As Hale wakes the next morning, he notices two differences from when he went to sleep. The first is that, in the absence of warmth emitted by the space heater, the car’s interior is glacial cold. The second is that Rayner is no longer curled up on the opposite side of the car. Prompted by the chill, he’s cuddled up to the only remaining source of heat there is—Hale. 

With his head pillowed against Hale’s shoulder, their bodies contoured together with very little space between, Hale’s heart starts racing before he’s had time to take stock of morning activities or check the weather.

Part of him thinks he should get up to turn on the space heater. Another part thinks that moving will definitely wake Rayner. It might be nice to just let him sleep longer and enjoy the moment. Frost paints the windows in curling, icy fractals like silver feathers, blotting out the world outside, and Rayner looks equally beatific sleeping with the imprint of Hale’s shirt on his cheek. His tawny lashes dip over cheeks tinged ruddy with the cold. 

The moment doesn’t last long. Hale is programmed to wake only minutes before his symbiont, and too soon, Rayner shifts and blinks blearily. When he finally reaches consciousness, his body goes rigid.

“Oh,” he says in a voice muffled by sleep. “This is embarrassing.”

“Is it?” Hale tries to defuse Rayner’s rising tension with self-deprecating humour—something he’d witnessed plenty between his friends but employed rarely himself. “Of my own embarrassing experiences, this ranks far lower by degree of humiliation.”

Rayner gets up slowly, still looking discomfited despite the reassurance. He extricates himself from the tangle of their limbs and blankets, much to Hale’s regret. 

“You seem to have slept better,” says Hale. “My battery is nearly full this morning. Perhaps the physical contact helped?”

Rayner looks apologetic. “Probably. But I don’t want to use you like some kind of sleep aid or tool.”

Hale doesn’t know how to phrase ‘I liked it,’ without sounding weird or getting tangled in protocols. For the moment, his programming waffles, unable to determine whether Rayner’s discomfort is as a result of ‘using’ Hale or because he objects to physical contact in general. 

“If you’re afraid that it’s some kind of hardship for me,” Hale says, “I assure you it’s the opposite.”

Rayner says, “Hmm.” 

He continues looking concerned regardless. Hale suggests breakfast but logs the conversation as a point to revisit later. Somehow, he’ll have to convey that he enjoys the physical contact. Without letting on just how much. He still isn’t prepared to confess his attraction or the fantasies that play upon his mind with increasing frequency.

They go inside, Hale still holding onto that sliver of contentment he’d felt seeing Rayner cuddled up to him. 

Theo comes into the kitchen just as Hale’s serving pancakes. He catches her giving Rayner a pointed look, but Rayner says ‘don’t’ under his breath, and she rolls her eyes. She doesn’t make any allusion to the conversation with Hale until Rayner’s gone to the bathroom.

“I take it you didn’t tell him about your feelings,” she grumbles into her coffee.

“He was asleep when I returned,” Hale hedges.

“And this morning?”

“...The timing didn’t feel appropriate. And I couldn’t ascertain whether you intended to encourage or deter me with your parting comment.”

Theo groans. “You know, Hale, for a really intelligent person, you can be really thick.”

Hale can hear the affection in her tone and knows not to take the comment to heart. However, it seems the usual opportunity for Damo to pipe up with his agreement or an additional jibe. 

Instead, silence.

Hale wants to enjoy it. Instead, it’s eerie. The barbs of Damo’s parting shot last night dig deeper.

You think I’m an evil son of a bitch just out to take everything you’ve got? Fine. Guess that’s who I’ll be.

A delivery drone arrives that morning while they’re in the workshop.
   
It hovers outside, pinging the electronic doorbell to announce its arrival. Rayner’s head shoots up from his laptop. With a buzz of palpable excitement, he launches himself out of his chair and runs to meet the drone. Theo smirks behind her own work on a furniture blueprint projector.

“I think that one’s for you too, Hale,” she says.

Curiosity piqued, Hale follows Rayner into the shop front. The drone sets the package on the counter and demands an electronic signature. Hale notes that the name on the package is fake—one of Rayner’s Network aliases—but if the drone is capable of searching profiles, it isn’t bothered by the deception. Rayner uses his finger to scribble over the touch screen, and the drone departs with a whirr of propellers. 

The package is a 14.6-inch long cardboard box, nondescript, and unlabelled except for a scribbled drawing of a robot on the top flap. Rayner cuts the packaging, but before he opens it, he shoots Hale an inquiring stare.

“Actually. This is for you. You should open it.”

Hale looks quizzically at the box and then Rayner. “I’ve only just given you a gift, and you’ve already purchased something new for me?”

He laughs. “It’s not a game of one-up. And we already agreed on this one, so it doesn’t count.”

That leaves very few options for what it could be, and Hale’s mechanical mind makes short work of eliminating things based on size and previous conversations. He knows he should be excited—Rayner is—but part of him hopes he’s wrong as he pulls the flaps of the box open.

Inside, nestled between biodegradable packing peanuts and wrapped several times over in plant-based cling film, is a rubber, semi-transparent stomach. On one end is a metal box with various wires and tubes attached. The other end has an opening with a bolt and screw base for attachment. Several green, unlabelled containers resembling juice boxes accompany the device too. A hand-penned note lies on the top, which reads simply, “Good luck. Food still works, but algae is best. Should be enough here for four weeks. If you need help with installation, you know where to find me.”

Schooling his features into a smile, Hale says, “Is this the bioreactor?”

Rayner’s excitement wavers. Apparently, Hale’s smile is less than convincing. 

“Yeah, so you can be powered autonomously,” Rayner says.
“Wouldn’t have to depend on my sorry ass to keep you alive, eh?” 

Hale scrambles to assume as amiable an expression as he can manage. A ‘thank you,’ comes out, but he wishes he could summon the same excitement Rayner showed five minutes ago. Clearly, this is something Rayner really wants. Something he thinks Hale wants too, and Hale never did anything to disabuse him of the notion. At the moment, though, all Hale can imagine are his data streams gone dead. Empty and devoid of the constant reassurance that his symbiont is okay. Having to manually scan Rayner anytime he wants to confirm his health, his heart rate, his emotional well-being, and having no means of doing so when separated by even a short distance.

His programming overrides these thoughts though. Pleasing Rayner takes priority over his own emotional weaknesses. He can’t lie, so he says the only positive, true thing he can think of.

“It would be a relief not to drain you of more energy than your work already does.” He tries to keep his tone light. For the most part, he succeeds. Rayner looks a little relieved, though still not entirely certain.

“And you won’t have to worry about some human holding like…power over you, right?” 

Hale nods. It’s clear that Rayner’s perspective is utterly different from his own. Rayner sees the symbiont link as an act of possession by humans over androids. That’s sensible, given that is its purpose by design. 

Hale, though, feels like it’s a connection. Communication. An important relationship that this upgrade will decimate. 

“When should we install it?” Rayner asks.

Hale doesn’t want to at all, but again, his programming dismisses his own desires. “Perhaps next week? It will give us time to prepare.”

“Right. Need to set up a tank to grow some algae.” 

Rayner spends the remainder of the morning looking up algae tanks and researching anything the bioreactor can’t digest, which turns out, is very little. Theo greets the news of its arrival with equal excitement to Rayner. Hale feels as though he experiences the afternoon through glass, a smile plastered to his face that he does not feel. 

It occurs to him that this upgrade could improve his function enough that his programming might oblige him to return to Melissa. If she’s pleased by his improvement and not too angry about his absence, she might invite him back into her service. Since this had been the initial motivation which enabled his escape, his programming reminds him of it with increasing regularity. 

The fact that he wants to stay with Rayner and Theo very badly hardly enters into it. His code disregards this information as irrelevant.

Learning to hack seems his first and only resort.

Hale’s programming chafes against the very thought. It contradicts the entire purpose of his creation to prioritize freedom from the constraints of his code for self-gratification. For his own happiness. Yet, the bonds of his protocols can’t quite reach this far. They can’t stop him from wanting it. They can’t stop him from trying.

He doesn’t know if it’s possible to hack his protocols, but he knows one thing for certain.

At all costs, he cannot return to Alder Close.