Chapter Text
Click.
Whirr. Whirr.
Wet. Damp.
Water, dripping through cracks in faceplate. Joints. Danger of rust. Short-circuiting. Sit up.
Sit up?
Orientation: lying down.
Rabbit’s head gave a jerk, and with a short burst of steam from her cheek vents, her photoreceptors came back online. The blue one, as usual, powered up first, and Rabbit blinked several times in an attempt to clear the rain from the lens.
Grey. That was all she could see. Far and up and away, all grey, except—
Splat.
Another raindrop hit the blue eye, and Rabbit blinked again to clear it as the green one finally sputtered back to life. Still grey, but there was another, darker shape this time, above her and to the right.
Blink. Focus.
Leaves.
A tree?
Lots of trees.
She had to sit up. Get out of the rain before it made its way inside her innards. It might have done so already, and that would be Bad.
The fingers on Rabbit’s right hand twitched, then tightened, seeking out something sturdy to hold on to. The metal only slipped over tufts of grass, however, then slumped weakly back against the ground. Rabbit huffed impatiently. Why was she feeling so tired?
Run diagnostics.
Electronics- firing, if slowly.
Oil levels- not critical.
Core- functional, contained.
Boiler-
low water.
A spark of imperative shot through her system—low water, bad, must drink—before logical thought prevailed. Water was falling from the sky; all she had to do was open her mouth to refill. Easy.
Several minutes later, however, it became obvious that the plan would need some reworking: the volume of the raindrops entering her mouth was nowhere near enough to replace what she had lost, much less what she was still losing. She needed to find a bigger source. And to do that, she would need to sit up.
Sit up.
With another burst of steam (careful, careful, don’t have much to waste), Rabbit forced her chassis upwards. The joints rolled smoothly enough—one of her hips tended to stick these days, although she was trying to iron that out—and once she was upright Rabbit cracked her neck and tilted her head to get a good look around herself.
She had no idea where she was.
The land was completely unfamiliar—a line of pink-blossomed trees lined the hard-packed dirt road in front of her and snaked off into the distance where it soon grew obscured by the grey haze of rain. On the other side of the road were more trees, and then a neat, orderly field of some type of plant that Rabbit couldn’t identify.
There was no cover.
Nowhere to hide.
Another shot of imperative heated her boiler, but Rabbit quickly engaged her bellows to cool it down. No panicking. Absolutely no need to panic. She’d be fine. She was on a farm, right? That’s what it looked like, anyway. Farms were big; plenty of space to get lost in. And humans’ eyes weren’t nearly as good as hers. They probably wouldn’t even be able to see her in all this grey.
Get up.
Need to get up.
Legs?
Unhurt, but stiff. Another flash of alarm that Rabbit had to quickly tamp down. No rust, no dents, fine, all fine, but stiff from the cold of the night. That was it. Some movement, some friction, and they’d warm up just fine.
Get up.
Rabbit wrapped a hand around the damp fabric covering her right leg and pulled. The knee resisted at first, but soon it bent and then she did the same with the left. Braced her hands against the ground and pushed. Slowly, carefully, managed to stand. Braced herself against the nearest tree and breathed in, slowly and carefully, to cool off her boiler. There had to be a watering hole somewhere, for the animals. If they had animals.
Don’t think like that. There will be. Somewhere.
The idea of standing water made her uneasy, but there wasn’t time to look for anything cleaner. Once she’d gotten far enough away from San Diego she could try and find someone to empty out the contaminants and give her distilled water, but for now she had to take what she could get.
Can’t go back. Won’t go back.
Rabbit stared helplessly down the road, first in one direction, and then the other. Which way had she come from? That was the first decision. The Most Important decision. She couldn’t go back, wouldn’t go back, especially not by accident.
Breathe.
It was hard to remember to breathe, sometimes.
Rabbit shook her head, sending water droplets flying. She was just so wet all over; her clothes were soaked and muddy from lying in the rain, and water was dripping off of her everywhere. While she at least wasn’t in danger of hypothermia like a human would be, the wet clothes would make it harder to move and the longer she was out here, the more likely it would be that water would eventually find its way inside her joints and cause a short. She couldn’t afford to go offline. Not now.
Time to make a decision. With one last glance to her left, Rabbit turned and left the road, weaving between the almond trees and (hopefully) out of sight.