Silence flooded the interior of the BattleTram. The Commander lay in his bunk, keeping a close eye on the clock.
He was waiting for just the right moment.
He breathed deeply, feeling slightly numb in the legs and cloudy in the head. He tried to push aside these feelings for the moment; they were uncalled for, irrational, and would be detrimental to completing his mission.
The instant the clock struck 1 AM, he began to slowly crawl out of his bunk. He had to be exceedingly delicate in order to not make noise or any sudden movement. His legs were shaking, and he wasn't sure if this was from nervous tension, or the aftermath of the adrenaline from being so angry earlier that day. At this hour, even the sound of bare feet peeling away from flooring was too loud, and he twisted around on the balls of his feet to avoid making a peeling noise.
Slowly, yet surely, he made his way towards the nearby shelf. Trying not to make too much noise, he blindly groped around until his hands hit an object. It felt like metal. He smiled at the success of finding what he was looking for, and quietly pocketed the object, twisting and tip-toeing his way out of the room immediately after.
After he left the quarters, he was able to relax a bit more. He slowly walked towards the laboratory. He had spent a day watching Jimmy, checking for any patterns, and deduced that the lab was the place he would be most likely to find him.
Peering in through the lab door cautiously, he was relieved to find the android, plugged into the charging station he had set up in the corner, humming softly in sleep mode, just as he had expected around this time. Holding his breath, almost as if Jimmy were a person who could be woken by noise, he stepped towards the robot.
The Commander looked around the immediate area to make double sure that he had made no noise that had woken anyone else and prompted them to follow him. When he was sure that the coast was clear, he grasped the fabric of Jimmy's rashguard, pulling it up to gain access to his chest. He delicately thumbed at a seam, flicking open the android's chest panel. Inside was a network of wires and circuitry, interconnected in ways the Commander could only begin to understand.
He didn't know how they worked, but he knew good and well what he was meant to do with them.
He pulled the metal object out of his pocket, using the faint glow of the station to illuminate it and make doubly sure he had grabbed the right thing. Taking a deep breath, he took a random wire from a random bundle, and placed it with a shaky hand between the blades of the scissors.
Just as he was about to press the handles together and complete the job, he felt a twinge of guilt. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the feeling. Jimmy was a robot. An automaton. At his most complex, he was a bunch of electrical pulses running through some copper. However, he looked extremely human, acted extremely human, felt extremely human. There was something about holding a blade to his innards that made the Commander feel like a murderer.
That's nothing. That was nothing to worry about. He's just a robot. He's just metal. The Commander took a deep breath and decided to count to three.
One. The Commander swallowed tensely.
Two. His hand shook, and he had to keep one hand on the wire to keep it from falling out from his tremors.
Three.
He snipped the wire.
Jimmy's eyes immediately shot open with a loud gasp, and after half a second, he began to cry out. The Commander immediately brought his hand to the robot's mouth, muffling him to keep him from making much noise. Jimmy whimpered in distress, glancing down at the scissors, then to the Commander, then back to the scissors, then back to the Commander.
And that's when the Commander noticed something.
Something that he hadn't noticed before.
Something that he should have noticed a long time ago.
There was a sort of... look in Jimmy's eyes. He had this look in his eyes when he looked at the Commander.
Fear. Jimmy's eyes were flooded with pure fear.
It felt so real. So sincere. The android, surprisingly enough, was genuinely terrified. The display of pure, raw emotion, something you'd never expect to see from a complex bundle of metals, caused the Commander's stomach to turn flips.
Then he truly did feel like a murderer.
The Commander stared for a moment before bringing a finger to his lips, signaling for Jimmy to keep quiet. The robot nodded vigorously and the Commander slowly retracted his hand from Jimmy's mouth.
The fear never left his eyes. He sat on the floor, stock-still, staring at the Commander with the most terrified expression on his face.
Still shaking from the shock of what he had seen, the Commander attempted to calm Jimmy down.
"Do-" he stuttered. "Do you know what that wire went to?"
Jimmy slowly began to move, squirming to test and see how many of his servos were still functioning.
"I think," he whispered. "I think it was a toe."
The Commander breathed a sigh of relief. "So, nothing too dangerous."
"Nothing I can't live without until I get repairs."
There was a long, drawn out silence as the two of them attempted to get their thoughts under control. As usual, Jimmy was the first to break the silence.
"What were you trying to do?"
The Commander sputtered. "I uh,"
The silence returned. The Commander didn't like that one bit.
"I-, well, it's nothing. Nothing to worry about. It won't happen again."
Jimmy nodded in agreement, his uneasy look finally starting to fade. The Commander looked at him in borderline awe. Jimmy had woken up to witness one of his own team members attempting to murder him, and already he was starting to forgive him. This level of pure trust and loyalty was something that the Commander had never come across in his life.
He put the scissors down, offering his arms to Jimmy, who still looked disturbed and shaken from the incident. Jimmy exhaustedly flopped forward into a protective hug, the Commander grasping at the back of the robot's rashguard, the other hand placed reassuringly on his head. The Commander's eyes were wide-eyed and blank.
Perhaps, he thought, he had started out on the wrong foot, had an incorrect impression.
Perhaps, he thought, the new android was not something to be hated or disposed of.
Perhaps, he thought, Jimmy was something to be protected.
In the back of his mind, he told himself that this was a silly thing to think. Jimmy's face definitely showed emotion, but that didn't necessarily mean he actually had emotions... right?
After all, robots don't have souls.
