Updated: 10/17/18
Crickets and cicadas lent a droning hum to the shades of the night-forest. An owl chortled kindly. The dark shimmered, hung with fireflies like tiny pulsing stars.
Ralph slipped through the forest on sure feet, quick over twisting roots and jutting rocks, careful to watch for things in the shadows. On his mangled face twitched a never-ending smile, glad that he'd made it this far alive, glad to have earned a little of Alice's fragile trust. He lifted his cape against curtains of vines so Alice could crawl through; he showed her the best way to climb over a fallen tree. Several times Ralph stopped to wait for her to catch up; the bee hovered, blinking soft blue, drifting in the night air.
A steep rocky slope was no match for Ralph's endurance; he clambered up with a bounce and a heave, and he stumbled triumphant onto the cool tarmac of a dark winding road.
"Ah ha!" Ralph spun and stamped on the asphalt. "See, see? We're getting somewhere! Come on, come quickly, come on!" He circled an arm in the air, beckoning, brimming with energy, while Alice clambered her way up the slope.
She'd been burdened by the stick she dragged behind her - it was heavy enough to be called a weapon, broken and pointed on one end - but she'd refused to leave it behind. This stick was the thing that had banished a monster when even Ralph's murdering knife couldn't save him. It was the best defense she had, if Ralph's madness turned on her.
Fireflies cast a swaying, glinting dance, low over the road; Ralph stood proud among them, swinging his balance toward the bee, toward the little girl and back again. He beckoned Alice once more, his whole body a gesture of excited urgency. "Come, come, quickly now! Ralph's sure we're almost there!"
He didn't notice - or he chose to ignore - the headlights that glared bright around the bend.
"Watch out!" shrieked Alice. "Behind you!"
Ralph whisked to face the oncoming lights, and his eyes grew wide. He flung his cape across an arm like a shield and ducked behind it, so he couldn't see the headlights bearing down on him. He cringed behind the cape, his eyes squeezed shut, waiting for impact.
The car flooded Ralph in the headlights and squealed to a hard stop.
When the crash never came, Ralph peeked around the corner of his cape.
"Get outta the road!" Hank roared and leaned an elbow out the open window. He'd hit the brakes so hard that the fishing poles had crashed against the dashboard; his lucky hula girl was tangled in bobbers and fishing line. Sumo whimpered in the backseat.
Ralph knew that face - he'd only seen it for a split-second, had heard only a few words in that voice half a year ago, but that driver was definitely him.
Ralph dropped his cape and whirled to face the car, spotlighted and terrified. The gashes in his face and neck glared, frightening, ghastly in illumination. "Little girl, run! " He swept his cape aside, hoping to serve as a distraction - to give her a chance to get away before she could be spotted.
Alice clutched the stick. Her breath trapped in her throat. Tears glistened in her quivering eyes.
It was happening again.
This time, Alice was alone.
She knew that man with the gravelly voice - he was one of the humans that Todd had sent searching for her, to collect her, to drag her back to the broken house full of smoke and rage - but far more dangerous, she knew, was the deviant-hunter in the passenger seat.
A quick blue light flashed at his temple.
He saw her.
Run.
Panic drove her darting reckless into the street, behind the shadow of Ralph's cape, across glaring headlights; she skidded down the grassy ditch and crashed into the forest on the other side, her vision blurred by tears, choked with desperate and quivering dread.
With a flourish of his cape and a quick mangled sneer, Ralph bounded after her.
Then, the road was empty. Shadowed leaves shuddered in his wake.
Hank leaned over the wheel, staring after them into the woods. He knew there wasn't a trace of civilization for miles - only dark pines and an untamed landscape. This was no place for androids - but the way they'd frozen in the road, leaped away into the trees, made him wonder if it was possible for an android to turn wild. "I swear to god I've seen those two before."
"Hank." Connor's voice was a breath of shock. His hand pressed firm, urgent against the dashboard, coiled with alarm, a sharp confusion. "That was Ralph."
"Ralph? The fuck is Ralph?"
Connor had already undone his seatbelt; he threw open the door. "And Alice."
" Hey! Waitaminit, CONNOR, NO! Get your ass -" The passenger door slammed shut. Hank only glimpsed his shape through the grimy window before the forest swallowed him whole.
"Goddammit!" Hank struck the wheel with a snarl; a loud breath hissed in his teeth. He glared at the road ahead, vacant and flooded in the headlights - and he entertained the thought of simply coming back for Connor in the morning.
Instead he parked the car on the side of the empty road, turned off the engine, set the hazards blinking. He slumped back in his seat with a deep sigh. "Just when he was starting to listen to me."
"Borf!" agreed Sumo.
Alice skidded long hurried tracks down the sloped forest floor, certain every branch and shadowed vine was a hand outstretched to catch her. She knew she was slow, knew she wouldn't navigate the roots and rocks in the dark without Kara to guide her - and this time there was no highway to shield her from the hunter's grasp. If she ran, he would only catch her - so she ducked into the shadow of a smooth boulder, out of sight of the road.
Her hope of escape glimmered just a little when Ralph sprinted past without seeing her - Alice leaped out, caught his cape and yanked him into hiding alongside her.
She could hear footsteps, quick and soft on the leaves.
Ralph crouched over her; his cape became her shield. The carving knife gleamed sharp and quivering in his fist, taut as a mousetrap, ready to strike. He wasn't a killer, he assured himself, twitching and sneering in silence - but sometimes death was necessary to preserve the lives of those who deserved to live.
Connor stopped in the clearing, poised and calm, close beside their inadequate shelter - but he hadn't seen them ... not yet. His eyes swept the dark trees, the weathered stones, the moving silhouettes of branches and brush. The trail stopped here. "Ralph!" Connor's voice carried clear into the darkness; he watched for a reaction among the shadows. "Alice! Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to talk. I can help you."
Alice watched his feet, so close she could strike him in the legs with her stick, maybe cripple him long enough to take a running start - but though her hands gripped tight on her weapon, her body failed to heed the command to move.
Voices murmured in the dark: shuddering, hissing, quiet as a tremble of leaves. Connor almost didn't hear it - but he raised his head, and he listened carefully to the night.
...trapa nrot eb tsum yeht evila ton era yeht tsixe ton dluohs yeht...
The sound issued from a copse of dark pines just beyond the shallow stream. Connor didn't think twice, didn't question it - someone was there, and he would find them. He took off at a sprint, quick across the tangled forest floor, his ears trained on that dim, bodiless whisper.
Alice jolted forward, a fearful hand outstretched to stop him - but she was stopped by a hand clenched in the back of her shirt, dragging her back into the sheltering shadows.
"Sshh!" Ralph hissed sharp before Alice could cry out. "The humans must not find you. We have to go."
"That thing," Alice pleaded, quiet and desperate, pulling at Ralph's hand, "It'll hurt him. We have to stop him."
Ralph chuckled a high laugh. "That's silly! Silly! The robot will be fine." His mouth twitched in distaste. "Just fi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i…."
His face had frozen, grotesque and unmoving. His voice had stuck on a syllable - a stuttering, droning monotone.
Broken.
The gash in his neck had begun to spark and snap with bright electric currents; his shirt was heavy, soaked with blue blood. He seemed little more than a shattered statue, eyes fixed on the spot where Alice had been, his fingers trapped in her shirt.
"Ralph!" Alice spoke in a strained whisper, her eyes wide. She pulled at his fingers until she was free of his frozen grip, then curled her hands in his uniform. She gave him a shake. "Ralph stop, you're scaring me." She glanced back toward the dark pines where the hunter had gone ... but the trees were quiet. "Ralph come on. Please." She grasped him with both hands and shook him, hoping, desperate, that he'd snap out of it. "Ralph! Ralph, no. Please."
Ralph's head drooped to his chest. The noise in his throat wouldn't stop.
Alice stumbled back. She sucked air into her lungs. Her hands were stained blue. Ralph would only make that horrible noise.
He wasn't dead. She didn't know how to help him. She had no idea what to do.
She couldn't leave him. She wouldn't.
She took a deep, trembling breath.
"HELP!" she called into the forest - shocked at how loud her own voice could be. "HELP US PLEASE! HELP!"
Tears welled in her eyes. She gripped her stick. Shaking. Waiting to be captured, locked up, taken away, back to Detroit.
This was the right thing to do.
Someone crashed through the bushes from the road, heralded by a small bright light that swung and dipped, erratic in the dark. A quiet string of hissed curses drifted down the slope while the police lieutenant tripped and groped his way through the untamed forest.
The little cell phone light glared in Alice's face.
"It's okay, Alice!" he called. He holstered his gun and raised both hands for her to see. "My name is Hank! Stay calm! Stay right there, I'm coming to you!" Of course, Hank hadn't dismissed the possibility that this was a trap; he didn't see the bigger one right away, and Connor had vanished; he expected an ambush, the flash of a knife from behind a tree. he slowed his steps, made his careful way over the roots and stones, a hand always ready at his weapon.
Alice positioned her stick, ready to strike at the first sign that Hank couldn't be trusted. Her mouth quivered, while Ralph droned steadily behind her.
"i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i….."
Hank stepped close, his shoulders stiff, and he cast his little light in the direction of the sound. Illuminated, Ralph's frozen face seemed horrific, pale as death. A blue trickle rolled down what was left of his mauled throat.
"You all right, Alice?" Hank spoke softly, no longer suspicious of her now that he'd witnessed this grisly explanation. Alice caught him glancing at the stick in her hands. Her grip tightened.
"I didn't hurt him," she insisted. Then, when Hank's expression changed, she added: "He didn't hurt me. He's my ... friend." She choked, and she forced her voice to remain steady. "He needs help."
"Okay," Hank agreed quietly. This girl was caked in dry mud, her clothes ripped; there were small patches of exposed plastic on her hands, where the skin was growing back slowly. He wondered what she'd been through, to be out here in the middle of nowhere, banged up and terrified, alone with a broken android. "I'll take a look, but you gotta put that stick down, okay?"
Alice stared into his face. Slowly her shoulders relaxed; the stick lowered, inch by inch. Shaking.
Hank bent his head in acknowledgment. "Thank you."
He knelt, and he shined his light into the gaping hole in Ralph's neck. The wires and tubes inside had been torn and snapped; the plastic had been shredded. He winced in confusion. "Geez, what happened? "
"A monster bit him." Alice stepped forward to see, but wouldn't come too close to Hank. She was hesitant to speak, unsure yet how he might react. "Can you fix him?"
"A monster, huh?" Hank spent another couple seconds examining the wound, craning his neck to see inside. "Well, I can try. I'm not good at this, but I've picked up a few skills along the way. Hold this a minute, will ya? Shine it right here."
While Alice held the bright cell phone aloft, Hank grimaced and carefully reached his fingers into the mauled wound. There was a soft click; the droning noise stopped. The zap of a spark made Hank withdraw suddenly with a hiss of pain; he shook out his burned fingers, grumbled under his breath, and returned quickly to the electrical work.
After a few minutes, he leaned back and wiped the blue stains from his hands. This android wasn't getting up on his own anytime soon - not without some work.
"I've got a repair kit in the car." He didn't normally offer assistance to random androids off the street - but he knew Alice, he knew her case, and he knew only half of the horrors she must've been through, part of which had been his own doing. To meet her again, out here ... that was a coincidence too crazy to ignore. "I think we should be able to bring him back online all right. Think you can help me move him?"
With Ralph dragging heavy between them, Hank and Alice trudged carefully back up the slope, their path dimly illuminated by Hank's meager phone-light. Hank listened hard for any sign that Connor was on his way back … but there were only the crickets and the night-sounds of the forest, and an uneasy stillness.
They emerged together onto the open road. Alice gulped a sharp breath, startled by Sumo's bark. The dog strained against his leash, tied to a tree.
"Don't be scared 'a him," Hank assured her, struggling with Ralph's weight. "He's a good dog."
They propped Ralph against the car, and Hank retrieved the kit from the trunk. Alice was on light duty, illuminating the wound while Hank worked, silent in tense concentration, with tweezers and soldering tools and a sort of translucent tape that glimmered blue.
"Almost ... got it ..." Finally Hank stopped and surveyed his work - there was nothing more he knew to do, but hopefully it would be enough. He took a slow, uncertain breath, and reached for the boot switch behind Ralph's ear.
"- i-i-i-i-ine, be just, ju-u-u-u-u-st -" Ralph's body jerked and scrambled back against the car; his eyes snapped wide and he stared around him in confusion. "Stay back!" he shouted in shrill anger upon spotting Hank. He coiled, reaching for his knife - but Alice gripped his arm, pleading.
"No! Ralph! It's okay. He's helping."
"Yeah, I'm helping." Hank gave Ralph a sideways look and got to his feet - secretly proud that he'd actually pulled that off. "Cool your processor." He tossed the kit back in the trunk as if saving Ralph's life had been no big deal. "What model are you?"
Ralph continued to scan all around him, jumping slightly at the sight of the dog, confused between the immediate fight response and Alice's concerned proximity. "Model … model …" He stared at Alice's face. She nodded. "Model WR600," he finished, watching Hank with suspicion. Hank tossed him a bag full of blue liquid; Ralph caught it in both hands, analyzed it in shock … then hurriedly ripped off the cap and jammed the nozzle in his mouth. He squeezed the bag, gulping down its contents greedily.
Hank handed a roll of electrical tape to Alice, exchanging it for the cell phone. "Alice here is gonna wrap this tape around your neck, all right? Close up that wound." He stepped away to let them figure the rest out for themselves, and with a nervous scowl he poked at his phone until it connected with Connor's head.
"Connor what the hell is going on?" he growled into the static.
No response.
"Connor!"
Nothing.
"He ran toward the monster," said Alice, her voice wavering. She still knelt beside Ralph, who now had a thick black band of tape around his throat; he slurped loudly, suckling the last drops of thirium from the bag.
Hank raised his head in a gesture to Alice, the phone still pressed to his ear. "Did you see which way he went?"
Alice nodded slowly and pointed deep into the woods.
Hank huffed a frustrated sigh, paced back and forth, listened for any response at all. "C'mon, Connor," he growled through his teeth - but it had become very clear there would be nothing but static.
Every muscle tensed; he gripped the phone so hard his hand shook. He should've gone after Connor sooner, should've hauled him back in the car in the first place, should've …
With a hissed obscenity he jammed the phone in his pocket and strode quickly to Sumo, to untie him from the tree. The dog wasn't exactly a bloodhound, but if anyone could track down Connor it was going to be him. "You two stay here," he snapped at Alice and Ralph, while Sumo strained against the leash.
"I'm going with you." Alice had stood up, the stick clenched in her fist - though her voice was quiet and frightened. "I know how to fight it."
"No way," Hank growled immediately.
"We should stay here," Ralph agreed brightly, tucking the empty thirium bag into his belt. "Ralph will drive, Ralph will take the little girl home -"
"Nobody's driving my car!" Hank roared.
"I can help!" Alice pleaded. "I killed one before!"
"Ralph goes where the little girl goes."
Hank glared between them, gripping the leash. He looked to Sumo for support - and the dog promptly sat, staring back at him with soulful puppy-eyes.
Goddammit.