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Connor stared at the irritable looking man in panic-edged desperation, wishing that he’d misheard but his audio processor was functioning normally.
“What do you mean there’s no trains, sir?” Connor asked, his central processor making him shiver in an attempt to raise his temperature.
“Look, android,” the man snapped, looking at Connor with angry grey eyes. “I’ve got a whole bunch of angry passengers and a goddamn snowstorm stopping any trains getting through. Go find yourself a socket to plug into for the night and quit bothering me.” He looked around Connor to the next person in line, “Next!” he said loudly
Connor, with an irritated glare, moved out of the way, crossing his arms over his chest as he did so, shivering violently. His internal thermometer was blinking yellow at him and he went to find a corner out of the wind to huddle in, but the crowded station was nonetheless windswept and freezing and the best Connor managed was sheltering behind a huddle of humans who were talking in rapid German.
Hugging himself a little tighter, Connor stood silently, fidgeting from side to side in a way he never usually did, only to keep his biocomponents from locking up and freezing. His battery was suffering, too, with the cold, and with keeping his temperature within an acceptable range, and he’d need to connect to a power source soon.
But there wasn’t any available and Connor hadn’t been granted access to his owner’s bank account for this trip, what with the tickets being prepaid. Fuck, Connor thought, in the privacy of his own mind. He had no funds and nowhere to stay and he calculated the probability of his freezing-up, causing irreparable and very expensive damage to his biocomponents, if he stayed on this platform overnight, as being in excess of 93%.
Not knowing what else to do, Connor stayed where he was. Angry humans shuffled about the platform, groaning at the cancellations and complaining to each other with a shared irritation at public transport. Androids stood silently and didn’t talk as they either shadowed their owners or went efficiently about their own business. But steadily, the crowd of people thinned out and by dusk, the platform was all but deserted. The snow got heavier and Connor shuddered each time the wind gusted, the snowflakes catching in his hair and sticking to his cheeks, no longer melting on his synthetic skin.
The probability of him getting frozen up finally overweighed the very high possibility of his owner being pissed as hell for Connor calling him and so Connor finally sucked up his reluctance and placed a call to his owner’s mobile.
It rang, and rang, and rang, but his owner didn’t pick up and Connor closed his eyes briefly, letting the call end.
Connor’s internal temperature gauge had gone from yellow to red, telling him that he was four degrees below optimum and any further drop was going to result in permanent damage. He rocked from one leg to another to keep his joints moving and lubricated but he could already feel himself seizing up and it scared him, even though he knew he wasn’t meant to be afraid. He knew that his LED was spinning yellow.
“What’re you still doing here, kid?”
Connor didn’t immediately register that the voice was directed at him. But since he was now the only passenger left on the platform, he turned belatedly towards the human, realising that it was the same man that had snapped at him earlier. Where his grey hair had been tied back before, it now hung loose and snow-speckled around his weathered, weary face. He was frowning angrily at Connor and Connor hoped he wasn’t going to get beaten on top of most likely freezing.
“Waiting for the next train, sir,” Connor managed stiffly, his jaw creaking slightly in protest at the movement. A red light blinked incessantly at him in the corner of his vision.
“Jesus, android,” the man said. His nametag read, ‘Hank’, Connor noticed after a long second. His processors were slowing down as his battery dropped to 12%. His temperature was at critical. “Go get a hotel, you’re gonna end up as a fucking icicle if you stay out here.”
Connor clenched his jaw, unlocking it, “I don’t have access to sufficient funds for that course of action, sir,” he said slowly. He thought his speech might be slurred but he couldn’t quite tell, his audio processor running similarly slowly.
“You ain’t gonna be any use to anyone if you get frozen-up,” Hank said. It wasn’t question and Connor had no information to add so he didn’t respond. He heard Hank sigh. “Look, come sit in the office, ‘kay? At least for a half-hour while I do a final sweep of the place.”
Once he had processed the offer, Connor didn’t hesitate, “Thank you, sir,” he accepted gratefully. He didn’t want to freeze out here, stranded on a desolate platform because his owner hadn’t deemed him trust-worthy enough, or important enough, to give him access to an account with emergency funds.
“Yeah, yeah,” the station worker said. “Follow me. You got a name, android?”
Connor was an old make; outdated enough that his owner didn’t go out with him, but kept him in the house, or sent him on solo missions like this one, which had been to personally deliver a business package to a company supplier. He wasn’t surprised that Hank didn’t recognise his model.
“Connor,” he managed to say through his stiff jaw as he trailed after Hank and then entered a deliciously warm office. Connor quietly closed the door behind him while Hank was turning up a heater.
“Connor, huh?” Hank said as he straightened. “You’re a classic, aren’t you.” Somehow Hank didn’t make it sound like he was making fun but Connor still wasn’t sure how to respond. “Just stay here, alright,” Hank said before Connor could find the words. “Socket over there,” he pointed. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Thank you,” Connor said, relaxing just a little as his internal temperature stabilised and climbed up half a degree after just a minute or so of being in the warm. He was still several degrees short of what he should be and it left him feeling uneasy in his body.
Hank waved away Connor’s thanks and headed out, leaving Connor to plug himself into the socket and sigh in contentment at the steady flow of energy that entered him, making the warnings flashing at him subside a little.
Sitting down against the wall, Connor allowed himself to disengage temporarily, conserving energy as his temperature slowly returned to normal and his battery was replenished. The probability of his not-freezing when Hank turned him out of the office increased by the minute, but it was still barely over half. It was damn cold out there and Connor resigned himself to having to find somewhere off the platform, an alcove in a wall by the tracks perhaps, where he could shelter. He didn’t think he’d stay functional if he just huddled on the platform as he had been. His processors hadn’t been working properly out there in the cold and he hadn’t been able to formulate a new plan. Connor knew he owed Hank a debt and he wondered if Hank would try to claim it from his owner. Connor doubted his owner would be pleased in the slightest that Hank had stopped him from deactivating via exposure. Connor had completed his mission to deliver the business package; his owner wouldn’t care overly much if the android didn’t make it home. But Connor minded, as much as he knew he shouldn’t.
Hank returned about twenty minutes and Connor looked up, detaching himself reluctantly from the port in preparation for Hank kicking him out. His battery was still only at 64% but it was much better than before.
“Thank you for-” he started.
“You look better-” Hank said at the same time and Connor quickly shut his mouth. Hank looked at him for a few seconds before shaking his head with a sigh. “It’s bad out there, Connor,” Hank said, momentarily surprising Connor in remembering his name, before Hank’s words registered with him and he sighed inwardly in resignation of a horrible night. “Snow’s coming down hard.”
“Yes, sir,” Connor said blandly.
Hank lifted his eyebrows, “Look, I can’t kick you out, android, ‘cus you’d just freeze out there, right? But you better not fucking steal anything, okay, there’s CCTV and shit and they’d deactivate your ass in a millisecond, you hear me?”
Connor was slow to process Hank’s words, “You’re offering for me to stay here, sir?” he said.
“Yeah,” Hank huffed. “Just be a death-sentence to send you out there.”
“I’m not alive,” Connor couldn’t help but point out.
“You’re alive enough,” Hank said heavily and Connor didn’t argue further, stunned by his good fortune.
“You are very gen-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hank cut him off with a handwave, “Cut the shit. Turn up the heater if you want and I reckon we have a blanket lying ‘round somewhere. It’s not the Ritz but you won’t freeze.”
“I’m grateful,” Connor said quietly, meeting Hank’s eyes and Hank stilled briefly, seeming to realise that Connor’s words weren’t a rote phrase this time.
“Sure,” he said after a moment, before heading out with a mumble of ‘blanket’, leaving Connor staring after him.
Connor hesitantly plugged himself back into the socket to finish charging, thinking that he could at least get a few extra minutes even if Hank came back having changed his mind. But the human returned with the blanket he’d promised.
“You need anything special?” Hank asked gruffly after he’d handed the blanket over and brushed off Connor’s thanks. “Android stuff, I dunno?”
“No, sir, this is more than sufficient,” Connor said steadily. If he were human perhaps he could show how beyond grateful he was for Hank’s actions but Connor wasn’t meant to feel things like that and he kept them suppressed as much as he was able.
“Well,” Hank said, “good. I’m not locking the door in case there’s a fire or some shit, but don’t run off with anything you hear me?” Connor nodded quickly. He’d never stolen anything in his life and never intended to, but especially not from a human who had behaved so generously towards him. “I’ll see you in the morning,” Hank said after a brief pause and Connor inclined his head silently.
Hank turned to go, opening the door and letting in a rush of icy air, which Connor would be out in now, likely already deactivated, if it wasn’t for Hank’s kindness.
“Goodnight, Hank,” Connor said softly, as Hank was leaving.
Hank paused but didn’t turn around, “G’night Connor,” he said gruffly, before he left, closing the door behind him. Connor’s last thought as he pulled the blanket over him and lay down to disengage for the night was that some humans were kinder than he’d thought.