Totalled - Rusted from the Rain

AN: This is a sidestory/one shot from my short story “Totalled”. This deals with what happened to Rex after the office retirement party. You might want to look at Totalled first to understand the universe.

I, Kiix, give myself permission to use my own universe which I previously created in "Totalled" in order to write this story. - well that's what the powers that be asked me to do. Redundant but okay.

Rusted from the Rain
By
Kiix

Date Completed: 09-09-09
Word Count: 4057

I was offline.

I don’t know how long. Long enough for the techs to reclaim the aluminum alloy parts. What was left was my original surgery. There was no call for those things anymore and the reclamation value was nil. Someone had replaced my missing limbs with the old junk. They didn’t do a good job. It must have been an apprentice journeyman just learning because connections were missing. Then again, I was shot in the head. They must have practised surgery on my remain human bits and pieces as well otherwise I would still be dead.

I was lucky to be online.

I woke up in the rain. A sharp buzzing ripped through me and sparks still danced along my exposed bionics. I had been on top of the trash heap and was hit by a lightning strike. System check ran down noting that I only have about 40% functionality. Once again, I was lucky to be alive. No one leaves Internal Affairs willingly. Rain washed the blood off my skin and my parts. My neck was messed up. A bullet much have nicked the bone and cracked it. My body lurched up into a sitting position and I scanned the area. AI trash heap. Unguarded. By the time things got dumped here there was nothing left of value.

Once I was the best Internal Affairs had to offer. Then I started losing pieces of myself. Finally, I’d just been retired.

My head was locked in a kinked angle. I could hear the servos grinding but whatever was out of place was going to stay that way. Playback was damaged. I could only get jumbled images. Hacker. Siren. Hacker...my partner. My lover. I had hurt him. I had hurt him until he couldn’t take it any more and requested a transfer. Siren shooting me in the head was a mercy. She could have sent me down as a live experiment. Damage to the high end replacement parts would have been severe. It was only economics that she retired me in her office.

I shifted my weight and it was enough to start an avalanche down the mountain of trash. I didn’t have the reflexes I once had and I hit hard on the muddy ground then found myself half buried with other scrap metal. I laid there in the mud waiting for my body to shake off the extended period of death. Hacker was right, I was more machine now than man. The bad part was the machine bits that were back on me were the substandard kind the inner city grid only got access to. I would have to get up and move out of the rain soon or I would start to rust.

Rex. Was that my code or my name? Memory was faulty. Milty was Hacker. He was my lover. Gaw, he was ****ing gorgeous. I was thrilled when he had been assigned to me and even more so when I was asked by Siren to take care of his as my personal partner. That meant that piece of man ass couldn’t refuse me. He was a drunk though. I can’t recall everything but I think I could count on my natural fingers how many times I kissed him without having *Handsome Johnny* whiskey on his breath. I loved his hands. His fingers were slim and tapered. He had all ten of them. I used to love just sitting on the bed and watch him work at the com-vid. He was a genius.

I think I crushed his ankle when I was laying on my back in Siren’s office. It would have been a death spasm but it just showed how I continued to hurt him. I loved him. I love him. I looked out for him. He needed me. He signed my death warrant.

My circuits were slightly fried. The end of my fingers were numb. I was bleeding from multiple gunshots. I shouldn’t be alive. I shouldn’t be here. I raised my hand and touched my face. The metal was exposed on the side of my skull and my cheek. I wasn’t handsome anymore. He would never look at me like this. No, Milty wasn’t that shallow. All I had left was my looks. Or had.

I was dead. Shouldn’t I have stopped loving him when my heart stopped?

Everything was misaligned. Pain shot up from my hip as I stood but it kept my weight. Don’t have a timelock with the grid. I have no idea how long I’ve been on the trash. If the next transport found me, they’d make sure I was scrap metal. I lurched along like a broken toy. Pain meant the human remains were still alive. Just one foot in front of the other as the acid rain poured down over me stinging the bruised and battered flesh. I could actually hear the ping and burn of the corrosive on my metal parts. I had to get to ground before the rain ate some of the exposed wiring. If I lost my leg, that would be it for me. My human one wouldn’t be strong enough to handle all the weight of the replacements.

I shuffled off slow but determined. You got to IA because you were good. You excelled because it was expected. I knew I got the reputation as a mech. I knew what the said behind my back, especially when the medics had to come to the dormitory apartments to take Milty to the Regenerists. I was just a madman. I had the mechshine – that cold killer sheen that was a by-product of the nanomachines that came with the replacement parts. A film coated the back of the retina so when light hit a certain way, the eye would go flinty metallic gleam. Strong emotions made the mechshine. They forgot I had the number one ranking for demolitions. You might make it to IA because you caught someone’s attention but you made your rank through talent and force of will. I determined my way to the nearest aqueduct and made it to shelter as the next trash transport arrived.

Getting that far, which really wasn’t that much distance, had drained me down to 15%. I had so much damage that to let me use up my emergency reserves might lead to my true death. I found a crack in the concrete walls that I could wedge my way into. Once I was secure, I began powering down. When I woke up this morning, I wanted nothing more than to hold Milty in my arms and kiss him good morning. I never meant to hurt him. I never ever meant to hurt him.

Power down.

I had nightmares. A blonde woman smiled down at me with blood red lips, only it wasn’t a comestic stick – she painted them with her finger tip from the pool on the floor – from under me. Her teeth were bloody as she smiled down at me. The black barrel of the old fashioned revolver filled my vision. There was a flash of fireworks and then my mind’s eye was filled with the look of horror and relief on Milty’s face. My normal nightmares were when I ****ed up and lost pieces of myself. This was worse. It was worse because it was just playback. Fast cuts from image to moment to emotional debris. I woke up crying.

I didn’t know I could still do that.

The tears stung my ruined flesh on my face. Olfactory senses were down. I could be rotting and I had no way of knowing. All I had was my looks. Not the brightest coin in the fountain but I did know my way around the system...or maybe not.

Siren, the District Commander, my boss, shot me in the head.

Because I was hurting Milty.

My babe was something out of a man’s wet dream. He was slim and angled where he was supposed to be, hard and cut were it was appreciated and he could put the fear of God in you with just one look. Six foot, one hundred and fifty-so pounds, brown hair, brown eyes and a mouth on him that could do the most amazing things when he wanted to. The only problem was getting him to want to. He was older than me and his sex drive wasn’t revving into the fast lane anymore. I wanted to jump him every time he took a breath, he was just that sexy. He put up with me most of the time and I think we both found it good in the beginning. The look on his face when he straddled me was pure wantoness. I could never deny him. I had never denied him. Harry Milton was my one and only.

I took care of him. I made the meals. I went to the bars and dragged his drunken ass home. I did everything I could to be his partner but I couldn’t get him to love me. I couldn’t make him care. I was just a sex partner who happened to be a team mate. I wanted more from him than that. Maybe that’s why I just obsessed on him. Everything was always laid at my feet. I had the looks. I had the skill. I never had to work at anything. Babe came from the inner city grid. He had been a Trooper – a regular law enforcement officer. He had real street creds. He had the bullet holes and knife wounds to prove it. For the first time I met someone out of my league and what did I do? I raped him. He wouldn’t give me what I wanted so I took it.

I deserved to get shot in the head.

Options were leaking out of me. Rats were gathering so my skin must be rotting. I needed technical and medical attention. Trying to get anything done up in this part of the blocks would get me permanently killed and dismembered. So I had to go to the inner city. I was lucky to be still in my bloody uniform. All the silver had been cut off. The death head pins at my collar were gone. That was good. Couldn’t be running, lurching around the inner city as an IA.

I was back to 40%. I must have made a hellish sight shamble lurching and all kinked out of recognition. I moved forward towards the inner grid until my power dipped down into the danger zone. I took care to keep my face wrapped in my cleanest dirty rags as best I could. I didn’t need to wake up and have rats ripping off chunks of me again.

I dreaded sleep. The hard images of my death were replaced with something less bloody but more devastating. My final confession to my babe. He basically scrawled out of our apartment with a broken face and multiple contusions and bruises but his hand was steady as he pointed his needlebeamer targeting scope to the center of my forehead. I should have known that I had taken it too far. The mechshine had gotten to me and my babe paid the price. Well in the end I paid the price.

I had kept a personal recording of my last message. Now it was stuck in loop so every time I rested it kicked in.

Milton.... Harry...babe, I don't know when you'll get back or if I'll be here when you do - I've been given a Priority One as well. I know I've been hurting you lately, and I'm sorry. I can't get the fine-tuning down right yet, but I promise to work on it. I don't intend to get rough with you but.... no, no more excuses.

I know you're thinking about someone else and it rips me up and I want to hurt you, because I know when I do, I have your full attention. But it's getting worse - if Siren didn't call, I would have raped you. I'm not proud of that, babe. You don't deserve that type of treatment from anyone - and you know that if anyone else did that to you, I'd kill them.

When we're back together, babe - just give me one week. If you don't want to be with me after that I'll let you go - no protests. Keep the home fires burning for me, babe. Be home soon.

My honesty was killing me. I hurt the love of my life because I was jealous. He loved this Tesa chick. She was dead – killed in an act of sabotage but he still loved her. I couldn’t drive her out of his heart. I couldn’t wedge myself in her place. She had such a hold on him. How can you fight a ghost? With pain. Pain kept him in the here and now. Pain kept his attention. I didn’t deserve him...but I didn’t want to let him go.

Power supply wasn’t draining as quickly but I made sure that I stumbled through the wreckage that once was a city heading for my final destination. Someone else I ****ed over in my youth. So many things you do when the flush of immortality of youth is on you comes back to bite you in the ass. It took me four days to get to his doorstep. Strike that. It would be ten years and some change since I last saw him. There was a good chance that he would slam the door in my face.

“Move it you vagrant. I told your kind that I would burn you off my street if I caught you breaking in to steal drugs...” I was hit hard from behind and lumbered into the door. My exposed metal shoulder went clang against the steel.

“What the hell...I ain’t a tech. You’re in the wrong part of town if you need more modification.”

The doctor shoved me out of the way and I stumbled backwards into the street. I watched as he reached for the door and then he caught the lingering stench of my decay. “What the frag?”

A pistol was raised and pointed in my face. I winced and instinctively turned my head away as far as it could go. “Alex?”

“Brother...” My voice was mangled.

“****ing IA!”

I had reached my target.

Mission complete.

Shutdown.

Pain unlike anything I could remember was my constant companion. It shadowed me through the darkness of my nightmares. It wrapped up in its arms when I got tired of fighting it. After a while I got used to it. It was a constant companion always there in varying degrees. I wanted to stay in the darkness but something wouldn’t let me. It was persistent like a fly that just keeps buzzing and buzzing in your ear as you try and sleep. It’s going to bug the hell out of you until you got up and killed it.

I opened my eyes...eye. I was hooked to machines. All sorts of machines. There was beeping. There was breathing. I squinted my one eye and thought I saw dialysis. I felt – lighter. I tried my connections but there was no response. My bionic arm and leg were detached. The docking ports seemed to be sealed. What the frag...

The next time I woke my thinking was clear. Not so many machines were attached this time. I still only had one eye. My lips were dry. I licked them and tasted bandage on the corner of my mouth. It hurt and my movement seemed extraordinarily slow but I touched the side of my face. I was bandaged all around my head.

“Don’t touch it.” My brother stood in the doorway, a glass of *Handsome Johnny* dangling from his hand. I knew the colour and texture of that particular poison. “You’re supposed to be dead, Alex. I got the standard IA visitation and folded flag as your last living relative. I should have expected the bastards to know where I was. They gave me a nice speech about how you died in the line of duty. The District Commander almost had me believing her but then I’ve seen the bullet holes in you. Line of duty my left testicle. You were retired.”

“Where’s my arm?”

“Gone. You had rust poisoning. I had to replace all your blood and drain your synthetics.”

“How long have I been out?”

“That’s it? I tell you, you almost died and you just...”

“Roger...it happened. I can’t change it. My voice is different.”

“I had to modify it. Bone fragments from the fourth cervical vertebrae had damaged it. I did what I could with the facilities I got. Why didn’t you tell me you were so ****ed up before you got yourself ****ed up even more? We are the only ones left in the family, Alex.”

I turned my head to the left and right and was grateful that it wasn’t grinding or catching now. “You should have been given my accounts. There should be more than enough to get me a better arm and leg. Aluminum grade – might be third rate quality but it’s something I’m used to.”

Silence greeted me.

“Roger?”

“I’ve done the best I could with what I got, Alex. Maybe if I had gotten to you a few days before…” Roger tipped the glass back and swallowed the alcohol down. “Your dying, little brother and there isn’t a damned thing I can do about expect make you comfortable.”

“What do you…”

“Rust poisoning, Alex. Your nanites have been infected and they have replicated the infection throughout your body. I’ve changed your blood three times. I’ve flushed your systems. Nothing. Even if I rushed you to a grid hospital – your ID is deceased. ****ing Internal Affairs. How could you join after what you saw what was left of Dad?”

I touched the bandages on my face.

“Gangrene and what looked like rat bites. I did what I could.”

“IA’s a calling, Roger. Just like medicine. Dad believed in what he was doing for society. So do I. You don’t want the rest of the world looking like the inner city.”

“More than half of you is machine. You can’t tell me you signed up for that.”

“You take the good with the bad. If this is what I have to pay, then it’s fine. At least I got to be with him for a while.”

“Him? You’re dying for a piece of ass?”

I closed my eye and laid my head back on the pillow. “You’ve never seen his ass but Milty had one to die for. I found the one I wanted to live for, bro…I had the chance to walk with him for a few years. It was more than I could have hoped for.”

Rust.

I was really dying because of rust. I have never been dirty ever. It was almost a compulsive disorder. If I never came to IA, I never would have met him. What I told Roger was true. I believed in what I was doing for Internal Affairs. Every society needed order. That order needed to be enforced. The State Troopers were fine for those who were law abiding or just a little rowdy but IA ferreted out major offenders. Left unchecked, who knows how far down the evolutionary scale society would fall if everyone could do what they wanted. If my dying from being rusted in the rain was a by-product. So be it.

“How long?”

“Soon.”

“You got anymore of that?” I gestured to the empty glass. “What? It’s not going to kill me any quicker.”

Roger had to set me up and hold the glass to my lips. I was forever going to associate the scent and the taste of *Handsome Johnny* to Milty. This was like one last lingering kiss from him.

“I’m not letting you go, Alex. You’re the only one I have left.”

“I had a good run. At least I got to tell him that I loved him. That’s more than some people get in their lifetime.”

Power output was down to 12%.

“Glad I found you again, big brother. I missed you.”

Power output was down to 6%.

“****...Alex...”

Power output...offline.


Power output at maximum. System check, complete. Functioning at 100%.

“Rex?”

I grunted at the sound of my name.

“Rex...”

“Don’t call him. He’s not even awake yet.” Roger? Was that Roger’s voice?

I didn’t feel right. I felt good and strong but something wasn’t right. I tried to say Roger’s name and a whine ground in my ears. I opened my eye...eyes. The depth perception was wrong. I tried to curl my hands into fists but I could only get my fingers moving. Wait. I looked down and saw metal paws flexing in movement with my commands to curl my hands in. I snapped my head up and found myself staring down at Roger and a slight young IA Handler.

“Alex...before you do anything listen to me.”

I was in a tracker. I was a dog!

“Dogboy here’s tracker got needlebeamed. It burnt out his CPU. The body was nothing more than scrap without a functioning chip. I couldn’t stop the cellular and nanite decay. You’re imprinted on an organic chip. I couldn’t save your body. I gave you another one.”

Tracker. I was a dog made out of metal. I was twice the size of the biggest breed. I had superior capabilities – sense, sight, smell and touch. Panting I could taste the sweat and desperation in the air between the two of them. The metal body moved easily with my thoughts. This was better than my old body. I snapped my jaws together. It rang with a metallic crunch. I could feel the servos working as I ground my teeth together. I felt strong. I felt...whole. I felt complete for the first time in a long time.

“Rex.” I turned my attention to who Roger called Dogboy. Taking a good look at him, he was IA. Trackers and their Handlers were too brutal to work the blocks; but they made a wonderful working unit in the inner city. I moved in front of him and stared down into his eyes. He should have been frightened but then he was probably seeing me as the tracker he had been assigned to. If a dog could have a soul, a mechanical dog, then his tracker had passed when his CPU crashed. The only thing in this form was me. “Rex...” My call sign was like a soft whisper from his lips.

His hand reached out and touched my muzzle. “Rex.” He threw his arms around my neck and began sobbing. The scent was familiar. Whatever lingered of the Handler’s tracker recognized this boy.

Scrape. Skirch. Skreee. My tail scratched up the operating room floor. “I thought I lost you, boy.”

I opened my eyes and looked over Dogboy’s head. Roger stood there staring at me. His whole facial features were dejection and maybe regret. Why? I was alive. I felt strong. I turned my head in toward the Handler and pressed heavily against him. He gave a snorting laugh and ran his hand over the backs of my ears. Just like a real dog, the sensors there as he stroked them gave me nothing but joyous satisfaction. I turned and looked at him. Really looked at him. He had the silver death dead insignia on his collar. I was alive. I was whole. I was strong.

And I still had a purpose. The form might have changed but I was still Internal Affairs. I woofed at my older brother as my tail scratched the floor. He met my eyes and I tried to tell him that everything was fine. It seemed to work because his shoulders suddenly dropped and relief made him slump back on his desk.

100% functionality. Playback.

Keep the home fires burning for me, babe. Be home soon.

Like this, in this form, I could really protect him – the love of my life. Code name – Rex. Demolitionist expert or Tracker, it didn’t matter. I was just as loyal as a dog. I might have failed my love in the past but I was still here. I’d do better this time around.

I’ve never heard of a dog rusting in the rain.

-30-
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Dark Romance - when love has consequences...