The forest eventually thinned out into an expansive field, untouched by humans and left for the occasional wild animal to roam before moving on.
Makina thought it was better to stay out of sight of anyone until dark and the field was no place to do that.
He marvelled at the soft grass just beyond the thin barrier of trees. Behind him, Dave worked hard to weave and bend branches into a small shelter.
It was almost hypnotic, to watch Dave work. The way he twisted and manipulated thin strings of wood to form structures was amazing, as if he had been doing it for years.
Dave had no idea what he was doing.
He fumbled with the sticks and broke a lot of them in an attempt to twist them into a stiff shelter of some sort. Splinters littered his fingers and the ground around him and he hated it, but by some miracle, he managed to make something decent.
He mounted the wooden roof against two trees, branches holding branches and making a little hideout. There were still some holes in the makeshift roof, but it would hold up well enough.
"There. At least we'll have somewhere to sit if it starts to rain. How long do you plan to stay here?" Dave began to pick splinters out of his fingers carefully.
"At least until dark or when everyone goes home. Then we head back to the factory." Makina was dead set on the plan though he hadn't considered many other factors.
"Okay sure, but what about the police hunting us? And how are we going to get back to the factory?" Dave tossed tiny bits of wood onto the ground next to him. "In case you forgot, my car got wrecked no thanks to you."
Makina stopped for a moment. Static began to fizz at the corners of his vision again as he remembered the car. Sparks of electricity buzzed at his fingertips. In his mind, one word flashed. Guilt.
"Right… sorry about that car. I guess we can steal someone else's even though they're going to be mad."
Freedom noticed Makina acting weird and stepped up, his shaky hand clasping the Sniperbot's shoulder. "Hey Mac, since when did you care about what others think?"
Makina shrugged Freedom off.
Freedom wasn't going to let Makina off so easily. He was his friend, after all, and friends helped friends with their problems. He might have trashed a lot of files and lost a lot of knowledge, but he could very well detect that Makina was acting weird and that was not okay.
Makina kept shrugging Freedom off and Freedome kept persisting, constantly asking Makina to talk to him. Dave watched this with interest - never had he come across a robot that could feel. Technology was really advancing.
"Come on Mac, you can trust me! I mean if you don't trust that scraggly maggot," he gestured vaguely in Dave's direction, "then we can go somewhere else."
Makina clutched his arm and stared at the ground. Stop. Stop pushing me. Stop it. Go away!
"Just talk to me Mac, I promise I-"
Makina whipped around, fists clenched. "Stop it Freedom! Just stop! I don't want to talk, I don't want your help, just drop it already!" His harsh voice rang clear through the woods, several birds taking to the skies in fear. His display had gone red and his body heating up. Several warning signs flashed around his sight.
Then, a cold silence fell between them. Even Dave had backed up and disappeared into the shelter he'd made.
"What has gotten into you Mac?" Freedom asked. His voice was hushed and his back hunched.
Makina had so much to say. He wanted to tell Freedom everything. Ever since the whole fiasco in the city before the murder of Olivia Mann, and the installation of the processor, he had so much pent up frustration and anger. Maybe it'd have been better if he hadn't gone through with it.
He wanted to tell Freedom he was sorry, but he didn't realise what came out of his mouth until Freedom turned around and left.
"Get out of here. Get out and don't come back. You've been of little help."
Freedom went cold. "I thought we were friends. But since this is how you want it maggot, then fine." He tried to snap a branch for measure, but it didn't budge. Quickly, he gathered himself and rushed off.
Makina went back to Dave.
"Hey, where's the short guy?" Dave's gaze followed Makina, who silently wandered into the shelter and sat down. The Sniperbot refused to say anything and went straight into idle mode. "Okay then."
Dave tried to take a nap to pass time but kept waking up every five minutes. After waking up for the seventh time, he decided it was better to walk around. So he got up and left Makina there, wandering through the thin forest and outside to survey the field. When he was bored, he went back to the shelter and began to count as many distinguishable types of plants around.
Dave finally managed to fall asleep after over an hour of counting plants but was rudely woken up half an hour later by Makina. The sun was quickly setting, the sky darkening into
"Get up. We need to go now.'
Dave yawned, making a poor attempt to stifle it. His jaws gaped wide and he quickly snapped them shut and blinked the tears away. "What- why? What's happening?"
"We need to find Freedom. If anyone catches him, he'll spill our plan. I don't know why I even let him run off."
Dave made a face. "And you only realise this now?" He brushed the loose dirt off his pants, snorting at the stubborn bits that had embedded themselves well into the fabric of his pants.
"It doesn't matter what happened earlier. We just need to go now." He threw his hands up into the air, feeling himself get warm again. No. Calm down. You do not need to black out now. Hastening his pace, he headed straight for the open field while Dave begrudgingly trudged along behind.
The base was quiet. It wasn't the tense silence that came right after a lost battle, and Spy was glad for that. Instead, it was the silence brought by no one, broken only by the light clack of his ridiculously expensive shoes against hard, unpolished floor.
It was unsettling.
The first few days after everyone left, the quiet was relaxing and enjoyable. He could get drunk and sleep in late and when he woke up, he didn't have to bother with looking sharp.
It was very unlike him, but it felt good to be able to relax without the worry of others watching. It only felt good for the first few days.
The relaxing silence turned into a hollow echo. Spy suddenly became aware of how silent it was. No Scout's incessant chatter, no Soldier's arguing with Demo or something petty. No Pyro's mumbling and crackle of flames. No flipping of Heavy reading a magazine, no Medic and Engineer discussing something techy, no Sniper complaining about anything at all.
He had gotten so used to all of this that the sudden removal of all these little distractions in life was unsettling to say the least.
After attempting to ignore the pressing silence by drinking, reading, chain smoking, he finally decided to pack up and leave the base as well.
He was friends - no, acquaintances - with a couple of people from the New Mexico airport so bringing his knives were of no issue. A small bribe got him through but to be safe he brought only his custom made pure ceramic knife.
At the airport, peak hour had arrived. Many people were purchasing last minute tickets or checking in, hurrying by and ignoring Spy. The mercenary felt oddly out of place among them but managed to keep his cool.
The young man at the counter seemed to straighten up when Spy got to the front of the counter, the distaste for pushy, last-minute passengers in his eyes disappearing. Classic, hoping for a tip, Spy thought.
Spy quickly took the furthest end seat, first class, away from everyone else. He paid in hard cash, which surprised the counter boy. Hesitating for a second, Spy passed the kid another ten-dollar bill. Seeing his huge grin at the tip, Spy couldn't help but offer a reluctant smile in return. The counter boy looked a lot like the old Scout.
As he walked to the departure hall, he found himself reaching into his jacket and brushing his fingers against the ceramic knife with the chain and a single dog tag wrapped around it. He could feel the engravings beyond his glove with the old Scout's name.
Air France flight 315 is now available for boarding to First class and Business class passengers.
315, what a familiar number. Spy carefully rubbed his finger against the hilt of the knife before tucking it back into his jacket, making a poor attempt to shove aside memories of Gray's broken office with it.
Glass all over the floor. Outside, Demoman and Medibot were fighting off surges of robots. Pyro was picking himself up off the floor, hands still alight with dancing flame. Olivia Mann had disappeared with the pistol and Scout's blue shirt was quickly turning red.
He was struggling for breath, fear locked in his massive pools for eyes. Spy yelled for Medic and Medibot came in. Medibot couldn't save him. He had no medigun. Spy was furious.
Scout turned his head away for Spy's sake as he took his last breath. Spy was ready to break down. He knew Scout's mother had 7 other sons but none were his. His only kin… the one thing he took pride in his life despite all his scars...
The thunder only audible to him died down after he had taken his seat. He blinked, not remembering how or when he had managed to get to his seat. When offered wine, he went for a good glass of Dom Perignon. Anything to drown out the memories.
The stewardess could notice Spy looking troubled, but chose to avoid asking. It wasn't her business right? When serving him the glass of wine, she offered a comforting smile.
"Oh, merci." He allowed himself only a quick glance up at her, noticing her concerned smile. She was beautiful, to say the least. Her hair was neatly bunned up, face flawless and features not covered up, but accentuated by her makeup. He noticed she had a light dusting of freckles, which he thought was quite beautiful.
"My pleasure, sir." She quickly gathered herself and continued on her rounds, tending to the rest of the passengers in the cabin.
As he took sips from the crystal glass, he made to survey the rest of the passengers and the entire cabin, in case anything went pear-shaped and he needed out. It wasn't something he wanted to do, just habit. Information derived from just looking at others was sifted out and analysed. Most importantly, he needed to know of anyone was a threat. To him, specifically.
The man all the way on the opposite side of the aisle was dressed in a typical black suit, white undershirt and red tie. He looked relaxed, sinking into his seat and enjoying his champagne. Judging from the suit and the colour of his wine, he wasn't too rich - just enough to splurge on a long trip and look good, but it was likely after paying for all that he would have to go with bread for breakfast for awhile. He looked like a higher-end office worker, maybe a supervisor. Harmless, say for maybe a loud mouth when it came to arguing.
In the middle aisle near the front was a lady in a simple and elegant white dress. Her face wasn't noticeable from where Spy sat, but she looked richer than the guy on the other side of the plane. Her dress was silk, finely made, perhaps even hand-sewn by experts. The dress was fairly tight-fitting but didn't reveal anything unimpressive. No weapons on her figure. Harmless.
Somewhere near the front when he had entered was a large businessman. CEO of a company that wasn't here nor there. Fat and jolly, very kind to the stewardesses who served him. He could have hidden a weapon under his thick jacket but it was unlikely. He wasn't competitive in any sense. Harmless.
The two air stewardesses who served the cabin were both harmless too.
Spy sank back into his seat, finally able to relax when he knew the risk of getting attacked and having to bring out his weapon was low. The plane was making its ascent, marking the start of a long, twelve hour flight.
The pretty stewardess returned. "Hello sir, perhaps I may interest you some newspapers?"
Spy hadn't been catching up on recent news. Often he got his news from people like Engineer, Sniper and Medic. Anything they didn't mention was usually of irrelevance.
"Thank you, if you have a French paper I'd love to have that."
The stewardess nodded and headed to the back of the cabin to collect the papers. She returned quickly to drop off the newspaper before hurrying off to serve the other 3 passengers in the cabin.
Spy flipped casually through the paper, eyes browsing headlines mostly with disinterest until he got to the International news. A very small article in the corner began with a picture for a familiar robot looting corpses before fleeing. Upon closer inspection, he recognised it as Makina. The article itself was vague, few details being released except for the number of fatalities and where Makina was last seen.
"Merde… of course he gets into trouble," He mumbled to himself. He would have to catch up on that after landing, when he could call someone. For the next 12 hours, he'd allow himself to relax and enjoy himself for once.
