A/N: Nine chapters have been posted for this story over the course of three months. I still can't decide if that's good or bad. LOL
Chapter 10: Sewer Stuck
It didn't take long for Courage to escape the forest. He followed the road until it curved rather steeply downward. He could see at the bottom of the hill that the trees became much more sparse until it could no longer be called a forest at all. From his vantage point he could also see a medium sized town off in the distance, and quite a bit of farmland too.
Nervousness welled up inside of him. This was it, Computer might be hiding somewhere down there. It would still take a very long time to search the entire town, and there was always the chance that he could be hiding on one of those farms too. This was still as much of a wild goose chase as it would have been trying to find him in that massive forest. They could search for one another forever and never once bump into each other.
Courage was finding himself getting more and more nervous by the second, and even more so than that, desperate. He considered waiting until nightfall to look for Computer, as his glow would be much more easily seen in the dark, but no. There was equally as much of a chance that his friend might still be in the forest, or that he might have gone in the complete opposite direction of the way Courage had gone. Unless they ran into each other by chance, they weren't likely to find one another.
Courage dug his foot into the gravel as an overwhelming sense of hopelessness began to overtake him. They should have stuck together! They wouldn't be in this situation at all if his stupid illness hadn't-
Taking in a breath, he forced himself to calm down. Getting upset and panicky wasn't going to get him out of this situation. He still had one means of possibly getting into contact with Computer. Even if trying to speak to him through a nightmare didn't work, he still had tomorrow, and the next day, and the next...
He bit his lip at the thought of it. Even if it took days, maybe even weeks, he'd still eventually share a nightmare with Computer. It wasn't the choice that he wanted to rely on, but it was starting to become the only option he had. He'd keep going back out into the forest everyday to search for Computer and sleep at night with the hopes of getting into contact with him. Eventually this would all work out, somehow.
Making his way down the steep hill, he kept an eye out for black vans. If those men were still branching out their search, they could easily be lurking around, especially in that town. He'd have to be careful, even now.
Soon he reached the bottom of the hill and it didn't take long for him to reach the town either. A few cars went by as he walked down a sidewalk, but there were no people in sight. It seemed that everyone was keeping themselves inside and Courage could easily think of several unpleasant reasons why. Still, there were no men garbed in black around, nor were any of their frightening vans. Those men could have harassed the townspeople all night long and that was maybe why they weren't showing themselves anymore.
"Could Computer really be here?" He asked himself in a small voice. His friend might have been forced to flee much farther than either of them had expected , and maybe that was why he hadn't been able to get back to the forest in time.
Courage's wanderings through town eventually led him to its main street. He was shocked to find that every single store was closed, or perhaps that wasn't really shocking at all. He did catch a small glimpse of a person peaking out through a window, but then they immediately hid again. Those men in black really must have harassed these people after all. It was clear that they had spooked the townspeople into hiding. If anything, it was only one more confirmation that Courage needed to be even more caref-
He didn't get a chance to finish his thought before a black van with its darkened windows rolled around the corner. He let out a yelp of surprise and immediately dove into an alley. Taking no chances, he raced down the alleyway as fast as his feet would take him and came out the other side onto a much more shabby looking street. The road was cracked and crumbling while several boarded up buildings lay on both sides of him. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he began walking down the neglected street, wondering where he could hide. Though the van had not pursued him, he wasn't sure if the people inside had actually seen him or not. It would be best to lay low for a little while.
As he passed a rusted, windowless car that was sitting off to the side of the road, he heard Computer call out to him, much to his complete and utter shock.
"Hey! Courage! Over here!"
He whipped around and for a moment didn't find anything out of the ordinary, then he notice that familiar blue light radiating out of a storm drain. Overjoyed, he raced over to the grate and found that it was rusted over like everything else in this part of the town. Two of the bars were missing completely and down in the sewer stood Computer who was looking up at him just as equally shocked. It was surprising that he had actually managed to squeeze past the grate even with those two bars missing.
"Thank goodness you've found me!" The glowing dog exclaimed. "I don't know how you ever managed to track me down! You're lucky that I saw you or else you would have walked right past me! As you can see, I've been hiding down here. Though I was able to get down here easily enough, I er, haven't been able to get back out again. I've been trapped down here since last night and I just can't seem to squeeze through the bars again."
Courage was so relieved and so happy to see him that he couldn't help but crack a joke. "You see? I told you that you were going to get fat if you kept eating so much."
Computer's smile immediately flipped into a frown. "That's not it at all!" He exclaimed. "I just can't get my footing as easily down here! It's impossible to climb out like this!"
"Oooh, so you need help out then?" He asked in a deliberately mocking tone.
"Actually, it would be better if you came down here. Those government people are still searching for me and I can sense that they're pretty close by. We can talk down here without running the risk of them finding us."
Courage nodded. "Alright, I'll try to squeeze through." He took the bag and dropped it down the opening first so that Computer could catch it. He then dropped down into the sewer himself, after a bit of wiggling past the grate.
"There, now we should be safe from prying eyes." Computer spoke, handing the bag back to him.
Courage took a moment to look around. They were in a moderately sized concrete square that, while two dogs their size had plenty of room, a human would have had to bend over to keep their head from hitting the ceiling. There were four medium sized pipes leading deeper into the sewer system on each side, but it could also be seen that about halfway in they all had metal bars blocking off access, allowing water to pass through but nothing else. Computer really had been completely stuck down here.
"Come over here." The glowing dog beckoned. "It would be best if we hid inside one of these pipes so that my glow can't be seen from the street."
Courage nodded in agreement and followed after him. They went as far into the pipe as it would allow them to and sat down. Courage could hear running water from somewhere deeper within the sewer system and even with Computer's glow lighting the tunnel up, it still was a bit spooky.
"I actually got the idea to hide down here from those men." Computer spoke. "I sensed them searching for me under the street while I was still trying to keep out of their sights. As soon as they left, I found my own way down here and haven't left since."
"Because you couldn't leave." Courage snickered.
He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I'm glad you're okay. I heard them get the orders to start searching for you too last night. I'd completely forgotten that you'd been seen with me. It was foolish to leave you behind like that when you had no means of protecting yourself. I was 'this' close to going back and giving those men a piece of my mind before they could do anything to you, but then I figured that it was better to just keep listening in on their radio talk and wait to see what would happen. There was no reason for me to blow my cover if they hadn't found you yet and given that you're here now and perfectly safe, it was a pretty good idea after all."
Courage fought back a laugh. It was just as he had thought! Computer wanted to run in head first, guns blazing, but at the very least had shown enough restraint to see what would happen first. They truly were getting amazingly good at understand each others thought processes.
"So, how did it go for you last night?" The glowing dog finally asked.
"I hid behind the gas station and nobody came looking for me. Unfortunately, I did have an attack while I was trying to sleep. I was worried that I'd been knocked out for several days, but it looks like that wasn't the case."
He wondered if he should tell Computer about the strange vision he'd had. Would his friend want to know about the voices asking for help? Would he even believe it or would he just assume that it was his illness was making him go even more crazy? Taking a deep breath, he tried to figure out a way to tell Computer about what had happened without also making it sound like he was losing his mind.
"Oh, and I, uh, had this strange, well-" He fumbled around as he futility tried to spit the right words out.
Computer gave him a confused looked. "What's this all about, Courage? There's no need to get so flustered."
Finally, upon realizing that there was no way he could say what he wanted to say without sounding completely insane, he bailed. "Well, you see, I had this strange dream and I was wondering if you saw it too since we might have been sleeping at the same time."
Computer craned his head slightly to the side, his eyes narrowing. "And you say I'm the bad liar."
Courage felt his blood run cold. Great! Now he couldn't get out of this at all! Why couldn't he have just kept his mouth shut?
Trying to save face, he quickly said, "I-I just, I had a really bad nightmare last night and I was wondering if you saw it too." He cast his eyes downwards, attempting to avoid Computer's accusing stare.
He then felt a pair of paws grip his shoulders. He did not dare look up, but Computer spoke anyway, "You don't have to lie to me, dog. I'm willing to listen."
He let out a long, drawn out sigh. "You're going to think I've lost my mind."
"No, I won't. If something's troubling you then I want to help, so speak up."
"Alright, alright." He muttered under his breath. "It was those voices again. I had this strange vision where I saw them as this huge mountain of, I-I don't know, machinery of some kind." He slowly looked up until he met Computer's eyes. "Compute, they asked me for help. I-it was like I could feel their distress. I wasn't able to do anything for them though because they just sort of got caught up in all of their anger again. T-there's something seriously wrong with them, but I don't know what."
Computer leaned back, looking thoughtful. "If they really are speaking to you, and it's not your illness taking its toll, you need to be careful. I don't know what to think, especially since they haven't been bothering me at all lately, but if they really are somehow talking to you, they could be trying to find a way to trick you. Who knows, they might even be trying to take over your mind. They may need an organic body to control for whatever plans they might have." He closed his eyes. "We really need to get to that mountain and end this before those bastards can muck everything up."
"Compute, I don't think they're as bad as you want to believe. They're just...broken in some way. I think we could help them if we really tried. They want our help."
The glowing dog opened his eyes back up and glared at him. "You are far too trustworthy for your own good!" He spat. "I have no inclination to believe that they are anything but evil! They were always there inside of my system and all they did was look on when 'He' tortured me to the brink of insanity! They 'liked' watching it happen! They hid my abilities from me and did whatever they could to keep me from discovering them! Do you have any idea how much better my existence would have been had I known that I could control technology and move around on my own? They allowed my life to be miserable for far too long for me to ever forgive them for it! And let me remind you that had I not discovered my ability to move around thanks to a one in a million lightning bolt, you would be dead by now! I would have never been able to get you this far and you would have been shipped off to the vet to be put down! You owe your life to a freak accident because of them!"
Courage simply shook his head. "I don't think we would have ever met if you had learned how to move back in the past."
"I suppose you're right about that." He relented somewhat reluctantly. "But still, be careful. They've never given us any reason to trust them. I'm sure they're only trying to gain your sympathy so that they can take advantage of it in some way."
"I don't know, I'd still like to help them if I can. I-I really do think they were being genuine when they asked me for help."
Computer shrugged. "All I really want is that you don't do something naive and get yourself into a bad situation because of it. Even if they truly want help, they won't be getting it from me. They never lifted a finger to help me when I needed it and I refuse to do anything for them in return. If they dare to cause you any harm, I'll make them regret it. It's bad enough that they've somehow found a way to communicate with you, but if they do anything worse than make you feel like you've got machines crawling around inside of your body-" He stopped and grit his teeth, practically enraged by the mere thought of those voices hurting his best friend.
Courage was honestly surprised by the sheer hatred Computer displayed for the voices. He had every reason to hate them, of course, but still, Courage had always thought that maybe he'd take the high road and not be so petty that he wouldn't even consider trying to help them. Couldn't he see that there might be something more to this than a few 'evil' voices? What they had done in the Dreamworld still weighed heavily on Courage's mind. The pain they had inflicted upon him was something that still haunted his thoughts on a daily basis, but still, it didn't seem right to ignore a plea for help, even if it was coming from them. If he could somehow fix whatever was wrong with them, maybe then...
"Listen, Courage." Computer went on. "If they talk to you again, let me know. They can't be trusted and I don't want you running off and doing something crazy just because they told you to. If you really think that there's a way to help them, we do it together, understand? That way I'll at least be there to stop them if it turns out to be trap."
"Okay." He agreed. "At least that means you're willing to help them too..."
Anger flared in the machine's eyes. "I won't help them!" He spat. "All I want is to protect you because I know they want to do you harm! They want you dead and they almost managed to make me do it for them at one point! If you ask me, there's nothing to help! They're hopelessly evil through and through!"
"You of all people should know by now that things aren't always as black and white as they seem. Yes, they've done horrible things to the both of us and they can't be excused for that, but we should still try to be the better people when they ask for our help. Besides, don't you want to get to the bottom of all this? Don't you want to find out what they are and why they've been living inside of your system without you knowing it?"
Computer crossed his arms. "I don't care about anything aside from getting you to that mountain before you drop dead! Those ghouls can have all the help they want just so long as it doesn't interfere with us getting to that mountain!"
"I guess we're in as much of an agreement as we're going to get." Courage sighed. Hoping to improve Computer's mood, he pulled a snacks out from their bag. "Here, I stocked up yesterday when it looked like things were going to get bad."
Computer's eyes lit up. "Good thinking!" He exclaimed, apparently more than happy to change the subject they'd been on. He snatched the snack right out of Courage's paws and then went to town. "And here I was thinking that I was going to starve to death down here!" He said between bites.
"Oh no, you might have had to actually burn a few of those pounds off." Courage joked.
The glowing dog stuck up his nose. "Hmph! I'm not going to be bothered by an idiot who makes fat jokes!"
As he waited for Computer to finish his 'lunch', Courage glanced over at the metal bars blocking them off from the rest of the sewer system. A small realization struck him then. "Hey, Mr. I-can-bend-metal-with-my-mind, why didn't you remove these bars and look for a different way out?"
Computer stopped mid-chew and his eyes widened.
"...You didn't even consider it, did you? Oh, boy. Whatever happened to that omniscient computer I used to know?"
"I-I've never been omniscient!" The machine stammered. "And I just-" Apparently he couldn't think of a good excuse for why he hadn't used his ability.
Courage placed a paw onto his hip. "So let me get this straight, you just spent half a day trapped down here and it didn't even occur to once that you could move a few metal bars out of the way?"
"You don't have to rub it in!" Computer cried out. "Everybody has brief lapses in judgment! Besides, I was too busy thinking about those government people! They're a tad preoccupying, don't you think?"
Stifling a laugh, Courage replied with, "You've just lost so many respect points from me, it's not even funny."
The glowing dog's attempts to conceal his embarrassment were growing more and more futile. "For goodness sake, dog! When on earth did you start becoming such a sarcastic little snot? That's supposed to be my thing!"
End Of Chapter