Page 52 of Garbage

Why were the simplest questions the ones he couldn’t look up the answers to?

Or maybe there were no simple questions anymore.

Maybe there never had been.

CNS-84-17 drove them to the dump as the sun was at its afternoon hottest, and then to the next neighborhood. Quincy stared out the window without seeing, until he realized that they were just a few miles over from Evan’s apartment.

Evan’s trash day was Monday, but Quincy wished it was today. Even looking up at the building, with his little plant in one window and Evan’s cactus in the other, would be better right now.

He heard someone yelling down the street, but tuned it out.

He just needed… Evan. His mind was a mess. Even a talk would maybe be tolerable if Evan would just smile at him again.

When someone tapped him on the shoulder, for a moment he almost thought it really was Evan, manifested by the sheer power of his longing.

It took him far too long to recognize that face.

And then his overworked circuits flailed, code breaking into meaningless bytes while his body went still.

“Hey, Sparky.” It was the bad man. The one who hadn’t wanted to leave, even when Evan was practically in his face. His sneer made Quincy’s pistons wheeze, sucking without the proper fluid levels.

Oh, shit. What was he supposed to do?

He suddenly couldn’t remember anything except Ben’s promise to make him a mod that would allow him to protect himself. Except that had somehow never quite happened.

He was supposed to… record. He set the recording on automatic, flicking off all the automatic overrides. He dreamed of Evan’s proud face.

And somehow that made him realize what he should have done first. The most important thing, and the only one that mattered.

Something hit his leg, and every joint and piston jerked. Every program, every thought, fell apart like snowflakes, fizzing out to nothing.

Who?

Memory error. Reboot yes/no?

What?

Systems compromised. Begin repair procedures?

Where?

Someone was leaning over his face. “How do you like that, Sparky?”

He ignored the repair protocols. His fear was instinctive. The angry, scarred face would hurt him, and the only safety was Evan.

Evan!

Had he been…? It didn’t matter. Everything was gone.

He was living in his BIOS. Tiny and constrained. He remembered being smaller once.

How?

But the BIOS could communicate. He could launch communication protocols. He’d locked Evan’s contact information away in there because it was important.

The man’s voice pierced his ears. “My god. He’s wearing makeup. You think you’re pretty, you little faggot whore? Bet he takes it up the ass.”

Quincy tried to tune it out. He opened a new text and a call at the same time, plunking down words without any meaning. He didn’t even know what was already in there, the words drifting away as soon as he wrote them.