touchedgod
in
damned
DAY 59: CAFETERIA
Billy surfaced into wakefulness. Sleep receded like an inky tide, and it didn't say anything to him before it was gone. His dreams had been nothing but the sensation of water, rocking him restlessly in his bottle. There seemed to be an ocean beyond his confines, but he couldn't see it and couldn't reach it. He pawed at the glass, but any progress
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Urgh. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. If he'd had his own way he'd have been out all nice, one aural receiver trained to his radio and the other to the intercom for any news about their mission- the men he and the Scarecrow had left behind hadn't exactly given the game away. He wasn't even letting Harrington's voice catch him out- for all he knew, that was a pre-recording designed to screw with his head or keep things quiet. There was just no way of telling anymore ( ... )
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Finally he forced his chin up off of his hands. S.T. wasn't exactly the worst thing that could have happened to him this morning. Truthfully, he was kind of grateful to see him; they hadn't spoken since the coliseum. "Something is worth something here?" he answered flatly, raising an eyebrow. "I'll believe that when I see it ( ... )
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Might have been too much before his nonexistent first cup of coffee or motor oil or whatever. D.C.'s brain might be all-natural organic neurons, but he could still see it overload and then short out. Maybe it was easier to believe when it had happened to you. S.T. couldn't remember if D.C. had said anything about being part of that bad trip of a night.
"Do robots even die? Can't you just, like, download yourself into a shiny new chassis with twice the memory every few years?" Obviously not, or he wouldn't be freaking out over Indiana's resurrection, but that didn't explain why.
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"I wish," he retorted, rubbing his forehead gently as he sat back upright again, leaning into the back of his chair. He'd complained about being human, but- frag, when you got down to it, you were mortal either way. And he'd seen far more dead Cybertronians than he had Earthlings. "Us 'bots, we can take a beating- I've lost my head a couple of times- but if your spark fails on you?" He snapped his fingers. "GoneThat didn't, of course, explain miracles like Waspinator- or how the Pit someone could bring back Jones and Forte. "Old teammate of mine supposedly worked out some metaphysical resurrection or something to bring sparks back, but me? I just don't know anymore. I shouldn't even ( ... )
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"Whatever. Don't think about it too hard. It's either take it or go crazy, and then they're halfway to winning." Or at least Landel's bunch had always seemed like that was the surface goal. This crowd didn't give a shit whether or not anyone was "cured".
"We're all from different times. Maybe he's from five seconds before his lungs caved in." It didn't really make sense, but he was grasping at straws. Organic chemistry to guys who'd failed 8th grade? Sure. Metaphysics? Fuck no. He was just a scientist. S.T. left the big questions to people crazier than him.
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That caveat in place- well, couldn't fault his honesty, at least- he put on a pained look, as though he'd actually dared to swallow a mouthful of pink porridge. "Hey, if this is the afterlife, I want my money back. If I'd known it was gonna be like this I might not've tried to be such a nice guy." A beat. "Relatively nice."
S.T. was right about just forgetting it, though- he wouldn't need the Institute's help to trash his processor if he thought about it too hard. "Whatever. I'm just glad he's back." Which felt like an odd thing to say, truthfully; he didn't exactly know the guy that well, and it wasn't as though he'd ever had a respectful streak in him when it came to authority. But it was true. Talk about your fire-forged allies.
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He snorted at D.C.'s self-evaluation. Took one to know one. D.C. was just as much of a pushover when it came down to the right cause and the right time.
"Like you said, it doesn't matter. He's back, and it looks like he'll heal up O.K." A wheelchair and several pounds of cotton bandages looked bad, but the medical care here was the only thing it had left going for it. No bedside manner, but miracles to spare.
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And boy wasn't that the story of his short stay on Earth. Like he seriously cared about what Primal was trying to achieve there; he was just there to pick up the pace on timely rescues when it all went to the scrapyard.
He glanced back over to Jones again, expression turning a tad wistful. "Gotta wonder what's next, though. Did any of that even have a point?"
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"I say we go for it." Indy wouldn't be up for anything for a few days, and he wasn't sure if Peter had taken any non-psychological damage, but his knee was mostly stable and the rest of them looked O.K. At least they could scout out the inevitable branching hallway structure.
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He nodded firmly. "Right. S'gonna take us a while to regroup-" slag, it was strange using 'we' and 'us' so regularly, "- but maybe this one'll actually give us some answers. And not kill us. Not killing us would be gear." Which, really, was kind of a priority- they didn't have any guarantee that they wouldn't stay dead for good if it suited Aguilar or Landel or whoever was in charge by the time they arrived.
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