#love host

Waylon opens the bean hole to the main door, the grinning blue eyes of Miles fucking Upshur waiting for him on the other side.

“Hey there, WayWay, I am here for my check up,” he greets with a smile, the wave he offers just out of sight, “Oh yeah, and Wally’s here too.” 

The words barely register before the nanomachine has its whole face pressed against the peephole, staring back at Waylon, completely eyeless.

The techie nearly jumps out of his skin, shutting the slat out of paranoid instinct, body wrecked by a wave of heebeegeebees. 

He can see it. Why can he see it when he couldn’t as much as before?

“Heeeeyy,” Miles whines, voice dampened by the steel barrier between them, ”I am still waiting out here.”

Waylon internally groans, trying to collect himself enough to unlatch the many bars securing the entrance shut.

When the final lock cracks loose, Miles is too busy sympathizing the Walrider to notice, holding its caricature of a face and daresay, petting it.

“Ah, you can c-come in now,” Waylon offers, standing in the doorway, watching on with morbid fixation.

“There, see,” Miles exclaims, a consoling note to his voice, “He wouldn't invite us in if he didn't like us.”

Waylon swears this scene must be slowly melting his brain from the inside out, along with Miles’s seemingly endless list of pet names for him.

“Hey, Way,” the brunette asks, turning his attention to his fellow asylum survivor, “could you tell Wally here that you like him, please? He thinks you're scared of him. Isn't that silly?”

He isn't scared, he's terrified.

“Yeah, s-sure. I like him,” Waylon offers weakly, shoving down his dread.

This was absurd. A machine couldn’t have feelings and even if it did, they were none more important than his own.

“Told you! Everything's fine,” Miles chippers, the Walrider finally appeased by this discovery.

The machine gazes toward Waylon again, breaking it’s body down into smaller pieces, swooping in close to swirl around Waylon knees, then higher, drifting in a cyclone of miniature storm clouds up to his shoulders.

“Uhh, hello again, I guess,” the engineer offers shakily, trying to appear fearless and brave, even lifting a finger to touch the nanite mist surrounding him. It feels like water.

“Thanks Waylon,” Miles says, patting him on the shoulder in good sportsmanship, stepping inside.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.”

And just like that, the nano machine leaves him to follow it’s host, the dazed software engineer reminding himself that he needs to rearm the door. 

Before the reporter can poke his nose in further, Waylon locks the paddock, turning on the electric fence to deter any unwanted trespassers.

“So, this is where you’ve been holding up,” Miles asks, taking in the abandoned barracks, a dimly-lit trailer filled with a junkyard of broken, decommissioned tech.

The Walrider is equally curious, ghosting around the layout, dousing the army green interior in supernatural mist.

“Not quite,” Waylon amends, running a hand down his face, feeling overwhelmed by the quirky demands of his company, “This is where I work. Keeps me a safe distance away from Lisa and the kids in case anything happens.”

“Safety is important. I am sure there are no OSHA recordables in here,” the snarky brunette remarks, dodging under a duct of loose wires.

“Ha ha funny,” the blonde remarks, devoid of amusement, “the device I want to show you is over here.” 

Waylon grabs him by the wrist cuff before Miles can slip away to snoop, escorting him to the testing room.

“Aren’t you going to give me a tour first,” the sleuth whines, taking in as much of the space as he can, “you can’t tell me you have a secret lair and not show me around.”

“There's really not much to see,” Waylon growls, noting his companion’s inquisitive fingers, “Also, please stop touching everything.”

“Awwww,” Miles whines, dragging his feet in disappointment, a frown setting in.

“Fine, maybe later,” the techie relents, his stride persisting, “We're kinda pressed for time.” 

“Oh, somewhere you gotta be,” Miles asks, perking up at that confession, raising a brow at his companion, letting himself be tugged along more easily.

“Yeah, I’d prefer to be home with my wife and kids.”

A long pause, their combined footsteps echoing off the iron grates that line the floor.

“Am I invited,” the reporter asks, smirking at the back of Waylon’s unkempt head of hair.

Another aggravated yank on his sleeve.

“Let’s just get through testing first.”

They arrive at their destination, the very back of the bunker, a T-shaped hub. One of the doors is sealed off, making Miles wonder what could be hiding in there, the rest of the room encased by steel shelves filled with gutted parts, radios, computers, phones and the like. 

In the center is a chair outfitted with restraints, a litany of auxiliary cords hooked up to various loadouts, a desk and computer terminal set up in the corner, no doubt to collect the data of whoever sits in it.

“So … this is it,” Miles says judgmentally, unimpressed, “Looks like an electric chair, but somehow more revenge of the nerds-esque.”   

Waylon smacks his lips and rolls his eyes. He won’t deny it bears a striking resemblance to Mount Massive’s brainwashing devices, ones he had the untimely pleasure of experiencing for himself.

“Yeah, everyone's a critic. Just get in.”

“Is it safe,” Miles asks, skeptical of the bad vibe he was getting just by looking at the creepy thing.

“As safe as any of this experimental tech is gonna be.”

Miles supposes he can’t complain, given the circumstances. He doesn’t get any of these gadgets, but there was no one else he could turn to (aside from maybe Wernickle) who could give him the answers he seeks. Still, the reporter can’t help feeling a bit uneasy about entrusting himself to any diagnostic tool created on a non-existent scrap heap budget.

The Walrider manifests itself as a disembodied head, whistling through it’s cheeks, seeking to reassure it’s host with a trill of sound. Miles smiles, close-lipped, stroking the odd contours of its face with a gentle hand.   “Alright. I mean we’ve come this far. What other choice do we have?”

With that, the anxious human hybrid takes a seat, the next test subject for this experimental apparatus going on torture device. Waylon straps him in, tying the buckles too tight to be comfortable, but Miles suspects it's punishment for trying to pry into the engineer's private life. His head too is bridled in place, another belt across the forehead to keep him securely in an upright position.

“This will monitor your heart rate,” Waylon says, electrode pads stuck to Miles’ temple, and then after a moment, adds a disclaimer, “I am not a doctor, though.”

“You’ll be able to tell me more about the Walrider, right,” the brunette asks, nervously clenching his hands on the arm rest.

Waylon hesitates, less than confidently offering a, “Yeah,” in response.

The programmer returns to his computer chair, swishing around his mouse, loading up a program with a few swift clicks. 

A gray and white window pops up, waves on a grid, a number of statistics waiting for action.

“OK, I am going to turn it on now,” Waylon warns, looking over at the subdued reporter, about to flick the switch, "you might feel some … discomfort.”

“I am ready,” Miles braces himself, waiting for his electrotherapy to begin, the stiff shock he expects not so much more than a mild tingle. A part of him relaxes at this, the vibrations reminiscent of a massager, one of those fancy La-Z-boy recliners. Nothing he can’t handle.

Miles can’t turn his head to see the screen, can only speculate what his friend is doing over there, but the rapid clicking and typing does make him feel a little less relaxed.

“So, how you're feeling now, this will be our constant, what your readings look like normally. Which we’ll then compare to your reactions when introduced to stimuli.”

Waylon sounds like an exemplary salesman, confident, in the zone. Miles supposes all he needed was to have a computer in front of him to accomplish the feat.

“Sounds harmless enough,” Miles laughs raggedly, trying to calm his breathing.

“I am turning up the gain,” Waylon says, dialing up the voltage, the green-yellow-red LED indicator flashing, whining with excess energy.

The Walrider whimpers, a swell of crackling electricity causing the prescribed discomfort. It hurts Miles to see the creature suffering, tries to calm his symbiotic partner through their subconscious, saying it'll be over soon, but he can’t shake the nagging feeling that something is wrong.

“More,” Waylon advises, cranking the voltage up to maximum.

With this, the Walrider blips and flashes in and out of its corporeal form, unable to maintain it’s physical body. The nanites are raging like storm clouds, booming like thunder as it roars in pain, but this was Miles' idea -- he brought it here, subjected it to this. How could he call it off? 

Perhaps the Walrider had acted as a shield, protecting him from the worst of it, but now Miles can feel it too, an electric surge consuming him, making him wrestle against his restraints, so wired every vein in his body is popping. 

Then, it finally clicks in the struggling journalist's head.  This was bordering on lethal. 

"You're trying to kill us," the reporter barks in realization, and he doesn't want to admit that there's tears of betrayal gathering in his eyes, “What is it? Some kind of virus?!”

"I am trying to disable it,” the blonde corrects, his shout cutting through the charged shocks in the air, over Miles screaming, “Put yourself in my shoes. Murkoff is going to come at us with much more than this. I had to test it’s limits." 

"This isn't what we agreed," the reporter bellows, grasping onto consciousness.

"If I had told you, you wouldn't have agreed,” Waylon grimaces, trying to get the reporter to look past his personal bias and understand common sense, “For godssake it's a machine Miles. It's not human. It's killed people. Use your head!" 

"The same machine that saved your ass from getting sliced up," the reporter grits out, trying to reroute the pain, blocking his mind of it.

That makes Waylon falter, rethink his ethics, but he finds his courage again.   "I am trying to fix this, fix you. After Murkoff, what then, huh? You think society is just going to let you go running around loose, a living bioweapon? They’ll call you a terrorist! A threat to national security." 

"You don't know that!" 

“Do you hear yourself?! Just listen to me –" 

"–Turn it off!" 

"Miles–" 

"– No! If he dies, I die!”

Waylon stares at him numbly, shaken to his core, never considering that possibility.

“Turn it the fuck off, Waylon,” Miles reminds him, swiftly approaching his breaking point, “How will your kids feel, knowing that their father is a murderer?!”

That line ultimately causes the engineer to relent, doing as he's told. The chair powers down, the Walrider dissipating along with it, fading into thin air, too weak to exist.

The heat generated by such a powerful current leaves behind a steam, a faint smoke wafting up from around Miles’ person.

Waylon stands, intent on helping him out of the restraints, getting shocked in the process when he strays too close to the magnetic field. 

How could he forget? Miles was a living powerhouse now, polarizing everything around him.

He grabs a pair of heavy duty rubber gloves from off the shelf, better equipped to thwart any more incoming sparks, starting from bottom, unbinding the reporter’s feet first, then the buckle on his waist, his wrists, and then finally the band around his head. 

The electrical hazard of a man collapses by the time he’s done, a harsh rattle echoing throughout the space as his knees hit the mental grate under him, causing another shock to rumble across the bunker, the lights flickering. Good thing Waylon is wearing insulated shoes.

Miles is shaking, eyes blank and crazed, gaping in silent horror. He can feel the faint presence of the Walrider still inside him, barely a wrinkle, a wisp of life, his relief drowned by sinking fear.

"I am sorry," Miles mumbles through ragged panting, hugging himself, hoping the nanomachine can hear him, though he doesn’t know how much merit his words will hold after this, “Just wait. Everything's going to be OK now.”

Waylon is aghast. He's never seen Miles break before, that snarky exterior he donned like a suit of armor brought low, stripped to such a sad and sorry state of despair.

The whistleblower bites his lip, clenching his fists. He reminds himself that what he did was a necessary evil, to not regret his decision. 

His stomach is in knots, kneeling down to comfort Miles, a hand resting upon his pious back in a gesture of peace.

"H-hey, are you … OK?"

In a fit of anger, Miles pushes the blonde away, knocking Waylon into the nearby wall, shocking him with some of his excess energy. Miles only regrets not being at full strength, because, if he was, he would have hurt the backstabbing liar much more. 

"Drop the good boy act,” Miles growls, ruthless, seething hate in his eyes, “We both know it's a crock of shit. And fuck you!” 

Waylon admits he probably deserved the insult, his mind still reeling, his chest tight, electrocuted.

“When are you going to get it,” Miles shouts, stumbling to his feet, reaching for a nearby shelf to compensate for his weak knees, knocking over some of the equipment in the process, “I am not the same man anymore and neither are you, no matter how hard you try to deny it. What happened to me in Mount Massive … it happened to you too, Waylon."

Minutes ago, when his head was still getting fried inside a microwave, when he and the Walrider were both on the brink, he'd seen memories, not his, but the machines. It showed him Waylon dressed in a patient’s uniform, hiding from a cannibal with a circular saw, falling down an elevator shaft as a runaway bride, a piece of lumber stabbed through his ankle.

Waylon stares at him, speechless, still in a discombobulated heap on the floor, where the product of Miles’ attack had landed him, held up by the weak limbs of his forearms.

"Unlock the fucking door," Miles spits, shuffling along in disgust, clinging to anything substantial that will crutch his weight, “I need a smoke."

More parts crash onto the floor, thunder shocks raining over everything Miles touches, the emotionally charged brunette punching the wall, a spark igniting into a starburst of charred black, the power shock rippling through the bunker.

“The door, Waylon,” orders a very pissed off reporter.

The man in question scrambles to his feet, pushing past his living battery of a companion to input the deactivation code for the fence, unlocking the door for him as well. 

—--

It feels good to be outside, feet planted on solid ground, Miles finding the nearest thing that he can use as a seat (which just so happens to be a concrete jersey barrier) and flops his blue jeans onto it, fumbling with his lighter. 

"C'mon, light goddamn you," he curses, trying to ignite the end of his cigarette, but his fingers are shaking far too much, the flame stalling every time he flicks his thumb over the wheel.

The fits are getting worse, even his lips are too damn chaotic, Miles abandoning his task in favor of clutching at his head, elbows on his knees, sobbing. 

As much as it's killing him not to feel the Walrider’s touch right now, he's trying to find some way to fill the hole, but if this is what life felt like without it, he’a pretty sure he'd rather die.

What would it take to bring it back? A few more fingers? An eye? An arm? His legs? How many parts was he willing to give up?

“What the hell am I supposed to do!? You can't leave me here!”

He's shouting, his voice a booming threat, as if his fury alone could convince the universe to give him what he wants.

God, when did he start depending on his triquetra boyfriend so much? 

Something faint whispers in the back of his mind, but it's too distant, a ghost ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean, too deep for him to make sense of what it is. 

Next comes a prickle at his skin, like an itch, persuading Miles’ to blink, eyes still puffy with the salt burn of his tears.

The setting sun is almost too bright, but a veil surrounds it, an umbra of miasma so glaring it feels like a rippling mirage on the horizon.

"Tell me, I am not hallucinating right now."

The cigarette falls from Miles' mouth as he leaps towards it, grasping at what looks like the ulna and radius of a forearm, metacarpals made not of bone, but of glass.

The creature grunts painfully, as if Miles opened up a barely staunched wound, the crudely disassembled parts catching him, fragile pieces splintering, but not letting go.

"Don't ever do that to me again." 

It's spoken like an order, the beginnings of a spine taking shape under his touch, connecting vertebrae to skull and Miles sobs, squeezing the fragmented skeleton of his beloved monster even tighter.

 "I thought I lost you."

There's a whirring almost like a hiss that's permeating the air, comforting, acknowledging.

They stay locked together like that for a while, until the Walrider is a full body once more, Miles finally calmed down enough to think rationally.

"So, what now," Miles asks, gazing upon its beautifully disfigured face, twilight burning all around them.

The Walrider adverts it's mangled gaze, knowing Miles isn't going to like it, making a gesture towards the bunker.

"Oh, no! No, no, no, nooo! You're not telling me you want to go back in there," the man shouts, staring at his partner with a new wave of vehement, tear-streaked baby blue eyes.

He pulls away from the mechanized menace to stomp his Timberland boots around in the dirt, arguing with himself why it was a bad idea.

The Walrider allows its host this moment to cool off, expel his frustrations before it goes to the human's side, steering Miles away from his thoughts and back into its arms.

Miles is having none of it, holding the nanobot off, trying to resist its pull, but the machine squeezes him into a suffocating embrace anyway.

"No, don't try to–" 

‘– sweet talk me,’ he finishes the thought inside his head, but he's not sure his thoughts are all that private anymore. 

He sighs, playing captive for a few precious seconds before he wriggles out of the hug, pushing the other away, pinching his sinuses, aggravation plain on his face.

"Let's just think about this for a second," the sleuth tries to reason, his other hand on the entity’s chest to keep a healthy distance, "What am I supposed to do if something goes wrong?” 

(As if things haven’t gone horribly wrong already.)

“How can we trust Waylon after this?"

The Walrider hovers there, compiling a solution. Bony phalanges take hold of Miles' hand, upturning it. 

An onyx box is placed inside its host's bandaged palm, circuits spreading all throughout each corner, making it shimmer and glow.

“It's pretty,” Miles says, watching the ebb and flow of energy, “but what am I supposed to do with this?"

The Walrider taps it's claw on one of those art-deco type microprocessors that adorns each side, the compartment opening to reveal a strand of DNA, the miniature double helix spinning inside like a gothic ballerina.

"Yeah, alright," Miles says, recalling his high school genetics classes, "I think I get it. It's a spare copy of you, right?"

The synthetic skeleton's eyes are black voids, a flash of pupils pulsing with energy, but Miles knows what it means.

With a delicate touch, the reporter stores the replica of DNA back inside it's jewelry box, depositing it into his jacket pocket for safe keeping.

"Going to finish my cigarette before we go in," Miles scoffs, retracing his steps, looking around for the tube he haplessly discarded. 

He's tempted to take a fresh one from the pack (cigarettes being one of few luxuries he bought alongside the road map at the gas station), but he’s not exactly in a position to waste perfectly good tobacco and these things were expensive as hell.

He spots the white cylinder amidst the dirt patches in the grass, plucks the filter off the ground (not too dirty) and sticks it between his lips.   It lights on the first try, that sweet inhale of nicotine (and god knows what else) feels like a hit of ecstasy. He's the epitome of James Dean in that moment, slick, cool, and aloof.

The Walrider floats over, snuggling it's jaw against it's host's ear, a clack of teeth in its best impression of a laugh.

"Yeah, Yeah," Miles dismisses, a stubborn pout clinging to his lips as he jerks away, annoyed by the fact that he gave in too easily.

The entity dissolves, bio smoke curling around its host, patiently waiting. Halfway through his second cigarette, Miles speaks again.

"If we’re doing this, then, I want you to possess me, like you did before.”

Now it's the Walrider's turn to act surprised, manifesting its jaws to growl an objection.

“If we're going back in there, we go together or not at all," the brunette declares, forthright with resolution, pointing accusingly with his cigarette.

Miles would rather die on this hill, then budge from it, but the Walrider has its own methods of persuasion.

Obsidian claws drag him up by his weather-beaten jacket, all 6’1” of him teetering on tip-toes, the half-spent drug falling to the ground, still burning away.

“Hey, not again,” the human whines, but there's no real anger behind it, no matter how hard Miles tries, “That's a forest fire waiting to happen, you know. Haven't you heard of Smokey the bear?” 

As the man twists to retrieve his lost cigarette, the Walrider distracts him with a kiss, one Miles resists just briefly before surrendering to it.

"Hnnn… Mmm…" 

A billow of smoke writhes between them, ebony and ivory, Miles opening his mouth to the Walrider’s wandering cable of a tongue, and OK, fuck it, time to make out.

—--- 

Miles struts back into the bunker, slamming the door shut behind him with a flick of the wrist, the nanites taking care of the rest, latching all the barrel bolts tight.

Waylon jumps from his desk, anxiously awaiting the outcome of Miles' smoke break, standing up to meet him halfway.

Judging by the cacophony that marked his return, Waylon assumes Miles must still be a prickly flume of outrage.

Not that appearances matter, but Waylon folds his hands over his hair, still inflated from the static, patting it down, reluctantly approaching the other male, trying to do the right thing by apologizing first, "Miles I thought about what you said and I am sorry–"

Waylon chokes on his own fear, recalling the same palpating collision of dark energy when he escaped Mount Massive, the same shape that faces him now, a man-made demon that watched him burn out in a stolen jeep.

"Miles … is that … you," he asks quietly, backing up, hands reaching for something solid to steady his nerves.

"Chill out, Waybaby, I ain't gunna hurt you.”

His brain can't seem to connect the vaporware voice to the bastardization of the man that's saying them, almost wants to laugh, having no other logical response.

“Just thought you needed a visual demonstration of the point I made earlier so, here we are," he ends his intro by holding his hands out like a showman, a little pièce de résistance.

For as smart as Waylon is, the words just don't come. He swallows, nods even if he doesn't comprehend what's happening.

"Anyway, Wally's convinced me,” the man turned machine explains, looking sheepishly smug, “We're following through with your plan so hook us up, operator, we're going back in."

"What?"

Just what kind of masochistic freak has Waylon gotten himself mixed up with if Miles wanted to be zapped to high heaven willingly?

"You said you wanted to test our limits. So, I say: Let's. Get. Dangerous."

Waylon opens the bean hole to the main door, the grinning blue eyes of Miles fucking Upshur waiting for him on the other side.

“Hey there, WayWay, I am here for my check up,” he greets with a smile, the wave he offers just out of sight, “Oh yeah, and Wally’s here too.”

The words barely register before the nanomachine has its whole face pressed against the peephole, staring back at Waylon, completely eyeless.

The techie nearly jumps out of his skin, shutting the slat out of paranoid instinct, body wrecked by a wave of heebeegeebees.

He can see it. Why can he see it when he couldn’t as much before?

“Heeeeyy,” Miles whines, voice dampened by the steel barrier between them, ”I am still waiting out here.”

Waylon internally groans, trying to collect himself enough to unlatch the many bars securing the entrance shut.

When the final lock cracks loose, Miles is too busy comforting the Walrider to notice, holding its caricature of a face and daresay, petting it.

“Ah, you can c-come in now,” Waylon offers, standing in the doorway, watching on with morbid fixation.

“There, see,” Miles exclaims, a consoling note to his voice, “He wouldn't invite us in if he didn't like us.”

Waylon swears this scene must be slowly melting his brain from the inside out.

“Hey, Way,” the brunette asks, turning his attention to his fellow asylum survivor, “could you tell Wally that you like him, please? He thinks you're scared of him. Isn't that silly?”

He isn't scared, he's terrified.

“Yeah, s-sure. I like him,” Waylon offers weakly, swallowing down his dread.

This was absurd. A machine couldn’t have feelings and even if it did, they were none more important than his own.

“Told you! Everything's fine,” Miles chippers, the Walrider finally appeased by this discovery.

The machine gazes toward Waylon again, breaking it’s body down into smaller pieces, swooping in close to swirl around Waylon knees, then higher, drifting in a cyclone of miniature storm clouds up to his shoulders.

“Uhh, hello again, I guess,” the engineer offers shakily, trying to appear fearless and brave, even lifting a finger to touch the nanite mist surrounding him. It feels like water.

“Thanks Waylon,” Miles says, patting him on the shoulder in good sportsmanship, stepping inside.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.”

And just like that, the nano machine leaves him to follow it’s host, the dazed software engineer reminding himself that he needs to rearm the door.

Before the reporter can poke his nose in further, Waylon locks the paddock, turning on the electric fence to deter any unwanted trespassers.

“So this is where you’ve been holding up,” Miles asks, taking in the abandoned barracks, a dimly-lit trailer filled with a junkyard of abandoned tech.

The Walrider is equally curious, ghosting around the layout, dosing the army green interior in supernatural mist.

“Not quite,” Waylon amends, running a hand down his face, feeling overwhelmed by the quirky demands of his company, “This is where I work. Keeps me a safe distance away from Lisa and the kids in case anything happens.”

“Safety is important. I am sure there are no OSHA recordables in here,” the snarky brunette remarks, dodging under a duct of loose wires.

“Ha ha funny,” the blonde remarks, devoid of amusement, “the device I want to show you is over here.”

Waylon grabs him by the wrist cuff before Miles can slip away to snoop, escorting him to the testing room.

“Aren’t you going to give me a tour first,” the sleuth whines, taking in as much of the space as he can, “you can’t tell me you have a secret lair and not show me around.”

“There's really not much to see,” Waylon growls, noting his companion’s inquisitive fingers, “Also please stop touching everything.”

“Awwww,” Miles whines, dragging his feet in disappointment, a frown setting in.

“Fine, maybe later,” the techie relents, his stride persisting, “We're kinda pressed for time.”

“Oh, somewhere you gotta be,” Miles asks, perking up at that confession, raising a brow at his companion, letting himself be tugged along more easily.

“Yeah, I’d prefer to be home every night to be with my wife and kids.”

A long pause, their combined footsteps echoing off the iron grates that line the floor.

“Am I invited,” the reporter asks, smirking at the back of Waylon’s unkempt head of hair.

Another aggravated tug on his sleeve.

“Let’s just get through the testing first.”

They arrive at their destination, the very back of the bunker, a T-shaped hub. One of the doors is sealed off, making Miles wonder what could be hiding in there, the rest of the room encased by steel shelves filled with gutted parts, radios, computers, phones and the like.

In the center is a chair outfitted with restraints, a litany of auxiliary cords hooked up to various loadouts, a desk and computer terminal set up in the corner, no doubt to collect the data of whoever sits in it.

“So … this is it,” Miles says judgmentally, unimpressed, “Looks like an electric chair, but somehow more revenge of the nerds-esque.”

Waylon smacks his lips and rolls his eyes. He won’t deny it bears a striking resemblance to Mount Massive’s brainwashing devices, ones he had the untimely pleasure of experiencing for himself.

“Yeah, everyone's a critic. Just get in.”

“Is it safe,” Miles asks, skeptical of the bad vibe he was getting just looking at the creepy thing.

“As safe as any of this experimental tech is gonna be.”

Miles supposes he can’t complain, given the circumstances. He doesn’t get any of these gadgets, but there was no one else he could turn to (aside from maybe Wernickle) who could give him the answers he seeks. Still, the reporter can’t help feeling a bit uneasy about entrusting himself to diagnostic tools on a budget.

The Walrider manifests itself as a disembodied head, whistling through it’s cheeks, seeking to reassure it’s host with a trill of sound. Miles smiles, close-lipped, stroking the odd contours of its face with a gentle hand.

“Alright. I mean we’ve come this far. What other choice do we have?”

With that, the anxious human hybrid takes a seat, the next test subject for this experimental apparatus going on torture device. Waylon straps him in, tying the buckles too tight to be comfortable, but Miles suspects it's punishment for trying to pry into the engineer's private life. His head too is bridled in place, another belt across the forehead to keep him securely in an upright position.

“This will monitor your heart rate,” Waylon says, electrode pads stuck to Miles’ temple, and then after a moment a disclaimer, “I am not a doctor, though.”

“You’ll be able to tell me more about the Walrider, right,” the brunette asks, nervously clenching his hands on the arm rest.

He glances to his right, the state map he picked up from an old fashioned gas station about 10 miles back is spread out onto the passenger's seat, hastily drawn symbols and magic marker lines indicating the specific coordinates Waylon had given him.

This was it, the final stretch. A few more strips of asphalt and he'd reach his destination whether he was ready for it or not.

Up ahead, Miles finds remnants of an old car accident, winding tread marks of burnt rubber spiraling out across the road, stray pieces of metal swept into the shoulder of a bent guard rail.

He pulls off to the side next to it, the rumble of the speed strip jostling his tire shocks, his brakes screeching to a halt because he's thinking about a million other things right now, but not about how to park outside the white line.

Thankfully, no one's around to see the embarrassing stint, the secluded mountain side looking safe and serene to the unsuspecting tourist, but an investigative journalist knew better. This was the perfect place to stage an ambush.

Miles takes a few stabilizing breaths, preparing himself before he exits the car. He stands, lingering by the driver's side door, huddling around it in case he has to jump back inside, waiting for any obvious threats to make their move.

Nothing happens, just clear skies and empty roadside.

Nerves still tingling with goosebumps, the anxious reporter leaves the safety net of Trager's four-door sedan, jogging over to the trail of wreckage, old tire impressions tumbling down into the ravine below.

He can see it, there in the woods, bright red coloring hidden behind shaved pine trees, a distinct trail leading from matted reeds into dense underbrush.

As much as Miles wants to sprint down, the human host forces himself to be cautious because the last thing he needs is to do something stupid like trip and break an ankle.

Steadily, he descends the slope, retracing the wheel’s path through the overgrown grass, ducking past branches until he's under the cover of trees, the sun blotted out, everything going a shade darker and a degree cooler.

His beloved jeep remains his beacon in the shadows, running towards it’s familiar guise, climbing over fallen tree trunks and the brown crunch of decaying leaves.

He's almost frantic in his pursuit, as if the flashy hunk of metal will disappear the moment he touches it, a cruel mirage of his mind, but his jeep is real, it's here and he can feel it.

His needs a minute to settle, to accept the reality, his body no longer fixated with surprise attacks, relaxing as he runs his hand along the jeep's frame, taking note of all the various scratches and dents that he can't remember being there before.

So much had changed in just a few short days and neither of them, man or machine were quite the same as they once were.

“Hey, remember me,” Miles says to the oversized keepsake, getting a little choked up by the reunion, “I can’t believe you're still in one piece.”

His bandaged fingers slide over the sporty door frame, following the seam of interlocking parts down to the door handle, tugging it open.

The seat’s been moved, a noticeably tighter fit as he wedges his legs inside, adjusting the position so it's more comfortable to his height.

His flashy press pass is right where he left it, dangling faithfully from his rear-view mirror, burnished by a ray of light.

The reporter smiles, bittersweet, turning over the flimsy plastic in his hand, his grip on the ID growing heavy.

The emotional brunette folds himself over the steering wheel in awkward hug, a horrific memory coming back to haunt him in true PTSD fashion.

Miles wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for O'Neil – just another civilian reporter assigned to the same mission he was, caught in the crossfire, blown away by the indiscriminate bombs of war.

It could have just as easily been Miles who died that day, years ago, during his tour in Afghanistan, but it wasn't and now he's stuck reliving the event, watching the rookie from behind the viewfinder of his camera, there and then suddenly not, taken by an explosive wave of dirt and smoke, no body to be found, nothing left of him except for his rundown jeep.

He'd seen so many lost souls, innocent lives sacrificed to feed the campaign of big oil and wealthy politicians, but this young man's violent end hit differently than the rest, a razor blade of barbed wire coiled deeply around his heart.

He hopes O'Neil is proud of the work he's done, that he's watching from somewhere, that he knows how close Miles is to crucifying the vile corporation that started it all.

There's a tug at the back of his mind, a treacherous dark sea, not quite his subconscious (he's learned to tell the difference), but the Walrider – it vies for his attention, warning him of a threat.

“What is it," Miles asks dazedly, looking up from his latticework of crossed arms, wiping at the melancholy sting in his eyes.

His symbiotic partner supplies him with snapshots, images of black combat boots and riot gear flickering across his eyes, a tactical team forming a perimeter around the woods.

The hairs in the back of his neck are standing on end, his nerves firing like pistons, his stomach dropping.

"Oh God," Miles whispers, nanites skirting his vision, "they’re here, aren’t they?"

The reporter is losing it, becoming a panicked, irrational mess.

“I knew they would be. I knew, and I still couldn’t stay away. What … what does that mean,” the host rambles, feeling his emotions break down into all the stages of grief.

“I am sorry for bringing you out here," Miles tells the machine, convinced that this was their last stand, that he had to make some poor amends for all his mistakes, "I am sorry for everything.”

The Walrider manifests itself, bony phalanges gripping its host's tear-stained cheeks, forcing the man to behold the eerie gleam of its eyes.

Captivated, Miles stares back, searching the abyss, the Walrider trying it's damnedest to convey an emotion that it’s not equipped to express.

“How many,” the host asks, his tone a terrified reservation.

The nanties bristle, swirling in urgent, jagged loops.

“Oh God," Miles breathes, the dread building, his voice doused with buckets of ice water, "too many."

With a painful sigh, he holds the machine in a similar embrace, stroking along the creature’s cheek, joining their heads together. It helps him think, clears away the hysteria.

“What should we do,” he asks after a beat, feeling so fucking pathetic for relying on his demonic counterpart for guidance, that he still not grown enough to handle this shit on his own.

Forget the self-depreciation. Focus. They need a plan, some means of escape.

Utilizing his jeep was a possible strategy, but that's assuming the engine still runs and he manages to Dukes-of-Hazzard his way out the woods and up the ravine.

A word flashes before the human's mind, the Walrider offering an idea.

'REVENGE.'

Miles understands the concept all too well, holding an intimate connection to the first act of vigilante justice they committed together, his partner offering him the same satisfaction again.

Miles doesn't need any more convincing. His blue eyes harden, borderline arrogant.

“Alright," the rebel declares, seeking the entity's affirmation, "you ready for this?"

The Walrider trills in his head, the nanites bursting from his veins with heady anticipation, muscles bulking with superhuman strength.

It's a good enough answer for Miles, his lips pulled back into a toothy grin.

“Lets show ‘em who they’re fucking with," Miles roars, eyes drowning in a sea of onyx, irises flaring into molten rings of gold.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t black out like he has in the past.

Maybe, it's because they've had more time to assimilate to their new way of life or maybe it's because Miles is more stable than he was before (unlikely as it is), but whatever the reason, the Walrider gives him complete control of their subplanted body.

Miles only has two eyes, but somehow his sight compounds into a crystal ball of surveillance monitors: helmets, rifles, tactile gear closing in around him, subtle clacks of movement showing a group of mercenaries laying in wait ahead.

If this was how the Walrider saw the world, why did it have to be so head-spinningly complicated?

Walmiles raises his hand, the nanites assembling along it, forming a giant stygian blade. With one effortless swipe, he slices through the armed forces, severed torsos thudding like timber, trees raining down upon the clearing, shaking the earth beneath his feet, crushing the dismembered bodies they once resided by.

Miles only has a moment to reflect on his homage to b-movie slasher flicks before he feels another psychic tug, their shared consciousness directing him towards another raid of enemy gunmen.

The freelance demigod in a jacket goes down the line, annihilates the hired hands one by one, bursting their insides like bloody fucking party balloons.

Another team approaches from his left, 9 o'clock.

He sends a swarm of nanites hurtling in their direction, burrowing into the mercenaries flesh like bullets, their death thralls echoing up into the placid blue sky, scaring away the birds.

He can feel the soldier's minds, read their blood: terror, confusion, helplessness and Miles pushes it all down, takes control of one of the surviving merc's trigger fingers and aims the rifle at what remains of his comrades in arms. Once the deed’s been done, the man-made killing machine pops his puppet's skull wide open, a signet bouquet of gorey brain matter, the lone merc's headless, lifeless body crumpling atop a growing pile of corpses.

It's quiet. It almost feels like it's over, but it's just the calm before the storm.

A ricochet bullet whizzes past the jeep's hood, shattering one of the headlights.

The sound distracts the murderous brunette, having narrowly dodged a bullet one or twice before, more war flashbacks coming to flood his psyche with devastating consequences.

A second shot rings out, the bullet hitting it's mark, Miles pierced through the chest by the precise aim of a sniper.

Suddenly, his confidence plummets, their synchronization interrupted because Miles is caught in an erroneous loop of relieving his own death, terrified that he'd failed his mission not once, but twice.

“Am I … are we …?”

‘Dead’ is what he wants to ask, but all he can do is look down at his hands, watch as they tremble, his vision fading at the edges, going blurry.

The Walrider takes over, becoming the dominant personality, sailing through the air in a swarm of nanite clouds, tracking the bullet's trajectory back to it's source.

The soldier attempts to shoot the dark angel down, but it becomes exceedingly apparent that he can’t, abandoning his post to run.

The Walrider catches its prey, squeezes the life out of the foolish villain that dared to injure it's precious host, crushing the vile human's neck under its claws.

Another shot, gouging Walmiles through the shoulder, from behind. Just how many snipers did Murkoff pull in for this job?

The Walrider gladly applies the same tactics to silence this menace as well, nanites beating like giant wings.

Miles recovers, insists on wrestling back control, “Stop, we need him alive.”

The Walrider remains skeptical of it's host's judgment, holding the second sniper by the collar, bringing him towards an intimidating stare of cracked, oozing flesh.

“I want you to do something for me," says the warbled voice, the Walrider and Miles speaking together as one singular being, "Tell the ones who hired you, I am coming for them. Tell them, I am going to burn their lives to the ground, that there will be nothing left after I am done because they'll all be dead.”

Miles pauses in his speech, staring into the young marksman's eyes, assessing how human they are, “You got all that?”

The soldier is too scared to speak, merely nodding his compliance.

"Good. Off you go, then,” Miles instructs, letting the man drop, shoving him towards his objective, “And be sure to leave the gun.”

The sniper stumbles, regaining his balance, still coming to terms with what the fuck just happened, running off to deliver his message.

SHHHWWOOOOOOMMM!!!

The booming speed of a jet sails overhead, poised for an airstrike.

"You gotta to be fucking kidding me with this shit,” the host snarls, annoyed that Murkoff would send in goddman fighter jet of all things just to take him out.

Mitigating damage indeed.

Miles runs, jumps as far away as he can, an explosive missile detonating a few hundred feet away, setting the woods ablaze, a shield of nanobots protecting him from the conflagration.

He lies flat onto his stomach, hands laced behind his head, waits for the danger to pass before he makes another move.

“Christ, almighty, please tell me my jeep is OK,” Miles pleads into the surrounding hollow of dirt.

He's never been the religious type, but it doesn't stop him from praying that his beloved bucket of bolts is still intact, spared from the destruction.

He sorts through the disaster of dancing flames to find it, a whorl of nanobots snuffing out a path and thank God it's still standing, left unharmed (for the most part).

He pats the vehicle free of the surrounding orange embers, laments over the burn marks bubbling the paint, but that was purely cosmetic amenity in the grand scheme of things.

“Holy shit,” Miles pants in relief, leaning against the hood, allowing himself a well deserved reprieve.

He's hobbling as he maneuvers, feeling just a bit achy and sore from his new set of matching gunshot wounds, stifled by the heat of the forest fire still rampaging on around them, sweat mixing with the blood and ash on his face.

“Now what,” he asks out into the open air, having no clue where to go from here.

The Walrider’s conscience swipes across his mind again, another suggestion that could just as easily be mistaken for his own thought process.

The machine searches his memory bank, shows him a grainy reel of a strong man lifting a barbell.

“Can you really lift something like this?”

Another old movie clip of a floating car, minus the futuristic wings.

“Have we done this before?"

If they have, he has no recollection of it, the Walrider demonstrating its strength, nanites wrapping around the automobile, transporting it back up onto the road.

As he watches the superhuman display, tires gently resting back upon the black turf of the highway, Miles almost doesn't have words, (the keyword there being almost).

"Oh, well, that was easy.”

The machine can't appreciate his excellent comedic timing, but that's OK, he can laugh at his own joke.

“Lemme just go grab my stuff," Miles tells his chivalrous paralysis demon, clambering up the hill the old fashioned way despite having the ability to “fly” above it instead.

He retrieves his duffel bags, Miles transferring them to his jeep, starting up the ignition, but of course it has one last fatal flaw: it's out of gas.

“At least it's out of the ditch,” the journalist sighs, slumping back into the driver’s seat, needing a vacation after suffering through this exhausting debacle.

It's fine. He's sure Trager's car has a dodgy siphoning hose hiding somewhere in the trunk he can use.

—---

“So, what are you thinking,” Paul Marion asks, plucking at his gums with a toothpick, having just finished his lunch, "Did we get him?”

"Hard to say,” Glick muses, leaning down to drag her fingers through the soot, grinding it between her thumb and forefinger. “Upshur certainly did some damage. It's interfering with our readings.”

“I imagine he would,” the blonde haired agent replies, watching gray smoke filter up from the charred ground, “judging by the state he left the asylum in.”

He's just glad they don't have to go rifling through the crime scene (there were other people for that), the fire now extinguished thanks to an airdrop of sand, but that meant a stark film of contamination hung over their investigation.

His female counterpart is silent, framing a scenario in her mind based on the reports. The body count, time table, and radiation readings told her it was possible Miles was dead, but her job was never that easy.

“We using the usual cover story, then,” Marion asks, leaving the toothpick to hang between his lips, shoving hands inside his pockets, taking in the great outdoors, “stupid drunk teenagers lit a campfire in the woods. Let it get out of control?”

Pauline doesn't offer an answer, an underling assisting with the clean up approaching them in light of some recent development.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the grunt agent cuts in, “a witness has come forward.”

“A witness,” she parrots with snarky red lips, her fine brows curved into speculative intrigue.

“Golly, you mean to tell me someone actually survived this mess,” Paul whistles, chuckling to himself, stepping up to his sleek-suited partner.

“One of the ground team says he has a message from Miles Upshur,” the grunt confirms.

“Oh, this keeps getting better and better,” Marion grins, radiating sarcastic anticipation, wondering what kind of juicy gossip they were about to hear.

“You'd better let me handle this,” the she-devil with a gun insists, leaving her partner in the dust.

“Not enough clearance, huh?”

“Hmm, something like that.”

“Any word on Park,” her yellow stouted partner asks, hoping to entertain himself with this nugget of info while she's gone.

“No, still in the wind,” Pauline sighs, “He’s covered up his tracks pretty well so far, but he’ll mess up. They always do.”

"Ma'am," the lowly grunt accosts, reminding Ms Glick of the lone survivor waiting to be interrogated.

"What are you gonna do with him,” Marion persists, fishing for more intel.

"Take him back to HQ for questioning,” she hisses, frustrated with Marion's pestering, “He might remember something that will give us a clue. Upshur and Park were accomplices before. Maybe one can lead us to the other.”

“Love the way you think, miss piggy,” he taunts, watching her stalk away, fists clenched.

“Hey, remember me,” Miles says to the oversized keepsake, getting a little choked up by the reunion, “I can’t believe you're still in one piece.”

His bandaged fingers slide over the red door frame, following the dark seam of interlocking parts down to tug at the door handle. 

It opens. 

The seats been moved, a noticeably tighter fit as he wedges his legs inside, adjusting the position so it's more comfortable to his height. 

His flashy press pass is right where he left it, dangling faithfully from his rear-view mirror. 

The reporter smiles sadly, turning the flimsy ID in his hand, his grip growing heavy, enough to strain the integrity of the four corners of plastic.

Miles lets the reality of this moment sink in, folds himself over the steering wheel in an awkward hug, a horrific memory of the past coming back to haunt him in full color.

Miles wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for O'niel – just another civilian reporter assigned to the same mission he was, caught in the crossfire, blown away by the bombs of war. 

It could have just as easily been Miles who died that day, years ago during his tour in Afghanistan, but it wasn't and now he's stuck reliving the event, watching the rookie from behind the viewfinder of his camera, there and then suddenly not, taken by an explosive wave of dirt and smoke, no body to be found, nothing left of him except for his rundown jeep.

He'd seen so many lost souls, innocent lives sacrificed to feed the campaign of wealthy politicians but this young man's violent passing hit different, stayed coiled around his heart like barbed wire.

He hopes O'niel is proud of the work he's done, that he's watching from somewhere, that he knows how close Miles has come to nailing the vile corporation that started it all.

There's a tug at the back of his mind, a treatrous dark sea, not quite his subconscious (he's learned to tell the difference), but the Walrider – it wants his attention, warning him of a threat.

“What is it," Miles asks dazedly, looking up from his crossed arms, wiping at the melancholy sting in his eyes.

His symbiotic partner supplies him with images, black combat boots and swat gear flickering across his eyes as a tactical team makes a perimeter around the woods.

The hairs in the back of his neck are standing on end, his nerves firing like pistons, his stomach dropping.

"Oh God," Miles whispers, nanites skirting his vision, "they’re here, aren’t they."

The reporter is losing it, becoming a frantic, irrational mess as he rambles to himself, “I knew they would be, I knew, and I still couldn’t stay away. What … what does that mean,” the host laments, feeling his emotions breakdown, going through all the stages of grief one by one.

“I am sorry for bringing you out here," Miles tells the machine, convinced that this was their last stand, that he had to make some poor amends for all his mistakes, "I am sorry for everything.” 

The Walrider manifests itself, its bony phalanges gripping it's host's tear-stained cheeks, forcing the man to look it straight in the eyes.

Miles stares back, searching the dark abyss, the Walrider trying so hard to convey an emotion that it’s not equipped to express.

“How many,” the host asks, his tone a terrified reservation.

The nanties bristle, an urgency, it's optical lenses oscillating.

“Oh God," Miles breathes, the dread building, his voice doused in ice water, "too many.”

“What should we do,” the host asks, feeling so fucking helpless and pathetic for having to rely on his demonic counterpart for guidance.

Sighing painfully, he holds the machine in a similar embrace, stroking along the creature’s cheek, joining their heads together. For whatever reason, it helps him to think, clearing away the panic.

They needed a plan, some means of escape. The jeep was a possible exit strategy, but that's if it can make it out of the ravine and he's not even sure if it will turn on.

A word flashes before the human's mind, the Walrider offering an idea. 

“REVENGE.”

Miles understands it all too well, his own intimate connection to the exact moment in time when he lost his life and became the undead monster he is now. 

His blue eyes harden, bordering on arrogance as an influx of strength hits him.

“Alright," the rebel declares, seeking the entity's affirmation, "you ready for this?" 

The Walrider trills in his head, the nanites bursting from his veins with heady anticipation.

It's good enough for Miles, his lips pulled back into a toothy grin.

"Lets show ‘em who they’re fucking with," Miles growls, eyes drowing in a sea of onyx, his irises burning rings of gold.

Miles rubs the sleep from his eyes, yawning loud and wide despite having slept half the day away. He's stretching out the cricks in his limbs when the Walrider exits sleep mode and powers on, attune to it's host's internal clock.

The man recoils at first, startled by the dark, imposing figure, somehow forgetting the human-sized nanobot was still there despite having shared a bed with it, ensnared in the possessive hold of claws and tentacles.

The dissociation only lasts a heartbeat, his body remembering even if his jumbled mind took a moment to catch up, becoming calm again.

The brunette suppresses a chuckle as he turns towards his companion. This evil bio-weapon looks so out of place in the daylight, in the domestic setting of his bedroom, holding him like he's something precious.

Such a stark contrast to the Walrider that stalked under the cover of darkness, illuminated by neon emergency beacons and cold laboratory testing facilities. The same fearsome weapon that hunted patients, ripped out spines and spattered blood across narrow halls looked almost cute, charming in photographic filter of a beautiful autumn day.

Miles tilts his head, eyes catching the odd reflection of colors skittering over the obsidian skin, giving it the appearance of labradorite. He runs a finger over it, seeking the brilliance hidden underneath, his inquisitive tendencies getting the better of him.

He traces the jut of the Walrider collar bone to the curve of it's shoulder, rolling his palm over the joint there, the vibrant streaks of bio-luminescence shining like the trails of shooting stars.

The Walrider is more than happy to let Miles explore, an excitement decorating it's features as it's host dedicates himself to the task.

The brunette continues down the line of the monster's arm, sliding his hand over well-defined muscle, the same teal patterns spread throughout it's bizarre anatomy. Miles is in awe over it, of how it could change consistency, function and appearance, wondering if this iteration of it's skin meant it was left open, unarmored.

The Walrider was developed as a weapon after all and Miles could certainly see the advantages of a thick, abrasive exterior, but if his partner chose to convey it's trust by lowering it's defenses to show him this secret, well, Miles' heart twinges just a bit at the possibility.

The reporter guides his hand back up to stroke at the sharp angles of the entities' cheek, gazing into it's striking eyes situated behind the exoskeleton. The gentle caress of Miles' thumb along its jaw is lulling it's eyes closed, and soon the demon is leaning into it's host's bandaged palm, a chitter of contentment escaping through it's jaws.

Faced with such unabashed adoration, Miles dares to steal a kiss, the compulsion to do so proving too strong to resist. Pink lips purse against the side of it's mouth in not quite a chaste peck, but a firm lingering indulgence. The dark skin is warm under his lips, but it feels rubbery and plastic, an imitation of something inadvertently human.

"Thanks for staying with me," Miles says, a gentle smile on his face as he pulls away, blue eyes staring fondly at his handiwork.

His choice of his words is absurd really, ridiculous. The Walrider couldn’t leave him even if it wanted to. They’re both viscerally connected, permanent implants to each other’s existence, unable stray too far apart from each other without the consequence of death. Not that Miles had any concrete evidence to back this intrinsic theory up, it was really more of a hunch, and while his inheritance of the Walrider failed to come with a disclaimer or a user’s manual (he wouldn’t have read it even if it did), Miles wasn’t about to test the physical range of their limitations any time soon.

The machine is frozen and Miles swears he hears a cursed dial-up noise as it processes the kiss he had just given it and the man hopes the machine won't try to bite his face off in a misinterpretation.

Thankfully, it doesn't. Instead, it mimics Miles actions, claws outstretched to clasp the human's cheek in return. It leans forward, but without any lips of its own, all it can manage is a brush of teeth. The sharp points of it's canines sting only a little as they graze over his skin, sometimes chipping open a superficial mark.

A purr reverberates from inside it's throat as it rubs the softer sides of it's misshapen face all over Miles, a little too roughly in it's exuberance, the man's brunette locks of hair in total disarray.

"You're in a good mood, huh," Miles says with an amused chuckle, trying to push the Walrider's face away from his to gain some reprieve, although halfheartedly because he can't say he's had too many pleasant "morning afters" like this one.

The man doesn't know what prompts him to ask, or why he's hit with the sudden spike of anxiety, but the words are leaving his mouth before he can swallow them back.

"Did you enjoy last night, too," he asks in small, quiet voice that is entirely unlike him.

There’s an infinitesimal, but rapidly becoming larger part of him that wants the Walrider to have a choice in the matter even if Miles didn’t have one when it came to becoming the host. He wants to be a better master than Wernickle was, to honor Billy by being magnanimous in his mission, one that allowed the Walrider some semblance of free will and independence as unfathomable and ludicrous as that may be.

The Walrider squeaks with indisputable affirmation, pressing closer, smothering the human with the dense mass of it’s bulk. Their legs are tangled together, claws wrapping around his clothed back to bring them as close as they possibly could be and that should be enough of an indication to set Miles scattered mind at ease.

"Hey, hey, easy now, tiger!  We can't stay in bed all day! We're on the run from an evil corporation remember," Miles exasperates, prying the entity off before they spend another few hours engaged in some awkward rendition of coitus that involves a number of tentacles.

"No offense," Miles tacks on for good measure. Murkoff was it's creator and he didn't know if the Walrider had any lingering attachments to the private group that designed it however doubtful the probability seemed.

"We have a lot to do today and the clock is ticking."

We? Did he just say we? When did it become we? He chews on the word in his mind and it doesn't taste entirely unsavory, just different. Miles leaves the thought alone for now because he can always return to it later if he really needs to, but he has more pressing matters that don’t involve an existential crisis.

The Walrider seems to understand the situation all too well as it's lanky form deflates into the mattress, whining in annoyance as it mopes and pouts like a neglected pet. Miles gives his companion's slumped behavior an inquisitive brow, reaching over to pat the sulking dip of it's cranium in consolation.

"Hey, I'll try to be quick. A few hours tops. Just be ready if someone comes knocking," Miles tells it with an air of impending dread and the Walrider snorts at him dejectedly, not nearly as concerned with the threat of assassins as it was with the denial of cuddle time.

Miles sighs, dismissive, getting out of bed to go about his routine. He stops by the bathroom to brush his teeth and raid the medicine cabinet for some aspirin. His hangover isn't quite as bad as he anticipated it would be, but he could still feel it's lingering effects the moment he started walking around.

He cups his hand under the faucet, bringing the water to his lips as he swallows down the chalky white pills. That done, he decides to take a quick shower, thinking It might be the last opportunity he gets for awhile.

He leaves the bathroom door open and it's not long before he notices the Walrider curiously peeping in on him, it's dark outline huddled around the door frame as Miles stands behind the clear liner of the shower curtain.

Every now and then the reporter flicks his eyes over to it, watchful, wondering if it would try something to distract him, but to his surprise, the entity remains a respectable distance away, simply observing. By the time he steps out of the shower, the Walrider has disappeared, probably so Miles wouldn't catch him outright for voyeurism.

The brunette dries off, wrapping the towel around his waist as he heads in the direction of his dresser for a change of clothes. He fits his arms through the sleeves of a white collared shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles and yanking it into place.

A gasp escapes Miles as a rugged masculine form sidles up to his back, spooning him before he can finish fastening the first button closed. Claws glide over his hips, dropping the fuzzy towel down his thighs to fall to the floor.

The beginnings of arousal stir in his belly and Miles internally chastises himself for it, knowing he can't afford to get carried away again.

"We can't do this right now," Miles reasons, "I promise I'll show you more later, but we have more important things to take care of first."

The Walrider extracts itself by a few centimeters, digesting this information, but as it wrestles with the concepts of self-restraint and carnal desire, the newly awakened heat the human had perpetuated eventually wins out.

Miles finds himself pinned to the wooden dresser he's standing in front of, the machine roughly keeping him in place with the superhuman strength of it's body. Miles hisses, the metal pull handles of his dresser drawers digging grooves into his flesh. He cranes his neck around, glaring at the machine from over his shoulder for it's excessive use of force.

"Didn't you hear me? I said we have to go. There's no time."

The Walrider seems to think there is.

Instant and wild sensation, molten and all-consuming as a pair of clawed hands trap the reporter's half-hard dick by the hilt. Miles jumps, involuntarily bucking his hips into it's firm grip and he cries out in a broken moan, the machine squeezing around him just the right amount, stroking him to fullness in rampant succession. Miles' resolve is diminishing faster by the second, growing less and less important the more those gruesome claws slide over his shaft again and again.

This probably wasn't a good lesson for the Walrider to learn, that Miles would eventually give in with enough prodding and persuasion, but he can school the machine on the importance of boundaries and mutual consent later because by comparison, this shouldn't take nearly as long as a discussion on complicated human relationship dynamics would.

Tentacles are wriggling against his entrance now, pushing in, caustic and raw, about to tear him open.

"Wait," He begs, his legs shaking, "Fuck -- just wait -- you --you need to wet them first. It makes things easier, more enjoyable."

The tentacles in his ass cease their advances, retreating backwards. One fully withdraws, soothing around the abused muscle with alleviating touches while the other remains a few inches inside, biding it's time.

Another set of tendrils travel up to Miles lips, recalling what the man did with his fingers the previous night, seeking the wet crevice of his mouth.

Miles shudders, accepting one of them in, licking over the surreal, jelly-like appendage, studying the taste and feel with his tongue. He sucks on it, wanton, the round tip lashing against the the roof of his mouth then tickling the back of his throat. His jaw is pushed to open wider as the second tentacle sneaks inside, and he can't help the strings of saliva that drip down from his chin, practically drooling over the two phallic-like limbs.

Having been sufficiently lathered, the tentacles leave the warm sanctity of the man's mouth and Miles misses them almost immediately, his jaw feeling stretched and empty without their residency. As if reading his mind, more come to replace his supply, delving past his lips, dancing along his tongue and Miles is hooked on the sensation.

The spit-slicked tentacles return to Miles' ass, allowing the smaller one keeping him loose, acting as a plug, to slip out first. The reporter moans around the tentacles in his mouth, trying to still his trembling body as he's filled to the brim, his insides now slackened and offering little resistance to the bigger girth.

Thick roots come to wrap around his weak, buckling knees, sturdy and more fortifying then the others and Miles can't do much besides hang on for the ride, his hands clinging onto the tall wooden dresser for support.

The Walrider's claws abandon his erection in favor of toying with the pert nipples obscured by the open flaps of his shirt and Miles can't even spare a complaint because the tentacles in his mouth slither out to coil around his dick, shrinking and expanding in sleek, velvety transitions.

"Ahh aha aah, fuck," His voice is raspy, strained so, he swallows, wetting his throat.

"There! theretherethere -- ahhh, fuck yesss."

Miles' howls of ecstasy spur the Walrider on, fueling it, accelerating it's movements, driving harder, pumping faster, matching Miles voice with a guttural thrum of it's own.

The demons makeshift tongue licks Miles' ear, his cheek, stroking down the side of his neck until it' jagged circle of teeth sink into the juncture of the man's shoulder, ruining a perfectly good shirt. Miles screams, feeling the rivulets of blood pour out from the love bite.

The man let's himself go, somehow finding the sense to warn the Walrider of his release.

"I am -- I am coming," he groans, muffling his words into the cuff of his wrist as he convulses, splattering the tentacles and the dresser in hot, sticky fluid.

Miles is attempting to catch his breath as a cum-smeared tentacle bumps the curve of his bottom lip and the man can't say he’s keen on the taste of himself very much.

"Eck! You can clean them yourself, you know," he grouses, batting the soiled tentacles away.

The Walrider applies this recommendation, tasting it's host's seed and Miles can't deny the blush that dusts his cheeks as he ogles the machine drinking up what's left of the milky white on it's tentacles.

The brunette shakes his head, clearing it, remembering what he was doing before he was so rudely interrupted.

"Fuck, now I have to change and clean up again." 

------------------------------

It takes him about another few hours to pack, to condense his entire existence into four black duffel bags, the lot of them placed conveniently near the front door.

He'd sent out about a dozen encrypted emails to what reliable connections he had, shared all the notes he'd kept of his experience at Mount Massive, about Murkoff's dirty little secrets. He made copies of what he could salvage from his glitchy camera footage, plans to drop the snuff film in the mailbox of every local news station and then some.

As a final hurrah, a eulogy for what was once a normal life, Miles is having a smoke, leaning his elbows on the pane of his open window. He takes in the details of the neighborhood, the concrete jungle of domestication and cramped run-down buildings that he had never really cared to appreciate before. The only reason he finds himself doing so now is because he doubts he will ever lay eyes on this city street again after today.

The Walrider was tame, well-behaved and non-invasive while he worked to sort though his files, the baggage both figuratively and literally so Miles doesn't mind when it approaches him from behind with claws wrapped around his waist, teeth nuzzling the back of his neck.

"I made copies of everything. I going to tell everyone," he tells it solemnly, "I don't know what's going to happen after that. I don't know what's going to happen to us."

The Walrider growls low, showing it understood, offering encouragement to it's host.

Miles makes a sardonic smiles at that.

"Yeah, I hope we'll be alright too," he says, reaching an arm up to curl around the demon's neck, giving it a small peck on the cheek.

There's only trace remnants of tobacco left in the filter of his cigarette, but he takes a long, lame drag on it anyway. Most of it had been wasted, burned off in tiny clumps of ash because he had been too busy being lost inside his own head, but he still liked the feeling of it in-between his fingers, the comfort the familiarity brought.

He snuffs out his cigarette on the window sill, dragging black streaks across cracked paint before flicking the butt down onto the sidewalk below.

He shuts the creaky window, latches it closed.

“Hey, when we’re outside in public, please try to be discrete. The last thing we needs is someone calling in a cryptid sighting,” Miles remarks, turning around, beholding the ominous form of the Walrider.

Obliging, the Walrider dissolves into a mist, thinning out until it becomes nothing at all.

Miles takes one last tour around his apartment, trying to take a mental picture of the memories he'd made over the past few years. He's leaving so much behind, but he can start over again if it means giving the world a better future by bringing Murkoff down.

Locking the door behind him, Miles descends the blocky stairs with two heavy bags on each shoulder. He takes one final look up at the building that he called home, focusing on his third story window before he rips his gaze away and faces forward again.

It's then that he recognizes the suspicious silver Audi parked in his spot, right out front on the sidewalk.

Holy Shit. Was he an idiot? How did he not notice it here before?

This was Trager’s car. It had to be.

Miles tries the door handle. It's unlocked. He tosses his bags into the back seat and then slides into the driver's side, looking for the car keys. Nothing in the ignition, but he keeps searching, a distinctive metallic clack resounding in the interior when he opens the fold-out mirror and they fall to the mat by the break pedal.

Fucking. Score.

Just for the hell of it, Miles takes the keys and bounds around to the back of the car. He opens up the trunk and just like he knew there would be, an expensive set of golf clubs and caddy are laying there to greet him, neat leather toppers, no doubt painstakingly chosen for each one of the ritzy driver clubs. Miles is going to use those later, but whether it's to pawn them, use them in an act of vandalism or put them to recreational use, he has yet to decide.

He slams the trunk closed and he can't believe his eyes when he sees the word, "BUDDY," inscribed on the rear goddamn license plate. He offers a chuff of disgust, rolling his eyes on his return trip to the drivers seat.

He turns the key, revs the engine and just takes a moment to breathe it all in, hands gripping the steering wheel to reiterate the fact that he had jacked Trager's motherfucking car and had brought it home with him, thinking that it must've been during one of his many mental blackouts. He doesn't know if those catatonic episodes are going to be an ongoing, reoccurring thing, but he hopes the answer is less and not more. Either way, Miles is not the type to kick a gift horse in the mouth.

Forget any thoughts he had about bittersweet departures. They're all replaced by giddy spouts of laughter because this feels like revenge, like he's pissing on Trager's grave and it's motivation enough to lay on the gas and do a burn-out, speeding straight towards the nearest news station.

"Need a refill," the waitress asks, coffee pot poised in her hand.

Miles turns towards the young redhead dressed in a vintage diner uniform and white apron, a dreamy look captivating his eyes at the promise of more caffeine.

"Sure, Becky," the reporter says after glancing at her name tag, holding out his cup for her to top it off.

"Is there anything else I can get you," she asks sweetly.

"I am good for now, thank you. Waiting for a friend," he smiles at her, charming when he needs to be, and she gives him one to match.

"Just holler if you need anything," says the twenty-something year old gal before she excuses herself away from his lonely booth in the corner, her curled bangs ponytail bobbing along with her.

Miles hears the trademark jingle bells of another patron entering the outdated decor of chrome and checkered tile, following the telltale sound with his eyes. With one look, Miles is convinced -- this man must be the notorious whistleblower he's been reading about. The man reeks of nervous energy and ripe paranoia, definitely the nerdy, introverted type judging by the dyed blonde hair and the casual flannel shirt with blue jeans.

"Waylon," Miles calls out from his booth, waving him over with a raised hand above his head.

The skittish man visibly flinches, deer caught in headlights, an absolutely priceless reaction. Waylon's giving off the distinct impression that he's about to make a run for it and bolt right back out the door and if so, the edgy reporter is going to handle things in the same vein as the Walrider and chase his scrawny ass down and throw him inside the trunk of his car for a little one on one chat.

Thankfully, Miles doesn't have to resort to such crude tactics because the blonde treads further inside, albeit cautiously, offering up remorseful pleasantries to the surrounding guests for disturbing the peace. The timid man bows forward in an effort to make his height appear smaller, apologetic, pacifying the assortment of stares he encounters with friendly gesticulations.

The techie's procession of moral posturing is excessive in Miles’ opinion, but the lumbering gait in which he does it is the most compelling detail. It tells of an injury, probably recently obtained by his guarded menial limp. Seems like the blonde is still not used to walking on it, one sneaker shuffling across the linoleum floor as the other takes the majority of the weight.

The engineer wedges himself between the table, his gimp right leg carrying him dutifully as he sits down in the seat opposite of Miles, his cute facade dropping into a reproachful death glare now that they're in a more private, face to face setting.

"Did you really have to announce it to everyone," Waylon mutters, fidgeting in his seat, making the cushions squeak, "I am trying to keep a low profile."

The nonchalant journalist shrugs, slouching back against the polished vinyl seat cushions, cigarette held between his bandaged fingers.

Miles is sizing up the other male, having been looking forward to meeting him in person, and the "adorable kitten that wouldn't harm a fly" exterior is concealing a feral side of teeth and claws, however modest and nonlethal they may be.

"Figured you wouldn't see me here all the way in the back. Thought, I'd make it easier for you," Miles explains, a generalization disguised as a courtesy. Now that he's seen just how easy it is to get under Waylon's skin, the investigative reporter finds sadistic appeal in the sport of ruffling this guy's feathers.

Waylon cringes at the apparent thoughtfulness, trying to err on the side of politeness, but the visage is brittle at best.

"Thanks," the grimace that takes over the blonde programmer's face makes it look like it physically hurts him to say it. "Do me a favor and be a little more tactful, please."

Miles takes minor (and by minor I mean major) offense to the beseechment. He can be tactful – he could make "tact" his middle name if he really wanted to. It was simply a matter of personal preference that he chooses not to.

"Can't say how nice it is to finally meet you in person," Miles remarks, a bite of sarcasm to his words.

Injured hands fold up the spread out newspaper taking up space on the tabletop, tossing it in Waylon direction before the blonde can say anything else that might be considered offensive (namely about his missing fingers).

Waylon looks down at the newsprint, skimming the text. It's a press release about Murkoff corp. They claim no direct involvement or knowledge of the crimes of their subsidiaries. A spokesman assures that the company is just as distraught and disturbed by these recent events as anyone and in an effort of goodwill, they'll be donating to the affected families and a few select charity projects.

Waylon laughs louder than he intends to, catches himself midway in the act, glancing around self-consciously at the other clientele before quieting down.

"Can't say I expected much else," Waylon sighs, exasperated. He's pulling at his short, choppy bangs, lobbing the affronting newspaper back at the one who served him with it.

“And I still can't believe you came today," Miles says, cigarette caught between his lips now. He catches the folded up pages as they slide across the smooth surface of the table, tucking it inside his jacket pocket for safe keeping.

"Same to you," the techie says, "When Peacock told me Miles Upshur wanted to meet with me, I thought for sure it was a trap set up by you know who, but then I saw the news broadcast and I needed to know what happened after …" the blonde chokes up, a scowl weighing his head down. "You never would have been there if it wasn't for me…," the guilt-ridden man whispers to himself, almost an octave too low for the other to hear, hands clenched into fists.

Miles is silent for a long minute, his cigarette dangling along his bottom lip in a frown. He takes a deep inhale, the strong hit of nicotine making his brain tingle, blowing out the second hand smoke towards the other's face.

"Can you put that out," Waylon grits, trying not to gag. He pinches his nose shut and fans away the fetid fumes from his face.

"No," Miles declares matter-o-factly, looking very smug about his decision to antagonize the other. He even goes so far as to accentuate the little flicks he gives to the filter, dabbing the burning end into the ashtray before going in for another long drag.

Waylon's pained expression only serves to elevate Miles' good mood into a great one because he prefers to see the software engineer's angry side instead of a mopey shell of what he assumes to be his former self and he's certainly accomplished that much.

Borrowing Waylon's words since he put it so eloquently, "You know who is on clean up duty. We’re on borrowed time and I need to know that I can trust you."

"I mean, I don't get it," Waylon's eyebrows arch, looking utterly perplexed by the enigma that is Miles Upshur, "Aren't we in the same boat here? What would I have to gain by turning you in?"

"Immunity," Miles says off-handedly, not really meaning it, just messing with the blonde a little, wanting to see how he would handle a pitch thrown out of left field.

Waylon grits his teeth, his shoulders bunching up as he bristles, the intensity in eyes a proponent story of doom and gloom. He slides his forearms across the table, chopping through the air with the seriousness of what he’s about to say.

"We’re their personal playthings, the whole goddamn world is. They treat their own employees like drones, experimental lab rats when it serves them. They did the same to me when they found out what I was doing and you think I would risk working with them again? For God’s sake, they're all psychotic bastards Miles. They have no conscience, no morals, no loyalty. Everyone is expendable to them, including me," Waylon is doing his best to sound convincing, putting all his shoulda-woulda-coulda emotions into the delivery of his little speech.

"Fair point," Miles agrees, a little too quickly for Waylon's taste, the other man expecting him to put up more of a fuss.

"Sorry, if I seem a bit testy," Miles continues, "I am what the military affectionately refers to as, ‘FUBAR.’"

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Waylon laments, averting his gaze as he wrings his hands on the counter, “For what it’s worth, I am sorry…”

Miles feels a pang of guilt for teasing the blonde, not expecting the apology. The fellow asylum survivor knows he should probably return the sentiment, contemplates doing so, but a grudge of self-righteous anger impedes him and he’s stubborn to offer one.

Maybe the brunette was being petty, but he couldn’t get soft, not when he needed to strip away the socially acceptable veneer to see the bare-bones hidden underneath, dissect and analyze what really made Waylon tick -- his personality, his character -- a necessary interrogation tactic he learned during the war.

Karma seems to bite him in the ass in the next instant because Miles breaks out into a cold sweat, his eyes nearly bulging out his skull when he sees the full-form of the Walrider involuntarily manifest itself beside Waylon.

FuckFuckFuck. What is happening right now. He told it to stay out of sight.

The demon's claws are playing with the overgrown splay of blonde hairs near Waylon’s ear and the man brushes a hand through the coarse strands to dismiss the odd itch, totally unassuming.

Miles' inner voice urges him to remain calm, to act casual, but it's hard when the Walrider is loose, twice as deadly as a rampaging bull in a china shop and the host can only pray that it doesn’t do anything too extreme that might compromise their whereabouts or identities.

The brunette shifts his gaze, checking his surroundings, hoping that no one else can see the menacing creature that is being very naughty right now. There's no blood-curdling screams, no ensuing hysterics or chaos, just business carrying on as usual so, maybe everyone really is blind and completely oblivious to the nature of the company that they're in.

Likewise, even the unsuspecting engineer hasn’t noticed the addition of a third wheel to their group, too busy trying to figure out the reason behind the sudden change in the journalist's demeanor. At first the blonde attributes it to the sensitive subject of his apology, but Miles is the picture of a nuclear meltdown so, the techie follows the direction of Miles' stare, and yeah maybe the room seems a little darker, ominous now that the sunlight is fading, but there's something else that's different, he just can't tell what exactly.

"Does it feel colder in here to you," Waylon asks, shivering from the eerie vibe that’s circulating around him.

Miles is getting just a little jealous because he can’t believe the Walrider breached the sanctity of his skin just to fucking play with Waylon like they're old fucking friends. (Though admittedly, Miles was at fault for having started this game. He's been picking on Waylon since the start of their meeting so he can't really condemn his companion for doing the same).

"OK, so don't freak out," Miles gripes, attending to his headache, eyes clamped shut so he doesn't have to meet Waylon's eyes.

"Miles …” Waylon warns, impending dread creeping into his voice, “what are you saying? Freak out about what?"

"Alright,” Miles sighs heavily, tormented by breaking a vow of secrecy, " it’s ... it's the Walrider."

"The Walrider," Waylon echoes distantly, tilting his head just slightly, one eyebrow arched as he searches for the context of what that could mean.

As if on cue, the programmer feels another ghostly touch start near his temple and realization hits him like a brick to the face.

The blonde flounders in his seat, knees hitting the underside of the table with a loud clatter. His frightened eyes dart around the room in a panic, looking for the source of the touch, coddling the side of his face that was violated.

The machine releases a pleased growl at this reaction and Miles can tell it's having way too much fun with the size of it's toothy grin.

"I told you not to freak out," Miles grunts, annoyed by the fact that everyone is refusing to listen to him today.

Waylon shuttles himself into the dead-end wall of the booth, redirects his gaze back at Miles, his lungs looking like they're going to burst out of his chest because he wants to scream, but he's trying his best not to.

"Holy shit," the distressed man curses, keeping his voice down, clutching at his shirt where his heart is beating frantically, "It's here? Y-you ... you have it with you?"

"Where else would I keep it, genius," is the brunette's terse reply, his headache getting worse, “it needs a host, remember? Didn't you help design the thing?"

Waylon shakes his head, "C-code… I helped code, but I didn't know ... I-I thought that..." Waylon trails off, unsure if it would be wise to say what he's really thinking.

"Fine, whatever – just calm down. It's not gunna hurt you,” Miles says, trying to reassure the other man that he wasn’t in any danger, "If anything, I think it likes you."

“Uh, I am not sure how to take that, actually.” Waylon answers honestly, a nervous laugh escaping him as he unfurls himself from the terror-stricken ball he’s contorted himself into.

"Wow, rude," Miles remarks flippantly, " You could at least have the decency to say, 'hello.'"

Waylon looks toward the faint outline of a dusty, abstract shadow, his brief session in the morphogenic engine still imbuing him with a tattered link to the weapon of mass destruction.

"Oh. Right. Uh ... " Waylon mumbles, trying to get his brain to un-panic itself, “H-hello?"

The Walrider seems to buzz happily, trilling at him and Waylon is settled enough to sit properly in his seat again, his shoulder still pressed against the wall to distance himself from the other side of the booth where the entity resides.

"Are you telling me it's friendly,” Waylon whispers suspiciously, trying to mask his words from the AI by cupping a hand around his lips.

"More than friendly," Miles declares with a seedy grin.

Waylon doesn't want to dive too deeply into that insinuation, white-washes the thought with another question before he can think too hard about the atrocities Miles committed in the name of xenophilia.