Static Crush {M/M} ✔

Chapter #17

The second Rayner wakes, Hale badgers him to find a place that serves food of serviceable nutrition because protein bars are no longer sufficient. Rayner scoffs, rubbing his face sleepily and adjusting his chair upright. When he finally meets Hale's eyes, he stops mid-motion. For a moment longer than usual, his gaze drifts over Hale's face, tracing every feature. Then his expression breaks into a smile.

"You look like you again."

Hale doesn't show it physically, but the declaration startles him a little. He snaps down the car visor to look in the mirror and, for the first time, finds a reflection that seems...right. The nanobots did their job, and his true face—as he's come to think of it—stares back at him. With a sensation like hot bubbles of air bursting in his chest, he can't help it. He smiles too.

"Does the jacket suit me now?"

"Yeah," says Rayner. "Yeah, it really does. How do you feel?"

Hale tries to identify the inflating warmth and giddy vibrations in his chest. "It's difficult to determine. I could be feeling good, excited, hopeful, or happy. One of those."

"Or all four," Rayner suggests. He instructs the car to stop at a restaurant en route.

They arrive at a truck stop fifteen minutes later. Behind a lot of driverless trucks stands a concrete, windowless building covered in advertisements. A pink neon sign for 'Charity's Chow' flickers over a dimly lit doorway. They park amongst the trucks, in rows like an automotive army. Once the car powers off, Rayner pulls his laptop up from under the front seat, programming his BioCyber Implant to scramble their location data again.

Hale scans their environment. Many of the advertisements are outdated, torn up, or illegible after too much exposure to the elements. Aside from the digital menu outside Charity's Chow, none of the other billboards are interactive. Ideal, given the extra precautions they need to take in order to avoid the notice of police. The absence of windows isn't uncommon for commercial buildings, with storms making windows and shutters an extraneous expense. Regardless, the location and its general lack of maintenance makes Hale wary.

Rayner finishes downloading the new tasks onto his BioCyber Implant and closes the laptop. "Right, ready."

"This location seems slightly disreputable," Hale says.

"We're not so reputable ourselves," Rayner reminds him with a cajoling elbow to the ribs. "That said, maybe try your best to avoid attention? We'll just get our dinner and go."

The interior of Charity's Chow is dark, illuminated by yellow strip lights underneath the bar and wending through the labyrinth of booths. Hale's scans register a higher than average trace of Rinse in the air—an addictive synthetic drug known for causing brief but vivid hallucinations. Frustratingly, his lack of Network access prevents him from accessing the diners' profiles, but he can ascertain from uniforms and logos on their hats that most are security for truck cargo that's been deemed too valuable to transport without an escort.

Rayner picks out a booth in the back, fairly removed from the other patrons. A toothy waitress with a cybernetic eye takes their order on a tablet. She can access public profiles with that implant just like Hale can. He finds the glow of her eye disconcerting and wonders if people feel just as scrutinized by his own gaze.

If she finds the presence of an android strange, she doesn't show it. At Hale's prompting, Rayner orders three lab-grown burgers, two orders of fries, and a large helping of chips and caterpillar guacamole. When it arrives, dripping in grease but, at the very least, steaming hot, Rayner balks.

"I don't think it's possible for me to eat this much," he says as the waitress clops away. "I'm starving, but seeing it in front of me is like—" He holds a hand up over the food as if it's a mountain he has to climb.