37. Technology
"Public Safety Notice: This is an important announcement: there are five rogue A5Stars loose in the province of Sola; if you see any of these droids, report immediately to your nearest Retirement Officer. Do not attempt to follow them yourself as they are armed and dangerous. They are reported to be going by the aliases of 'Hayner Dincht', 'Seifer Almasy', 'Axel Flynn', 'Roxas Hikari' and 'Vincent Valentine'. We repeat: they are armed and dangerous." the buzzing voice echoed from the speakers set on every street corner.
Seifer shook his head and sighed. Why there was so much fuss, he knew well; the five laws of droids should have prevented the five of them from even considering escaping, let alone actually fleeing. But the whole business about them being armed was bullshit – he, Hayner, Axel and Roxas had no weapons at all. Vincent was the only one with a gun, and that was unloaded; the design was so old that no modern bullets would fit it.
Shaking his head again with a disdainful sneer on his face, he headed back toward the abandoned house that they had chosen until they could get off this tiny planet.
He entered silently, taking off his coat and shaking the rain off of it before dropping it in a corner and making his way through to the 'living room', as they'd jokingly called it.
"Hey Seif." Axel acknowledged his entrance and returned to poring over maps and plans with Vincent, trying to find the best star-route to take when they managed to commandeer a new transporter.
"Did you find anything?" Roxas called through from the kitchen, where he was reading through a ragged old newspaper dated back from 3089. Seifer shrugged.
"They're still searching for us. And they've narrowed it down to this district. We'd better get out of here, and fast."
"Shit." Roxas swore. "Hayner! Get down here, pow-wow time!" There was a quiet rumbling sound and Seifer saw the dirty-blonde land on his front at the foot of the stairs and scramble up to walk into the room.
"Walk much, lamer?" Seifer smirked. Hayner glared at him but didn't deign to reply. The taller blonde grabbed him on his way past and pulled him in close to kiss him softly. Roxas, now used to this, simply rolled his eyes at his friends' antics. Hayner sighed and relaxed into Seifer's embrace, breaking the kiss to bury his head in his chest.
"See, you can't stay mad at me." Seifer commented, picking Hayner up bridal-style and striding into the living room with him.
"Goddammit, Seifer, put me down!" Hayner whacked the top of his lover's head ineffectually. The other robot just chuckled and dumped Hayner onto the sofa.
"Ok, guys, Vincent and I have found the probable best route." Axel said, biting the tip of his index finger as he looked at the charts.
"But we're going to need something with a lot of fuel." Vincent added quietly. Seifer nodded and looked around the old, dusty room as Axel droned on. There was a lot of history there. Too bad it didn't interest him. Not the ancient, long-dead chandelier, not the beautiful carvings around the cornices, not even the stained glass windows suggesting that this place might have once been a chapel. He had all he was interested in sitting right beside him. Out of reflex to that thought, he slipped his arm around Hayner's shoulders, pulling him closer to smell the oddly fruity shampoo Hayner used (well, they all used it; it was the only one they'd been able to snatch. And despite public opinion, robots did sometimes need showers – not for body odour, but they often got rather dirty and dusty. And the shampoo smelt nice. And it made them feel more human). He pressed a light kiss to his lover's temple.
"…And Seifer, are you even listening to me?" Axel asked crossly. Seifer shot straight up.
"Oh right. Yes. We have to commandeer a ship with enough fuel to last for the trip, and the Nevada 7500 is probably the best option because they're restocking one tonight at the nearest airfield." Axel blinked.
"…Yeah. Ok, seems you were paying attention, despite your ever-increasingly public displays of affection." Seifer would have flushed, but he knew that his circulatory system contained purely a special conductive plasma, rather than blood. Not to mention that fact that their skin wasn't as translucent as human skin. Another thing to dislike.
"We will need to be organised." Vincent stated. The others nodded. "Seifer, Hayner, you will need to dress as grunt droids. Axel, Roxas, you will need to ensure that there are no distractions. I will find a way to the cockpit to take out the pilot."
Later that night, at precisely 19:37 hours, Seifer and Hayner shot the grunt droids they were to replace with electricity shots that would scramble their signals for a few hours. They quickly slipped on the blue overalls and picked up the crates of fuel, returning their expressions to their manufactured, blank state before walking stiffly out of the door.
As they neared the shuttle, a conveyor belt to place the boxes of Neutralite on became visible, and they set down the fuel before turning in perfect unison to retrieve more. However, evidently one of the men on standby had other ideas. He reached out to grab Hayner's wrist and pulled him toward him. Grabbing the robot's chin, he stared at him for a moment before laughing and beckoning to one of the other guards.
"Hey, Roy! Lookie here, a lover-bot acting as a grunt droid." Seifer froze, his entire being screaming at him to run and grab Hayner, but he remained still, expressionless, hoping that the man would lose interest so that they could continue with their escape plan.
"Excuse me, sir, but we must continue the loading of the shuttle before it takes off." Seifer said as though it was an automatic response.
"Shut up, droid." Sam didn't even spare him a glance.
Roy walked over, glancing curiously at Hayner before saying,
"Let it go, Sam - if the boss wants a lover bot to help with loading, it'll help. If this thing leaves late, then it's our asses that'll get fried." Sam chuckled.
"C'mon, Roy, there's another two hours before this baby takes off, and that one," he indicated Seifer, who was bristling with anger inside, "can manage fine by itself until we get back. How long's it been since ya got laid?"
"Two days, now let it go and do your job." Roy, losing interest, wandered back to his station. Sam gave Hayner a lingering look and quickly said,
"Hey, mind covering for me for ten minutes?" If Seifer had had a heart, it would have been in his throat. Say no, Roy. Say no. He struggled hard to keep his face blank of emotion, and could see that Hayner was too, despite his seemingly calm exterior.
Roy sighed.
"Ten minutes? Fine, but you owe me a drink later."
"Cheers Roy!" Sam proceeded to drag Hayner away. And it was at this point that Seifer snapped.
"Goddammit, let him go!" Seifer leapt forwards and punched Sam in the jaw. The force of metal and plastic hitting him in the face made Sam's eyes roll back into his head and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
Seifer quickly pressed his mouth to Hayner's, pretty sure that this would probably be their last kiss, given his fatal mistake.
"Emergency, emergency!" Roy shouted into his contactor. "Sector twelve, rogue droids!"
"Shit!" Hayner swore loudly and Seifer ran to knock out the unfortunate guard.
"Seifer, Hayner, what's going on over there?" Axel demanded from Seifer's linker, located just behind his ear. He raised his palm to his face and spoke into the microphone beneath the 'skin' there.
"They know we're here."
"Dammit, Seifer, what did you do?" Hayner grabbed Seifer's hand and spoke into the receiver.
"He stopped a guy from taking me." Axel stayed silent before saying,
"Well hurry up, grab the next two crates and get on here. Use the conveyor belt."
Seifer glanced at Hayner and they both sprinted back to the storage unit, each lifting a box of Neutrolite and turning to leave.
When they reached the conveyor belt, Seifer heard orders being shouted and quickly shoved his crate onto the black strip that would take it up into the ship, grabbing Hayner's and turning to put it there too.
A shot filled the air and the box shattered in his hands, bars of Neutrolite tumbling onto the ground and rolling away in all directions as more electro shots zipped past them, narrowly missing them both.
"Shit, Hayner, get on there!" Seifer shouted, gathering as many of the Neutrolite bars as he could; they would need them to make it to the nearest non-colonial planet. Hayner instead dropped to the ground, helping him to pick up the fuel and throwing it onto the belt where it was taken up, into the ship.
The robots and men shooting at them were getting closer; it wouldn't be long before they could reach the ship. A bright blue flash caught Seifer's eye and he dropped the bars he was holding, barrelling into his lover to knock him out of the path of this unknown substance.
"Seifer, what-?" Whatever it was hit Seifer square in the back and he fell forwards, covering Hayner with his body as more shots were aimed at them. He felt his circuits beginning to close and shut down, his optical lines blurring as blue sparks danced along his skin.
He'd been hit with electro shots before, but this… This was something new, something different, and his system could not deal with it. His hands were losing their nerve endings already, his synthetic flesh numbing.
"When I say go…" he gritted out, the very words losing the sound of his voice and becoming tinny as they left the small, failing speakers within his mouth. "You are going to get on that shuttle and you are going to leave this godforsaken planet. Don't look back, don't hesitate. Got it?" There was no doubt; that was no longer his voice. Hayner nodded, his eyes wide and an anguished expression on his face. If he had had tear ducts, Seifer would have said that Hayner looked near to tears. But, as they were a useless function, they had not been installed even in the lover bots, and thus Hayner could not cry.
Seifer lowered his head a little to kiss Hayner once more, slowly, knowing that this time it would be the final one. Hayner reciprocated almost desperately, tangling his fingers in his lover's hair.
"Don't leave me." He said brokenly, dry sobs beginning to make his chest tremble. "Seifer, there's no point in living without you here." Seifer shook his head.
"Live for me, Hay. Tell Axel to keep it in his pants, and Roxas to smile once in a while cos it's irritating with him being all emo the whole time. Oh yeah, tell Vincent he's awesome. And Hayner… I love you. No matter what shit they spew about us not having emotions… I do love you. Ok?" Hayner nodded,
"I… I love you t-" Seifer cut him off with another desperate kiss.
"I know. Now when I say, you are getting out of here and finding a new planet, without guys like these, got it?" Hayner looked like he was about to shake his head so Seifer simply kissed him once more and said, "Now." Leaping to his feet with the last of his strength, he clambered clumsily over the conveyor belt and charged towards the oncoming humans, hearing Hayner's anguished cry as he fell to his knees.
"Get going Chickenwuss!" he shouted over his shoulder, blue sparks making his limbs twitch spasmodically. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hayner disappear into the dark tunnel of the belt up into the shuttle and sighed with relief. At least he was unharmed. For a brief moment, he heard echoes of the famous line in the ancient moving picture, 'Blade Runner': 'I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.'
As he collapsed face-forwards onto the ground, his tinny, fading voice mumbled five words wasted on those there to hear them.
"Like tears in rain… Hayner..."