Hale determines that this is his cue to leave.

He stands. The sudden movement makes Melissa recoil and tap her wrist frantically to pull up her HoloPhone.

Panic is seizing his heart too, but at the same moment there's a release of tension. A relief from the threads of something held tightly to for a long time, then finally let go.

He bursts from Melissa's house, taking long strides, jumping off the porch. They have to go. Hale is still hacked into Melissa's devices and she's dialling a number on her phone. Not the police though. Mark.

Hale has no time to question her thinking. He fires a message through his network connection.

>>Damo?

The garage door to Rayner's home ratchets open in answer, screaming in the cold quiet of the neighbourhood, a motor roaring from inside. The truck peels out, snow turning to sleet under the spinning tires. It fishtails at the end of the drive before Damo wheels it around to pull up in front of Melissa's home. Theo sits in the passenger seat, still fumbling her seatbelt. And Rayner—

Behind him, Hale hears footsteps. In front of him, the door to the pickup truck opens and Rayner leaps out. At the same moment, Mark comes flying out of his home, red-faced, wearing only a wife-beater, boxer shorts, and greying socks. And he's wielding a shotgun.

There should be no time to wonder, but Hale's thoughts run at inhuman speed. In the fraction of a second it takes to register the firearm, he has long enough to question how Mark came to possess a weapon. Why it was the first thing Mark reached for when Melissa called. How it might seem, with everything about Damo on the news, that Hale and his companions are a genuine threat. Dangerous fugitives. Not just survivors fleeing for a chance at freedom, but angry criminals returning for revenge.

All these thoughts and observations speed through his mind, but they don't postpone his instinctive reaction.

Behind them, Melissa breaks her paralyzed silence to wail, "It's him!" Like they're nightmares turned corporeal. "He's back!"

Mark raises the shotgun.

Rayner moves quickly, sliding in the slush to put his body between Hale and the weapon, but Hale sidesteps him and charges toward Mark, toward the shotgun barrel that now has him in its sights. With visual perception processing at a far higher frame rate than a human's, Hale can see in slow motion the squeeze of Mark's meaty finger on the trigger. At the same moment, he hears the firing pin chime as it hits primer. It strikes a chord of terror in Hale's heart. The gun goes off just as Hale bats the barrel aside with his forearm, throwing Mark's aim skyward. The scent of gunpowder stings Hale's nostrils. The blast rings deafening in his ears, and the buckshot explodes harmlessly over his shoulder.

In those feverish few seconds where survival was his only focus, Hale felt acutely aware of every tiny sound, movement, smell. Now his senses abandon him and in their place only fury remains. He snatches the shotgun away and brings it down over his knee with such force that it bends and breaks apart, spring-loaded parts and crunching metal yielding to his superior design. He has a moment of vindication at the mask of shock on Mark's face right before Hale's fist pounds through it. Cartilage crunches in Mark's nose. He goes down leaden, collapsing into the snow like a demolished building.

Melissa's wails of fear persist, but Hale barely registers them. It's time to leave.

He turns to rush back toward the truck. Halfway between, Rayner stands paralyzed, eyes wide, jaw slack, and Hale feels a rush of something far different from fury. The way Rayner rushed out of the truck to haul him to safety, the way he'd moved to put himself between Hale and a short-fused, weapon-wielding asshole, the way he looks at Hale without anger even though Hale's gotten him into trouble again.

There isn't much time, but there's enough for this. Hale takes Rayner's outstretched hands and hauls him in to press a bruising kiss to his wind-chilled lips. The winter air fails to reach the scorch of his racing heart. He pulls away and says with determined finality, "I love you."

A moment of shock, then Rayner beams. He pulls Hale back to the truck, where Damo shouts, "Suck face later, losers!"

On the stoop to her home, Melissa's screams stop. She watches them pile into the truck with a hand halfway to her mouth, eyes round. Hale isn't sure whether to attribute her shock to the violent punch that knocked Mark out, or seeing Rayner again after so long spent villainizing him, or if it was just the kiss.

She unfreezes to slosh through the snow towards Mark.

That's the last Hale will ever see of her, he's sure. They slam the door and as Hale slides into the backseat—Nothing. No directive to return to her. No buzz of notifications. Nothing.

Damo doesn't wait for them to put on seatbelts. He slams on the accelerator, and the truck swings in alarming arcs through the slush before achieving grip and rocketing out of Alder Close.

Never to return, Hale thinks, before Rayner is on top of him peppering kisses to his face.

"Idiot," he says.

"They're gone," Hale tells him. "I don't have to go back." The words are nonsensical, but Rayner understands.

There's still the worry of building their home remotely without encryption, of escaping the notice of police, of where they'll go in the meantime, but none of these seem impossible questions or even important right now. Material obstacles that can't dim the light of real liberty Hale feels with his head empty, full only with the warmth of the man in his arms and the friends who came to his rescue.

Theo's voice cracks through his reverie.

"Is anyone going to explain to me what just happened?!"

It takes some time. Hale only divulged the issues he'd encountered with his programmed directives to Rayner the night before, but he lays them out to Theo and Damo best he can. How his coding persisted in sending him back to Melissa. How he'd realized that, until he had unequivocal evidence that Melissa would never accept him back, his code would insist he return. How he'd goaded her into confessing how little she cared for him, and how determined she was to never own another android.

How he'd told her exactly what he thought about the whole thing. Perhaps that hadn't been strictly necessary, but it felt important.

Damo, he finds, is unsurprised by any of it. Maybe he'd encountered many of the same issues during his days with Kipling. Hale thinks he's probably imagining it, but there seems a light of...pride in Damo's eyes.

Theo is less subtle. "Well, I'm proud of you, Hale. Pissed you didn't tell me earlier because I left my toaster strudel behind in the rush to leave. Do you know how stressful it is when Damo suddenly goes 'Get in the truck, we're leaving!' and we've got no clue what's happening next door, and he's got no time to explain? Oh, never mind. Point is—what do we do now?"

This seems a question that needs detailed examination and thought before coming to a concrete answer, so they're all surprised when Damo says, "About that. I have a wild idea."

Everyone remains silent, except Rayner who says, "Already?"

"Yeah. I think real fast, and I've been thinking about it since Hale first shipped off to tell Miss Stepford-Wannabe where to stick it. What if we just fuck all the remote building tech out the window and build on site?"

A pause, then Rayner says, "Like, with our hands?"

Hale purses his lips. "We can't survive there long enough to complete construction."

"I don't mean live there yet," Damo says. "I'm talking commute. Rent some snowmobiles. Go in at the crack of dawn. Stay with Theo's mate at night. Rinse and repeat."

They all think about that for a moment. Hale can't pinpoint whether the plan itself is ridiculous in its simplicity, or if they all just feel ridiculous for not thinking of it sooner.

"Not to be a downer, but I'm not sure my body could handle that amount of travelling and physical shit," Theo says.

"You wouldn't need to." Damo shrugs. "Hale and I can do the heavy lifting. You and Rayner could help pilot the bots on site and only come when you're up to it."

They chew on it a while longer, ironing out the details, but finally Rayner announces, "Since a remote build isn't really an option, that's probably the best bet."

"We're just used to doing everything with tech," Theo says. With a note of shame, she adds, "Why didn't I think of this?"

Damo clicks his tongue. "Nah, we needed to come back here. It was important Hale fixed all that coding shit. Knocking that bastard for six and giving what's-her-face a piece of your mind didn't hurt either."

"You eavesdropped, didn't you?" Hale says.

Damo grins into the rear-view mirror. "'Course I did. Wouldn't miss that shit for anything."

So Damo isn't completely changed, still nosy and invasive. Only now, Hale finds it comforting.

They chart a course north, hitting the highway at speed, a fervour in the atmosphere they all feel. Theo's contact, she tells them, lives in a town so remote that the only amenities are a small grocer and a 24-7 charging station. Once they get the truck there, they won't even be able to refuel it because there are no petrol stations for miles.

The journey is too long to make in a single day, even if they take turns driving. Hale depends on Rayner's energy for his own, and they decide it's wiser to ration the algae Damo has before they can start growing their own. So Theo and Rayner busy themselves contacting friends and fellow-hackers within their network, looking for suggestions on where they can stay without getting caught by police.

Eventually, the gas meter flirts with 'empty,' and they have to find a station to refuel. Damo pulls into one, and Rayner suggest they get some food and drinks. Earlier, he hacked their implants so they can't be tracked when they pay for things. Now he hacks the station's security cameras so they loop footage for the next fifteen minutes, giving them time to duck in and out. Damo lays low while Theo operates the pump.

Rayner pulls up his hoodie, but Hale puts a hand on his arm and says, "I'll buy the supplies. I'm the only one they won't recognize."

"But there's something I need to get."

"Tell me which items, and I'll purchase them."

"Ehh." Rayner scratches the back of his neck. "It's private."

Damo cracks open an eye from his place reclining across the front seat, out of view of the windows. Hale raises an eyebrow.

"We'll be out of here in no time, Haley," Damo snorts. "Chill."

They leave the truck together in the end, Hale walking slightly ahead of Rayner to block him from view of the shop attendant. Inside, Rayner splits off down an aisle of pharmaceuticals, while Hale heads for the food, filling a basket with the most nutritious fare one can find in a gas station, which amounts to more granola bars and soggy sandwiches. He adds a bag of Rayner's favourite chips, plus a peanut butter flavoured chocolate bar for Theo. As he's gathering water, Rayner appears, tugging at his elbow, arms conspicuously empty of any products.

"Yes?"

"I need your opinion on something," he mumbles.

So Hale follows him back to the pharmaceutical aisle. Rayner's heart beats faster than average. A light sheen of perspiration shines on his temples. Holding onto the hem of Hale's jacket, he stops in front of an array of products.

Many are sexual health related.
Hale tries not to look too eager. "Intercourse?"

"Yeah. If you—"

"I do want to."

"Okay." Rayner's cheeks burn bright red now as he selects a random box of condoms and says under his breath, "Do we need these?"

Hale considers. "Neither of us are capable of getting pregnant, and if I contract sexually transmitted infections I have sterilization nanobots. So it's down to your preference."

Rayner chews on a smile. "And this?" He points at the various lubricants. "Are any, uh, android safe?"

"Any water-based will do," Hale answers, picking one up. Rayner reaches an arm into the shelf though and pulls the rest of the stock into Hale's basket.

"I don't know what the closest town will have," he says defensively.

"I'll download resources on manufacturing our own then," Hale answers.

It turns out they needn't have worried about the attendant recognizing Rayner. The moment Hale plunks down a year's supply of granola bars and lube, he avoids all eye contact with the tenacity of an Ancient Greek hero avoiding the killing gaze of a gorgon. They check out quickly, Rayner sure to put their personal items into a separate bag.

Then they're back on the road again.

The trip is excruciating in its length and discomfort. They stop infrequently, doing their best to stay on the move. Rayner spends the majority of it on his laptop, hacking police frequencies. Melissa, true to her word, had called the police, so they spent several tense hours watching as the news spread across jurisdictions. A police leak leads to an emergency broadcast about their 'assault' on the neighbourhood of Alder Close, followed by speculation on where the 'dangerous fugitives' could have gone in the meantime. Rayner taps the anonymous tip line, listening in on calls from witnesses with alleged sightings, but none are genuine.

When Damo needs to take a break to recharge, Hale gets to drive for the first time. With self-driving cars as standard, it's not a feature androids get to use often. To his surprise, he likes it. The leather wheel under his hands feels solid, the roar of the engine when he toes the accelerator filling him with an energy he didn't expect.

Their journey skirts the city. They continue north for miles and miles until many of the common roadside sightings of motels, big box stores, fast food joints, and truck stops are replaced by cornfields and old, wooden fencing.

Aside from this, the trip is uneventful, characterized by many naps for Theo and Rayner, boredom for Hale and Damo.

It is such a relief to pull up in front of their country inn that Theo applauds.

"Yaaaaaaay, finally!" She bounces in her seat to the clap of her hands. "If I don't stretch my legs this second, they will not work ever again."

They park and pile out of the truck. Even Hale feels rusted at the hinges. They shake out the pins and needles of the trip and walk up to the entrance.

The bones of the building harken back to Victorian architecture, but those bones are wearing new clothes. Neon lights piped into the shapes of ferns and fronds decorate the vaulted entrance. Copper roofing has oxidized green over the red brick. In keeping with this all the decoration—from the porch rails to the door—have copper crafted over it in art-nouveau shapes that catch all the blue and pink lights and wink them back. It is an eclectic mix of styles that dares visitors to say 'clash' a lot.

Theo's friends had assured her that this inn was android-friendly, would respect their privacy, and wasn't about to bug them out to the police. She said she trusted their judgment, but Hale still feels a quake of unease walking past the security cameras on their way into the concierge.

His nervousness does not last. The interior feels equally eccentric, with its blue lighting and faux palm trees, but it is the person behind the desk which sets Hale's mind at ease.

She is short at five foot two, dark hair sleek and cut at shoulder length. Her face is round, cheeks tinged pink, with a heart-shaped mouth and eyes that wrinkle at the corners when she smiles to greet them. It is not her sweet demeanour that comforts Hale though. It's her name, and the readouts he gets from scanning her.

She introduces herself as Maci and asks what she can do for them.

"You're an android," Hale blurts.

Her smile brightens. "So are you."

"You have a job."

"Hale, don't be rude," Theo says.

"Yeah, Hale, don't be rude," Damo chimes in, though he looked just as shocked as Hale moments ago.

Artificially intelligent androids are too expensive for most jobs, so any synthetic being created for manning check-in would be significantly less sophisticated. MACI models were made for support in hospitals, both for patients and medical staff. This is not a hospital.

"It's all right," Maci tells them. "My position here is rather informal. An agreement made between my symbiont and I. On paper, I am not employed here. We simply agree that the inn is co-owned between us and I receive a, shall we say, an allowance for my work here. It's mutually agreeable. And if you're in need of medical attention, my symbiont or I can see that you're taken care of."

Hale suspects from this statement alone that she knows who they are, and she doesn't mind. She is, far as Hale can tell, in the same situation, living an independent life outside the jurisdiction of her intended purpose with the help of a sympathetic symbiont.

Theo raises her eyebrows. "I could use a check-up."

"We'll make a call to your room when convenient then. Shall I get you booked in?"

Maci registers them under fake names. When she asks how many rooms, there's an uncomfortable moment in which Hale exchanges a look with Rayner, then a quizzical one with their friends. Maci reads their body language, assessing Hale and Rayner's proximity at a glance, and smiles knowingly. Hale feels very naked with the bag of intimate supplies under his arm.

After they sheepishly announce they'd like a single queen, while Damo and Theo get two doubles, Maci does a professional job of keeping a lid on any commentary. "I think I have just the right suites."

She finishes by letting them know what time room service is available, how they can arrange for spa treatments if needed, and how to use their key cards. Most places use implant readers as room keys, which double in tracking the location of every individual staying there. The old-fashioned key cards are a comfort; there won't be a paper trail of their stay.

Curious, Hale asks how an inn this remote can maintain a spa alongside usual hospitality services. Maci informs them that the spa isn't advertised to the general public. She downloaded the relevant skill sets for 'special guests only.'

Other rogue androids and their allies.

They pick up the key cards, thank her, and take the elevator up to their rooms.

The ride is a little awkward. Theo gives Hale a reassuring wink when he meets her eyes though.

The lift stops at the 3rd floor, where Theo skips out. Over her shoulder she says, "Have a good evening, boys!"

Damo follows her, but as the doors slide shut behind him, he mimes a rude gesture involving an enthusiastic series of hip thrusts.

Theo's voice issues from down the hall. "Leave them alone!"

Then the doors shut, and the elevator moves again.

Rayner says, "So much for subtlety."

Hale shrugs, trying not to appear as nervous as he feels. "That was tame compared to some of his language over our network link."

Rayner snorts. "I'll bet."