Humanization
II.
O O O
Clouds and other aircrafts passed leisurely by, creating small white and grey blurs as their plane traveled on its merry little way to the destination of choice: Borkum, Germany.
"So, what's it like?" Esther asked pleasantly, finally having given up on stealing the magazine back from Abel.
Abel merely grunted. "I've never been there before, so I'm not sure. But I assume that since it's located on an island, it will be rather cold." He peered at her over the top of the magazine for a moment. "And probably a tad fishy, as well."
Esther scrunched her nose in a most unpleasant way and folded her arms. "So it's a fishing town?"
Tres answered before Abel could even blink. "That is correct. However, as the season is currently winter, there will be no tourists."
"Beautiful beaches," Abel muttered, echoing the unformed thoughts of Tres. "Beautiful German girls."
Esther huffed, crossing her legs beneath her dress as she stared in a miffed manner at Abel. "Didn't you take a vow of chastity or something?"
Abel gaped at her. "A vow of—oh!" He laughed uproariously after this, dropping the magazine in favor of clutching his stomach. "Vow of chastity? You jest, Sister Esther!"
Esther steamed.
Tres sighed.
The aircraft pilot came on the loudspeaker, his voice echoing through the small walls of their compartment. "Wir nähern jetzt uns dem Borkum Flughafen. Befestigen Sie bitte alle Sicherheitsgurt und bereiten Sie sich für Landung vor. " A distinct German accent still resonated in his tone, even as he repeated the information in English: "We are now approaching the Borkum Airport. Please fasten all seatbelts and prepare for landing."
Tres, Abel, and Esther all did so, forgetting for a moment about their previous struggle over the magazine and their almost-heated conversation.
A few minutes later, the craft began descending, though the three occupants of the cabin barely felt it. It was far from a luxury airliner, but it was still rather sufficient. There was hardly any turbulence at all, and for this, Abel and Esther were glad especially Esther, as she had had quite a few problems involving airplanes before.
"Have we landed?" Esther asked, pulling the curtain back a little bit to stare out the small, circular window.
"Positive," Tres replied, keeping still and stone-faced. "We have arrived at the Borkum Airport in Borkum, Germany. I will inform the cardinal immediately."
Esther watched, slightly fascinated, as his eyes flashed for a brief moment, dilating and then returning to normal size. It was all quite surreal, really, to be prancing about Germany with two priests—one widely renowned and the other a battle android. She was still trying to come to terms with it herself.
When Father Tres finished with his little internal message-sending operation he turned his gaze—stiff, but still holding a bit of the spark that gave him a personality—to Esther. And for once since the first time he'd saved her from that horrid forest "fairy," vibrant blue eyes met cold brown.
Abel coughed from somewhere in the background.
Esther blinked to look up at the man. "Yes?"
He was standing up, placing the magazine back in its allotted rack, just alongside the bench he'd been sitting on. "If you don't mind, we really should be leaving." He pointed to her lap. "And it seems as though you're still wearing restraints."
"Oh!" She rushed to unbuckle herself and then promptly stood up, smoothing out the wrinkles in her skirt and trying the shake off the slight numbness in her legs from sitting so long. "Shall we go?"
They departed the airport rather easily, though Tres had to show certificate of authentication of his being a registered android, and both Tres and Abel had to show the proper documents—courtesy of the Vatican—for their firearms. Esther…well, Esther didn't really have anything she needed to verify with the airport security. So she wandered into the gift shop, glowing at the various multitudes of stuffed animals and souvenirs.
Abel and Tres arrived to fetch her some fifteen minutes later, both tucking their respective "Vatican Official" credentials into their pockets. Should anybody question them, they would merely pull out these papers and would be free to go.
Abel handed Esther hers. It was rather small, she pondered, as it could easily fit into her palm. "Here," Abel said, smiling gently and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Keep this on you at all times."
"Should you lose it," Tres added, "you will need to re-register—a process that will take approximately three weeks. This will cost us valuable time."
"Yes, well," Esther said, frowning a bit at Tres' remark. Did he expect her to lose it or something? "I have a little more business to finish here."
Abel raised a questioning eyebrow. "Here…as in this gift shop?"
Esther nodded, pulling a small plush seal keychain from the rack behind her. "See? Isn't it adorable?" She cuddled it, rubbing the soft material against her cheek. "I love it!"
Abel sighed, but smiled nonetheless. "Alright."
The young, cleric woman smiled brightly. "I'm paying with my own money, of course." She bounded off, waving at them over her shoulder. "I'll be back in a minute!"
Once at the counter, though, she found that she was in for a little more trouble than first anticipated. "Hello!" she said, setting the item on the counter.
"Hallo," the clerk replied, returning Esther's smile in kind. She rung up the item and then bagged it. "Es kostet 3.75 dinars, bitte."
Esther's smile melted. "I'm sorry…what was that?"
The clerk blinked a few times. "3.75 dinar, bitte." She turned the screen of the computer toward Esther. "Der Computer sagt 3.75 dinar. Sie müssen mich zahlen."
The only things she had caught were "3.75 dinar" and "computer." She pulled her wallet from her pocket. "3.75, correct?" she asked, nervously pulling out the money.
The clerk turned the computer screen away again. "Ja." She took the money offered and handed Esther the bag. "Danke und haben Sie einen netten Aufenthalt in Borkum!"
Esther swallowed a little bit and made her leave, reappearing at Tres and Abel's side.
Abel, upon noticing her, grinned charmingly. "Well?"
"The clerk…she speaks German," Esther said, pulling out her prize and attaching it to her belt loop. "I barely understood a word she said."
Abel laughed good-naturedly. "Well, yes. We are in Germany, after all."
Esther gave him a look that said she wasn't amused.
"Anyway," he said, and the three of them started out of the gift shop and toward the baggage claim, "Tres is equipped with an automatic language translator. That's one of the main reasons he's come along, after all."
Esther blinked at the android's back, walking just ahead of them. "Really?"
Abel nodded. "Yes. Watch him speak with the attendant up here."
And sure enough, Tres approached an attendant, showing him the Vatican Official papers. Esther strained to hear what she could.
"Wir sind von der Vatican Kirche. Unser Gepäck ist zu Ihnen besonders versendet worden und es wichtiges Material enthält. Zeigen Sie uns bitte in der Richtung der speziellen Abteilung."
Esther furrowed her brow. "All I caught was 'Vatican.'" She turned to Abel. "What did he say?"
"I don't know much German," Abel confessed, smiling in a lopsided way, "but I believe he asked where our luggage was."
"Positive, Father Nightroad."
Abel jumped at the sudden proximity of the battle android. "Tres!" He laughed anxiously. "Did you find out where we should claim our things?"
He nodded, turning on his heel and leading them down a long corridor. "The attendant showed me. Follow me."
And so they did.
O O O
A couple hours and frustrated moments later, they were once again traveling, and Esther was not happy.
Tres took due note of this.
"This is ridiculous," she muttered under her breath, staring out the car window gloomily. "Weren't we given unlimited funds?"
Abel laughed from his spot in the front seat, just beside the driver. "Oh, if only. I tried to rent us a larger car, really, I did, Sister Esther. But we're very strapped when it comes to the finance department."
"Positive," Tres piped, moving his head slightly to the left so that he could see the side of Esther's curiously red face. "The seating arrangement is not safe; however, given the circumstances, the chances of your death in the case of a car accident are five to fifty."
"Oh, well that's just wonderful news," Esther said, crossing her arms. "And what, pray tell, Father Tres, are the circumstances?"
He blinked once. It was strange that Sister Esther could not figure out something so simple for herself. "The circumstances are that you are currently sitting on my lap, Sister Esther."
Esther choked on nothing and Abel forced back a giggle.
"And I will be able to keep you safe," he continued, "far better than a seatbelt could."
"Why you?" Esther screeched, causing the driver to swerve a little bit. "Why couldn't I… not sit on your lap?"
"The middle console and the rest of the backseat are occupied by our luggage," Tres replied, leaning away from Sister Esther as she turned an even darker shade of scarlet. "Any other position would jeopardize your safety, Sister Esther."
She opened her mouth to retort, but Tres kept talking.
"For example," he said, realizing that he was prattling on needlessly but figuring it would be less distracting to the driver, "if you were to sit on the luggage, you would be thrown about the car. If you were to sit on Father Nightroad's lap, he would not be able to sufficiently keep you safe."
Esther looked like she was about to explode.
"If Father Nightroad was to sit on your lap," and at this Abel squawked an indignant remark, "you would both be put in danger."
"I think I understand, Father Tres," Esther mumbled. "Thank you."
"If I were to sit on your lap," he went on, wondering for a second what she would do if that situation were to ever occur, "I would crush your pelvic bone. As it stands, this arrangement is by far the most dependable."
"Meine Herren, sind wir angekommen.," the driver said, rolling the car to a stop and looking at Abel.
Abel smiled. "Thank you. We'll only be a second, so could you keep the engine running?"
The driver nodded, and each of them exited the vehicle slowly.
Esther quickly straightened out her dress and combed back her hair, giving the appearance that she wasn't suffering from jet lag and extreme travel-related exhaustion. She reached over to Abel to fix his wrinkled clothes.
Abel grimaced. "I see you're feeling very…motherly."
Esther pouted. "It's not that, it's just that we need to impress this man." She finished with Abel and turned to Tres, who was watching her intently. "And you," she said, reaching up to flatten down his hair, "are hopeless."
"What is this?" Abel suddenly asked, stepping in front of a demolished building. He looked it up and down, hands on his hips.
Esther frowned. "Isn't this where we're supposed to meet the donor?"
"Die Stadt," the driver called out of the window as he watched the three of them marvel at their supposed meeting place, "riß dieses Gebäude herunter, weil sie mit Ratten geplagt wurde."
Abel, frustrated beyond belief, turned to Tres expectantly. "I couldn't understand that. What'd he say?"
"The city tore down the building because of a rat infestation," Tres said, furrowing his brow as he surveyed the damage. "Sister Esther, are you sure that this is the exact place?"
Esther bit her lip and took out the official note from her wallet. She perused it quickly before nodding. "Yes, it says so exactly. Between the barbershop and the clothing store." She handed the paper to Tres. "And the address is there, as well as the addresses for the shops."
Tres read it over, frowning deeper after each sentence. "Perhaps," he started, tucking the letter away, "we should search the surrounding shops."
Abel sighed dramatically and placed a large hand to his temples. "No, no, that won't do."
"Then what do you propose we do do?" Esther asked, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "It looks like we're just about stuck"
"We drive back to the outer city," Abel said, brushing past Esther to open the passenger side of the car door, "and we contact Cardinal Sforza immediately."
"I—" Tres started, but Abel was having none of this.
"And we rent a hotel," he went on, climbing in and shutting the door, "and we spend the night here in Borkum before carrying out whatever it is that the cardinaltells us to do next."
Esther and Tres glanced at each other for a moment before piling back in.
"Fahren Sie uns zu einem Hotel nahe dem Flughafen," Tres said, talking around Esther's body.
The driver nodded. "Ja."
The car started back down the road, winding through miles of countryside and bouncing the passengers back and forth.
"Why didn't we just get a hotel near there?" Esther asked after a while, and she grunted when a particularly hard bump made Tres hold her around the waist instinctively.
"Because if he's not there, then he's not there," Abel said, sounding sulky and annoyed.
Esther frowned and pulled away slightly, leaning into Tres's chest. He had to push his chin over her shoulder to see anything.
"He's being kind of a jerk," she whispered to Tres, glaring daggers at the back of Abel's head.
Tres nodded. "Positive."
"Entschuldigen Sie mich," the driver suddenly said, and his voice was high and panicky. "Aber es gibt einen Mann in der Straße!"
"What?" Abel leaned forward to see exactly what the driver talked about: a man in the road. "What is he doing? He's not moving even though he sees us coming!"
"He isn't wearing the native dress." Something clicked loudly in Tres's head, and he tried to reach over and grab the driver. "Stop!"
But it was too late, because they hit the man full-force. The car veered off the road, tires screaming and tilting dangerously to the side.
Tres pulled Esther's head into the crook of his arm, protecting the most vital part of her body as the car swerved into a ditch, rolling several times before it came to rest at the very bottom.
When all was said and done and the dust had finally cleared, Tres lifted his head. Their luggage was thrown out the shattered back window and it now littered the ground around the car. The front airbags had deployed, and Abel was slowly picking himself up amongst the shards of glass.
He looked down at Esther. "Damage report, Sister Esther?" he asked as she pulled herself from him.
Her arms were bruised and scratched and a long trail of blood curled from the top left of her forehead to her chin, but otherwise she looked fine. "I'm okay," she said, grimacing. "What about Abel and the driver?" She turned around to get a look, but Tres warned her not to.
He used his elbow to smash out the remaining pieces of glass from the back window. "The doors are unusable," he said, helping her up. "You must exit through the back, please."
Once Esther was safely out of the vehicle, Tres turned to Abel. "Damage report, Father Nightroad?"
"Fine," Abel moaned, rubbing his left arm. He glanced at the driver. "But I can't say the same for our chauffer..."
"The chauffer is unimportant," Tres said, also exiting through the window. "Please follow me."
A scream broke through the soft hissing of the totaled engine, and Tres immediately snapped his attention to it.
Esther was wrestling herself—or attempting to, anyway—away from several unfamiliar men, all wearing the same uniforms as the man who had stood in the road, who were grabbing at her and trying to drag her away.
Tres pulled out his gun. "Battle mode initiating," he said, walking at a brisk pace toward the attackers. "Release Sister Esther Blanchett at once!"
"Där han er!" one of the men cried, pushing Esther aside in favor of stalking toward where Abel was still crawling out of the car.
"Father Nightroad!" Tres shouted, aiming the gun at the advancing man.
Abel ducked out of the way of the man's weapon, which was something similar to a bayonet, only with a more advanced gun attached.
"Arrenderade inte honom rymning!" another man called, and he dove for Esther, who was trying to get to a gun that had been thrown from their luggage.
Swedish, Tres noted as he shot the man in the arm, sending him reeling away from his female partner. They're speaking Swedish, not German.
About five more men emerged from what seemed to be the surrounding wood, all holding identical weapons. A few ran immediately to Abel, while still others grabbed Esther by the hair and proceeded to drag her off.
Tres made the quick decision to be the chivalrous one. He saved Esther first.
However, this was probably his downfall, for his mind stuttered and buzzed when the butt end of a gun jabbed into the back of his head.
"Father Tres!" Esther yelled, watching as he stumbled into a nearby tree.
"Esther, run!" Abel shouted as several men assailed him from all directions. "They're after—" he kicked what looked like an area scanner out of another man's hand, "—me!"
A dense thump alerted Esther that Tres had fallen, and she glanced quickly between the two priests, biting her lip.
A wild look came over Abel's features. "Take Tres and go!"
One of the men pulled what looked to be a syringe from his pocket. He stabbed it into Abel's neck swiftly, and Abel winced before slowly falling limp.
By the time they turned around to capture Esther and the android, the area was empty save for the crashed automobile and the dead German native at the wheel.
O O O
Esther panted as she dragged Tres underneath the gnarled roots of a tree. It created a cage-like burrow, but she didn't care, because she was tired of hauling a 400-something-pound android around, and because her mind was far too frazzled to function like a normal brain would.
Tres, who had been helping her to carry him along as best as possible, collapsed when she told him to crawl into the little den.
"Father Tres," she whined, "I can't carry you. You're too heavy; you have to help me get you in here."
With effort, Tres managed to pick himself up long enough to get inside the burrow.
Once inside, Esther fell to the ground alongside him, taking wracking, labored breaths and holding Tres' head against her chest. And she, herself, couldn't really tell she was trying to comfort him or herself.
"We're okay," she said between breaths, patting him like she would a child. "We're okay—you're okay."
"Sister Esther," Tres mumbled.
She took her hands from his head. "Yes?"
"Damage report," he said, and Esther could hear the breaking in his voice. It was filled with static, with consonants and vowels occasionally cutting out.
"Fine," she said, pushing herself to sit up. "You?"
"I have sustained major internal injuries and require the aid of an experienced android mechanic immediately."
Esther slumped and buried her face in her palms. "Great."
"However," Tres continued, still lying in the dirt, eyes closed, "I can make most repairs myself, and finding and retrieving Father Abel Nightroad is of more importance than myself at this time."
"I—I agree," Esther said, watching him breathe steadily. "But shouldn't we go back to Rome and tell the cardinal? Or—or at least ask for some back up? I think we're in way over our heads if they've captured Father Abel so easily."
"For now, rest," Tres commanded.
Esther bit her lip. "Rest? Here?"
"Yes," Tres said, still lying unmoving from his place on the ground. "Without a doubt, there are still those men searching for us. I have taken our current position into mind, however, and I believe that there is a…a good chance that we will remain safe and hidden from their view."
Esther frowned, but she lay down beside him anyway, resting her head on her arm. If Tres couldn't even make probabilities properly, then he definitely needed a short respite, in the least.
And so she tried to fall asleep, she really did, but things kept nagging at the back of her head. "Father Tres?"
"Yes, Sister Esther?"
"Where will we go after this?"
He paused for a long moment. "We will…" he began, probably unsure of their next course of action, himself. "We will travel to the nearest town and take refuge in a chapel. I will attempt to reboot my internal state so that I can successfully contact Cardinal Sforza and the Vatican."
She lifted her head up a little to look at him, and was surprised to see that he had opened his eyes. He was stared, with a sort of dazed expression, at his hand. "Are you…sure you're okay, Father Tres? You've been put through a lot, and—"
"I will be performing at standard in a short time," he replied, closing his eyes once more. "Please rest, Sister Esther, as we will be heading out first thing tomorrow, and traveling so quickly as we must will put a strain on your body."
She nodded and situated herself into a more comfortable position. Concerning that they were sleeping in the dirt, though, there weren't many ways she could lay to make it any less hard and unpleasant.
After a while, she fell into an uneasy sleep, listening to the deep sounds of Tres' breathing.