Horror interrupted him with a sharp gaze.
“And I gave you the name because of your tattoo and because it sounds like a reasonable name. You probably don’t care but its better to get used to a name like that when you’re in some illegal shit. What would you rather hear? Horror and Motionless did this and this or Horror and insert your real name here did this and this? Wouldn’t sound so good if it catches word and you ever want to pretend being normal again.”
That made a surprising lot of sense. Should he go back to his old life and work, maybe the other mechanics wouldn’t like hearing about him fixing androids no one wanted anything to do with. Who were maybe not even legally on their own, who knew. So yeah, new name. Good idea. He should get used to using Motionless then. Horror and Motionless. Hmn. That sounded kinda cool, like a nice duo. Maybe at some point he could find out what Horrors actual name was. Maybe not the full name but the first name. Then it would be like.. Chris Motionless. That would make a cool last name, cooler than Cerulli. Okay then, Chris Motionless it was.
He nodded at Horror. “Okay, understood that.”
He kept his answer short because he didn’t have any questions regarding that topic and the other man seemed surprised. He probably had expected Motionless to be way more annoying.
“And about your first set of questions..”
Motionless blinked in confusion. Did Horror really still remember them? Was he some kind of super brain?
“What the hell is this? Did you build it? How do you have power here? And did you carry all this shit in through the hole in the construction site?” Horror repeated it in even the same tone that Motionless had said it in and he watched him do that with his mouth slightly open. That small guy really must be some kind of super brain, not even he would have been able to remember his exact choice of words.
“Why are you looking at me like that? As you see, this is my home. I only partly build it, as you probably guessed the subway tunnel was already there. It’s been unused for decades. I saw it on some old subway blueprints on a past job. That they stopped working on the construction site is my fault and yes, I dug the small tunnel from the hole to here and carried the things down here. Might sound like a lot but it’s really not when you have these prosthetic arms. I could probably try to lift up the bed you’re sitting on with you on it.”
There was no way Motionless was gonna believe that.
“Bro, you’re bullshitting me.”
Horror shook his head and the taller of both of them stood up.
“Come over here. Show me. I don’t believe that you could lift me up, you’re a stick.”
He barely expected his friend to actually do it. But the small man shrugged, stood up as well and walked over. He stopped right in front of him and wrapped his arms around Motionless’ waist. They were face against collar bone now and to the mechanic, it felt super alien when he noticed that his feet actually left the ground. The arms around him were holding him in a strong grip, almost as if he was trapped between metal bars. Well, wasn’t a big difference, just some synthetic skin on metal.
“Holy shit.” He hovered only a tiny bit over the ground, but Horror even managed to keep holding him up. He seemed to be annoyed though.
“Yep. Can I let you back down now?”
“Yeah, of course.”
So Horror put him back on his feet and Motionless ran a hand through his hair, huffing out some air. Then, he laughed. “You’re full of surprises! What next? You’re faster than light?”
Horror didn’t answer and that made him frown.
“You’re not really faster than light, are you?”
This time, his question was apparently too stupid because his friend reached up and bonked a hard fist against his head. That hurt.
“Of course not, do I look like sonic? But, um..”
Horror bowed down, grabbed the lower end of his black jogging pants and pulled them up a bit. Motionless could spy his ankles and they were black, just like his hands.
He gasped. “No way. Dude, I- I’m sorry. I didn’t wanna make you show me that too.”
The ankles disappeared under the fabric and their gazes met again.
“You would see it eventually anyway. But now you’ve seen all my black skin, I swear. Except the black from my ankles goes to up here.”
Motionless watched him put his hands on his upper thighs. It was only short after the actual joint. He bit his lip as he tried to imagine. So much of Horrors body was just.. Gone. He knew that it was a common practice with those cyborg dudes but Horror had expressed that he did not do this willingly. He had even more questions now. How did it feel? Could he feel pain? Did he feel weird about those body parts sometimes? Did he like or dislike them? He remembered another conversation they had had, where Horror had said something among the lines of if you get your arm shot you have a problem but I wouldn’t. So he figured that either it didn’t hurt or that Horror could turn off the pain or just take off the limbs. Any of those options were another mystery to Motionless.
“In case that makes you feel better, I think it’s kinda cool. It looks like blackout tattoos, just better. Blackout on hands usually doesn’t work that well, I considered getting that once. How about we refer to that as your blackout tattoos?”
Horror looked up to him and his expression was different, it seemed softer than anytime before. It made him feel pretty good. Maybe for once he had managed to press the right buttons.
“Yeah that.. Would be nice, I guess.” Horrors voice was low and Motionless smiled widely in return.
“Cool! And uh, by the way. Couldn’t you just wear shades? Or do you feel too stupid with them?”
Horror rolled his eyes. “No one wears shades for functionality, it would make obvious that I had something to hide, genius.”
He chuckled. “True. But what if we both wear them and if anyone asks us, I’ll halfway take mine off to look at them. Then they’ll think that we just think we’re cooler than we actually are and have to underline that with fancy shades. Doesn’t sound so bad, eh? Everyone looks kinda hilarious don’t you think?”
It actually made his smaller friend laugh. “Maybe. But then yours have to be more hilarious than mine. Give them a stupid shape or colour.”
That sounded like something he could live with.
“Okay, deal. I’ll let you come up with a name for us so it sounds more believable that we think we’re cool enough to wear shades.”
Horror rolled his eyes again.Motionless stole another one of Horrors packaged sandwiches and made his way out of the base. He really needed to take a shower, had been wanting to do that since he got here, basically. The construction site container actually had one. Though, when he had turned it on out of curiosity, the water had been all cold. It was a shame but he would survive it. He also figured that, just out of luxury reasons, he would actually be able to change that. All that it needed was a boiler, he should be able to get one from the junk yard that he could fix. Then he would have something to do. In general, the subway tunnel needed to have a connection to the sewerage. Shouldn’t it be possible to get water down there on the long term? Yeah, but those were plans for the future, not right now. He really just wanted to get clean. Honestly, he was surprised that Horror hadn’t complained yet, he seemed like the person to do that.
Motionless climbed out of the hole and went right over to the container. He slipped inside and didn’t bother locking the door, there was no one else running around here but Horror anyway, right? And oh well, he was the kind of person who wouldn’t care if Horror ever walked in on him, he would just make fun of it. It was really hard to make him uncomfortable. Emotionally and physically. He would also have been completely fine with keeping sleeping on Horror’s sofa.
He looked in the mirror over the sink and noticed that he had machine oil on his cheek. Must have been there the whole night then, probably from when he had worked on the prosthetics. Where else could it have come from? He took the shirt that his friend had just given him back off, put it in the sink together with his boxers and pants and went over to the cold shower. He would really need the rest of his clothes by time. Horror probably didn’t own any boxershorts that wouldn’t hold on his hips. But, first they had to see Horrors friend Ghost. That would be his first time interacting with an android and actually paying attention to it. He was kind of exited, he was very curios about the differences. It would also help him form his opinion. So he turned the water on and after the first shock because it really was damn cold, he got himself clean, thinking about what was to come, today and in the longer future.When he came out of the container not long after, his hair was still wet and dripped down on his shirt a bit. He immediately spotted Horror leaning next to the Motorcycle with Motionless’ bag in hand.
“Hey.” He said. Looked at the bag in his hand and then handed it over to the mechanic. “I brought up your tools and stuff. Figured I would save you the way downstairs.”
Motionless smiled at him and took the bag, quickly threw it over his shoulders. “Oh, thanks! Are we going right away?”
His friend hesitated with a frown. “Aren’t you gonna get sick from the airstream? Or wait, just take this.”
He watched the smaller man take off a beanie he at first hadn’t even seen. If everything but half of his skin was black, how was he supposed to tell everything apart, huh? No wonder he hadn’t seen a black beanie on black hair and black clothes.
The man pressed the beanie in his hands and he looked at it thoughtful. “Huh. Okay, thanks.” He figured that Horror looked cuter without the beanie anyway. More goth, less emo.
He slipped the beanie on his head and tugged his wet top hair under it. Felt weird on his sides, not only because they were shaved but also because he had spiky surface piercings on his temples. He managed though, he just wasn’t quite used to it.
“Okay, well, I’m ready to go!” Motionless beamed at his new friend and partner in crime who just climbed on the motorcycle seat without even answering. And he climbed on behind him, about to wrap his arms around the other man’s waist, but he was blocked off by a backpack. He laid a hand on Horrors shoulder.
“Should I put that over my bag? I’ll take care of it.”
Quickly, he saw Horror nod. He then slipped off the bag and handed it to Motionless who slipped it over his shoulders, on top of his own, flatter backpack. It fit easily.
In the meantime, Horror tugged his hair into the back of his sweater again and the mechanic watched him do so. Again, that hair was so shiny and looked pretty smooth. He wondered if it also felt like that. But didn’t touch it of course. Shit, he sounded like he was developing a god damn hair kink or something like that, he should really keep it together.
When the smaller man was done, he wrapped his arms around his torso and carefully laid against his back. “Alright, lets go.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
During the ride, Motionless kept his eyes closed. His arms were around his friends torso and he was lost in thoughts a bit, while leaning in the directions the motorcycle leaned into, like the times before. He still felt the adrenaline rushes whenever Horror took a sharp corner, but he trusted him enough to keep his eyes closed the whole time. In his mind he was with whoever they were going to meet now and with Horror, of course. Quite some things were starting to make sense but they brought up new questions. So, Horror had lost a giant part of his body and that explained his behaviour, he guessed. Definitely that he always covered as much as possible and also that he didn’t like when you pulled around on him. There hadn’t really been an example, but Motionless was one hundred percent sure that if he randomly grabbed the others arm, he would be slapped in the face. He could touch his torso though, probably because it wasn’t prosthetic. He could also lean his chin on the others shoulder. The head against the back of Horrors head, he was doing that right now. He almost had his face in his hair. So, Horror mostly felt attacked when it was about his prosthetics. His limbs and his eyes. He understood that, he was sure he could work with it.
What didn’t make sense was that Horror disliked his non human body parts, while he seemed to feel more like the androids he was friends with. When they had talked earlier, Horror had said And no, we do not all have such
funky names, some of us- I mean them. After that, he had said I guess Ghost and I just have a thing for aesthetics, when explaining something about androids. For Motionless it was clear that Horror counted himself as an android too. But why not be happy to have android body parts then? Thinking about it, Horror really didn’t live the way you would expect a human to live, unless it was an apocalypse. You would usually plug in your fucking fridge and look for a place with a shower, man. By time he would ask the man about it. Maybe when they got back home from Ghosts place. About this android friend, he was really curious now. He wanted to see what she lived like. If she had a fancier place than Horror, he would burst out laughing.Horror came to a halt. He opened his eyes to check where they were, expected to be holding at a traffic light. Instead, they were standing on a parking lot between a lot of cars and other motorcycles. The parking lot was almost wider than he could see.
He let go of his friend. “Shouldn’t your friend be hiding? We are in the middle of civilization here. Or are you gonna tell me the best place to hide is inside the mass, in a big apartment complex or something?”
Horror just scoffed and slipped his hands under the hair in his neck. He pulled it out of his clothes with a bit too much pep and before Motionless could get out of the way, he had a swing of black hair in his face and almost felt as if he suffocated. He quickly brushed it out of his face. A little of it got stuck to his lip piercings. It was kinda funny, but he also noticed that the hair felt weird between his fingers. Not like his own. Did he have something in it, some weird hair product? Did that make it so shiny?
“Oh.” Horror looked behind himself and grabbed his hair, brushing it over one shoulder to get it out of the way. “Sorry. No, this is not an apartment complex. Have you not been watching where we’re driving? This is the central graveyard.”
The graveyard? Motionless had never been here. He didn’t have anyone to visit. No family, no friends. At least he hoped Ryan hadn’t ended up here ever since they last called.
Horror seemed to have reached his destination though, he pulled the key out of the vehicle. The taller of both of them quickly climbed off the machine and brushed his fingers over his face again. He still could feel something tingling, as if the hair was still there. Suffocating in hair was really not how he wanted to go.
“Okay, just lead the way. Are we doing a secret meeting or something? If I have to behave special or something you need to tell me.”
His friend climbed off the motorcycle and walked around it, just so he could smack his cold, metal fist against the taller ones shoulder. “We’re not actors in a James Bond movie. We’re going on a graveyard. Do you see how full the parking lot is? There are so many people, no one cares what we’re doing.”
Also true. So he just buried his hands in his pockets and said “Whatever you say, Horror Queen.”The other man completely ignored how he had just called him. The mechanic just shrugged to himself and followed him though. He made sure to walk next to him so they wouldn’t look like he didn’t know what they were doing. When you walked around on the graveyard, you usually knew where you were going, right? Horror kept quiet and Motionless just thought to himself, going through options and possibilities. They could be meeting Ghost here while she lived somewhere different. That didn’t make too much sense though. How were they supposed to fix her with so many people around? Maybe they just met up here and then walked together. He couldn’t imagine her to actually live here.
He looked around a little, but everything or everyone he saw looked ordinary. Humans visiting dead humans. Well, at least you wouldn’t expect any androids here, right?
After a little bit of walking. He felt Horrors hand on his arm and before he could ask him what was going on, Horror bumped into him from the side and forced him off the path they were walking on. Horror quickly pushed him into some bushes next to the path and the mechanic almost got his eyes stabbed out by the twigs so he closed them. His smaller friend was right behind him, pushing him through the plants and breaking through the wall of leaves right behind him. The mechanic tried to shield his face from all the scratches he got. When it was over, he opened his eyes and looked at the other. “What the hell was that for?” He hissed under his breath but the long haired man just nodded into the direction in front of them, so Motionless looked.
They were standing between a hedge and the back of a white stone building. It was pretty dark because of the shadows and the already dim sunlight. It was easy for him to figure out what they were standing behind. The stones were big, squared and roughly cut, the corners of the building supported by pillars. This must be a mausoleum. He turned back to Horror. “Okay, great. And now?” Obviously there was no one in the small space behind the building. To be fair, this was a good hiding spot. Maybe to fix her here?
“Wait.” Horror closed his eyes and just stood there for a moment. The other man watched him in complete confusion and maybe also a little worry. He could see the eyeballs moving behind the eyelids. Sometimes, just sometimes, he considered that Horror had maybe just lost his mind and was talking nonsense. But just for a short moment. He didn’t actually think that Horror made everything up.
“Okay.” The man opened his eyes again, gave Motionless a hand sign to follow him and walked closer to the building. He kneeled down in front of it, put his hands on one of those gigantic white stones and started pushing.
He actually moved the fucking stone, he pushed it into the building and created a gap, barely big enough for him to fit through. Motionless caught himself having his mouth agape and quickly closed his lips. This was just as obscure as finding Horrors base in a subway tunnel next to an abandoned construction site.
Said Horror looked over his shoulder. “Okay, try to follow me. It’s a tight space, if it doesn’t work I’ll have to move the stone next to this one somehow.”
Motionless was still not over the small man being able to move this fucking stone. But he slowly nodded, then followed his partner in crime to the wall and kneeled down. He looked around himself for a short moment, but no one was around, as before. Next time he looked at the now hole in the wall, Horror was gone without a trace. Must be inside already. He put his hands on the ground and lowered his head to look through the gap. He felt hilarious considering to creep through this tight, square hole but when he looked inside, it looked way too interesting to not go in. He could see the stone of course, but also a bit around it. That actually looked like the legs of a chair and some pillows on the ground. Now he was sure he had to see that. Before crawling through, he took off the backpacks and pushed them through the hole. A black hand quickly pulled them out of the way to make space. Even if it was awkward, he scooted closer to the wall and tried sticking his head in the hole.
He had no idea how he actually managed to get through. He just knew that his shoulders felt like they had scraped open on the stones on both sides and the back of his head hurt too because he had hit it. Once he could reach the inside, he put his hands on the stone walls and pushed against them to fit his body through. He got up on his knees as soon as he could and raised his head to take a better look around. Now to see what he had taken this effort for.
He saw the girl. She sat on a chair at a table, an empty one next to her, the one he had seen through the gap. She had shoulder long, black hair that seemed a bit frizzly, legs crossed, stuck in a rather victorian, gothicy dress and wore heavier trad goth makeup than Motionless had ever seen in wild life. She looked down at him with a rather cold expression, her painted on eyebrows arching stronger than his own ones usually did. He currently didn’t have any. He didn’t have makeup at Horrors place. He felt naked and intimidated enough to stand up and dust off his clothes, clear his throat a little.
“Uhh.. Hi, I’m Motionless, Horrors- I work with Horror.” He had no idea how to approach the woman. The android. She didn’t look like one. Her dark eyes were intense, she was staring over at Horror and the man was staring back at her. He looked back and forth between them a few times before they moved again. She leaned back and Horror picked up the bags from the ground. He walked over to his friend and handed him the bag with his tools.
“C’mon.” He said. “You don’t have to be so formal. She doesn’t mind, she just doesn’t know how to act any other way.”
Somehow, that seemed very understandable to Motionless. In his mind, he always compared androids to a computer. A program. It could only do what it was told to do. If she only had a certain personality and certain reactions installed, that would mean she couldn’t act any other way, right?
He nodded and took the bag, walked up to the woman with a smile. “Anyway, its great to meet you. I’ve been wondering what Horrors friends are like.”
She looked at only him now and after a short pause she seemed to smile a little. Her lips were deep black, perfectly painted. Maybe it wasn’t even makeup, maybe it was actually stained into her synthetic skin. He could imagine that to be the usual with androids.
“And I’ve been wondering what his human friend is like. Good to meet you too. I only have one more chair but would you like to sit down?”
Oh, she answered him. He was kind of surprised, interacting with this kind of technology for the first time. He looked over his shoulder to Horror who still stood there and couldn’t hold back a joke. “Well, he can just sit on my lap.” He grinned at his new friend.
Horror furrowed his eyebrows. He took it way too serious. “I don’t think you want that. My.. blackout parts are quite heavy. I could break your legs if I fell on them.”
Now the oblivious man couldn’t hold back a laugh. “I don’t believe that! For real. I need to try that. Come here.”
Horror shook his head.
“C’mon, else I’ll just lift you up where you’re standing.”
The smaller man seemed to shoot a gaze towards Ghost, then walked over to the both of them. To Motionless, it had actually been more of a joke but now he was curious. There was no way the metal limbs could be that heavy, right? Especially since the legs wouldn’t even have their weight on his lap, or at least he figured. When his friend came walked over, he sat down on the chair to Ghosts side and watched Horror walk over to him.
The man hesitated when he reached his sitting friend. His eyebrows gave off a confused expression, but Motionless had no idea how to judge it. He just lifted his hands, grabbed Horror by his waist and tugged on him to make him sit down. He dared to touch them because he also did when they were on the motorcycle. He figured it must be okay to touch them.
And the small goth didn’t freak out. He turned a bit and slowly sat down on the mechanics leg the way the man pulled him to.
At first Motionless was still confused, it didn’t feel all so bad. The weight seemed pretty normal to him, at least until he noticed that Horror was holding himself up a bit by the chairs armrest. He put his weight on his feet and the grip on the armrest. And Motionless did the only stupid thing he could think off, he grabbed the black wrist on the armrest and pulled it off with an amused expression.
The smaller man couldn’t hold himself up with only his feet and his weight collapsed on Motionless thigh. It was- more than expected. Much more. That was actually a damn lot. Where did all that weight come from?? He pressed his lips together because it hurt a small bit. Both of the others were watching him with a stern, interested expression.
“I told you its heavy. Are you okay?”
Horrors face was pretty close to his from how he was sitting. There was no way he could hide that it was actually quite heavy to him, but he gave a quick nod anyway and made “Uhuh”. It was heavy. But now he felt stupid for not believing it and tried to cover it up with a quick lie. “It’s not that bad, as I told you!”
Ghost was the one who cracked the stern stare at the mechanic first. She suddenly just started laughing so bad, she wiped the corner of her eye. Oh wait, was it even possible for her to cry while laughing?
“You really are as stupid as Horror said. He weighs one hundred and forty two kilos.”
It also felt like that. He still wondered where all that came from. He obviously didn’t know what it felt like to have someone on his lap who has very heavy arms, would it feel different from a generally heavy person? Because that was the impression that he got. There was no way that were just his arms, right? Well, and thighs..
“Nah, it feels more like ninety. It’s fine.”
It felt like exactly one hundred and forty two. But the two friends looked at each other and just left him hanging with his lie, Ghost didn’t say anything about it anymore and Horror didn’t stand up. So Motionless kind of had to sit through it now. Well, it was his own fault. Next time he should just believe the goth.
“So, uh..” He tried to switch the topic to look less stupid. “You told Horror something doesn’t work right? Care to explain?”Before they let him look at anything, the two friends tried to solve the problem from a software side which meant that Horror kept sitting on his poor legs. Ghost said that her left leg didn’t do what it was supposed to. The impulse would sometimes suddenly stop going through, so it just stopped doing anything, relaxed all the muscles and made her fall instantly. He had to imagine how she walked somewhere and randomly just fell and hit the floor face first. It would be a hilarious sight- but not a good one, yeah. Horror pulled a hand sized device out of his backpack, it looked like a twentyth century smartphone with its screen and a few buttons. He also had a cable and plugged it into the device. “I have to jack into you to check that.” He told her. “If I do it wireless the waves could be picked up by other devices too. Wouldn’t want anyone to know something in here is creating waves, right?”
Ghost shook her head. So the smaller man leaned closer to her with the end of the cable in his hand. Motionless watched the happening things so closely he almost forgot about the painful weight on his lap. Right now the android didn’t look like an android at all. He had no idea where the calbe was supposed to go but soon he was smarter.
She brushed her hair out of the way and revealed her ear and the pale skin behind it. Right behind her ear, not visible from the front, he could make out a small black dot. Horror, holding a very thin, male plug, brought it closer to her and plugged it into what Motionless had thought to be a small button rather than a socket. He wondered what it felt like. If she even felt it at all. Did she have nerves there if she didn’t need them? Or maybe she did, else you could plug something in without her noticing, that sounded unconvinient.
Horror started to tap around on the device and pressed some buttons. The mechanic expected some cool cyber interface like they always had in movies, but it rather looked like a CMD.exe with its black background and very pixelated typewriter font. There were no flashing neon lights or cool matrix effects. It didn’t look spectacular at all.
Seconds passed, then minutes. They sat in silence and the only audible thing was Horror pressing the buttons and both of them breathing. He noticed that the android woman didn’t breathe. Her chest didn’t move. She sat there like a mannequin, but maybe she also did because Horror was jacked into her. However, he took the moment to look around at her place and distract himself from the uncomfortable feeling of Horror sitting on his leg. He would surely not ask him to do this again, even though it was a little bit sad. Horror was a cute, small goth man. And the first cute, small goth man he would not let sit on his lap anymore.
The mausoleum didn’t look like one from the inside anymore. Apparently no one usually entered it anymore, he could see the heavy entrance door. Where it should meet the door frame, he could clearly see that someone had welded it closed, from the inside. He was sure that most people, when they couldn’t open the door, also wouldn’t try to get in through the bricks, usually. Which must be how Ghost also got in and out, usually. There wasn’t much in here though. The table with the chairs, a bed with a metal frame, a shelf with books and two cabinets of dark, but not completely matching wood. She didn’t seem to need a lot of things. Had some candles set up though, some dried roses hanging from the stone walls. It had an aesthetic. High up, in the roof pitch, he made out two round windows that let a bit of light in. Otherwise he would probably be lost without his night vision implant. Ghost surely didn’t have a problem with it with her android eyes. And Horror neither, his eyes weren’t biological either.
His attention was drawn back to what was actually happening when Horror unplugged the cable and stood up. The weight being gone so suddenly felt like such a sweet relief, Motionless almost moaned out. Almost. He didn’t.
Horror was already busy digging in his bag and Ghost adjusted her hair, put it back over her ear and the socket behind it. Motionless pressed his lips shut for a second, feeling awkward. He caught himself soon though.
“So.. Did you find the bug in the system?”
His friend shook his head without looking up from his bag. “No. The software seems to be in top shape. Do you think she could just have a loose contact or something?”
Possible. He stretched out his hurting leg, gaining an amused look from both of them. Then grabbed his bag and looked at the woman, now apparently his patient. “Okay, let’s see. I don’t know which model you are, but I’m sure we’re gonna find out soon enough. I would guess that it’s probably somewhere in your knee then. Do you mind if I come a bit closer and you put your leg on my lap so I can look at it?”
She looked at him just as amused as before, so he added: “You can’t tell me one of your legs is as heavy as Horror. I’ll believe a lot but not that.”
She shook her head a bit and lifted her leg up, so he came closer. It really wasn’t as heavy, it was actually pretty fine. She pulled back the long dress with multiple layers of black lace and exposed her almost white, thin leg. From afar it would really look like a human leg, but when you looked close enough, you could see a few very thin lines. That’s where you opened the skin to access the actual device. The metal, the cables, the synthetic muscles that would generate the movement. He had seen that and also worked on that before. Not a lot but he had.
Careefully, he put a hand on her leg and looked back up to her face. “I’ll need to carefully open that. Is that okay? Let’s be careful there, I don’t think you will feel it but I am not entirely sure about that.” He was aware that he probably didn’t sound super professional saying this, but he just wanted to warn her. And she nodded, probably glad that someone helped her at all? He still couldn’t confirm these things from own experiences so he felt stupid relying on Horror telling him how important his help and doings were.
He took his tools out of the bag, laid them out on the table. He took the smallest screw driver that he had to open the layer of synthetic skin. He slipped the tool into the thin line he had seen, it was where the different parts of skin met. He could lift the skin up, grab it and carefully pull. To him it felt very weird, as if he was skinning an actual person. He also checked her expression to make sure she didn’t feel it, but she gave him a completely unbothered look. She didn’t seem to have a problem with seing her limbs open like this.
Motionless pulled the skin out of the way so he could reach the knee and bowed down to take a closer look at it. It would make his back hurt but that was worth it. He noticed his smaller friend standing next to him, also bowing down, watching him clearly interested. Maybe he even was impressed, Motionless didn’t check. He had started working on something and would completely focus on it until he was done with it. He had taken a dive into his element again.
At first it looked like the knee was completely okay. The connectors were all firmly attached, the cables seemed intact, the metal frame, similar to bones, was in top shape as well. It took until he told her to move the leg a little to find the flaw. He could see that when she moved, the muscles lit up a tiny but when the energy flew threw them. One of the though, it flickered a bit. So it was obvious that the flaw was there.
He took a closer look at it. These things were not made out of cables and screws, it was way finer and build up almost like a real muscle. With her consent, he extracted it and held it up to check it from all sides, to see if there was anything he could do about it. He didn’t know how you actually build one of these. He put it on his mental list for research.
He did some thinking while looking at it. “I sadly don’t think I can fix this muscle.” He could already see her expression drop. “Though, there’s one thing I can do until we find a replacement for it. I can exchange it with another muscle from something you think you can live without for a short time. I imagine that walking is one of the most important things you have to do. We should be able to get a replacement for this, Horror has boxes full of stuff but you probably know that.” She nodded slowly. The mechanic put the broken muscle down on the table but a second later Horror already picked it up to hold it up and look at it himself. The mechanic eyed him from the side. He seemed both interested and.. He couldn’t read what exactly it was, but there was another emotion. One that definitely wasn’t happy.
Ghost pulled up her left sleeve. “Can you take one from here? Just one arm is better than just one leg.”
He felt like he couldn’t agree more. “Yeah, that should be doable. I just have to find one in the same size, so I might have to open this up more than your knee.”
She nodded again, understanding as she seemed to be. She put the arm on the table next to them and Motionless bowed over it with the small screwdriver, carefully opening the synthetic skin here as well.All of them were happy when He could finally slip the skin back in place. He pressed it flat like a foil you wanted to avoid air bubbles under. He had done this a few times before and it worked without problems. The skin was back in place and Ghost carefully moved her leg for a test. It seemed to be working well and her and Horror both let out a gasp of relief. Just her elbow wouldn’t work now. With the broken muscle, it would at least sometimes work but he needed to take it along to find a replacement in the right size. They were lucky she had had a fitting one in her elbow at all, it also could have ended worse.
“Thank you very much.” She said and sighed lowly. Put her leg down and carefully stood up, then walked a bit for a test. Everything seemed great. She even gave him a smile.
“You’re a life saver. Just imagine it had broken completely on its own, I would always have to walk with support.” He could imagine. It would be like having a broken leg, but permanently because it wouldn’t heal on its own. Slowly but surely he started to realize how much of a problem it was to not get fixed by anyone.
“Well, now you know to just call Horror when you need anything else!”While he would have expected the two friends to have more small talk, it only took a few more minutes until Horror expressed that he wanted to leave, go find that replacement muscle. Maybe they mostly communicated online, Motionless guessed. So he told her goodbye and watched Horror disappear through the gap in the bricks.
He had to manage getting through there a second time and this time he was sure he had gotten scratches on his shoulder.
Before he even really climbed out of the gap, Horror already started talking to him.
“Now you see what I mean. You’re getting even more personally involved. You’re already so deep in this, there’s no way you can’t be believing in it yet.”
More personally involved? He was very sure that was the first android he had fixed, but maybe Horror just used confusing phrasing here.
“Believe in what? That they need help? Yeah, I can see that but I also didn’t doubt it.”
The man shook his head. “That androids aren’t even so different. What difference does it make, a cyborg with a metal leg is also still humanoid, right?”
He frowned. He agreed, but he really wondered why Horror was so fixated on this whole thing.
“Yes, okay, I wouldn’t have figured she’s not a human and it also doesn’t really matter. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Horror did not look satisfied. He watched Motionless climb onto his feet, straighten his clothes and they both could then watch the stone being pushed back into place. Apparently Ghost was just as strong. It made sense.
“Let’s just get back home to get that replacement part for her. I wouldn’t want to keep her waiting longer than she has to.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Horror was awfully quiet on their way back. The mechanic looked around a bit this time, to know which way they were taking. On the highway though, he closed his eyes and leaned against his partner in crime. It was all pretty comforting. He he helped him, Horror wouldn’t be able to fix Ghost without his help. But he started to realize that in certain situations, maybe he would need Horror more than Horror needed him. He tried to imagine the things that could go wrong and in most cases he came up with, Horror would be the only one who could get them out of it. He suddenly felt less helpful than before, even though he had just helped the female android in a way that Horror hadn’t been able too.
Both their moods were pretty low but they got back to the base fast and Motionless really hoped that finding a replacement muscle would lift the vibes. When they came to a halt though, he noticed that the driver was even more tense now. Something seemed to be wrong. Very wrong. They were on the driveway to the construction site but not where they usually parked.
“Horror?”
He let go of the man’s waist and looked at him, at the back of his head. The smaller man climbed off the vehicle without adjusting his hair as usual and mumbled a low “Wait here”, before he walked off. He went around the corner of a construction fence and was gone.
Motionless sat there for a moment. He imagined that Horror was meeting some shady people or something, but how did Horror know they were here? Everything looked the way it always did. There were no traces of someone else being here.
At least he thought so at first. He looked around in confusion but couldn’t make out anything so he decided to wait. He still at on the motorcycle so he finally climbed off and pushed it over to the fence, leaned it against it. That way he wouldn’t look so suspicious, standing in the middle of the driveway.
He took off the two backpacks he was wearing to dig for his phone. Maybe call Ryan, tell him he was still alive. He placed Horrors backpack on the seat and just wanted to stick his hand into his own backpack, when he got distracted. It wasn’t anything big or unusual, but he could clearly see a long, shimmering hair stuck to Horrors backpack. Okay now, he did not usually have a thing for hair. But no real hair looked like this. That couldn’t be biological hair.
He picked it up and held it up against the dim light of a street lamp. It was way too shiny. It looked more like plastic. Motionless did some thinking, then dug through his backpack anyway, holding the hair secure. He usually wasn’t the smartest but he had a very good idea. Somewhere in his bag he had a lighter. He found it, activated it and slowly held the hair against it.
Burning human hair stinks like hell. However, burning Horrors hair it clearly just smelled like burned plastic. He dropped the rest of the hair and tugged his lighter away in his pockets. Horrors hair was synthetic. Now, what did that mean? His limbs were made of metal, his face was of synthetic skin. His eyes were implants and his hair must be implanted too. He had seen Horrors roots, it wasn’t a wig. Did he just burn his whole scalp in an accident? But if he had the money to get the hair implants, then why not the eyes. Shouldn’t that be more important since you can always wear a wig?
Unless.. Maybe Horror had never been in an accident. He had never seen him sleep. Never seen him eat. Actually he had just seen Horror drink one of these weird, glowing energy drinks. Horror drove the motorcycle like crazy, as if he wasn’t scared of crashing. He had lived with androids, seemed to talk about nothing else and when talking about Ghost, he had talked said we and us. So what if Horror wasn’t human. What if he wasn’t a cyborg or transitioning to an android. Maybe he had never been human in the first place. Horror had said that with Ghost he got even more personally involved, even though it had been the first android Motionless interacted with. Unless she wasn’t. And Horror was the first android he had interacted with.There was no way he would just leave it at that. He grabbed both backpacks and put them back on, ducked down a bit and sneaked to the construction site entrance as well. When he passed it, he stilled for a moment. Now he saw something that was different. On the metal post of a fence at the entrance hung something. Carefully, he walked closer. It was a necklace, shiny, silver. On it hung a rusty key. That clearly hadn’t been there the times before. Maybe it was a message towards Horror. After a moment of thinking, he took it off the metal fence and slid it into his pocket.
Whatever was going on here, if it was dangerous then Motionless rather wanted to stay hidden. He was just a mechanic, no android that could take a bullet. So he made sure he hid behind whatever he could find while progressing towards the hole in the ground, since he guessed that must be where Horror was at right now.
There were broken down construction fences scattered around everywhere. Piles of rubble, piles of tires and trash that people had dumped. Rolls with cables thicker than his arm. All good things to hide behind. It was getting dark again, it always did at this time already. It helped him stay hidden.
After a little while, he reached the hole in the ground and could make out two people. Both of them were sitting on the asphalt with their legs dangling into the depths, across from each other. The one with the back towards the mechanic was clearly Horror. He wore the same hoodie and since he had given away his beanie, the slightly shiny hair stuck out a lot. The other one was a bald young man, had dark eyes as well and was also completely covered in fabric. At least his neck didn’t seem to be black, but considering everything, maybe he also wasn’t human.
Both men were just silently staring at each other, in the same way Horror and Ghost had stared at each other. Putting one and one together, they were probably communicating in a way that only androids did. It looked so alien to Motionless. And now he wondered how many times Horror had been talking to someone else in the whole time they had been in the base together. It was starting to get really confusing.
He watched them for a few minutes, until Horror suddenly stood up and huffed out some air. “Are you done?” He said. “I would prefer to talk normally to you. Doesn’t make you look very human.”
Didn’t make him look human? The mechanic did some thinking. Horror had expressed that he hated his eyes and his metal limbs. Everything about him that didn’t seem human. So did that mean that Horror wasn’t a human transitioning to an android, was he an android transitioning to a human?
It started to make more and less sense at the same time.
The other man spoke up as well now, but he kept sitting at the rim of the hole. His voice was deeper than Horrors. It was even deeper than Motionless’.
“Well you know I’m not. I don’t have to pass right now. So why would I abandon the advantages that I have?”
Horror snorted.
“You’re really not like me. Your advantages are the things I hate most about myself.”
Apparently Motionless was right. Wow, he really felt extra smart now.
“By the way.” The stranger spoke up and nodded his head into the direction that the mechanic was hiding at. He ducked away as quick as he could, starting to feel panic. He really didn’t wanna be crushed by two androids, angry that he spied on them.
The stranger continued to talk.
“I think your new boyfriend was curious about who you’re meeting. If you used your advantages, you might have noticed him too. Has been there for longer.”
Motionless held his breath. There was really nothing you could hide from them, huh? They were stronger, faster, smarter and apparently could scan their surroundings. Or maybe the stranger had just heard him.
Horror sighed audibly.
“You can come out, Motionless. Josh was just about to leave anyway.”
He let out a breath. Well, it was no use anyway. So he stood up and came out of his hiding spot.
Both men were looking at him. It felt a little awkward. He tried to come up with an idea how to explain himself, since his friend looked at him expectantly. But luckily they got interrupted by Josh.
He walked up to them and leaned in to Horror as if he wanted to kiss his cheek or lips or something. The long haired man leaned back and gave him a disgusted look. It seemed to be normal for both of them though. They seemed pretty used to it.
“I’ll be going then.” Josh muttered towards the other small man and then finally did so. He walked up to a fence, climbed over it within seconds as if it was nothing and disappeared in the darkness.He left Horror and Motionless behind, alone. The mechanic pulled off the backpack that wasn’t his to return it to its rightful owner. “I’m sorry.” He finally said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe that you could need help.”
The smaller man didn’t answer. Well, the smaller probably android, of course.
“Oh.” Motionless remembered something and pulled the key out of his pocket. “I suppose that’s yours?”
He handed it over. Horror folded out his black hands and he let it drop onto the dark skin, contrasting the shiny silver.
“Why did you take it from the fence?”
He didn’t know. Maybe Josh had been supposed to take it along again. Horror hadn’t picked it up by himself after all.
“Thought you were too much in a hurry to pick it up yet.”
A black thumb ran over the silver chain and the rusty key. His partner in crime had his head lowered, just looking at the key for some time. Then, he held it out to Motionless again and returned it, once he held out his hand in confusion.
“Keep it. It’s mine but I don’t wanna wear it anymore.”
Motionless hesitated, but since Horror kept looking at him, he slowly lifted it over his head and put it on. Only when he did that, the other man turned away. “We need to hide the motorcycle before we go down.”So, Josh had said that he was Horrors new boyfriend. He assumed that he was Horrors ex boyfriend then. He just wondered why he was supposed to keep the key then. Josh had probably had it because they were in a relationship.
Horror made no attempt to explain it. He hid the vehicle and then climbed into the hole without looking back at his mechanic. Motionless felt like the air was even more tense now but he followed. He quickly decided not to ask Horror if he was an android or not. The man had expressed hating his metal limbs and eyes already. He had seemed triggered when he touched his face and almost touched his chest, probably because it was synthetic too. So if he didn’t want to upset him, he better not ask. He was pretty sure he had his answer already. And did it even make a difference? He wasn’t sure but maybe Horror was right. He would just have to do some thinking about it.
They reached the base and Horror hung up his backpack, then turned around.
“You smell like burned plastic. What the hell did you do?”
Oh. Right, shit.
“Had a loose threat on my pants and burned it off.”
“Hmm.”
Horror didn’t ask any further. He just went over to the boxes, where they had started to sort the android parts. He was probably gonna dig around until he found muscles. Motionless quickly decided to help him find something that was identical, best multiple identical ones, since they didn’t know if all of them were still functional.
“Uhm, by the way..”
Both of them were digging through a big box now and Horror spoke up. So the mechanic looked up and their gazes met across the crate they were both holding their arms into.
“I talk to androids a lot. Most of them don’t like speaking when they can avoid it. So I’m using a communicator implant.”
Motionless figured that he was finding explanations that avoided saying that he wasn’t human and he took it. Maybe one day he would ask him to tell the truth, but not today.
“I figured. But what’s even more interesting.. Did you date him? Can you date androids?”
Or rather, can androids date androids? How can you date an android when you are one yourself but don’t want to be one?
Horror shrugged and avoided his gaze. He looked into the crate and slowly started to dig around again.
“Yeah. It doesn’t make a difference, right? At least when you live like him. He’s transhuman, that’s how they call it. Ghost isn’t, so I wouldn’t date her.”
Transhuman, so it was like he had figured. He would keep that in mind.
“I see. Well, I guess it doesn’t make a difference, yeah. If you can arrange yourself with the body situation somehow.”
In the end, being transhuman maybe wasn’t much different from being transgender, but what would he know about this. He had never cared about what was in anyone’s pants before.
He added “Okay, let’s find that muscle for Ghost. She’ll probably want her elbow fixed ASAP.” and left it at that.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Motionless didn’t wonder anymore why Horror didn’t take a break to eat anything and also didn’t ask him about the unplugged fridge, he was pretty sure he knew the reason already. All the things down here still belonged to the smaller man though, so of course Motionless asked before he took anything. He asked to take some more of Horrors packaged sandwiches and said that he would bring something else to the base instead, he wasn’t broke after all, he had brought all his money along. But Horror just waved it off and didn’t seem to mind at all.
So Motionless just sat on the sofa, watching Horror sort some muscles he had build out of other android limbs and ate his dusty sandwich in peace. He envied the other a little for not having to stuff these icky ass packaged foods down his throat. Then again, who knew what his glowing energy drinks tasted like. Maybe it was battery acid, it looked like that after all.
He was still not over the fact that his new friend wasn’t human but seemed to live and feel like one by all means. He had an ex partner, he had a home, he seemed to have a lot of emotions and there were things he wanted, all signs that he wasn’t a machine. It got him thinking for real now. He really was personally involved. He had started to take a platonic liking in the fanatic, small, long haired man. He had decided to join his cause, because it was more interesting than his lame usual job and life. So of course he would stand in for it and his friend if he had to. He questioned how far he would go but quickly came to the conclusion that he would stand in as much as he would if Horror was flesh and bones. And that made it clear; there really was no difference. For all he cared Horror could be a dolphin in disguise, that wouldn’t change how he acted, thought and felt. It wouldn’t make him another person.
When he was done eating, he got up and tossed the wrapper into a box with trash that they had collected while sorting things. Bringing things out of the base would be as much of a pain in the butt as bringing it in.
“Hey Horror.” He walked over to the man who was still sorting muscles on the table. It seemed he was putting them in heaps after sizes. The idea wasn’t that bad. He looked around and picked up a few empty cardboard boxes, grabbed the muscles and put them in there, so they couldn’t get mixed up on the table.
The other man lifted his head and directed his gaze at Motionless who just gave him a very short but warm smile. Horror didn’t know that he knew what he was, but he still felt like he should let him know it was okay. Maybe he would come out by himself at some point.
“Is there something you needed?”
Horror gave the kind of answer that Motionless had categorized as practical before, now he would rather say it was mechanical. Maybe there were some things that would just never change. Or maybe Horror needed more time, he had no idea how long he had been living like this. Androids didn’t age, right? For all he knew Horror could be fifty years old.
“I wanted to ask you one or another personal question if that’s okay with you.”
The others gaze wandered down again. He pulled the cardboard boxes towards himself and started to sort the muscles into them now. Just by the way Motionless noticed him putting one away in the wrong box and watched it with way too much interest. For some reason, he would have guessed that androids didn’t make mistakes.
“The way you’re staring at what I’m doing it seems more your questions are about the way I’m sorting things.”
He noticed he had been looking too long and quickly looked at Horrors face again, just didn’t focus on his eyes, he knew the man hated that.
“Oh, nono, I’m sorry. It’s just a few things about androids. And you and androids. I figured you wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to tell me about that?”
Horror gave him a sharp gaze and he feared that he upset the man. Quite the opposite though, Horror seemed very talkative.
“You got me there, ask away. But I’m not going to explain sex with an android. If that’s your question, go look it up on a porn site.”
Motionless blinked in utter confusion. That had not been his question. He hadn’t even thought that far yet. But honestly, it was a good question. Was Horror sexual at all?
“I’m not gonna ask you about that, I swear.”
He didn’t want to talk about it in general. So he quickly tossed the thoughts aside.
“No, what I actually wanted to know about is.. How do you know that an android is like Josh? Or Ghost? I mean aware. Conscious. However you call it. Or are they all? Whenever you hear about it on TV or god knows where it doesn’t seem that way.”
Horror put the last muscles he had in his hands away and leaned against a bigger crate, turned towards his mechanic. Whom figured that meant it was a harder question or at least more complicated to explain, if the man turned his full attention towards him.
“I assume with TV you mean the documentaries you sometimes see? With androids standing in rows working in factories? C’mon, those are not much more than a few human looking gears. There’s still a huge difference between this and this, even though I understand it’s hard to pull the line.” While talking, Horror walked over to their wall with boxes and spare parts and picked two up. An actual android head that they had found in a box and a small computer chip. He wasn’t sure he understood.
“Where’s the difference? What’s inside that android head? Is it not just another computer chip? Without wanting to sound offensive.”
The man put the head back into a box.
“Well, I’m not gonna split it open for you, that’s grotesque. It’s not biological but it’s way more complicated than this chip, even if it’s made of the same basics. Where do you pull the line between a two days old fetus and a grown human?”
Now that was a question that Motionless didn’t like. It was a debate that still no one had found a final answer for. When did a fetus gain consciousness, when did it turn human? When did an android gain consciousness? Was there even an answer?
He didn’t reply, just stared at the small chip that his friend was still holding. So an android was just a bigger version of that chip. Okay, Motionless was also just a huger version of the embryo he had once been.
“But how does it evolve.” He walked over to the smaller man and took the chip from his hands to take a closer look at it. “A fetus develops over time, he never stops evolving. Does this develop by itself? If it has the resources? I’m sure that Ghost and Josh can learn things. Can this too?”
He held the chip up to show Horror as if he didn’t have the chip in his own hands before. The man laughed a small bit.
“That’s a question no one dares to ask or answer. No one wants another debate or to think about if they have to assume their toaster deserves rights. I can’t tell you either. I personally think that by itself, this small chip won’t develop anything. It’s more like a raw steak if you ask me, but I can’t be sure. When I meet androids or anything that can communicate with me, I just take a moment to see if I get the impression it actually thinks. If it does, I accept it as equal. Make experiences and trust your judgement. That’s all I can advice you.”
It all reminded motionless of watching this super old sci-fi series Star Trek. Compared to how the future had turned out, the series was bullshit. But they visit new worlds and encounter new life forms and have to decide what to do with them and how to act around them. It was pretty much how Motionless felt with all this. He felt like he had been thrown into a completely new world. Started to have thoughts he had never before thought about. He had never questioned if his computer had a free will, now he did, for a split second, before he realized that it was a stupid question. It would surely take him a long time to get used to all this.
“Okay, I see.. Uhm, another thing. If you dated Josh, does that mean he has romantic feelings? I honestly would have expected androids to be aromantic. I’m open to changing my mind though.”
Horror gave him a long look, this time a slightly softer one. He figured that it was because Horror wasn’t only thinking about Josh but also himself. If they were both androids, the question was meant for both of them.
“Hmn. Some say that romantic feelings are also just chemical reactions and electricity running through your brain. They’re not logical, though. I have encountered androids like Josh, who felt more like a human than a machine and might feel romantic. I have also encountered androids like Ghost, who don’t feel human, don’t want to be human and don’t seem to feel romantic at all. Androids like Ghost are rather logical. Of course you can’t put everything into two categories, there’s a lot of things in between. But maybe for you its easier to start off with two categories since it’s all new. We can talk about the other things another time.”
So transhumans and androids who were proud to be androids? Again, he would never have guessed there were different kinds of androids. But he understood it. Humans weren’t all the same either.
“Okay, can I ask you one more thing? Is there a big difference between dating a human and dating an android?”
Horror answered very quick. “I have no idea. I don’t date humans.”
That answer threw Motionless off and he stared at his friend for a short moment. He tried to make sense of it but he couldn’t. He figured it was just too much for him to understand yet. Maybe he needed to learn more first.
“Oh! Okay, maybe I should have expected that. Your whole life seems to be all about androids after all. Do you have any other humans besides me you hang out with?”
If Horror really was a human with cyborg limbs like he said he was, it would be really sad to know he didn’t interact with humans at all. Especially if he didn’t want to loose his humanity. It made more sense considering Horror was probably a transhuman. Though, still. Wouldn’t you want to be around humans if you felt like you should be one?
Horror shrugged.
“No. For me they’re family. Peoples opinions on what I’m doing and on my friends and family settles if I get along with them. You’re the first considerate one I met in a long time. People in this shithole are ignorant assholes.”
Now that was a statement.
“Well, I’m sure you would also like my friend Ryan, he’s very nice and he also doesn’t care that I’m a bit out of my mind sometimes. Well, all the time actually. But thank you.”
He smiled and before he could open his mouth and blurt out another question, Horror quickly picked up a box from the kitchen table.
“Sorry, but do you think these would be suitable for Ghost? If you need more answers we can talk on the bike but I just wanna make sure she’s functional again.”It was cute how much the man cared about his people. That’s what they were to Motionless by now, people. If they thought and felt, what else could they be. He only personally knew three androids by now, but he was starting to feel more sure about everything. He really wanted to meet other ones as well, so he could harden his new opinion.
With the box of correctly sized muscles in the bag, both men climbed out of the base and back on the motorcycle to go see Ghost. The mechanic didn’t ask more questions for now, he was busy thinking and processing the answers. Held onto his friend, leaned against his back and tried to imagine that what he was holding between his arms was clothes, synthetic skin and metal. At first it felt alien to him, but holding a human meant holding a lump of skin, flesh and bones. It wasn’t more appealing either, unless you saw the person as a whole. And that’s what he tried to do now.
He asked Horror to stop by his apartment later so they could pick up more tools and useful things and the man gladly agreed. So at least he knew he was gonna sleep in a clean pair of boxershorts tonight, while Horror was probably gonna sort twenty more boxes because he didn’t need to close his eyes. He would get used to it eventually.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
This time Motionless knew where they were driving and kept his eyes closed again. The ride was shorter than expected since he was lost in thoughts. Also getting to Ghosts home seemed to be less time consuming, now that he knew how it worked. He just was sorry for doing this to his poor shoulders again, they really hated when he crawled through the gap in the wall.Ghost expressed that she was surprised they came back on the same day but of course she happily let Motionless set in the new muscle. She put her arm on the table and let the mechanic open the skin to reach the gap. With her consent, he tried out all the muscles they had brought along, one after the other to see which ones were functional. He sorted out four broken muscles in the process.
Of course he didn’t want to waste her time but he didn’t yet know how to sort the broken replacement parts out. He had no way of testing them. At least he thought so, at first. While working and thinking, he threw a few gazes over to Horror.
Horror and Ghost were talking, or at least the mechanic guessed they were. They were staring at each other again and didn’t move at all. It looked pretty creepy. At least Horror didn’t notice his stare either. The mechanic questioned if Horror couldn’t also test out the muscles and parts somehow. That could help them in the future.
He soon was done with setting in the final muscle that the woman would keep now. He just needed to close the skin again, but since both androids didn’t pay him any attention, he put down the tools and took a second to study their faces. He barely got a chance to look at his friends dark eyes. They were still fascinating to him. His face looked smooth and was framed by the long, black hair that he had. He hadn’t really thought about it before, but if the man was entirely human, this would be some odd beauty. There was no mark on his skin. His face seemed to be perfectly symmetrical. The man was actually really pretty. But Motionless knew now that it was because he had an artificial face. Out there must be people with the same face as him. The imagination was weird. What if he ran into one one day? How would he feel? To him Horror was a friend but what about Josh? What must it feel like to meet someone with the exact same face as your ex partner, he imagined it to be insanely hard to no judge them for how their face looked. And if you fell in love with how pretty someone looked, it must be very irritating to meet someone who looks the same but is not the person that you love. It sounded like a great dilemma.
Finally, Motionless cleared his throat and caught the attention of both androids.
“I’ll close this skin back up, unless there is something else here you would like me to take a look at?”Once they were back at their motorcycle, Horror climbed on it, turned the key and looked over his shoulder to the taller man. “Should we stop by your apartment now?”
He nodded. But before Horror could start driving, he put a hand on his shoulders to regain his attention.
“Wait. Can we also go somewhere with more androids? I met two of them now, that doesn’t seem enough to form a proper impression. Isn’t there anywhere we can meet some other ones? Or do they hang out in a human free zone or something?”
He felt how Horror slowly put a hand on his and slipped it down his shoulder, so he took it away. He obviously hadn’t meant anything bad but assumed that Horror didn’t like the touch. Though his shoulders were flesh coloured, he had been sure that made it okay to touch him there.
“Hmm.. There’s one place I can take you to. But we need to make sure we’re recognizable as friendly. I think I can dress us up somehow. At your place maybe?”
“That sounds like we’re going out somewhere. Did you change your mind about going on a date with me?”
He grinned widely and just had to ask. His friend responded with an annoyed clacking sound of his tongue.
“Shut your mouth before I fuck it. There’s a cyber club we can find some of my friends at. I usually don’t go there but I haven’t seen them in some months so its a good idea actually.”
Motionless stumbled over the first thing Horror had said and just couldn’t get over it. Now he really questioned how things with androids worked.
“Oh, uh.. Yeah okay. I got my club stuff at my place, so that’s convenient then.”
Horror didn’t ask about his club stuff. In fact, he didn’t ask or say anything anymore. He just started the vehicle and didn’t wait for Motionless to hold onto him at all. It almost made him fall off, but he grabbed the man’s waist just in time to prevent it. He felt a little embarrassed about it.Once they were in Motionless apartment, the mechanic got himself a bigger bag and collected his important belongings to take along. His smaller friend had suggested to drop the bags off by the construction site, just so they didn’t have to carry them through the club and that sounded like a good idea. It also sounded like spending more time on the highway which he wouldn’t turn down, for obvious reasons. He enjoyed driving himself, but holding onto Horror while dashing through the airflow way too fast? Nothing could beat that and the way it gave him small adrenaline shocks from time to time, while he knew and trusted Horror to not let them crash. It felt similar to going on a hardcore roller-coaster and he absolutely lived for it.
He collected some shirts, pants, clothes in general and when he figured he had enough, just a small hand full, he dug through all his things to find the tools. He wasn’t very organized with his place, since he had never been sure how long he would stay here. Never packed out most boxes.
His friend also walked around the one room apartment, put his hands on a few boxes but didn’t do anything. At least until Motionless addressed him. “You can look through my stuff, if you want. Maybe you find something useful.”
The man did. He found it considerate that he had waited for the okay to do so. He himself had looked though all of Horrors stuff in secret. But who said Horror wouldn’t also have done that, had he been alone here.
Finally, when he had found the tools he was sure he could need, he picked up some other things and walked over to his friend.
“Aside from band shirts, this is the style I do. You’ll have to work with this or we have to find stuff somewhere else.”
Horror took the things from him to inspect them. He had brought his friend his favourite jacket, it had wires running between two layers of see through plastic and spikes on the shoulders. Usually he would put a tank top under it, he had a sequinned black one that went perfectly with it. You could still see most of his tattoos and when turned on, the jacket could even glow as it had LEDs between the cables as well. Yep, that thing was an absolute banger in his opinion and probably one of the only things he was proud of. He hadn’t taken it along because he had not expected to wear it anytime soon.
Horror glanced up to him. “Does that only have RGB colours?”
He was very confused as of why the light colour of his jacket was important.
“No, it has the whole colour wheel. Right now its on pink.”
All that his friend answered was a “Hmpf” and handed it back to him. “That should actually cover it already. Just go and do what you always do. Mind if I see if I find something that fits me?”
He tried to imagine Horror in his kind of clothes and failed. It just wasn’t possible to imagine him wearing tight PVC pants or a latex skirt with tall as fuck pleasers and ripped thighs or a leather jacket that was covered in spikes on the entire outside. No, Horror just seemed like.. The small figure, covered in all black, disappearing in the shadows. He was silent, seemed like he didn’t usually interact with strangers. Held back, you probably wouldn’t ever notice if you walked past him in a club.
“Are you sure?” Motionless frowned. “I don’t think you want that. I’m pretty extra.”
“Shut up and just do it.”
He closed his mouth again and didn’t object any further. Horror was someone he didn’t want to argue with. “Well.. Okay.”
So he walked around the apartment and picked up the things he needed. He already had the jacket. Next thing he decided was that he did not want to sit on a motorcycle with heels on, so he ended up picking up a pair of platform boots. He also dug out the earlier mentioned black, glittery top and just had to find some pants now. A skirt on a motorcycle also sounded like a bad idea.
He carried it over to the bathroom to do his hair and makeup as well but couldn’t hold back from looking back into the main room a few times. Horror was looking through his clothes now, as he had said. He saw him pick up his second favourite jacket, it was basically just a big heap of pink fluff and nothing else.After some time, Horror appeared in the door frame and to his amusement, he had put on the pink jacket. It wasn’t only very poofy, it was also too big for him. He basically drowned in pink fluff.
“So, what are you? Top or bottom?”
Horror asked with a pretty serious expression and Motionless dropped the grin he had had because of the jacket.
“Huh? Oh.. Don’t really know, don’t really care.” He wasn’t offended by the question. Those high heels he had also seen Horror take a look at clearly didn’t make him look very masculine. He liked to believe that he still gave off dominant vibes, though.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The smaller man took off the jacket and hung it on a hook on the wall. It was actually for towels but he wasn’t gonna complain. He usually threw his things on the floor without hanging them up at all.
“That’s supposed to mean that it’s not really important. I’m not looking for anyone. I never planned to stay here long so why would I bind myself to something I wouldn’t be ready to leave behind.”
He turned back to the mirror in front of him. He was drawing on his eyebrows right now. Luckily, he was able to hold his hands entirely still. His work had taught him that.
“Hmn.” Horror didn’t seem satisfied. “Another question. I don’t know much about aesthetics but are you gonna use colour with that? We need to turn your jacket orange. Just so.. You know beforehand and it doesn’t destroy whatever it is you’re doing there.”
Now that was amusing and he turned back to him.
“How considerate to inform me. You know what? I feel like I asked you hundreds of questions by now. I’ll try to not take too long with this but while we’re here, I’ll answer anything should you have a question for once.”
For the first time, he felt like Horror was actually taking an interest in him personally, apart from being a mechanic. He had never asked about anything else than that and the reason for him carrying around so much money. And he would obviously like to get closer to his friend.
Horror sat down on the let down toilet lid and put his folded hands in his lap. The mechanic watched him through the mirror. He could see the smaller man sit behind him.
“Hmn. I really just wondered what could make someone like you leave behind what they have to start doing something they never cared about before.”
The androids, of course. He had told Horror that he had barely ever had any contact with them. And honestly, he didn’t fully understand himself either.
“Well.. You, mainly. And I always felt like I was doing the same thing every day, over and over, without doing anything that lasts. As I said, I never wanted to change the world. But I at least wanted to know that after I’m dead I’m gonna leave behind a trace. I’m not much different from anybody else but I don’t wanna be forgotten. If your usual mechanic is gone you just go to another one. Ryan is also not gonna miss me, nothing here is gonna remember me.”
They looked at each other through the reflecting glass, then Horror gestured towards the big room with everything laying around, looking like he moved in three weeks ago.
“Those two stories don’t go well with each other”, he said. “You say you want to have an impact on others but you also said that you shut out the possibility of having a partner. You could have an impact on them. Is that not enough?”
He put away the eyebrow pen. Since he now knew the other wanted to turn the LEDs in his jacket orange, he picked up an eyeshadow palette and picked out the orange there. Might as well make it all match. When he lifted the brush up to his face, he looked back to the other again, for a brief second.
“I’ll just assume that dating androids is not fundamentally different from dating humans. How many have you dated? How many of them would you say were important? How many do you still remember? Romance is bullshit. You hyper fixate on someone. When its over you don’t wanna think about it for a little while to let the wounds heal. And when you find someone new, you don’t think about your past partners anymore anyway. As if they’ve never existed.”
The smaller man appeared right behind him in the mirror. He could only look over Motionless shoulder because he was bowed forward to the mirror.
“You sound like you’ve been hurt more than necessary. It doesn’t have to be like that. You probably assumed that I absolutely hate Josh but I don’t. It’s just the way you have to talk to him, he’s very complicated.”
They looked at each other through the mirror. Horror still wore the same smudged eyeshadow he always wore. The mechanic assumed that since his body was all synthetic, he didn’t have to wash it very often. And that was fair, he didn’t think it was unhygienic, it wasn’t skin that could get infected or anything. If it wasn’t dirty, why clean it?
“Do you think you’d let me redo your makeup? Could add some orange as well if you want to. Yours is halfway gone and you smudged it down your cheek there.”
Horrors black eyes visibly focused on himself in the mirror. He lifted a had to touch the smudged cheek. And honestly, Motionless wasn’t even surprised. The man had said he hated his face and didn’t like looking in the mirror. He probably barely ever checked on himself.
“Uh..” The small, pale man seemed to be a little confused. “Mhh.. Yeah, okay. “He made him sit down on the closed toilet lid again, got a wet towel and kneeled down in front of his friend so he could carefully clean his face. Horror kept his eyes closed. Now he could really look at him and study his face without staring at the dark, mechanical eyeballs he was not supposed to look at. He gently ran the wet fabric over the others synthetic skin without touching it to not make him freak out again. In this moment, Horror actually seemed vulnerable to him and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Yes, he opened up to the other man too, but he was easy to open up to anyone. It wasn’t anything special. But this seemed to be. And instinctively he wondered if he had let Josh do this too, or if Josh had had more rights in general because he was an android too. A transhuman. Might be the reason that Horror only dated androids. Who wanted to have a partner that you look up to in awe, but you feel weighed down by it every day because you see something you want to be but can never reach?
Once Horrors face was clean, he let down the towel. The man didn’t open his eyes. His synthetic lashes were full and pretty long, Motionless wondered if his look was supposed to be as attractive as it was. He also wondered where Horror came from. Or Josh. Or Ghost. Androids were being used in dozens of fields. As factory workers, as robotic house wives, as electronic friends, as sex workers. And the last of these categories was obviously supposed to be overly attractive. He bit his lower lip. Sex work wasn’t a bad thing in his opinion but now he connected it to what he had learned about androids. If they worked there before they turned aware, was it even consensual? He couldn’t imagine they let androids out when they expressed they didn’t want to work there anymore. Oh no, he was falling down a deep deep rabbit hole with this. He would have to ask Horror about it in a calm minute at the base, if that was something to look into, if there was a need to free androids from non consensual sex work. The imagination of that happening alone made him a little sick to the stomach.
He couldn’t resist putting a hand on Horrors cheek. The man flinched but then remained in position.
“You said you don’t like it, but your face is really pretty to look at, you know that?”
Horror opened his eyes but didn’t say anything.
“Would it be easier for you if you got prosthetics with white eyeballs? There’s a possibility that exchanging your prosthetics would be doable for me. Just think about it.”
His friend stared back with the expression he was used to by now. Eyebrows turned upwards a bit, almost sad, the arch making him look angry instead. He had no idea what Horror was actually thinking or feeling and if he had just said something bad or not.
The man closed his eyes and mumbled “Maybe. But not now.”
He silently agreed to it and leaned in with a makeup brush in his hand, ready to give the other a look matching his own.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The long haired man walked down the stairs in front of him. It reminded him of three days ago when Horror dashed down the stairs to escape the fire fighters. Thinking back at it, it had been a happy accident that he helped Horror that day, because else he wouldn’t be going to a nightclub with him now to meet androids from the underground. The story sounded so wild, he knew that Ryan would never believe it. Also that in front of him, walking down the stairs, was a pretty cute small android goth man who wore one of his favourite shirts and arm up gloves to hide the black skin under black fabric. He had never seen Horror with short sleeves. His thin arms made him look like an alternative, angsty teen. But more than that, he hadn’t seen anyone wear his clothes in forever since he didn’t date. Not anymore. But he had worn Horrors clothes too so they were even now.
When they reached the entrance area of the building, Motionless made a quick stop by his mail box. He pulled out a few papers and the smaller man walked up to him and stopped too, seemingly interested.
“What’s that?”
Motionless opened two of the letters and just stuffed them back into the mailbox.
“From my workplace. Complaining that I didn’t show up. They’re gonna fire me.”
He went over the letters very quick because he had already expected this and made his peace with it so he went on. It didn’t seem to be expected by Horror though.
“You mean your job as a mechanic? I thought you didn’t work at the time. Why would you leave even that behind? Wasn’t that, like, the only constant in your life?”
That was true, but he just smiled at the man. “Yeah, but I never wanted it. People like Ryan need a structured day and could never do what you do. I can. I hate scheduled days.” He laughed a bit. “You said there’s not a lot of people who do this. I feel better than ever and if its true what you say, I’m more useful doing this too.”
He looked back down on the letters he was sorting and mumbled to himself while he sorted out the spam. He came across a handwritten note from Ryan, barely bigger than a post it. He read it out semi loud.
“Picked up the things from your locker and desk. Put them in my basement. Stop by if you need them.”
He waved around with the paper between two fingers and looked up to Horror. “Huh. I don’t quite remember if I had anything useful there.”
His small friend squinted his eyes. “From who is that? This Ryan you mentioned?”
He nodded. Horrors expression didn’t lift. He wondered why, he had only talked good about Ryan, as far as he remembered. Aside from telling him that Ryan wouldn’t miss him, but he didn’t see that as a bad thing. It meant he couldn’t have a negative impact on his life when leaving. He could still make a friend even though he had never planned to stay. It was like with Horror. He was sure the man would also not miss him as a person and it made him feel less pressured.
“Is something wrong with him? I called with him the other day as you know, but he doesn’t know shit about you, the base or the work. Gonna keep it professional.”
Horror snatched the paper from his hands to look at it himself, very closely.
“Are you sure that’s Ryans handwriting? Could be a trap. Maybe someone knows you’re working with me.”
Ah, now Motionless understood in which direction this was going. His face lit up with an amused smile. He did take Horror seriously, kind of. But he still didn’t see any problem. “Ah, come on. Everyone knows I’m not worth more than a chocolate bar to Ryan, who would use him to get to me? Also, as I said, I don’t think I had anything important at my workplace, so let’s just not go and ignore it. Does that calm you?”
He stuffed the spam mail back into the mail box, locked it and put his key away. Held his right hand out for the post it note so he could crumble it or toss it away or whatever.
Horror stared at his hand, then up to him in confusion. “I- Uh. That doesn’t sound healthy. You called him nice. I think a nice person would consider you worth more than a chocolate bar.”
The mechanic still held out his hand for the paper, now more amused than before.
“That’s wishful thinking. Am I worth more to you than the tools? No offence. That’s just how it is.”
Horror stared at his hand again. Up to him, at his hand.
“What?” He frowned even more now. “Come on, hand over.”
Hand over the paper, he should have said. Because Horror, who held the paper in his right hand, had the left hand free and put it in Motionless hand, with a dumbfolded expression.
Motionless looked at their hands now, totally thrown off. It was the last thing he had expected.
He looked back up to Horror who still gave him the same, confused gaze. Now they were just both staring at each other awkwardly, until the mechanic said something.
“I- actually I wanted the note.”
He felt the hand in his twitch. Felt that it wanted to pull back. But honestly? This didn’t feel so bad. So he put up a confident grin and closed his fingers around the hand to prevent it from pulling fully back.
“But this is fine too. Can I still have the note though?”
He held out his other hand now. Slowly and awkwardly, Horror handed it over.
“Thanks.”
He took the paper and slipped it in his pocket, never letting go of the hand.
“Shall we, then?”He had to let go of Horrors hand when they reached the motorcycle short after. Both of them climbed onto the vehicle without saying anything. He put his arms around his friend the way he always did and leaned his head against the others. The bag with his stuff hung over his shoulder and he held onto it as best as he could while the other started the engine.
The ride was silent but the mechanic didn’t pick it up as awkward or tense. He had his eyes closed, leaned against his android friend who he knew was probably almost invincible. He knew that Horror was stronger, he was faster, he could probably take a bullet. He was smarter, he could hack things. Even if it was a bit awkward, he felt protected. He felt save with the smaller man. He just hoped that it would be the other way around too. Horror still hadn’t told him that he was an android but it meant that if Horror ever had a problem with his body, he could fix it. Horror seemed to do dangerous things. As long as he managed to get back to the base, Motionless would be able to fix him right back up so he could dash out again. Like a cleric, maybe. A cleric was always important, right? He hoped he was important. Maybe for once he really was worth more than a chocolate bar.
When they stopped at the construction site, Horror just asked him to hide the big bag somewhere behind a construction fence and jump back on, so he did. Half a minute later they were on the highway again and now he could hold onto his friend even better, for as long as it took until they reached the nightclub.They stopped at a parking deck. Horror climbed off and pulled his hair out from underneath the shirt while Motionless opened his hair to retie it. The airflow had pulled out a few strands. Usually he barely cared but right now both of them were trying to look fancy, didn’t they?
He put his hands on his hips and looked over to his smaller friend who really seemed like a shadow next to him. He didn’t seem to mind, but Motionless knew exactly that his android friend actually wanted to avoid attention. So he still wasn’t fully convinced that looking this extra was acceptable.
“And you’re still sure about this?”
He felt Horror looking him up and down. From his tied up hair, spikes on his temples, deep, black and orange eyeshadow, accentuated cheek bones and black lipstick, over the see through jacket, the glittery top, black, shiny fake leather pants to the platform boots that gave him ten centimetres extra. He already was tall usually, now Horror seemed even smaller. Like he wasn’t even in his age range anymore. Though, wait. He had never found out how old Horror really was. But did it even matter when you weren’t human?
“Yes.” The unremarkable man pulled him out of his thoughts. Horror really just had the black and orange eyeshadow now, bandshirt, gloves and the same pants as always. He didn’t stick out as all.
“Just need to change your jacket colour. How do you-”
Motionless quickly decided to play dumb and make this easier for the man.
“You can do that with the phone. Bet you can access that with your communicator implant?”
He tapped his own temples. Horror hesitated but then nodded. He would probably not turn down avoiding effort if he could still keep up his facade.
He closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. Motionless quickly turned on the jacket, it lit up pink but short after changed colour to orange. He was sure that Horror had done that with some android hacking thing but left him in the belief that he was still clueless about it.
Instead, he smiled and held out a hand again.
“I don’t have anything from you.”
Aha, Horror had learned.
“I know.”
Or maybe not, because he just stared at him, seemingly not knowing what he wanted.
“I want your hand this time, dumbass. C’mon, I don’t wanna loose you in there. I’d never find you again.”
His friend hesitated. But gave him his hand anyway. From the outside the nightclub looked like any other, except for its colour scheme. The neon sign was orange and included the picture of a woman with cyberware on her face and neck, she also had dark mechanic eyeballs, glowing orange. Yeah, if you knew it was probably obvious. However, Motionless would have never guessed had he come across this a week ago.
Together they walked up to the entrance. He could hear the music out here already. There was no line, which was unusual. But there probably just weren’t so many androids around. Made sense, if they barely let humans in at all.
Left and right from the door he saw two tall men, dark eyes, visibly metallic arms. Motionless felt a bit nervous, not at all sure what he should say if they addressed him. But he had forgotten about Horror being able to communicate with them silently. They both just stared at him, then nodded and Horror pulled him inside by the hand.
He would have to get used to this, never knowing what was going on. And he wondered if the communicator that Horror claimed to have was a real thing. If it was, maybe he should get one eventually. If not all androids talked with their mouth, it seemed considerate to him. Like learning a language when you start working in another country.
He let his friend pull him through a small entrance area with hangers for jackets and a few people standing around. At first he wondered who would hang up their jacket unsupervised in a space like this but then guessed that at least half of the androids must work like Ghost and wouldn’t even have the idea to steal something. It made a lot of sense to him. He didn’t have enough time to take a closer look at the people standing in the entrance area because a moment later they were already in the big main room. The music was almost unbearable loud here. Well, no one had to talk audibly but him. He saw quite a lot of people, either standing around in groups, dancing, or at what even looked like a bar. He could make out the same glowing liquid in the glasses that he had seen in Horrors not plugged in fridge. Again, he played dumb and didn’t point it out. He didn’t need to ask, it was obvious by now.
He looked at his friend, didn’t even try to say something. Horror looked back up at him. His pale face reflected the light, it even seemed to glow a little. He figured that it could be black light, he just hadn’t known that synthetic skin was glowing under it. It made him smile though. The man turned out to be more surprising and special with everything he learned about him. It was new, it was exiting. It was exactly what he had been looking for the whole time he tried to fit in. He found his place in what they were trying to do together, helping the androids. But at the same time, he felt like he also just found his place with Horror. It weighted the same or maybe even more than the whole helping androids story.
Horror turned around and walked off, pulling the mechanic around behind himself. He stumbled, then followed. He couldn’t hear anything but music and felt a little disorientated. Luckily he still saw more than a usual human would, through his night vision implant. At least he could halfway make out people and other things in front of him to avoid running into them. He followed his friend through the room until they reached a corner with seating booths. Horror stopped in front of one. Four people were hanging around here, supposedly Horrors friends. The man looked at them, probably communicating silently. Either because they preferred it or because of the music. After a little, two of them stood up and Motionless almost didn’t believe his eyes when Horror let go of his hand and hugged the two people one after the other. He hadn’t even seen Horror touch Ghost and he had also avoided Josh. He had felt special for being allowed to touch his face and now hand, but maybe those two still had more privileges.
He felt his friend grab his hand again and pull him closer so they four were standing together. It felt weird to stand in a small circle with them while no one said anything. However, he could take a better look at them now. The first one he looked at had what seemed to be bright pink or purple hair, it was hard to see in this black light. He also wore heavy makeup like himself, just messier. Motionless would have guessed that androids would be ten times better at makeup than him and in Ghosts case that was true (Gods, she was pretty?), but this man here didn’t seem like he wanted to look professional with his makeup. But other than that, he wore black clothing and seemed to be pretty goth, like Horror too. The second android friend also seemed to be a man but already looked way less masculine. He had wavy hair and a pretty face, but right now even the usually rather unremarkable Horror looked more remarkable than him.
Horror let go of his hand, took off his bag and dug around in it until he found his phone. To Motionless surprise he handed it over to his taller mechanic friend. He didn’t know what to do with it. At least until it lit up to show writing, that was. He felt Horror slipping his hand back into his in secret and just smiled about it, showing no other reaction.
“Hi! I’m Vin, that’s Justin. Are you really a Probot mechanic? Didn’t think such a thing even existed!”
Okay, that was kinda freaky, but it made him smile wider. He just assumed that a Probot was someone who liked or supported androids, at least the word sounded like that. So he nodded in response and he could see the softer androids face light up. So he figured that was Vin and the other one was Justin. He made sure to look at both of them so he wouldn’t seem rude.
Then he looked back onto the phone. Led by his intuition, he tapped the screen with his free hand which made a keyboard pop up. That was easier than he would have thought. He quickly began to type down what he wanted to say with one thumb, it just took a little.
“Yep, I’m Motionless, I’m with Horror now. I assume you two know Josh?”
He saw Horror frown next to him. Right, it wasn’t what he had been getting at but he was still Horror’s ex boyfriend. Asking about him while still holding Horrors hand might be weird.
So he quickly added “If yes, are you like him? Just so I know how I should talk to you two.”.
He looked over to Horror and saw his expression soften up. He was glad about it. Pissing off Horror was the last thing that he wanted.
When he looked back at the phone he had an answer already.
“Justin is. I guess I’m somewhere in between, doesn’t really matter to me.”
Defining it seemed to matter as much to Vin as it mattered to Motionless to define his sexuality. So he quickly nodded at both of them. No big deal, he was getting the hang of it.
The phone lit up.
“So, what’s your deal? Do you have a thing for androids or do you just not care about race?”
He noticed that Horror next to him moved and when he looked, he saw that the other actually facepalmed himself. He hadn’t seen that gesture in years. Interesting.
He looked back at the phone.
“I find it interesting. But in the end it doesn’t make a difference.”
By now he had come to terms with that. Black and White also didn’t matter, at least to him. Some humans were still not over it. He hoped that androids would be less racist.
He looked back over to his friend, once again glad that he had met him and could now be here. It felt right. Like he was in the right place. The man was looking at Justin and probably talking to him. Motionless looked at his shirt on Horrors thin frame. It really made him look even younger. But oh, he noticed something, now that Vin had asked him if he had a thing for androids. The bandshirt had lyrics on it, saying If she’s got a pulse then she’s not my type. And since he was holding Horrors hand it was easy to check, he indeed didn’t have a pulse.
But he was talking to Vin so he turned back to him and looked at the phone.
“Do you know about Horror?”
He hesitated before he answered. Both question and answer could be taken for two things, him being an android or him being a human with barely any part of his own body left. He figured that Vin meant him being transhuman so he decided to go with it, but if Horror asked, he could always say it had been about his cyborg body parts.
“Yes. I couldn’t mind less though. He’s still as much Horror as he’ll always be, right?”
Vin smiled back. His smile was very wide and looked honest. It was a very human expression, he found. He had never seen Horror give such an intense expression. But well, most people from his workplace also only had two emotions; bored and angry.
He smiled back at Vin and then typed again.
“I met Josh and Ghost today. We fixed her knee. I asked Horror to come here so I can meet a few more people. And I hope we can help some people that need it.”
Vin nodded heavily. He looked a bit like an exited puppy in Motionless perception. It was cute; but honestly? Horrors way of always being a bit pissed and keeping him on edge was more interesting. He hadn’t dated in forever but if he had to pick, then that one.
That reminded him of something.
“I had a question for Horror that he couldn’t answer, maybe you can? Do you think there’s a fundamental difference between dating humans and androids?”
It wasn’t audible but he saw Vin laugh. Just a second later the phone lit up. It was so weird that he didn’t need time to type, the answer was just there instantly.
“Sorry to disappoint you but it’s not that easy. Your experience with all three of us here would be completely different. Justin for example is sexual but not romantic at all. Horror is the opposite. I’m a little of both.”
Now he had some evidence and he hadn’t even brought it up himself. He wasn’t sure if he should leave it at that or say something that told Vin that Horror hadn’t come out to him yet. But again, he decided to play dumb and as if he just hadn’t noticed the obvious yet, for Horror.
“You forgot that Horror doesn’t date humans.”
Vin grinned again and just nodded. Motionless smiled back. The boy was actually nice. Softer than Horror on the outside, easier to talk to than Ghost, less creepy than Josh. He would make a cool friend.
He felt the phone being taken out of his hand but that was fine for him, because he didn’t know what to ask anymore anyway. Too much information at once. The one who had taken the phone was Vin. He tapped Horrors shoulder and handed the phone over.
Motionless was puzzled, had no idea what was happening. The two androids stared at each other, talking about god knew what. Short after, he felt a hand take his free one and it wasn’t Horror. He looked over to Vin with a confused expression, but the smaller, softer boy just pulled on his hand and made him stumble along with him. Horrors hand, covered in his gloves, slipped out of his and while he stumbled after Vin, he soon couldn’t see the seating booth anymore. He was completely cut off and had to trust Horror to find him later or Vin to bring him back eventually.
The soft boy stopped when they were standing between a hand full of other androids, dancing to whatever hardcore song it was that was playing. Vin just smiled at him. And well, he saw nothing wrong with this, so why the hell not.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Vin had a pulse. He could feel it because the boy was dancing with him, sometimes pretty close against his body and he eventually just held the boys wrist. It was nice dancing with someone and also nothing new to Motionless, he did that a lot, actually. But now he was constantly distracted by the question of what Vin was. He also had white eyeballs and his expression screamed human. Not thinking really far, he eventually figured another thing that said human or android. Next time he was close enough to Vin, he just put his arms around the boys waist and attempted to lift him up.
That didn’t work. Vin was insanely heavy, so that said android, he must have insides made of metal. When he let go of Vin, the boy gave him a very confused look. And grabbed his hand to pull him off the dance area, through the room, until they were in the entrance area with the jackets. The music was still loud here, but not too loud. He figured that talking was possible here.
“What just happened?”
Vins voice was low and kind of raspy. It sounded hyper masculine while the boys face looked soft with heavy eyelashes and pink reddish lips. It wasn’t anything unusual to Motionless, you saw people breaking gender constructs every day. But Vin didn’t only break the construct of gender, apparently also the construct of race.
“Uh..” The mechanic didn’t really know how to explain himself. “I’m sorry, that must have been offensive, should have thought about it. I won’t do it again.”
The smaller, softer boy frowned. “Offensive? What are you talking about?”
Motionless figured that the other had not yet figured out what he was trying to do.
“I was trying to figure out what your body is made of. Shouldn’t have done that. Noted.”
“You have an interesting way of figuring out things.”
Vin laughed, like before, but this time he could hear it. The voice was still deep and didn’t really seem to fit the face, but that only seemed to complete the picture.
“What can I say, I’m curious by nature. By the way, now that we’re here. Horror says he’s born human and just has a lot of artificial parts but he isn’t, right? Like, he didn’t come out. That’s what I mean.”
“Oh!” Vin exclaimed and put both hands on his cheeks. “So he’s really doing it, huh? How exiting. And you want to go with his story until he says otherwise?”
He nodded and Vin just copied and returned the gesture.
“Okay, makes sense. I’ll keep that in mind. But.. Next time you wanna know about me or Horror or Justin, just ask. Once Horror is outed too we’ll just answer you. Less awkward and easier.”
He nodded, now embarrassed. He felt like he had been doing something inappropriate like trying to feel someone’s body to find out their gender. Vin was nice but he figured that if it was someone else, he might have just overstepped a boundary.
“Thanks.” He bit around on his lip rings while looking at Vin who just grinned again and nudged his shoulder.
“C’mon, stop looking like you got a stick up your ass. I’m not offended. I volunteer to let you learn with me.”
Oh, okay. He smiled awkwardly and ran a hand over his neck. “If you say so..”
Vin put both hands on his hips.
“So… What’s the questions you really have? That you don’t ask Horror. C’mon, you two have something going there, I can see that.”
He felt caught, even though it was actually nothing.
“Huh? No, Horror isn’t into Humans and I don’t wanna date anyone. He’s small and all dressed in black, I didn’t wanna loose him in here. That’s why I’ve been holding onto him.”
Vin just grinned.
“Sure. Well, you’ll figure it out eventually. But if you have anything you don’t wanna ask Horror about, ask me. I’ll connect to your phone if you hand it over.”
He figured it was somehow like exchanging phone numbers and fished around in his pockets. He had put key and phone in there so he didn’t have to bring along the whole backpack. When he had it, he handed Vin the smart device who unlocked it without having to enter the passcode and manually typed in a number. Had he just hacked his phone?
“Here you go.” He gave the phone back and Motionless could see that the contact was saved in under Trap Demon☠️🎀. He frowned but laughed at the same time. “Is that your cool name, like Horror, Ghost and Motionless?”
Vin shrugged. “Kinda. But actually it’s the name I make music under. You should look me up!”
An android who made music? That was kinda cool. He couldn’t hold back a grin. Honestly, he hadn’t smiled and grinned this much in the past few weeks.
“Okay Trap Demon, will do. Don’t you think the others will miss us?”
Vin shook his head. “Nah. Horror could localize me anytime if he wanted to.”
Then, Vin frowned. “Unless.. Wait, did you see him do anything that you thought an android could be doing better?”
That was one of the weirdest questions ever.
“Uh… Yeah, he was sorting something after sizes and messed it up. When I met him the police almost caught him. I didn’t think of that but shouldn’t he have scanners or something?”
Vin nodded.
“Yeah, but he also hates talking digital. He might just not use his functions. He always took being human pretty seriously. So yeah, maybe he’s actually looking for us but in a human way.”
The soft boy closed his eyes and Motionless figured he might be looking for the long haired goth android now. It took a little but then his friend entered the entrance area as well. Motionless face lit up when he saw Horror. “Hey man!” He exclaimed when his friend walked over to them. This time he was the one to reach for the other, colder hand and take it in his. Felt right to him, he had been holding that hand the whole time they were here. Horror didn’t comment it or react to it, just Vin smiled.
“Your mechanic is a pretty good dancer. You should try him by time.”
The boy smiled and Motionless looked over to his friend. He felt embarrassed and he couldn’t imagine Horror dancing.
Apparently, Horror couldn’t imagine it either.
“I don’t do that crap.”
Motionless couldn’t hold back a soft chuckle. He really started to like the others grumpiness.
“That’s very not human of you.” Vin said that with an amused voice but the effect it had was fascinating. Horrors expression hardened but he grabbed Motionless’ hand harder and pulled him back towards the main room. The mechanic was completely confused at this point. He saw Vin waving after him, shouting “You’re welcome!” and only then he realized that Horror wanting to be human would probably make him do anything if you phrased it like that. Vin just knew how to press his buttons. And now Motionless had seen which buttons those were. Now he knew how Horror worked.
His long haired friend stopped only when they were in between all those dancing people but when he looked back up to his mechanic, his expression made clear that he had no idea what he was doing. It was more amusing than anything else to Motionless at that moment. He held out the second hand for Horror to take. It was too loud to talk here, but he felt confident for once. He could do this and Horror couldn’t. But he could show him how it worked.
Hesitantly, the second hand, covered in a long glove, laid itself into the bigger one. When Motionless looked at their hands together, there was a big difference. Horrors hands were slim and looked fragile. They didn’t need to look strong to be strong. His own, in comparison, looked big and rough. He had a few small cuts from working. Hardened skin from holding the tools. Even their hands alone made them look like there were worlds between them.
He closed his fingers around Horrors hands and locked his gaze with the others dark, mechanical eyes. Usually he avoided it but right now he just wanted to make sure Horrors attention was on him. He couldn’t talk to him with music playing this loud, so he had to communicate differently.
He tried to just move, just dance and hope that Horror would join him but the man just stood there and looked at him with a very lost expression. He also looked around a bit, left and right, but any movement that he made was just to avoid people getting to close to him. He really looked like he didn’t want to be there. Maybe it was a bad idea.
Carefully, Motionless pulled the other closer by his hands. He moved slowly not to startle him but put his arms around Horrors waist like he did when they were on the motorcycle too, just from the front. With pulling the man into himself, he also pulled him away from the people around them though. He figured that Horror didn’t wanna be touched by strangers. If it was okay for him to touch Motionless instead, he could make sure to keep him away from the others.
Horror's face leaned against his chest and the smaller man just remained there for a moment. Didn’t move at all but also didn’t pull back, so he figured it was a good thing. With the arms around his friend he slowly moved left and right. You couldn’t call it dancing but maybe Horror would warm up eventually. For now it was more than fine and in secret he was actually happy that he too cold hug Horror now.It lasted for a pretty long while. Motionless already wondered if Horror would ever pull back or if they would stand there like this until the nightclub closed and threw them out. He wouldn’t have minded though. Standing In these boots was a little painful but he could live with that since it made him able to hold the other man close. Maybe Vin was right. Horror was cute and he liked him. But still, he didn’t actually want to date anyone and Horror didn’t want to date him either. And he was not gonna have a one night thing with someone he was gonna work with for a long time so how about no.
Horror had his eyes closed, his hands on Motionless shoulders and didn’t move at all. He just let the other move him along to the music, left and right. Despite the loud music it was actually calming.
At least until Horror pulled back. He pushed himself off Motionless chest by the hands he had on his shoulders and looked up at him with pretty wide eyes. Whatever was going on, the mechanic had no clue. He still didn’t hear anything, the room was rather dark and full of people minding their own business. Was he supposed to notice anything here?
All of sudden, Horror took off his backpack. Pushed it into Motionless arms and pointed in a certain direction. He followed the finger with his gaze and tried to make out what he was pointing at. He couldn’t see anything but people but felt a push in his back and next time he turned around, Horror was gone. Just gone, disappeared into thin air. He stood there for a moment, looking around to see if he could make out his friend in the crowd but it was as if the ground had swallowed him. So he turned back into the direction that Horror had pointed and made his way through the people. Maybe he would find out what his friend had pointed at.
He walked until he reached the wall but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He looked left and right along the wall and spotted a glowing sign on the wall, for restrooms. It seemed to be the only thing that somehow made sense to point at so he made his way over and opened the door, slipped in.
He wasn’t sure what he expected, androids didn’t need to use bathrooms, right? But they seemingly also let a few humans in, maybe it was mainly for them. When he was in the room, he noticed that it was not parted by genders. He liked that. He saw some women standing in front of the mirrors, doing their makeup. Then he heard a “Hey!” And looked over to a wall where he spotted Vin and Justin. The taller of both of them sat on the floor and held his wrist in a weird way. Okay, now it made sense that Horror had given him his backpack, the tools were in there.
He walked over to his two new friends and squatted down next to Justin. Talking was halfway possible here.
“What happened?”
He looked at the hand Justin was holding. It looked cramped but he couldn’t see any wound, so at first he guessed it was maybe a problem in the contacts. Until Justin removed his hand from the wrist he was holding and revealed that the whole joint was snapped. Skin, wires, it looked like it was only hanging by a threat and would just fall down if Justin let go of it. A shiver ran down his spine. If his own wrist looked like that, there would be almost no saving for his hand. But maybe he could save this.
“Holy shit.” He muttered and carefully put a hand on Justin’s arm, underneath the injury. He kept eye contact to make sure Justin was okay with what he was doing. The man didn’t say anything. He tried his best to not be intimidated by it and just accept it as the way that Justin was.
The softer boy kneeled down next to him to bring himself into the conversation.
“I know right?” He said, with big eyes. “Suddenly there was this guy, asking for Horror. He looked kinda suspicious. He didn’t have any cyberware and I couldn’t scan anything else on him either, must have been a human. We weren’t sure if Horror talks to any humans beside you so we said we don’t know where he is. And then he did that to Justin’s hand.”
Motionless, who had been listening to Vin talking, looked over to him for a second, then back at the injury. “As far as I know only me, yeah, but I can’t be sure about that. I can reconnect the wires so he can move the hand but we don’t have anything here to weld everything back together. We should stabilize it and get out of here to fix it properly.”
He looked up at Justin and saw the man nod at him. Now he just wasn’t sure where to. Should he take them to Horrors base? That was quite some distance away and he never found out if Horror allowed his friends there.
He looked back at Vin. “Horror ran off after he gave me the bag with the tools. What did that guy look like? We should avoid him at all costs. Must be pretty strong if he can snap Justin’s wrist in half.”
Vin nodded. “Yeah. He, uh.. He had brown pretty short hair, no cyberware, a beard and his neck and hands were completely tattooed. He was as tall as Justin in his creepers, so I assume he was 1.8m. I can generate a picture of him if you give me your phone.”
He frowned very hard right now.
“Do you save what you see on your hard drive? That’s kinda creepy.”
The other just shook his head.
“No. But if I imagine something I can convert it into a JPG or PNG file. Pretty much like you can form images in your head too, but unlike you I can spit them out the way I imagine them.”
That sounded handy as fuck. He quickly nodded and pulled out his phone to give it to Vin, then turned back to Justin.
“I can take tools and tie them to your wrist and hand to keep everything in place, is that okay?”
The man nodded again, so Motionless quickly dug out the longest screwdrivers he had. He just needed something to attach them with and looked around himself a bit helpless. He didn’t have anything on himself but Vin quickly had an idea. He stretched out his legs, slipped out of his shoes and pulled out the shoe laces.
“Good idea.” Motionless took the laces and quickly tied the tools to Justin’s hand and arm to not make the injury worse than it was. They really didn’t need a fully detached hand. When he was done, he told Justin to keep the arm close to his chest and helped him stand up by pulling on his healthy hand. The injured arm looked a bit hilarious now so Vin quickly took off a cardigan he had been wearing as well and hung it over Justin’s arm to cover it up and make him look less suspicious.
“Do you have that picture?” Motionless turned to Vin and got back his phone. When he looked at the picture, he almost froze. That man had a lot of similarities with someone he knew.
“Are you really sure he looked like that?” He hissed at Vin under his breath who just gave him a confused look.
“Yeah. Do you know who that is? He didn’t know you though, I think. He only asked for Horror. Said something about getting to a Chris over Horror, that a patient of yours?”
He almost facepalmed himself and tugged the phone away. Even lower than before, he answered his new friend.
“That’s my first name you genius. And that guy looks like my old co-worker Ryan.”
Vin looked at him with wide eyes and he even felt Justin’s stare on himself.
“Look.” He bit around on his lip piercings again. He really didn’t want to cause any trouble. “We get out of here, you find Horror and hide somewhere and I’ll go find Ryan. If that was him, it’s my fault and I’ll take care of it.”
Vin grabbed his arm. “He broke Justin’s wrist like a stick and you’re even easier to break! You can’t just go after him.”
Vin shook his arm and continued talking. “Horror sent you over here and not out of the club so you stay with us. We know where Horror lives, let’s go hide there. Whatever he’s doing, he’s better at it than you think. Now let’s get lost!”
He gave up on trying to take the blame. He had the dull feeling that it was impossible to convince the soft boy of anything, so he gave into his fate.
“Okay, okay.” He sighed. “Then let’s get out of here somehow without being seen.” He turned off the Jacket. It was the least he could do.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The group of three made their way back into the main room. Motionless wasn’t scared of loosing Justin anywhere, he was tall and had dyed hair that was glowing in the club light. But Vin was smaller and also didn’t stick out a lot. So he quickly reached for him, put a hand on his shoulder to make sure he didn’t get lost. Vin didn’t complain, they had other worries right now. It was still to mention that Justin apparently observed the motion and imitated it by putting his hand on Motionless’ shoulder. He gave him a quick look but he really didn’t mind the other tall man holding onto him.
Together, they made their way through the people mass and looked out for Ryan and Horror. Neither of them was anywhere to be seen though. They made their way into the entrance area where Justin picked up a jacket and returned Vin’s cardigan. So with both of them putting on their jackets, they stopped for a second and Motionless looked around, still not observing anything suspicious. So he turned back towards his two new friends instead.
“How did you two get here? We maybe shouldn’t take the motorcycle Horror and I got here with, then he won’t get home anymore.”
Vin closed his cardigan and straightened it, then looked up to Motionless who was, in his plateau boots, way taller than him.
“We mostly take the tram or subway, but maybe we should avoid that now. Are you sure Horror won’t come home otherwise?”
The mechanic gave it some thinking. Then took a step closer to the other two so he could talk lower.
“Well, I think it makes sense to leave him with the motorcycle he has the key to. We could rather take another bike. Can you two drive?”
The smaller one of them nodded, Justin still didn’t say a single word.
“I can.” Said Vin. “What are you planning to do? Jack a bike?”
Motionless nodded. “Or two, then. I can't take you two behind me.”
Luckily, no one objected. They made their way outside, past the two men at the entrance. After a few steps, he stopped again though. Looked at his friends and frowned.
“Wait a second.. You said Ryan didn’t have any cyberware, he was clearly not an android. How did he get in?”
On the picture of Ryan he had on his phone now, he hadn’t seen any orange. He guessed it wasn’t necessary, but he still wondered how else he had gotten in. How he had gotten the guards trust.
The two androids looked at each other, then back of the mechanic. Their gazes were completely puzzled and Vin shrugged. So Motionless dropped it for now and pointed over at the parking deck Horror’s motorcycle was at. “Let’s double check if he’s there and then get out of here.”
Both of them agreed and they walked over. Moved between the vehicles and made their way to the familiar motorcycle he had fixed. No one was there though, no Horror to be seen. Also no other sign indicating he had been here. For a moment he considered leaving a note or sign himself, but then quickly figured that it was unnecessary with two androids around him that could just shoot Horror a quick text. So he let the motorcycle be and looked around for another ride home.
He spied two red motorcycles parked next to each other in a corner and nodded towards them. The other two followed him when he walked over. Lucky enough for them, the only people on the deck were further away and no one would ever know these vehicles didn’t belong to them. Motionless kneeled down next to them and took off the backpack to get to his tools. A few moments later, the small android boy sat next to him and watched him with curious eyes.
“How does that work?” He asked and Motionless wondered if he couldn’t just look up a tutorial online or something like that, but he didn’t mind talking and explaining while he worked. He remembered annoying Ryan with the same thing when he was younger and new at the garage, Ryan had hated explaining while working. Now he guessed that since he could do it, it was only practical. Ghost hadn’t asked him too many questions while he fixed her limbs, but he was sure that Vin would, for example, should he ever have to fix something for him.
Right now he used a screwdriver to remove a piece of the Motorcycles metal casing. Looked at his fingers but talked to Vin. “Unless you have a super old one like Horror, it’s not that easy to Jack into these. On Horror’s it’d be enough to short wire it, but these have security. Don’t worry though, I don’t need to hack them. Just get rid of it.” Once the casing was open, he moved a few wires aside until he found what he was looking for. To reach the actual security system he had to dig a bit, but once he had it he managed to build it out without triggering an alarm. People brought their vehicles into the garage and weren’t there all day to disable the alarm when needed, naturally Motionless knew how to avoid these things. He dropped the security part on the floor, kicked it aside and quickly put the casing back in place, then went over to the other vehicle, did the same thing there. Vin followed him and watched again, as if he hadn’t just seen the exact same thing.
“That’s fascinating.” He said. “I can’t even crack a password. For some reason I have even less cyber abilities than Horror. Don’t ask me how that’s possible. Must have been an error.”
The mechanic stopped for a moment to look over to his new friend. His wavy hair was dark brown, now that they were under a clearer light source, he could see that he had dark green and purple strands in his hair. He could also make out that his eye colours were mismatched. Now he stuck out way more, all that had been barely visible in the club light.
“Please just interrupt me if I ask something that you don’t want to answer. But that sounds a bit like.. I don’t know, a bootleg?”
Vin chuckled. “Well, that’s a word that applies to me, but that has a different reason. Have you never heard that they call androids like Justin, Horror or me Bootlegs?”
Motionless remembered that he was actually supposed to hurry up and removed the security system. Dropped it on the floor, kicked it to the first one and closed the casing again.
“No, never heard of that. But I guess it’s too many new things at once anyway. I’ve been chewing on Horror’s nerves already with my questions but I still understand only so much of it.”
He stood up and patted the seat of the Vehicle he had just Jacked. “Now we can short wire them. I’ll do that real quick.”
The two androids stood there now, just watching him with nothing to do. Justin seemed pretty lost in general but Motionless had the impression that it was normal for him. So he tried to be polite and didn’t stare or asked him stupid questions, trying to make him communicate. After all Justin hadn’t talked yet and also didn’t shoot him a text over the phone earlier.
“Well, I think Horror mentioned that you called it aware? But that’s the same thing. That’s a bootleg.”
The mechanic nodded slowly. “Okay, got it. If there’s more words I need to know, you need to tell me later.”
He quickly was done short wiring the vehicles and pointed the two that they were ready to go. He climbed up on the vehicle and just seconds after he saw the two androids climbing on the other vehicle. Maybe they communicated without talking or they were just close enough to go without any communication, but Justin put his healthy arm around his smaller friend and they both looked over to him.
He put his hands on the handlebar. “Okay.” He said. “You know the way? I’m not one hundred percent sure, so if you are, I’d rather follow you. Vin.”
He specified who he was talking to at the end of his sentence and earned a bright smile in return, as Vin shouted “Okay!”. He smiled to himself. Getting along with Horror’s friends wasn’t half as hard as he had expected.
The soft boy started the vehicle and slowly drove out of the park deck so he followed, always looking around to make sure they didn’t accidentally pass Ryan or Horror.Vin seemed to know exactly where they had to go. He took the quickest route to the highway and while Motionless followed him, he looked at his figure from behind and got lost in thoughts again. He had never told Ryan anything about androids, so he wondered why his friend knew and had shown up at the club. He tried to remember if Ryan had ever said anything regarding the android topic but he really couldn’t come up with anything. He hoped that maybe his cyber friends would know a way to find out more about him, maybe then they could make sense of all this. Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe Ryan thought he was in trouble and wanted to save him or something like that. He decided that he would give him a call later, but further away from the base. The base itself blocked the phones signal, but the outside didn’t. Should anyone really try to locate his phone, they would notice.
During the ride, he managed to steer with one hand for a moment and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Turned it off and stuffed it back, just to be entirely sure. Without a warning, Vin took the next exit and Motionless had to react quick to catch it before he passed it. He made sure to catch up with him once they were off the highway and stay close to him. From here he was sure he could even figure out the way on his own, but he let the android go first anyway. Followed close behind and soon they pulled up at the construction site. He was a little worried they would look suspicious, two vehicles with two people standing out like that. But no one seemed to look at them or follow them so they rolled onto the construction site ground, then jumped off the motorcycles and Motionless showed them how they usually his Horror’s bike behind construction fences. He sighed, glad they were finally there and could get that wrist fixed up.
“I only need my bag from over there, gotta bring my tools down!” He said, pointing at the spot him and Horror had hidden his bigger bag earlier. The androids nodded, he quickly picked up his stuff and then they walked up to the hole in the ground together.
Vin huffed out some air with a stressed expression.
“He’s never gonna make it easier to get to his place, huh?”
Motionless couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. He had thought the same, multiple times already.
“Doesn’t seem that way. Hey, Justin. Can you even get down there or do you need help? There could be a ladder in the base or we just bring the tools up..”
All three of them were standing at the edge of the hole and stared down into the darkness, until Justin just dropped on his ass. He sat on the edge with his legs dangling down. The other two looked at each other and Justin’s friend just shrugged. “I guess that means he can’t get down there. Should I help you bring up the tools?”
He asked Vin to stay with the injured man and quickly got the tools himself. It wasn’t a lot to carry and he could live without company for a moment. All he needed was something to coat the broken wires with and if he could find something, then also a way to close the skin again. But he had no idea how that was supposed to work yet so he guessed it would make sense the cover up the ripped skin with a tight bandage for now. Once in the base, it was quite easy to find what he needed since him and Horror had sorted things already, at least quite a lot of it. He dropped the bag with his clothes, took out what he needed and carried everything back upstairs in a plastic bag. He was sorry that he made his friends wait so long, but he really wasn’t faster and the underground way to the base was still pretty long. He climbed back out of the hole and sat down next to Justin with crossed legs. Now he could finally fix this up.
“Alright, are you ready?” The tall man nodded slowly and with Vins help, he opened the shoe laces and took off the screwdrivers he had used to stabilize Justin’s wrist. He cringed again when he saw the injury. He was aware that Justin didn’t seem to feel it, but it looked very painful.
To start off, he took all the tools out of the bag. Justin didn’t talk and always looked so lost and a bit confused that he decided to explain what he was gonna do before he started.
“Okay. So I have a welding gun, we’re gonna reconnect the metal bars here with that.” He pointed at two metal ends that were sticking out of Justin’s arm like bones. In general, the inside of that arm looked similar to a humans, just with metal instead of bones and cables instead of veins. It was grotesque. And between that, the same kind of muscles he had seen inside Ghost’s limbs.
He made sure that Justin nodded and then went on. “I can’t yet tell if the muscles are okay, if not, we need to get replacement parts from downstairs. But then I need to take the broken ones along so I can find ones in the right size, yeah? Good. Okay, then all that’s left is reconnecting those wires. I’ll twist them back together tight and put this around it, its a heat shrinking tube. It’s gonna be the exact same as the usual plastic tubes on the wires. I’m not sure how to close up your skin, so we’ll bandage it up. I’m gonna be able to fix up the skin too soon, I’m sure.”
Justin nodded again and Motionless took that as the starting shoot and bowed over to the injured arm. First he had to bend the wires and muscles out of the way so he could weld the metal back together.
While he worked, Vin sat next to him and occasionally asked some questions or pointed out how weird the inside of Justin’s arm looked. The mechanic held back from commenting on how morbid he found this. He guessed that for the androids it wasn’t that big of a deal. Loose an arm? Could basically just attach another one. He would take a long time getting used to it.
After some time he asked Vin “Do you think you can dig out some stuff about Ryan? I don’t have much info on him, never really cared. Maybe it’s even easy to find out who he is.”
The small, brunette boy quickly nodded and agreed. “Sure! Just give me his name. And whatever else you know, maybe it helps. Oh, and your phone, I don’t have a mobile data connection.”
Even though he didn’t know what that meant, he would just give Vin the phone, he just had his hands full.
“In my pocket, on your side. Can you get it out? And uh.. His name is Ryan Sitkowski, he works the same garage I used to work at, close to Grey Hound Station. He lives with his wife Lisa, I’m not sure in which part of town anymore. He invited me for dinner a few times but I never bothered. He always seemed to be easygoing, I wouldn’t have expected him to have a problem with literally anyone. He was never racist or homophobic either. So it’s weird to me he might have a problem with androids now. Or rather, bootlegs.”
The android stuck his hand in said pocket without further question. Pulled out the device and turned it on, unlocked it without passcode again. Hopefully having it on a short moment wouldn't hurt. Of course Motionless was too curious not to ask why Vin needed the phone.
“Can you tell me how the whole thing works? If it’s not too complicated.”
“Mhh?” Vin looked up from the phone. He had one hand up to his face and seemed to be chewing on his fingernails. Motionless really hoped they either wouldn’t break or be easy to replace, since they probably didn’t regrow. “Oh and thanks for the info, I’m sure I can dig something out, lemme see. What did you wanna ask?”
Motionless nodded and picked back up his question.
“Like, you can talk to Justin. In your head. I assume that doesn’t run over the internet then? So you couldn’t reach Horror from here?”
The other shook his head. “Basically correct but I you can’t talk to Justin at all. He’s a bit different. We’re still trying out how to set up a proper communication system.”
He looked up from his work, to Justin’s face who looked back at him. Since he had been introduced to him, Justin hadn’t used his face muscles even once, aside from blinking every now and then. He smiled at the man. He had no reason to dislike him so far and hoped to bring that across. “Ah, I see! I’m sure it’s gonna work out eventually, right?”
Justin nodded and the mechanic smiled a bit wider, then looked back at what he was doing so he wouldn’t hold the welder against his fingers or something.
“Earlier I thought Horror was talking to both of you. How long do you three know each other?”
Vin chuckled.
“Oh, I’ve known Horror for a longer while. I brought him to the ripperdoc who did his skin. Justin showed up like a year ago. Don’t really know where he came from but that’s just something you don’t ask. You never know what someone has gone through before they showed up.”
He nodded at that statement and agreed with it. He also wouldn’t ask Horror, would the man be outed yet. He really wanted to know but it wasn’t any of his business and some things he just had to respect, even if it was hard.
“Curious but short question. Did he replace his skin with the black skin then? Because he seems to hate it, that doesn’t make sense to me.”
It took a while before the softer boy answered, he probably considered if he should talk about it at all.
“No. The black skin was first. When we were at the Ripperdoc, he could pick between what he has now and just arms and legs, but arms and legs is something you get replacement parts for way easier. So he picked the thing that was harder to get.”
Okay, that made sense. “Sounds a bit creepy. Like.. I imagine a black face as well then. I have never seen that before.”
Vin quickly shook his head. “Nono, as far as I know they only build them in human skin tones. But the rest was black. Don’t ask me why, weird design choices.”
He stopped working for a moment, by now he was reattaching the wires in Justin’s arm. Design choice, that word stuck with him. Someone had designed the android models. Someone had made them. Someone had come up with that pretty face of Horror’s and Vin’s and Justin’s. It was a very weird imagination. What kind of person would come up with these designs? Especially Horror’s. The others he had seen were also pretty, but Horror’s design seemed to be something he was especially attracted to. Maybe the designer was somehow like himself then?
No, he didn’t wanna think like this. Horror was Horror, no matter who designed or build anything. And comparing himself to the designer was a step he really didn’t wanna take. Made him feel like he was trying to put himself above the long haired, cute goth android. He shook his head to get rid of the thought and went back to attaching the wires.
“Okay, I see. But.. Does it bother you? I’ve been thinking about that before, but I’m not sure if I could handle running into someone who looks just like me. I think I would freak out.”
It was silent for a while. He looked up after a few moments to check on Vin and saw that he had his head lowered. He guessed that was a question the boy really didn’t like.
“I’m sorry, I won’t ask again.”
The boy barely reacted and he put the tools away, just for a moment.
“Do you need.. A hug or something?”
He noticed the boy nodding faintly and scooted over to him and put an arm around his shoulders. Living like this must be even worse than he had realized this far.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It look a longer while and Motionless was already getting very worried, but his android friend showed back up, rolled up on the construction site with the motorcycle. Justin’s arm was fixed and bandaged up by now and he sat on the edge of the hole, drinking one of Horrors glowing energy drinks. Or battery acid cans, whatever they were. Vin had suggested giving Justin some fuel. He had no idea what that meant but he would ask later.
Horror threw the bike aside and walked up to them with big steps, didn’t even bother covering up the bike. The mechanic obviously knew something was up. It could only be about Ryan.
The small android lifted up a finger. “There was this super weird dude today and-”
He interrupted him. “Yes we know, from what we figured out it seems to be Ryan, my old co-worker. I have no idea what his deal is, I will not defend whatever he does and I am very sorry to get y’all into trouble. I’ll do whatever I can to get rid of him. And-”
He didn’t have a very deep connection to Ryan. He actually also figured that it was the same the other way around. It just all didn’t quite add up. However, he had put himself into this cause right here now, to the androids, the new friends, Horror. He had decided that this was his place and he wouldn’t mind burning bridges to stay here.
Horror walked up to him, stopped in front of him and put the lifted up finger against his lips so Motionless stopped talking, looking at Horror with a confused gaze.
“Shut up.” He said. “I didn’t know that that’s Ryan but I’ve been having problems with him before I met you so that’s not on you. How’s Justin’s hand?”
Right, he almost forgot.
“I can’t close the skin but we fixed the broken metal bar, reconnected the wires and I exchanged the broken muscles. It works, we just had to patch up the outside.”
Horror walked over to his two friends and squatted down. Vin was playing games on Motionless’ phone by now and Justin was drinking battery acid. They looked like nothing bad had ever happened and it threw the mechanic off a bit but he was glad they seemed to feel okay.
When Horror sat down, Vin turned towards him and held up the phone. “Oh, don’t worry! He took out the SIM card and stuff and says it can’t be pinged now. Said something like Ryan could call.”
Motionless went over to the three androids and sat down with them. He loosened up the hair tie he had in and ran a hand through his hair, he felt like it helped him think to do that.
His partner in crime looked over to him again. He sat on his right, between him and Vin and Justin.
“Right..” He mumbled. “You called with Ryan the other day. He has your number.”
He nodded. Remembered the note from earlier today that Horror had found suspicious. He had told him it was nothing. Now he felt a bit bad about it.
“What exactly is the problem he’s causing?” Motionless just had to ask. “It’s hard to believe they’re the same person. Ryan was always uncomplicated. So.. Enlighten me?”
The other huffed out some air.
“I.. had to do with him in one of my very early jobs. Different field from now. No, I will not talk about it. He’s crossed my way every now and then and just doesn’t leave me alone. He also attacked Josh once, got him messed up pretty bad.”
He tried to make sense of that.
“So he’s more like.. A stalker? But Vin said he was looking for me, he used my name.”
While looking at the small man, he saw him snatching the can with the glowing liquid from Justin and downed it himself. The tall android looked disappointed.
“Of course he was looking for you. He annoys me but also the people around me.”
Horror threw the can into the hole and looked back at the mechanic. Scooted a bit closer so he could talk a bit lower, it just didn’t make a difference since the other two androids were still right next to them and listening. But he guessed that Horror just didn’t feel like he had anything to hide from his friends.
“I trust you. By now. And I hope I won’t regret that. But it’s still very suspicious that you just break into my life like a wrecking ball while you work with the guy that won’t leave me alone and that I’m trying to hide from. He doesn’t know where I live and I also hope it stays that way. So, no Ryan. Ever. You’re either in or you’re out. Though I couldn’t let you out anymore, you know Ryan and where I live. If you leave I’d have to move.”
He was honestly surprised this was even in question.
“Do you really think I’m gonna leave now? I am right where I want to be. As I said, I have no intend of defending that man.”
The other man’s expression seemed to soften up a bit and he leaned back again.
“Good. Because eventually I think we have to do something about all this, it’s getting out of hand. It’s not just me its also other a- People like me.”
Motionless was very sure he knew where this was going and he chewed around on his lip rings for a second, then leaned in to Horror again.
“Can we talk alone for a second?”Now, this was awkward. Horror still hadn’t come out to him but he figured it was getting important with this thing. And he didn’t wanna keep a secret from the other man, actually. He wanted him to know he knew.
They had walked away a bit, you could still see Vin and Justin from where they were, but couldn’t hear a thing and he was glad about it. The androids probably didn’t care but he did, he was too human to not be embarrassed.
Horror had his hands on his hips in what looked like a sassy manner.
“So, what’s so secret?”
He bit his lip, leaned against a construction fence and watched Horror do the same, right next to him.
“Don’t be mad, but I figured that you’re transhuman. I couldn’t care less, that’s not what I wanna talk about. But what you just wanted to say.. I figure you wanted to say that Ryan’s also troubling other’s with your.. face?”
The small man next to him looked at him completely without any expression and did so for quite some seconds. It made him nervous. He even played with the hair tie in his hands a bit, to keep himself calm. Horror had been trying to hide this from him the whole time, of course it must overwhelm him to know he couldn’t hold up the facade. He jut hoped that Horror would be fine with knowing that. And that by now he also knew that Motionless didn’t give a rats ass about what Horror’s body was made of, unless it was about important details like Horror not having a unique face and everyone else with the same face being in trouble.
He looked down, turned his dark, mechanic eyes towards the ground and still didn’t say anything. Motionless had no way of knowing what was going on in his head and he hated that. Because he feared that Horror felt bad or was angry. Carefully, really hoping to not overstep any boundaries, he placed a hand on the others shoulder, turned towards him. He was pretty much standing in front of him now.
“Hey, uhm.. As I said, I don’t care. I’m also not gonna mention it again.”
That finally got a reaction out of the other man.
“Not gonna mention it?” His voice sounded upset but that was as much emotion as he could read into it this far. “So you’re just gonna silence it instead of accepting it? That’s the same thing as everyone else does.”
Oh. That had taken a wrong turn. He felt Horror put a hand on his, wanting to push it away but he felt like this was a very sensitive situation and he didn’t want to mess this up. So instead of letting his hand be pushed away, he softly grabbed the other shoulder as well and kept looking at Horror.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean that your insides could be made of vanilla pudding for all I care, you’re you to me. Whatever you want to be called is just a word. Of course there’s differences, I see that. I eat and you don’t. But can we just accept these as differences in you and me instead of differences in races?”
Horror moved under his fingers, as if he wanted to pull away half heartedly. He didn’t really though, Motionless knew that. Horror was a dozen times stronger than him. It would be impossible for him to hold down the man against his will.
“I know that androids are our main topic because of everything and that I talk about the differences a lot, because I don’t understand them. But that doesn’t mean that I care. I just have to understand it before I can silently accept it, okay? It’s only been a few days, give me a chance.”
At the last word, Horror really pulled away. He stared up at him with his beaming, intense eyes. He still looked a bit offended or hurt, anything in that direction. It wasn’t easy to tell.
“I’m not sure you really know what you’re talking about. It’s not about what you want to do or feel. It’s about what you actually do or feel.”
Motionless didn’t quite understand the sentence but he still tried his best.
“Okay, here’s a thing. Can you tell when I figured out? Do you have any idea since when I know, from my behaviour alone?”
Horror stood silent.
“Exactly, because that doesn’t change what I think of you. Isn’t that what you want?”
The man looked to the floor again and avoided his gaze instead of answering. Under his breath, Motionless sighed to himself. It seemed like Horror was the one who would behave differently now and that was weirdly ironic. And made him sad, because he liked how they had acted around each other.
“Hey. Horror.” He called the other by his name because he didn’t react on the first Hey. The man looked up, very hesitantly. Motionless was really wondering what his deal was, by now. It seemed like there was more to it, a lot more.
“Please tell me what you’re thinking. Communicate with me. The human way.”
The way he phrased it was unintentionally but short after he said it, he remembered how Vin had pressed the same buttons when they were in the club. Calling Horror human or not human seemed to have a pretty big effect on him because he took a breath and seemed to finally open up again.
“I’m not sure if I trust your words.”
Horrors voice was low and he didn’t say a lot, but he talked and that was finally something that Motionless could work with properly.
“Then let me prove it. You’ll see, nothing will change.”
The dark eyes focused on him, he could see that they did. By now he had pretty much figured out how the others eyes looked when he did certain things. It was still fascinating but he had gotten used to it.
Horror continued talking. “How do you do that? Have you really only known about all these things since Thursday?”
He nodded. Of course, he hadn’t lied to Horror. Unless you count him looking through Horrors things in the beginning and how he earlier had not told him that he knew he was transhuman.
“It took me a little and in the beginning I also wasn’t sure what to think of everything but I don’t care. You’re sweet. Vin and Justin are nice. Josh is a bit creepy but Ghost is very cool. I can talk to all of you normally. What else does it need? How do you define acceptance?”
Horror looked left and right and seemed to not be sure how to respond so Motionless decided to add a little more, hoping that would convince his friend.
“You know, I still feel like I barely understand what’s going on here. With you, with the other two, how y’all live and what problems you have to face day to day. But I’m trying my best to. I could also sit at home and work my boring job without ever questioning anything, but I’m here and I’m not gonna leave unless you chase me away with a chainsaw. I want to understand. For my sake but also for your sake. Because you’re important to me. Maybe that’s what you want to hear? You’re even more important to me than humans I’ve encountered throughout life.”
At least it caught Horrors attention who gave him a stern look. “That sounds a bit dangerous.”
He frowned. “What? Why?”
Horror crossed his arms and turned around the conversation by a hundred and eighty degrees.
“Okay, I get it. But you sound as if you’re gonna ask me to marry you any second.”
That was not how he had looked at the whole thing but thinking of what he had said, he got where Horror was coming from. However, he shrugged in response and Horror sighed.
“About Ryan. I’ve been close to him. Not close close, but as close as I’ve ever gotten to a human. And now see what became of it. You would need a shit ton of convincing to make me get any closer to you.”
Motionless wanted to say something but then didn’t. He needed to process these words first. Did he just say that he would basically date him if he wasn’t scared of committing to a human? That was news. And he wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information.
“But to get back to your actual question..” Horror didn’t seem to be bothered by his mechanics confusion at all. “Yes, he does bother other’s with my face. I haven’t seen a lot of others though. He’s gonna freak out more than usual, knowing that I have a human around myself for once so we gotta do something against him eventually. Does that answer your question?”
He nodded faintly, still occupied with processing Horror’s earlier words. He had said himself that he actually didn’t want to date. Yet Horror seemed to consider that out of the way already. Well, he also didn’t behave a lot like he didn’t want to date him. They both didn’t. Holding hands, being that close between the dancing people. It was confusing, for both of them.
“Okay, then let’s get back to the others. Let’s see if Vin and Justin stay a little.”
Horror walked back to his friends without waiting for an answer and Motionless remained there for a few more seconds before he moved.They did. Both of them followed the pair in crime into the base, where Justin sat on the sofa and got supplied with another can of battery acid while Vin started looking through every box, curious as he was, and created a chaos that Horror tried to clean up behind him. The mechanic watched in amusement and sat down with Justin. Okay but, for real. Would he not know those were androids, how would he be supposed to tell? Yeah, Justin didn’t talk and that was a bit weird but humans were weird too. So he decided that it was time to get rid of categories. People, they were people. Like him and everyone else too.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The mechanic managed to fall asleep despite the noise around him. Unlike usual, there was voices this time. Vin picked up almost every item in the base and asked Horror loud and clear what it was and why he owned it, while the long haired man tried to clean everything up that Vin just put in the wrong place or carried around. Justin had been trusted with sorting more muscles into boxes and there was clattering and rustling to be heard the whole time. Motionless laid on the bed, eyes closed to not be irritated by the ceiling lights. They made falling asleep harder, but since he didn’t have to stand up early, it wasn’t much of a problem. He was pretty sure that Horror wouldn’t just wake him up, he would let him sleep.
So, for falling asleep, he could listen to Horror talking about the most random things that Vin asked him about. Some of them were actually interesting. And he still found his voice soothing. He talked about a grave light that he had gotten from the graveyard that Ghost lived on, about a lava lamp that apparently had been broken for two years and about what seemed to be a coffee mug that he had gotten as a gift from someone he once helped. He said that it was a confusing gift but that they hadn’t known better since they were still so young. At that point Motionless figured that you probably started counting a bootlegs age from when they decided to break out of the system on.He doze off after that, thinking about that he could try to fix the lava lamp by time. He didn’t really dream anything, or at least he couldn’t recall later. He sadly did get woken up though, but it wasn’t Horror. Instead it was Vin, who, as Motionless could see when he opened his eyes after a rather violent awakening, was standing and jumping on the mattress next to him. He rubbed his eyes and groaned. He could totally use some more sleep. If they didn’t go to a club tonight, he could maybe at least lay down early enough later and catch up on sleep from this night.
“What’s your deal?” He muttered and got shaken more since Vin started bouncing on the mattress again.
“There’s someone here!”
Finally, the mechanic sat up and gave him a puzzled look.
“Where, here? In the base?”
He took a look around but couldn’t see anyone. In fact, he didn’t even see Horror and Justin. The only soul down here next to him was Vin.
“Noooo. Upstairs. Or, like, in the house next to the construction site. Horror didn’t wanna let them get down here.”
Motionless blinked a few times, very slowly.
“Okay and where’s the problem then? Isn’t it good that they’re not down here then?”
The softer boy jumped down from the bed which gave the mechanic one last strong shook.
“Maybe. Don’t know. But we need to help them because they’re missing a goddamn foot! Horror said you have one of the same model down here. He said it’s in the box with the red wires or something. I have no idea what that means.”
Slowly but surely, he felt himself wake up and stretched his arms.
“I know which one he means. Alright.. Let’s get that shit upstairs then.”
Together with Vin he dug out the box Horror had talked about and trusted the foot in Vin’s hands. He quickly grabbed the plastic bag with tools, threw some more inside and left the base with Vin right behind him. He let him know that he was gonna be there in two minutes though and headed for the container that Horror considered his bathroom first to wash off his club makeup.The patient really had a missing foot. It was literally gone. And the person also didn’t have any crutches with them. The house or at least the lower part must be abandoned, because it was completely empty. His friends and the newcomer were all sitting on the floor in a corner when Motionless joined them and he put down the bag and sat down cross legged as well, in front of the new person.
Before he did anything else, he decided to introduce himself. He wanted to be trustworthy and felt like as a human he had to do some extra work to prove himself.
“Hey, I’m Motionless. I’m gonna help you with that foot. Can I take a look?”
The person nodded and stretched out their leg so Motionless could take a closer look at it. In the meantime, the other started to talk very lowly. It was a voice deeper than expected because just from the looks he hadn’t been able to tell what gender they were. Well, if they had any that was.
“Hi.. I’m Meds. I.. basically got run over by the subway. Someone pushed me.”
The leg also looked like that. You could see that the foot hadn’t just been taken off, it had been ripped off. The bone like metal bars were bend and the wires and muscles seemed to be completely torn in the middle. Those muscles would have to be replaced, he could see the inside of some of them. The foot that Vin had carried up for him would have to be attached at the ankle but Meds didn’t have an ankle anymore. It looked more complicated now.
“Someone pushed you?” He looked up to the patient and frowned. “Why would someone do that? Or do you think they just had a problem with you?”
He decided to avoid constantly using the terms android and human, it wasn’t something he wanted to get used to. The point was not making a difference between those things after all.
Meds nodded again. “Yeah, I think so. Well, uh.. That was yesterday. I talked to Ghost a little time ago and she said I should pay you a visit..”
So everyone was connected somehow. That seemed like a good thing to him. If they had already reached someone who didn’t even know Horror with it, it seemed to work. Just didn’t seem too practical that Meds had shown up here at Horrors base, who said he didn’t like it after all. He took a mental note to ask Horror if they should set up a workplace somewhere else, so the base would remain safe.
“That’s good!” He smiled at the other. “Okay.. You’re missing a bit more than just the foot but I can replace the missing parts, it’s just gonna take a little. Also, I’ll need to use a welding gun for this, that could be a bit scary.”
Meds nodded and the mechanic looked over to the other three who were sitting right next to them, probably curious about what he was gonna do and how he was gonna fix this.
“I think it makes sense to bring the muscles over so I don’t have to run back and fourth the whole time to find something fitting. And I need some more things from downstairs anyway.”Vin, who clearly had the most energy of all of them, was the fastest to jump up and exclaim that he would tag along to carry the boxes and so they went to go fetch these. He needed some replacement cables and a piece of metal bone, he didn’t know how else to call it, to fill the gap between the stump and the foot. He quickly found one inside another spare part leg and build it out since it was exactly what Meds needed. He didn’t yet know how long it had to be so he took along a disc grinder to cut the bone upstairs. Together, they carried up the bone, disc grinder, a box with cables and as many of the boxes with muscles as they could carry. When they reached the exit of the tunnel and stood on the bottom of the hole, Motionless sighed and started to climb up and down as many times as he had to to bring the things up, Vin always right behind him.
Fixing Meds’ leg really was a bigger project but it didn’t seem like there was anything else to do anyway and he knew the androgynous dude would need his foot so of course he took it on. For this he had to reconstruct the ankle and though it was a bit scary, he convinced Meds to let him open the skin on the healthy leg to see how it was build up. He got to work, attaching a new piece of bone, took out the broken muscles and then started to puzzle together the new piece of leg, taking reference from the healthy one. It was a slow process but bit by bit it came together and the patient seemed more relaxed every minute. And that calmed Motionless too, who did this for the first time and couldn’t be a hundred percent sure he was gonna pull it off. It was going good though.
Like he had done with Justin, he constantly updated the patient on what he was doing, how and why. At some point he didn’t even do it consciously anymore, it just came out of his mouth, in between answering random questions from Vin. The soft boy would probably never stop to find new things to ask.After what turned out to be two hours, he ran out of spare cables and had to get new ones, decided that that was also a good opportunity to force some of the dusty food down his throat as fast as possible and stood up, announcing he was quickly gonna go back to the base but was gonna hurry. Vin wanted to follow him, again, but this time Horror was faster. Said something about needing something from the base too.
So, both of them made their way out of the building. They climbed out of a window that must have been broken for years already. The air between them was still a bit tense because of their conversation early in the morning but the taller of both of them would do his best to ease that mood back up.
“So.” He turned to Horror with a smile and decided to make one of his stupid jokes. Horror always pretended he hated them but he was sure that wasn’t quite true.
“Do you really need something from downstairs or did you just wanna be alone with me?”
He smiled dumbly but the reaction he got today was different from the previous times. Horror stopped dead in his tracks and Motionless even walked a few steps further until he realized he was the only one walking. Of course he shot his friend a confused gaze but Horror just said “Maybe I don’t need my phone from downstairs anyway. I can ask Meds to take his.”
Apparently the air was more tense than Motionless had figured. He sighed under his breath and called out to the smaller man right as he wanted to turn around and go back.
“Horror. Wait. Please.”
He did, shot him an intense gaze out of his dark eyes with furrowed brows.
“What’s changed? You were scared that I treat you differently if I find out, right? You’re the one who’s changed their behaviour. Just let me know where we stand. If you want me to leave you alone for a while that’s fine, just tell me.”
Horror shook his head.
“I don’t want you to leave me alone.”
Well, that was exactly what he would archive if he acted like this so Motionless tilted his head to the left.
Horror sighed.
“It’s not that. I’m okay with you knowing. I think.”
Okay but then what was it? The mechanic stepped up to his friend, back towards the building they had come from and away from his actual destination. He just felt as if the distance between them was something to avoid.
“That’s good.” He smiled at the man and kept one step distance. “So what is it? Tell me and I’ll stop.”
Horror stepped from one foot to the other and adverted his gaze towards the ground.
“I feel like you’re constantly trying to hit on me and I’m not sure what to think of that.”
Motionless smiled as an answer. He had kind of expected it.
“Well, then I’m sorry. I’m the type of person who hits on their close friends. I’m not gonna date or fuck you, don’t worry.”
Horror looked back at him, eyebrows still furrowed. Something about this reaction wasn’t right. Wasn’t this exactly what the small, angry man wanted to hear?
“Do you want me to stop doing it?”
Horror nodded so his taller friend raised his hands in a defensive manner. “Okay, no more flirting. But before I never get to say it, you don’t look as pissed or annoyed as you always think. You’re actually quite cute.”
Horrors confused gaze turned into a rather angry one and Motionless just had to laugh a bit. Still worth it.
“If you call me cute one more time you’re dead, mechanic.”
Oh, he was so gonna mention it again. But after some time, when Horror had calmed down. He didn’t wanna test his luck right now.
“Okay, then you’re a very very grumpy gremlin. Do you wanna go fetch your phone now or what?”
Horror clacked his tongue and then passed him, walking towards the hole in the ground without paying Motionless any more attention. He shrugged and took it the way it was though, at least he had fixed the situation somehow and the smaller man didn’t just run away from him.Fixing Meds took a lot of time. Vin and Horror had gotten bored of it already. They had left to god knew where and only Justin was sitting next to him now, watching very closely what he was doing. He explained things to both of them, though Justin couldn’t ask questions. But he started to interact with the mechanic. From time to time he tapped his shoulder and pointed at something. Motionless then took a few guesses until he hit the right question and answered it. And he felt good with it. Meds was also nice, they complimented the glittery black top he was still wearing from going to the club last night. They talked about a few things while he was working on their leg, mainly got stuck on the music topic. They had some things in common there. It felt natural to talk to them and also to interact with Justin like this. Answering Vins questions also did. He felt like he was save with them, he could guess what they thought about him and it was pretty positive. With Horror he still had some troubles, but talking to Meds like this gave him a pretty nice idea. He had never asked Horror what his interests were. He kind of seemed to be too occupied with the war he was fighting to concentrate on himself. He tried to be human so bad that he missed the point. And he was sure he could help him. He would ask him once they were alone again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Vin and Justin stood until the evening and then left together with Meds. Motionless was actually glad they did because he was tired again already, he didn’t get to sleep much last night. He took a quick cold shower to get rid of all the metal dust from grinding the bone, the oil from his hands and his face. For some reason he always managed to get messed up completely. When he came back down, he took off the clubwear he had been wearing since yesterday and slipped in some more loose stuff he had brought along from his apartment. Just a band shirt and jogging pants, he looked pretty much like Horror with short sleeves now.
Talking about him, he had multiple mental notes about asking and telling him things, so he went over to the man, down in the base. He sat at the kitchen table, bowed over a list of what seemed to be names, scribbled down on a dirty piece of paper. It looked very interesting, but he knew he would forget his questions if he didn’t ask them first. He sat down on Horror’s second chair, put his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands. He looked at the man until he gained his attention, which took a little. Horror was really invested in whatever it was he was doing.
When the dark eyes with the blue iris finally focused on him, he looked back at him, locked their gazes.
“Let me guess.” Horror muttered. “You wanna know what this is?”
Bingo. Well, almost.
“Yes, but I wanna ask you a small hand full of other things first, because I will forget them otherwise. If I list them, you will be able to remember them for me, right?”
The man rolled his eyes. He seemed annoyed, as almost always. But he nodded, Motionless was sure that he actually didn’t mind as much. He had said he didn’t see Vin and Justin in a few months and Ghost didn’t speak with words. So maybe the small goth dude was glad to have someone to talk to.
“Okay, shoot. I’ll see if I can answer them.”
Motionless put his hands on the table, trying to recall all the questions he had collected.
“Okay, so.. This morning I thought we should maybe set up a workplace somewhere else, so not more people show up at the base, like Meds today.”
Horror nodded, gesturing him to go on, so he did.
“Yesterday I had a rather random thought.. There’s probably a lot of people trapped in jobs they don’t wanna do but can’t get out. That’s bad enough but the most common field is probably sex work, right? That sounded horrible to me.”
Horror frowned. “Huh? Yeah, there’s always people caught up in jobs they don’t wanna have. You were. I was too. Gotta make money somehow.”
He looked at Horror who didn’t seem to get what he was saying. Then, he realized his mistake.
“Ah- yeah of course. I meant bootlegs though. It’s still a difference if you pick a job because of the money or if you have to do it because they fabricated you into it and you don’t even have anything from it, right?”
His friend nodded.
“Yeah. Sorry, you seemed to talk about humans. Confused me.”
He smirked. “I said people. That includes everyone. But you’re right, I could have been more specific.”
Horror shot him a gaze that he couldn’t read but he liked to imagine that the man silently appreciated or even noticed him changing his choice of words. He was proud of managing that.
“Did you have more questions?”
He nodded. “One more. I talked to Meds about his interests today, I know a little of Vin’s as well, but I barely know yours. I see a few posters around but I can’t quite grasp your style or genre. So to put it short; I just wanna ask you about you.”
“I already told you everything. You know what I do.”
Motionless figured that his guess hadn’t been far off.
“Yeah, I know what you do but I don’t know you. What do you like? What do you do when you have time? You know, human things. You seem to work your ass off like a machine.”
Horror squinted his eyes at him and he had to interrupt him before he could get angry. Geez, he really had to watch his choice of words here.
“It’s a saying, man, don’t loose your shit. I actually wanted to offer to help you with that thing. Like, you want to feel human. Then let’s do human things. I’m an expert at that.”
It took a little for Horror to drop the angry stare and go back to normal. He leaned back on the chair. “Are you sure you don’t just want to downplay me by pointing out all the things I don’t know and can’t do?”
That man must have made some very serious bad experiences.
“Yes, I’m sure. I mean it exactly like I said it. Let’s do a test thing. You act exactly like you’re a human by all means and I’ll occasionally let you know if I notice anything. See it as passing training.”
Horror looked at his list again, seemingly in thoughts for a few seconds. He looked back up after a little and nodded.
“Okay. We can try that. So what’s the human things that you do?”
“Whatever you like. They have some cool movies, music, you can go out to the club or the bar but we’ve already been. We could pay the junk yard a visit and look for parts to fix up the motorcycle. There’s always something you can do.”
From the way he looked at him alone Motionless noticed that his small friend here had a harder time with these things than Vin for example.
“Yeah, or we don’t waste time and actually help someone who needs us.”
The mechanic smiled a bit. “See, that’s exactly your problem. You’re living for others, for a cause, not for yourself. Sometimes humans are fanatic and do that too but they’re never happy. I’m not saying abandon what you’re doing, I wouldn’t be here if I thought it was bad what you do. But Maybe start with taking a little time a day for you.”
He pointed at one of the walls that had graffiti on it.
“Much like that. You did that, right? So you know what I mean. You didn’t do that for anyone else, did you?”
Horror looked over at the wall. For ages a construction light had been pointing at it and the cans were still scattered around on the floor. The man crossed his arms and seemed to be lost in thoughts for a moment.
“Actually, I did. Josh made me do it when he lived here with me. Said it would make the place a bit prettier. Felt like a waste of time too.”
Motionless was starting to loose hope.
“Felt or feels?”
“I don’t know. It’s.. kinda pretty. But its not necessary.”
The taller man held out his arms to show them to the other.
“Maybe that’s the point. Look at my tattoos, are those necessary?” Another thought crossed his brain. “Hey. If you think everything is a waste of time, why did you date Josh? And, like, did you even do any couple things?”
He didn’t question Horror’s credibility one bit, but he started to question if the man had ever really lived.
“Couple things?” Horror repeated his last words in a clueless tone. “Uh.. a little, I guess. I dated him because I wanted to have him around me. Like, more than Vin and Justin, obviously. I think I know a crush when I have one. But we mostly did the same things that we do all day. See if we can help anyone, but at that time only with software problems. Did a few bigger things as well. We broke in a few android stores, freed them and stole their supplies before they enhanced the security. Now I can’t get in anymore.”
Honestly, that sounded like a shit ton of fun, he wouldn’t turn that down. Maybe he could even help with that security problem and Horror could get back to doing that.
“Doesn’t sound bad but I mean more like yesterday in the club. You said you don’t do dancing but you didn’t seem to dislike it. You didn’t say it was a waste of time yesterday.”
Horrors expression hardened, his brows furrowed a little and he responded very defensive.
“I just didn’t wanna be rude! Of course it was a waste of time!”
Very slowly but surely, something dawned the mechanic. Horror didn’t bleed. Therefore he couldn’t blush. But right now, he looked like he would blush furiously if he could. That was a very interesting observation, he should keep that expression in mind to know when Horror was actually embarrassed.
“Are you sure about that?” He smiled. “You seemed to like the way I held you.”
The expression clearly turned into desperation at this point.
“There were people everywhere and I didn’t wanna bump into them!”
Just when Motionless grinned and opened his mouth to mock his friend even more, the long haired man slapped his black hands on the table with a loud thud and stood up.
“Cut it out already! What are you getting at?”
Now that reaction was a bit strong for pure embarrassment, there must be something more. But maybe he shouldn’t dig deeper into it and rather leave it alone, for now.
“Okay okay, I’m sorry. I mean that you obviously liked it and that’s a good thing. That’s the reason we did it. I want us to do things that you like and not things that you think you have to do.”
Very slowly, Horror sat back down on the chair. He still looked very upset, though. Finally, after a longer silence, he muttered “I don’t know what I like to do, though.”
Of course he had expected that answer.
“Then let’s find out. Starting tomorrow. I barely slept last night, I need to hit the bed.”
Horror nodded and his taller friend looked at him for a moment longer, hesitantly.
“What is it?”
Motionless clacked his fingernails on the table, considered his options. He didn’t want to overdo it with getting closer to the other man, but he figured it wasn’t so far off to ask:
“Do you wanna lay down with me? I know you don’t have to but maybe there’s something you can keep yourself busy with. You could try simulating to live with me. I mean, live with me like me.”
To his surprise, Horror shrugged and stood up. “I guess”, he said. “I was thinking about it, actually. But I wasn’t sure if I should. The bed is pretty small.”
Both of them looked over to the bed for a moment, then Motionless shrugged. “You laid there with me before, when I still thought you have to sleep. I figure you left as soon as I was asleep though.”
Horror made “Mh-mh” and finally, both of them made their way over. Motionless slipped out of his shoes when he sat down at the rim of the bed. He had been wearing the Sneakers he came in all day, his club shoes were standing around by the bed too. Looked funny between all this stuff. Horror watched him for a moment, standing in front of him, but then he sat down next to him and did the same. Motionless figured that he just took his best guess and imitated whatever he was doing but he didn’t mind. Actually that was quite smart. He slipped under the blanket and thought about how Horror had said that he didn’t have any humanoid friends. Naturally, he didn’t have anyone to copy behaviour from. Now he was here for Horror to copy from and he was glad to help.
“Uhm..”
He looked up when Horror addressed him, still sitting on the corner of the bed.
“I know I could have mentioned that before but.. Don’t you want the light shut off, actually?”
He stared back at Horror.
“You can shut off the lights?” He felt stupid. Most lamps had a fucking light switch, why had he expected these ceiling lights to not have one?
“Yeeeeah..” Horror sounded a bit awkward. “I just never do. Should I? I mean.. I figure that makes sleeping easier?”
On one hand it felt considerate of Horror to ask. On the other hand it felt inconsiderate of him not to ask all the days before. He couldn’t make up his mind.
“Yeah, it would. Where even is your light switch?”
A second later the light shut off without Horror having to move at all. Motionless almost laughed. Of course, Horror was too overpowered to have a normal light switch, he should have expected that too.
“I see.” he chuckled. He could only see in the dark because of his implant. His view was monochrome with a green tint, he could barely make out the surroundings right next to the bed. Horrors pale face was clearly visible though. He smiled at the man. “Thanks.”
Horror slipped under the blanket too and then laid on his back, facing the ceiling. He seemed a bit stiff, but that was excusable.
“Good night.” He finally mumbled and closed his eyes. Horror next to him didn’t move an inch, but after a few moments he heard a low “Good night..” from his side and smiled to himself.He woke up because something moved next to him. He blinked but it was still completely dark. It could be day already for all he knew, at least Horror’s lights were still off. He turned his attention to Horrors side of the bed and in the darkness he could make out his silhouette, sitting at the side of the bed. At first he was confused but then guessed that Horror couldn’t manage to lay still the whole time and wanted to go do something. He closed his eyes again, trying to fall asleep. He still felt tired as hell, it couldn’t have been long.
To his surprise though, Horror laid back down and when he opened his eyes he could see him lift up the blanket and slip under it. Huh. He rubbed over his eyes in a sleepy manner and muttered: “Horror? Whatcha doing?”
The man froze for a moment, then turned on his side and looked at his sleepy friend.
“I didn’t wanna wake you. I was.. uh.. I had to finish something because I couldn’t calm down.”
So it was like he had expected but he thought it was cute that Horror actually came back.
“Okay.” He smiled at him, just weakly because he was still half asleep. “Maybe something can help you stay calm?”
Through the darkness, Horrors eyes were still glowing. Barely enough to illuminate his face but he could make out the blue glow. At least he could always be a hundred percent sure where he was.
“Like what?”
Good question, he wouldn’t have asked if he had an idea already. So he did some thinking.
“You were calm yesterday, when I held you.”
Horror instantly shook his head. “Oh no, we’re not doing that, forget it.”
It was amusing but a bit disappointing. As long as he wouldn’t be crushed by his weight, he wouldn’t have turned down having Horror close.
“Okay then not, I’m just saying.”
He shrugged and closed his eyes again. Heard Horror sigh but then stay silent and drifted off after a while.When he really woke up, Horror was gone. The lights were on and he wondered how he hadn’t woken up from that alone. Or maybe he did, who knew. He sat up, stretched and looked around to see where his friend had went. His shoes were gone from next to the bed and when he took a closer look around, he also noticed that Horrors backpack was gone too. So he yawned and decided to call it a slow morning. He picked up one of Horrors dusty sandwiches, put it on the table and looked around for something to do. That’s when he remembered the lava lamp, so he picked that up as well as his tools and sat down at the kitchen table with it. It wasn’t a blown light bulb so he hoped for a challenging problem and opened the lamp.He was so focused on it he forgot to eat what he had picked out but in this case that was a good thing. Because after a while Horror showed back up, slipped through the gap in the wall and walked over to him. He only noticed when Horror was already almost there.
“Hey!” He exclaimed with a bright smile. “Morning. Almost got this thing working again.”
Horror put his bag on the table and frowned. “Why are you- Why am I even asking. I went out to fetch something else but packaged nutrients.”
The mechanic looked up with a surprised gaze and watched Horror pull a box out of his backpack, he simply put it down in front of Motionless’ nose and sat down on the free chair.
He eyed the box and opened it, just to be greeted by the smell and look of fried noodles. That was really the last thing he had expected Horror to bring home. He looked up at him with still the same, surprised gaze.
“Well- thank you! Why such a big effort?”
Horror shrugged. “Pretending I need to eat too.” But instead of noodles, he pulled a can of this glowing, dark purple battery acid out of his backpack. It made Motionless grin again.
“So we’re having dinner together now?”
“If you try to make it sound romantic I’ll change my mind.”
Yeah, that sounded like Horror. He laughed and picked up a pair of chopsticks that Horror had placed on the table too.
“So, any idea what you wanna do today? We’re gonna find out whatever it is that you like to do.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Horror stared at the half empty can of battery acid and seemed to do some thinking. His friend let him and chewed on his noodles in return, a bit lost in his own thoughts as well. He tried to come up with some ideas in case the smaller man didn’t have any. He felt like the man didn’t really have any hobbies and if he had to help him find some, he should start with some easier things. The typical stuff like watching a movie or actually going to the junk yard and pick up things to upgrade the motorcycle. Horror would enjoy if he could drive even faster, right?
His friend picked back up the can, downed the second half in one go and put the can back down. Their gazes met and motionless was curious what he had come up with. He looked like he had made up his mind.
“Okay.” Horror said. “You don’t necessarily sympathise with the police, do you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning illegal stuff for fun or are you gonna start an android riot or something?”
It really sounded as if Horror was caught up in his usual doing again, it was much like his work, to draw a parallel there.
“Can’t it be the same?” Horror shrugged. “I thought about what you said yesterday and figured that it’s probably not really possible to pull the line between, to put it in your words, things I like to do and things I think I have to do, because I like the things that I do. But I figure there are things with less of a practical purpose that are more for the message and entertainment.”
Motionless was sure he had never heard someone talk that mechanical about what their hobbies were. He even chuckled a bit.
“Okay, come at me. I’m in with whatever you got. Unless you want to kill really innocent people, I’m not a fan of that.”
His friend ran a finger over the rim of the can while he looked at him.
“I also don’t enjoy that so no, let’s not do that. How about going down town and see what we come up with?”
Motionless smiled. So it was kind of a date, but Horror didn’t say it. And he didn’t mention it either because then Horror would leave him here and go alone, he knew that game by now. So he just nodded.
“Okay. Should I do your makeup again? As I see you wiped it off. I suppose the orange was too bright?”
Horror lowered his gaze a bit. “No, I- it was fine actually. We could redo it.”
So the mechanic pushed aside his noodles, grabbed his bag and dug out the makeup stuff he had taken along from his place with a smile.
“Then come a bit closer! So you wanna go orange again?”Horror sat in front of him with his eyes closed and he gently let the brush run over his eyelids. He could see the eyes move behind them. By now he didn’t question it anymore, maybe he was sorting some files or however his brain worked. It was still interesting to him, but in the end it only mattered that it worked, not how. Though, at some point he wanted to be able to understand it so he could fix things like that too.
When he was finished he leaned back and smiled at Horror who opened his eyes again. He had done less orange this time, left it at black eyeshadow and just let it fade out to orange. He still figured it might have been too much bright colour for Horror who usually only dressed in black.
“Do you wanna look at yourself?”
Horror shook his head. “No, I trust you.”
Oh. Now that was a pleasant little sting to Motionless’ stomach. He smiled wider.
“Whatever you say. Let’s take a small handful of tools along, just in case we need it. Anything else?”
Horror shook his head so he got up, collected the stuff and also changed back from his jogging pants into the fake leather pants. He just had to tie up his hair and do his own makeup and they would be ready to go.While they drove down town, Motionless had his eyes closed and arms wrapped around his friend again. He had come to terms with it before already, but realized once more that he definitely didn’t want to miss this. Basically, he could look for his own vehicle actually, but he was sure he wouldn’t be able to keep up with Horrors speed like that. Besides, they were less suspicious on just one vehicle. And, yes, he just liked this more. He liked to trust Horror. He was sure that Horror would watch out for him under every circumstances.
Horror stopped at the side of the road and his friend opened his eyes to look around. They were pretty much in the shopping district now and he just grinned. “So what’s your plan? Shopping tour?”
The driver turned a bit and looked over his shoulder so their gazes connected.
“You can’t call it that. Do I look like I’m gonna pay for anything?”
Okay, touché. But he wondered anyway.
“Can I ask you where that comes from? Just curious. Because you don’t seem to absolutely hate humans, so why steal from them?”
Both of them climbed off the motorcycle and Horror leaned it against a wall. Sure, this wasn’t a very safe spot but to be honest, there were no safe spots anywhere here. They would just have to hope it was still there when they came back. Or just take another one, Motionless could do that.
“I don’t care if who owns those stores is a human or an android or whatever the hell else they could be. They’re rich assholes who sit on their asses and don’t even notice that we stole something. And the employees, they get paid the same anyway. Because no one cares about five missing things, they even count in theft when pre calculating the profit.”
Actually, Motionless wasn’t even surprised by that answer, but it was refreshing to hear another topic for once.The beginning of their day was rather stiff and slow. He followed his smaller friend into a store for clothes and accessories and watched him walk off. He had no idea how the day was gonna go and wanted to ease everything up a bit, so he picked up a pair of sunglasses from a shelf they passed and walked up to Horror with them on his nose.
“Hey!” He said and stopped next to him. “Is that the kind of stupid shades you wanted me to wear?”
Horror stared up at him. He had picked up a pair of heart shaped sunglasses with pink glass and a rainbow frame. At first Horror just frowned. And Motionless wasn’t sure if he was getting anywhere with this. Maybe the man just didn’t want to hear any jokes at the moment.
But then he grinned.
“I almost forgot about that after you said you could maybe exchange my implants. You should rather get something with the eyes instead then, else no one gets the joke.”
Oh! That was kinda cute. Matching eyes with Horror? Like, sure, maybe.
“Oh, but then you won’t do anything funny, right?”
Horror shook his head. “No. I wanted to get away from the blue. Orange, maybe.. like you.”
He looked down at his hands. Horror held a black beanie. As far as he remembered, Horrors actual beanie was in perfect condition though. Or had he lost it?
“If you do something cool, then I wanna do something too, but I think I kinda like my spiral eyes. Maybe I should try to hypnotize you too with them!”
Horror looked up. “I hypnotize you?”
He was pretty glad he wore the shades right now, so he could advert his gaze without being spotted.
“I mean the glow. It’s eye catching, I like it. It’s just hard to look away from it, that’s in its nature.”
Yeah, it totally wasn’t like he wanted to look at Horror basically the whole time.
“Ah. Okay. You can try but I don’t think that works. By the way, do you think synthetic skin is piercable?”
Motionless took the shades off and carelessly put them on a shelf next to them.
“You want me to pierce you?”
Horror shrugged in response and looked at everything but not his friend.
“Kinda.”
They really were an awkward mess, huh?
“Okay. I don’t think your skin swells, so you can put in what you want right away. Do you have some?”
Horror shook his head but took the mechanic and future piercer by the hand and pulled him back over to where the sunglasses had come from. He kneeled down in front of the lower section of a shelf that had piercings and earrings. So Motionless squatted down with him and took a look as well. He saw a pack of orange rings and took it, reading the size on the back of the package. Horror took a second pack of the same kind to look at it.
“Don’t you think that clashes with my blue right now?”
“Oh.” Motionless looked up and over to his friend. “I actually thought about them for myself but of course you would look pretty awesome with orange too! We could match, that would be awesome!”
He smiled at him and just didn't mention that Horror already had orange in his face and it didn't look bad.
“And.. Either we just change your implants soon or you take blue and orange and switch later. I imagine it’s gonna take some time until you actually let me look at your.. wiring.”
He watched Horror make that weird, embarrassed expression and he had a very random and maybe stupid idea. He had promised Horror to act as if there was no doubt that he was human, so he could live the way he wanted. So why not make it a bit more realistic.
“You’re blushing. It’s cute” He said with a smile but the look that Horror gave him was completely and utterly confused. He touched his cheeks, then stared at Motionless again.
“I-I am what? How?”
Hmn. “I mean, you would. I can interpret your expression. Should I not do that next time?”
Horror lowered his hands again, he seemed to feel a bit safer, now that he knew he wasn’t actually blushing.
“I don’t get it. Why did you say that?”
To cheat himself some more time before answering, Motionless let the pack of piercings slip into his pocket. They wanted to steal these shits anyway, right? But then he had to answer, he couldn’t avoid it, even if the topic was awkward.
“Because I thought you’d like to be treated like you actually showed that human reaction. Like.. Sure, not all parts of human reactions are nice, but I assume you want the whole pack?”
Horror frowned.
“What are you gonna tell me next, that I got a random awkward boner?”
This conversation was starting to take a very strange turn. He had to do his best not to look down on Horror, though for a short second he was really tempted to.
“If you want me to, I would try. Actually I’m just trying to make you feel as human as possible.”
“Hmpf.” Horror didn’t really answer. Instead, he picked a pack of blue piercing rings as well and Motionless could see them slowly disappear inside Horror’s oversized hoodie sleeves. Huh, not a bad idea.
“Are we done here?” The small thief asked and Motionless quickly grabbed an orange barbell as well for the centre of his lip and then got up. “Yeah, ready to go. Out?”
Horror nodded. Grabbed his hand and walked out of the store as calm as if he was taking a walk through the park. Well, no wonder, he could probably repress any reaction better than Motionless.“That’s for you, by the way.” When they were outside, Horror handed the taller man the black beanie he had also taken along and the man frowned.
“But I barely wear those, actually. I also won’t need to lend yours anymore, don’t worry.”
Horror laughed. It barely happened, so of course the other looked at him with a surprised expression.
“Not for that. You have a unique face, if that gets registered on any camera you’ll have a problem. If they register me they’ll get a dozen results and start with the guys in their data base. You’re supposed to pull that over your head if you ever need to. Not now, of course. But who knows in what trouble we’ll get eventually.”
That made sense. So Motionless quickly stuffed the beanie into his backpack and put it back on.
“Got it. Thanks. Could have thought of that myself.”
His friend waved it off.
“It’s whatever. So what now? Do you wanna look for any motorcycle parts or something?”
He gave it some thinking. Most stores he knew had either pretty good security or were so small that nothing escaped the owners eye. Of course he could just buy it, but that wouldn't be fun, right?
“How about we take parts from parked vehicles? The way I know you, you’ll lead me to a place and say these people deserve to get their parts stolen! Or am I wrong?”
The other didn’t laugh, but he also didn’t seem to hate that comment. He just made a thinking motion.
“Probably. But then we have to sabotage all of them and completely piss them off.”And that’s what they did. Horror said there was a pretty fancy association of robophobes they could pay a visit. And Motionless was the one with the idea to steal a few cans of orange spray paint and gloves and mess up the vehicles with that- after sabotaging them. So in the end he did end up wearing the beanie over his head, Horror had helped him rip holes in it. They were sneaking around through rows of parked cars and motorcycles, in front of an old looking, white brick building. It looked like they were having an event but Horror said it always was like that, so they had to make sure that no one walked up to the parking lot and saw them. The smaller of them both watched out while the mechanic looked out the one or other motorcycle and build out a few useful parts to replace or upgrade Horror’s vehicle with. Actually it was quite fun. From time to time he chuckled to himself and grinned while did his best to fumble around on the vehicles insides with the gloves he had on to not leave any fingerprints. He left oil stains on them and his clothes but he was sure he would be able to wash those off.
When they had what Motionless wanted, he quickly sneaked through the other rows and left some minor or major damage here and there. Cut some wires, sliced some tires, scratched some metal, removed the ignition of a few vehicles and, after he showed Horror how, they took off the vehicles number plates and either exchanged them or threw them in the sewer. In general, this was less of an assault, it was actually just a joke, on cost of people that Horror hated. But the man seemed to have fun, at least. He heard him giggle every now and then, especially while he also heard him use the spray can. He couldn’t directly see what he was doing because he was busy himself.
And he would have to check the spray paint messages on the internet or news later, because they almost got caught. Someone stormed out on the parking lot and yelled “Hey!” but as soon as the pair noticed them, they dashed off. Horror even made sure to keep pace with Motionless, just grabbed his hand and pulled him along. He almost stumbled and fell a few times because the smaller man with his metal legs was so much faster. And he didn’t turn exhausted, unlike him. They ran quite a few blocks but then he had to stop, pulled on Horrors arm and made him slip into a narrow street to catch his breath.
He leaned against the wall behind him and Horror did the same, even though no one was following them. Motionless turned up the beanie he had over his face and looked over to Horror, still catching his breath.
“You have some very interesting Hobbies!” He hissed at him with a grin and Horror just shrugged.
“Hey, that was a compliment. What now? Pick up the motorcycle and fix it up, pierce you and go see where else we can create some chaos?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Horror pulled him into a big supermarket and walked up to the electronics area. He was confused at first, but almost the first thing they came across was the battery acid that Horror always drank. It made sense but didn’t he still have a lot of it at home? He watched his friend take a few cans and must look very confused, because the man started to explain. Or, something like that.
“Do you drink?” He asked and looked up to him. “Or take drugs or something?”
He thought about it.
“I guess. Yeah. Do you wanna hang out with me drunk? It’s not that funny when you’re sober though, you might want to overthink that.”
Horror took more cans out of the shelf. “That’s why I’m not gonna stay sober. What do you want?”
He watched him with those cans. He looked left and right for a second, then took his bag and stuffed the cans into it. Motionless looked around himself as well but figured that Horror knew very well when he could do this and when not. So he let him do that and just grinned.
“So, are you gonna get more like high or more like drunk yourself?”
Horror put the backpack back in place and shrugged. “Something in between. More high though. It’s an overdose of energy, basically.”
He looked at the shelf with the cans and now it made sense. If that was fuel then you could apparently also overfuel with this crap. He nodded.
“Then let’s get high, I guess. I’m out of stuff though. Gotta pick something up somewhere.”
Horror grabbed him by the wrist and made his way back to the exit of the store. While walking past, the taller of both of them managed to grab some small things from the snack shelf and slid them into his pockets. They walked back out of the entrance. To his surprise, it didn’t beep when they passed, he figured that Horror had just disabled the security. Clever and very handy. So he couldn’t stop grinning his ass off when they walked out of the store and once they were, he packed out some chocolate he had snatched and started eating it.
“So, where do we get drugs around here?” He asked while chewing on the piece of sugar. Horror already had his phone out and tapped around on it though. “Vin” He said, as if it was obvious. “I think he lives close by, have never been there though. We should just pay him a visit.”So they did, but it didn’t go the way he had expected it. They didn’t enter Vins apartment or hung out with him. They just drove by the street and parked for what felt like two seconds. Vin climbed out of a window on the third floor and dashed down a fire emergency staircase. He stopped right in front of them with a bright grin.
“Ay! What are you two up to? Or rather, what are you gonna do with him? I suppose you told him why you’re here?”
Horror rolled his eyes. “Of course I did. Do you have something?”
Both their friend crossed his arms and pushed a hip out as if he wasn’t gonna butch.
“You didn’t answer my question. What’s the plan?” He grinned because he could see how annoyed Horror was. He didn’t stop there though and Motionless finally saw that he wasn’t the only one who did this with the small goth man. Maybe he didn’t have to be as worried as he was. “Are you gonna try to get him iton your bed?”
Vin grinned from one ear to the other while both men on the motorcycle tried to talk up against it at an instant.
“Say are you stupid or something?” and “But you said Horror isn’t sexual.”
After that, Horror turned around and looked over his shoulder, at his friend, with a big frown. “Who said I wasn’t sexual?”
The tallest of all of them didn’t understand anything anymore at this point.
“Uh, Vin said that. Are you?”
He looked back and fourth between the two men who had been friends for so much longer than he knew them. Vin just laughed and shook his brown locks because Horror made that face as if he was gonna blush any second. He didn’t explain anything though, he just turned away and asked again “So do you have something?”
Vin pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket. “Of course I have. But-” He turned towards Motionless, still grinning his ass off. “You asked me about dating androids, remember? I didn’t say that Horror doesn’t fuck anyone. I just talked about dating.”
“Oh shut the fuck up!” Horror grabbed the small bag and fetched it out of Vins fingers. He let it slide in his own pocket and made an annoyed, almost pained face. “Who cares about if I fuck and who? Not you and he also shouldn’t. So leave me alone with it finally!”
Finally? Seemed like they didn’t have that topic for the first time. Interesting; maybe. He pressed his lips shut tight and still smiled, amused, but didn’t interfere in any way. Horror didn’t seem to like the topic and maybe he shouldn’t try to make him talk about it as long as he was sober. He was actually curious if he was gonna open up after overfueling.
“Okay, I’m silent.” He finally said, still grinning and though Horror rolled his eyes, he seemed to be happy with it. Put his hands back on the handle bar.
“Same thing as always?” He asked Vin and the other nodded, then waved and turned around to climb back up the fire staircase. Motionless really just frowned at all this. “What exactly is it you’re paying him with?”
But he didn’t get an answer. Just a “Later” and then they were already back on the street. He held onto the other, arms around his waist, a bit lost in thoughts again. To his surprise, the next time Horror came to a halt was on top of a giant park deck. He looked around, trying to make sense of what they could want here. The cars seemed to be rather run down, so it wasn’t some top lass park deck where Horror could want to fuck some shit up like at that robophobe association. He climbed off the vehicle when Horror adjusted his hair as always. He stretched his arms and took another good look around.
“So what’s up, got anything to do here or just fun?”
Horror pulled the key out of the ignition and stuffed it into his pockets before he turned to look at his friend. He still sat on the motorcycle.
“Just didn’t feel like driving all the way back home. Got a pretty cool view from up here. Wanna go take a look?”
Motionless frowned when his smaller friend climbed down from the vehicle and walked over to the end of the park deck. Since they were on top, there was no roof above them and the deck also just had half walls that you could easily bow over. When they reached it, Horror also did so. He leaned over so much, Motionless already feared he would fall, but Horrors grip seemed to be strong enough. His fair hung down as well, like a curtain or this girl in this suuuper old horror movie, what was it called again? Ring?
Just that Horror wasn’t creepy. He stared down, they must be on the tenth level of the park deck or something. The small man spit down and both of them watched it disappear. Motionless laughed, he just couldn’t hold back.
“What are you, twelve?”
Horror had to brush his hair behind one ear so he could even look at the mechanic. He didn’t lean back, he seemed to like hanging over the border like that.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t sound offended though, luckily. Motionless had already gotten used to constantly offending him on accident.
“Just that my friends and I used to do that when we were kids.”
He remembered something he had been wanting to ask Horror. Just really hoped that he wouldn’t make him mad, so he brought it out with a slightly lower voice, careful.
“Hey, can I ask you something? Like.. How old are you? Just curious, really.”
The other seemed to consider his answer quite some time. He crossed his arms on the border, pulled his head back and laid it on his crossed arms, still staring back at the mechanic.
“Does it make a difference? You can’t compare it anyway. In your sense Justin would still be in Kindergarden and I’d say he’s unworldy, but not a kid.”
It wasn’t as if Motionless had expected a straight up answer but maybe something a little clearer.
“Are you saying that because you’re young too and are embarrassed about it?”
Horror just made his typical, annoyed tongue clacking sound.
“I’m older than you. Probably at least twice your age. Do you feel better hanging around with a dude who could be your father? Just don’t think about it. I don’t think it makes a difference.”
It did, because it didn’t make sense. So, obviously Motionless frowned and thought about it for a little. The other watched him, but didn’t ask. Maybe he just enjoyed the silence until Motionless had finally formulated his questions in mind.
“Okay.. Really, excuse the question but I would have expected you to learn things way faster than me. If you had so much time, how comes you haven't really practised acting.. you know?”
Horror just looked at him and he really wondered if the other appreciated him avoiding the terms Human and Android or if it only made things more complicated. Horror really just looked at him and it made him nervous. He couldn’t have been more thankful when the other finally reacted. He talked and pulled the small bag that Vin had given him out of his pocket, handed it over to the mechanic.
“I didn’t really wanna be around any humans. I mostly surrounded myself with transhumans and most of them also don’t know how to act human. They mostly even asked me for advice, as if I’m the expert. You know the problem is.. There were folks I used to hang out with but if they know you’re not a human they’ll always treat you different. So if you copy that behaviour, it also won’t help you passing, you get what I mean?”
After repeating those words a few times in his head, they actually made sense. It was just a confusing topic, but Motionless liked to think he was getting quite okay at it, slowly but surely.
“Okay, I think I understand it. But it’s so hard to imagine you don’t have more dudes like me.”
“Dudes like you?” Horror grinned and shifted, leaned back on the rim of the wall.
“You mean dudes from a rather conservative line of work but who still dress like gothic hookers, act like they don’t get the difference between humans and androids and follow me around like a lost dog, always wiggling their tail when they did something useful?”
While Horror just grinned, the mechanic opened his mouth and closed it again. Then looked down on himself and exclaimed “I don’t look like a gothic hooker!”
The smaller man shook his head. “You look like a gothic hooker in casual. I’m not saying that’s bad. You looked stunning in that club.”
He looked up again, at Horror, and decided that he needed to get high before continuing that conversation. He still had the bag from Vin in his hands. Lucky enough for him, Vin had rolled the shit up already, maybe Horror had told him they were on the road. And Motionless didn’t smoke cigarettes, so he wouldn’t have had anything to roll it up himself anyway. So he took out one of the few rolls that Vin had build and placed it between his lips, took his backpack off, stuffed the rest inside and dug around in it for his lighter. He dropped his bag on the ground next to the wall and lit up the joint, while Horror watched him.
“Hey.”
He looked up, turning the roll a few times so it would light up properly.”Yeah?”
“When you smelled like burned plastic. Let me guess, that was my hair?”
He almost flinched. Shit, you couldn’t hold secrets from Horror at all, huh?
“Yeah. It irritated me. But, like, don’t sweat it. I wouldn’t have wondered if I didn’t know how you lived. Your hair looks, like, in top shape. That just didn’t add up with me. But that’s actually a good thing, right?”
He took a drag and kept the smoke in while Horror scanned him up and down with squinted eyes.
“You saying I don’t look authentic because I don’t look like I live in a hole in the ground?”
Motionless could barely keep the smoke in long enough because that sentence made him laugh. He huffed out small clouds of smoke while trying to contain himself.
“Pretty much, yeah. So, apologies. But I could still have believed its implanted, under other circumstances. I just figured that if you had the choice, you would rather get white eyeballs than hair.”
Horror nodded slowly. “Okay that makes sense.. By the way. Do you really think you can just.. exchange parts on me? Like for real?”
Motionless blew out some smoke, then nodded.
“Sure, why not? We also managed to give Meds a new foot. We just mainly need to find parts that fit you. We could look at the junk yard but maybe it makes more sense to target an android shop, like you talked about this morning? Maybe together we can manage. Then you don’t get parts that might break down in a month.”
Horror lowered his gaze. “I.. Yeah, that might work. Thank you. I didn’t expect to get anything fixed up in the next years and you just shop up and tell me that’s all no problem. It’s a bit hard to get that into my head.”
Horror really could be cute when he was like that. The mechanic smiled widely and leaned over to him.
“Right, that’s all no problem and I’ll show you. How about we look around for a store, huh? I think I have a good idea actually.”They parked in front of a store that Horror had looked out and both climbed off the vehicle.
“Okay.” Motionless turned to his friend, adjusted his hair with a bright grin. “Let’s do this, yeah? Just follow me, as if you’re not a bootleg, yeah? You can ping my phone anytime. I just need to know what parts you want!”
Horror looked left and right as if he felt watched. The taller man got that it made him uncomfortable, but it was the best way to do this and he knew that Horror agreed on that.
“Uhm.. My line is called Olson, because of the dude who planned it. They’re commonly used in field of.. Sex work. They’re gonna ask you about that.”
For a second Motionless was thrown off, then quickly reminded himself that where a bootleg came from didn’t have anything to do with who they were. But it explained the man’s pretty face and made him smile a slight bit.
“Let’s tell them I’m a rich ass gay kid and got you. It’s just a story, okay? But trust me, they don’t have the good parts in storage. We’re just gonna make them order the good parts so we have something to take. And after that we come back, complain about their unprofessionalism and say we go somewhere else where they’re more competent. Sound alright with you?”
Horror nodded slowly. He still didn’t look like he was very convinced, but he straightened the shirt he was wearing.
“Okay.. I’ll trust you on that. Don’t disappoint me.”
Motionless grinned from one ear to the other. “Who, me? C’mon lets go in!”
He figured it wasn’t so unlikely for rich kids to show up with pupils as big as buttons, so he didn’t bother. And honestly, being high would only make this easier. He waited until his friend nodded and then took the Motorcycle key from Horror and walked up to the store with the smaller man right behind him.
The store was well lit and located in a more fancy street. While walking up to it and inside, Motionless spied out whatever he could see of security systems to make a proper plan later. He knew that Horror would also be scanning every corner that he could to make sure they had al the info that they needed. He just looked left and right while following the mechanic, excuse me, the rich ass gay kid, like a good little puppet.
The rich ass gay kid spied a roller shutter while opening the store door and put up a shit eating grin. As a rich kid, he decided to demand a lot of attention. “Good evening!” He said loudly when the door fell closed behind him and he thought he saw Horror twitch for a moment, but after that he remained still, so he guessed it was all fine. He walked around the shelves, took a few bored looks and then went up to the counter, Horror right behind him, where he encountered a young woman with a smile who gave him a slightly confused gaze. “What can I do for you, sir?”
So there went nothing. Motionless but an elbow on the counter and put his chin on the hand. He didn’t look very remarkable right now, no makeup on, only a simple shirt on his frame. Yet he hoped the shiny surface implants on his temples and the spirals in his eyes would do the trick of making him look less.. ordinary.
“Hello there lady. I’m looking for some parts for my pretty bot here. But like, the chic kind, not that ordinary street crap if you understand what I mean.”
He gave her a wide grin and could see her furrow her brows a bit.
“Well, you’re welcome to take a look at our display here. We have some-”
But he didn’t let her finish. “Do you have a catalogue? Not to be offensive of course but I’m looking for some higher class shit.”
He grinned again and the woman seemed to hesitate, then pulled a catalogue out from under her desk. It wasn’t your ordinary magazine, of course. It was a glass disk with a slim metal frame and the woman handed it over to him, so he held out his hand to take it. His nail polish was chapped from all the working, but before they had went here, they mad made sure to clean completely up so he didn’t go in there stained with machine oil. He took the catalogue with a wide smile and said “Thank you darling!”, then walked over to a fancy corner with three seats and a coffee table. Horror followed him, he seemed a bit unsure when the mechanic stopped to take a look at him. He shot him a short smile though.
“Sit down.” He said it softer than you probably would to an android, but the backstory he had prepared for this excused it. They both took a seat and Horror just stared at him while he activated the catalogue to check the parts. Almost instantly, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out with a grin. Of course it was Horror, who else?
“you don’t actually think of me as a bot, do you”
He looked up to Horror for a second, shot him a smile, then answered.
“of course not! we’ll be out soon, promise. can you scan the catalogue and see too?”
He got a short “yes” as an answer and put his phone on the coffee table while he activated the catalogue. He crossed his legs, put one arm on the armrest and did his best to look like a sassy little bitch doing this, with way too much confidence. He scrolled through the catalogue, displayed on the glass disk, with the thumb of the hand he was holding it with and looked for the expensive category, checked for the Olson series there. He also found them and sure enough, even though it didn’t seem to be the most expensive series they sure had expensive upgrades. He grinned while looking through them, also looked up to Horror from time to time who didn’t change his expression at all. He did a good job in pretending he was just a piece of metal.
After some time, the young woman came over again, cleared her throat and smiled at Motionless.
“Excuse me sir. I didn’t catch your name.”
Now, usually he would panic a little on the inside, but whatever Vin had put in those rolls, he was too high to panic. He just grinned at the woman.
“Aw, c’mon. You really don’t know who I am? Ah well, not everyone can hang around at the Black Cat, huh? Whatever. The name is Corner.”
Now, the Black Cat was by far the coolest cyber club in town and Motionless had never been there, someone like him wouldn’t even get close to it. But throwing around important names did the trick and the woman lowered her head a little. “Of course, pardon me Mr. Corner. Can I be of any other assistance?”
Motionless loved this. “Oh, absolutely.” He gestured with his free hand, which only made him look gayer. “I’ll come back to you in a second. I totally need to ask my friend which parts she would take.”
The woman retreated and the phone buzzed again which amused Motionless to no end. He picked it up.
“you can’t just throw names around like that”
“of course I can. can you list me which parts you’d want?”
The answer took a little. He guessed that Horror scanned the list up and down and he waited patiently, also looking at them again. They had some with glitter and stones and honestly, if he was an android, Motionless would so have taken them. Gem stones in the knuckles and as fingernails? C’mon, that shit was fancy as fuck and would go so well with his gothic hooker look. When Horror sent him a short list, there were no glitter and gem stones though, sadly. But who would he be to complain. He noticed though that they did have eyes with orange irides on their list and it almost made him laugh. Apparently the colour thing really was a secret still. He wondered how many people had been taken for probots just because of their colour choice.
“Ill give her the list, okay?”
He waited until Horror agreed, then tugged away his phone, stood up and walked over to the counter, put the catalogue down.
“I think we found something.” He said and placed his elbow on the counter again, put his chin on the hand like he had done before. The woman smiled back at him, she seemed to be a bit nervous now. Maybe a less intimidating name would have done the trick as well.
“I’m pleased to hear that sir. We’ll have to order the parts though. What can I order for you?”
He tapped the catalogue and scrolled through it as if he knew a little bit about technology than he actually did. He showed her the things and pointed them out.
“That, and this over there. You have the eyes in orange, right? I want us to be matching.”
He gave her the biggest grin out of his orange eyes and she nodded quickly.
“Of course, that is no problem. You can pick the parts up in two days, as soon as we open.”
That even gave him the information of when they had to come and take them out of the storage.
“Excellent! You don’t know how happy that makes me.”
She blushed a bit, as if he didn’t behave gay enough yet. Damn, that was amusing.
“I am pleased to hear that, sir.” She repeated herself but he guessed she just didn’t know what else to say. He stood back up straight and smiled. “In two days then. I assume that’s your shift.”
She nodded and he just grinned when he said goodbye, then walked out of the store with Horror right behind him who probably couldn’t wait to get away from that place.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
They reached Horror’s motorcycle and he nudged his friends shoulder with a grin. “C’mon, cheer up! We’re getting you all fixed up. And you don’t have to go back in there, promise.”
Horror just waved it off and leaned against the vehicle. “I know, because you can’t make me do anything I don’t wanna do!” He looked upset, but by now Motionless was sure that it was just facade and that he could dare to make jokes and push his friend a little. He knew he had the perfect comeback to this.
“Oh yeah? I bet I could make you do a lot of things. You’re easier to manipulate than you think.”
He grinned very wide while Horror shot a sharp gaze back. Their eyes connected and Motionless felt a slight sting of unsureness again, as he was never a hundred percent sure how to handle Horror. But it only lasted a few seconds. The other jumped onto the train and rolled his eyes.
“Try it. Make me do something I don’t want to do.”
The taller man leaned next to him and just grinned.
“But the only thing I know you don’t want to do is date a human. Are you sure you want me to change that?”
Now he got a pissed look out of his friend, more pissed than usual. Oh well, maybe he really had overstepped a border here.
“Best example. Try it. No way in hell are you getting me to date you.”
That was quite different from what Horror had said Saturday night. He had hinted at wanting Motionless to make an effort or something, right? You would need a shit ton of convincing to make me get any closer to you, that’s what he had said. And he was kind of sure that Horror wanted to be convinced. The question was just if he wanted to convince him. Well, maybe he did, he wasn’t sure. He should talk to someone. Probably Vin. Yeah, he should talk to Vin. But for now he had to make a bet with Horror. If he decided he didn’t want to win it, he would just lose it on purpose.
“Okay, watch me.” He grinned. “You’re gonna date me eventually, when you’ve already forgotten about this bet. I’ll remind you and you’ll hate it.”
Horror rolled his eyes again. “Keep dreaming. Now get on before someone from the store sees us. We should get lost.”In the following hours until it got fully dark, they didn’t do a lot of interesting things, but it was nice anyway. Horror drove over the highway and stopped at a few places that he wanted to show Motionless because he liked them. One was something he called an android graveyard and the one was at the edge of a gigantic, dirty river. Now, from both of them the graveyard was more interesting. It looked like a regular junk yard from the outside, but when they sneaked in Motionless saw a big, rectangular hole in the ground. They seemed to throw defect androids in there and it was impossible to see how deep it actually was because bodies stacked up in there. It made Motionless feel a bit unwell but Horror didn’t seem to mind. He sat on the edge of the hole and drank some battery acid, probably finally trying to get high. He sat down with his friend and managed to ask him about the place.
“So.. How comes you like this place?”
Both of them stared into the hole. Most bodies were mangled but some of them were still intact and Motionless finally got an overview over all the different kinds of models there were. He could see almost every type of human that you could find. Any gender, any age, any skin colour, it was horrifying.
“You didn’t seem to have a problem with Ghost’s graveyard. What’s the difference?”
Motionless blinked in shock and pointed into the hole.
“That there’s mangled bodies laying around openly? Did you see any displayed dead humans on the graveyard?”
Horror just laughed at it.
“Dude, the only reason they bury the bodies is their rotting flesh. This doesn’t rot, so they let it lay around open. Don’t think they do it out of respect.”
The mechanic frowned and stared at his friend again now. He found it morbid, though having boxes of android hands was morbid as well. But this was like staring at a pile of corpses. He wasn’t sure if this was just how Horror was or if it was an android thing, the lack of empathy.
“Of course they do it out of respect. People pay for tombstones and memorials of their loved ones. Else the graveyard would just be one big meadow, right?”
Horror emptied his can and threw it into the hole of metal bodies which left the other man with his mouth agape. Now this must be disrespectful, right?
“And why do they sell tombstones? So someone can make money. I’m not talking about any people specifically, I’m talking about the system. There’s enough graveyards like this for humans too you know, they just close the holes because of the stink. Where do you think do all the gangsters end up that they shoot on the streets?”
It made sense. He had never wasted a thought about it before.
“Huh, that’s.. Yeah. Okay, you got me there. Still. That didn’t answer my question. Why do you like it here, how comes you like to stare at mangled android bodies?”
Now the smaller man of both of them took a moment to think about it. He kept looking at the hole, frowned from time to time, as if he was searching for something. He couldn’t find anything though, so eventually he turned his attention back to Motionless.
“I’ll tell you a short story. I used to hang out here for long, I would just dig through the bodies and look for parts. Hoping to find something for me, you know? Bringing parts along to a ripper doc would make it cheaper after all. I wasn’t lucky though, I didn’t find anything of my model. Vin came along one day to help me though. We took a break and sat right here to refuel. We stared down into the hole. Back then I really only came here for the parts but we found something else that day, something much more important.”
Motionless raised his eyebrows in honest curiosity.
“Okay, tell me!”
Horror looked down the whole time, mabe it helped him remember. He seemed deep in thoughts after all. His hair covered half of his face from that angle but his side profile was unbelievably pretty to Motionless. No wonder, he was probably build to be stunning. It was interesting how apparently him and Ryan had the same taste in boys, huh?
“So, we were staring down there and we noticed something moving. They had thrown a damaged but not completely broken android in. He couldn’t dig himself out on hs own, he was stuck under the other heavy bodies and his limbs were barely functioning. We were the only hope he had. He’s with us now, it’s Justin. So I asked myself, what if it happens again? How many have ended here because they couldn’t dig themselves out of the hole? How many were thrown in here but managed and are now living on?”
He stared at his friend, then into the hole and then back at the pale face.
“Justin was down there? Shit, I’d be traumatized if they threw me into a mass grave.”
Maybe that was why Justin didn’t talk and didn’t move his face muscles at all. Or maybe he didn’t have any, who knew. But now he felt even more sympathy for him and hoped that he was alright.
The smaller man didn’t answer and they just sat in silence for a while. Both staring down into the hole, making extra sure there was no movement anywhere. Motionless swallowed hard while focusing on the bodies, tried his best to give as much of a shit as Horror did, but it was really really hard since he considered them people. No matter what they were made of.Horror downed quite some cans of fuel and Motionless eventually lit up another smoke because he just wanted to not think about the bodies anymore. He had to really articulate it before Horror asked if he wanted to leave though. The smaller man seemed to still have a hard time putting himself into someone else’s shoes if he didn’t notice how Motionless basically didn’t even what to be at the graveyard.
So they left. They stopped somewhere to pick up a box of fried noodles and then sat at the earlier mentioned river edge while having dinner. Which meant more cans for Horror, but the other was fine with it. It was gonna be their routine from now on and he was sure it would be normal before he even noticed the change.
Now this time they just talked about this and that, random things. The trash in the river, some passing cars. Until Motionless got rid of the empty box of noodles and sat down in front of his friend cross legged.
“Okay”, he said. “You want me to pierce you? Should be safe to do it just like that, you can’t get an infection after all. What do you say?”
Horror seemed surprised. He put his fuel can down and nodded though. “Alright. You’ll need something sharp though. Like a needle. I don’t think the piercings themselves are sharp enough.”
Lucky him, Motionless had something. He reached for his backpack.
“Here. Safety pin. Would you help me exchange mine too then?”
His friend nodded and brushed his hair behind his ears, to have them out of the way. “Oh.” He made then and pulled the pack of blue piercings out of his sleeve. “Here. You’ll need that then.”
He took it with a smile and scooted closer to Horror until he was right in front of him. He also put the fuel can further away so they wouldn’t push it over on accident.
“Okay. Is it gonna hurt? Just so I know if you’re gonna twitch.”
“No.” Horror closed his eyes. “You can just go for it.”
He stared at the other, confused for a second. Then he started laughing.
“Bro I don’t even know where you want them, you have to tell me that.”
Horrors eyelids flickered open again and that close to his own face, Motionless felt different about it than usual. Horror had pretty, full lashes. His skin was so pale and so perfect. His eyes were glowing like orbits. It kept on striking him over and over again lately, just how pretty he looked. And he seemed to become prettier every time he looked at him. Did Horror do that somehow or was it just Motionless’ own brain?
“Oh..” The blue eyes turned towards the ground. “I didn’t think about that yet. Where would you put them?”
Horror tapped a pointing finger against his lower lip and obviously drew Motionless’ attention onto it. He stared at Horrors lips now, which were dark but not deep black yet. There were black stripes on his lower lip though, now that he took a closer look at them. It reminded him a bit of some sort of corpse paint, like teeth on a skull.
He swallowed and looked up to Horror’s eyes instead, just to pull his attention away from his lips.
“Uhh.. How many do we have?”
They looked at the pack. It had four blue rings and it didn’t take Motionless’ imagination long to spit out a picture.
“Hmn.. I guess it would be cool if you did them like mine, but doubled. So two on each side. That would be pretty.”
“Pretty?” Horror repeated his last word with a frown and Motionless instantly wanted to drown in the river they were sitting next to.
“Yeah. Pretty dope, I mean. I think they’re called.. Spider Bites? Is that correct?” Horror shrugged and Motionless did some more thinking.
“Ah, I think if they’re on both sides they’re Shark Bites? But yeah, it doesn’t make a big difference. How do you like that?”
Horror shrugged again and then nodded. “Yeah, sure. Just go for it, I think you have a better feel for what looks good on me. You also did that makeup thing pretty cool.”
Horror couldn’t have phrased it any different, right? Anyway, Motionless agreed, mumbling something. He leaned in to his friend, opened the safety pin and put a hand on Horrors Cheek to hold him in position and check where he should put the needle at. His friend had his eyes closed again and seemed so relaxed, he had honestly not thought Horror even could relax that much. It was cute though.
“Okay..” He muttered and gently held the needle under the others lower lip. “That looks like a good spot. I’ll need to grab your lip to push it through though, yeah?”
“Mh-mh.” Horror didn’t react any further so Motionless brought his confidence up and ignored hos pretty his friend looked. He just carefully took his lip with two fingers, made sure the needle didn’t slip away from its place and pressed his own lips together while he pushed the needle against the synthetic skin.
It felt very weird to do that. Horror didn’t react at all and at first it felt like the needle was just not sharp enough. Then the skin broke and Motionless was sure he had heard it make a slight plop sound. Now the needle was in, stuck in the white material.
“Oh.” Horrors eyes flickered open. “That felt weird. Is it through?”
It wasn’t. It was just stuck in the lip now and the mechanic was sure, was it flesh it would probably hurt like hell.
“N-no. We need to go one more.”
“Okay.”
Horror closed his eyes again and with another gulp, Motionless took the lip again and pushed the needle through with more force. It worked this time though and he could pull it back out to just leave a tiny hole in the skin behind. Horror blinked, then felt it.
“That feels pretty funny. Are just putting the ring in now?”
The other was already opening the package and got a ring out. “Yep, let me do that real quick. Then you can check in your phone mirror or something.”
So he did, very close to Horrors face again while fiddling the ring through the hole. And then he noticed, he had to do that three more times now, three more times of staring at Horror and paying more attention to his lips than was probably good for him. God, he was so gonna die.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Motionless had already thought it would never end. He had felt his hands get a bit sweaty while giving Horror the rest of the piercings, who sat in front of him, cross legged, his eyes closed. He seemed to be totally at ease and trust him, which wasn’t exactly a new thing but he usually didn’t show it that much. He was good at complaining but now he just sat there all calm and let him do it. That was almost too much for his heart. He really felt how it got harder to ignore that he liked Horror, in which way ever. He realized that it hadn’t even been a week and he feared he would get head over heels into the smaller android boy. And he wasn’t sure if that was good. Or if he wanted it. But it was kind of okay, most of the time.
After piercing Horror, Motionless took out his phone to check his reflection and exchanged his own piercings. It gave him something to do, to distract himself from looking at Horror and calm down. It actually helped. And with the piercings orange like his eyes, he felt he looked way more awesome than before and smiled about it. He should have thought about that sooner.
When it was short to midnight, Horror stood up. They had been sitting in silence, just staring at the river. It had been a comfortable silence for once though, no awkward stares. Just sitting there in peace and doing nothing. Motionless was actually surprised that his friend could do that, as he was usually such a workaholic. Maybe it was the fuel. But whatever it was, it was good and he wouldn’t question it. Now that Horror stood up, he looked up at him though. And noticed that he didn’t see him from that angle very often. The blue eyes stared back at him as intense as always and he was sure he would miss those eyes once they were gone.
The long haired man reached his black hand out for the mechanic to take. “I wanna show you one more spot, c’mon.”
He didn’t need to say it twice. The taller man took the hand and stumbled a bit, overwhelmed by the force he got pulled up by. Android arms, right. Horror was so much stronger than he should be and he always underestimated that. He caught his balance before he could trip though.
“Whoa.” He grinned. “I need to get used to that. Are you gonna protect me from the world with your strong arms?”
Despite the amused undertone, Horror looked down at his black hand. Then raised the other too and stared at his palms.
“Huh..” He made, which wasn’t really anything Motionless could make sense of. He just really hoped he hadn’t made him uncomfortable or anything, he didn’t need that. His friend didn’t seem bothered though, just.. Thoughtful.
“I never looked at it that way. Like being protective, you mean? I think I could do that.”
Motionless played with the new piercings in his lip that still felt unfamiliar. He felt a bit flattered, not sure why. Horror being protective over him surely was a nice thought. Though he wanted to be protective over him too, he just couldn’t do much. He felt helpless of some sort, about this but in general, he realized. He wanted to impress Horror almost all the time but aside from fixing things, he didn’t have much to offer. He couldn’t hack, he had annoying basic needs that slowed them down, he wasn’t indestructible. He tended to blend out the positive aspects that he had and that Horror obviously appreciated. Sometimes he was aware of how he viewed everything negatively bur tight now he wasn’t. And what came out of his mouth always sounded positive anyway.
“I think you would make a good protector. Now you just need to find someone to protect.”
He grinned at Horror. Kind of wanted to hear Horror say that he would be protective over him, but at the same time he knew that Horror would never say that, even if it was true. So he waved it off before he could get friendzoned again.
“Okay let’s go, show me where you wanted to go.”The motorcycle stopped in the middle of a street, in front of a narrow little alley. They had driven quite a bit and were now in a semi run down part of town. It was a bit dirty, had some broken down neon signs, but didn’t exactly look like somewhere you’d get shot at night. Motionless sat behind his friend and had his arms around his waist, looked into the narrow street and questioned why they were here. Horror didn’t intend to climb off the vehicle though, he just let go of the handlebar, leaned back a bit and pointed towards the alley.
“There.” He said, in a quiet tone. He spoke lower than usual. “That’s where I woke up. Gaines conscience I mean. Every now and then I come back here to remember it. I.. Never brought anyone else here, though. I don’t know why I brought you. I just randomly felt like it.”
Motionless stared into the alley as if he could see Horror waking up in there. He had no idea how to imagine it though. It felt so surreal to have this information, about something he couldn’t even begin to understand. He would never know how Horror felt in that moment, yet he wanted to.
“Oh.. I appreciate it then. That you trust me so much, I mean. What was it like?”
Horror leaned back a bit more against the tall man behind him who still didn’t take his arms away. So it was more like an embrace now, it felt alien, yet good. And he didn’t pull back from it.
“I don’t know how to describe it..”
Horror put his head back so it leaned on the other man’s shoulder and looked up, their gazes met for a moment.
“Maybe like.. You suddenly realize something that makes you feel like you should have realized it long ago. Nothing you have been actively looking for an answer for, it’s just suddenly there and makes you stop dead in your tracks, just stare up for a moment. And instantly you can’t understand how you were too stupid to notice it before, how you managed to live without knowing it. Like the moment you realize that Pokémon is just short for Pocket Monsters.”
Motionless opened his mouth and closed it again. He had been following Horror up to his last sentence but now he was completely lost.
“What- Does it really?- Oh. Okay, that makes sense.”
His friend busted out in laughter, he could feel the smaller body shaking in front of him. Eventually Horror put a bit too much weight on him and it was hard to keep sitting upright as the small body way so unbelievably heavy.
“That’s how Josh said it once.”
The mechanic peeked up his ears at the mention of Horrors Ex boyfriend.
“It didn’t work on me but glad to see it worked on you. Anyway, I heard some compare it to being transgender but I don’t think that’s quite it. It’s not like I’ve been born aware and just noticed later. It’s an evolutionary step that I reached myself. I kind of worked towards it without knowing. Is what I’m saying kind of understandable?”
Motionless guessed it was so he lowly said “Yeah”. He wasn’t transgender but he had realized that he liked boys more than girls and in that moment he had suddenly felt so much smarter than before. It was pretty normal to be trans or bi or any of that sort these days, mainly because a lot of people weren’t even the result of a regular pregnancy anymore. There was no point in sticking to hetero couples if it doesn’t make a difference anyway, right? But that also meant that the whole world waited for you to define your gender and sexuality when you stop being a child, you’re expected to decide what you are and what you like. And if you change your mind later you get hate for it. To come back to the topic, he realized this one day and it changed how he looked at everything in his past. He had realized something that had always been this way. Whilst Horror had become aware in that exact second which didn’t change anything about his past up to that point.
“Is this a bad spot for you? Like does it bring up negative feelings because of your past? Or rather positive because you got out of it?”
Horror put his hands back on the handle bar and leaned away from Motionless who instantly missed the heavy feeling on his chest. He could get used to it, maybe. It felt a bit like a heavy weight blanket, calming. He imagined Horror laying just his head on his chest in the evening when going to sleep, just a bit of his weight but not too much and that imagination was incredibly nice.
“Both, I guess. What I did between then and now isn’t exactly nice so I can’t say that’s when my life got better. But it reminds me that I went a long way to get here and that makes me feel better.”
Motionless was really curious about what the man had done in between but he felt like Horror wouldn’t tell. It must have something to do with Ryan as well. He wanted to ask but it felt like a long, serious conversation that would better not be held on a motorcycle. So he just hoped he would have a chance to ask when they got back home.
“I think I get that. And again, thank you. At first I felt like I didn’t really know you as a person but now I feel like I know you better than you know me.”
Horror just snorted at his heartfelt confession.
“Well, maybe we gotta change that by time. We should slowly head home, don’t you think? I’d like to get back to work tomorrow.”
Of course, the workaholic wouldn’t take more than one day off. He smiled at it and leaned against Horrors back. Had his arms still wrapped around him, just tightened his grip a little.
“Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Also, I’m starving. You probably don’t need anything for a while, I suppose?”
He felt his friend nod. He had guessed so. All the fuel he had consumed to reach this high like state was the same he used to keep his body working, so he wouldn’t need to drink anything for a longer while, while smoking weed didn’t free Motionless from eating food.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When Motionless opened up his eyes, it was dark around him. All he could feel was a touch on his side and when he turned his head, his night vision could make out the very faint silhouette of a hand and a sleeve on his shoulder. Both barely visible because they were black. Horror looked like he was asleep next to him. He laid on his side, turned towards the taller man and didn’t touch him other than by his shoulder. It was cute and like last night when he had done Horrors Piercings, he seemed completely at ease. There was no frown on his face, his muscles were as relaxed as they could be. His features looked soft, even if they could barely be seen in night vision. It was peaceful, soothing. And like so many times before, Motionless wondered. Usually he would say that Horror might have a soft side behind his hard shell, which he definitely had. But as a machine, he could as well just have entered a rest mode and it didn’t have to mean anything. He didn’t know. The problem wasn’t that Horror was a transhuman, it was that he had no idea how androids really worked, no matter how fast he learned. It just wasn’t enough.
He watched Horrors profile for quite some time. Also threw some gazes at his hand, wondering if he could put his onto the black skin, but he knew that the smaller man wasn’t really asleep. He would probably wake up at an instant. So he didn’t, he just watched him in awe. Of how long and perfect his lashes were. And while he thought to himself he had to admit that he totally had a thing for him. He liked him. He had a crush on him, a massive one. Yet that didn’t change a lot.
Horror had said that he didn’t date humans. He had in fact said something that sounded like he had a chance, but he kinda liked how they were right now. For the first time in forever, Motionless thought back to his past relationships. It had been quite a lot, though most of them had been really short and none of them had worked out. Being in love or having relationships made things complicated and often impossible to go back to how things were before. He felt good here, with Horror, in the base, in the cause. If he fucked up trying to date the smaller man, he’d loose all of it. And he couldn’t even go back to his garage job because Ryan seemed to be a total asshat who hurt Justin and had an unhealthy obsession with everyone of Horrors model. And apparently he was mad at Motionless, since he was close to the pretty faced goth. He would have to find a new place to stay, a new garage, a new stupid worthless friend to kill the time with. All that didn’t sound too inviting. There was no going back anymore so he had to make this work, he couldn’t mess this up just because of how he was feeling and a little heartache when he looked at him. Horror didn’t seem interested in anyone at the moment, so he could rest easy knowing he was the only one in Horrors life.
Motionless almost jumped out of bed when suddenly there was a blue glow in the dark and he saw Horror stare right back at him. The face had no expression and it was honestly a bit scary. He could really see the face shape now, see the glow reflect on the piercings. He bit his lip and mumbled “Good morning” with an awkward smile.
“It’s been exactly four hours and twenty-seven minutes since you fell asleep, I don’t think you should be up yet.”
Motionless had mixed feelings about that comment. He felt flattered that Horror looked out for his well-being, but the other thing sounded a bit off. Sure, counting the minutes seemed like an android thing to do, but Horror had specifically said four hours since he fell asleep, not since they went to bed. Which meant Horror had paid a lot of attention to that. He felt a bit watched now, awkwardly.
“You’re right.” He still smiled. “But I’m not sure if I can go back to sleep just yet. There’s a lot on my mind.”
The black hand slid down from his shoulder when his friend and crush sat up and he followed it with his gaze. So it went without comment, Horror didn’t have to get embarrassed and freak out and Motionless could just smile to himself, knowing that the other held onto him while he slept. Maybe he was still worried the mechanic would leave? He would like to take those worries away if that was the case, but didn’t dare addressing it.
“You wanna stay up for a little then before going back to sleep?”
The black haired man didn’t even wait for an answer, he just climbed out of bed and the lights turned back on almost instantly. They were blinding and he pressed his eyelids shut.
“Argh, can you turn them down just a little? There’ no way I’m gonna get tired again when its as bright as a summer in 21st century.”
Behind his eyelids, he could see colours dancing from how bright it had been. A moment later it got dark again though and when he carefully opened his poor eyes, he saw that Horror had turned off most and just left on a few lights, like the lava lamp he had repaired yesterday and a fairy light close to the broken down fridge. The ambience in the base was suddenly very different, much cosier. It felt even more homey than it usually did.
“That’s much nicer, you should do that more often.”
“I should?”
Horror stood in the middle of the room now. Whatever he had wanted to do, he looked like he had forgotten.
“Why? Its harder to see. Though I basically don’t need the light, but I prefer not to use my night vision.”
No matter how hard the mechanic tried, he would probably never get Horror to be a completely chill, eased up dude. It was amusing at this point.
“Because it makes the place feel more like home.”
Motionless still sat on the bed and watched the other take a good long look around. Then he shrugged.
“I don’t get it. Its the same as before, just darker.”
“Let me try to explain.” The taller goth folded his hands and dipped his feet out of bed so he could sit comfier. He also patted the space next to him and to his surprise, Horror just sad down without any objections. It made him happy.
“I figured you already know what I mean since you hung up all the lights. And sprayed the graffiti. This is what makes the difference. You don’t need to decorate, but you can. You got the time, you’re not only busy with surviving. That makes the difference between being human and animals. They don’t paint their walls or pierce themselves.”
Horror blinked and his taller friend started laughing softly.
“You’re honestly really cute. But I wanna ask you something, that I really don’t understand yet. No offence, but what does being human mean to you?”
He didn’t get an answer right away. Instead he saw Horrors eyes hush around, from left to right, top to bottom, as if he was looking for something. He seemed to strictly avoid looking at the mechanics face though. He was already starting to worry that he burned out the others CPU or something.
“It means freedom of choice.” After half an eternity, Horror finally answered. “Not only being able to do what you want, but to have more than one option. A machine will always calculate the best option, take that route and not consider the others. Being humanoid means having multiple choices that cannot be labelled right or wrong and being able to pick one of them.”
The answer was amusing as much as it was worrying to the mortal mechanic.
“That sounds as if you found it in a manual or something. I mean what does it mean to you personally. Not for everyone, just for your person and life.”
He had just stopped, now Horror started flickering his eyes again and Motionless worried he just looked up another definition he could read out loud. He scooted closer and carefully took the man by his shoulders to make him snap out of it.
“Hey, stop that. This is not an exam, I just want to hear what you think.”
It didn’t take long for Horror to return to normal and harshly push him off. “Stop treating me like I have no clue what I’m doing!”
He sighed to himself. Apparently he had managed it again, he pissed the smaller man off. Yet he only wanted to understand, so he would genuinely know how the other worked. In his attempts to avoid confusion, he only seemed to create more problems.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sure you know what you’re doing, I just wanna understand the thought behind it.”
What he got back was an intense, mean glare and for once he decided not to say more and make it worse. He had said what he wanted to say and now he waited. Horror seemed to wait too though, for him to say anything, do anything. He crossed his arms and both men kept glaring at each other, until the silence was finally broken. “I still don’t understand your actual question.”
That was something Motionless could work with.
“Well, to me being human means having fun, I think. Doing things I like. Liking something in general. Being individual. Fixing things, that’s what I’m good at.”
His conversation partner was obviously not convinced. “You can also fix things when you’re not a human.”
Motionless sighed a bit. “Everything I do I could also do if I was not a human. That doesn’t make me less of a human.”
“Then how do you know you are?”
He really had to take a second to think about it. Horror was right. He couldn’t pin it down, he just knew what he was. A human, male aligned, goth, probot. He couldn’t say why and he also wouldn’t have felt like he had to justify himself.
“I- I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Ever since they met, they had only talked about thinks only one of them understood something of. When Horror explained something to him, he accepted it and didn’t discuss it. But this time it felt more like they were on the same level.
“I don’t ask you ten thousand questions about what you are either and just accept it that way.”
To his surprise, Horrors expression softened up. He seemed less angry.
“Yeah.. I don’t doubt you either. I’m just way too curious.”
“At least you know your flaws.” Horror stood back up. “Now lets do something. This conversation is way too depressing.”They ended up sorting more of their inventory. Today they were supposed to work again, since Horror couldn’t stand to take more time off. The mechanic was still thinking about the idea of working at a different location to keep the base safe and kept talking about it the whole time until they went back to bed. The small, sleepless man even joined him again, though he didn’t have to. He seemed to take the idea of doing everything to act and feel more human really serious. He admired the dedication. And now he wanted to help his smaller friend and crush even more than before, he just didn’t really know how. This was already all that he could do..
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Okay.” Motionless looked around with his hands on his hips. “And you really think this is a good idea?” They were on the park deck next to the probot nightclub they had just recently visited. “Ryan ran us over here, it could be dangerous to be around.”
A loud, roaring noise behind him stopped as Horror turned off the motorcycle.
“That’s the point. He’s not gonna expect us back here so soon, especially during the daytime.”
And it was daytime. The sky was still grey but this was as bright as it would get, ever since the blanket of clouds wouldn’t part anymore.
“Well.. Then I’ll trust your judgement. Did you talk to them already?”
He waited for his friend and crush to get ready, then both of them walked out of the parking deck. Something exciting was happening and Motionless felt like he was sitting on bees. There was something to do and he loved having something to do.
“Only very briefly. Figured we should explain in person.”
That made a lot of sense. He buried his hands in his pockets and grinned very wide.
“Okay, cool! Yeah, I think this is a pretty good spot then. Easy to reach and they should like what we do.”
Once they stopped in front of the building, Horror turned towards him again.
“Oh.. There’s one last thing you should know. “
“Hm?”
He had a smile on his face and still felt excited to be here. Maybe that was what made Horror have such a guilty look on his face.
“Josh works here. I usually make sure to not show up during his shift and now you know why I haven’t been here a lot, lately.”
That made sense, but also made Motionless feel funny. He wasn’t exactly sure if he wanted to be around Horrors ex boyfriend. But he also wasn’t sure if giving up the location because of that would be worth it.
“Oh.. Okay, I see. That’s fine though, I’m sure him and I are gonna manage somehow.”
Actually he wasn’t so convinced, but Horror bought it anyway. He nodded and walked up to the door, quickly exchanging some looks with the orange eyed men in front of it and then passed them and they walked through the door. The mechanic felt like the men’s eyes were stuck to him. Maybe they remembered him from when they came here to hang out. It felt weird to be back in a normal shirt, with a clean face and a bag of tools on his back. Most people got confused when they heard he did heavy work but still sometimes looked like a hooker.
As soon as they entered, someone came walking up to them and of course it was Josh. He must have felt his ex boyfriend approaching the club.
“Horror!” He opened his arms as if he wanted to hug him and grinned. “What an honour to have you here.”
This time, Motionless could take a better look at the other man. And having realised that he had a crush on Horror, he was also finally really interested in his ex boyfriend. Why did he look the way he did, why did he act like that? How much of it did Horror like? He looked to be as annoyed as always, with Josh even more than with him. But that didn’t always seem to be how he really felt.
Visibly, Josh seemed to be a young man. His bald head looked quite off though. Maybe he didn’t want hair or he just couldn’t grow it. His eyes were black and blue just as Horrors and he wore a simple, long sleeve top with lots of holes in it. His whole appearance gave Motionless some tech ware vibes.
He put up a smile and followed Horror who tried to completely pass Josh without saying anything. It was amusing how the bald man didn’t seem to be bothered by that reaction, but confused about the mechanic instead. Motionless decided to just smile and wave at the man.
While Josh didn’t wave back, he started to follow them through the club. “You brought your new boyfriend to visit me? That’s so rude of you.”
“We’re not visiting you.”
Motionless had to swallow down a laugh with a lot of force. Horror’s behaviour was very funny when you weren’t the one it was directed at. Plus, he had not corrected the term boyfriend, much like last time they had seen Josh. He wondered if it was because of how Horror felt or if he just wanted to piss off his ex. Both seemed plausible.When the pair of probots was about to pass the bar, Josh blocked their way. Or to be per sice, he blocked the mechanics way. By holding out his arm and hand between the two, looking up at the tall man with the tied up hair and orange eyes.
“Aww, Horror never introduced us properly!”
Motionless didn’t know enough about the transhuman in front of him to jusge why he was doing what he did. If he was genuinely interested, curious, or if there was more behind his behaviour. Actually the man stroke him as easygoing and spontaneous, not a lot of plan behind his actions but you newer knew, right?
He decided to make a little experiment, he wanted to test the man’s reactions. Something he would love to do with Horror, but that was far more risky. So, the bartender was used to running against a wall with his ex boyfriend, right? What would he do if something else happened than he expected?
To test out exactly that, he grabbed the hand that was offered to him and shook it. “Oh, you’re right! Though I already know you’re Josh. Horror talks soooo much about you, I feel like I know you better than myself! It’s good to finally really talk to you.”
Josh stood between him and his crush now, so Horror had stopped walking. He didn’t look too pleased to be held up, crossed his arms, but he waited, in silence.
His little experiment seemed to work out, because the third man looked back at him, fairly confused. “Wait, really?” He looked back and fourth between Motionless and Horror and the mechanic wondered what was going on behind his unnatural eyes. He seemed.. lost, all of sudden. He probably used his jokes as a defence mechanism and he had just taken that from him.
“No.” Horror broke up the situation. Which was fair, because they were wasting time standing here. Never the less, Motionless had learned how easy it was to unsettle the man. It was probably gonna come in handy. Anyway, seeing his expression still being all confused was very amusing.
“Ha, you fell for it.” He grinned at Josh, who took a moment to collect his thoughts. He then smiled back. If it was just another defence mechanism or true, he couldn’t tell.
“My man, I can totally see why Horror is dating you. Good look with that gremlin, lol.”
As funny as it was, He felt like he finally had to clear this up. He let go of the hand.
“Thank you, but we’re not dating. I’m just here to fix some broken feet and wrists. I suppose you know what’s up?”
Two things happened after he said this. He felt Josh’s gaze slip down from his face to his chest, where you could roughly make out a necklace under his clothes. In that moment Motionless remembered that Horror had made him wear the key that Josh lad left on the construction site and he started feeling weird. He was worried the man wouldn’t believe him, though he shouldn’t care about if Josh believed it or not. Second, Josh nodded. “Yeah. They said something about a mechanic opening a clinic? That’s you?”
He didn’t like how apparently Horror had been forgotten. He didn’t work alone and he also didn’t want to.
“I’m just holding the tools. It’s Horror’s thing.”
Talking about him, he looked over to Horror who leaned against a wall with arms still crossed. He wondered what went on in his head too. Was he mad that he talked to his ex boyfriend? Was he amused? Angry that someone had forgotten about him while passing on the message?
“Well.” Horror pushed himself off the wall. “Guess we better get going then. We’re talking to the manager, not the bartender. And you can show up when you broke something. If you come in and disturb us just to tell a gross joke I’m gonna break you myself and make sure he doesn’t fix you.”
Both men, the ex boyfriend and love interest grinned their asses off at that. Maybe they weren’t so different and Horror actually had a type.
“Okay, darling. Then I will first break my hand and tell the gross joke while he fixes me up, does that work for you?”
“If you do that I’m gonna swap your hands with your feet and there’s nothing you can do against it.”
Josh gasped loudly. “You wouldn’t, Dr. Frankenstein!”
As stupid as it was, for a moment Motionless wondered if anyone had ever tried to create such abominations before. It was a horrible thought, as if Human Centipede hadn’t been enough.“Actually, Josh isn’t so bad.” The mechanic followed Horror down a hallway. The man walked so fast, he just trusted that he knew where they were going. And it was true. Josh seemed to be pretty fun. After meeting Vin and Justin and also Meds, the bald transhuman was less scary. So to him it finally felt as if he was really getting settled, being able to talk to androids and transhumans in a normal way. And he was proud of it.
“You really think so?” Horror kept on walking while they talked. His speed didn’t give them much time to talk though, it barely took any time before they stopped and the smaller goth man in front of him knocked on a door.
“Yeah.” Motionless watched the door intensely, not sure what would happen when it opened. He really wondered who owned this place anyway. Hoped it was an interesting personality and not some ugly old man like it would probably be if this was a video game story. They were always ugly old men in these.
“Come on in!”
Horror opened the door and freed his tall friend from having to wait. The inside wasn’t anything like what Motionless had imagined it as. He had expected an office, possibly white, clean, spacious. Big windoows. Someone in a suit. But not this.
The room had bare brick walls and no windows. Everything was full of spray paint and marker, there was not a single free spot on the walls, floor, ceiling or furniture. Which consisted of a few cabinets, a big wooden box, stacks of paper and folders on the ground. It was hard to tell the furniture from the walls when everything was covered in the same graffiti and marker vandalism. For Motionless’ human eyes it was so much of a problem, he almost didn’t spot the actual manager.
It was a middle aged man who sat cross legged on the ground, on a sitting pillow that consisting of multiple fabric patches and looked just as anxious as the rest of the room. Much like the walls, there was no free spot on the man either. He only wore shorts and his skin looked almost as vandalized as the rest of the office, covered in hundreds of tiny drawings on his body and also his face. Under his eyes, on his forehead, over his eyebrows, on his eyelids, simply everywhere. The mechanic didn’t know what to say. He was surprised but.. Positively.
“Uh.. Hi! We’re here for the-”
“The clinic, but of course!”
The strange manager stood up and clapped his hands in visible excitement.
“I heard about you from Meds. Now, please don’t be mad with them. We have been the closest of friends ever since they started thinking, I basically raised them. It’s only natural for them to trust me.”
That sounded reasonable to the mechanic. Yet that raised only more questions.
“Are you.. What exactly are you? Not that it matters, but if you raised Meds..”
“Asking the important questions, I see.”
The man smiled and walked over to the door because Motionless and his friend slash crush still hadn’t entered the room. In fact, the small goth man hadn’t said or done anything at all ever since they arrived.
The tattooed man held out his hand for a shake. Even the palm of his hand and fingertips were inked, so the mechanic really wondered if there was any free inch left on his skin at all.
“I’m Syko. I walk on the line between what you call human or android. I’m neither, but most of my acquaintances roam on the more technical side, in some way at least. I look forward to working with you two!”
Motionless quickly shook the hand. The other did sound technical, but he didn’t look it. If he was a he. He didn’t know. Could only assume but that was something you generally shouldn’t do.
While he was still trying to figure out how to politely ask Syko about it, Horror stepped foreward to take a lead in the conversation.
“We’re glad to meet you too. You’re not worried about us bringing trouble home? I assume you already got enough eyes on you and your club.”
Valid question, the mechanic thought. With its orange and prime location, the club had no way to stay out of sight. He wondered if the club had been targeted before, aside from Ryan of course.
“Bring it on.”
That sentence from Syko’s mouth seemed so out of place that it made the tall man’s ears point up. It was the only non technical thing Syko had said so far. And he smiled.
“I can defend myself. You would officially be technicians for my non-human staff. Lots of regulars actually have fictitious contracts as customer attractions, as fake customers to make the club more busy, so to say. Just as protection. If someone was to raid this place, they would have to go against someone who is registered human, me. They don’t do that so easily.”
Now he was even more impressed. This man was doing quite a lot already. It was insane to think you never heard about any of this anywhere if you just lived your everyday life. It wasn’t even a topic. No one knew.
“We’re glad to hear that then.”
Horror and Syko were still talking and Motionless was distracted by the hard difference between them. Horror looked plain. He could easily get lost in a crowd in all black and as short as he was. Syko on the other hand was relatively tall, had wide shoulders and muscular arms, brown, curly hair and all those tattoos. It was basically impossible not to see him.
He made a step forward, towards them. “Yes, indeed we are! Also, I used to work as a mechanic until I met Horror which.. Wasn’t very long ago. It would be easy to believe I came working for you. I worked on less delicate things, but I did switch fields now.”
Syko looked at him with a witty smile. “That is actually perfect my friend. We are gonna do something useful here. Let me show you the backrooms that we can empty for your clinic then, yeah?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Well, what do you think?”
Motionless and Horror were standing in the backrooms that Syko had offered them and looked around. The club leader had left them alone, so they could think and talk about it.
This was a set of storage rooms, easily accessible from inside the club. That made a lot of sense, Motionless figured. Anyone wanting to see them could just come to the club as a customer. It was one of the best covers he could imagine.
He looked around. Metal shelves with boxes, concrete floor. No windows. One main room with a few very small extra rooms connected. It really was perfect, he thought. Just Horror had to give his yes.
“Well..” The small android didn’t sound quite sure, despite being the one who came up with the idea and location. “I’ve never talked to Syko before. What impression did you get?”
Motionless was almost frustrated that Horror didn’t use a pronouns in the sentence, cause now he still didn’t know how to address Syko.
“I would say a quite good one. Syko was nice. A bit head over heels, maybe. What are you thinking? Trustworthy?”
His friend and crush slowly nodded. “Yeah, but I wanna talk to Meds first. You know, just to be sure.”
Even when finding someone trustworthy, Horror still needed to check them. That seemed so like him. It just made the mechanic question, how the hell had he been let off so easily in the beginning? Was Horror really that desperate to find someone to join his cause?
“Yeah, of course. We don’t know where Meds lives though. How are you gonna reach him?”
Horror leaned against one of the walls, crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “I’ll make an exception here and text them the android way. I’ll be right back with you.”
And with that he turned into some kind of statue and Motionless was left a bit clueless about what to do. He watched his crush for a few seconds, hoping he would be back, but that wasn’t the case. So he somehow had to keep himself busy and walked around the room again, scouting it out, making mental plans. Counted the power outlets, where the lights were, estimated how big the room was, as well as the closet like rooms. They could probably move the metal shelves into the small rooms to create storage for the android parts. They would need a lot of that. As well as some shelves for the tools, but those could go into the main room. Then some sort of desk area, because it would probably be good to keep track of the items the had. And of course the workspace to actually fix the androids in. Maybe a waiting area? He wasn’t sure how many people they would be seeing every day. Maybe they should wait and see how it played out, first.
“Meds says Syko is quite okay. I’ll have to see for myself, still. But its a start. I guess we can start to bring things over one by one.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
With a sigh, Motionless leaned against his friends shoulder. It was an exhausting day. He had been working ever since he woke up. Well, actually he had been working ever since they opened the clinic, but with enough sleep in between it was actually fine. Maybe he should just have slept more last night. But, lately he had noticed some strange emotions within. And they were only partly related to his little friend and crush. They overshadowed the small love that he had. It was doubt. Not about their cause, no. It was of a different nature.
“Aw, are you getting tired already?” He felt something nudge his ribs and stiffed up. “Argh, yeah yeah, you don’t have to take breaks, I know.” He leaned foreward again and picked back up what he was working on. He was currently fixing an arm for someone. The interesting thing with this was that his patients could sometimes leave the damaged parts here in the clinic and pick them up later. So he had all the time in the world to fix the arm, but of course he still didn’t want to slack too much.
“You didn’t have to point it out like that..” Only when he heard these words mumbled next to him, Motionless realized what it actually was he had been saying. Pointing out the nature and anatomics of Horror’s body obviously didn’t make him feel good. Right, how could he forget that over his own insecurities..
“Hey, I’m sorry.” He put down the screw driver he held and turned towards his friend and coworker and crush and- object of envy? He couldn’t quite make sense of it by himself yet. “I didn’t need to say that, you’re right. I just wish I could do more.”
Horror waved it off. He wasn’t good at saying sorry or accepting apologies, any of these things. Usually it was fine. But lately- this wasn’t the first time he had made a mistake like this. Accidentally offended his trans friend. It didn’t even have anything to do with Horror. Nothing changed, he was just as valid as before. It was just Motionless who felt.. useless.He decided to take a break. To recharge but also to go and talk to Syko. It seemed like the best thing to do. The best person to talk to. Syko was someone he had trust in. A friend. Not closer than Horror, but who do you talk to when there’s something up with the person you usually talk to? So he sat on the floor in Sykos office, cross legged and chewing on a pretty dry sandwich while trying to explain the problem- once more. He had tried before, but it was hard to explain when he was too scared to actually use the right words.
“You know Motionless, I don’t judge. Even if I did understand what you’re trying to say. But that’s the problem, I have no idea what you’re getting at. Are you sure you’re being honest with yourself?”
That was a good question and he lowered the dusty sandwich, looking at it in dismay.
“I.. no. I don’t really know what’s going on. But it feels like I’m going down a road I shouldn’t be taking and I don’t really know how to stop it. My problems are no excuse to invalidate how Horror feels.”
Syko was leaned against a wall with arms crossed. Seemed thoughtful. Just trying to make sense of it all. But obviously how could Syko, without having all the information needed?
“You’re good in nature. I know Horror is valid to you. I think there must be something else. Why don’t you try telling me exactly what happened?”
To be honest, Syko acted kind of like his therapist but it really hadn’t been his idea. Syko just seemed to like doing that. Checking in on everyone. Do you feel better today? How are we on a scale of 1-10? Can you tell me what you see? Do you wanna talk about it? How does that make you feel?
“I was.. exhausted because I didn’t sleep much lately. Horror teased me with it, I know he didn’t mean it bad. But- somehow that hurt more than I’d like to admit and I said something mildly hurtful in return. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“See, right there.” Syko squatted down on the floor to have a better look at Motionless face. “Something bothered you. Why? What’s so bad about being exhausted?”
He couldn’t explain it himself. Something was just.. Wrong with it. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to be an ass about it. I wouldn’t be upset if Horror was exhausted, or you of course.”
“To me that sounds like a problem with self worth. Since when is that?”
Motionless peaked up his head. Oh no, he knew exactly where this was going. Do you feel like everybody is more important than you? Do you feel like you don’t have a place in this world? “That’s definitely not it. Listen, It’s not like I feel that I don’t deserve a break. It’s more that- I wasn’t meant to need it. I wasn’t meant to.. waste time sleeping, eating this disgusting shit. It’s as if existing itself is the problem. But I know my worth. I feel like I’m just where I’m supposed to be. I’m doing the right thing. I’m with the right people. The only thing that’s wrong is- me.”
“You’re not wrong, Chris.”
He hadn’t heard his real name in so long. It kind of touched him. He had told Syko one long night when they started really bonding. It felt good at the time, letting someone know who he really was. It felt wrong now though. He had left that behind. There was no more space for Chris, the oblivious man from the garage. What was left was a probot. Something he hadn’t been before. He had changed too much to go back to his old name. But that was too much to load onto Syko at this time and he didn’t want Syko getting a weird picture of him. So he better kept it to himself.
This conversation wasn’t going anywhere, he thought. Better cut it short.
“..Thanks. Maybe that’s what I needed to hear. I’ll.. try to keep that in mind.”
Syko gave him a soft nod and smile. “You got this! And- do take a break, will you?”When he came back into the actual clinic, he was ready to apologize to Horror properly. The man didn’t know that the mechanic had a problem and everything he saw must be insults out of nowhere. He didn’t want to risk their friendship over feeling wrong. Their friendship and their work. It was too important. He had come to share Horror’s opinion in this. But when he entered the room, no one was there. Horror had left and all that he left behind was a note that he went to see a patient with a software problem. It wasn’t unusual that they split tasks, yet it was new. Like pretty much everything, to be honest. Anyway, he plopped down onto his chair, pulled out his phone and turned on some music. He saw a message from Vin and considered getting his opinion on the whole thing, but then he felt that was invasive. Vin and Justin were Horror’s friends. Obviously also his, but when it came to it, no one wanted to stand between the rows. So he didn’t do it. He left the message unopened and went back to fixing the arm, he wanted to finish that up at least today.
He got pulled out of it after a while, because his phone kept going off. Someone messaged him multiple times and the buzzing sound interrupted his workflow. There weren’t many people he was in contact with. Syko didn’t double text and Horror showed uo in person instead so it could actually only be Vin. He would ignore it, would he be a hundred percent sure it wasn’t important. But he wasn’t, so he had to check. Usually Vin sent some random memes, a funny picture of Justin, told him that he found a broken android arm that could be useful but turned out to be trash or asked him if they wanted to smoke weed together. So, nothing too interesting, but today it was. It was a copy of an email from some big cooperation, something about a big load of bootlegs headed to the dump site? The android graveyard! Where they had found Justin. He read the mail twice. He assumed that Vin sent it because they could use some replacement parts, but he stumbled over the phrasing. Bootlegs. That’s how they called androids that were aware. Thinking, like Syko would say. Did that mean they were not broken? They were about to throw a bunch of living androids into the pit for not functioning the way they wanted them to and abandon them? That sounded like a big thing. More Justins that needed help.
He texted back Vin. “Did you send this to Horror?”
“Yeah, probably an hour ago. He said he would tell you but I wasn’t sure if he did.”
That- Horror hadn’t left to help a patient with a software problem. He had gone to the android graveyard- alone. Without even telling him about it. At first he was confused, then hurt. Then scared. Did Horror feel like he couldn’t trust him anymore? Because he had been acting weird?
“Maybe he forgot? Thanks anyway!”He knocked on Sykos office door and barged in as soon as he heard the affirming voice. The manager sat on the floor as always, looking through a stack of documents full with scribbles and small drawings, Motionless was surprised Syko could even read any of it. “Horror went to save a bigger group of androids without me. I think that thing is too big for him alone.”
His friend frowned but got up anyway. “Why would he do that? You two do everything together.”
Yeah that was kind of a thing Motionless didn’t wanna think about right now.
“You know him, he storms off. Maybe he hasn’t adjusted to not being alone. Whatever it is, I think we should back him up.”
He got a nod from the other. “That sounds like a good idea. Lets bring the car.”
Right, the car. He was so used to Horror’s motorcycle that he forgot they had a convenient tool such as this. Especially when saving androids, since they couldn’t bring all of them back on one motorcycle.
They left the office together and quickly walked down the hallway while Motionless, same as ever, couldn’t stop asking questions. But other than Horror, Syko actually answered them happily and gave him lots of information to feed on.
“Where are we gonna bring them?” If it was one or two, he was sure Horror would open his base in an emergency such as this, but if it was a whole truck load? That would never fit. Though he had no clue in what condition the androids would be.
“We can make space here somehow. We’ll see that once we get there. But generally I’d say here.”
That sounded like a proper plan. He wondered why Horror hadn’t involved Syko right away.
“You are gonna bring what here?”
He looked over his shoulder and saw Josh peeking out the door to the staffs break room. He had grown used to the funny man, but right now he had almost forgotten he was there. Should they bring him along? Every helping hand was useful, right? He looked at Syko, who stopped to look back at him. Seemed to think about it for a moment, but then made a waving motion. “Iet’s explain in the car, if you want to come along. Care for an adventure?”
And well, Josh didn’t need a second invitation. Now Motionless just needed to text Vin to come and bring Justin and they would all be together, that seemed fitting for something this big. It was just- couldn’t that have come with more preparation? Oh well, nothing ever went like planned, he guessed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Syko and Motionless were silent during the ride. Both were focused on themselves. The manager on driving, the mechanic lost in his own head. He tried to figure out why Horror would do that, run off by himself. Something wasn’t right with this and he deeply hoped that it wasn’t what he feared it was, that being Horror loosing trust in him. He would understand it, honestly, but he still hoped it wouldn't happen.
Now, it would be a calm car ride of two friends sitting next to each other, if there wasn't Josh on the back seat babbling without end. "Where's Horror? Where are we going? Are we gonna do something illegal? Should we get a lawyer?" It was pretty annoying. And though it was in character for Josh and Motionless often did the same, now he was annoyed by it. He had better things to do than to answer questions and Syko seemed to think the same. Though they had kind of promised to explain when they were on their way.
To be honest, when he first met him, the mechanic had felt intimidated by the bald transhuman. Now he didn’t, or at least less than before. He felt like they were almost on the same step. Co-workers. Not quite friends, but maybe one day. He had realized that in the end they were both just people. No one was better than the other, just because of flesh or cables. Him, Josh, Horror, Syko, Vin, Justin, they all had the same worth. Or at least he felt like that in theory. He felt different about himself. Still, something was just wrong with him. He hoped that one day he would find out what the problem was.
"We're almost there." Syko left the highway and switched to a smaller, more industrial road. Both other passengers started to look out their windows and see if they could make out anything. "What are we even looking for?"
He figured it wasn't fair to leave the bartender in the dark. He reminded himself how left out he felt when no one told him anything. So he finally turned to look over his shoulder to the other man.
"We're gonna save some androids from the graveyard. If we read that mail right. Vin found something."
He pulled out his phone with a swift motion and showed off the info he had.
"Uh, guys."
Both of them looked up from the phone on Sykos command and looked out the wind shield. At first the mechanic wanted to ask what it was, he didn't see anything. They weren't even there yet. He halfway expected Horror to stand by the street or to see a truck or a special building but there was nothing of that sort.
"Oh fuck, that doesn't look good." He squinted his eyes when he heard Josh's reaction and still couldn't make out anything. What, what was it that the two saw but he couldn't? Was it a technical thing, maybe a detail that his slow fleshy brain couldn’t process? Though, he still didn’t know what parts of Syko were human and which not. Not that it made any difference though.
"Over there." Said friend pointed out the wind shield, to the horizon and when he followed the heavily tattooed finger with his gaze, he finally saw what the two were on about. Smoke. A gigantic cloud of smoke was on the horizon and now that he saw it, he couldn’t understand how he didn't see it before, it was so obvious.
"Is that.. Coming from the direction of the android graveyard?" Syko confirmed it and Motionless started to feel more and more uneasy with every second passed and the closer they got. Both him and Josh went back to scooping the surroundings through their windows while the car rolled down the industrial road. They had lost a bit of speed, but were still in a hurry. But they were cautious. Whatever awaited them was not what they had expected. Motionless had expected a normal looking android graveyard. Where they could take cover close by the deep, terrifying, gazing hole and wait for the truck to arrive. Getting out of their hiding hole when the vehicle was gone to go look for survivors. But now something was burning. Since he knew that Horror had left already, he hoped that it wasn't anything bad. Maybe Horror had set the truck on fire? That was the most positive explanation he could come up with.
They were pretty close to the source of the fire when Motionless noticed something. The sky was almost completely covered in smoke, the other two had their gazes glued to that. The mechanic looked out his window and spotted what looked like the silhouette of a person, hanging from a window.
"Stop the car!" He shouted and jumped out the vehicle faster than Syko could react. The building wasn't on fire, but the person looked like they needed help, hanging from the window with one hand. "Up there!"
Now that he stood on the street, he could make out the person better. They had long, black hair and were clothed in black. It looked suspiciously like a grumpy little man that he knew.
Josh showed up next to him. "He's dead. There are no vital signs. We better leave this there.. Sorry."
"Sorry?" Motionless almost snapped. "How can you be so cold, we have to help him!"
"Motionless!” The managers voice reached his ears from the direction of the car. “That's not Horror. That one's taller. Other leg parts, I assume. Let's move on, we got to find the real Horror!"
He scanned the android hanging from the window up and down again. He couldn't see it. He would mistake them for Horror. Should he trust his friend's abilities in scanning the corpse? He wished he could be sure himself, check, scan- whatever. Just be sure that he wasn't abandoning his partner in crime because he trusted someone else's word. But his damned human brain wasn’t able to do any of that. He would have to check for the eyes, the limbs under the clothes, the piercings, he just couldn’t see any from there, just the back of the head.
"O-okay.." He hesitated, but tore his gaze away from the lifeless android body, back to the car. The other man was already getting on again and Syko had never even left the car. "Hurry up!"
While driving towards the graveyard pit, he spotted more. He saw a long haired android hanging from a streetlamp, one was spread out on the street and they had to make a bow around it. All of them looked like Horror. It made him shiver, but every time his friends convinced him that it wasn't him. That it was just some random corpse and they had to keep pushing on. He got more and more uneasy the further they got. Sure, after seeing a few he knew that that first one most likely hadn’t been Horror, they couldn’t ALL be Horror. But he still couldn’t be sure that Horror wasn’t under them. He had to trust the two men with him though. He didn’t have the time or resources to check each and every one of the lifeless android bodies..When the pit came in sight, they gasped and stopped. Now they knew where the smoke was coming from, the fire was right in the pit. Smoke and flames came out on top, dunking the surroundings in orange light. And he made out a small group of people standing by the border of the pit.
"But that over there! Tell me that's Horror" He shouted out loud. He needed that to be Horror, the long haired, small person standing there. Standing was good, standing meant not dead. After seeing so many dead androids that looked like Horror- he needed to know that. He needed to know that Horror was alive. All this just reeked after Ryan. The man had an obsession with Horror after all and bothered androids of the same model. Now there were a lot of dead androids of Horror’s model around. Had all of this been a trap? Did Ryan set the androids on fire?
They left the car together this time and jogged over to the group they had spotted. One person was tall, the other two small and one of them had long hair, smoke and soft wind playing with it. That must be Horror. The other ones must be Vin and Justin then. At least Horror hadn't gone to do something dangerous on his own, Justin was strong and there was strength in numbers. Though Ryan had snapped his wrist before. He still wondered how he had managed that. A human would never have the strength needed.
“Hey!” He called out to the group. As they got closer, he could make out a second tall person, both of them were standing so close together they had appeared as one. He needed to get closer to make out who it actually was.
“What is going on here?” Josh chimed in, catching up to Motionless who had dashed forward first. His worry and fear for his friend and crush had driven him to abandon all caution and not wait up for the other two. “Why did you set the graveyard on fire?”
They finally arrived. Why had they not crossed the rest of the distance by car? That would have been smarter. He guessed the time for smart decisions was over. He was an irrational human, Josh was on his best way to being one and Syko- well who knew? The manager certainly seemed less technical now.
The group turned them their attention, but no one said a thing until they were there and all of them stood together in some sort of deformed circle. Behind the mute tall android he could make out someone he hadn’t seen in a very long time, Ghost! Horrors friend. He instantly felt reminded of that day they went to the graveyard to visit her. He had crawled into some sort of catacombs. That was a first.
Everyone looked at the other group with high expectations, no one entirely sure what to say or do. Until Vin broke the silence and grabbed his head with both hands. “Oh no! I totally forgot to tell you I notified Motionless when you disappeared earlier! To my defence, you did say you told him and he was on his way, I was just making double sure!”
The long haired man sighed, heavy and angry. “Why would you do that!”
He finally turned towards the mechanic. His friend. His Co-worker, his partner in crime.
“It’s a trap. It obviously was. I didn’t want you here because you break so easily!”
He felt offended. He broke easily? He even looked down on himself. What, because of that flesh on his bones? That was ridiculous!
When he opened his mouth to object, he got interrupted. Maybe that was good. There was no place for their small dispute right now. Syko had the really important things to ask. “Can you tell us what is going on? We saw some corpses on our way here. They were.. scattered like breadcrumbs. It was really creepy.”
He nodded and Josh did so as well.
“Look for yourself.” Horror pointed into the burning pit. The mechanic hadn’t paid attention to it yet, since he wasn’t really eager to see melting android bodies. He did take a look now though.
He could barely make out the burning contents of the pit, but one thing stuck out a lot. A metal beam in the middle of the pit. On it was another android corpse. Not tied to it, it looked as if the beam had pierced through the whole body to put it on display. It looked burned, half melted. He couldn’t make out anything anymore. No face, no hair, of course. But he took a wild guess, it was probably another android that looked like Horror. That was one clear message.
“So what does that mean? Was Ryan faster than us and killed off the androids?”
Horror shook his head. “There was never a truck with androids. At least not like it was said in that email. I’m sure Ryan brought those bodies here to put an example.”
He frowned. Tried to look Horror in the face, but his friend turned away. All this didn’t make sense to him. “An example for what? What he’s gonna do to you?”
“No. It’s an example for what he’s gonna do to you. All of you. And all the ones that I intend to save. Don’t you get it? He’s declared war on us. On me. He already attacked Justin and Vin when he went after Motionless.”
He remembered that vividly. He had fixed Justin’s wrist after all, twice. Once at the club and later at the base. He had learned how to install synthetic skin in the meantime, so he was able to cover up Justin’s wound. His wrist looked like new, aside from a thin line where the new skin touched the old. Like a skin transplant scar, he had told the mute android. He was sure Justin had appreciated that, even if he didn’t answer.
“Okay but why now? That thing at the club feels like it was forever ago.” It really did. They had opened the clinic, furnished it, treated patients, made friends with Syko and even hoped they were starting to make a difference. But maybe that way exactly why. Maybe Ryan had heard about it and got angry.
“Oh what do I know, it’s Ryan. He’s a maniac. Does he need a reason for anything?”
Okay, touché. He could only shrug his shoulders to that. Sometimes the bad guys didn’t need a reason to be bad. They just were evil.
“So you wanted to protect me from Ryan by leaving me unprotected from Ryan? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Syko clapped with the hands and drew everyone’s attention. “Friends, listen. If that corpse over there means that this Ryan man is going to hunt us down, I suggest we team up. I would feel safer with the expert in this matter-” Syko gestured towards Horror “-and there is no way I’m going to let you run off on your own, alright? We’re in this together.”
Motionless agreed with that. He even knew Ryan personally. Stopping him was the right thing to do, but he also had a personal reason to do it. Justin nodded, since the tall android wasn’t able to verbally indulge in the conversation and the goth mechanic made sure to give him a smile. He had adapted a habit of signalling that he noticed and listened to the non verbal man. He just imagined it to be frustrating when you could never be sure if anyone even paid attention to you.
“Yeah!” Vin raised a hand. “Ghost says she agrees too!”
Right, Motionless remembered that though she was able to talk, she didn’t really like doing it. He found it really considerate of Vin to say it out loud since he couldn’t hear when the others talked technical to each other. Oh, and Justin. He also wasn’t able to hear it. Communicator broken or something.
“That only leaves Josh then.” Their manager turned towards the bald man next to him. “Do you know more about this Ryan man than I do?”
The bartender nodded heavily. “Yeah, duh. That bitch ass stalker attacked me too. I’m not the.. uh.. let’s go and save everyone type. But I guess I’ll stick with you guys. I don’t wanna run into him alone either.”
So everyone agreed, aside from Horror of course.
“No way. I don’t do big groups. The only way to stop this once and for all is if I find him and kill him.”
“I’m sure he’s gonna snap your neck like he snapped Justin’s wrist”, said the mechanic and scratched the back of his head. “Plus, do you even know where to start? I can tell you where he lives. Did you know he has a wife? Come on, we’re gonna do better all together.”
He ignored Josh’s big gasp right next to him. Yeah, he agreed in thoughts. Now that he knew what the maniac was up to in his spare time, he really couldn’t imagine him at home anymore, on the sofa with his wife, watching movies and eating hot dogs. But he was sure they were talking about the same person. He had checked with Horror to make sure.
Said small goth man still didn’t seem very convinced so he had to add some more. “If Ryan is so dangerous then protect me! Do you really wanna leave me behind on my own?”
Horror twitched. Yeah, thought so. Of course it would be stupid to leave his friends to face the evil overlord alone.
“Okay, FINE! You all won, are you happy now? So what the fuck do we do?”
Honestly, yeah, he was happy now. Or rather, he was happier than before. Relieved. Glad to not be abandoned and glad that maybe Horror didn’t distrust him after all. That had been his biggest fear. Aside from Horror being dead, of course.
“May I suggest we go back to the club? We can put it under security. I am prepared for emergencies.”After convincing Horror that sticking together and going with Syko’s plan was the best option, everyone had fallen silent. It was obvious that Ryan wasn’t here and they didn’t expect him to show up anytime soon. This was just a warning after all. The others were busy catching up to what was going on with the evil man that was after them, while Horror and his mechanic friend remained by the edge of the pit, staring into the fire. At the melted android, that was supposed to resemble him. And he sighed.
“This is not how it was supposed to be. My past isn’t supposed to affect what we’re doing today. My problems aren’t supposed to affect the people around me. I can’t let that happen.”
Motionless carefully placed a hand on his love interest’s shoulder. He had learned to make sure the other was okay with being touched before he did anything. They had run into problems often enough, just because the mechanic didn’t think far enough. He did the best he could to be considerate though.
“But that’s how this works. When you pick a person you pick the whole package. You can’t pick out just the nice things.”
Maybe these things were said easy, but believing them was hard. Motionless knew that from himself. He imagined something from his past coming back up, affecting Horror. Oh he would go crazy. Try to keep it away from the small man, face it alone. Yeah, he understood all too well. Still. He knew that he should listen to what he just said too. They both might have to learn that.
“So you’re telling me to keep others save from my shit I have to stay alone forever?”
He gasped, though he should have expected Horror to turn around the words in his mouth. The man just loved being negative sometimes. But he didn’t get to object. His friend kept talking. Maybe he knew himself that he wasn’t making sense.
“So what about you? Where does your fucked up shit affect me? Do you even have fucked up shit? It’s not fair. You show up blank like a canvas and bring no trouble with you, yet you expect me to accept the trouble that I bring? And no, you did not bring Ryan to me. It’s coincidence that you knew him before. He was already onto me. So, where is your shit?”
He had to think a second about how to formulate his answer. He could totally see where Horror was coming from.
“My shit is very far behind me because I ran away from it. What I’m bringing along is a big bunch of trauma. I don’t like talking about it for the death of me, but I’ll tell you. When we’re safe. And alone. Deal?”
“Okay.. I guess. Deal.” His friend didn’t sound very convinced, but he gave in. That was at least something.
“If you knew about all this crap in advance, would you still chose to team up with me again?”
They looked at each other. Ever since Horror had gotten his replacement eyes, Motionless was still very proud that he had helped with those, it was okay to look at them, And that was a very nice feeling. Knowing you don’t have to avoid his gaze the whole time. It wasn’t the same eyes anymore, no technical, glowing blue on black orbs. But it was still Horror’s. They were bright orange, glowing just a little bit, and there was no disturbing black. He still hadn’t gotten used to it. But Horror was so happy about it, he couldn’t help but feeling excited about it too. The small man finally gained some confidence in himself.
“Yeah, I would. I stand to what I picked, but I really didn’t make a bad pick.”
He smiled at his friend who just rolled his eyes and nudged his ribs with the hard, sturdy elbow of his. It hurt, but at least the good old Horror was back.
“Well, I certainly hope you don’t change your mind later on..” The long haired man turned his attention back to his melted lookalike in the fire. It was slowly starting to die down. There was probably barely anything flammable left.
“I won’t change my mind. I never will.” He said it in a low tone, as if he was worried someone else could hear it. The rest of their group stood a bit aside though, as they had too much respect of the fire. Syko had said something about a fire related trauma. Now, Motionless dared to softly reach for his friends hand and take it in his. They hadn’t done that in a while. It felt nice.
Since the man next to him didn’t react, he side eyed him to make sure he was okay. There was no reaction in expression at all, he also didn’t pull his hand away or say anything. Motionless decided to take that as a good sign and watched the orange light of the last flames flicker over his love’s pale, white-ish skin. He noticed something stuck to his cheek and lifted his gaze. Ashes. The dying fire filled the air with ashes from the burned bodies in the pit. How ironic, he thought. There had been ashes in his hair the first time he had seen him, in the burning building next to his. It was way sadder now though, knowing what the ashes were from. So he reached out his free hand and brushed away the flake of ash he had spotted on the others face.
“What are you doing?”
He looked at the ash, now smeared over the side of his hand. He studied it, deep in thoughts. It felt like a thing that connected them, ashes. But also like a sign of war, since Ryan had started this fire. And a sign of death, considering it was from a burned android body, possibly even the executed one in front of them. With a hasty motion he smeared it onto his pants to clean his hand.
“I- I just thought you don’t want that on your face. I mean ashes from.. Well, yourself?”
Horror bit his lip.
“That there could have been me. They also had a life, I’m sure. It’s not okay.”