You've not been to work in two days. After all the excitement of Monday, everything has ground to a sudden halt. It was only mid-afternoon when everyone went their separate ways, Ricky offering to pick you all up again on Wednesday. In a way, it was disappointing, because everyone was so ready for life to resume as normal.
Normal, you think. Nothing's been "normal" for five years.
But with no trace of Trusty Dusty when you excitedly went to collect your uniforms - or, in fact, even any sign of his store - how were you to do this? It was awkward, to say the least. Everyone just sort of stood around for a while, kicking stones across an empty parking lot and looking disheveled. The Commander, who had been so giddy he was literally jumping up and down as the five of you headed down the street, quickly resumed the strange, silent melancholy you had seen from him in the morning, before you met Eaglebones. Everyone did, in fact, even though Eaglebones had been quite chipper in the first place. Ricky had tried to keep spirits up, still trying to remain his keen, childlike self, but there was something about his new-found maturity that dragged him back down with the rest of you. You didn't like that, to be honest. You liked Ricky the way he was, and to see him come back from behind a visage of business suits and sunglasses was a breath of fresh air. In a way, though, you feel like everyone probably thinks that about you, too - and it makes you feel guilty for being so quick to judge your bandmate. Lying on your couch, looking up at the ceiling as the TV blares from across the room, you're practically picking apart your own thoughts.
Bandmate. We've not been bandmates for a long time.
You're shocked that you'd go so far as to use that word after everything, but the more you think about it, the more you realize the band never truly broke up, and a smile starts to find it's way onto your face. Sure, a lot has happened, and you've not spoken, and Crash is no longer with you, but something just isn't dampening the thought of being back up on stage - being back on the Battletram. Hell, even having everyone make fun of you. They don't feel like memories from half a decade ago, they feel like they could've happened yesterday.
But all that happened yesterday was that work left a worried call on your answerphone, and you wandered around the house, using items of the practical Ikea showroom you live in that you'd not even taken out of the box before. You don't think the TV had been on in months, and you'd certainly never used the stove. Hanging around all day in your pyjamas, you'd removed your instruments from their dusty cases and vowed that you weren't going outside all day. In fact, you still haven't - preferring to laze around and practice, even though it's totally unnecessary. Waiting. That's all it is, just waiting until the next time you can see them again. Not even Ricky on his own, or Bones, or the Commander; just all of them together in one group, encouraging each other's stupidity and giddiness. Being there for each other, in the most simplistic sense. To be in a room in which you can look around and see all of their faces just makes something feel right. You try and tell yourself it's because you were programmed initially this way, but you know for a fact that it's because you're so attached to them. No amount of programming caused it, either, you were just settled into a home - even if it was on wheels - with a family, same as any human would want. All you want is the same as any human would want overall, and the thought makes you sit and run it by yourself a few times.
Perhaps I've gotten more human, you think.
You don't know if it's true. You'd like to think it is, but in a way, you wouldn't as well - you've always been like this, only now you're just realizing it more. Yes, that seems to be what it actually is: being apart from the rest of the band has given you more time to realize a lot about yourself, and embrace it properly. Even though you can act very robotic at times, you're somewhat human underneath all that; the reverse of what everyone else seems to think.
Still, the waiting is killing you, and you don't know if it's the human part of your programming or the robotic part that's making you get so angry over Ricky being late. When he'd suggested that he'd pick you up early in the morning, both you and the Commander had looked very enthusiastic. And then he clarified that he meant around 10am, and neither of you could hold in your laughter, slapping each other on the back and ganging up on him in the knowledge that you knew what a true early start was. He looked embarrassed, but stood his ground, so now you have to wait until ridiculously late until you can see them again, and you're placing the blame for that solely on him. It's unfair, no doubt about it, but you didn't like anyone standing between you and the 'Bats back then and you don't now… Even if it is one of the 'Bats themselves that's making everything difficult. You roll over onto your side on the couch, staring at the television screen babbling to itself. Just the news, which seems to be the only thing you will watch whenever you're in the presence of the TV. Sighing out loud, you wonder why you do it when you could just as easily get information from Wi-Fi networks and RSS feeds inside your head. Something about having the people on the screen talking to you instead of just text feels nice, though. It's almost sweet, the way each news channel you see in a different place talks about the same subject from an entirely different angle - it makes you remember just how different people are. Inevitably, your brain switches back to thinking of the band again. As always. There never seemed to be an opinion about anything that matched up there, and it always made you laugh. In fact, before you'd spent so long with them, you were completely neutral to pretty much every topic. Nowadays you actually feel strongly about subjects they've influenced you on, even if all of those topics are completely ridiculous. You even saved all of the gems of dubious "information" that you attained from Crash over the years. Well, you saved that information from everyone, but when he died, you went so far in your anguish as to delete some memories from your own files. Some things just seemed too painful after that. They still do, but it was far worse before. Still, the information you've saved doesn't make you unhappy, but rather makes you laugh and remember all the good times you had together. You have so much video saved of the pair of you, and of everyone else, and sometimes before you go to bed at night you lie there reliving old memories, giggling out loud as you watch Crash completely misinterpret a situation, or the Commander make an idiot out of himself. You imagine that's what dreams would be like, if you could have them - they're your replacement. But you know, deep down, that if you could actually dream, you'd be plagued by nightmares of everything that's happened, and have a fear of the future so great you can feel anxiety welling up in your chest just imagining it. Curling up more in place, you do your best to force those thoughts to the back of your brain, considering running system calibrations and writing some code just to take your mind off it. You try and focus on the news instead, actually listening to what they're saying now. And that's when you see it, and you sit bolt upright in shock, trying to truly comprehend what the report is showing.
It's the Battletram. The honest-to-god Battletram, looking just as good as she did the day you first laid eyes on her. The newscasters are chatting idly about it on one of those "final note" reports that they do to try and lift everyone's spirits.
Well, it's worked here, you think, having to restrain yourself and resist screaming in excitement at the top of your voice.
And then you hear the beeping and hollering from outside your living room window, and you do actually let out a small noise. Going to grab your instruments - and then remembering that they're not picking you up to get right aboard and go back to living life how you'd intended straight away, you dart back and forth in the room before settling on throwing the front door open with a huge grin, and laughing loudly.
"We've been beepin' for like, 15 minutes!" cries the Commander, stood in the doorway. "We thought you wanted to come get your costume, clownbag!"
He's abusing you, inevitably, and he looks pretty annoyed, but you don't even care. They're already in their rashguards - bright blue uniforms and flushed red faces, silver helmets and shiny white grins. Everything is suddenly right with the world, to the point where all of your programming seems to have just dissolved into nothing but warmth and laughter. Charging forward, you kick the door shut behind you as you dash over there faster than the rest of the band probably thought possible, grabbing the Commander and hugging him tightly.
"Hey, Jimmy?" he asks, after a minute of making noises that sound somewhat pained. "Stop bein' a weirdo. Your big metal robo-arms are hurtin' me."
Now the others are smirking and starting to chuckle as well, and you see out of the corner of your eye, over the Commander's shoulder as you pull away, that Eagleclaw is actually aboard, too. He looks as if he's trying to fold his arms over his chest, but it's all very awkward and nervous because of his hands clearly trying not to cut open his shirt. You turn to Eaglebones as he comes closer to the doorway, and question him as best you can.
"Hey," you whisper. "How'd you even manage to get a uniform on him, anyway?"
The Commander snorts with laughter, practically yanking you aboard the Tram, and Eaglebones rolls his eyes.
"We, uh, had to put mittens on his hands," he admits, not sure whether he's looking embarrassed or finding it hilarious. You don't have to make a decision at all, sniggering just as much as MCBC did and setting the other two off, too. Eagleclaw remains in the corner, rolling his eyes at you and presumably overhearing what you'd said.
"Can we go?" asks Ricky, practically whining. The child in him has definitely been allowed to run free once again, you only have to take one look at him to see that. "I've not actually taken this thing outta the garage since I got her all fixed up, I don't know how well she's gonna do!"
It raises further questions as to what Ricky's been doing for five years, but you can piece it together in a way that makes you smile all the same. The assumption that Ricky bought her back from the junkyard and had her all repaired when he had enough money is one that makes you realize they never truly "quit", either.
"Well, there's one way to test that out," cries the Commander, a huge grin appearing on his face. "Jimmy? I call shotgun!"
You're already laughing again by the time they've forced you to get changed before you can take the driver's seat. Everything's exactly as you remembered it when you remove the surplus uniform from your locker, and when they give you a moment of privacy, you look around the lab. It's not only exactly how you left it all those years ago, it's not even dusty. Ricky's kept her in such good condition, taken such care with the Tram and with everything inside it that it makes you choke up. But you decide that properly fawning over her can wait until later, because the initial re-acquainting has to be done first.
When you sit down in the driver's seat, you notice it's new, not the same worn one that you once had. In a way it's pleasant, but it bothers you, too. You can understand the logic behind reinstalling things like that, but you wish everything was literally how it had been left.
Oh well, you wonder. Hopefully we'll break them all in again.
Looking over at your "co-pilot" - who has never really helped with piloting much, ever - you realize that the mustache is finally back, and for some reason, it makes you irrationally happy. Almost as much as when you start up the thrusters, kicking the Battletram forward and sending the five of you rocketing off.