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toccata_fugue The sun had already begun to peek up over the horizon and stain the sky a pale yellow-pink when Sunspot finally got out of work. It hadn’t been an especially unusual night, but a small group had booked use of the club to celebrate a friend’s important milestone – she heard rumours that two of them were planning on bonding, or some silly fluff like that, ha who bothered with that old smelt, these days – and they’d only just left an hour or two before. The cleanup had taken about an hour, with all the staff pitching in to help get it done.
She stood outside at the rear of the club and stretched up onto her tiptoes, trying to loosen the overwound connectors up her back. It’d be good to get home and hit the washracks – the soft, fluffy polishing wheels were usually good for vibrating the tension out of over-tight actuators and seized motors. Although really, she wanted mostly to rest. To get her head down and just... go dormant. Forget about the world for a while. All was peaceful, and she could relax. Right?
Her own little brushed-chrome flask was perched on the wall that ran along the edge of the rear steps; after a night where she’d barely had the chance to stand still, let alone drink, it was still half full of fuel. She reached out a tired, semi-clumsy hand and clipped it with the back of her fingers, and promptly knocked it off the edge. “Oh for pity’s sake-!” It hit the floor and bounced before she could vault over the wall and grab it, and rolled gracefully over the edge of the ravine a whole inch or two before her snatching fingers. “Fff-” She peered after it, down into the scar in the ground, and cursed quietly. “Drat!”
The ravine wasn’t an impressive wound in the landscape in the way the District Rift was – it was more of a dirty scratch in the ground, all things told, caused by an explosion way back at the start of the war – but it was long enough and deep enough to make the little bike leery of going down into it to fetch her flask.
“’Sup, Sunny? Lost a contact lens?”
She glanced up from her crouch to see one of the bouncers watching her. “What?” Of course, he’d been to Earth – that must explain the stupid idioms he kept spouting. “My flask, actually.”
He joined her on the edge, and peered down into the dawn gloom. “Can’t see anything. You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” She punched his shin, irritably. “Just go find me a rope, or something, so I can climb down, if you’re not gonna be helpful.”
He muttered something she didn’t quite catch, but obediently went off to find a rope.
“Sure you can manage, Sparky?” he teased, when he got back, by which time the second of the two bouncers had joined the DJ. “It’s a loooong way down, for little short-afts like you.”
Sunspot wrinkled her nose and flashed him one of the Earthly gestures she’d learned off Slipstream. “Oh how about you just go get smelted?” she retorted. “Least I’ll be able to get down there. Your ego would get, like, jammed across the top.” She waved her hands to illustrate a swollen head.
The second of the two mechs voiced a dirty laugh, and gave his co-worker an elbow; the first pursed his lips, sulkily, and threw the end of the rope over the edge. “Just go find your stupid flask already,” he sulked.
Sunspot smiled inoffensively, and abseiled gracefully down the side. “Love you, Butch!”
The words followed her down off the top, accompanied by a little jerk on the rope. “That’s not my name!”
Alarmed at the jolt, which almost bashed her into the rocks, but determined not to show it, Sunspot called back, sweetly; “so don’t call me Sparky!”
There was a mutter, but nothing else.
After another minute or so of awkward climbing, her feet skidding on the sheer sides, at last Sunspot’s feet reached the bottom of the ravine. The ground had cracked into upward jagged teeth in a number of places, and it was far from comfortable, but at least she felt safer now she was down here. Now, where had that flask got to...
“So, you found anything yet?” a distant voice wondered, after only a minute had elapsed.
“...well can you hurry up? I kinda need to go polish some dents out before tonight.”
Sunspot resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Oh, just tie the rope off, or something,” she called up to them, irritably. “If you can’t possibly wait while I look around down here.”
“Sure thing, Sparky,” came the distant confirmation.
“And don’t call me Sparky!” She hurled a rock at the top, but it fell short and clattered back down dangerously close to her own head, making her leap for safety. She muttered something nasty under her breath and returned to her flask-hunt.
At last, after a good few minutes of scrabbling around in the half-light and sharp rocks, the flask turned up half-hidden under a ledge, slightly dented (great, it was her favourite as well) but otherwise undamaged. The stopper still screwed properly into the opening without jamming. Now to head for home and a good long lounge in the washracks...
Sunspot gave the rope a good tug, to check it was secure enough to take her weight, and... it came loose in her hands. “Oh, I don’t believe this-...” The full length slithered gracelessly down and landed on top of her. “Good going tying a half-assed knot, you morons!” she howled, knowing full well they’d already departed for home. “Damnable losers.” She stooped to spool up the rope, muttering invective. “How can they get something so simple so stupidly wrong? Kick their afts, next time I see them...”
Sunspot straightened and slung the spool of rope over her shoulder, then sighed and pocketed the flask. At least one good thing had come out of this – it would have driven her crazy to know the flask was down here somewhere and she’d just not been able to find it. Now she just had to somehow work out her way back up.
She moped along the unstable bottom of the ravine, arms out for balance, looking for anything that would make a good set of ‘steps’. The shattered landscape should have been easy to climb, but the sheer sides were slippery, treacherous, the old stone breaking under her fingers and sending her skidding back to the bottom each time she tried to scale it. Well, damn. There had to be some way out of here... Huh. Maybe she ought to try in the opposite direc-... tion...
Two small, bright lights glittered out of the gloom – one yellow, one green, moving with a sort of bobbing, wandering manner, coming in the opposite direction.
Alarmed, she lurched unsteadily backwards, and the wall impacted against her back. Her optics brightened to a vivid, alarmed cyan at the realisation she was trapped. Trapped! Backed into a corner with that… drug-addled psychopath getting closer and closer-… Frag it. Frag. It. How to get away?! She shot a glance back over her shoulder, wondering if she could leg it, trying to keep the despairing whimper out of her voice. He was so much bigger than she was… sure, she could fight – would fight, as long and as hard as she was able – but there was no way out of this. Her bluster on the front steps the other evening had been fuelled by having a good solid lock to escape behind, if needed.
Sunspot sucked in a pulse of cold air and shut off her fans, hoping he wouldn’t have noticed her. She jammed herself into the closest Sunspot-sized hollow in the rock and crossed her fingers, and prayed to whoever was watching over her that he’d turn away before he got there. If she was silent and still, he might not see her, right? Right?
…Sharpshins barely spared her a second glance – he was more interested in the small pile of junk that had escaped under the fence at the top of the slope and slowly piled up on the bottom of the ravine. “Now this time you are in my way,” he pointed out, sounding utterly uninterested, carefully avoiding looking at her. “What are you doing down here anyway? Lose your footing, or just forget where you work?”
“Please don’t hurt me!” She blurted the words out before her sanity could catch them.
He actually stopped his rummage and looked at her properly, this time. “What?”
“Just let me go and I won’t even tell the police you’re here I promise but please don’t hurt me?”
He stood with his mouth open for long enough that under any other set of circumstances, it would have been comical. “...why would I hurt you?” he managed at last.
“Because it’s my fault you’re out here and you want to get your own back for that Bolt did and the fact Snarky went psycho and you haven’t got a job or any drugs any more and-”
“Pfft.” He interrupted with a dismissive flap of the hand and turned back to the rubbish. “Beating you up isn’t gonna get me my job back. Why would I waste fuel on you?”
Deflated, all she could manage to do for several seconds was stare at him. “Waste fuel?” she squeaked, at last, not sure if she felt more incredulous or outraged.
He offered a halfhearted, almost uneasy smile in return, but didn’t stop his searching. “I just-... you know.” He muttered something unintelligible, as though to get his courage back. “You already so kindly reminded me I can barely stand up on my own. What good would it do giving you a boot, then falling over?”
Well... it was a good point. He still hadn’t moved, though. And she was getting twitchy. Needed a distraction, to at least get past him, then she could sneak off while his attention was elsewhere.
Her flask still had some dregs left in it – she’d sipped at it on her travels, but there was probably still a quarter of the flask left. “Hey, you. Grouchy. Lookit.” She thrust the flask into his startled hands, and nipped past him and back out of the way before he could get any ideas about groping at her while she was nearby.
“Whoa, hey, oi! Wait up!” He raised his voice for the first time. “What do I want this for, huh? You making fun of me?”
“M-... making fun of you? What?”
“What the frig am I supposed to put in here, huh?” He lifted the flask, annoyedly. “We’ve already established I don’t have anything to put in it.”
She stared at him for a few seconds. “I just-...” What, Sunny? Just what? “...thought you could use it more than me?” She puffed herself up and tried not to quaver. “And while you’re drinking it, I can leg it.”
“What?” His brow furrowed into a confused frown, and he warily unscrewed the cap. He gave it a sniff, then wrinkled up one side of his nose, suspiciously. “What have you put in it?”
This time she couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Nothing.”
“So why are you giving it to me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m a nice person, deep down inside,” she clapped a melodramatic hand to her chest, “and I know Seemy’ll give me a hard time if he finds out I left you down here to starve. Come on, seriously? You think I’d put something nasty in my own fuel supply?”
“You’re working on the premise that everyone round here is logical,” he countered.
“Hey, I’m logical-”
“Right, that’s why you’re feeding the guy you’re afraid of?” Sharpshins settled back against the slope, and took a little sip from the flask. “Not that I’m going to object too hard.”
The longer Sunspot looked at him, though, the less terrifying he looked. Right now, he just reminded her of a dirty, down-on-his-luck, silvery version of Slipstream. She settled on the little ledge across from him, feet tucked up underneath herself, hugging her knees, and watched as he sipped very very slowly at the remains of the flask.
“So why are you here?” she asked, finally trusting her voice enough to speak without going squeaky. “Living out here, I mean. Not at a shelter? I-I mean seriously... can’t be comfortable. What have you got against them?”
“Don’t like shelters.”
His reply was brusque, but not openly rude, which gave her a little confidence to go on. “Why not? They’ll give you a place to stay, fuel, even a little medical care…”
“…and what’ll they want in return for it? My life, my sanity, or worse?” He waved a hand.
“Isn’t it a bit stupid?” she challenged, bravely. “Suffering out here because you’re too proud to go to a shelter?”
“I’m not suffering.” His optics glittered dangerously, but he didn’t make a move towards her. “I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, evidently.” The sarcasm fairly dripped from her voice.
“I just don’t want to owe anything to anyone, any more.” He stared down into the flask and rocked it slowly back and forth, watching iridescent colours race across the surface of the contents. “I owed Greenbolt, and look how that all turned out.”
She actually laughed, a brief incredulous bark of sound escaping her vocaliser before she could clap her hands over her mouth and swallow it back down. “You’re seriously comparing a free shelter for the homeless to your drug dealer?” she tried, forcing the simmering amusement back down.
He deepened his glare. “Don’t try and act like you know anything about me.”
“From what I’ve seen, there’s not a lot to know.” Shut up, Sunny, please for the love of all the holies before he changes his mind and kills you. There’s plenty of fuel he could siphon out of YOU!
Instead, he dropped his gaze, and actually looked sad. “…yeah, you’re probably right.” He took refuge in his tiny sips of fuel again.
For a while, both were silent. You can go now, Sunspot reminded herself. The flask isn’t that important you have to hang around here waiting for him to finish the contents. There were questions, too, though. Had to be reasons this stupid lug kept putting himself in harm’s way.
“So, uh...” She rebooted her vocaliser with a little cough. “You, uh. You came from Rustig before, right?”
He glanced at her, briefly, and nodded. Funny – still wouldn’t meet her gaze half the time. “Why do you want to know?”
“Small talk,” she lied. “While you’re finishing that. I want the flask back when you’re done.”
“Oh. Yeah, sorry.” Another little sip. “I’ll be a while. Manual partitioning takes time.”
“Manual partitioning? You mean feeding each one of them little teeny mouthfuls into a different tank?” She waved a hand. “Why bother? It’s not like you’ll purge if you just fill your master – or will you?”
“I’ve been homeless most of my life,” he explained, quietly, between sips. “This is-… It’s just a habit. I mean… when you don’t know where your next supply of fuel is coming from, or when, you learn to partition it better. Keeping it all in one tank is just tempting fate.”
“Doesn’t your body do it itself?” Sunspot watched him take another of those tiny sips; any other machine his size would have got through a whole flask in the time it took her to ask those few words. “I have automatic partitioning, and I’m too little to really need it.”
He nodded. “Eventually. Takes too long, though. Better to do it manually.” He glanced very briefly up at her over the top of the flask, and added, in a smaller, almost embarrassed voice; “When you’ve woken up to find you’ve got someone straddling your chest, with a tube down your intakes, siphoning fuel off you while you’re dormant, you learn not to take that chance.”
The femme shuddered, and looked away.
“Exactly.”
The ensuing silence made her uncomfortable, and she wasn’t really sure why. Maybe he won’t like me staring at him, or something. “You say you’ve always been homeless?” she blurted out, just after something to fill the quiet.
Sharpshins didn’t seem bothered by her probing into his past; he just nodded. “Apart from that brief stint where I was working for the police, yeah.” He smiled, bitterly. “Couldn’t even get that right, huh? Someone thinks I was getting too much of a good thing, evidently.”
“Were you sparked to Empties, then?” Sunspot noticed she’d already begun to relax her deathgrip on her knees – how odd. Don’t relax, girl. Keep your guard up. He might be trying to get you to relax, then jump you. “I didn’t think machines could eclose without proper medical care.”
“Nah. I came off a production line.” He shrugged, not seeming overly bothered by it. “I was sparked very close to the start of the war, a few hundred days before it was officially declared.” He took another sip, and rinsed it carefully around his mouth while he thought about his next words – not really sure why he was spilling his spark to this nosey little runt. Wasn’t as if it was a big deal, though, eh? “Destined to be a servant for a rich family. All tailor-made to very exacting specifications.” He touched his fingers to his chassis, as though modest, then gave a condescending snort. “Small, but not too small to be able to fetch and carry. Light on my feet so I didn’t disturb them with my footsteps. Fast, so they didn’t have to wait around. Green and blue colour scheme, to match the décor, and the head of the family had a thing for pretty, effeminate little mechs who did exactly as they were told.”
“And... how did you end up homeless? Did nobody come to get you?” Sunspot could hardly believe that anyone could order a new life to be sparked, and then ignore it ever existed.
“Well, they decided they had better things to spend their credits on than the machine they’d chosen to bring into being. I figure maybe they were trying to bribe someone into not coming along and killing them, heh. Never even picked me up from the depot.” He shrugged, offhand, although she sensed it was a sore point. “I just… sat in my little cubicle for a few days, waiting for them, hoping they’d change their mind and come get me… Eventually the plant got bombed, so I took my chance and legged it. Managed to get to Rustig before my fuel ran out, and that’s where I stayed. I figured that if no-one wanted me, it was as good a place as any to scratch out a life.”
Another of those awkward pauses. Sunspot remained silent, hoping he’d go on.
Predictably, he did. “I’ve… slowly managed to augment my own programming over the aeons, but I still have a problem with authority figures. Someone in a position of power tells me to jump, and I jump, no questions asked.” His voice dwindled to a reluctant husk. “Add drugs to the mix and you’ve got yourself a dependent, reliable heavy, who’ll do whatever you ask to make sure he doesn’t run out and start withdrawing.”
The words escaped before she even realised she was thinking them. “I’m sorry.” Now why the frig did you say that, Sunspot?
Sharpshins looked equally confused, arching a brow, but didn’t challenge the sentiment. “Thanks, but... you didn’t do it to me.”
“I know. I just-...” She shrugged, embarrassed. “Snarky-... Slipstream said you weren’t always such a bad guy. I never believed him, really – figured he was being hyperbolic, or something, since you were a total loser, the whole time I knew you, ah-heh.” She studied her feet, resting her chin on her knees. “Maybe I believe him a smidge more, now.”
“Well-... Thank you, I guess,” he said, softly, placing the empty flask down on the ledge beside her. “And that’ll keep me going for another few days.” Pause. “Listen, if you want to get out? Just keep going that way.” He pointed in the direction she’d been moving before bumping into him. “There’s a place a bit further up that’s easy to climb. It looks like a building slid into the ravine back when the place was bombed.”
“Why are you helping me?” she challenged, softly, getting back to her feet.
“Helping you? Pssh. You’re in my territory, Squirt, and I want you out of it. I don’t want to keep bumping into you every time I come down here looking for things. Besides.” He shrugged, and made an irritable face, glaring at the dirt beneath his large feet. “I don’t like people owning part of me, remember? Consider this... repayment. For the supplies.”
“You could go to the shelter,” she reminded him, again. “It’s not like you’d be signing your principles away like you did with Greenbolt. Remember? All you need to do in return is a little community work – I’m sure you could handle that. Then we wouldn’t ever bump into each other. You’d be comfortable, too. And not hungry.”
He snorted, again, and finally set off down the ravine.
Sunspot pocketed her flask, at last. “Is it fun, being a martyr?” she called after him. “Because it sure doesn’t look like fun.”
At last, the mismatched optics came back to glare at her. “Don’t push your luck,” he snapped. “I might have been too tired before, but you just gave me enough energy to boot your aft, if I think you need it, now.”
“Oh, pssh.” She watched him walk away, and felt the tiniest pang of regret. “Where are you going?”
His voice drifted back over his shoulder; the last few rags of their conversation. “Wherever will have me, I suppose.” He slipped silently around the corner before she could ask anything further.
Well, that was... interesting. Sunspot shouldered her rope, made a face, and set off up the ravine once again. She had a bouncer to take care of.
* * * * *
The first hint Lancet got that something wasn’t quite right was when Felicity woke him up, at some unearthly hour of the morning, climbing up his chest and squeaking excitedly (but totally incoherently) about something, very very close to his audios. Ugh.
“Hey, Fizz,” he managed, curling an arm up around her. It wasn’t quite so hideously early as she had been prone to, when she’d been younger, but he still felt emotionally wiped out from the day before, what with Blink’s lost journal and still no word on Whitesides. “Isn’t it a bit early to be jumping all over your poor Day?” He rolled slightly so she bounced down on the mattress, and tucked her up to his chest. “Come on. Let’s get some more rest, shall we? We can get up and play all you want later.”
She giggled and wriggled about under his arm. “Dod,” she explained, bonking him on the head with something soft and floppy. “Dod!”
Dog? “Where did you get him from, Spark?” he wondered, drowsily, catching her flailing limbs long enough to recognise Blink’s favourite soft toy. “I hope you’ve not been helping yourself to your sister’s things again...”
Felicity gave another of those defensive squeaks and wriggled in his hands. “In bet!” she explained, pointing at her little ‘cot’, over the sides of which her brothers were both now peeking, disturbed by her antics. “Fine when wake!”
“You found it in there with you?” Lancet sat up, feeling the first slivers of concern – not sure why, but there they were. He didn’t remember Blink coming in and giving her little sister her toy – for that matter, she’d gone off to recharge in a very sorry mood, and giving away something so precious was completely out of character, especially given how ferociously angry she’d been at the loss of her book! “Why did she do that, I wonder?” he asked the room, out loud.
Felicity, not understanding the question, just giggled and repeated “Dod!” She’d wrapped all four limbs around it and was purring noisily as she snuggled it.
“That’s right, little one. You take good care of him, won’t you?” Lancet gave his littlest daughter a gentle pat on her head, and a distracted smile, before getting up. “I’m going to see what Blink is up to.”
“Look af’er Dod,” Felicity’s voice followed him out of the room. “Tay good care!”
“Bee?” Lancet poked his head into Skydash’s room; too dark to see very well, he could at least hear the humming of small fans, like he had last night when checking they were all right and retiring to get some rest, himself. “Is everything all right, Honeybee?”
His voice – gentle though it was – disturbed one of the girls. Skydash stirred and blinked blearily up at him, propping herself on her elbows. “Hey, mister Lance,” she greeted, her voice crackly with bootup distortions. “ S’nit a bit early for wakeup calls?”
Lancet ignored her; Blink’s small berth was empty. In fact, it didn’t even look like it had been occupied all night.
~4216 words
She stood outside at the rear of the club and stretched up onto her tiptoes, trying to loosen the overwound connectors up her back. It’d be good to get home and hit the washracks – the soft, fluffy polishing wheels were usually good for vibrating the tension out of over-tight actuators and seized motors. Although really, she wanted mostly to rest. To get her head down and just... go dormant. Forget about the world for a while. All was peaceful, and she could relax. Right?
Her own little brushed-chrome flask was perched on the wall that ran along the edge of the rear steps; after a night where she’d barely had the chance to stand still, let alone drink, it was still half full of fuel. She reached out a tired, semi-clumsy hand and clipped it with the back of her fingers, and promptly knocked it off the edge. “Oh for pity’s sake-!” It hit the floor and bounced before she could vault over the wall and grab it, and rolled gracefully over the edge of the ravine a whole inch or two before her snatching fingers. “Fff-” She peered after it, down into the scar in the ground, and cursed quietly. “Drat!”
The ravine wasn’t an impressive wound in the landscape in the way the District Rift was – it was more of a dirty scratch in the ground, all things told, caused by an explosion way back at the start of the war – but it was long enough and deep enough to make the little bike leery of going down into it to fetch her flask.
“’Sup, Sunny? Lost a contact lens?”
She glanced up from her crouch to see one of the bouncers watching her. “What?” Of course, he’d been to Earth – that must explain the stupid idioms he kept spouting. “My flask, actually.”
He joined her on the edge, and peered down into the dawn gloom. “Can’t see anything. You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” She punched his shin, irritably. “Just go find me a rope, or something, so I can climb down, if you’re not gonna be helpful.”
He muttered something she didn’t quite catch, but obediently went off to find a rope.
“Sure you can manage, Sparky?” he teased, when he got back, by which time the second of the two bouncers had joined the DJ. “It’s a loooong way down, for little short-afts like you.”
Sunspot wrinkled her nose and flashed him one of the Earthly gestures she’d learned off Slipstream. “Oh how about you just go get smelted?” she retorted. “Least I’ll be able to get down there. Your ego would get, like, jammed across the top.” She waved her hands to illustrate a swollen head.
The second of the two mechs voiced a dirty laugh, and gave his co-worker an elbow; the first pursed his lips, sulkily, and threw the end of the rope over the edge. “Just go find your stupid flask already,” he sulked.
Sunspot smiled inoffensively, and abseiled gracefully down the side. “Love you, Butch!”
The words followed her down off the top, accompanied by a little jerk on the rope. “That’s not my name!”
Alarmed at the jolt, which almost bashed her into the rocks, but determined not to show it, Sunspot called back, sweetly; “so don’t call me Sparky!”
There was a mutter, but nothing else.
After another minute or so of awkward climbing, her feet skidding on the sheer sides, at last Sunspot’s feet reached the bottom of the ravine. The ground had cracked into upward jagged teeth in a number of places, and it was far from comfortable, but at least she felt safer now she was down here. Now, where had that flask got to...
“So, you found anything yet?” a distant voice wondered, after only a minute had elapsed.
“...well can you hurry up? I kinda need to go polish some dents out before tonight.”
Sunspot resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Oh, just tie the rope off, or something,” she called up to them, irritably. “If you can’t possibly wait while I look around down here.”
“Sure thing, Sparky,” came the distant confirmation.
“And don’t call me Sparky!” She hurled a rock at the top, but it fell short and clattered back down dangerously close to her own head, making her leap for safety. She muttered something nasty under her breath and returned to her flask-hunt.
At last, after a good few minutes of scrabbling around in the half-light and sharp rocks, the flask turned up half-hidden under a ledge, slightly dented (great, it was her favourite as well) but otherwise undamaged. The stopper still screwed properly into the opening without jamming. Now to head for home and a good long lounge in the washracks...
Sunspot gave the rope a good tug, to check it was secure enough to take her weight, and... it came loose in her hands. “Oh, I don’t believe this-...” The full length slithered gracelessly down and landed on top of her. “Good going tying a half-assed knot, you morons!” she howled, knowing full well they’d already departed for home. “Damnable losers.” She stooped to spool up the rope, muttering invective. “How can they get something so simple so stupidly wrong? Kick their afts, next time I see them...”
Sunspot straightened and slung the spool of rope over her shoulder, then sighed and pocketed the flask. At least one good thing had come out of this – it would have driven her crazy to know the flask was down here somewhere and she’d just not been able to find it. Now she just had to somehow work out her way back up.
She moped along the unstable bottom of the ravine, arms out for balance, looking for anything that would make a good set of ‘steps’. The shattered landscape should have been easy to climb, but the sheer sides were slippery, treacherous, the old stone breaking under her fingers and sending her skidding back to the bottom each time she tried to scale it. Well, damn. There had to be some way out of here... Huh. Maybe she ought to try in the opposite direc-... tion...
Two small, bright lights glittered out of the gloom – one yellow, one green, moving with a sort of bobbing, wandering manner, coming in the opposite direction.
Alarmed, she lurched unsteadily backwards, and the wall impacted against her back. Her optics brightened to a vivid, alarmed cyan at the realisation she was trapped. Trapped! Backed into a corner with that… drug-addled psychopath getting closer and closer-… Frag it. Frag. It. How to get away?! She shot a glance back over her shoulder, wondering if she could leg it, trying to keep the despairing whimper out of her voice. He was so much bigger than she was… sure, she could fight – would fight, as long and as hard as she was able – but there was no way out of this. Her bluster on the front steps the other evening had been fuelled by having a good solid lock to escape behind, if needed.
Sunspot sucked in a pulse of cold air and shut off her fans, hoping he wouldn’t have noticed her. She jammed herself into the closest Sunspot-sized hollow in the rock and crossed her fingers, and prayed to whoever was watching over her that he’d turn away before he got there. If she was silent and still, he might not see her, right? Right?
…Sharpshins barely spared her a second glance – he was more interested in the small pile of junk that had escaped under the fence at the top of the slope and slowly piled up on the bottom of the ravine. “Now this time you are in my way,” he pointed out, sounding utterly uninterested, carefully avoiding looking at her. “What are you doing down here anyway? Lose your footing, or just forget where you work?”
“Please don’t hurt me!” She blurted the words out before her sanity could catch them.
He actually stopped his rummage and looked at her properly, this time. “What?”
“Just let me go and I won’t even tell the police you’re here I promise but please don’t hurt me?”
He stood with his mouth open for long enough that under any other set of circumstances, it would have been comical. “...why would I hurt you?” he managed at last.
“Because it’s my fault you’re out here and you want to get your own back for that Bolt did and the fact Snarky went psycho and you haven’t got a job or any drugs any more and-”
“Pfft.” He interrupted with a dismissive flap of the hand and turned back to the rubbish. “Beating you up isn’t gonna get me my job back. Why would I waste fuel on you?”
Deflated, all she could manage to do for several seconds was stare at him. “Waste fuel?” she squeaked, at last, not sure if she felt more incredulous or outraged.
He offered a halfhearted, almost uneasy smile in return, but didn’t stop his searching. “I just-... you know.” He muttered something unintelligible, as though to get his courage back. “You already so kindly reminded me I can barely stand up on my own. What good would it do giving you a boot, then falling over?”
Well... it was a good point. He still hadn’t moved, though. And she was getting twitchy. Needed a distraction, to at least get past him, then she could sneak off while his attention was elsewhere.
Her flask still had some dregs left in it – she’d sipped at it on her travels, but there was probably still a quarter of the flask left. “Hey, you. Grouchy. Lookit.” She thrust the flask into his startled hands, and nipped past him and back out of the way before he could get any ideas about groping at her while she was nearby.
“Whoa, hey, oi! Wait up!” He raised his voice for the first time. “What do I want this for, huh? You making fun of me?”
“M-... making fun of you? What?”
“What the frig am I supposed to put in here, huh?” He lifted the flask, annoyedly. “We’ve already established I don’t have anything to put in it.”
She stared at him for a few seconds. “I just-...” What, Sunny? Just what? “...thought you could use it more than me?” She puffed herself up and tried not to quaver. “And while you’re drinking it, I can leg it.”
“What?” His brow furrowed into a confused frown, and he warily unscrewed the cap. He gave it a sniff, then wrinkled up one side of his nose, suspiciously. “What have you put in it?”
This time she couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Nothing.”
“So why are you giving it to me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m a nice person, deep down inside,” she clapped a melodramatic hand to her chest, “and I know Seemy’ll give me a hard time if he finds out I left you down here to starve. Come on, seriously? You think I’d put something nasty in my own fuel supply?”
“You’re working on the premise that everyone round here is logical,” he countered.
“Hey, I’m logical-”
“Right, that’s why you’re feeding the guy you’re afraid of?” Sharpshins settled back against the slope, and took a little sip from the flask. “Not that I’m going to object too hard.”
The longer Sunspot looked at him, though, the less terrifying he looked. Right now, he just reminded her of a dirty, down-on-his-luck, silvery version of Slipstream. She settled on the little ledge across from him, feet tucked up underneath herself, hugging her knees, and watched as he sipped very very slowly at the remains of the flask.
“So why are you here?” she asked, finally trusting her voice enough to speak without going squeaky. “Living out here, I mean. Not at a shelter? I-I mean seriously... can’t be comfortable. What have you got against them?”
“Don’t like shelters.”
His reply was brusque, but not openly rude, which gave her a little confidence to go on. “Why not? They’ll give you a place to stay, fuel, even a little medical care…”
“…and what’ll they want in return for it? My life, my sanity, or worse?” He waved a hand.
“Isn’t it a bit stupid?” she challenged, bravely. “Suffering out here because you’re too proud to go to a shelter?”
“I’m not suffering.” His optics glittered dangerously, but he didn’t make a move towards her. “I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, evidently.” The sarcasm fairly dripped from her voice.
“I just don’t want to owe anything to anyone, any more.” He stared down into the flask and rocked it slowly back and forth, watching iridescent colours race across the surface of the contents. “I owed Greenbolt, and look how that all turned out.”
She actually laughed, a brief incredulous bark of sound escaping her vocaliser before she could clap her hands over her mouth and swallow it back down. “You’re seriously comparing a free shelter for the homeless to your drug dealer?” she tried, forcing the simmering amusement back down.
He deepened his glare. “Don’t try and act like you know anything about me.”
“From what I’ve seen, there’s not a lot to know.” Shut up, Sunny, please for the love of all the holies before he changes his mind and kills you. There’s plenty of fuel he could siphon out of YOU!
Instead, he dropped his gaze, and actually looked sad. “…yeah, you’re probably right.” He took refuge in his tiny sips of fuel again.
For a while, both were silent. You can go now, Sunspot reminded herself. The flask isn’t that important you have to hang around here waiting for him to finish the contents. There were questions, too, though. Had to be reasons this stupid lug kept putting himself in harm’s way.
“So, uh...” She rebooted her vocaliser with a little cough. “You, uh. You came from Rustig before, right?”
He glanced at her, briefly, and nodded. Funny – still wouldn’t meet her gaze half the time. “Why do you want to know?”
“Small talk,” she lied. “While you’re finishing that. I want the flask back when you’re done.”
“Oh. Yeah, sorry.” Another little sip. “I’ll be a while. Manual partitioning takes time.”
“Manual partitioning? You mean feeding each one of them little teeny mouthfuls into a different tank?” She waved a hand. “Why bother? It’s not like you’ll purge if you just fill your master – or will you?”
“I’ve been homeless most of my life,” he explained, quietly, between sips. “This is-… It’s just a habit. I mean… when you don’t know where your next supply of fuel is coming from, or when, you learn to partition it better. Keeping it all in one tank is just tempting fate.”
“Doesn’t your body do it itself?” Sunspot watched him take another of those tiny sips; any other machine his size would have got through a whole flask in the time it took her to ask those few words. “I have automatic partitioning, and I’m too little to really need it.”
He nodded. “Eventually. Takes too long, though. Better to do it manually.” He glanced very briefly up at her over the top of the flask, and added, in a smaller, almost embarrassed voice; “When you’ve woken up to find you’ve got someone straddling your chest, with a tube down your intakes, siphoning fuel off you while you’re dormant, you learn not to take that chance.”
The femme shuddered, and looked away.
“Exactly.”
The ensuing silence made her uncomfortable, and she wasn’t really sure why. Maybe he won’t like me staring at him, or something. “You say you’ve always been homeless?” she blurted out, just after something to fill the quiet.
Sharpshins didn’t seem bothered by her probing into his past; he just nodded. “Apart from that brief stint where I was working for the police, yeah.” He smiled, bitterly. “Couldn’t even get that right, huh? Someone thinks I was getting too much of a good thing, evidently.”
“Were you sparked to Empties, then?” Sunspot noticed she’d already begun to relax her deathgrip on her knees – how odd. Don’t relax, girl. Keep your guard up. He might be trying to get you to relax, then jump you. “I didn’t think machines could eclose without proper medical care.”
“Nah. I came off a production line.” He shrugged, not seeming overly bothered by it. “I was sparked very close to the start of the war, a few hundred days before it was officially declared.” He took another sip, and rinsed it carefully around his mouth while he thought about his next words – not really sure why he was spilling his spark to this nosey little runt. Wasn’t as if it was a big deal, though, eh? “Destined to be a servant for a rich family. All tailor-made to very exacting specifications.” He touched his fingers to his chassis, as though modest, then gave a condescending snort. “Small, but not too small to be able to fetch and carry. Light on my feet so I didn’t disturb them with my footsteps. Fast, so they didn’t have to wait around. Green and blue colour scheme, to match the décor, and the head of the family had a thing for pretty, effeminate little mechs who did exactly as they were told.”
“And... how did you end up homeless? Did nobody come to get you?” Sunspot could hardly believe that anyone could order a new life to be sparked, and then ignore it ever existed.
“Well, they decided they had better things to spend their credits on than the machine they’d chosen to bring into being. I figure maybe they were trying to bribe someone into not coming along and killing them, heh. Never even picked me up from the depot.” He shrugged, offhand, although she sensed it was a sore point. “I just… sat in my little cubicle for a few days, waiting for them, hoping they’d change their mind and come get me… Eventually the plant got bombed, so I took my chance and legged it. Managed to get to Rustig before my fuel ran out, and that’s where I stayed. I figured that if no-one wanted me, it was as good a place as any to scratch out a life.”
Another of those awkward pauses. Sunspot remained silent, hoping he’d go on.
Predictably, he did. “I’ve… slowly managed to augment my own programming over the aeons, but I still have a problem with authority figures. Someone in a position of power tells me to jump, and I jump, no questions asked.” His voice dwindled to a reluctant husk. “Add drugs to the mix and you’ve got yourself a dependent, reliable heavy, who’ll do whatever you ask to make sure he doesn’t run out and start withdrawing.”
The words escaped before she even realised she was thinking them. “I’m sorry.” Now why the frig did you say that, Sunspot?
Sharpshins looked equally confused, arching a brow, but didn’t challenge the sentiment. “Thanks, but... you didn’t do it to me.”
“I know. I just-...” She shrugged, embarrassed. “Snarky-... Slipstream said you weren’t always such a bad guy. I never believed him, really – figured he was being hyperbolic, or something, since you were a total loser, the whole time I knew you, ah-heh.” She studied her feet, resting her chin on her knees. “Maybe I believe him a smidge more, now.”
“Well-... Thank you, I guess,” he said, softly, placing the empty flask down on the ledge beside her. “And that’ll keep me going for another few days.” Pause. “Listen, if you want to get out? Just keep going that way.” He pointed in the direction she’d been moving before bumping into him. “There’s a place a bit further up that’s easy to climb. It looks like a building slid into the ravine back when the place was bombed.”
“Why are you helping me?” she challenged, softly, getting back to her feet.
“Helping you? Pssh. You’re in my territory, Squirt, and I want you out of it. I don’t want to keep bumping into you every time I come down here looking for things. Besides.” He shrugged, and made an irritable face, glaring at the dirt beneath his large feet. “I don’t like people owning part of me, remember? Consider this... repayment. For the supplies.”
“You could go to the shelter,” she reminded him, again. “It’s not like you’d be signing your principles away like you did with Greenbolt. Remember? All you need to do in return is a little community work – I’m sure you could handle that. Then we wouldn’t ever bump into each other. You’d be comfortable, too. And not hungry.”
He snorted, again, and finally set off down the ravine.
Sunspot pocketed her flask, at last. “Is it fun, being a martyr?” she called after him. “Because it sure doesn’t look like fun.”
At last, the mismatched optics came back to glare at her. “Don’t push your luck,” he snapped. “I might have been too tired before, but you just gave me enough energy to boot your aft, if I think you need it, now.”
“Oh, pssh.” She watched him walk away, and felt the tiniest pang of regret. “Where are you going?”
His voice drifted back over his shoulder; the last few rags of their conversation. “Wherever will have me, I suppose.” He slipped silently around the corner before she could ask anything further.
Well, that was... interesting. Sunspot shouldered her rope, made a face, and set off up the ravine once again. She had a bouncer to take care of.
The first hint Lancet got that something wasn’t quite right was when Felicity woke him up, at some unearthly hour of the morning, climbing up his chest and squeaking excitedly (but totally incoherently) about something, very very close to his audios. Ugh.
“Hey, Fizz,” he managed, curling an arm up around her. It wasn’t quite so hideously early as she had been prone to, when she’d been younger, but he still felt emotionally wiped out from the day before, what with Blink’s lost journal and still no word on Whitesides. “Isn’t it a bit early to be jumping all over your poor Day?” He rolled slightly so she bounced down on the mattress, and tucked her up to his chest. “Come on. Let’s get some more rest, shall we? We can get up and play all you want later.”
She giggled and wriggled about under his arm. “Dod,” she explained, bonking him on the head with something soft and floppy. “Dod!”
Dog? “Where did you get him from, Spark?” he wondered, drowsily, catching her flailing limbs long enough to recognise Blink’s favourite soft toy. “I hope you’ve not been helping yourself to your sister’s things again...”
Felicity gave another of those defensive squeaks and wriggled in his hands. “In bet!” she explained, pointing at her little ‘cot’, over the sides of which her brothers were both now peeking, disturbed by her antics. “Fine when wake!”
“You found it in there with you?” Lancet sat up, feeling the first slivers of concern – not sure why, but there they were. He didn’t remember Blink coming in and giving her little sister her toy – for that matter, she’d gone off to recharge in a very sorry mood, and giving away something so precious was completely out of character, especially given how ferociously angry she’d been at the loss of her book! “Why did she do that, I wonder?” he asked the room, out loud.
Felicity, not understanding the question, just giggled and repeated “Dod!” She’d wrapped all four limbs around it and was purring noisily as she snuggled it.
“That’s right, little one. You take good care of him, won’t you?” Lancet gave his littlest daughter a gentle pat on her head, and a distracted smile, before getting up. “I’m going to see what Blink is up to.”
“Look af’er Dod,” Felicity’s voice followed him out of the room. “Tay good care!”
“Bee?” Lancet poked his head into Skydash’s room; too dark to see very well, he could at least hear the humming of small fans, like he had last night when checking they were all right and retiring to get some rest, himself. “Is everything all right, Honeybee?”
His voice – gentle though it was – disturbed one of the girls. Skydash stirred and blinked blearily up at him, propping herself on her elbows. “Hey, mister Lance,” she greeted, her voice crackly with bootup distortions. “ S’nit a bit early for wakeup calls?”
Lancet ignored her; Blink’s small berth was empty. In fact, it didn’t even look like it had been occupied all night.
~4216 words
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