He hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep until he was startled awake. The cold metal floor wasn't the ideal place to sleep, but the machine seemed to draw its power from his energy, and so he'd had little choice. He sat, his shoulder a little sore from the hard floor he'd slept on, and yawned. His stomach rumbled angrily, although he knew he wouldn't be eating anytime soon. Hopefully he would live long enough to have dinner with the family again.

He missed that.

The machine that held him looked down at him, providing a little light from its cold metal eyes, and offered a small creak as a greeting. It hadn't slept - it couldn't - so it had just watched the little living thing rest. It wondered many things about him, but it knew that since he was not mechanical he couldn't understand it. It could speak only in the machine's tongue, but since it had been left to rot for so long it could hardly manage even that. Instead, it just watched.

The boy glanced up at the machine, his eyes dull and listless, and then he just sighed. It didn't like seeing him like this, but there was little that it could say to him since he didn't understand how it spoke. But there was something else, it remembered. It searched in its steel mind for the right thing to express - it wanted to cheer him up, and it thought that if it wasn't too rusted it might be able to manage that. It kept its eyes down on him, and tried to speak, although the sounds it made were far from understandable.

It almost seemed to the boy as if - no, it couldn't. Could it? Its pitch was dull and rusted over, but there was in the metal sound lyrical notes, hardly there. He could barely make them out through the corroded screeches, but the tune seemed almost familiar to him, as if he might have heard it before.

He looked up at the machine, his eyes huge and innocent, and asked, "What is that? I've heard it before."

The machine brightened. It wished it could tell him where it had gotten its voice, and for a moment it tried, but all that came out were the same mechanized grinds that it had offered before, and it knew that the boy wouldn't understand.

The boy just sighed. "I wish you could talk to me. I want to know what kind of stories you'd tell."

The machine agreed, although its own sigh sounded like the wheeze of a rusted spring, its burden slowly relieved. Something inside of it clicked a few times.

"Could you ever talk?" asked the boy, "Before you came here, I mean."

The automaton shook its head, making chips of corroded metal flake away from its neck and settle on the floor. It had never been able to talk, although the sounds that it made used to be more enthusiastic. Now, it knew, it was just a relic. It didn't stand a chance of leaving this place. Its old master would never come for it. Its old master was probably long gone by now, having forgotten all about it.

Dejected, it sighed.

The boy hopped up onto his feet, holding the bars of his cage in both hands. "Don't worry," he said with a hopeful grin, "We'll find a way out of here. We can take you back home and fix you up. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

The machine gave a single grind, indifferent. It didn't matter if it was here or there, strong or weak, old or new. It knew that it would rust here. There was no way it could escape its new master and, besides that, its old master had left it behind. It missed its master - its true master - but it knew that it would never see anything other than this dank place again. It had been left here, inactive, for years until this little living thing had given it its energy source. It didn't like seeing him so tired, but since its new master had its key it couldn't possibly let him out.

The boy only watched it for a moment, but then frowned. "How come you've never tried to get out of here? That other robot doesn't treat you very well, does he?"

The machine shook its head. Its new master, Six-Bolt, had been mean to it since he had found it here a few weeks ago. If it could escape, it would, but Six-Bolt was in much better condition than the old machine, and it knew he would catch it and hurt it. He had done so once before, when he had found it here. It had asked him if he knew its old master, and he had struck it with a harsh fire, and had told it not to speak to him again. It didn't like him; it didn't like the intense blaze in his engine, or his piercing yellow headlights, or the way he spoke, and moved, like a rough hulking menace looking for a fight. It hadn't wanted to fight him. Instead it had stayed here, afraid to leave, hoping that one day its master would come for it.

This little living thing had come instead. It was glad that he wasn't afraid of it anymore - he had been at first, he'd admitted - and it thought that if it could stay here it might be friends with him. It wanted to keep him, although it didn't know why he had come, and if bad master Six-Bolt ever went away it thought it might want him to be its new master. It looked down at the little living thing in its cage, wishing it could tell him where it had come from but unable to make him understand anything it said. Instead it only watched him, silent.

The boy stared back at it, his eyes huge and curious. "You're a prisoner here too, aren't you? You want to get out of here..."

The machine gave a tiny nod, its joints protesting with a harsh screech, and then seemed to settle a little in its place, keeping its eyes solidly on the boy inside of it.

The boy sat, cross-legged, both hands still around the bars of his cage, and sighed. "I wish I could get you out of here. It's just that you're so big, and I didn't bring any of my tools with me. Sorry about that, I guess. I wonder when that other robot will let me go. Maybe I'll ask him if he'd let you go too. But for now we can both be friends, right?"

The machine brought up one of its wiry hands into its cage, curling its two spindly fingers around the boy in what it hoped he would accept as a hug. With a reassuring grind, it settled down to rest for a while.