#android!michael

Behind him, Gavin was digging through a pile by hand, quietly talking to himself. He tossed something over his shoulder and Michael watches as a head bounced on the ground twice before it started to roll his way. He scans it quickly before turning away from it in favor of the mass of bodies that were heaped into mountains.

It was easier to look at them like this. Easier to scan over the bodies that were too tangled to focus on too much instead of individual body parts.

His ocular scanner finds a viable match and he makes his way over to where it’s hidden under a couple of twisted and battered limbs. It’s easy enough to push those away to get to what he needs. It’s much harder for him to grab him once he sees that it’s still attached to an android who is still activated. “Gavin,” he calls to the human without looking away. His sensors pick up the sounds of Gavin crunching his way over to him and then feels as a hand is put on his shoulder.

“What’s up boi?” he asks curiously. Michael merely points at the android who is looking at them expectantly, mouth moving as if to speak but nothing coming out. Michael scans over it quickly and notes that quite a few key components are currently missing. He hears Gavin hum from his position behind him. “How bad is he?” Gav questions as his eyes do their own version of scanning the android.

Michael lists off all of the parts that the android needs replaced and the human frowns. “I don’t know if we have all of that..” he says more to himself than to Michael. He waits patiently for a moment until Gavin shrugs. “Let’s take him anyway. I’ll do what I can with what I have.” Michael nods and stands back up, mindlessly dusting himself off even though his clothes aren’t dirty. Not like Gavin’s at least. “Help me uncover him, Gav.” He orders. Together, they pull the other androids parts off of the one that’s still activated before Michael lifts it up into his arms. He’s careful not to jostle it around too much, afraid he’d break something else that Gavin would have to fix on the poor thing.

He watches Gavin work when they get back to base, standing just over his shoulder and making snide comments whenever he feels they’re necessary. Gavin quips back a few times but he’s mostly focused on the android currently shut off on the table. There’s a bunch of extra android parts on a table just off to the side alongside all of Gavin’s tools.

“How much longer?” He finally caves and asks. Gavin glances over at his direction and blinks as if he just realized he was there.

“Uh? Oh! Just a second, Micheal. Have patience, boi!” He grins and Michael sees just how tired the human is, his eyes still sharp but with bags under his eyes. And his body moves slower than it usually does. Perhaps he should mention something to Trevor or Geoff about making Gavin stay home for a day or two to catch up on his rest.

Something stirring catches his attention and his gaze shifts from Gavin to the android that’s powering back up. It’s LED starts blinking and spinning yellow and for a moment Michael worries that it was a mistake to bring it to their base to fix it. But as its eyes open and it turns its head to look around, the stress levels seem to settle at a moderate level. That’s good, they could work with that.

“Where-where am I? What did you do to me?” It demands as it looks down at its android skin. Slowly, the human skin crawls its way down its limbs but its attention goes back to Michael and Gavin. He’s not sure, but Michael thinks it’s glaring at them.

“Welcome back, ST500!” Gavin squeals in delight but Michael notices how the android flinches at its model number. “We found you in the junkyard and fixed you back up!”

“Do you have a name you’d prefer we refer to you as?” Michael asks. The androids eyes meet his and he gives the tiniest hint of a smile.

“Jeremy,” he answers as his skin finishes replacing itself. He’s attractive, Michael thinks, eyes scanning over the obvious muscles. They’re practically the same model and he can’t help but wonder what happened that would make a company completely scrap their security android instead of just repairing it.

Gavin takes a step back and motions around to the space that they’re in. “Welcome to Achievement City!” he says. Jeremy swings his legs over the side of the table and slides off, almost falling when his feet hit the ground. He looks up at the two of them in what’s close to panic.

“Why am I shorter?!” He practically screeches. Michael looks over to Gavin and doesn’t even try to stifle his laugh at the man’s sheepish expression.

Michael glanced around the street, its programming already mapping out multiple escape routes. A part of its screen was dedicated to a satellite view of the area, a single red dot marking where the tracer attached to Damien’s phone was. Probability of the kidnappers and Damien still being here were low but it was the only lead Michael had so far. So with a deep breath that it didn’t need, Michael stepped out of the vehicle and made its way towards the building. It made no noise as it crossed the wet street and grass, its body made to be especially light yet sturdy for situations such as these.

It looked through one of the windows and raised an eyebrow at what it saw. Through a doorway down the hall, Michael could see a man- human- pacing in front of the door waving something that looked sharp and threatening. Michael crouched low again and made its way to a window that looked directly into that room for a better view. Peeking back in, it could see Damien tied to a chair in the corner, looking surprisingly calm even though Michael’s sensors picked up that his heart was beating fast and hard in fear. He didn’t appear to be harmed but there was blood on his shoulder, a quick scan telling Michael that it wasn’t his. Michael narrowed its eyes at that as it swept its gaze across the room. Two androids were standing guard at either side of the door, passive but alert, their LEDs glowing a steady blue.

Michael silently made its way around the entirety of the house, peeking into each window to spot a total of six androids and two humans. Probability of success was critically low so Michael let its programming pick up on subtle ways that could give him an advantage. There wasn’t much of use in the house, it being a decrepit and abandoned house. It seemed as though only the bare minimums were available except for the chair Damien was seated in and then a dirty and torn couch that the humans took turns lounging in. Michael made its way to the front of the house once more. Looks like it was going to be the fun way then.

It silently tried the handle to the front door, its wiring firing as it found that it was unlocked, brows furrowing as it entered the house. Its eyes tried to find any sort of alarms or traps, something to explain why this was almost too easy.

Michael’s sensors picked up soft footsteps, too light to be a human’s, and it edged to the wall where it wouldn’t be seen unless the android came closer. Sure enough, the android walked into the room and Michael quickly wrapped its arms around the androids mouth with one hand while its free hand dug itself past the hard chassis and gripped onto the wires at the base of the android’s neck. With a harsh tug, the wires pulled loose and the android went limp instantly. Sparks of electricity shot throughout Michael’s own wires and it dropped the body as quietly as it, shaking its hand out.

Michael peered around the corner as it kicked the body further into the room so it couldn’t be seen from a glance. Another android was coming out of what looked to be a storage room with a small box in its hands and Michael tried to scan it but the android turned and blocked the view. Michael mentally cursed to itself as it began to ease closer to the lone android. With swift and practiced movements, it repeated the assassination flawlessly before also dragging that body to join the other one without making a sound.

There was another android running around by itself in the house before Michael got to the room Damien was held in. It focused on its sensors to try to pinpoint where the remaining android was and turned its head as something shifted in the room across from him. Michael inched closer, careful of any and all sounds that it made, until it was right in front of the door the android was getting closer to. Michael stood ready to attack, hand positioned at head level. As soon as the door opened, Michael’s hand shot out, through the front of the android’s face and ripping out the wires as it pulled its hand back. The android slumped to the floor and Michael kicked it back and away from him, no longer caring about the noise. The probability of success had risen to acceptable levels. If Michael were human, one could probably say that he was getting cocky.

Michael no longer quieted its footfalls as it made its way to the room where everyone else was waiting. A hand went to his waist where a single pistol waited, gripping onto it and holding it close. The humans jumped up as Michael walked through the doorway, noticing how the remaining two android’s LEDs flashed yellow for a moment before their gaze shifted to stare at him, waiting.

Michael simply brought the gun up to the one to its left, pulling the trigger before the other could react. Damien flinched violently and Michael resisted the initial command in its programming to glance over and make sure the client was safe, keeping its eyes trained on the leader as its right hand flew up to grab at the last android’s throat to keep it at bay. The other human lunged for Damien and Michael pointed the gun to the man, finger on the trigger. But the man had pulled the teen up out of his chair and effectively used him as a shield. ‘Coward,’ Michael thought.

Its eyes returned to the woman who was obviously in charge in the situation as Michael grinned. "As far as I can tell you have two options. You can let him go and nobody gets hurt.” When the woman narrowed her eyes, it continued with a shrug. “I won't even tell my boss about your little slip up.” Michael pulled the trigger on the android that was still within its grasp to make a point. “Or I'll hunt you down to the end of the earth. You will never rest easy again because I can not be killed, I can not be swayed, and your last tortured breath won't come until I have my vengeance."

But the man who held Damien merely sneered. “You’re nothing but a hunk of plastic! What’s stopping us from just using you as scrap to fix up the mess you made?!” Michael didn’t even give the man the satisfaction of looking at him, keeping him and Damien in the periphery of its sensors.

“If I’m just a ‘hunk of plastic’, why don’t you quit hiding behind a kid and turn me to scrap?” It asked, still refusing to glance over. The man snarled at Michael then and it resisted rolling its eyes. The woman held up her hand then, her heart continuing to beat faster the longer she stared at Michael.

“James, shut up,” she ordered before dropping her hand to rest on her hip. Michael watched as her fingers inched their way to her back, realizing that there was probably a knife or something there- had scanned for guns earlier but only found them on the androids.

Sure enough, a knife came flying towards its head and Michael merely ducked out of the way as it clattered to the floor further down the hall. The android blinked at her, unimpressed, and she balked a little at that. With a sigh that was unnecessary, Michael brought the gun up to train on the leader. “Don’t say I never gave you a choice.”

BANG!

The gunshot reverberated throughout the empty house, the silence following deafening. Michael turned to point at where the man stood behind Damien. “I’m a pretty good shot, I have a 93 percent chance of hitting you without hurting Damien.” It said in a bored tone even though the percentage was really only 30. “I promise that I won’t shoot if you release him.”

After what was probably a tense moment for the humans, the man shoved Damien towards Michael who automatically held out a hand for the teen as its finger pressed down on the trigger anyways. “You okay?” Michael asked Damien, glancing down to quickly scan the boy. Something flared in his systems, something warm spilling throughout its chest, as the teen gave him a bright smile.