John's eyes snapped open. His head was pounding, and the sensation made him feel like he was going to throw up.

Voices were sounding around him, but his ears were ringing and he couldn't hear properly.

"D'rian..." he grunted, his voice hoarse and echoey to his own ears. Dorian would know what was going on, and he was always supposed to be with John...

He tried to look around but quickly stopped as something blunt cut into his neck and cut off his breath. He panicked for a couple seconds before realizing it was a rope that looped around his neck and torso, holding him against something hard.

John struggled, unthinkingly, just desperate to get free of the ropes, but a minute's thrashing told him he was too tightly tied. He let out a strangled curse as he tried to keep his head at an angle that wouldn't choke him.

Where the hell was Dorian?

John tried to remember what had happened but his head was still fuzzy. People were talking and shouting around him but didn't seem to be paying him any attention just yet. Clearing his mind was proving difficult. Dorian would probably say that's part of my negative energy he thought dismissively.

They had been driving . . .

Earlier. . .

"Hey, you gonna stop that?"

Dorian looked around innocently, his whistled tune fading away under John's fierce gaze.

"What, I thought you didn't like my choice of radio station," he said, smiling slightly. "This is the alternative."

John drew his eyebrows together darkly and grunted.

"I take it back, I want the radio."

Dorian grinned and pursed his lips again.

*You can't always get what you waaant. . . .you can't always get what you waaaaaaant . . .* Dorian whistled.

"Oh a smart ass huh?" John replied, grinning, "That's it, out the door-"

A flash of high beams behind their car cut off the joking. John glanced uneasily in the rearview mirror. They were going fast already, no need for anyone to try and pass them or flash their high beams. Dorian swivelled in his seat to look behind.

"Think they're following us?" John asked.

Dorian narrowed his eyes. "Could be, let me take a look."

"I count four men in the car," he said a moment later, the blue electronics in his face glowing under the skin. "John, slow down, see if they pass by."

John looked unhappy to be slowing down, but did as Dorian said. The other car slowed with them.

"Dammit, they're following us." John muttered. With one movement, he jerked the wheel over two lanes and hit the speed, shooting their vehicle away from the one behind and beginning a zig-zag through traffic. The city lights blurred around them as their car zipped in and out of lanes. Dorian glanced behind again, keeping tabs on the car following them.

"John, it's gone, I don't see it."

"You usin' your robot eyes to look? Use some x-ray, man."

"I am," Dorian said, blinking rapidly as his eyes fed him information on the surrounding traffic. "Don't see them around."

"Good," John sighed tersely, "I don't like being followed."

Then the high beams flashed again.

"Dammit!" John swore, pulling the car over another lane. By now he was driving on the shoulder of the road. Cars were hemming them in from all sides, forcing them off. Only problem was, they weren't on a ground road. They were on a raised highway, a sloping embankment stretching below and a half-hearted guardrail around the edge. Definitely not strong enough to withstand the kinds of speeds their car was going.

A hard shock rocked the vehicle as the car behind rammed them. Dorian and John both jerked forward in their seats, only seatbelts stopping them from flying through the windshield.

"John, I'm putting a call through to headquarters," Dorian yelled over the noise of traffic and screeching metal. "They'll know what's happen-"

With a wrenching tear of metal on metal, their car hit the guardrail, went straight through, and began sliding down the dirt embankment with alarming speed. Dorian only had time to look once at John before their car flipped over and with a burst of light, his head hit something hard and he blacked out.

When Dorian's eyes fluttered open a few minutes later, he immediately began a systems check to make sure he was functioning. There seemed to be more pressure on his chest than usual, and a quick diagnostics revealed that he was hanging upside down supported by his seatbelt in the flipped-over car. Dorian struggled briefly but couldn't reach the seat belt release.

"John. . ." he rasped out, turning his head to the driver's seat.

John was in a similar position, hanging upside down and supported by the seatbelt across his chest. A nasty gash on his forehead dripped blood silently, and he seemed dazed.

"John!" Dorian said more insistently. "You gotta get up, John! C'mon, man, press your seat belt button."

John turned his head to gaze at Dorian but seemed to be unable to do much more.

Dorian was growing frantic at John's silence. He tried reaching the buckle again but it was positioned too awkwardly and his arms dropped back down. His legs were trapped in the wreckage of the dashboard, but he wasn't in pain. Not yet anyways.

John could only feel the blood rushing to his head as he hung there, upside down. The lights around them were too bright, too blurry, and they hurt his eyes. Something wet was on his face and it didn't feel good. He could hear someone saying his name insistently. Anna? No she was gone, and this voice was too deep to be her. He tried to move, but a pressure on his chest kept him down. Weird.

There was a loud crunching of gravel outside the car, and strong flashlights were shone inside. Dorian half-closed his eyes against the blinding glare and tried to see who it was. Hands reached inside the wrecked car and began untangling them, but the hands were rough and Dorian didn't think this was help.

They freed John first, dragging him out of the wreckage and dumping him on the ground a few feet away while Dorian could only watch. John was more conscious now, mumbling curses and trying to fight, but his fighting was uncoordinated and the men quickly pinned him down. Dorian's struggles grew stronger, but just as he managed to release the seatbelt, other hands grasped at him. As he was dragged out of the car, kicking, he could see one man holding John's head down while the other cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dorian's cheek lit up blue as he struggled harder, but before he could make any kind of move a long electrical rod approached his face and touched his temple. Unconsciousness was immediate.

John's face had been scraped against the asphalt but his eyes were open anyways. He watched helplessly as one of the men touched a stick against Dorian's temple, stunning the android and making him collapse to the floor. Dorian shook with the last few shocks from the charge then was still.

John was seized from behind and dragged away from the crumpled car by his twisted arms. He kept trying to get his legs underneath himself but they had been badly bruised in the crash and he was too dizzy to try much harder anyways.

The embankment their car had gone over was right next to an underpass, and now the wrecked car lay smoldering on the side of the road which passed through the tunnel with the main highway above. The tunnel was dark, and John could see the remains of homeless camp fires as he was dragged nearer to the entrance.

"Hey, get off!" John yelled in surprise as one of the guys grabbed his synthetic leg, squirming hard.

"Boss, this guy's got a fake leg, should we just take it off? Stop him from running anywhere."

The hands on John's synthetic leg felt so wrong- he even avoided touching it himself whenever possible and to have stranger's hands on it now was intolerable. They were handling it roughly, looking for the attachment point. John's breathing was rapidly quickening and he was trying to pull his legs away from the men.

"Get off you bastards, don't touch me-nnn not there, no, get off!" he yelled brokenly at them, unable to fight back with his cuffed hands but struggling and kicking with everything he had.

The boss looked at him thoughtfully, taking in the sight. John, on his back in the dirt, hands cuffed and wild-eyed while the men prepared to detach his leg.

"Nah, just tie him. We won't be long. Not worth the hassle those things cause." he decided finally.

John's jaw clenched hard as the hands left his leg. He was dragged unceremoniously over to a rusty drainage pipe that ran vertically along the overpass.

"Piss off, you bastards!" he rasped as they forced him to sit against the dirty pipe. The only response John got was a hard blow across the mouth which left him tasting copper. Running his tongue over the cut in his lip, John saw the remaining two men dragging a limp Dorian over. John's chest constricted. Nothing good was happening here tonight. He really, really hoped Dorian's call to headquarters had gone through.

When the two guys tying up John had finished, he was bound tightly to the pipe with his hands still cuffed behind him. A length of cord had been looped around his neck, holding his head hard against the pipe, making breathing difficult and yelling impossible. He put all his effort into staring down the men, his burning eyes making up for his helpless body. Despite that however, the shortest guy came over and pressed an ugly black automatic against John's temple and watched his boss, waiting for instructions.

Dorian was propped up against the overpass next to John, his head lolling. Far above, the roar of the highway droned distantly.

"Wake 'im up," said one of the men.

John watched as the long rod was pressed to Dorian's temple once more. At the touch of it, his eyes flicked open and he drew a huge breath, looking around quickly and blinking rapidly. His eyes found John immediately and took in the scene, his brow furrowing when he saw the automatic being bored into John's head. Something in Dorian's face tightened, and he faced the men again.

"What do you want?" he asked, remarkably steadily John thought.

One of the men crouched down next to Dorian and looked him over. By his authority over the others he seemed to be in charge.

"You sound weird. Almost real," he said dispassionately. "We were going for an MX but you'll do. Hold out your arm."

Dorian kept his arms at his sides and didn't move.

"What do you want with my arm?" he asked, jaw set.

Without answering, the man hit Dorian hard and grabbed his arm while his head was still reeled to one side.

One of the lackeys watched Dorian being hit and called out to their boss:

"Hey, Stenner, this one don't act like no MX. You sure he's the right kinda bot we need?"

The boss, Stenner, nodded briefly and watched Dorian bring his head back round.

John pulled at his ropes, ignoring the pressure around his neck. Why wasn't Dorian clobbering the guy? He was strong enough to.

"D'rian! Get 'im, c'mon what're you doing?" he finally managed to rasp out, voice breaking as the cord stretched tight over his Adam's apple. The short guy at his side hit him with the gun barrel, making John grunt with pain.

Dorian looked up suddenly, his eyes flashing and the blue lights in his face running wild.

"Hey, you know what happens if you try anything." the boss said softly. "My guy will put a bullet in your cop's head before you can even stand up, no matter how fast of a bot you are."

"We just need to download some info from you," he continued, cocking his head to one side and surveying Dorian's tensed form.

A muscle in Dorian's jaw twitched. Strong and fast as he was, he knew John would be dead before he took a step if he did anything.

He turned back to face Stenner.

"I can stop you from downloading certain files off my mainframe," Dorian said, looking Stenner directly in the eye. "And you have no method of overwriting my ability to do that."

Stenner let his eyelids close halfway. He turned to the man who held the gun on John and nodded slightly.

The short guy grinned as he suddenly tugged hard on the rope around John's neck. John's breathing was instantly cut off and he began choking. He kicked uselessly with his legs, not coming anywhere near the guy.

Dorian went wide-eyed and made to stand up again but the man pulled harder at John's rope and held on as John's struggles grew more desperate. His head was jammed back and Dorian could see how hard the cord was digging into his neck.

Dorian was yelling now, curse words he must've learned from John, his eyes bright and furious as John was choked.

"We can't force you to do anything, bot." Stenner said, watching Dorian. "But we can sure as hell persuade you." He squatted down again and held out his hand. "Your arm, let's go."

John let out a desperate moan.

Dorian raised his arm. No second thought, nothing. If relinquishing some data meant that they would stop hurting John then that was all he needed.

Only when John seemed about to go limp did the man release the rope and let John take a breath. There were ugly red welts around his neck now, mixed with purpling bruises. John coughed, hard, trying to fill his lungs but clearly in a lot of pain.

Dorian's cheek flashed blue frantically as the plug neared him. Stenner gripped Dorian by the wrist and found the tiny port in the crook of his elbow. Dorian went rigid and the flashing in his cheek increased. Stenner guided the plug into Dorian's arm, and as he did so Dorian's eyes rolled back as information flooded from his brain through the wire and began showing on the computer monitor in long strings of binary code.

John's vision was still fuzzy, but he could see the way Dorian slumped over and let Stenner force the plug into his arm. He kicked out hard, this time catching the short guy in the ankle, hard. The guy kicked John's leg in retaliation, but luckily it was the synthetic leg and John just grinned and took it. Dorian looked up briefly at the commotion, but his eyes were flickering too hard from the data transfer to see much.

When the transfer was done, the men packed up their equipment and began hauling it back to their van. John could only watch as they unplugged the wire from Dorian and left him slumped against the wall.

Before leaving, Stenner crouched down next to Dorian. The android's eyes were still flickering and he was opening and closing his mouth without sound.

Stenner watched Dorian closely, then got up and walked over to John.

"You DRN's are...different. Maybe I wanna think about getting one for myself." Stenner kept watching Dorian, pulling an automatic from the waistband of his trousers.

"You're kinda like pets. Loyal, blind to a certain extent. I like that."

Stenner clicked the safety off, leveling it at John.

"But I'm curious . . . just how deep does your programming go?" he asked, eyes boring into Dorian's. John couldn't speak.

Dorian raised his head with difficulty, and with fire in his eyes, began trying to stand up on his uncoordinated limbs.

Before he could make it to his knees, Stenner pulled the trigger.

John's eyes snapped open. His head was pounding, and the sensation made him feel like he was going to throw up.

Voices were sounding around him, but his ears were ringing and he couldn't hear properly.

"D'rian..." he grunted, his voice hoarse and echoey to his own ears. Dorian would know what was going on, and he was always supposed to be with John...

People were talking around him but didn't seem to be paying him any attention. Clearing his mind was proving difficult. Dorian would probably say that's part of my negative energy he thought dismissively.

"John!"

John tried to turn again but couldn't get his head far round enough to see. He was vaguely aware of a burning in his stomach, but it felt removed and distant.

Dorian swam into view above him, face openly worried. John saw as Dorian's eyes flicked down to his stomach and widened, then flicked back up and found his face.

With a piece of sharp debris metal, Dorian hacked away at the cord binding John. Soon, John was free and slumped forward, still muttering confusedly. His wrists were still cuffed though, and as Dorian leaned him over so that he could undo the locks, John caught sight of his own front.

He was soaked with blood, which seemed to be pumping steadily if not too quickly from a bullet wound in his side. John's vision swam. He tried to concentrate on only one thing, Dorian's arm supporting him as he worked the cuffs off. They clacked loose, and feeling rushed back to John's aching arms. He quickly tried to staunch the bleeding, but Dorian laid him out flat and batted his hands away so that he could look at the wound.

John was breathing too quickly and shallowly for Dorian's liking. He kept having to swat John's shaking hands away as he tried to cover the wound.

"John, man, you gotta let me handle this ok?" he said, blue eyes holding John's unsteady gaze.

John blinked several times then nodded, his face drawn and pale.

"W-w-what happened?" he asked shakily.

A med team swarmed into john's vision: clearly Dorian had called for backup. They began prepping him to be lifted onto a stretcher. Dorian didn't take a step back even though the medics were trying to shoulder past him.

"You got shot, John," Dorian dragged a small smile onto his face, "Probably your charming personality at work."

John grunted then winced at the spasm the small movement brought.

"Shut up, I'm adorable" he rasped.

Dorian rolled his eyes.

John groaned.

"See what happens when you pick the music?" he whispered, a wink sketching itself on his face. He swallowed hard and caught his breath. "D-did the guy. . . get away. . ."

"Nah, after he shot you. . ." Dorian glanced over at the squad car, "He, er, found out how deep my programming goes after all."

John snickered then winced. His eyes were fluttering shut. He whispered something but Dorian couldn't make it out.

"John, what?" he asked, leaning closer.

John's lips rustled.

"Thanks."

Dorian tried to hide the smile that spread over his lips.

"One, two three!" John was lifted onto the stretcher and promptly lost consciousness.

The medics began carting John away.

"Let go, we gotta take him to the hospital." one of them said to Dorian.

Dorian looked confused.

"Let go his hand, come on," the medic said impatiently.

Dorian looked down. He was holding John's hand in his without having felt it.

"Oh, sorry, man."

The medic just grunted and continued off.