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“Maybe a little more than a friend,” Keats admitted, chest heaving. “O-okay, maybe a lot more…”
He waited, for any kind of sign Herm was alive, that he was in power mode or playing some sick joke Keats would say he’d never forgive him for but would anyways because it’s Herm.
Herm, Herman, his best friend and the person he loved, but never told.
His screen remained dark.
A sob wracked his chest, “oh, oh fuck.”
There’d be no wise-cracking, no arguing over colour coding Keats’ keys or who left the truck unlocked overnight, no mechanical fish to be set off at the ass-crack of dawn just because he thought it was funny.
“No, no, no, no, no,” he mumbled to himself, shaky hands grasping at the cool metal, looking, searching for a way to reboot his systems. “You asshole, you weren’t supposed to— that shot was meant for me, you dickhead! Me! You-you can’t—“
A click and a hiss had the front of his face plate lifting. There, a smaller, immobile Herm sat inside. Catatonic. Unseeing.
Keats could name a hundred thousand synonyms and not one would express how eerily still his body was.
“Keats?”
He gave no indication he was listening, fingers not ceasing. His hard drive wasn’t fried, that had to mean something…right?
“Keats.” Someone laid a hand on his shoulder and—
Oh. It was Michelle.
Sorrow seeped from every pore of her body, even as her eyes widened upon seeing him. She choked back something that could have been a cry. “Herm…”
Keats gazed past her. Maybe ten meters away laid a drone, almost as frozen as Herm. But could something like a drone ever be as unnaturally motionless as something once alive?
“I need to be alone,” he heard himself say. “I’ll meet back up with you at the EX.”
She frowned in his peripheral. “Are you sure?” She asked quietly, arms moving to hug herself.
“Yeah.”
She must've seen something in his expression because she nodded. “Okay,” turning away, she hesitated, “just.. be careful. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
She sent him one last worried look and gathered the remaining bots, the ones left alive. Together, they carried off the dead— dead because they were dead, not Herm. Herm isn’t dead.
As soon as they were out of sight, far through the tree line, Keats got to work.
They were going to hate him.
The humans, the bots, Michelle, Herm.
But he didn’t care.
He'd rather Herm hate him and be alive than be dead. (Herm’s not dead.)
He staggered to his feet, stumbling his way across the uneven battleground, the smell of spilt oil thick in the air. He dropped down beside the fallen drone.
“You bastard,” he snarled, grabbing the edge of a broken yellow metal cover, one Herm had broken in his assault. “You are the reason he’s.. you’re… he’s not dead, but you will be. As soon as I’m done here,” the metal creaked beneath his fingers, “I’ll find whoever was operating this damned thing.” The metal plate snapped off, “and kill them myself.”
He wedged it underneath the chest plate and levered it until it popped off.
He grinned nastily, dropping it in the grass next to him.
He dug in with calloused fingers, uncaring of the jagged edges that sliced them to ribbons.
“I am not,” wires snapped, “letting you,” the circuit box door flung behind him, “die.”
He stared.
Nothing. The piece he needed was broken, fried.
“AgggghHHHH,” he let out a guttural scream, stomping on the drone’s insides over and over and over until there was nothing left to salvage.
He heaved heavy breaths. Inhaling deeply, he smiled, “okay,” he said softly, “let’s try this again.”
By the time he made his way through the battlefield, picking apart every drone or bot that stood in his way, the stars hung in the sky and black spots swam in his vision.
He fell to his knees. One piece. One chance.
He made quick work of removing anything that was charred, replacing it with the pieces he’d found, using a gnarled piece of metal to strip the wires.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered, scratching his cheek. He needed.. electricity.
Grabbing a gun (the same one that—), he flipped it to the lowest setting, took aim and fired.
Herm’s body jolted.
“Damn it, you asshole! You-you can't leave me alone."
He tried. Again and again and again.
What was the definition of insanity?
He collapsed next to Herm, flat on his back.
“I’m-I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his face of sweat, dirt, blood, and tears. “I.. I don’t know what else to do."
Keep running, Herm would say. But honestly? Keats was getting tired of running. He’s lost everything in his life, and somehow gained some. And now, he’s lost that too.
His parents, his sister, himself… and now Herm. What more does he have left to lose?
“Please,” he pleaded. “Please, please, I-I can’t do this without you.” He twisted to grab Herm’s body by the shoulders. “Herm, Herman, man, I love you. I’ll do or say whatever you want me to if you just— please. Stay.”
Herman did not respond.