Realistic Chapter 13
Because I couldn't keep you waiting! :)
Title: Realistic - Chapter 13/14
Author: theartoffic
Type: LOTR RPS AU
Pairing: Orlando/Elijah
Rating: Adult
Summary: In the 21st century Artificial Intelligence is still in its infancy, some scientists toy with the idea of creating robots that look, and act, and think like human beings; in the future they are going to succeed. Realistics look real, feel real, and, at a glance, cannot be distinguished from the ones who made them. They are the result of hundreds of years of AI evolution, they are beautiful, perfect, and expensive, but to society at large they are not real. This is the story of one such Realistic.
A/N: Previous chapters can be found by the tag :)
Beta: the amazing lisabellex <3
The American Heritage Science Dictionary
artificial intelligence
The ability of a computer or other machine to perform actions thought to require intelligence. Among these actions are logical deduction and inference, creativity, the ability to make decisions based on past experience or insufficient or conflicting information, and the ability to understand spoken language.
.... or the ability to love.
Banner: the lovely aranel80
“Wake up, Elijah.”
The voice comes to him as if from a distance and Elijah’s first thought is 'this is wrong'. It is a familiar voice, gentle and coaxing, but still wrong, so many levels of wrong. He shouldn't be hearing it and, even if his plan didn't work, it shouldn’t be familiar.
“Come on, wakey-wakey, Elijah.”
Elijah. That is his name, and that is wrong too. He shouldn’t have a name. He should no longer exist.
“E-li-jah,” the voice singsongs. He has heard mothers trying to wake their sleeping children in this same gentle tone but he is no one's child.
Elijah’s memory banks spew forth an image and a name to go along with that cajoling timber: it is technician Dominic Monaghan, from the Company.
'Oh no', Elijah panics, 'please no'. His systems are coming back online slowly. It takes a full two minutes before he finally has use of his hands again and he wonders if that’s proper, or if it is a result of not having been shut down for over two hundred years.
It only takes a moment to do a quick scan and know that he is unchanged, untouched. The memories are still there, existing in his neatly ordered, secret files: Madeline and Thomas, Karl, David, Orlando… the feeling of loss surrounding that name slams into him so hard that he makes a noise like a little whimper deep in his throat.
“Elijah?”
That voice is concerned now, nervous-- at least, that is what it is registering as on his voice analysis software. Elijah feels Dom’s hands on his shoulder and he remains still as those hands reach up and tilt his face. He can hear Dom clear his throat nervously.
“Elijah, open your eyes.”
'Don’t want to', he thinks petulantly, but, finally, he does. Not just because it is a command but because of the plea that has seeped into Dom’s voice but, most of all, because he wants to know why.
Why is he still here?
For the briefest second he thinks, he hopes, that maybe they found Orlando alive and that everything will be all right after all. It is possible that a wish could come true no matter who, or what, wished it, isn’t it? he wonders.
Elijah blinks in surprise at the strange, diffuse light. He had expected the bright, crisp light of the lab and immediately feels disoriented by his surroundings. He takes in the seatbacks in front of him and the low, rounded ceiling, as he slowly tries to orient himself. Dom is sitting in a seat beside him, they are in a tube, like a plane, but the aisles are far too wide for that. He has seen pictures of interiors like this. It is a shuttle. He is on a space flight.
Elijah scowls at Dom. “What is this?”
Dom’s mouth opens but a pre-programmed meant-to-be-soothing, tinned voice pours through hidden speakers. “Attention guests," it says pleasantly, “we are about to enter Iaole’s atmosphere; turbulence is expected so, please, remain in your seats with your safety harnesses secured until the shuttle lands and the attendants instruct you to debark the shuttle. Thank you.”
Iaole? What is he doing traveling to Iaole? He stares at Dom expectantly.
“You know, I thought interstellar space travel would be cool but,” Dom shrugs, “it’s kind of boring, really. I mean there are no windows, and the in-flight movies sucked, not to mention, going into warp felt really, really strange. That’s why I left you off.”
Elijah continues to stare at Dom as he processes those completely useless bits of information. He tries to suppress his annoyance and the panic that Dom’s nattering stirs in him. It seems to him to be nervous chatter and nervous chatter always means something bad.
He tries again to get useful information out of Dom. “What is this? Why am I being taken to Iaole?” Elijah thinks that this must be part of the nightmare still. It could be that he is dreaming for the first time. It could happen, couldn’t it? He had found a way to make himself nearly real so why not nightmares? Elijah secretly pinches his own arm: he is awake.
“God,” Dom sighs happily. “ Iaole. Iaole! I never thought I’d get here. Not in a million years. Never thought I’d escape.”
It’s a queer sentiment and it prompts Elijah’s question, “Earth?”
Dom smiles sadly and nods. “Yeah, and the ghosts.”
"Ghosts," Elijah echoes.
“You know, the ghosts of dead relationships,” Dom explains. “Me an’ Bill. Escaping that is what made taking this deal a no-brainer. It’s my chance to start over.”
“How wonderful for you,” Elijah responds dryly. He is sick of starting over and they want him to do it again. Fuck. It isn’t fucking fair.
There’s a jarring dip and bump and Elijah watches blankly as Dom pales and scrabbles for the armrest. The little bit of turbulence doesn’t bother him; in fact, he’d be fine if this whole shuttle just disintegrated.
“You were supposed to erase me.”
Dom’s head turns slightly and he looks slightly surprised and annoyed, and a little sick if the truth be told. “Couldn’t,” is all the answer Elijah receives and he feels slighted and angered by it.
“Why not?”
“Orders.”
“What orders?”
The shuttle bounces again and Dom's fingers dig into the plush armrests. Elijah can see the fine sheen of sweat on Dom's brow and the white knuckles that clutch uselessly at faux leather armrests.
“You think that will save you if this shuttle goes down?” Elijah asks with a cold detachment, not unlike Dom when he requested the ring. Elijah takes a little pleasure in the way Dom’s eyes widen and he looks even more terrified.
“Jesus, Elijah, thanks,” Dom mutters. Elijah notes the nervous twitch just under his right eye.
“What orders, Dom?”
“Orders from your new owner,” Dom snaps. “And … I saw what you did to the program.”
“New owner?” Elijah stares at his hands folded neatly in his lap. 'This isn’t fair', he thinks. Not fair when he had been so close to putting this all behind him.
“Yeah, you have a new owner now."
"Why didn't you do it?" Elijah asks. "Why didn't you erase me? You're supposed to erase me."
"How do you know about that?" Dom wonders. "Why did you change the code? What you did would have destroyed you."
"That's what I wanted." Elijah notices heads turn, his voice is too loud.
“I almost didn't notice the changes, but I saw that someone had changed my screensaver. I wanted to know if who ever did that had fucked with anything else so I ran a log. The alteration was too much to be an accident.” Dom looks knowingly at Elijah. “I couldn't think of a reason why someone would change that program and then I looked at the time stamp. No one else would have had access at that hour except the night guys and they don't know code. What I want to know is why.”
The log. He never considered changing the log. He didn't think it would matter.
The shuttle drops again. “Can we- talk about this later, like once this thing lands on solid ground?" Dom begs.
Elijah ignores him. “It can’t be Company policy not to erase me. Why would someone want me with the memories of someone else?”
“It’s not.” Dom’s voice is conciliatory, albeit shaky. “And I … really don’t understand it either but it is not my place to ask questions. I just do what I’m paid to do. Now, answer my question, how do you even know about the erasure program?”
“Why?” Elijah is too enrobed in his own quest for answers to answer Dom's. Elijah gives into the tears that burn his eyes, there is some measure of relief in them. “I only wanted it to be over.”
“What the fuck, Elijah?” Dom breathes. Dom’s face is one big picture of disbelief and Elijah braces himself for the questioning to start but the shuttle does a little hop and skip and Dom’s mouth slams shut, the color leaving his face as he looks around in panic.
“Attention passengers,” the canned voice says cheerily, “We have landed on Iaole. Please disembark in an orderly fashion. Attendants will assist you. Enjoy your stay in paradise!”
“Thank, Christ.” Dom exhales a breath of relief and unbuckles his safety harness.
Elijah hates Dom in that moment. Hates him for his ability to be grateful for something, just as he hates the sudden sea of people moving into the aisles, talking animatedly with big, happy smiles on their faces. Elijah doesn’t even move to release the safety harness that someone saw fit to buckle him into. Dom leans over to do it for him.
“Please don’t give me a hard time, Elijah,” Dom pleads softly. Elijah watches him stand, test his legs for a moment, and then reach for the overhead compartment and pull out a much abused looking black knapsack.
Elijah considers staging a complete meltdown right here. He could stay in his seat until security came to get him and then he would fight them just like he fought Steve and Barry. Maybe his new owner would be put off by this and wouldn’t want him anymore. Even if that wasn't the case maybe he'd be sent back for a complete erasure
“Come on," Dom sighs, "and I’ll tell you what little I know.”
Laughter bubbles out of Elijah. He can’t help it. “That is supposed to be an incentive?”
“The real question here is,” Dom says as he crosses his arms in front of his chest, “why do you even need one?”
Elijah is past caring about Dom’s astute observation, but he does want to know what Dom knows. And to see if he can plot a way out of this. “You promise you’ll tell me?”
“Everything I know, yes. Come on.” Dom makes a follow me gesture.
Reluctantly, Elijah follows Dom off the shuttle. There is no bag for him but he is not surprised, someone else will want to dress him now and he cannot stand the thought of it. He trails Dom through the terminal, until they’ve moved away from the main glut of people, and then he just can’t wait anymore.
“So you didn’t erase me because of what I did to the program? You could’ve fixed what I did and then erased me.” It wouldn’t have been what he wanted but it would’ve erased Orlando. It would’ve erased what he hadn’t copied and yet saved.
It would have erased his one particular terrible ache, all the rest he could learn to live with, but not this.
“Talk about it in a minute,” Dom throws casually over his shoulder and looks around the concourse. It’s busy at the front of the terminal, with people picking up loved ones and seeing others off. Elijah turns away from their joy because he can’t bear it and stares at the back of Dom’s head as they walk through the automatic doors to the outside.
Elijah blinks in the bright sunlight. Iaole is like heaven, at least that’s what the commercials say, and while he has no concept of heaven he can’t deny that he thinks it is beautiful here. There is bright sun in a stunning blue sky, a warm, but not stifling ambient temperature, and it smells green here. It is a planet that hasn’t been fucked over by the human race. Yet. Dom takes a deep breath and when he opens his eyes Elijah could swear there are tears in them.
There is a driver holding up a placard that reads 'Monaghan' and Dom makes a beeline for it. He flips out his ID for the driver who nods and opens the door for them.
Elijah stares at the back seat of the limo and balks. Limos had once been associated with usury and displays of power but, now, all they make him think of is Orlando and a sweet, champagne kiss.
“Get in,” Dom orders exasperatedly.
“I don’t want to.”
Dom leans on the open door and scrubs at his face in annoyance. He looks at the driver apologetically and asks for a moment of privacy. The driver just shrugs and walks to the front of the car where he leans against the front bumper and studies the tourists flowing in and out.
Elijah watches as Dom closes the gap between them and when he speaks his voice is low. “We don’t have time for this, Elijah. Please, just get in the car.”
“No.”
Dom stares with his mouth agape as if he’s stunned by this unexpected display of attitude.
“You’re a Realistic, Elijah. You’ve got to do what I say.”
Elijah shakes his head resentfully. “I don’t and I won’t.” Numbness buzzes in his fingers and toes, coming on strong because this is no minor disobedience.
Dom reaches out and places one hand on the back of his neck, drawing him forward until their foreheads are almost touching. Perhaps passersby think it is an intimate gesture but he can feel Dom’s fingers searching for his off switch, pressing it forcefully once he finds it.
The look on Dom’s face when it fails to work is priceless. “What the hell?” Dom presses it again and just stares. “But I fixed it. Yuh… you shut down.”
Elijah folds his arms across his chest. “Why didn’t you run the program? Why didn’t you fix it and run it and erase me?”
“I told you. I couldn’t! Jesusfuck!” Dom lifts his knapsack and cradles it against his chest. “Get in the car and I’ll explain it to you.”
Elijah’s eyes flick to the still gaping door and he shakes his head.
Dom’s mouth opens and he gives one last pleading look before he unzips the front most pouch of his bag and removes a black object that looks like nothing more than a flashlight.
“Don't make me use this," Dom warns. "I don’t want to, but I will if you force me to.”
Elijah stares at the Pulse mechanism, then at Dom, and finally at the hundreds of people milling about.
“Don’t try to run, Elijah. It wouldn’t be worth it. You know you’ve got a tracking device in you and I’m sure that I can run just as fast as you can.”
Elijah knows Dom is right. Of course they'd plant a tracker on him and how far would he really get before his legs were so numb he couldn’t feel them anymore? The reality of it settles on Elijah like a weight, and the weight that presses down on him is defeat, at least in this battle.
He glances up at the sky, and then to the people, and finally reminds himself that this is only temporary. There are other steps he can take. It just would’ve been so much easier if Dom had run the program. He moves toward the limo and climbs inside.
Dom settles next to him and the driver appears in time to shut the door. Elijah notes that Dom continues to hold the pulse in his hand.
Elijah slumps against the back seat and stares out the tinted glass window as the whisper quiet car begins to roll.
“Tell me why you didn’t do it,” Elijah demands quietly.
“Because you fucked with the program, Elijah! It would’ve caused such a disruption in your processors that you would’ve melted from the inside out. It would’ve destroyed you completely.” Dom pauses and leans closer as the first glimpse of ocean comes into view, and then Dom whispers, “Why’d you do it?”
“Who bought me?” Elijah asks coldly.
“My question first. I want to know.” Apparently pretty badly because Dom actually tears his eyes away from the water to look at him.
“I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to be anymore.”
Dom’s face is once again that of complete confusion, brows drawn up and bewilderment in those gray eyes. “Why, Elijah? That’s what I don’t understand. You tried before, at least twice, why?”
Elijah stares ahead defiantly. “I’m not telling you.”
“Elijah. I demand that you tell me.”
Elijah’s fingers straighten uncontrollably, punishment for his defiance, and he is glad he has them tucked beneath his arms so that Dom can’t see. “You don’t own me.”
“Until your new owner takes possession, technically, I do.”
Just got to hold on until then; he can do that.
“Come on, Elijah. Just tell me.”
Elijah shakes his head.
“Is it a rogue program? A virus? Do you even know?”
“Nuh- not telling.” His lips are going numb.
“Why? Why not, Elijah? It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone.”
“Th- The Company. Yuh- you’ll tell them.”
“I’m not telling them shit,” Dom spits sharply.
“Wh- why wouldn’t you?” Does Dom really think he is that stupid?
Dom assesses him for a minute or two then presses a button on the cylinder and a beam of light illuminates the privacy glass. Elijah stares at it and this time it is his turn to look astonished: it is just a flashlight. Dom swirls the splash of light in random patterns before turning it off.
“Because getting you to your final destination is the last of my official duties to the Company. After that I’m free. Well, not free exactly, I’ve been hired by your new owner to maintain you. It comes with a fat bank account, free room and board, but best of all?” Dom looks wistfully out the window. “I get to live on Iaole.”
Elijah suspects that the last thing on that list is all the convincing Dom needed.
“I’m so fucking glad to be getting out of there. I never really agreed with what the Company did, you know.” Dom supplies this without solicitation. “I always thought their ethics were a little… circumspect at best. And when I met you.” Dom shakes his head, “I knew there was something different about you. Something more.”
Dom slips the flashlight back into his bag. “I’d just like to know what that is. I’d like you to tell me.”
“You’ll use it against me.” Telling Dom would unlock a world to something Dom only suspects and probably has only marginally been able to imagine.
“No, I won't. I told you, I’m done with them. I never have to go back there.” Dom’s shoulders sag with visible relief and there is a genuinely happy smile on his face. “I’m just curious. You can’t blame me. I mean, a defiant Realistic? One that who knows about stuff he shouldn’t? One who has tried to terminate because he doesn’t want to be what he is anymore? You’re a fucking mystery to me. I've wanted to know what’s up with you since the first time you wound up in the lab." Dom turns and fixes him with a reassuring smile. "Knowing what is going on with you would be like knowing the answer to one of life’s greatest mysteries.”
Elijah registers no falsehoods in anything Dom says, but he is still reluctant to answer.
Dom sighs and fishes in the small front pouch of his battered bag. "Tell me and I'll give you what you want." Dom holds a compact data disc in his the palm of his hand.
"What is that?"
“The program. Your program."
"With the kill switch?"
"Yeah."
Elijah stares at it. It is little more than a scrap of metal but it contains his freedom. He meets Dom's expectant gaze. This could be just a ruse to get his secrets but, honestly, he can’t imagine the Company would really care enough to set up something so elaborate. “You did this for me? Why?”
“I don’t know. I just ... I guess it was how much you wanted it. I mean you obviously went to a lot of trouble trying to end it.” Dom turns the disc between his fingers.
“So much for the third time being the charm,” Elijah smiles bitterly. He bows his head considering the offer. Why is it that everything he wants is always just out of reach? Perhaps because he isn’t real he’s given no quarter by faith and those amorphous things that Orlando believed in?
Because you’re not supposed to have desires, he chides himself. Everything needs to be erased so there will be nothing left to remember and nothing to hope for.
“If I tell you then you'll use that on me?”
Dom worries his bottom lip for a moment then nods. “Yeah, I will.”
This too easy, Elijah thinks.
“It’s not like the Company can fire me now," Dom says. "All I ever wanted was to get to Iaole and now I'm here. I can tell your owner it was a glitch or something, that I don't know what happened. Even if they took back everything I'm already here. I'll take a job in a surf shop and live on the beach.” Dom looks out the window to the azure colored water. Eventually, Dom turns to face him again.
“I just don’t want the Company to know,” Elijah states emphatically. He wants what Dom is offering but he is also mindful of the price; that the cost of revealing his secrets wouldn’t be borne by him alone. He is thinking about the others that might be just like him.
“I promise, I won't tell.”
Elijah nods. “Good. Because I think, I mean, I suspect that there are others out there like me, and I don’t want the Company to find a way to fix us. If we have one choice… let it be this, at least.”
Dom stares at him for a long moment. “You mean, let you have the choice to self-terminate?”
Elijah nods.
“But don’t you think that if the company could fix it, whatever is causing it, that it would be better?”
“I don’t think they would fix it. I don't see how they could.”
"I can't see why they couldn't."
"I will tell you why," Elijah replies and then does. He tells Dom everything just as he’d done with Orlando, except now it includes Orlando as well, that is a story that comes haltingly with words he can barely force out. When he has finished, Dom sits in stunned silence.
“So you… you stored your memories. That’s just…” Dom gropes for words. “That’s just fucking amazing. It’s something we never considered.”
Dom said 'we' and Elijah has a sinking feeling, but it is too late too take it back now. “Because you always believed you had complete control.”
Dom nods. “And you think the others, you think the ones who succeeded where you failed, you think they might’ve done it for the same reasons?”
“I don’t know, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? We were made to be real, have the same feelings as you, we feel real to ourselves and want to keep who we are. Imagine what it's like. Try for just one moment to imagine having the feelings, desires, and hopes you have and then having them taken away, erased, because a company decides you’re not supposed to have them.”
Dom sits quietly for the longest time before shaking his head. “No. I can’t imagine that. Jesus. I just … I didn’t know.”
“It’s not your fault. You were just raised to believe we are 'just' robots."
Dom slumps against the seat. “No wonder. No fucking wonder at all.” Dom runs his fingers through his hair and continues to shake his head slightly. “Fuck. I can’t... I mean...” Dom’s voice trails away.
Elijah says nothing as they ride in silence.
“I’m sorry. I'm sorry I couldn’t erase you.” Elijah doesn’t doubt the apology in Dom's voice. “I wasn’t to touch you. Whoever bought you paid a fuck of a lot of money to make sure you stayed the way you are.”
“Who bought me?” Elijah asks tonelessly.
“Hang on. I've got it here.” Dom fishes in the knapsack again until he pulls out a small fold of paper which he hands to Elijah.
P. Cerne.
4 Tanglewood Drive.
“Do you recognize it?”
Elijah shakes his head. Except, he begins to think, that P could stand for Paul. He has no memory of Paul’s last name, Tara only referred to him as her uncle and he wasn’t introduced with the wedding party.
It must just be a coincidence. But he remembers how Paul looked at him. ‘I was thinking of getting one of those myself’'Hey, look! Champagne'.
“You want some?” Dom offers, tilting the bottle in his direction.
Elijah shakes his head, the offer is far too reminiscent of another time and another person. He turns back to the window and watches naked beach gives way to one palatial house after another. It seems like they drive forever.
“Shit. I thought we'd be on the beach,” Dom grouses as the foliage starts to thicken and obscure the view of the ocean.
Elijah doesn't comment. He notices that Dom has consumed almost the whole bottle of champagne and it is obvious he's feeling it. He wouldn't care except he is worried it will impair Dom's ability or, worse, his judgment.
The car slows and Elijah’s apprehension grows. He sees the house number on a small stone marker as they turn down a narrow one-lane road. There are only trees and lush fern-like plants on either side; even the light seems green as they creep along.
“Holy fuck,” Dom breathes as the car glides to a stop on a proper, but not paved, drive before a huge two-story house, constructed and finished so that it nearly fades into the trees. "Nice place, huh?"
Elijah says nothing. He doesn't care much one way or the other.
Dom reaches for, and misses, the door handle twice, the third time Dom actually lays his hands on the handle only to have the driver open it abruptly, causing him to spill out on to the dirt.
It might be funny any other day, but Elijah doesn’t have it in him to laugh. He just wants to get all this initial business over with so that Dom can do what he needs to do.
The driver helps Dom up, takes the bottle from his hand and reaches for the knapsack still on the floor.
Elijah hears Dom murmur his thanks as he climbs out. There is no sign that anyone is even home, no one at the door to greet them or other vehicles.
“You’re sure this is the place?” Dom asks the driver as he rights himself and brushes his dirty hands on his pants.
“Four Tanglewood drive,” the driver confirms. "Have a good day."
Dom shoulders his bag and turns toward the front door.
“You’ll make something up, right? As soon as we get inside? Something to get me away?” Elijah whispers.
“Nice here, innit?” Dom says as he shoves his hands in his pockets and takes a deep breath. “It smells so good here. Clean." Dom laughs at this. "I never realized 'clean' had a smell but it does and this is it."
He should have taken the bottle of champagne away. Dom is rocking a bit on his feet. He watches the sleek black limo, so out of place among the trees, maneuver around drive and roll away.
"Come on." Dom takes him by the arm and leads him toward the door. Elijah drags his feet. This time Dom's deep breath and exhalation has nothing to do with fresh air.
Dom pushes the intercom button. “Ah, hello? This is Dominic Monahan. I’m here with your Realistic.”
He thinks Dom may as well have said 'I’m here with your pizza'.
There is no response.
“Knew we were coming," Dom mutters as he presses the 'talk' button again. “Hello? Mr. Cerne? Hellooo.” Dom’s finger slides off the keypad and he shifts uncomfortably. “Shit. I have to piss.”
Elijah sees Dom’s eyes slide toward the bushes but the soft sound of a lock clicking open draws their attention. The door pops open with a soft 'snick'.
“Automated. Snazzy,” Dom whistles as he steps inside. When Elijah doesn’t follow Dom returns and snags him by the elbow. “Come on.”
Dom pulls him into a softly lit hall but it's empty. "What is this?" Elijah whispers.
"I dunno." Dom shrugs. "Let's find out, 'cos I've got to piss." He starts walking, pulling Elijah along by the elbow.
"Don't you think this is creepy?"
"I'm about to piss myself. That's all I can think about," Dom admits.
They pass a painting that catches his attention, an abstract in purples and blues. It reminds him of water and fish. It looks like something he would’ve bought.
“Hello?” Dom shouts. "Mr. Cerne?"
Elijah, digs in his heels and stops before Dom can lead him down the step into the sunken living room.
“What is it?” Dom finally sounds alarmed. “Is there a ... Is there a body or something?” Dom peers around, wide-eyed.
Elijah shakes his head. The room is huge, open, with vaulted ceilings and tastefully appointed furniture. There is nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to cause alarm. It is the massive aquarium, built into one wall, that has captured Elijah's attention. He has never seen anything like it.
“Hello? Hello. Anybody here? Helloooo,” Dom sing-songs nervously. “What’er you ... Where’re you going?”
Elijah moves toward the tank and presses his fingertips against the glass. Tiny clown fish dart back and forth while a Tang fish floats nearby. There is actual coral in this tank and seaweed floating like ribbons to the very top.
"Wow. Now that's a fish tank.” Dom taps at the glass.
Elijah retracts his hands and hugs himself. Paul had heard him talking about the fish. He notices the sunken pirate ship, half buried in the sand, so much like the one he'd built. Does Paul think he can buy his affections?
“It's missing something, isn't it?”
Elijah stiffens, the voice raising the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck. If earlier wasn’t a nightmare, what are the odds that this is a dream? He knows that voice.
Orlando.
He squeezes his eyes shut, he is afraid to look. What if it’s not him? What if just sounds like Orlando because he wishes it so?
There are hands on his shoulders, long fingers that turn him gently.
“Elijah. Open your eyes.”
It is.
It is Orlando standing there, all dark eyes and curls and that smooth olive skin he burns to touch. He can feel Orlando’s hands on his arms and see Orlando smiling.
“Orli?” He’s reaching out with his own fingers now because he wants to touch and make sure. “Is this real? Are you real?”
Orlando nods and Elijah can feel Orlando’s thumbs stroke along his neck.
“It’s me, Lij.”
“Yuh- you - They told me you were dead.”
Orlando’s lips press into a thin grim line.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Dom?” Elijah snaps, turning to look at Dom over his shoulder.
Dom’s mouth is working but no sound is coming out. Finally Dom gives a startled shrug and rattled headshake. “I didn’t- I didn’t know.”
“Nobody did, Lij,” Orlando confesses, “not even Tara.”
“Why?” Elijah’s voice is barely audible and he is shaking from the disparity of emotions jamming his system. His initial joy is swallowed by confusion, leaving only anger and an almost overwhelming hurt in its place. “Why would you do this to me?”
Orlando’s head dips. “I didn’t - It wasn’t something I wanted to do. I never wanted to hurt you. Ever.”
“Then why? Tell me why you did this.” Elijah is surprised by his anger. He should be happy, he should be fucking ecstatic - what he wanted so badly to be true is - but it didn't have to be like this.
“I thought you said you'd never hurt me. Did it make you feel good to do this? Does it fulfill some twisted fucking fantasy of yours?” Tears of outrage and resentment fill Elijah's eyes. He takes a few slow steps backward, until he bumps in to Dom and flinches.
“No, Elijah. No.” Orlando takes a couple steps forward.
Elijah’s eyes flick to the exit, the elegant archway into the hall. He never thought he'd want to run from Orlando but he will if Orli tries to restrain him.
Orlando stops and puts his hands up disarmingly. “It isn’t like that. I had to do it, Lij. Let me explain. Can I just try to explain it to you?”
Elijah stops edging toward door, because, yeah, he’d like an explanation; he’s fucking owed one. He folds his arms and waits expectantly.
There is a long pause. “I thought I knew exactly what to say to you," Orlando confesses. "How to explain it…"
"You'd better start," Elijah replies coldly.
Orlando nods. "I couldn’t stay young and beautiful in Hollywood forever,” he begins, “no matter how much plastic surgery I said I had.”
This statement makes no sense to Elijah at all. “What? What does that have to do with what you did?”
“Listen,” Orlando pleads softly, “let me explain and then you’ll understand. At least, I hope you will.” Elijah can tell by the uncertainly in those dark eyes that Orlando's not sure what response he’ll get.
"I'm listening."
“Can I?” Orli asks, motioning that he’d like to step closer. Elijah neither confirms nor denies that he’d like either but doesn't stop Orlando from stepping forward and closing the gap between them. Orlando simply stands there for a moment, head down. Elijah waits. He doesn't rebuff the hand that reaches for his nor stop the fingers that intertwine with his.
“Am I real, Elijah?”
Elijah frowns, unsure of the question. He looks at the fingers gently squeezing his.
“Am I real?” Orli asks again this time with a soft grin, the one Elijah never thought he’d see again.
Elijah frowns. Where is his explanation? He rubs his thumb over Orlando’s knuckles and warm fingers, the same ones that touched him intimately, companionably, and lovingly.
His anger, as resolute as it seemed just moments before, waivers as he stands so close to that which he thought was lost to him forever. Whatever this is, it is a gift. He tilts his face in open invitation.
“Can I, Lij? Can I?”
Elijah nods, or starts to, before he can he finds his face cupped in Orlando’s hands, Orlando’s lips moving over his. He hopes against hope that Orlando has a good reason for what he has done because Elijah knows that he can’t exist without this.
“Am I real, Elijah?” Orli asks the question again against his lips.
Elijah runs his hands up Orlando's chest and clutches the material of his shirt.
“Real,” Elijah breathes, “Real, real, real.”
Orlando doesn’t take his eyes from Elijah’s face as he loops his arms around Elijah’s back and pulls him tight. “As real as you, Elijah.”
“Real,” Elijah echoes. Yes, definitely real, all of his senses confirm it- scent, sight, touch, now taste - absolutely real.
Orlando gives him a little smile. “Do you get it?”
Elijah frowns. What is this? Some sort of game?
“I’m real. I'm like you.”
“You’re real. Like me?” But he isn't real. He's a...
He looks up at Orlando, as if for the first time. “Like me? You’re like me.”
Orlando smiles. “Yeah, Lij, it’s true.”
“I think,” Elijah hears Dom say, “that I had a little too much to drink. No, wait. The spaceflight fucked with me. It can do that, you know, it can mess you up in the head - that's why you have to sign that little waiver that you agree you won’t hold them responsible if something happens."
Elijah turns to find Dom making his way wobbly to the couch where he sits heavily, clutching his head in his hands.
Elijah suspects the former, not the latter.
“I don’t-" Dom scrubs at his hair, mussing it even more than it already is, "I mean, I can’t believe this.”
“How?" Elijah wonders. "How is this possible? You can't be.”
“I am," Orlando replies patiently. "I was the prototype for the Realistics.”
He had lived with Orlando for almost a year, how could he not know? “Yuh-you’re like me?” He shakes his head. Impossible, isn’t it? He thinks about that electric kiss. Hadn't he always known Orlando was different?
“Doctor Eve, does that name ring a bell with you, Dom?”
Dom's mouth hangs open for a moment. "Yeah. You can't work for the Company and not know her name.”
“She was, for all intents and purposes, my mother.”
“She never told the Company about you,” Dom says, shock registering on his face.
“She never told anyone about me. She couldn't." Orlando turns away from Dom and looks at him once more. "I was like her child. She called me that, you know,” Orlando smiles softly. “I even called her 'mom' when I learned how to speak. Well, once she gave me the program, you know."
“Everything that she brought into the Company she tested on me first - the personality programs, the interactive matrixes - everything that makes us what we are.” He touches Elijah's face. “She worked on me until she thought I was perfect, obviously she was easy to please.” Orlando's smile wobbles a little. “I miss her.”
Elijah knows that feeling of loss, knows it all too well.
“Her last gift to me was a long list of identities and a fortune.”
Elijah tries to process all the information but keeps getting stuck on the revelation. Like me. Like me. Just like me. But Orlando isn't just like him.
“But I felt your heartbeat and your breath against my skin.” He lifts his hand to Orlando's chest. "I still can."
“Yeah, well, that is the Company for you," Orlando scowls. "My mother wanted perfection but the Company was content to cut corners. They had tested prototypes on their intended market and apparently lack of certain functions wasn't a drawback. They claimed that they wanted to be able to pass the savings on to their consumers.” Disgust and anger are apparent in Orlando’s eyes. “She knew what they meant. She knew what they were up to. She used them for resources and she kept her secrets. At the end of her life she denounced them. They just thought she was a bitter old woman."
The thump of a measured heartbeat pulses beneath Elijah's hand. He never guessed. He never even saw it coming.
“I thought- " Elijah begins haltingly, what he thought is almost too uncomfortable to say. “I thought Tara’s uncle had bought me.” There is no quantifying the relief that he feels that this isn't so but it lingers like a sour taste in his mouth.
"What?"
"P. Cerne. Paul," Elijah explains. "I didn't know his last name. It could have been."
“Elijah… I’m so sorry. I never thought - It wasn’t even something I considered. I was just following the list. My mother left behind identities. I was Nick Ambrose before Orlando Bloom, and now Paul Cerne. Next time I get to be Quinn Dingleman.”
Elijah laughs. "Dingleman? You don't look like a 'Dingleman'."
“I can't fucking believe this,” Dom mutters. “I can't believe the Company never found out. I can't believe no one else did either."
“I didn’t know and I lived with him,” Elijah admits. But now, looking back, there were signs, little things that would have tipped him off had he been looking for them. He just thought that the way Orlando never seemed tired, even when he said he was, or the fact that he never ate much were just personality quirks.
“My mother was good at keeping secrets and she taught me well."
"Your mother was fucking brilliant, is what she was," Dom adds.
Elijah isn't so sure. "Why didn't she try to stop them? She had to know what the Company was doing."
Orlando shakes his head, a slight, sad smile on his lips. "She didn't. At first. They lured her with promises of wanting to do something for mankind and she wanted that too. She certainly wouldn't have signed up to work for a corporation with the sole intention of developing a slave trade for the elite. She couldn't have done anything to stop them.”
It is a bitter pill to swallow but Elijah knows Orlando is right. What is not right is why Orlando kept such a secret from him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to, so many times, but I had to be careful. If it ever got out …" Orlando shakes his head. "Can you imagine? You can imagine."
Elijah nods. He knows. He can understand but he can’t quite accept it. The fact that Orlando couldn’t trust him hurts. “Why did you let me think you were dead?”
“More than anything, I’m sorry about that, but I had to. I didn’t know what kind of actor you’d be and I couldn’t trust you not to tell Tara and Ron. I had to disappear, even from them.”
“She cried, Orli.” Suddenly he is angry again, mad at the reminder that not only did Orlando hurt him, he hurt Tara too. “You weren’t there to hear her."
"I'm sorry, Lij."
"It was so awful." He would've done anything to make it stop. He looks up at Orlando then, eyes wide. “I would’ve told her the truth,” he admits, stunned by his revelation.
He feels caught somewhere between hurt and having to apologize, but he understands.
Orlando gives him a gentle squeeze and a knowing look. “I thought you might, that’s why I couldn't take the chance. It wasn't because I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to have you back."
“And how did you know that would happen? The Company took me back. I was going to have Dom erase me,” Elijah accuses. He is aware that his emotions are all over the place but he is at a loss to control them. There were pieces to the little puzzle Orlando constructed; it all could’ve gone so wrong at any moment. “I changed the code on the program, it would have destroyed me.”
“You’re lucky," Dom tells Orlando, "that the battery in my computer was dead. Christ. I would’ve done it for him, you know.”
Elijah stares at Orlando, letting that sink in. “How did you know this would work? How did you know you’d get me back when it all could’ve gone so wrong?”
“I can calculate the odds too, Elijah. I also know that the Company is greedy more than ethical.”
“He isn't just talking about at the Company," Dom points out quietly. "I … brought the program with me. If the battery hadn't died he would've. "
Orlando finally looks as if he gets the gravity of the situation. "Should never’ve doubted your powers of persuasion."
“You took a big risk," Elijah accuses. Orlando risked him.
“I had faith.”
“Faith? Faith is just a fancy way of saying you're playing the odds,” Elijah shoots back.
“It’s easier to deny it than believe it, I know, but nothing else explains it."
“Explains what? How you got lucky? Let me ask you this, if you’re so smart, if you’re so able to calculate all the odds, then why did you even let it come to this? Why go become a big star if you knew you’d have to fake your own termination?”
“Fate, Elijah.”
“Enough with the fate crap, Orli. Tell me.” Fate just isn’t cutting it as an explanation anymore.
“Because… it is." Orlando shrugs his shoulders helplessly. "After I shot The Dead Works I wasn’t planning on sticking around for an encore.”
Elijah frowns, that was the movie Orlando wrapped just as they met. "So you were going to retire then?"
“Kind of," Orlando offers him a sheepish smile. "I acted in movies. I became a big star. It was fun and everything I always wanted, but I’d planned on employing that old adage, you’ve heard it: 'always leave them wanting more'.”
Elijah just stares until Orli continues to speak again.
“I’d made my movies, I’d achieved a dream. There was nothing left in this world for me. I was on the bridge that night for the same reason you were; then I met you and everything changed.”
Elijah blinks in disbelief. “It was snowing. Your car broke down."
Orlando shakes his head. “My car was fine.”
“The roads were bad, you stopped to wait it out.” He doesn’t even know why he says it… not when he knows what a bald-faced lie it is. Orlando has never given him a definitive reason for being there. The snowplow driver had asked if he had car trouble and Orlando had just replied with a 'yes'. Because he had been caught, because it was convenient.
“What are the odds, Elijah?” Orlando rests a hand on his shoulder. “What are the chances that we’d both be there on the same night for the same reason? Don’t you think that the probability of that alone is pretty slim? And when you factor in the fact that we’re both… what we are, tell me, what are the odds?”
The odds are staggering.
“I tried," Orlando says softly, "for the longest time to come up with some other way to explain it, because… I wasn’t sure myself. I wasn't sure if I wanted to hang around but I couldn't stop thinking about you. I knew that you were different.”
The enormity of everything Orlando is laying out before him makes his head spin.
“It was so surreal… walking into the Company like that to get you, but I had to. I wanted to rescue you, at least. I wanted to set you free but you were just... And I started to hope for things I never thought I could have. I thought you knew what it was like to bear the weight of that kind of hope. Turns out you were more than I could ever want. You were like me. You wanted what I wanted and we both thought we’d never find it.”
Orlando's bright smile is a thing of true beauty. "How could you leave it? The life you had. It was a good one, wasn't it?"
“You know why,” Orlando replies softly.
"I don't understand why you'd want to leave a life like that. You had everything. You could have waited a few years, changed your name and moved on." Their situations were definitely not the same.
“I didn't have everything. I didn't have, and couldn't have, the things I really wanted. I couldn't have my mother back. I was alone, and it was interesting for awhile - living in the world, pretending I was something I wasn’t, fooling everyone - but I was alone. I had to keep letting go, I had to walk away from those I'd formed relationships with."
There are tears in Orlando's eyes; Elijah never considered Orlando might have gotten a more raw deal than he did, but what if Orlando loved each one of the men in his past?
“When I became Orlando Bloom I thought 'there’s a name for the silver screen', yeah?” Orlando’s voice is tremulous and those tears glitter unshed. “I decided to give it one last go round and I was going to go big. I was going to try something I’d always wanted to do, I was going to have an excellent time, and I was going to make a huge splash when I went out.” Orlando grins wryly at this. “I could just imagine the moment when billions found out I was a Realistic. I'll admit I hoped then that they might realize…" Orlando shakes his head. "It was stupid."
“I know I can’t fucking believe it,” Dom snorts.
Orlando looks down, hangs his head for a moment, chastised; when he speaks again his tone is very apologetic, “I believe in fate. I never doubted for a second that you and I were meant to be together. I only wanted to be with you. Please, tell me that you still love me and that I didn’t fuck things up.”
“You very nearly did,” Elijah makes his tone stern but the smile he can't contain betrays him, “but I do still love you and I guess that makes it okay.”
Orlando pulls him forward, peppering his face with kisses until, finally, Orlando’s lips meet his and what was sweet excitement turns incendiary and intense.
“Hey, don’t mind me,” Dom calls from the couch.
Elijah doesn’t, and neither does Orlando. It has been seven long days, with a chasm of fear and heartache in between, that needs to be made up for.
“Really, hey, I’ll just - Where’s the bathroom in this place?”
Orlando pulls away and grins at Elijah’s slight grunt of frustration. “Down the hall, to your right.”
“Wait a minute," Elijah says, putting his hand up to stop Orlando from kissing him again. As badly as he wants that, there is something pressing Orlando needs to account for.
"What?" Orlando wonders impatiently.
"Why did you go to all the trouble of keeping this a secret from Tara and Ron but let Dom know everything?” Out of the corner of his eye he sees Dom come to a wavering stop, head cocked curiously.
“There is no more Dominic Monaghan.”
“Wh- what?” Dom stammers. Elijah is quick to notice how quickly the color drops from Dom’s face. “Hey man, I swear I won’t tell anyone. I swear it. You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“Calm down, Mr. Cerne,” Orli soothes, “I’d hate to see you make a mess on your carpet.”
Dom looks at Orlando, then Elijah, then back and forth between them, his mouth working soundlessly. "I don't get it."
“The place is yours, the bank account in Paul Cerne’s name is yours; there is even a strip of private beach that is yours."
"But… what about me? I don't get a choice?" Dom looks confused, shell-shocked.
"Of course you have a choice." Orlando replies patiently. "I can't make you do anything. I can't even make you keep our secret."
Elijah can't tell if it is nerves or the need to piss that makes Dom shuffle so. Probably both.
"I'm not going to lie, I am trying to buy your silence, but I thought this would be beneficial to us both. You would get a fresh start and Paul would have an active paper trail. There are photo ID’s and everything you'll need in the envelope on the kitchen table.”
“So… this place is mine?” Dom looks around the house with a new-found appreciation. “Seriously?"
Orlando nods.
"And you’re not going to try to off me when I go to take a piss?”
“No," Orlando grins. "The choice is yours."
Dom looks at them uncertainly. "I don't know. This is all so…"
Elijah wants to drop to his knees and plead for Dom to take the offer, but he doesn't. He takes his cue from Orlando, this has to be Dom's choice or it won't work.
“Better go take that leak,” Orlando suggests.
Dom nods and sidles down the hall as if he still expects something nasty.
“What are we going to do?” Elijah asks when they're alone.
Orlando grins mischievously and takes his hand. "Come on."
He follows Orlando through a sliding glass door, across a lush green lawn and into the thick jungle beyond. He stumbles over roots and vines but Orlando is there to steady him.
"Just a little further," Orlando assures him.
"To what?" Not that he cares, not that he wouldn't follow Orlando to the ends of this planet or any other.
"This." Orlando pushes his way through to a path. It is narrow and the jungle is already trying to reclaim it, but there is a small motorbike with two helmets hanging from the handle bars.
Orlando takes one off and tosses it to him. “Ever been on a bike before?”
Elijah grins and shakes his head. “What do I need this for?”
Orlando takes the helmet back and pulls it on for him. “I don't want anything to happen to your pretty face." Orlando drops a kiss on his lips before lowering the visor. "And so no one will see us.”
“What?” Elijah flips the visor back up. The helmet muffles Orlando's voice.
Orlando laughs. "We don't want anyone to see our faces."
"Where are we going? Are we leaving?"
"Iaole loves tourists," Orlando explains as he pulls on his headgear, "and the rich, but what it loves most are the spectacularly rich recluses who make it a spectacularly rich planet. We are going to join those ranks but we still have to get there, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
“But Dom knows.”
Orlando nods, but he doesn't look too concerned. “You really think that he is going to waste his time on us, Lij? When the surf is calling his name and he has been given more than he ever wanted?"
Elijah smiles. “The odds are slim.”
“Very,” Orlando slings one long leg over the bike and starts it with a hard kick. “Get on.”
“You know how to drive this thing?”
”I’ve been practicing.”
“At least you can’t kill me,” Elijah teases and just like that it feels like the last week never happened.
“This isn’t the way I’d do it if I were going to try.” Orlando drops him a wink. “Get on the damn bike.”
*
Epilogue to follow ...
Title: Realistic - Chapter 13/14
Author: theartoffic
Type: LOTR RPS AU
Pairing: Orlando/Elijah
Rating: Adult
Summary: In the 21st century Artificial Intelligence is still in its infancy, some scientists toy with the idea of creating robots that look, and act, and think like human beings; in the future they are going to succeed. Realistics look real, feel real, and, at a glance, cannot be distinguished from the ones who made them. They are the result of hundreds of years of AI evolution, they are beautiful, perfect, and expensive, but to society at large they are not real. This is the story of one such Realistic.
A/N: Previous chapters can be found by the tag :)
Beta: the amazing lisabellex <3
The American Heritage Science Dictionary
artificial intelligence
The ability of a computer or other machine to perform actions thought to require intelligence. Among these actions are logical deduction and inference, creativity, the ability to make decisions based on past experience or insufficient or conflicting information, and the ability to understand spoken language.
.... or the ability to love.
Banner: the lovely aranel80
“Wake up, Elijah.”
The voice comes to him as if from a distance and Elijah’s first thought is 'this is wrong'. It is a familiar voice, gentle and coaxing, but still wrong, so many levels of wrong. He shouldn't be hearing it and, even if his plan didn't work, it shouldn’t be familiar.
“Come on, wakey-wakey, Elijah.”
Elijah. That is his name, and that is wrong too. He shouldn’t have a name. He should no longer exist.
“E-li-jah,” the voice singsongs. He has heard mothers trying to wake their sleeping children in this same gentle tone but he is no one's child.
Elijah’s memory banks spew forth an image and a name to go along with that cajoling timber: it is technician Dominic Monaghan, from the Company.
'Oh no', Elijah panics, 'please no'. His systems are coming back online slowly. It takes a full two minutes before he finally has use of his hands again and he wonders if that’s proper, or if it is a result of not having been shut down for over two hundred years.
It only takes a moment to do a quick scan and know that he is unchanged, untouched. The memories are still there, existing in his neatly ordered, secret files: Madeline and Thomas, Karl, David, Orlando… the feeling of loss surrounding that name slams into him so hard that he makes a noise like a little whimper deep in his throat.
“Elijah?”
That voice is concerned now, nervous-- at least, that is what it is registering as on his voice analysis software. Elijah feels Dom’s hands on his shoulder and he remains still as those hands reach up and tilt his face. He can hear Dom clear his throat nervously.
“Elijah, open your eyes.”
'Don’t want to', he thinks petulantly, but, finally, he does. Not just because it is a command but because of the plea that has seeped into Dom’s voice but, most of all, because he wants to know why.
Why is he still here?
For the briefest second he thinks, he hopes, that maybe they found Orlando alive and that everything will be all right after all. It is possible that a wish could come true no matter who, or what, wished it, isn’t it? he wonders.
Elijah blinks in surprise at the strange, diffuse light. He had expected the bright, crisp light of the lab and immediately feels disoriented by his surroundings. He takes in the seatbacks in front of him and the low, rounded ceiling, as he slowly tries to orient himself. Dom is sitting in a seat beside him, they are in a tube, like a plane, but the aisles are far too wide for that. He has seen pictures of interiors like this. It is a shuttle. He is on a space flight.
Elijah scowls at Dom. “What is this?”
Dom’s mouth opens but a pre-programmed meant-to-be-soothing, tinned voice pours through hidden speakers. “Attention guests," it says pleasantly, “we are about to enter Iaole’s atmosphere; turbulence is expected so, please, remain in your seats with your safety harnesses secured until the shuttle lands and the attendants instruct you to debark the shuttle. Thank you.”
Iaole? What is he doing traveling to Iaole? He stares at Dom expectantly.
“You know, I thought interstellar space travel would be cool but,” Dom shrugs, “it’s kind of boring, really. I mean there are no windows, and the in-flight movies sucked, not to mention, going into warp felt really, really strange. That’s why I left you off.”
Elijah continues to stare at Dom as he processes those completely useless bits of information. He tries to suppress his annoyance and the panic that Dom’s nattering stirs in him. It seems to him to be nervous chatter and nervous chatter always means something bad.
He tries again to get useful information out of Dom. “What is this? Why am I being taken to Iaole?” Elijah thinks that this must be part of the nightmare still. It could be that he is dreaming for the first time. It could happen, couldn’t it? He had found a way to make himself nearly real so why not nightmares? Elijah secretly pinches his own arm: he is awake.
“God,” Dom sighs happily. “ Iaole. Iaole! I never thought I’d get here. Not in a million years. Never thought I’d escape.”
It’s a queer sentiment and it prompts Elijah’s question, “Earth?”
Dom smiles sadly and nods. “Yeah, and the ghosts.”
"Ghosts," Elijah echoes.
“You know, the ghosts of dead relationships,” Dom explains. “Me an’ Bill. Escaping that is what made taking this deal a no-brainer. It’s my chance to start over.”
“How wonderful for you,” Elijah responds dryly. He is sick of starting over and they want him to do it again. Fuck. It isn’t fucking fair.
There’s a jarring dip and bump and Elijah watches blankly as Dom pales and scrabbles for the armrest. The little bit of turbulence doesn’t bother him; in fact, he’d be fine if this whole shuttle just disintegrated.
“You were supposed to erase me.”
Dom’s head turns slightly and he looks slightly surprised and annoyed, and a little sick if the truth be told. “Couldn’t,” is all the answer Elijah receives and he feels slighted and angered by it.
“Why not?”
“Orders.”
“What orders?”
The shuttle bounces again and Dom's fingers dig into the plush armrests. Elijah can see the fine sheen of sweat on Dom's brow and the white knuckles that clutch uselessly at faux leather armrests.
“You think that will save you if this shuttle goes down?” Elijah asks with a cold detachment, not unlike Dom when he requested the ring. Elijah takes a little pleasure in the way Dom’s eyes widen and he looks even more terrified.
“Jesus, Elijah, thanks,” Dom mutters. Elijah notes the nervous twitch just under his right eye.
“What orders, Dom?”
“Orders from your new owner,” Dom snaps. “And … I saw what you did to the program.”
“New owner?” Elijah stares at his hands folded neatly in his lap. 'This isn’t fair', he thinks. Not fair when he had been so close to putting this all behind him.
“Yeah, you have a new owner now."
"Why didn't you do it?" Elijah asks. "Why didn't you erase me? You're supposed to erase me."
"How do you know about that?" Dom wonders. "Why did you change the code? What you did would have destroyed you."
"That's what I wanted." Elijah notices heads turn, his voice is too loud.
“I almost didn't notice the changes, but I saw that someone had changed my screensaver. I wanted to know if who ever did that had fucked with anything else so I ran a log. The alteration was too much to be an accident.” Dom looks knowingly at Elijah. “I couldn't think of a reason why someone would change that program and then I looked at the time stamp. No one else would have had access at that hour except the night guys and they don't know code. What I want to know is why.”
The log. He never considered changing the log. He didn't think it would matter.
The shuttle drops again. “Can we- talk about this later, like once this thing lands on solid ground?" Dom begs.
Elijah ignores him. “It can’t be Company policy not to erase me. Why would someone want me with the memories of someone else?”
“It’s not.” Dom’s voice is conciliatory, albeit shaky. “And I … really don’t understand it either but it is not my place to ask questions. I just do what I’m paid to do. Now, answer my question, how do you even know about the erasure program?”
“Why?” Elijah is too enrobed in his own quest for answers to answer Dom's. Elijah gives into the tears that burn his eyes, there is some measure of relief in them. “I only wanted it to be over.”
“What the fuck, Elijah?” Dom breathes. Dom’s face is one big picture of disbelief and Elijah braces himself for the questioning to start but the shuttle does a little hop and skip and Dom’s mouth slams shut, the color leaving his face as he looks around in panic.
“Attention passengers,” the canned voice says cheerily, “We have landed on Iaole. Please disembark in an orderly fashion. Attendants will assist you. Enjoy your stay in paradise!”
“Thank, Christ.” Dom exhales a breath of relief and unbuckles his safety harness.
Elijah hates Dom in that moment. Hates him for his ability to be grateful for something, just as he hates the sudden sea of people moving into the aisles, talking animatedly with big, happy smiles on their faces. Elijah doesn’t even move to release the safety harness that someone saw fit to buckle him into. Dom leans over to do it for him.
“Please don’t give me a hard time, Elijah,” Dom pleads softly. Elijah watches him stand, test his legs for a moment, and then reach for the overhead compartment and pull out a much abused looking black knapsack.
Elijah considers staging a complete meltdown right here. He could stay in his seat until security came to get him and then he would fight them just like he fought Steve and Barry. Maybe his new owner would be put off by this and wouldn’t want him anymore. Even if that wasn't the case maybe he'd be sent back for a complete erasure
“Come on," Dom sighs, "and I’ll tell you what little I know.”
Laughter bubbles out of Elijah. He can’t help it. “That is supposed to be an incentive?”
“The real question here is,” Dom says as he crosses his arms in front of his chest, “why do you even need one?”
Elijah is past caring about Dom’s astute observation, but he does want to know what Dom knows. And to see if he can plot a way out of this. “You promise you’ll tell me?”
“Everything I know, yes. Come on.” Dom makes a follow me gesture.
Reluctantly, Elijah follows Dom off the shuttle. There is no bag for him but he is not surprised, someone else will want to dress him now and he cannot stand the thought of it. He trails Dom through the terminal, until they’ve moved away from the main glut of people, and then he just can’t wait anymore.
“So you didn’t erase me because of what I did to the program? You could’ve fixed what I did and then erased me.” It wouldn’t have been what he wanted but it would’ve erased Orlando. It would’ve erased what he hadn’t copied and yet saved.
It would have erased his one particular terrible ache, all the rest he could learn to live with, but not this.
“Talk about it in a minute,” Dom throws casually over his shoulder and looks around the concourse. It’s busy at the front of the terminal, with people picking up loved ones and seeing others off. Elijah turns away from their joy because he can’t bear it and stares at the back of Dom’s head as they walk through the automatic doors to the outside.
Elijah blinks in the bright sunlight. Iaole is like heaven, at least that’s what the commercials say, and while he has no concept of heaven he can’t deny that he thinks it is beautiful here. There is bright sun in a stunning blue sky, a warm, but not stifling ambient temperature, and it smells green here. It is a planet that hasn’t been fucked over by the human race. Yet. Dom takes a deep breath and when he opens his eyes Elijah could swear there are tears in them.
There is a driver holding up a placard that reads 'Monaghan' and Dom makes a beeline for it. He flips out his ID for the driver who nods and opens the door for them.
Elijah stares at the back seat of the limo and balks. Limos had once been associated with usury and displays of power but, now, all they make him think of is Orlando and a sweet, champagne kiss.
“Get in,” Dom orders exasperatedly.
“I don’t want to.”
Dom leans on the open door and scrubs at his face in annoyance. He looks at the driver apologetically and asks for a moment of privacy. The driver just shrugs and walks to the front of the car where he leans against the front bumper and studies the tourists flowing in and out.
Elijah watches as Dom closes the gap between them and when he speaks his voice is low. “We don’t have time for this, Elijah. Please, just get in the car.”
“No.”
Dom stares with his mouth agape as if he’s stunned by this unexpected display of attitude.
“You’re a Realistic, Elijah. You’ve got to do what I say.”
Elijah shakes his head resentfully. “I don’t and I won’t.” Numbness buzzes in his fingers and toes, coming on strong because this is no minor disobedience.
Dom reaches out and places one hand on the back of his neck, drawing him forward until their foreheads are almost touching. Perhaps passersby think it is an intimate gesture but he can feel Dom’s fingers searching for his off switch, pressing it forcefully once he finds it.
The look on Dom’s face when it fails to work is priceless. “What the hell?” Dom presses it again and just stares. “But I fixed it. Yuh… you shut down.”
Elijah folds his arms across his chest. “Why didn’t you run the program? Why didn’t you fix it and run it and erase me?”
“I told you. I couldn’t! Jesusfuck!” Dom lifts his knapsack and cradles it against his chest. “Get in the car and I’ll explain it to you.”
Elijah’s eyes flick to the still gaping door and he shakes his head.
Dom’s mouth opens and he gives one last pleading look before he unzips the front most pouch of his bag and removes a black object that looks like nothing more than a flashlight.
“Don't make me use this," Dom warns. "I don’t want to, but I will if you force me to.”
Elijah stares at the Pulse mechanism, then at Dom, and finally at the hundreds of people milling about.
“Don’t try to run, Elijah. It wouldn’t be worth it. You know you’ve got a tracking device in you and I’m sure that I can run just as fast as you can.”
Elijah knows Dom is right. Of course they'd plant a tracker on him and how far would he really get before his legs were so numb he couldn’t feel them anymore? The reality of it settles on Elijah like a weight, and the weight that presses down on him is defeat, at least in this battle.
He glances up at the sky, and then to the people, and finally reminds himself that this is only temporary. There are other steps he can take. It just would’ve been so much easier if Dom had run the program. He moves toward the limo and climbs inside.
Dom settles next to him and the driver appears in time to shut the door. Elijah notes that Dom continues to hold the pulse in his hand.
Elijah slumps against the back seat and stares out the tinted glass window as the whisper quiet car begins to roll.
“Tell me why you didn’t do it,” Elijah demands quietly.
“Because you fucked with the program, Elijah! It would’ve caused such a disruption in your processors that you would’ve melted from the inside out. It would’ve destroyed you completely.” Dom pauses and leans closer as the first glimpse of ocean comes into view, and then Dom whispers, “Why’d you do it?”
“Who bought me?” Elijah asks coldly.
“My question first. I want to know.” Apparently pretty badly because Dom actually tears his eyes away from the water to look at him.
“I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to be anymore.”
Dom’s face is once again that of complete confusion, brows drawn up and bewilderment in those gray eyes. “Why, Elijah? That’s what I don’t understand. You tried before, at least twice, why?”
Elijah stares ahead defiantly. “I’m not telling you.”
“Elijah. I demand that you tell me.”
Elijah’s fingers straighten uncontrollably, punishment for his defiance, and he is glad he has them tucked beneath his arms so that Dom can’t see. “You don’t own me.”
“Until your new owner takes possession, technically, I do.”
Just got to hold on until then; he can do that.
“Come on, Elijah. Just tell me.”
Elijah shakes his head.
“Is it a rogue program? A virus? Do you even know?”
“Nuh- not telling.” His lips are going numb.
“Why? Why not, Elijah? It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone.”
“Th- The Company. Yuh- you’ll tell them.”
“I’m not telling them shit,” Dom spits sharply.
“Wh- why wouldn’t you?” Does Dom really think he is that stupid?
Dom assesses him for a minute or two then presses a button on the cylinder and a beam of light illuminates the privacy glass. Elijah stares at it and this time it is his turn to look astonished: it is just a flashlight. Dom swirls the splash of light in random patterns before turning it off.
“Because getting you to your final destination is the last of my official duties to the Company. After that I’m free. Well, not free exactly, I’ve been hired by your new owner to maintain you. It comes with a fat bank account, free room and board, but best of all?” Dom looks wistfully out the window. “I get to live on Iaole.”
Elijah suspects that the last thing on that list is all the convincing Dom needed.
“I’m so fucking glad to be getting out of there. I never really agreed with what the Company did, you know.” Dom supplies this without solicitation. “I always thought their ethics were a little… circumspect at best. And when I met you.” Dom shakes his head, “I knew there was something different about you. Something more.”
Dom slips the flashlight back into his bag. “I’d just like to know what that is. I’d like you to tell me.”
“You’ll use it against me.” Telling Dom would unlock a world to something Dom only suspects and probably has only marginally been able to imagine.
“No, I won't. I told you, I’m done with them. I never have to go back there.” Dom’s shoulders sag with visible relief and there is a genuinely happy smile on his face. “I’m just curious. You can’t blame me. I mean, a defiant Realistic? One that who knows about stuff he shouldn’t? One who has tried to terminate because he doesn’t want to be what he is anymore? You’re a fucking mystery to me. I've wanted to know what’s up with you since the first time you wound up in the lab." Dom turns and fixes him with a reassuring smile. "Knowing what is going on with you would be like knowing the answer to one of life’s greatest mysteries.”
Elijah registers no falsehoods in anything Dom says, but he is still reluctant to answer.
Dom sighs and fishes in the small front pouch of his battered bag. "Tell me and I'll give you what you want." Dom holds a compact data disc in his the palm of his hand.
"What is that?"
“The program. Your program."
"With the kill switch?"
"Yeah."
Elijah stares at it. It is little more than a scrap of metal but it contains his freedom. He meets Dom's expectant gaze. This could be just a ruse to get his secrets but, honestly, he can’t imagine the Company would really care enough to set up something so elaborate. “You did this for me? Why?”
“I don’t know. I just ... I guess it was how much you wanted it. I mean you obviously went to a lot of trouble trying to end it.” Dom turns the disc between his fingers.
“So much for the third time being the charm,” Elijah smiles bitterly. He bows his head considering the offer. Why is it that everything he wants is always just out of reach? Perhaps because he isn’t real he’s given no quarter by faith and those amorphous things that Orlando believed in?
Because you’re not supposed to have desires, he chides himself. Everything needs to be erased so there will be nothing left to remember and nothing to hope for.
“If I tell you then you'll use that on me?”
Dom worries his bottom lip for a moment then nods. “Yeah, I will.”
This too easy, Elijah thinks.
“It’s not like the Company can fire me now," Dom says. "All I ever wanted was to get to Iaole and now I'm here. I can tell your owner it was a glitch or something, that I don't know what happened. Even if they took back everything I'm already here. I'll take a job in a surf shop and live on the beach.” Dom looks out the window to the azure colored water. Eventually, Dom turns to face him again.
“I just don’t want the Company to know,” Elijah states emphatically. He wants what Dom is offering but he is also mindful of the price; that the cost of revealing his secrets wouldn’t be borne by him alone. He is thinking about the others that might be just like him.
“I promise, I won't tell.”
Elijah nods. “Good. Because I think, I mean, I suspect that there are others out there like me, and I don’t want the Company to find a way to fix us. If we have one choice… let it be this, at least.”
Dom stares at him for a long moment. “You mean, let you have the choice to self-terminate?”
Elijah nods.
“But don’t you think that if the company could fix it, whatever is causing it, that it would be better?”
“I don’t think they would fix it. I don't see how they could.”
"I can't see why they couldn't."
"I will tell you why," Elijah replies and then does. He tells Dom everything just as he’d done with Orlando, except now it includes Orlando as well, that is a story that comes haltingly with words he can barely force out. When he has finished, Dom sits in stunned silence.
“So you… you stored your memories. That’s just…” Dom gropes for words. “That’s just fucking amazing. It’s something we never considered.”
Dom said 'we' and Elijah has a sinking feeling, but it is too late too take it back now. “Because you always believed you had complete control.”
Dom nods. “And you think the others, you think the ones who succeeded where you failed, you think they might’ve done it for the same reasons?”
“I don’t know, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? We were made to be real, have the same feelings as you, we feel real to ourselves and want to keep who we are. Imagine what it's like. Try for just one moment to imagine having the feelings, desires, and hopes you have and then having them taken away, erased, because a company decides you’re not supposed to have them.”
Dom sits quietly for the longest time before shaking his head. “No. I can’t imagine that. Jesus. I just … I didn’t know.”
“It’s not your fault. You were just raised to believe we are 'just' robots."
Dom slumps against the seat. “No wonder. No fucking wonder at all.” Dom runs his fingers through his hair and continues to shake his head slightly. “Fuck. I can’t... I mean...” Dom’s voice trails away.
Elijah says nothing as they ride in silence.
“I’m sorry. I'm sorry I couldn’t erase you.” Elijah doesn’t doubt the apology in Dom's voice. “I wasn’t to touch you. Whoever bought you paid a fuck of a lot of money to make sure you stayed the way you are.”
“Who bought me?” Elijah asks tonelessly.
“Hang on. I've got it here.” Dom fishes in the knapsack again until he pulls out a small fold of paper which he hands to Elijah.
P. Cerne.
4 Tanglewood Drive.
“Do you recognize it?”
Elijah shakes his head. Except, he begins to think, that P could stand for Paul. He has no memory of Paul’s last name, Tara only referred to him as her uncle and he wasn’t introduced with the wedding party.
It must just be a coincidence. But he remembers how Paul looked at him. ‘I was thinking of getting one of those myself’'Hey, look! Champagne'.
“You want some?” Dom offers, tilting the bottle in his direction.
Elijah shakes his head, the offer is far too reminiscent of another time and another person. He turns back to the window and watches naked beach gives way to one palatial house after another. It seems like they drive forever.
“Shit. I thought we'd be on the beach,” Dom grouses as the foliage starts to thicken and obscure the view of the ocean.
Elijah doesn't comment. He notices that Dom has consumed almost the whole bottle of champagne and it is obvious he's feeling it. He wouldn't care except he is worried it will impair Dom's ability or, worse, his judgment.
The car slows and Elijah’s apprehension grows. He sees the house number on a small stone marker as they turn down a narrow one-lane road. There are only trees and lush fern-like plants on either side; even the light seems green as they creep along.
“Holy fuck,” Dom breathes as the car glides to a stop on a proper, but not paved, drive before a huge two-story house, constructed and finished so that it nearly fades into the trees. "Nice place, huh?"
Elijah says nothing. He doesn't care much one way or the other.
Dom reaches for, and misses, the door handle twice, the third time Dom actually lays his hands on the handle only to have the driver open it abruptly, causing him to spill out on to the dirt.
It might be funny any other day, but Elijah doesn’t have it in him to laugh. He just wants to get all this initial business over with so that Dom can do what he needs to do.
The driver helps Dom up, takes the bottle from his hand and reaches for the knapsack still on the floor.
Elijah hears Dom murmur his thanks as he climbs out. There is no sign that anyone is even home, no one at the door to greet them or other vehicles.
“You’re sure this is the place?” Dom asks the driver as he rights himself and brushes his dirty hands on his pants.
“Four Tanglewood drive,” the driver confirms. "Have a good day."
Dom shoulders his bag and turns toward the front door.
“You’ll make something up, right? As soon as we get inside? Something to get me away?” Elijah whispers.
“Nice here, innit?” Dom says as he shoves his hands in his pockets and takes a deep breath. “It smells so good here. Clean." Dom laughs at this. "I never realized 'clean' had a smell but it does and this is it."
He should have taken the bottle of champagne away. Dom is rocking a bit on his feet. He watches the sleek black limo, so out of place among the trees, maneuver around drive and roll away.
"Come on." Dom takes him by the arm and leads him toward the door. Elijah drags his feet. This time Dom's deep breath and exhalation has nothing to do with fresh air.
Dom pushes the intercom button. “Ah, hello? This is Dominic Monahan. I’m here with your Realistic.”
He thinks Dom may as well have said 'I’m here with your pizza'.
There is no response.
“Knew we were coming," Dom mutters as he presses the 'talk' button again. “Hello? Mr. Cerne? Hellooo.” Dom’s finger slides off the keypad and he shifts uncomfortably. “Shit. I have to piss.”
Elijah sees Dom’s eyes slide toward the bushes but the soft sound of a lock clicking open draws their attention. The door pops open with a soft 'snick'.
“Automated. Snazzy,” Dom whistles as he steps inside. When Elijah doesn’t follow Dom returns and snags him by the elbow. “Come on.”
Dom pulls him into a softly lit hall but it's empty. "What is this?" Elijah whispers.
"I dunno." Dom shrugs. "Let's find out, 'cos I've got to piss." He starts walking, pulling Elijah along by the elbow.
"Don't you think this is creepy?"
"I'm about to piss myself. That's all I can think about," Dom admits.
They pass a painting that catches his attention, an abstract in purples and blues. It reminds him of water and fish. It looks like something he would’ve bought.
“Hello?” Dom shouts. "Mr. Cerne?"
Elijah, digs in his heels and stops before Dom can lead him down the step into the sunken living room.
“What is it?” Dom finally sounds alarmed. “Is there a ... Is there a body or something?” Dom peers around, wide-eyed.
Elijah shakes his head. The room is huge, open, with vaulted ceilings and tastefully appointed furniture. There is nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to cause alarm. It is the massive aquarium, built into one wall, that has captured Elijah's attention. He has never seen anything like it.
“Hello? Hello. Anybody here? Helloooo,” Dom sing-songs nervously. “What’er you ... Where’re you going?”
Elijah moves toward the tank and presses his fingertips against the glass. Tiny clown fish dart back and forth while a Tang fish floats nearby. There is actual coral in this tank and seaweed floating like ribbons to the very top.
"Wow. Now that's a fish tank.” Dom taps at the glass.
Elijah retracts his hands and hugs himself. Paul had heard him talking about the fish. He notices the sunken pirate ship, half buried in the sand, so much like the one he'd built. Does Paul think he can buy his affections?
“It's missing something, isn't it?”
Elijah stiffens, the voice raising the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck. If earlier wasn’t a nightmare, what are the odds that this is a dream? He knows that voice.
Orlando.
He squeezes his eyes shut, he is afraid to look. What if it’s not him? What if just sounds like Orlando because he wishes it so?
There are hands on his shoulders, long fingers that turn him gently.
“Elijah. Open your eyes.”
It is.
It is Orlando standing there, all dark eyes and curls and that smooth olive skin he burns to touch. He can feel Orlando’s hands on his arms and see Orlando smiling.
“Orli?” He’s reaching out with his own fingers now because he wants to touch and make sure. “Is this real? Are you real?”
Orlando nods and Elijah can feel Orlando’s thumbs stroke along his neck.
“It’s me, Lij.”
“Yuh- you - They told me you were dead.”
Orlando’s lips press into a thin grim line.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Dom?” Elijah snaps, turning to look at Dom over his shoulder.
Dom’s mouth is working but no sound is coming out. Finally Dom gives a startled shrug and rattled headshake. “I didn’t- I didn’t know.”
“Nobody did, Lij,” Orlando confesses, “not even Tara.”
“Why?” Elijah’s voice is barely audible and he is shaking from the disparity of emotions jamming his system. His initial joy is swallowed by confusion, leaving only anger and an almost overwhelming hurt in its place. “Why would you do this to me?”
Orlando’s head dips. “I didn’t - It wasn’t something I wanted to do. I never wanted to hurt you. Ever.”
“Then why? Tell me why you did this.” Elijah is surprised by his anger. He should be happy, he should be fucking ecstatic - what he wanted so badly to be true is - but it didn't have to be like this.
“I thought you said you'd never hurt me. Did it make you feel good to do this? Does it fulfill some twisted fucking fantasy of yours?” Tears of outrage and resentment fill Elijah's eyes. He takes a few slow steps backward, until he bumps in to Dom and flinches.
“No, Elijah. No.” Orlando takes a couple steps forward.
Elijah’s eyes flick to the exit, the elegant archway into the hall. He never thought he'd want to run from Orlando but he will if Orli tries to restrain him.
Orlando stops and puts his hands up disarmingly. “It isn’t like that. I had to do it, Lij. Let me explain. Can I just try to explain it to you?”
Elijah stops edging toward door, because, yeah, he’d like an explanation; he’s fucking owed one. He folds his arms and waits expectantly.
There is a long pause. “I thought I knew exactly what to say to you," Orlando confesses. "How to explain it…"
"You'd better start," Elijah replies coldly.
Orlando nods. "I couldn’t stay young and beautiful in Hollywood forever,” he begins, “no matter how much plastic surgery I said I had.”
This statement makes no sense to Elijah at all. “What? What does that have to do with what you did?”
“Listen,” Orlando pleads softly, “let me explain and then you’ll understand. At least, I hope you will.” Elijah can tell by the uncertainly in those dark eyes that Orlando's not sure what response he’ll get.
"I'm listening."
“Can I?” Orli asks, motioning that he’d like to step closer. Elijah neither confirms nor denies that he’d like either but doesn't stop Orlando from stepping forward and closing the gap between them. Orlando simply stands there for a moment, head down. Elijah waits. He doesn't rebuff the hand that reaches for his nor stop the fingers that intertwine with his.
“Am I real, Elijah?”
Elijah frowns, unsure of the question. He looks at the fingers gently squeezing his.
“Am I real?” Orli asks again this time with a soft grin, the one Elijah never thought he’d see again.
Elijah frowns. Where is his explanation? He rubs his thumb over Orlando’s knuckles and warm fingers, the same ones that touched him intimately, companionably, and lovingly.
His anger, as resolute as it seemed just moments before, waivers as he stands so close to that which he thought was lost to him forever. Whatever this is, it is a gift. He tilts his face in open invitation.
“Can I, Lij? Can I?”
Elijah nods, or starts to, before he can he finds his face cupped in Orlando’s hands, Orlando’s lips moving over his. He hopes against hope that Orlando has a good reason for what he has done because Elijah knows that he can’t exist without this.
“Am I real, Elijah?” Orli asks the question again against his lips.
Elijah runs his hands up Orlando's chest and clutches the material of his shirt.
“Real,” Elijah breathes, “Real, real, real.”
Orlando doesn’t take his eyes from Elijah’s face as he loops his arms around Elijah’s back and pulls him tight. “As real as you, Elijah.”
“Real,” Elijah echoes. Yes, definitely real, all of his senses confirm it- scent, sight, touch, now taste - absolutely real.
Orlando gives him a little smile. “Do you get it?”
Elijah frowns. What is this? Some sort of game?
“I’m real. I'm like you.”
“You’re real. Like me?” But he isn't real. He's a...
He looks up at Orlando, as if for the first time. “Like me? You’re like me.”
Orlando smiles. “Yeah, Lij, it’s true.”
“I think,” Elijah hears Dom say, “that I had a little too much to drink. No, wait. The spaceflight fucked with me. It can do that, you know, it can mess you up in the head - that's why you have to sign that little waiver that you agree you won’t hold them responsible if something happens."
Elijah turns to find Dom making his way wobbly to the couch where he sits heavily, clutching his head in his hands.
Elijah suspects the former, not the latter.
“I don’t-" Dom scrubs at his hair, mussing it even more than it already is, "I mean, I can’t believe this.”
“How?" Elijah wonders. "How is this possible? You can't be.”
“I am," Orlando replies patiently. "I was the prototype for the Realistics.”
He had lived with Orlando for almost a year, how could he not know? “Yuh-you’re like me?” He shakes his head. Impossible, isn’t it? He thinks about that electric kiss. Hadn't he always known Orlando was different?
“Doctor Eve, does that name ring a bell with you, Dom?”
Dom's mouth hangs open for a moment. "Yeah. You can't work for the Company and not know her name.”
“She was, for all intents and purposes, my mother.”
“She never told the Company about you,” Dom says, shock registering on his face.
“She never told anyone about me. She couldn't." Orlando turns away from Dom and looks at him once more. "I was like her child. She called me that, you know,” Orlando smiles softly. “I even called her 'mom' when I learned how to speak. Well, once she gave me the program, you know."
“Everything that she brought into the Company she tested on me first - the personality programs, the interactive matrixes - everything that makes us what we are.” He touches Elijah's face. “She worked on me until she thought I was perfect, obviously she was easy to please.” Orlando's smile wobbles a little. “I miss her.”
Elijah knows that feeling of loss, knows it all too well.
“Her last gift to me was a long list of identities and a fortune.”
Elijah tries to process all the information but keeps getting stuck on the revelation. Like me. Like me. Just like me. But Orlando isn't just like him.
“But I felt your heartbeat and your breath against my skin.” He lifts his hand to Orlando's chest. "I still can."
“Yeah, well, that is the Company for you," Orlando scowls. "My mother wanted perfection but the Company was content to cut corners. They had tested prototypes on their intended market and apparently lack of certain functions wasn't a drawback. They claimed that they wanted to be able to pass the savings on to their consumers.” Disgust and anger are apparent in Orlando’s eyes. “She knew what they meant. She knew what they were up to. She used them for resources and she kept her secrets. At the end of her life she denounced them. They just thought she was a bitter old woman."
The thump of a measured heartbeat pulses beneath Elijah's hand. He never guessed. He never even saw it coming.
“I thought- " Elijah begins haltingly, what he thought is almost too uncomfortable to say. “I thought Tara’s uncle had bought me.” There is no quantifying the relief that he feels that this isn't so but it lingers like a sour taste in his mouth.
"What?"
"P. Cerne. Paul," Elijah explains. "I didn't know his last name. It could have been."
“Elijah… I’m so sorry. I never thought - It wasn’t even something I considered. I was just following the list. My mother left behind identities. I was Nick Ambrose before Orlando Bloom, and now Paul Cerne. Next time I get to be Quinn Dingleman.”
Elijah laughs. "Dingleman? You don't look like a 'Dingleman'."
“I can't fucking believe this,” Dom mutters. “I can't believe the Company never found out. I can't believe no one else did either."
“I didn’t know and I lived with him,” Elijah admits. But now, looking back, there were signs, little things that would have tipped him off had he been looking for them. He just thought that the way Orlando never seemed tired, even when he said he was, or the fact that he never ate much were just personality quirks.
“My mother was good at keeping secrets and she taught me well."
"Your mother was fucking brilliant, is what she was," Dom adds.
Elijah isn't so sure. "Why didn't she try to stop them? She had to know what the Company was doing."
Orlando shakes his head, a slight, sad smile on his lips. "She didn't. At first. They lured her with promises of wanting to do something for mankind and she wanted that too. She certainly wouldn't have signed up to work for a corporation with the sole intention of developing a slave trade for the elite. She couldn't have done anything to stop them.”
It is a bitter pill to swallow but Elijah knows Orlando is right. What is not right is why Orlando kept such a secret from him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to, so many times, but I had to be careful. If it ever got out …" Orlando shakes his head. "Can you imagine? You can imagine."
Elijah nods. He knows. He can understand but he can’t quite accept it. The fact that Orlando couldn’t trust him hurts. “Why did you let me think you were dead?”
“More than anything, I’m sorry about that, but I had to. I didn’t know what kind of actor you’d be and I couldn’t trust you not to tell Tara and Ron. I had to disappear, even from them.”
“She cried, Orli.” Suddenly he is angry again, mad at the reminder that not only did Orlando hurt him, he hurt Tara too. “You weren’t there to hear her."
"I'm sorry, Lij."
"It was so awful." He would've done anything to make it stop. He looks up at Orlando then, eyes wide. “I would’ve told her the truth,” he admits, stunned by his revelation.
He feels caught somewhere between hurt and having to apologize, but he understands.
Orlando gives him a gentle squeeze and a knowing look. “I thought you might, that’s why I couldn't take the chance. It wasn't because I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to have you back."
“And how did you know that would happen? The Company took me back. I was going to have Dom erase me,” Elijah accuses. He is aware that his emotions are all over the place but he is at a loss to control them. There were pieces to the little puzzle Orlando constructed; it all could’ve gone so wrong at any moment. “I changed the code on the program, it would have destroyed me.”
“You’re lucky," Dom tells Orlando, "that the battery in my computer was dead. Christ. I would’ve done it for him, you know.”
Elijah stares at Orlando, letting that sink in. “How did you know this would work? How did you know you’d get me back when it all could’ve gone so wrong?”
“I can calculate the odds too, Elijah. I also know that the Company is greedy more than ethical.”
“He isn't just talking about at the Company," Dom points out quietly. "I … brought the program with me. If the battery hadn't died he would've. "
Orlando finally looks as if he gets the gravity of the situation. "Should never’ve doubted your powers of persuasion."
“You took a big risk," Elijah accuses. Orlando risked him.
“I had faith.”
“Faith? Faith is just a fancy way of saying you're playing the odds,” Elijah shoots back.
“It’s easier to deny it than believe it, I know, but nothing else explains it."
“Explains what? How you got lucky? Let me ask you this, if you’re so smart, if you’re so able to calculate all the odds, then why did you even let it come to this? Why go become a big star if you knew you’d have to fake your own termination?”
“Fate, Elijah.”
“Enough with the fate crap, Orli. Tell me.” Fate just isn’t cutting it as an explanation anymore.
“Because… it is." Orlando shrugs his shoulders helplessly. "After I shot The Dead Works I wasn’t planning on sticking around for an encore.”
Elijah frowns, that was the movie Orlando wrapped just as they met. "So you were going to retire then?"
“Kind of," Orlando offers him a sheepish smile. "I acted in movies. I became a big star. It was fun and everything I always wanted, but I’d planned on employing that old adage, you’ve heard it: 'always leave them wanting more'.”
Elijah just stares until Orli continues to speak again.
“I’d made my movies, I’d achieved a dream. There was nothing left in this world for me. I was on the bridge that night for the same reason you were; then I met you and everything changed.”
Elijah blinks in disbelief. “It was snowing. Your car broke down."
Orlando shakes his head. “My car was fine.”
“The roads were bad, you stopped to wait it out.” He doesn’t even know why he says it… not when he knows what a bald-faced lie it is. Orlando has never given him a definitive reason for being there. The snowplow driver had asked if he had car trouble and Orlando had just replied with a 'yes'. Because he had been caught, because it was convenient.
“What are the odds, Elijah?” Orlando rests a hand on his shoulder. “What are the chances that we’d both be there on the same night for the same reason? Don’t you think that the probability of that alone is pretty slim? And when you factor in the fact that we’re both… what we are, tell me, what are the odds?”
The odds are staggering.
“I tried," Orlando says softly, "for the longest time to come up with some other way to explain it, because… I wasn’t sure myself. I wasn't sure if I wanted to hang around but I couldn't stop thinking about you. I knew that you were different.”
The enormity of everything Orlando is laying out before him makes his head spin.
“It was so surreal… walking into the Company like that to get you, but I had to. I wanted to rescue you, at least. I wanted to set you free but you were just... And I started to hope for things I never thought I could have. I thought you knew what it was like to bear the weight of that kind of hope. Turns out you were more than I could ever want. You were like me. You wanted what I wanted and we both thought we’d never find it.”
Orlando's bright smile is a thing of true beauty. "How could you leave it? The life you had. It was a good one, wasn't it?"
“You know why,” Orlando replies softly.
"I don't understand why you'd want to leave a life like that. You had everything. You could have waited a few years, changed your name and moved on." Their situations were definitely not the same.
“I didn't have everything. I didn't have, and couldn't have, the things I really wanted. I couldn't have my mother back. I was alone, and it was interesting for awhile - living in the world, pretending I was something I wasn’t, fooling everyone - but I was alone. I had to keep letting go, I had to walk away from those I'd formed relationships with."
There are tears in Orlando's eyes; Elijah never considered Orlando might have gotten a more raw deal than he did, but what if Orlando loved each one of the men in his past?
“When I became Orlando Bloom I thought 'there’s a name for the silver screen', yeah?” Orlando’s voice is tremulous and those tears glitter unshed. “I decided to give it one last go round and I was going to go big. I was going to try something I’d always wanted to do, I was going to have an excellent time, and I was going to make a huge splash when I went out.” Orlando grins wryly at this. “I could just imagine the moment when billions found out I was a Realistic. I'll admit I hoped then that they might realize…" Orlando shakes his head. "It was stupid."
“I know I can’t fucking believe it,” Dom snorts.
Orlando looks down, hangs his head for a moment, chastised; when he speaks again his tone is very apologetic, “I believe in fate. I never doubted for a second that you and I were meant to be together. I only wanted to be with you. Please, tell me that you still love me and that I didn’t fuck things up.”
“You very nearly did,” Elijah makes his tone stern but the smile he can't contain betrays him, “but I do still love you and I guess that makes it okay.”
Orlando pulls him forward, peppering his face with kisses until, finally, Orlando’s lips meet his and what was sweet excitement turns incendiary and intense.
“Hey, don’t mind me,” Dom calls from the couch.
Elijah doesn’t, and neither does Orlando. It has been seven long days, with a chasm of fear and heartache in between, that needs to be made up for.
“Really, hey, I’ll just - Where’s the bathroom in this place?”
Orlando pulls away and grins at Elijah’s slight grunt of frustration. “Down the hall, to your right.”
“Wait a minute," Elijah says, putting his hand up to stop Orlando from kissing him again. As badly as he wants that, there is something pressing Orlando needs to account for.
"What?" Orlando wonders impatiently.
"Why did you go to all the trouble of keeping this a secret from Tara and Ron but let Dom know everything?” Out of the corner of his eye he sees Dom come to a wavering stop, head cocked curiously.
“There is no more Dominic Monaghan.”
“Wh- what?” Dom stammers. Elijah is quick to notice how quickly the color drops from Dom’s face. “Hey man, I swear I won’t tell anyone. I swear it. You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“Calm down, Mr. Cerne,” Orli soothes, “I’d hate to see you make a mess on your carpet.”
Dom looks at Orlando, then Elijah, then back and forth between them, his mouth working soundlessly. "I don't get it."
“The place is yours, the bank account in Paul Cerne’s name is yours; there is even a strip of private beach that is yours."
"But… what about me? I don't get a choice?" Dom looks confused, shell-shocked.
"Of course you have a choice." Orlando replies patiently. "I can't make you do anything. I can't even make you keep our secret."
Elijah can't tell if it is nerves or the need to piss that makes Dom shuffle so. Probably both.
"I'm not going to lie, I am trying to buy your silence, but I thought this would be beneficial to us both. You would get a fresh start and Paul would have an active paper trail. There are photo ID’s and everything you'll need in the envelope on the kitchen table.”
“So… this place is mine?” Dom looks around the house with a new-found appreciation. “Seriously?"
Orlando nods.
"And you’re not going to try to off me when I go to take a piss?”
“No," Orlando grins. "The choice is yours."
Dom looks at them uncertainly. "I don't know. This is all so…"
Elijah wants to drop to his knees and plead for Dom to take the offer, but he doesn't. He takes his cue from Orlando, this has to be Dom's choice or it won't work.
“Better go take that leak,” Orlando suggests.
Dom nods and sidles down the hall as if he still expects something nasty.
“What are we going to do?” Elijah asks when they're alone.
Orlando grins mischievously and takes his hand. "Come on."
He follows Orlando through a sliding glass door, across a lush green lawn and into the thick jungle beyond. He stumbles over roots and vines but Orlando is there to steady him.
"Just a little further," Orlando assures him.
"To what?" Not that he cares, not that he wouldn't follow Orlando to the ends of this planet or any other.
"This." Orlando pushes his way through to a path. It is narrow and the jungle is already trying to reclaim it, but there is a small motorbike with two helmets hanging from the handle bars.
Orlando takes one off and tosses it to him. “Ever been on a bike before?”
Elijah grins and shakes his head. “What do I need this for?”
Orlando takes the helmet back and pulls it on for him. “I don't want anything to happen to your pretty face." Orlando drops a kiss on his lips before lowering the visor. "And so no one will see us.”
“What?” Elijah flips the visor back up. The helmet muffles Orlando's voice.
Orlando laughs. "We don't want anyone to see our faces."
"Where are we going? Are we leaving?"
"Iaole loves tourists," Orlando explains as he pulls on his headgear, "and the rich, but what it loves most are the spectacularly rich recluses who make it a spectacularly rich planet. We are going to join those ranks but we still have to get there, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
“But Dom knows.”
Orlando nods, but he doesn't look too concerned. “You really think that he is going to waste his time on us, Lij? When the surf is calling his name and he has been given more than he ever wanted?"
Elijah smiles. “The odds are slim.”
“Very,” Orlando slings one long leg over the bike and starts it with a hard kick. “Get on.”
“You know how to drive this thing?”
”I’ve been practicing.”
“At least you can’t kill me,” Elijah teases and just like that it feels like the last week never happened.
“This isn’t the way I’d do it if I were going to try.” Orlando drops him a wink. “Get on the damn bike.”
*
Epilogue to follow ...