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Hour 5
Tina may have been across the living room from where Chris was on the phone with Hank, but she could still clearly hear every word that the Lieutenant was hollering through the speaker. Chris was holding the phone arm’s length from his ear, his expression flat as Hank railed.
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN A ‘DENT’?!”
If Hank had any inclination that this was a private conversation, then he had clearly overestimated the size of Tina’s apartment and underestimated the number of people crammed into it. Currently, the head count was seven…She owned like three chairs and a couch, and, being the primary invalid of the day, she had been forced to lie on the couch after they got back from the hospital.
Aside from Chris, Robert had taken one of the chairs, Connor was sitting on the floor in front of the couch with Wilson beside him, Person was leaning against the wall by the window, and Gavin was rattling around in her kitchen doing God only knew what. Connor shuddered visibly for the third time in half an hour, and Tina reached out, ruffling his hair. Two of her fingers accidentally dipped into the unsettling and very noticeable “dent” in question, just at the edge of Connor’s hairline at his temple that didn’t have the LED.
“Sorry.” She yanked her touch away from the area.
Connor finished his shudder and looked back at her with a weak smile. “It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt.”
“AND TINA GOT SHOT?!” Hank was going on.
“I was not shot!” Tina tried to yell back, but her abdomen and shoulder pulled where the two wounds had only recently been stitched up, and she grimaced. “I just got stabbed a little. Don’t be dramatic.”
“Heads up.” Gavin had reappeared and mocked tossing the blue ice pack at her from over the back of the couch.
Tina instinctively lifted her hands to catch it, winced, and let her hands fall back when he didn’t, in fact, throw at her. “Fuck you, dick.”
He snorted and handed the bag to her, looking over where Chris was still attempting to calm down the Lieutenant, who was currently out of town and had missed the whole ordeal of the day.
“That sounds like that’s going well,” he snickered.
Tina eased the ice bag under her shirt and over the bandaging on her stomach where the deeper wound was, hissing a bit at the cold.
Chris was rubbing his eyes with his free hand. “Lieutenant, that isn’t necessary…Please. We are all here, and we are going to keep an eye on him until…yes, five hours he said…No, um, hold on, Connor? Buddy? How much time between these…episodes?
Connor lifted his head and looked to Chris. “They’re sporadic, but approximately eighteen minutes.”
Chris grimaced and spoke into the phone. “You hear that?...Of course not, sir…Sir…SIR—“ He heaved a sigh and stepped over to the couch, holding out the phone. “He wants to talk to you himself.”
Connor nodded and started to get up from his seat on the floor. Wilson got an arm at his elbow, letting him lean on him as he climbed to his feet. He took the phone and gave Chris a look to assure that he was steady, before holding the phone a few inches from his ear.
“Hank, I’m all right…Yes, it is as Officer Miller said…Yes, we have—“ He started to walk toward the hall in search of a more private conversation.
He was still walking a little crooked, and it reminded Tina of shopping carts that always pulled to the right or left. He didn’t seem to be completely aware of the lean either, as he shoulder-checked her wall as he stumbled into the kitchen, away from their ears.
“He’s really not looking good,” Robert admitted once he was out of the room. “I think he should have gone to one of those android hospitals to get checked out.”
“He said he didn’t need to,” Wilson stated. “And his self healing…program…thing should take care of everything. His words, not mine.”
“Dude has a DENT in his HEAD.” Robert pointed at his own temple for emphasis.
“You see the way he was walking?” Person added.
Chris lifted his hands. “I’m trusting him on this. If he says the program will complete all the repairs in five hours, then we just keep an eye on him for five hours. If things are still…after then…then we’ll deal with it.”
“And he’s going glitch like that every eighteen minutes?” Tina shifted uncomfortably.
Chris rubbed the back of his neck. “Best that I could understand, the blow to the head messed with the…connections that help process...sensation. Sounds like his pain receptors are all out of whack, so the healing program is having to recalibrate them individually by…lighting them all up in phases.”
“Yikes,” Person breathed.
“We should order a pizza,” Gavin commented with his arms folded.
They all swiveled their heads to look at him, and he lifted his shoulders.
“What?”
“Dude, we got two fellow officers down. Can you be not a complete ass for, like, five minutes?” Wilson stated.
Whatever Gavin’s smart remark was going to be was cut off by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor in the kitchen.
“Shit—“ Chris bolted through the door to the kitchen. “Connor!”
Tina craned her neck, but her injuries prevented her from moving too much. “Is he okay?”
Connor’s muffled voice responded, “I fell.”
Gavin rolled his eyes, and Tina reached up and pinched his arm hard enough to make him curse.
“Don’t be a shit,” she hissed. “Seriously, just this one time. He saved my life today.”
Gavin gave a melodramatic groan, throwing his head back before looking down at her. “Fine, but I’m ordering a pizza.” He pointed at the others in the room. “Pizza? Pizza?”
Robert, Wilson, and Person all stared at him. Each slowly raised their hands, including Tina.
Hour 4
Four boxes of pizza and a bottle of thirium later, somebody had had the brilliant idea to pass the time by busting out one of Tina’s old Dungeons and Dragons books. Person had almost immediately named herself Dungeon Master and, in an impressively short amount of time, had thrown together a fairly elaborate game.
Neither Connor nor Wilson had ever played before, so they partnered respectively with Tina and Chris. Tina had dubbed her and Connor as “Team Ouch Couch,” since she was stuck on said couch, and Connor was leaning on it more than he wasn't as the episodes occurred. They were faring pretty well, relatively speaking…considering that Chris and Wilson couldn’t agree on anything and Robert was ridiculously good at this game. Gavin just kept tossing out wilder and wilder moves, with varying success.
The die finished rolling, and Person placidly looked up from the board.
“You have successfully serenaded the troll, Gavin.”
Gavin did a fist pump, and everybody else groaned.
“The troll agrees to show you where her father hid the secret key,” Person went on. “As you follow her deeper into the woods, the ground becomes lumpy and you can start to see half buried treasures poking up out of the dirt. It’s as though centuries of people have been hiding their treasures here, and the earth is rejecting the spoils of mankind’s wars. The hills are leaking gold, rubies, and emeralds. It is expressly forbidden to take any of the treasures from this forest, but just a handful of any of it would buy enough to feed your entire village for a year. Ouch Couch, what do you do?”
Tina stroked her chin, propped up against the couch’s armrest with a pillow. Connor was standing behind the couch, forearms leaned across the back of it. The latest recalibration had sent the sensation of pins and needles all up and down his legs, and he’d said it felt better to stand and move around. So he’d mostly been pacing since it ended over ten minutes ago.
“I mean…these people buried their treasure here, then just fucked off and died probably,” she suggested. “The trolls aren’t using it.”
“The mission is to acquire the key,” Connor stated, and his eyes were zigzagging in that way they did when he was preconstructing. “Stealing could also break our new trust with this lady troll.”
“OUR trust?” Gavin balked. “I’ve been doing all the heavy lifting there, pal.”
Connor ignored him. “The best course of action should be one that results in—“
His jaw abruptly locked, and he choked on his voice as the next recalibration cycle started.
“Okay.” Chris, being the closest, stepped in. “Here we go. Where is it this time?”
Connor couldn’t appear to articulate it, screwing his eyes shut and bowing his head down to his forearms with a guttural moan. He teetered, and Tina could feel his knees buckling against the back of the couch. He started to go down, and Chris grabbed onto him. The way Connor was curling, Tina would guess it was something in his torso this round.
Wilson got on his other side, and he and Chris supported him around the furniture and down onto the other end of the couch. Tina pulled back her legs to give them room, pushing away the ache in her own body to do so. Connor couldn’t sit fully upright, instead doubling completely over with his head between his knees, breathing in sharp, uneven pulls.
“You feel hot,” Chris stated, keeping a hand between his shoulders. “What’s your core temperature at right now?”
“Hun…dddddred.”
“Just a hundred? Even?”
He got a jerking nod in reply.
“Okay, that’s not too bad, right? We need to be worried?”
A jerking shake of the head and a terse, staticked: “No…Will pass.”
“If you say so.” Chris exchanged a concerned look with the others.
Nobody said anything else. The more of these they endured with Connor, the more they were able to read how self conscious all of the attention made him.
“So…” Tina snapped her fingers a bit to get Person’s attention. “We don’t try to steal any of the treasure. The mission is to get the key…and maybe get Gavin married to this troll.”
Gavin barked out a laugh, somewhat popping the tense bubble in the room.
They got through Robert’s turn, and Wilson was halfway through his long winded explanation of what his and Chris’s move was going to be when the recalibration cycle seemed to finally taper off. Wilson had unilaterally taken over for his and Chris’s team up since Chris was focused on keeping Connor from collapsing onto the floor.
Connor gingerly uncurled and started to sit up, wheezing a bit as whatever agony began to pass. Chris kept a hand around his shoulder just in case.
“I’m all right.” Connor was finally able to speak clearly again. “I’m sorry.”
Their by-now-routine chorus of “It’s okay/You don’t have to apologize/You’re all right/About time/Shut up, Gavin,” echoed around the room. Just as smoothly, Person swiveled on her perch and looked at Wilson.
“So you were saying…about using heat seeking missiles…”
“What?!” Chris stood up straight. “How the fuck—
Hour 3.5
Well, that had escalated quickly.
“I rip my ax out of the ogre king’s skull.” Gavin was on his feet, dramatically miming an ax in his hands. “I’m covered in his blood and holding my ax high. It’s sexy as Hell. I turn to my troll wife Hilda and the rest of my men and say: today the war ends. The ogre king is dead, and by dawn’s break, the rest of his ilk will follow him into whatever afterlife they believe in!”
“God DAMN.” Robert slapped one hand against his knee.
“Can he do that?” Wilson asked, looking at Person.
Person rolled the die with a deadpan expression. “He just did.”
“Hah! Fuck with me!” Gavin spread his arms and bellowed.
Tina kept a hand to her mouth, stifling a laugh. This was not how the rules went at ALL, but watching Gavin absolutely lose his shit with the game was too funny to correct. On the other end of the couch, Connor was looking amused and more stable than he had since the last episode, when his left shoulder had locked up nearly to his ear in what he posited was similar to a human ‘charley horse.’ Now he had three massive ice packs wrapped tightly around that shoulder, making him look lopsided.
“Ouch Couch?” Person turned to them for their input on their turn.
Tina didn’t trust herself to speak, so she gestured for Connor to take over. He looked mildly alarmed, having mostly let Tina run their turns since he was out of commission for most of the game.
“Um…We, uh, we followed Gav—“
“Hey!”
“—Um…We followed Titan the Ogre Slayer this entire campaign, and now that he has lived up to his self given title, we will…continue to follow him. For the liberation of the kingdom and to avenge the deaths of our allies.”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Gavin, shut UP.”
Hour 3
“I dunno, man, this seems weird,” Robert confessed.
Connor, lying on his stomach on the floor in the throes of another attack, just pushed his forehead against the floor, seeking the comfort of the solid surface. “It’s not. I promise…ugh…”
It was such a human sound of pain that Robert, whom Connor had instructed to sit directly on his spine with his full weight, reached out and ruffled his hair to try and give some comfort.
Robert gave a puzzled look to Tina, who just lifted her phone and snapped a picture of the scene.
By the kitchen, Gavin was munching loudly on a bag of chips. “It IS weird.”
“Gavin, stop eating all of my food!” Tina threw her melted ice bag at him.
It hit the wall two feet from his head with a splat and dropped to the floor. He watched it passively and continued eating.
“Is it the pressure?” Wilson tried to offer words that Connor couldn’t form.
They got an affirmative-sounding groan.
“You need more pressure?” Wilson offered again.
Another affirmative groan.
“I gotcha.” Person stood from her seat, stretched, and folded herself down to sit next to Robert.
While Robert was sitting mostly over Connor’s tailbone and the small of his back, Person wedged herself directly over his shoulder blades. She tipped back and lifted her feet off the floor, ensuring that her entire body weight was pushing down against whatever force inside Connor’s chest was hurting him so much.
Both officers bodily rose and fell as Connor took a deep breath and then exhaled. Their eyes widened with the motion, and Tina laughed at their expressions.
“Whose turn is it?” Connor mumbled against the floor.
“Oh hon,” Tina chuckled, “we quit playing like twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh…Did we win?”
“Gavin married a troll woman, and Robert got knighted. I don’t…know if there was a winner.”
Hour 2
It was an impressive amount of vomiting, according to Person.
Tina decided to take her word for it, idly flipping through her Dungeons and Dragons book while the sound of android vomiting reverberated down the hall from the bathroom. Gavin had volunteered to go get more thirium, but Tina suspected he just wanted to get away from the situation. They were all starting to wear a little thin, especially since Chris had had to go home to help his wife with their son.
“I think it’s over,” Person announced from the bathroom. More gagging sounded. “No, wait, just kidding.”
Robert came back down the hall, still wearing a little blue on his sleeve where he hadn’t quite gotten Connor to the bathroom fast enough. He looked a little sick himself.
“Don’t you go down too, big guy,” Tina chirped, setting her book aside and gingerly starting to push herself up. Wilson offered a hand, but she waved him off with a grateful look.
“Nah, it’s just—“ Robert looked squeamish. “The dent popped out.”
“It…WHAT?” Tina sat up a little faster, feeling her stitches pull but too unsettled by that string of words to process it.
“I think he threw up so hard it just…buffed itself out. Was fuckin’ weird, man, but it looks normal now.” He rubbed at his own temple. “Androids, man. They’re fuckin’ wild.”
Hour 1
“Yes…No…No…Yes…No…” Connor was back to leaning against the couch, eyes squinted shut as he checked in with Hank on the phone. “I will…Yes…Of course not…Right…No…”
Once Gavin had returned, Wilson had decided it was time to go home himself. Connor’s episodes were spacing further apart and becoming less intense. Connor himself said he thought he’d turned the corner on the recalibration cycle. It sounded like most of the major systems had rebooted successfully. Well, there had been a lot of rapid jargon in his explanation, but that’s what Tina had gleaned from it.
It was closing in on ten o’clock at night, and especially after the day’s events, they were all feeling the hour.
Tina could hear Connor trying to wrap up the conversation with Hank, and it sounded like the desperate ending to every conversation she’d had with her dad ever. She remained successfully sitting up on the couch, though her stomach and shoulder were still bitching at her for it. Person had offered to help her change into her pajamas before she left.
Connor was starting to bend far to one side, back, and then bend to the other side in half-squats, like somebody trying to stretch their leg muscles. This episode hadn’t rendered him mute and useless at least. He seemed to be riding it out pretty well. Robert kept a hawk-like eye on him anyway, just in case.
“Yes…Hank, I—HANK, I GET IT,” Connor’s voice sharpened uncharacteristically.
Tina looked around at him, but he was already deflating with guilt, pushing his thumb between his shut eyes.
“I’m sorry, Hank…It’s been a long day and—Yes, they’ve been wonderful…It just…hurts.” His thumb deftly moved to sweep under one eye and then the other, hoping nobody else would notice.
Oh, Tina noticed, and it was hella uncomfortable to see Connor starting to break down like this. Nearly five hours and on-off waves of pain would break anybody. It was just weird seeing an android do it. With his eyes shut and deep in conversation with Hank, it seemed like Connor had forgotten that he had kind of an audience to this.
“Person, hey, I think I’m ready to get into some comfier clothes,” Tina decided. That would at least take two of them out of the room and give him some space to breathe maybe.
“Okay.” Person nodded, catching her drift.
Robert slowly stood from his seat, pointing a thumb at the door. “I called a taxi a few minutes ago, and I just got a message that it’s here. I can wait, but I figured it was looking like it was mostly over. Think having all these people around might be getting to him.”
“Sure, thanks, Robert,” Tina said, letting Person steady her as she got to her feet.
Robert came over and gave her a gentle hug. “You rest easy, you got it?”
“Yeah, I will. Now scram.”
Robert snorted and managed to make eye contact with Connor. He gave him a little wave, and Connor returned it meekly, still trapped on the phone.
“Did Gavin leave?” Person looked around.
“No, he’s a wuss and fell asleep in the spare bedroom down the hall,” Tina shrugged her good shoulder. “He was probably gonna end up staying here tonight anyway to help me, and I guess I’m keeping Terminator here too tonight.” She nodded toward Connor.
Person snorted and assisted Tina to her bedroom and into her pajamas.
“You had a whole apartment full of people who want to help you, and you’re going with Reed,” Person said, sounding disappointed in Tina’s judgment.
Tina grimaced as she reclined into her bed, holding onto her abdomen as she got settled. “We have a pact to patch each other up. He owes me big time after he was laid up for a week from getting hit in the face with a hammer.”
“…He said he got in a fight with a red ice dealer,” Person stated.
“Well, he’s a lying bitch,” Tina cackled. “Unless he said that red ice dealer had a hammer. He actually has two fake teeth now because of that.”
“That’s disgusting…Did you take pictures?”
Hour 0
Person had gone home, and Gavin had reappeared once to secure the door and windows and check on Tina before he slunk back into her spare bedroom.
Tina laid in bed for all of fifteen minutes, just long enough to determine that he was probably asleep again in the other room, before her body just…itched to be up and about. It was ugly, but she managed to climb out of bed and make her way gingerly down the hall.
It looked like Person had wrangled Connor into lying on the couch before she left, because that’s where Tina found him. The living room was dark save for the green digital clock on the wall and the blue glow from the LED in Connor’s head. She quietly slipped into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She was pathetically limping and tiptoeing past the couch when Connor unexpectedly spoke.
“Are you all right, Tina?”
Whoa, first name. Dude MUST have been wrung out to drop formal titles.
Tina looked over the back of the couch and down at him. His eyes were at half mast, and even that looked like a struggle.
“Yeah. Not the first time I’ve been stabbed, probably won’t be the last.” She shrugged. “How about you? Are you done…recalibrating?”
“Yes, I—“ He blinked slowly before continuing. “I want to apologize for the incon…inconvenience, and I…appreciate all of your and the others’ help while I was incapacitated.”
“Dude.” Tina leaned slightly on the couch with her good arm. “That’s what we do. We take care of our own.”
Connor’s expression turned unreadable for a moment, then he managed a tired smile. “Thank you.”
“Yep.” Tina reached down and patted him lightly on the head. “Do your sleep mode thing, bud. See you in the morning.”
She gingerly made her way back to bed, and the exhaustion finally hit as her head landed on the pillow. Soreness was already setting into the muscles around the wounds. Getting up tomorrow was gonna SUCK. But Mr. Hammer Face and Terminator were here, and they both owed her now. She sighed and relaxed a bit at the idea of invoking that payback tomorrow.
Maybe she should get a bell to ring for service…