Static Crush {M/M} ✔

Chapter #18

When he's rebooted, it is not with a sudden snap of awareness, but a slow, chugging crawl to waking. His senses don't immediately return. He can't see or hear. His restart protocols don't immediately produce an error report either, processing new data at a slothful pace. He remembers, with a jolt of terror, his predicament before shutting down. Bolting upright, he nearly head-butts Rayner standing next to him.

Hale's vision returns along with his memory and panicked reaction. He takes in his surroundings with quick, furtive glances. Rayner, holding Hale's shoulders and speaking fast. Hale can't hear him. His auditory systems still haven't turned on, delayed by the slow error report he still hasn't received. He's on a metal table in a workshop. Naked. The room is filled with tools, tech parts, and—dizziness washes over him at the sight—a dismembered android leg sticking out of a bin, still dripping blue fluid from the exposed knee joint. A garbage bin contains the shredded remains of Hale's t-shirt and pants, most likely cut off of him with scissors. His scans manage to grasp for and identify certain items cluttering the tables and shelves. All of them are hardware for the creation of androids.

Hale sees it through a film of horror, confusion, and dawning realization.

His hearing comes on, finally, and with it the hiss of Rayner's voice.

"Hale? Fuck, please tell me you can hear me. We really need to get out of here—"

"I can hear you now," Hale says. "Where— How did we get here?"

"Leave now. Explain later," Rayner says. "Can you walk?"

Before Hale can test the movement of his limbs, his error report finally completes.

>>Error. Cannot detect the following components.

"I'm missing stuff," he relays to Rayner. Then he wrinkles his nose. He hadn't meant to say 'stuff,' he'd meant to say 'components.'

"The guys who took you are scrappers, Hale. They take androids apart and sell the implants."

Hale registers that with a spike of nerves. "How did you find me?"

"Planted a tracker on one of them when I went back into the restaurant for my leftovers," Rayner explains quickly. Hale remembers his incredulity when Rayner had got out of the car and wandered straight past them into the restaurant. Even patting one of them on the shoulder. That must have been when he planted the tracker. Somehow, he'd known what they were after.

"Bellends," Hale growls.

Rayner gives him an odd look. They have little time to wonder at Hale's unusual choice of insult or the level of ire in his inflection though. Hale gets up, only to find one of the stolen components is his balance calibrator. He stumbles and collapses against Rayner, who struggles under his considerable weight. Because many of his components are made of metal and fairly heavy, he weighs a couple dozen kilos heavier than the average human of his height and body composition. Rayner wedges himself under Hale's armpit, and together they stagger across the room with all the grace of a newborn giraffe.

"Is anything in here going to help you walk?" Rayner asks.

Hale scans the room. He identifies a few parts with serial numbers matching his own and points towards a shelving unit. On it are his balance calibrator, vocabulary selection modulator, volume control, and zettabyte random-access memory drive. He reaches for them, trying to avoid looking at some of the other parts kept alongside it. One of the bits—a cybernetic eye—seems to look back at him though. It makes his insides feel as much like noodles as his limbs do.

Rayner silently takes the indicated parts and asks for instructions on where to install them. Hale walks him through the process, opening a panel on his chest. As he does, his error report finalizes, and an alarming list of missing components scroll past Hale's vision. On it are the items he's already retrieved, but one extra snags his attention.