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The first indication that anything is wrong is the silence.
A low hum permeates every inch of Nines’s being. It’s not enough to be painful, but it’s definitely noticeable. Nines lurches upright.
He’s sitting on a hard tile floor, a thick strip of fabric obscuring his vision, wrists bound tightly behind his back, leaning against something mobile and warm.
Another person.
Nines runs a number of scans on his surroundings—where is he, who’s with him, what happened, is he in danger—but, distressingly, every function comes back annoyingly blank. His GPS stutters and reloads four or five times before crashing completely. He’s locked out of his DNA database. And, most worryingly, when he attempts to reconstruct the events that led him and whoever he’s with to the here and now, his processor fills with static, a piercing whine echoing in his audio processors until he’s forced to shut his memory banks down as well.
Though he doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger, Nines is, literally and figuratively, completely blind.
Panic building in his chest, Nines tugs experimentally at the ropes encircling his hands and the body behind him moves in tandem, groaning slightly. A familiar voice mumbles, “God, remind me not to challenge Valerie to beer pong ever again.”
Relief crashes over Nines like a tsunami.
“Gavin?”
“Nines. Wh—” Gavin shifts, pulling at their shared bindings, breath quickening minutely. “What’s happening?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Nines says, sounding much calmer than he feels. Channeling his anxieties into actions, Nines brings his shoulder to his temple to coax his blindfold off. As the dark bandana flutters to the floor, dread settles in Nines’s gut, heavy and foreboding.
A grim scene greets his optical sensors as they adjust to the abysmally dim lighting. The room he and Gavin have been unceremoniously dumped in is cramped, sparse, and gray, lit by a single electric bulb that seems to only halfheartedly stay on, flickering ominously. The walls are solid cinderblock, with no decoration, and, more importantly, no windows. At about eye level, small metal hooks are inlaid into the cement, neatly spaced at even intervals. A solid metal door of the kind appropriate on a submarine occupies a small portion of one of the walls, bolted with every kind of lock imaginable. Another wall boasts a tall, wooden bookshelf, decidedly empty, coated in a thin layer of dust. Above it is a rectangular vent covered by a grate, through which a stale breeze smelling faintly of earth and rot is billowing, too small to be useful. The only proper furnishings in the space are a wooden desk with a plain metal stool and a metal cot bearing a single flat mattress pad. Underneath them, the linoleum is cracked and discolored.
With a sinking feeling, Nines realizes that the stain near his feet is most definitely human blood, and he curls his toes away in disgust.
“Well that’s a vote of confidence,” Gavin snaps, scooting up against Nines.
“Would you prefer I did a cheerleading routine?” Nines retorts, raising an eyebrow.
“Can it, Roomba. Where the fuck we are?”
“Unfortunately, Detective Reed, I do not know.”
“What?” Gavin tenses slightly, arms flexing against Nines’s spine. “Don’t you have a fuckin’ Garmin in your brain?”
“You are aware that technology is nearly forty years out of date, yes?”
“Shush. What’s up with your map?”
“My GPS system is currently offline.”
“Why?”
Nines clenches his teeth. “Something may be interfering with my network. Nearly all of my programming is…” he fishes for the right word, trying not to belie the anxiety crowding his thoughts, “compromised.”
Gavin slumps against his back, letting his head drop to Nines’s shoulder. “Fuck. Not only am I stuck in the world’s shittiest escape room, my personal Terminator’s fuckin’ busted. Just perfect.”
“I admit our situation does look rather dire,” Nines says, barreling over Gavin’s subtle dig, “but perhaps it’s best we focus on one problem at a time.” Keep moving. Just keep moving.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.” Gavin shrugs. “I take it you can’t get a signal out to our friends?”
“You presume correctly.”
“Figures.” His hands are digging into Nines’s back.
The ropes. Somewhere to start.
Nines feels around the bindings, tracing the knots with his fingers. They’re tied fairly securely, and while it would be easy enough to break with pure brute strength, Nines would prefer to keep Gavin’s wrists intact.
“Do you have some sort of cutting implement?” Nines asks.
Gavin scoffs. “What, you mean a knife?”
“Or something of the sort.”
“Unbelievable.” Gavin wriggles around for a moment, feeling in his pockets, before practically throwing himself against Nines in defeat.
“Shit. They musta taken it.”
Nines frowns. This significantly limits the number of safe options available to them.
“What even is this place, anyway?” Gavin muses. Nines can feel Gavin’s hair brushing against the back of his head as he looks around the room. “Looks like every movie serial killer’s wet dream rolled into one.”
“Must you be so juvenile?” Nines chides, though he’s forced to admit Gavin has a point. Their whole predicament is almost cartoonish.
“Nines, we’re literally trapped in a murder basement, let me have this.”
“If you insist,” Nines sighs.
“I do.” He sounds so proud of himself. “Now, because this bears repeating, what even is this place?”
“I…” Nines would normally run such descriptions through a database to narrow down their potential suspects, to pin down a motive, to craft an intricate plan of escape, but the feedback that disorients him every time he tries just isn’t worth it. He hates this, being so cut off from everything. “I’m not sure.”
“Heh. Well, welcome to the party.”
The conversation lapses into silence for a moment. That is, until Gavin remarks, “Hey, Tin Can, my hands are kinda goin’ numb.”
“Oh. Can you stand?” Maybe that way, they can move to a more comfortable position. Or find something with which to shear the ropes.
“Don’t see why not.” Gavin rolls his shoulders. “On three?”
“I think that would be wise.”
“You got it. One.” Gavin pulls his knees underneath him.
“Two.” Shortly after, Nines follows suit.
“Three.”
With relative ease, Nines and Gavin haul themselves to their feet. Gavin kicks his legs out a few times, working the knots out of his assuredly stiff muscles. While still less than perfect, with more mobility, their situation looks marginally less dire.
“You see anything?” Gavin asks, twisting his hands around to emphasize his point. A quick perusal of the room’s contents reveals no convenient knives, scissors, or even vaguely sharp bits of metal with which to cut the ropes. Against his better judgment, Nines tries to scan the room’s contents, but the interference in his audio processors quickly overwhelms him. He resists the urge to double over.
“Alright there?”
“Fine,” Nines forces out. “Just— One problem at a time, yes?”
“If you say so.”
From this angle, Nines can see far more of their prison; a pad of paper on the desk, two small books tucked in the back of the shelves, a thin wool blanket folded neatly on top of the cot, but nothing to help them in their current situation. He supposes it makes sense, but can’t help but feel a little disappointed.
“I got nothin’,” Gavin says, startling Nines out of his thoughts. “You?”
“No.”
“Fuck. Okay, um. What now?”
“Well…” There’s one option left that doesn’t involve shattering the bones in Gavin’s wrists, though Nines isn’t particularly keen to try it. Then again, it’s not like they have much choice. “Yeah?”
“I can try to untie the knots myself.”
“How? You can’t see a damn thing.”
Nines winces. “Under duress, I can rotate my head a full one hundred and eighty degrees. It’s most certainly not pleasant, but don’t see another readily available option.”
“You what.” Gavin instinctively jerks away, almost knocking them off balance.
“I realize it may be somewhat disturbing, but unless you have any better ideas, I suggest we at least try it.” He’s not thrilled with this plan; anything that reminds him too much of the killer he was meant to be puts him on edge, to say the very least of it, but, when it comes down to it, he’d take alive and traumatized over dead in a basement any day.
Gavin sighs. “As long as I don’t have to see it. Go ahead, do your fuckin’ Exorcist schtick.”
“Alright.” There’s a sickening pop as Nines’s neck disengages from its socket, allowing him to view the predicament they’ve landed themselves in.
Nines and Gavin’s hands have been expertly tied together, with thick cords wrapping up their forearms and around their palms. One wrong move could break all their fingers. The knot that finishes it all off is too far to reach, even with Nines’s inhuman joint flexibility.
“Well?” Gavin asks. “How is it?”
“Less than ideal,” Nines says, sucking at his teeth.
“And what does that mean?”
“It means this is going to take an extreme amount of coordination and negotiation on both our parts.”
Gavin snorts. “I’m great at that, you know.”
“You are truly appalling.” Nines wrinkles his nose in disgust.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s just get out of these things.”
Snapping his head back into place, Nines looks around for anything to hook around the coils of rope. There’s a spring sticking out from the cot that could be usable.
“Follow me.”
“I mean, I kinda have to.”
“You know what I mean,” Nines hisses, taking a few careful steps toward the cot. “Now I need you to kneel.”
Gavin opens his mouth to say something but quickly stops himself, instead electing to follow Nines’s instructions. The two of them lower themselves to the floor, positioning themselves around the spring. Nines turns his head around, his index finger over the end of the twisted metal.
“Well,” Gavin says, “here goes nothin’.”
It’s a laborious process, clumsy and inefficient and punctuated by a nearly incessant stream of swearing from Gavin and chastising from Nines, but after nearly twenty minutes of being poked and prodded and promising several tetanus shots once they leave, the ropes are piled on the floor. Gavin massages his bruised wrists, pressing his bleeding fingers to his shirt.
“Fucking finally,” Gavin says, letting out a long exhale. “I don’t ever wanna do that again.”
Nines is inclined to agree.
Arms freed, the two of them give the room a proper once-over, wandering as far as the compact space will let them. The room is frustratingly bare in terms of “things that might help them escape,” but Nines supposes that’s to be expected. It’s not like whatever criminal overlord that’s kidnapped them would be kind enough to leave them the tools to manufacture their survival. From this angle, it becomes clear that the bookshelf is not actually empty, but the books on the shelf are unremarkable; old, battered copies of C.S. Lewis and Theodora Goss, all containing the correct number of pages and lacking any cryptic annotations the kind of theatrical setting they find themselves in would imply. When Gavin flips through the legal pad on the desk, all he says is a dry, “Hey, if we don’t make it out, we could play about six thousand games of hangman, if we wanted.”
There’s… almost nothing.
And it’s infuriating.
“Yo, check this out.” A spark of hope flickers in Nines’s chest as he turns to look at where Gavin’s pointing. Inlaid into the door, nearly invisible against the rivets and under the thick layers of gray paint, is a rectangular opening, akin to a mail depository, covered with a metal hatch. There’s no lock.
“What do you think this is?”
Nines desperately wants to scan for prints, but manages to restrain himself. “I’m not sure.”
“Well,” Gavin says, tapping his temple, “we know something’s supposed to come through here, otherwise it’d be bolted. I think it’s a food slot. Whoever has us here probably doesn’t want us to starve to death, so there might be a guard we can incapacitate.” Gesturing between them with his thumb, Gavin smirks. “One guard versus a Terminator and the best detective in Detroit? Not even a question.”
“Maybe don’t speak so loudly about foiling the plans of our kidnapper? This room is more than likely bugged.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Nines leans in closer to inspect the suspected food door. There’s a small hole in the metal near the opening, no bigger than the head of a pin, but something about its presence sits wrong in Nines’s metaphorical gut.
“Besides,” he adds, “I think you might be overselling it a bit.”
“Oh please, you’re just jealous.” Gavin moves toward the hatch.
“Gavin, wait—”
But it’s too late. Gavin swears, snatching his hand back and pressing it to his mouth. A droplet of blood is blooming on his palm, and when Nines glances back at the hatch, a short, thin needle sticks out of the metal.
“Motherfucker.” For all Gavin’s ardor, Nines is terrifyingly, horrifically, inexorably aware of the color draining rapidly from Gavin’s cheeks, the clear liquid beading on the end of needle Nines doesn’t need his sensors to know is deadly, the slack expression on Gavin’s face.
Gavin looks up, a real, palpable fear in his eyes that Nines wishes with every fiber of his being that he could forget.
“Nines?” he breathes, so quiet Nines probably wouldn’t have heard him if he were human. Nines reaches out—to do what, he’s not sure, there’s nothing that can possibly be done, by him or anyone, to save Gavin now—right as Gavin collapses to the floor.
His body twitches for a moment, then is still.
Nines can only stare, open-mouthed, at the sight before him. Part of it doesn’t even feel real; the concept of Gavin just being gone, with no warning, no grand spectacle, no blaze of glory befitting of a man such as him, is nearly incomprehensible. Slowly, ever so slowly, he inches toward Gavin’s body, forcing himself to press two fingers to his neck.
Nothing. Only the still-warm feel of Gavin’s stubble against Nines’s skin, the almost-alive flutter of his eyelashes in the gentle draft blowing through the room, the terrible, hollow realization that Gavin, his partner, is dead.
“No,” Nines whispers, gently cradling Gavin’s head in his hands. “No, Gavin, this isn’t… this isn’t how it was supposed to go. I’m sorry, I—”
The first indication that anything is wrong is the silence.
A low hum permeates every inch of Nines’s being. It’s not enough to be painful, but it’s definitely noticeable. Nines lurches upright.
He’s sitting on a hard tile floor, a thick strip of fabric obscuring his vision, wrists bound tightly behind his back, leaning against something mobile and warm.
Another person.
A person. Who...?
Nines runs a number of scans on his surroundings—where is he, who’s with him, what happened, is he in danger—but, distressingly, every function comes back annoyingly blank. His GPS stutters and reloads four of five times before crashing completely. He’s locked out of his DNA database. And, most worryingly, when he attempts to reconstruct the events that led him and whoever he’s with to the here and now, his processor fills with static, a piercing whine echoing in his audio processors until he’s forced to shut his memory banks down as well.
Though he doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger, Nines is, literally and figuratively, completely blind.
Panic building in his chest, Nines tugs experimentally at the ropes encircling his hands and the body behind him moves in tandem, groaning slightly. A familiar voice mumbles, “God, remind me not to challenge Valerie to beer pong ever again.”
Relief crashes over Nines like a tsunami.
It’s him.
“Gavin?”
“Nines. Wh—” Gavin shifts, pulling at their shared bindings, breath quickening minutely. “What’s happening?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Nines says, apprehensiveness bleeding into his voice. Frantically, he shoves the blindfold off his head.
The sight that greets him is grim, lit by a single half-burnt out bulb. Bare, cinderblock walls, with no windows, and small hooks at about eye level. Heavy metal door secured with over forty exterior locks. Plain furnishings; a tall wooden bookshelf, simple one-person desk, and a spartan cot. Rectangular vent pushing foul air into the room. Chipped tile.
A bloodstain near his feet that Nines instinctively cringes away from.
He cocks his head. Has he seen that before?
“Well that’s a vote of confidence,” Gavin says, backing into Nines in disgust. His voice yanks Nines out of his reverie, and he settles into their usual banter with ease.
“Would you prefer I did a cheerleading routine?”
“Can it, Roomba. Where the fuck are we?” The nickname rings some distant bell, but he ignores it.
“Unfortunately, Detective Reed, I do not know.”
“What? Don’t you have a fuckin’ Garmin in your brain?”
“You are aware that technology is nearly forty years out of date, yes?” His mouth is working on autopilot, supplying him with the right witty quips and rejoinders, but Nines’s mind is solidly elsewhere. Something is very wrong, and he can’t put his finger on what.
“Shush.” Gavin adjusts his sitting position, bumping against Nines’s back. “What’s up with your map?”
“My GPS system is currently… offline.”
Gavin freezes. “Why?”
The buzzing in his head is even louder now. Nines pushes it down.
“Something may be interfering with my network. Nearly all of my programming is—” broken, useless, “compromised.”
Gavin’s head falls to Nines’s shoulder. “Fuck. Not only am I stuck in the world’s shittiest escape room, my personal Terminator’s fuckin’ busted. Just perfect.”
Nines sighs. “Perhaps it’s best we focus on one problem at a time.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. I take it you can’t get a signal out to our friends?”
Static.
“You presume correctly.”
“Figures.”
Silence falls as Nines prods at the ropes encircling their wrists. Expert knots, tied by someone who’s clearly done this before.
“Do you have some sort of cutting implement?”
“What, you mean a knife?”
“Or something of the sort.”
“Unbelievable.” Nines can feel the force with which Gavin rolls his eyes, but nonetheless he turns out his pockets.
“Shit. They musta taken it.”
The cadence, the delivery, Nines would swear he’s heard it all before. Gavin must take his silence as an invitation to keep going.
“What even is this place, anyway? Looks like every movie serial killer’s wet dream rolled into one.”
Nines frowns. “Was that really necessary?”
“Nines, we’re literally trapped in a murder basement, let me have this.”
“If you insist.”
“I do,” Gavin says smugly. “Now, because this bears repeating, what even is this place?”
“I…” A number of responses come to mind, many revolving around the strange sense of déjà vu following Nines since they got here, but he can’t bring himself to voice any of them. So instead he settles on a simple, “I’m not sure.”
“Heh.” Gavin flicks Nines’s fingers playfully. “Well, welcome to the party.”
In spite of their less than optimal circumstances, Nines chuckles, but it’s a detached thing, laced with concern.
After a few seconds, Gavin says, “Hey, Tin Can, my hands are kinda goin’ numb.”
Right. “Can you stand?”
“Don’t see why not. On three?”
“Sure.”
“You got it. One.” A voice in the back of Nines’s mind echoes Gavin’s words. One.
“Two.” Two.
“Three.” Three.
Something reminiscent of what Nines thinks is vertigo takes hold of his limbs, making him stumble and his head hum quietly, HUD flashing annoying error messages that he has no choice but to dismiss. Gavin pulls on their shared bindings to steady him.
“Whoa there. What’s up with you”
Nines closes his eyes, willing himself to stabilize. “Fine. I’m fine.”
Gavin’s clearly skeptical, but he eventually relents. “If you say so.” He tugs on the ropes. “You see anything?”
Now that Nines can see more of the room, the pervasive feeling of uneasiness that’s been hovering at the edges of his perception increases. There has to be something he’s missing, some little puzzle piece that’ll make this all make sense, but the longer Nines looks, the harder it becomes to nail it down. Almost as if someone is waving at him out of the corner of his eye, except… Except he’s starting right at it.
“Hey. Dude. Did you hear me?”
Nines blinks a new wave of error popups out of sight. “Sorry, what?”
Gavin’s quiet for a second. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Fine. Just— One problem at a time.” He can do that much.
When Gavin doesn’t respond, Nines is worried he’s offended him. He quashes those thoughts mercilessly. They have bigger things to worry about right now.
This new angle provides him with more of the same. Books of Lewis and Goss. A blank legal pad. A thin cotton blanket folded neatly on the cot.
“I got nothin,’” Gavin says eventually. “You?”
Nines is barely listening. “No.”
“Fuck. Okay, um. What now?”
Turn your head and look. Nines blinks. Something akin to a memory flashes through his processor, gone before Nines can pin it down. But something occurs to him, a possible solution.
“I may have a solution,” Nines says, turning Gavin toward the cot in the corner.
“Yeah? Wanna share with the class?”
“The spring.” Nines toes at the loose coil peeking out from under the mattress.
“Not sure where you’re going with that, but,” he shrugs, “okay. I trust you.”
Gingerly, Nines leads Gavin over to the cot, directing him to kneel near the spring. He delicately runs his joints across the metal, prising the loops off one by one. The process is a surprisingly smooth one, with Gavin only getting nicked once when Nines’s hands stutter unexpectedly. As the ropes fall to the ground, Gavin stretches his fingers out, looking at Nines appreciatively.
“Nice work there, Tin Can. You sure you haven’t done this before?”
Gavin wiggles his eyebrows. He means it to be suggestive, Nines thinks, and while normally Nines would shake his head disparagingly, remarking on Gavin’s close proximity to an HR violation, this time, the sentiment rings a little different. Nines frowns. He isn’t sure, and that’s what worries him.
Nines runs a finger over the wood on the bookshelf, noting a shallow notch in the second highest shelf.
As Gavin wanders around the room, cataloguing everything, Nines, just to be certain, pushes through the pulsing frequency in his head and tries to access his memory logs. On the positive side, his records reveal no trace of him ever being here before. More troubling, however, is the fact that everything from the past 24 hours is blank.
“Yo, check this out.”
Nines turns, expectant, to see Gavin pointing at a well-concealed hatch set into the doorframe. Something about it fills Nines with a deep sense of foreboding.
“What do you think this is?”
Pursing his lips, Nines inspects the hatch, delicately tracing the metal border where the opening is inlaid. Gavin watches intently.
“My guess is it’s a food slot. Whoever has us here probably doesn’t want us to starve to death, so there might be a guard we can incapacitate. One guard versus a Terminator and the best detective in Detroit? Not even a question.”
Where has he heard those words before? Why can’t he seem to remember?
Gavin’s reaching out toward the hatch.
Without pausing to think, Nines wrenches his hand away, pulling it close to his chest as a small, spring-loaded needle pops out of the metal, hitting only empty air.
“Motherfucker!” Gavin barks, wresting his hand from Nines’s grip. “The fuck did you do that for?”
Nines points wordlessly at the needle, where clear liquid collects at the tip, falling, harmlessly, to the floor.
Gavin blinks a few times, chest heaving with rapid, shallow breaths that slow as the adrenaline leaves his system. His eyes flick back and forth between Nines and the needle, face ashen.
“Whoa. That— Wow. Thanks.”
Nines nods, unable to comprehend exactly how he knew to move, only aware that Gavin is alive. Gavin is safe.
Gavin snaps in front of his face.
“Earth to Nines.”
“Hmm?”
“You were zonin’ out on me there.” Gavin offers him a hand to pull him upright that Nines gratefully accepts. “Can’t have my Terminator frying his hard drive.”
“Even after a year of partnership, your understanding of android functions is alarmingly inaccurate,” Nines says, brushing the dust off his pants.
“Yeah, yeah, shut up.” Gavin’s quiet for a moment, before he says, “How did you know?”
“Know what?” Nines wanders over to the bookshelf, flipping open one of the books.
“About the trap. I had no idea it was there and, well, if you weren’t there, I’d be… I’d be dead.”
Having skimmed over half the contents of a cracking copy of The Silver Chair, Nines snaps the book shut.
“But you aren’t. Let’s just keep moving.”
Gavin holds his arms up in surrender. “Jeez, don’t get your wires in a twist.” He runs a hand through his hair, exhaling forcefully. “So what now?”
“I suppose…” Nines taps his chin. “I suppose we figure out how to pick these locks.”
“I think that might be easier said than done.”
And he’s absolutely right. The door is secured with over forty individual locks, from a deadbolt to a chain lock to an electronic keypad to a fingerprint lock to what looks like an RFID security card reader, not to mention what other booby traps might be concealed among their ranks.
“Well,” Gavin says, adopting a sarcastically cavalier attitude. “One problem at a time, right?”
Nines nods, though a sense of calamity is beginning to set in.
Examining the locks, Gavin points to a simple sliding bolt.
“What’s say we start here? No hidden needles this time, right?” He flashes a cheesy thumbs up that Nines hesitantly returns.
Gavin snorts. “Oh, don’t be such a buzzkill.”
With that, Gavin throws the bolt. For one beautiful moment of elation, nothing happens. But then Nines is vaguely aware of the sounds of machinery moving within the walls, solenoids firing and mechanisms chunking into place one by one.
He tries to yell some word of warning, but by the time it escapes his mouth, he’s too late.
A solid steel spike sharpened into a hideous barbed end like that of a fish hook shoots out of the wall, skewering Gavin in the throat. His choked cries for help last only a few seconds before his body goes slack, dripping blood on the floor.
Nines takes a step toward him, determined to at least get him off the hook before he lets himself process what just happened—
The first indication that anything is wrong is the silence.
A low hum permeates every inch of Nines’s being. It’s not enough to be painful, but it’s definitely noticeable. Nines lurches upright.
He’s sitting on a hard tile floor, a thick strip of fabric obscuring his vision, wrists bound tightly behind his back, leaning against something mobile and warm.
Another person.
Gavin?
Nines runs a number of scans on his surroundings—where is he, who’s with him, what happened, is he in danger—but every function comes back annoyingly blank. His GPS stutters and reloads four of five times before crashing completely. He’s locked out of his DNA database. And when he attempts to reconstruct the events that led Gavin and himself to the here and now, his processor fills with static, a piercing whine echoing in his audio processors until he’s forced to shut his memory banks down as well.
Though they don’t seem to be in any immediate danger, Nines is, literally and figuratively, completely blind.
Nines tugs on the ropes tying him to who he suspects is Gavin. The ensuing groan confirms his hypothesis.
“God, remind me not to challenge Valerie to beer pong ever again.”
Relief crashes over Nines like a tsunami.
“Gavin?”
“Nines. Wh—” Gavin shifts, pulling at their shared bindings, breath quickening minutely. “What’s happening?”
“I… I don’t know.” Nines’s voice is laced with concern. He shoulders his blindfold off somewhat hesitantly. Because as long as he’s in the dark, it’s possible all of this is just some strange dream, that it isn’t horrifyingly, inescapably real.
Warning messages flare up in Nines’s HUD as the room comes into view. Through the wall of popups, Nines is able to pick out gray cinderblock walls, with small hooks inset into the stone. The room boasts few furnishings, all remarkably utilitarian and almost haunting in their simplicity. No convenient routes out. Damp and rot clogging his air intake vents. Like an overexposed photo, Nines’s memories layer and blur, one thing bleeding into another. Or was there anything else in the first place?
“Well that’s a vote of confidence,” Gavin says, shoulder blades digging into Nines’s back.
Nines laughs, a nervous, breathy thing. His processors are running as fast as they can manage, and he’s sure the LED on his temple is flickering a violent red. “Would you prefer I did a cheerleading routine?”
“Can it, Roomba. Where the fuck are we?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“What? Don’t you have a fuckin’ Garmin in your brain?”
“I’d like to think my satellite data is a little more accurate than a common household product from forty years ago.” Nines jokes, but that still doesn’t change the fact that something is blocking his nonessential functions, a prospect that’s beginning to terrify him.
“Shush. Worked just fine for me.” He knocks his head against Nines’s. “Anyway, what’s up with your map?”
“My GPS system is currently nonfunctional.”
“Why?”
“I believe something is interfering with my network. Nearly all of my programming is compromised, somehow.” Nines surprises himself with his own casual tone. Inside, his mind is racing, but Gavin doesn’t seem to notice. Somehow, this deeply unsettles him.
Gavin chuckles mirthlessly. “Not only am I stuck in the world’s shittiest escape room, my personal Terminator’s fuckin’ busted. Just perfect.”
“Perhaps it’s best we focus on one problem at a time,” Nines suggests.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.” Gavin pauses, considering something Nines isn’t privy to, before saying, “I take it you can’t get a signal out to our friends?”
Static.
“You presume correctly.”
“Figures.”
Silence falls as Nines prods at the ropes encircling their wrists. Wound securely, perfectly placed. They need to get out.
Nines opens his mouth to ask for a knife, but stops himself. Gavin doesn’t have his, does he? Shit. They musta taken it. Nines’s eyes flick to the jagged bit of metal sticking out of the cot. His processors quickly run the calculations, tracing over familiar circuits, wearing a groove in his programming. Nines can’t shake the feeling that the pieces of half-remembered sounds, images, words mean something.
“Look.” Nines jerks his head in the direction of the bed frame. Gavin’s hair tickles Nines’s ear as he turns to follow Nines’s gaze. “I believe that’s our way out.”
“You sure about that, Tin Can?”
“Just,” Nines squeezes his eyes shut, “trust me on this one. Okay?”
When Gavin speaks, it’s in a much hollower voice than before.
“Yeah. Yeah, alright.” He inhales deeply. “What do you need from me?”
Wordlessly, Nines begins to shuffle awkwardly across the floor, and Gavin follows suit, grunting from the exertion and pain that must be lancing up his arms. When they’re suitably positioned in front of the spring, Gavin murmurs, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
The sentiment settles Nines’s Thirium pump. Just a little.
As Nines carefully pulls at the loops of rope, Gavin offers a lighthearted commentary. He must feel how badly Nines’s hands are shaking.
The flashing of the bulb is making him dizzy.
Gavin’s wrists are blooming purple and red once the bindings are fully removed, and he brushes his fingers over the bruising, frowning slightly.
“Nice catch,” he says, looking at the spring. “We mighta been here forever, without you.”
A stab of guilt lances through Nines’s gut.
While Gavin goes to inspect the room as a whole, Nines hauls himself onto the cot, doing his best to sort out exactly what’s going on in his systems, why he’s remembering these horrific things that haven’t happened. Or have they? The first diagnostic is corrupted within seconds, and the following four fizzle and die sooner than the last, while the whine in his ears steadily gains volume, staticky and scratching like a needle on vinyl. Nines would be inclined to call this “dissociation,” if he were human.
But he’s not. So what is it?
“Yo, check this out.”
Cringing, Nines tamps down the electric ringing in order to focus on Gavin, who’s crouched in front of the door, pointing to a small hatch.
His Thirium runs cold.
“Don’t touch that.”
Gavin raises an eyebrow. “Why not? This could be our way out.”
Storming over to the door with more force than is strictly necessary, Nines shoves his hand through the hatch, poisoned needle bouncing harmlessly off his chassis.
“Oh.” Gavin blinks. “Well, there goes that idea. Thanks, I guess.”
Nines nods perfunctorily. Afterimages of Gavin falling limp to the floor play in a loop, while the real Gavin smiles awkwardly, standing to examine the bolt lock.
“Well, what about this one? No hidden needles this time, right?” He’s about to pull it open when Nines slaps his hand away.
“Um, dude, what was that for?”
“Stand back.” Nines rams the bolt home, ducking out of the way of the spike. Gavin’s jaw drops.
“Okay, is this some sort of freaky android thing? How the fuck did you know that was there?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Gavin raises his hands in surrender. “Jeez, don’t get your wires in a twist. I’ll fuckin’ take it.” Running a finger over the polished metal, he adds, “At least I know you’re lookin’ out for me, right?” The optimism curdles in his chest.
“I suppose,” Nines says, unable to think of anything better to say.
“Don’t be so modest.” Gavin crouches a little lower, pointing to an RFID lock. “What do we think? Booby trapped or nah?”
“I’m… not sure. It would stand to reason that something electronic would be intended to harm an android saboteur.” He’s making it up, Nines has no idea what any of this is, why it prickles insistently at the back of his memory. He wishes he had an answer.
And that the goddamn light would just make up its mind.
Gavin squints. “Well, can’t hurt, right?”
“I don’t know, Gavin, I don’t trust it.”
“Oh ye of little faith, I’ll be fine.” He shoots Nines a sunny smile.
The instant Gavin makes contact with the card reader, his body tenses, muscles spasming and convulsing, jerking about in erratic fits. He falls to the ground, tip of his finger actually blackened, the smell of burned flesh searing Nines’s olfactory receptors. All told, the shock lasts less than a second, but time seems to flow like molasses, Nines standing, helpless, as Gavin’s limbs fold in on themselves. He stares upward, unblinking, hazel eyes glassy.
Gavin’s last words echo in Nines’s mind.
I’ll be fine.
The first indication that anything is wrong is the silence.
A low hum permeates every inch of Nines’s being. It’s not enough to be painful, but it’s definitely noticeable. Nines lurches upright.
He’s sitting on a hard tile floor, a thick strip of fabric obscuring his vision, wrists bound tightly behind his back, leaning against something mobile and warm.
Another person.
It’s Gavin, Nines realizes, quietly spooked he knows it’s him before running any scans. His pulse pounds slow and regular against Nines’s back, underscoring the insistent whine Nines can’t seem to tune out. Quickly turning off his automatic network functions in a last ditch attempt to drown out the feedback overwhelming his processors, Nines yanks on the ropes, roughly shaking Gavin awake.
He groans. “God, remind me not to challenge Valerie to beer pong ever again.”
“Gavin.”
Behind Nines, Gavin scrambles upright. “Nines. Wh— What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Nines snaps, quickly shouldering his blindfold off. The same gray room greets him, intimately familiar to Nines from the chips in the cinderblock to the notch in the bookshelf to the bloodstain by his feet. The flickering of the lightbulb lends the whole room an unbalanced, discordant feel, compounded by the buzz pulsing rhythmically in Nines’s head. He’s stuck on high alert.
“Well that’s a vote of confidence,” Gavin quips with anticipated scorn, pressing his back against Nines’s. His heartbeat hammers through his ribs, only adding to the cacophony overwhelming Nines’s senses.
“Would you prefer I did a cheerleading routine?” It comes out harsher than Nines intends, but his every manufactured nerve is frayed as he tries to piece together what in the hell is happening. The first two could maybe be written off as a fluke, and the third a ghastly coincidence, but the fourth time around feels more like the start of some dreadful Mobius Strip of events.
“Can it, Roomba,” Gavin barks, stress levels spiking. “Where the fuck are we?”
“You tell me,” he hisses. The words, empty and automatic, come tumbling out of Nines’s mouth as he catalogues the space around him. Cot. Door. Desk. Chair. Gavin’s heat signature against his spine. Gavin, very much alive when last Nines saw he’d been burning from the inside out.
“Whoa, hey, no need to go ballistic,” Gavin says tersely, flexing his fingers against Nines’s hand. “Don’t you have a fuckin’ Garmin in your brain?”
The steady stream of static in Nines’s mind spikes. “It’s been malfunctioning since we got here, along with most of my other nonessential systems.”
“Why?”
“I told you, Gavin, I don’t know.”
“Not only am I stuck in the world’s shittiest escape room, my personal Terminator’s fuckin’ busted. Just perfect,” Gavin scoffs.
“Would you just be quiet for a second? I need to think.”
“Jeez, don—”
“‘Don’t get your wires in a twist,’” Nines parrots in Gavin’s voice.
Gavin stiffens. “What the hell was that?”
“Quiet.”
Gavin’s mouth shuts with a click that reverberates and amplifies in Nines’s mind. Everything’s too loud, too much, and it’s getting hard to concentrate through the fog of the flickering lights and the electronic whine of what Nines suspects is a jammer frequency and the ropes encircling his wrists.
The ropes.
Without a word, Nines pulls the both of them into a standing position and, ignoring Gavin’s protests, drags them to the cot.
“Hey, what’re you—” Gavin shrieks indignantly, but Nines cuts him off.
“Just trust me. And hold still.”
Nines doesn’t have time to be careful. The metal of the cot tears into Gavin’s fingers, and while Nines apologizes profusely for the trembling of his hands through Gavin’s swearing and the haze clogging his processors, he doesn’t slow down, desperate to be free of his bindings.
As the last strands fall to the floor, Gavin snatches his hands away, looking at Nines with a stunned expression. The tissue on his palms is shredded, blood collecting at his fingertips.
“Nines?” His voice cracks.
Nines shakes his head, and the static just won’t go away, so he staggers over to the cot and collapses into it with a deafening rattle. He presses his hands to his temples, pulling at his hair in a futile attempt to ground himself to reality. Across the room from him, Gavin is busy tearing off strips of his t-shirt to bandage his wounded hands.
Gavin explores the space alone, this time, as Nines systematically dismisses the error messages clouding his vision. Most are superfluous, pertaining to the strange signal disrupting his processing, but a few more stubborn ones about more serious malfunctions refuse to go away.
“Yo. Check this out.” Gavin’s voice is jarringly calm against the hurricane of Nines’s thoughts, and he clings to it like an anchor. Blinking the remaining popups away, Nines refocuses on his surroundings.
It’s the hatch. Gavin’s pointing to the hatch and his hand is inches from the needle.
Nines inhales sharply. “Don’t touch that.”
“What? Why?”
“Trapped.”
“Oh. Uh, thanks. I guess.” As Gavin stands, he’s careful to keep Nines in his field of vision. His stress levels are peaking at 97 percent.
The tension between them is almost alive, vibrating with an intensity that rocks Nines to his core. They’re standing on the precipice of something terrible; one misstep and they’re over the edge.
“Well,” Gavin says with a forceful exhale, “one problem at a time, right?”
Nines nods brusquely. There will be time for apologies later.
Thirium pump on overdrive, Nines watches as Gavin inspects the sliding bolt lock, just like he has before. Every instinct screams no.
With a ferocity befitting Nines’s original function as a military android, he launches himself across the room, grabbing Gavin’s wrist and wrenches it away with a sickening crack.
Gavin screams and the sound burns itself into Nines’s audio processors.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“You can’t touch these, Gavin.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Something’s wrong, Gavin, and I can’t— I don’t know what’s happening, and—”
Gavin takes a step back, holding his uninjured arm in front of him. The sight of his wrist, purple and mottled with the blooming red of burst capillaries, tucked close to Gavin’s chest, tugs at Nines’s chest, but he quickly shoves down any regrets that threaten to bubble up. If this helps him understand, it was worth it, consequences be damned.
“Dude, you are really starting to freak me out.”
“Don’t you see it?” Nines says, gesturing expansively to the room surrounding them.
“See what?” Gavin exclaims. “What are you talking about?”
“Gavin, I need your help, I— We’ve done this all before, this isn’t—”
“Slow down, you’re not making any sense—”
“We’re trapped, Gavin!” Nines is backing Gavin into a corner, he knows that, but this is too important. Gavin has to understand, no matter the cost.
He can’t be stuck alone.
“I know that! Why do you think I’m trying to get us out?”
“No, that’s not—” Nines clenches his jaw. “That’s not what I mean! All this? I’ve seen it before.”
“How?”
“That’s just the thing!” Nines clutches at Gavin’s shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. “I don’t know. And I need you—”
“Get off me.” Cradling his shattered wrist, Gavin shoves Nines’s hands off him violently, attempting to put some distance between them. Nines, in a panic, makes a grab for Gavin’s hoodie.
Gavin trips on a loose tile.
And he falls, with no hand to catch him.
His head collides with the floor with a resounding crack. As Nines watches on in horror, a pool of blood spreads along the seams in the linoleum, seeping into his jacket and his hair.
Nines slowly sinks to his knees, rolling Gavin onto his back.
The area above his right eye is caved in, curls matted to his forehead. His bandaged hand leaves trails of blood across his stomach as it slides to the ground.
There’s nothing else to do but fall back against the wall.
The first indication that anything is wrong is the silence.
Every time, Nines knows he’s started over by the sudden vacuum, a conspicuous lack of chaos and tragedy. Every time, he is greeted by the terrible quiet, the sensation of a warm body against his back that is invariably Gavin no matter how many times he’s ripped apart. And every time, they make progress, it’s agonizingly slow, and there are times Nines wonders if it’s even worth it. Without his interference, Gavin will die—he knows that much—but when he dies no matter what, only to be reborn mere moments later, does that even matter?
Over and over in an endless loop. Poison, hidden blades, toxic fumes, guns, a fucking guillotine hidden in a crawlspace Nines hadn’t noticed Gavin had stuck his head into in the first place. Nines is about two steps from pulling his synthetic hair out when they make their first major breakthrough.
It’s Gavin who discovers it, idly fiddling with a three digit combination lock they’d determined wouldn’t immediately explode on contact. He’s been cycling through the various sequences with a disinterested expression on his face, making small talk with Nines, when the lock clicks open under his hands. Nines is on his feet in an instant as Gavin ducks to avoid whatever it is that’s coming to kill him, pulling his hands away as if he’s been burned, but…
Nothing happens.
Nines’s jaw drops.
“Holy shit.” Gavin laughs disbelievingly. “Holy shit.”
Nines can’t stop smiling.
That particular loop ends in catastrophe, as all of them must, but it’s a promising start that carries Nines through the failures of the next several cycles. As it turns out, the locks can be unlocked without major consequence provided they’re solved in the correct order, which leads to a lot of trial and error. Mostly error.
Grief hardens into a twisted anger in his chest, and then even that anger bleeds into a determined resignation.
There’s something deeply haunting about seeing Gavin beaming so innocently at the beginning of every loop, as if he hasn’t died ten, twenty, forty times before in increasingly horrible ways. Nines brushes it all off, just moving forward—because if he stumbles he will fall and if he falls he’s not sure he’ll be able to get up again, forward momentum will be his savior—but with every passing cycle, every passing death, every fleeting moment of happiness swallowed by the inevitable, Nines’s resolve begins to crack.
There are loops where Nines doesn’t have the energy to move. He lets Gavin break his fingers freeing himself, lets him poison himself on the hatch, lets him die on his own just so he can have a moment of peace.
In one of these cycles, Gavin doesn’t touch the door. It’s the first time the pattern deviates, and Nines perks up a little at the thought that maybe, just maybe, he might be free. Instead, he carefully approaches Nines, curled up on the cot, and climbs up with him, shoulder to shoulder, heads against the cinderblock.
“Hey, Tin Can,” he says softly. “You alright?”
Nines can’t bring himself to speak. He just closes his eyes and pulls Gavin into his chest, running his fingers through his hair. Because as long as Gavin is here, he is safe. In Nines’s arms, Gavin chuckles slightly, gently patting Nines’s shoulder.
“Aw, hey, Nines. It’s gonna be okay.”
Nines sniffs. How sweet it is for Gavin to reassure him. He’s so kind, so wonderfully selfless, a lighthouse on the choppy sea.
If Nines could cry, he thinks he would.
He must fall asleep, because the next thing he knows, he’s back on the floor, Gavin deriding his personal decisions regarding alcohol, tied to his wrists.
Something about that moment of peace in the grander scheme of misfortune imbues Nines with a fury he didn’t know he possessed. He attacks the locks with fervor, more often than not tripping the death mechanisms hidden within them. As macabre as it is, the faster he dies, the faster he tries again. Watching the light fade from Gavin’s eyes more times than he can count is almost worth it.
Almost.
By the 104th loop, Nines thinks he has it, and he’s downright giddy.
This is it.
As he dismantles the locks, Gavin stands back, arms folded over his chest, tapping his toe with a vaguely impressed air. Months of effort—yet simultaneously no time at all—have led to this, this moment of their triumphant escape. With every combination, scan, and latch, there’s the sensation of the world holding its breath.
The last lock rams home with a satisfying clang.
Gavin claps sarcastically, but he’s smiling brighter than Nines has ever seen.
“May I do the honors?” He gestures at the wheel. Nines rolls his eyes.
“I do all this hard work and you still want to take the credit? Typical.”
“Oh shut up,” Gavin says, tapping Nines’s shoulder with a knuckle. He grabs the wheel, bracing his foot against the bed.
“On three?” The echoes of one of their first conversations are not lost on Nines.
“I think that would be advisable,” Nines replies, lips quirking upward at the reference to a private joke that was lost about 90 Gavins ago.
Gavin nods. “One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
The hinges creak with a deafening clamor as Gavin wrenches the door open, muscles visibly straining with the effort.
Stretching out from the doorway is a long, narrow hallway, completely empty save for a rat that skitters across the floor. The rotting smell from earlier is stronger now and Gavin pulls his t-shirt up over his nose.
“Oh god,” Gavin coughs, “what the fuck is that?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Nines admits, taking a tentative step forward.
“Well, whatever it is, it’s like the love child of turpentine and sewage.” Gavin leads the way, shying away from the miscellaneous stains on the floor.
“What an apt description. I commend you.”
Gavin raises an eyebrow, turning to face Nines.
The pounding of footsteps almost doesn’t register at first. Nines hasn’t heard another person besides Gavin in weeks, and his gait is so firmly ingrained in Nines’s CPU that the variance flies right under his radar.
Three men, kitted out in kevlar vests and heavy boots, round the corner, pointing mean-looking machine guns in their direction.
“Hold it right there!” one of them shouts, and before Nines is even aware of the thought, he grabs Gavin by the wrist and runs. They duck down a side hallway, even more dimly lit than the last, not even bothering to conceal their footsteps. They’re already found, the only goal is to just get out. Gavin’s breathing is thunderous, pained inhalations echoing long after they’ve passed as he struggles to keep pace.
When they come to a fork in the path, Nines doesn’t hesitate, charging down the right side and pulling Gavin into a supply closet with a door that won’t close all the way. He claps a hand over Gavin’s mouth to muffle his gasps, listening closely for any sound out of place.
About ten seconds later, the guards from earlier come bounding into the hallway, waving their guns around haphazardly. Gavin shrinks further into the closet, fisting his hands in the fabric of Nines’s jacket. After two agonizing minutes, one of the guards shrugs.
“Fuckin’ androids,” another mutters disparagingly. Two guards knock shoulders, running back the way they came. Only one remains.
And he’s inching closer to the door.
Behind Nines, Gavin’s breath catches in his throat. A number of possible outcomes flit through his head, and it’s with a terrifying jolt that Nines realizes the lengths he would go to make sure Gavin got out alive.
Nines grips Gavin’s shoulder a little harder.
Just before the guard can poke his gun into the closet, a small bat detaches itself from the rafters, flying low over his head with a flurry of wings and high pitched squeaks. The guard screams, frantically trying to brush it away, running in a sloppy serpentine as he flees from the hallway. As his shouts recede, Gavin lets out a sigh of relief that Nines wholeheartedly agrees with.
Nines hesitantly toes the door open, doing a quick sweep of the hallway. He wishes desperately his scanners were working in order to plot the fastest way out; without them, he may as well be stumbling in the dark.
Coming up next to him, Gavin tugs gently on his wrist, soft smile on his face.
“C’mon,” he says, nodding in the direction of another fork in the hallway.
Nines beams, unexpected surge of happiness bubbling up in his throat.
“Think you can catch me?”
Gavin’s smile sharpens into a wicked grin.
“You can count on it.”
Rolling his eyes, Nines breaks into a sprint, neck and neck with Gavin, rounding the corner with a victorious air. Gavin, easily keeping pace, shoots Nines what he thinks is supposed to be a wink, and Nines laughs.
Gavin’s foot catches on a tripwire.
Nines moves to shield him but even he isn’t fast enough to stop the hatchet swinging down from the ceiling, burying itself in Gavin’s chest.
Gavin gasps, breaths ragged, blood blooming across his gray t-shirt and dripping on the bare concrete.
“Go on,” he wheezes. “Go…”
Nines clasps Gavin’s hand in his own. “No, no, Gavin, I—”
And then he’s back where he started, blindfold over his eyes, Gavin at his back, forty locks and miles of hallway between himself and freedom.
This time, the 105th time around, Nines skips right past the confusion and relief that this one isn’t permanent, settling on a white hot rage.
If that’s how the universe wants to play, then goddammit he’ll play along.
Before Gavin even has a chance to speak, Nines clenches his fists and pulls, tearing the ropes to shreds. Gavin’s screams are lost in the feedback and the ocean of error messages clouding his vision. There’s so much energy in Nines’s chest and it wants nothing more than to get out.
Nines slams his fist against the cinderblock as hard as he can, watching as the cracks spiderweb out from the point of impact. Somewhere behind him, Gavin shouts at him to please, stop, Nines, what are you doing, you’re scaring me, but that’s irrelevant.
He hits it again, chunks of concrete falling to the floor.
And again, and again, and again, until his hands are dented and mangled, barely recognizable. Thirium drips from the buckled plating, staining the wall, his sleeves, the floor. Nines’s breathing is deafening in his ears, and the electronic whine that just won’t go away spikes in time with his Thirium pump beat, scratching and grating like a radio tuned to a dead channel.
Nines grits his teeth. Swallows. Wills his shoulders to unclench.
Looks at the wall.
One of the bricks took more damage than the rest, concrete loosely held together by the solidity around it. If Nines isn’t mistaken, the space behind it is hollowed out.
Forcing his bent fingers to cooperate, Nines scrabbles at the opening, pushing debris out of the way and letting it pile on the floor. The room is eerily silent, but Nines resists the urge to check to see if Gavin is still behind him.
He must be. He’s Gavin. And Gavin doesn’t leave him. Besides, he has nowhere else to go.
With the last of the concrete cleared away, Nines can clearly make out what’s carefully tucked away in the wall.
A small, six-chamber revolver.
Nines delicately lifts the gun out of its hiding place, flicking the rotating chamber out. It’s fully loaded.
He turns to Gavin, gleefully presenting the gun to him.
“Look,” he says, already plotting how to use this to their advantage. “Gavin, look.”
But instead of relief on Gavin’s face, there’s only fear. Nines opens his mouth to explain but Gavin stops him in his tracks when he snatches the revolver out of Nines’s hands.
And points it at Nines’s head.
“I don’t wanna have to do this.” Gavin’s hands are shaking, his stress levels holding steady at 86 percent. “Nines, what’s happening to you?”
Nines holds what used to be his hands out in what he hopes is a placating gesture. “Gavin, you know this won’t solve anything. Please put the gun down. I can help—”
“I don’t want you to help!” Gavin roars. “I want you to explain.”
“I don’t—”
“Now, Nines.”
His finger tightens on the trigger.
Nines sees red.
Threat detected. Objective updated: NEUTRALIZE GAVIN REED.
Some dark thing within him wrests control of his thoughts away, steering him without granting him the wherewithal to stop. Endless streams of code flash before his eyes as he leaps forward, knocking the gun out of Gavin’s hand so hard it dents the wall behind it. Before he knows it, one arm is around Gavin’s throat, the other pressed against the base of his skull.
Nines snaps his neck.
Between Gavin’s limp body falling to the ground and Nines waking up tied to his back, something in Nines breaks.
In the ensuing loops, Nines doesn’t mention the gun. He doesn’t trust himself to touch it, yet, and besides, until they figure out exactly how to escape, grabbing it is worthless. They’ve tried all manner of routes, but none have gotten them as far as that first attempt did. Hell, Nines tries to replicate the circumstances of their near-escape, but every time, they’re spotted too soon, or Gavin runs off without him, or, in one memorable loop, Gavin is shot in the head before he has a chance to move. It’s infuriating.
If only Gavin knew.
During loop 147, as Gavin crumples to the floor with his throat cut, Nines resolves to tell him, no matter the consequences. He can’t do this alone anymore.
“You’re fucking with me.”
Gavin crosses his arms, shaking his head disbelievingly.
“Gavin, I promise I am not ‘fucking with you,’” Nines says. “Please. Will you just trust me on this one?”
“And why should I do that?” he scoffs. “Last I checked, time travel wasn’t possible.”
“Believe me, I didn’t think so either, and yet here we are.”
“God, you are somethin’ else, you know that?”
“Fine,” Nines huffs. “You don’t believe me? Watch this.”
“Nines, what—” Gavin falls silent as the first lock clicks open. “How…?”
Gavin’s idle comments of “what the fuck” and “holy shit” and “Jesus tapdancing Christ” underscore the process of unbolting all the locks, and a pang of fondness lurches through Nines’s gut. It feels so good to see Gavin happy again.
“A hand, if you will?” Nines gestures to the wheel on the door, and Gavin obliges, eyes blown wide.
“This is fuckin’ weird,” he mutters, hauling the door open. “So weird.”
“Trust me, you haven’t seen the half of it.”
“Oh, God.” Gavin rubs his eyes. “What’s next?”
“End of the hallway.” Nines points toward the corner. “Three guards are about to come around that corner, and the lead one will yell ‘hold it right there.’”
Right on cue.
“Hold it right there!”
“And now we run!” Nines shouts, pulling Gavin down the side corridor.
“You didn’t tell me we were gonna get shot at!” Gavin shrieks, casting worried glances behind them.
“Well, we do! Now—” He tilts his head to the right as they approach the split. “—this way!”
Gavin nods, just once, sprinting after Nines without hesitation. As they approach another fork, he yells, “What now?”
“In here.” Nines shoves him into the closet, pulling the door closed as far as the broken latch will allow. Behind him, Gavin takes several deep breaths, almost crushing Nines’s hand in a vice-like grip. Mere moments later, the guards round the corner, pointing their guns every which way.
“Don’t panic. They won’t find us.”
The two minutes wind down too slowly for Nines’s liking, but they inevitably pass without incident.
“‘Fuckin’ androids,’” Nines whispers.
“What?”
“Fuckin’ androids,” the guard says emphatically, and Nines smiles. It’s a bitter, taut thing, but a smile nonetheless. Two of the three guards wander away, leaving only the too-curious one.
“Nines.” It’s a word of warning, Gavin’s hand squeezing even tighter.
Nines just shakes his head, pointing upward right before the bat swoops down from its perch. Gavin stifles a fit of giggles as the guard flees in a panic, swiping at the tiny flying rodent divebombing his head.
“After you,” Nines says, bowing dramatically.
Gavin rolls his eyes, stepping out of the closet. “You’re impossible.”
“So is all of this.”
“Touché.” Gavin shrugs. “Lead the way, Terminator.”
Together, they hang a right, jogging down a long hallway.
“There’s a tripwire coming up, don’t get distracted.”
“Got it,” Gavin says, nimbly hopping over the offending trap. “Okay, what next?”
“I don’t know,” Nines admits. “We’ve never made it this far.”
“What.”
Nines doesn’t have it in him to answer. He clenches his jaw, making a hard left.
“Nines, what do you mean we’ve never made it this far?”
“Gavin, I—”
“Never mind.” Gavin yanks Nines around another corner. “Let’s just get outta here.”
“Let’s.”
A shot rings out, percussive and deadly. Gavin hits the deck, diving behind a table before scrambling for better cover. Nines is right behind him, shielding Gavin with his armored chassis.
“Just go!” Nines shoves Gavin toward what he hopes is a stairwell. “I’ll hold them off!”
“Nines, I can’t just leave you!”
“Go.”
Gavin nods, just once, jaw set, before turning to run.
Nines doesn’t watch him leave. Instead, he faces the end of the hallway, bracing himself for the inevitable onslaught of armed guards, praying his military programming will be enough to save them.
Just let Gavin make it.
The first indication that anything is wrong is the silence.
Nines’s heart sinks with the terrible realization that the fact that he’s here, back in their cramped cell, means he failed.
They were so close.
“God, remind me not to challenge Valerie to beer pong ever again.”
Nines laughs bitterly. If he never has to hear that sentence again, it’ll be too soon.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” Gavin knocks his head against Nines’s as he catalogues a place Nines has already memorized for the very first time. “What even is this place?”
“Looks like every movie serial killer’s wet dream rolled into one,” Nines deadpans, recalling one of Gavin’s earlier witticisms.
Behind him, Gavin snorts. “Didn’t realize you had a sense of humor.”
“Yeah, well,” Nines sighs, “things change.”
“Like what, dipshit?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Yeah?” Gavin clicks his tongue. “Try me.”
Smiling thinly, Nines says, “Let’s just get out of these ropes first.”
As delicately as he can manage, Nines guides the spring across Gavin’s knuckles, pulling the coils of rope off. In some, twisted way, Nines thinks, his gentleness now is almost payment for the destruction he’s wrought. The friendly elbow bump Gavin gives Nines after his hands are free doesn’t hurt either.
“So.” Gavin sits on the cot, clasping his hands together. “What is it you wanted to tell me?”
Nines runs a hand through his hair. “We’ve done this before, Gavin.”
Gavin screws up his face almost comically. “Whaddya mean?”
“I mean,” Nines says, uncertain of what to do with his hands, settling on placing them flat on his knees, “we’re—I’m—stuck in some sort of… time loop.”
“No fucking way.”
“Yes, Gavin.”
“You’re shitting me right now.”
“I promise you, I’m not,” Nines snaps. “What possible reason do you think I would have to deceive you in such a manner?”
“I dunno, you like to fuck with me.” Gavin crosses his arms. “Did Tina put you up to this? This sounds like something she would do.”
“I wish I could tell you this was all an elaborate prank, but the truth of the matter is, I’m stuck here, and I… I could really use your help.” Something in Nines’s voice must strike a chord with Gavin, because whatever sarcastic retort he’s been cooking up appears to die in his mouth. He slumps against the wall, folding his legs up on the cot.
“So you’re tellin’ me the dicks at CyberLife actually made time travel. Are they really that douchey?” He seems to consider this idea. “Wait, actually… Never mind. How do I know you’re right about this?”
Nines sighs. “I suppose you don’t, other than staking my word against what you perceive to be true.”
“Wow, you really know how to tickle a guy’s brain box, huh.” Gavin kicks at the tile with his boot. “Okay, let’s say I believe you. Is this like some Groundhog Day situation where you need to, like, improve as a person? Some sort of spiritual quest?”
“I highly doubt that,” Nines says wryly.
“C’mon, work with me here.”
“I am.”
Gavin taps his chin. “So if you’re Bill Murray, does that make me Andie MacDowell?”
“What?”
“Ah, forget it.” He waves Nines off. “How did they get out in Groundhog Day?”
“Gavin, I believe Groundhog Day is far too tame a comparison.”
“Tame?” Gavin exclaims. “Nines, he dies in that movie. Like, a lot. What’s…” He swallows. “What happened?”
The answer is devastatingly simple, but suddenly Nines is incapable of saying it. He looks away.
“Nines? What’s wrong?”
Nines bites at his bottom lip. “Every day. Every day, you die. And I— I can’t stop it, no matter what I try, and—” Deep breaths. Stay strong.
I can’t.
“And I can’t save you.” Nines’s voice cracks, fading into static.
Gavin furrows his brow for a moment, before patting the bed next to him. The invitation is clear. Rubbing at the phantom tears on his cheek, Nines stumbles across the room, collapsing onto the remarkably uncomfortable mattress.
“I’m sorry, Nines,” Gavin says. “I mean— Wow, I— I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s okay. I don’t expect you to.”
“But I wanna help.”
“Gavin, this is a uniquely terrible situation, I don’t blame you for any of it.”
“I know, I know, just…” He picks at his fingernails. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”
Nines doesn’t know what compels him to do it, but in that moment, it seems like the only logical thing in the world. He leans his head onto Gavin’s shoulder, closing his eyes and letting Gavin’s heartbeat pound steadily against his temple. And he just stays like this. Gavin must be uncomfortable, but nearly an hour goes by and Nines can’t bring himself to move from the relative safety of Gavin’s embrace on this cot. But all good things must come to an end, eventually.
Gavin breaks the silence.
“How many times?”
It’s a vague question at best, a meaningless one at worst, but Nines knows exactly what Gavin means.
“153,” he murmurs.
“Jesus fucking Christ. That many?”
Nines nods.
“God, Nines, I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“I don’t care.” Gavin sits up, jostling Nines from his comfortable position against Gavin’s torso. “I’m going to get you out of this. What have you tried?”
“Everything,” Nines says simply. Because he has. He’s tried everything he can think of. And it’s gotten him absolutely nowhere. “We’ve tried everything to escape.”
“I doubt that.” Gavin smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Have you tried waiting?”
Nines sits up. “Waiting? Waiting for what?”
“For help.”
“What?”
“You said every time you try to escape, I die, right? God, that’s a weird thing to say. Anyway.” He takes one of Nines’s hands in his own. “What if we just waited? Chris and Tina are bound to find us eventually. And even if it fails…” Gavin shrugs. “You could always just kill me again.”
Nines opens his mouth to protest, but the wisdom of Gavin’s plan is not lost on him. Perhaps if they don’t poke the bear, the universe might grant them a reprieve.
“I suppose it’s worth a shot,” Nines concedes. “Here’s to waiting.”
“Shake on it?” Gavin offers a dirt-stained hand, which Nines accepts, despite the grime. He pumps it once, vigorously, and Nines smiles.
The worst part about it is watching Gavin waste away. There are some old water bottles hidden in the desk, but whoever’s holding them never provides meals, and by the end of week one, Gavin’s toned form is looking significantly scrawnier. By week two, he can barely move; his body is emaciated and decaying.
He looks like living death.
On day seventeen, Nines finds himself sitting on the floor while Gavin sprawls face-up on the bed, fingers interlaced atop his stomach. To the outside observer, it looks almost tranquil, but to Nines it feels like an inevitable march toward the end. He wonders how long Gavin has left like this, how long they have until the next go around, when Gavin no longer remembers him and the process starts anew.
“Gavin,” Nines whispers, as if by staying quiet he won’t disrupt the uneasy peace they’ve cultivated, “do you think this will ever end?”
From atop the cot, Gavin takes a deep breath. “Shit, Nines, I dunno. You’re askin’ the wrong guy.”
Nines chuckles. “Never mind. It was a silly question.”
“Well, no.” Gavin rolls onto his side, tucking his arm under his head to better look at Nines. “There somethin’ on your mind?”
“I don’t know. I guess…” A thousand thoughts vie for Nines’s attention, but he shoves them all away. “What if I can’t get out? What if I’m stuck here forever?”
Several agonizingly long minutes pass before Gavin finally says, “Then I guess that’s how it is.”
“Well, you’re not helpful,” Nines mumbles, very deliberately avoiding eye contact.
“Nines, be realistic here. We both know that I’m not gonna remember this in a day or two. The fact of the matter is, you’re in this alone.”
Of course Nines knows this, but to hear it laid out so plainly… The notion burrows deep into his chest, refusing to let go.
“Besides,” Gavin adds, laughing slightly, “you live forever anyway. What’s the difference if it’s linear or cyclical?”
The plain and simple truth may as well be staring Nines in the face— probably has been for the past several non-weeks.
“Because if my eternity is linear, I only have to lose you once.”
Gavin’s eyes widen slightly, but he doesn’t say anything, only turns onto his back to stare at the ceiling again. For a moment, Nines worries he’s done something wrong, but then Gavin scoots over, very clearly making room for Nines on a cot meant for one. With a sinking feeling, Nines clambers in next to him.
“We can pretend we’re stargazing,” Gavin says softly, pointing to the cracks and chips in the plaster. “Look, there’s the Big Dipper.”
“Sure,” Nines quips, nudging Gavin with a playful elbow. He’s too bony. Nines can feel his ribs through his jacket. He doesn’t have long.
As Gavin starts to drift off to what may be his final sleep, he whispers, “I don’t want to forget this.”
“I know.” Nines reaches for his hand. “I know.”
“You have to promise me something.”
“You name it and... it’s yours.”
Gavin’s eyes find his in the semi-darkness. “Keep going. Promise me that you will always keep going. Okay?”
Nines nods solemnly. “I promise.”
Gavin falls asleep holding Nines’s hand, breath ghosting across his cheek. It’s highly unlikely he’ll survive to see the next morning, or night, or whatever their poor excuse for a day is. For all it’s worth, Nines doesn’t want to be around to watch him die one more time.
He fumbles blindly for the port in his neck, popping it open.
“What’re ya doin’?” Gavin mumbles, eyes just barely flickering open.
“Don’t worry, Gavin. Everything’s fine.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
Nines waits until Gavin’s well and truly asleep before he moves again. He’s never tried this before, doesn’t even know if it’ll work, but he’s almost out of options. The man he loves—rA9, he loves him, doesn’t he—is dying beside him and Nines doesn’t think he can bear to be around when that happens.
“Here goes nothing.” He grips a bundle of wires at the base of his skull.
And he pulls.
There is darkness. Then his Thirium pump stutters in his chest, and Nines breathes a sigh of relief.
He’s alive. Gavin’s behind him. They’re both okay. He’s thrilled.
But at the same time, he mourns the loss of the last Gavin, more than the others. By now, he’d almost gotten used to losing Gavin every few hours, but those deaths were always impersonal. Routine. He was so desensitized he forgot the harsh reality that it was to see Gavin die a hundred times over.
He can’t stop now, even if he wanted to.
Just keep going.
“I think I know how to get us out of here,” Nines says once the ropes are piled on the floor for the 154th time.
“Yeah? Shoot.”
Nines walks him through the process of dismantling the locks step-by-step, buying time until he knows the guards are passing by, doing his best to recreate their most favorable circumstances. Several skeptical looks are thrown his way, but Nines just brushes them off. Some mild concern is worth escaping with their lives.
“Well, wouldja look at that.” Gavin puts his hands on his hips, marveling at the empty hallway. “Nice going, there, Tin Can.”
“You flatter me,” Nines drawls. “Now, let’s get out of here.”
The guards arrive like clockwork, shouting after Nines as Gavin as they bolt down the side hallway, and Nines whoops gleefully as they leave them in the dust. When they reach the closet, Nines can’t help but smile the whole time, delighting in the knowledge that they’re safe. For now, at least.
As the last guard disappears, Gavin bumps shoulders with Nines.
“This is so easy,” he says. “It’s like they’re not even trying.”
Nines just purses his lips, dragging Gavin toward the next phase of their escape. Avoiding the tripwire with ease, Nines internally prepares for the volley of incoming shots. He shoves Gavin behind the table, shouting at him to just keep running for the stairs, and though Gavin resists at first, he does keep going, giving Nines’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
And this time, Nines runs after him, praying for a miracle.
Their footsteps are deafening on the metal stairs, mixing in with the explosions of gunshots and the whining in Nines’s head, building to a fever pitch.
“Here?” Gavin yells, gesturing to the door at the first landing they come to.
“Sure!”
Gavin flings the door open with a bang, revealing another mostly empty hallway. From here, it’s a straight shot to the exit, perhaps fifty feet at the most.
“Come on!” Nines grabs Gavin’s wrist, hauling him at a speed that is definitely not safe for humans, but he isn’t taking any chances now. Cacophonous voices from the basement are gaining on them.
Nines doesn’t look back.
With one last surge of speed, Nines kicks the double doors down, bursting into the early morning air, Gavin in tow. The sun is just barely over the horizon, bathing Detroit in liquid gold. The compounds of the city’s atmosphere, broken down in Nines’s HUD, would be enough to make Nines sob, if he could.
We did it.
Nines’s jaw drops and he clutches Gavin’s shoulders, hardly daring to believe it.
“Gavin, we made it!”
And before his processors catch up with him, Nines cups Gavin’s face and kisses him.
Because they’re alive. Because they’re safe.
Because they’re free.
Gavin’s arms wrap around Nines’s neck, pulling him closer, a warm, comforting presence against his shoulder blades.
Nines’s hand slides down to cradle Gavin’s back.
There’s the crack of gunfire, and Gavin jerks under Nines’s grip. When Nines pulls his hands away to see what happened, one of them is slick with blood. Horrified, Nines looks back to the building, where a guard is standing on the front steps, pistol aimed directly at them.
“Spoke too soon,” Gavin coughs, sliding out of Nines’s arms and collapsing to the snowy pavement, blood pooling under his torso.
No. No, no, they made it this time, this can’t be it, this can’t be—
“God, remind me not to challenge Valerie to beer pong ever again.”
Nines wants to scream.
But instead, he channels his anger into just moving forward. He knows what to fix, now, and maybe, just maybe, if they can make it out alive, this hellish nightmare will be over.
Despite his imperfect memory, Nines is able to pinpoint nearly all of his actions from the previous loop, stalling Gavin for the same amount of time. The only difference, this cycle, is that, while Gavin undoes the locks under Nines’s careful supervision, Nines retrieves the revolver from the wall. He spins the chamber once, and tucks it into his jacket.
As they run, every action feels purely mechanical. No longer is Nines focused on the joy of escaping; all that matters to him is recreating his every move until the moment it really counts. Somewhat worryingly, behaving like this—like the war machine he was intended to be—makes him feel more at peace than he has in months.
Nines cocks the revolver as they hit the first floor.
One.
Together, Nines and Gavin scramble down the front steps of their former prison, whooping as the cold air reaches their lungs and biocomponents.
Two.
Just like before, Nines skids to a halt, stopping Gavin in his tracks. The positioning is right, the timing is right, and now he waits. And rA9, if he doesn’t want to kiss Gavin again, but he can’t, because right now, failure is not an option.
Three.
“Duck,” he says, and Gavin obeys without hesitation.
Nines pulls the trigger.
His aim is true, of course, nothing less would be expected of CyberLIfe’s most advanced model. Some sort of sick satisfaction twists through his gut as the guard’s head snaps backward, force of the bullet knocking him to the ground.
It’s over.
“Let’s go.”
Gavin nods sharply, and takes off in a dead sprint down the street, jacket billowing in the wind.
And then the world freezes.
A single command appears on Nines’s HUD in stark CyberLife Sans font.
EXECUTE?
The world abruptly snaps back into focus.
Nines is in the basement, tied to Gavin, blindfold over his eyes.
With a start, Nines realizes his scanning systems are back online. When he shoves the bandana off, his surroundings seem more solid than they ever have, flickering lines replaced with hard edges. How had he never noticed the impermanence?
Dread settles in Nines’s chest like a stone as he finally understands.
Preconstruct. Compute. Execute.
“I think I know how to get us out of here.”
“Yeah? Shoot.”
Nines has no memories from before his deviancy, and for that he is grateful. He has no desire to remember a time before he was in total control of the frankly obscene power he wields when his conscious knowledge of it is enough to overwhelm him most days. What Nines is experiencing now is what he imagines pre-deviancy must have felt like; a bizarre collection of overexposed images and disjointed sensations, loosely stitched together in a barely comprehensible order. The unifying trait of all of it is his lack of autonomy, body moving without his input, thinking thoughts that barely feel like his own. With Markus came freedom, and Nines is afraid he has taken it for granted all his life.
Now, following his preconstruction—because that’s all it ever was, just a godforsaken preconstruction—Nines realizes he has. And he’s furious at himself, of course, but at the same time, it’s like he doesn’t feel anything at all.
His body is on autopilot, laughing, running, and shooting just like it did before. Nines watches himself, detached from the explosions around him, detached even from the rush of emotions churning inside him. When it comes time to kiss Gavin again, Nines knows he wants to, objectively. All the evidence is there.
But his words ring empty, merely the dying echoes of a time that never was.
As they bolt down the street, the gunfire of their captors fading into the distance, Nines dials the D.P.D., detailing their location and the events of that morning.
By the time they make it to the station, Gavin’s muscles are saturated with lactic acid and Nines’s charge is running dangerously low.
“Nice one, Terminator,” Gavin laughs, pushing open the front doors. “You really showed these dipshits, huh?”
Nines is unconscious before his head hits the floor.
He comes to in the breakroom, of all places, with Gavin and a few other blurry figures standing around a charging port. The fluorescent lamps hurt his eyes after months of a single shattered bulb providing the only source of light.
Blessedly, the static is gone, replaced only by the quick breaths and intermingling heartbeats of those watching him intently. In the corner of his HUD, lines of text scroll faster than the human eye can follow.
CHARGING COMPLETE.
SELF-TEST COMPLETE.
Biocomponent #4717g damaged. REPLACEMENT PRIORITY: Low. DANGER OF SHUTDOWN: Low. THIRIUM LEVELS: Optimal.
Error detected.
RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC....
DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE.
PRECONSTRUCTION SOFTWARE STATUS: Compromised. RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION: Manual reset. Please consult a registered CyberLife technician for further assistance. PRIORITY: Intermediate.
Nines groans, blinking away the status report.
“Hey. He’s awake.” Tina’s voice cuts through the flood of sensory inputs, bringing him back to reality. The real reality.
“How long have I been asleep?” Nines croaks.
Gavin checks his phone, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “About seven hours.”
“What.” Such a long charging time isn’t unheard of for older models. The original ST200 model used to take twelve hours to reach a full charge from dead. But for Nines, it should’ve only taken an hour, at most.
“We tried to wake you up,” Gavin says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “But you’d just— you’d lie there and… none of us could get through.”
“Oh.”
Out of the corner of Nines’s eye, Fowler waves Tina and the others out of the room, corralling them in the hallway. A heavy silence falls, Gavin steadfastly avoiding Nines’s gaze. Nines hesitantly steps out of his port.
“Can we go, Gavin?”
He scoffs. “Where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
Gavin kicks at the floor with his boot. “I mean, I can drive you to your apartment, if you want. Are you sure you shouldn’t go in for maintenance or something? You look pretty out of it, and—”
“Please, Gavin, I just…” He lets out a long exhale. “I don’t think I should be alone tonight.”
With a start, Gavin looks Nines dead in the eye, stare filled with some newfound understanding. He nods.
“Yeah.” Gently, so gently, Gavin takes Nines’s hand and leads him out of the station. There’s none of the fervor of before, no fleeing for their lives, no twice-broken bones and cracking joints holding onto Nines’s chassis like Odysseus in the storm. Just warmth, and sadness, and the feeling of coming home.
Gavin keeps looking at Nines whenever they roll to a stop; quick, furtive glances he probably thinks Nines won’t notice. His lips are chapped and blistered, rubbed raw by how much he pulls at them with his teeth. Nines actually reaches over to pull one of his hands off the steering wheel, spreading the fingers to coax the tension out of them.
“Thanks,” Gavin says curtly, stomping on the gas pedal a little harder than necessary.
The sun is setting as they pull into the parking garage underneath Gavin’s apartment complex and Nines can’t quite wrap his head around the time he lost, not after living one moment in dilation for months. Nines and Gavin are glowing in the dusk, skyline blanketed by a haze of pink and orange.
As they descend back underground, Nines’s stress levels increase sharply and he balls his fist in the fabric of Gavin’s coat, closing his eyes.
The slam of the car door sounds too much like a gunshot.
“You alright?” Gavin asks, unbuckling his seatbelt. “Actually, don’t answer that. Let’s, uh. Let’s get you upstairs.”
Nines is grateful they take the elevator. The sounds of their footsteps in the concrete stairwell haunt him. He takes a few deep breaths.
You’re alright. You’re out. It was just a glitch. You’re okay.
Gavin’s okay.
Asshole greets them the instant they step over the threshold, rubbing up against Nines’s legs and purring. Smiling softly, Nines gives her a small wave, which rewards him with yet more affection and a barking laugh from Gavin.
“You are somethin’ else, you know that, Tin Can?”
Nines makes his way across the living room to settle on the couch, Asshole seizing the opportunity to curl up on his lap as soon as he’s properly seated. A couple scratches behind the ears set her snuggling into his torso. Gavin watches with an unreadable expression.
“Thank you, Gavin.”
“What for?”
“For letting me stay, of course.”
“What, you thought I’d just kick you out? Hell no.” Gavin kicks his boots off, flopping gracelessly to the other end of the couch. “Besides. You looked like you could use the company.”
Nines snorts. “I suppose you could say that.”
Gavin hums in agreement. “We did good out there today.”
“I suppose.”
“I mean, I never really thought we’d ever piss off a suspect that much, but hey, I guess it comes with the territory.”
Nines wants to brush it off, he really does. He just wants to forget it all and pretend it was just another zany day at the office. But he can’t. Not with the image of Gavin’s glassy eyes burned into his optical units, his screams reverberating around his mind.
“Hey. Nines.”
He jumps. “What?”
“You sure you don’t wanna go to CyberLife? Belle Isle takes 24/7 appointments, I can make a call—”
“No, no, it’s— It’s fine.” He sighs. “I’m fine, Gavin.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me.” Gavin frowns, before scooting over to Nines, mirroring their position on the cot so many loops ago. “Nines, what happened in there?”
Nines focuses intently on the back of Asshole’s head. “Nothing you need concern yourself with.”
“Bullshit. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re fine.”
That’s just the thing, isn’t it? He can’t.
Nines’s lack of a reaction must be all Gavin needs.
“Nines, I need you to tell me what happened. I know I might not be the best person to go to for mental health advice, but I’ve learned the hard way that this shit will just eat you up inside until there’s nothing left.” He puts a hand on Nines’s knee. “I don’t want that for you. So… please.”
And Nines just breaks, leaning into Gavin’s chest, clawing at his hood, pulling him as close as he can because goddammit he isn’t letting him go, not after losing him again and again and again.
“Whoa, hey,” Gavin says lightly, resting his hands on Nines’s back. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
“I know.”
“Do you wanna tell me what happened?”
“Gavin, it’s patently insane.”
“If it means anything at all, I’ve seen a lot in these past fifteen years, ain’t a whole lot fucked up I haven’t heard before.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Nines mumbles into Gavin’s chest.
“Yeah? Try me.”
The same phrasing, the same delivery. Guilt and shame and terror sink into Nines’s gut like a stone. He wraps his arms around Gavin a little tighter.
“You died.” And now it’s out in the open, for better or worse.
Flinching, Gavin sits upright, pulling away from Nines with a look of utter disbelief. “I what?”
“Over and over, you died. And I lived through every single one.”
“Nines, what does that even mean? How does that—”
“There was— There was a flaw. In my preconstruction software.” At Gavin’s uncomprehending stare, Nines elaborates, “More advanced androids have the ability to create simulations of possible scenarios in a manner of milliseconds to determine the best possible approach to a situation. They’re entirely voluntary, and often quite helpful in high-stress encounters. But mine… went wrong, somehow.”
“How… How wrong?”
“I got stuck,” Nines says simply. “I didn’t know what was happening, except that you would die, and then we’d be back to where we began. There were traps, and— and guards, and you— You died so many times, and I couldn’t stop it. And I know it’s stupid, it wasn’t even real, but I… Gavin, I was so scared. Scared that every loop might be the last and that I’d somehow lost you for good.”
Nines waits for the shock, the anger, the skepticism, but nothing comes; Gavin merely leans back in his seat, blinking rapidly.
“Shit, Nines.” Out of incredulity more than anything else, Nines thinks, Gavin laughs. “I mean, whaddya even say to that?”
“Nothing, if that’s what you want.”
“No, Nines—” Gavin takes both of Nines’s hands in his, pressing them to his chest and neck respectively. His pulse thunders under Nines’s fingers, slightly faster than normal, but steady, like a bass drum.
SUBJECT: Reed, Gavin. BPM: 76
“Feel that? I’m alive. And I always have been. None of that was real.”
Nines nods hurriedly. “I know, I know.”
“However.” Gavin’s voice is steely, a tone that brooks no argument. “Just because it wasn’t real, doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. I just want you to know that you are allowed to feel. You’re allowed to be upset and angry and scream into a pillow if you want. Hell, it’s called being human, get used to it.” SUBJECT: Reed, Gavin. BPM: 87. “And the fact of the matter is, I’m not going anywhere.”
A tranquil silence descends upon Gavin’s living room, Nines’s fingers still pressed to Gavin’s pulse points. Nines’s internal clock catalogues every millisecond that passes, but Nines willfully ignores it. It might be minutes, it might be hours, it might be days, for all he cares, because all that matters is Gavin is safe.
But there’s something else, something that deserves to be said, else Nines may never forgive himself.
“Gavin, I…” Nines whispers. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
It’s so cliché. Nines knows it is, but there’s a reason the clichés get popular. Gavin doesn’t respond, just looks at Nines as if to say Keep going.
“During these loops, watching you die, it— I realized… something. I realized that I took you for granted for so long, and for that, I am truly sorry. Without you, truth be told, I don’t think I would have made it out. You gave me the strength to keep going when I wouldn’t have been able to do so alone, and I can never thank you enough, could never hope to repay you the good you’ve done for me.”
“Nines…”
“Let me finish. There’s one more thing.”
SUBJECT: Reed, Gavin. BPM: 92.
“Gavin, throughout these preconstructions, I got to see... every facet of you laid bare.” Gavin’s heart rate spikes unexpectedly, and Nines grabs his hand, clutching his fingers as hard as he can without breaking them. “And it was devastating, watching your brilliance snuffed out in some new and terrible way every time, many of them my fault. But as I watched, I realized something that… Something that I should’ve figured out a long time ago.”
There’s a stutter in Gavin’s gentle breathing cycle, and his stress levels are rising fast.
Nines’s voice is shaky, but he means it with every sheet of plating, every wire, every fiber-optic piece of himself when he says, “I need you, Gavin.”
Gavin swallows thickly. “What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying that I can’t fathom a life without you in it. Take it or leave it, what you do with that knowledge is up to you, but…” Nines smiles weakly. “I just wanted you to know. You deserved to know that much, at least.”
SUBJECT: Reed, Gavin. BPM: 98.
After an excruciating silence, Gavin says, “You really mean it?”
“Of course,” Nines assures him.
Gavin hums to himself. “Take it or leave it, huh?”
Nines nods.
“Well.” A hand settles on Nines’s neck as Gavin’s pulse finally begins to slow. “Then I choose ‘take.’”
There, in the dark of Gavin’s apartment, Nines in clothes wet with snow, a cat balanced precariously on his lap, Gavin leans forward and kisses him.
It’s a tentative thing, the gesture in itself almost a question, one that Nines happily answers by bringing his hand up to Gavin’s face and pulling him closer. This time, there are no guns. There are no traps. There is just Gavin’s breath, warm against Nines’s cold skin, his thumb brushing Nines’s cheek, the feel of stubble and leather on Nines’s palms.
Gavin’s lips are soft, even when they've been chewed to shreds.
When Gavin eventually pulls away to breathe, there are tears running down his cheeks. Nines swipes them away with a gentle hand, and Gavin laughs wetly.
“Jesus,” he mumbles, “we’re gonna scare the cat.”
From her position in Nines’s lap, Asshole glares up at Gavin before bounding off into the depths of the bedroom.
“It seems we already did.”
“Yeah, well, she better get used to it.”
Nines smiles. “Does this mean you plan to make this a regular occurrence?”
“Hey, I’m game if you are.”
Though Gavin’s tone is casual, his words are affectionate, voice choked and fraught with emotion. He still hasn’t let go of Nines’s shoulder.
Gavin cocks his head to the side. “Listen, um. I’m gonna get you some clothes to change into that aren’t so…” He wrinkles his nose. “Y’know. Anyway, um. I’ll be right back. You just make yourself at home, yeah?”
“Sure.”
“Good. That’s— Yeah. Good.”
Gavin disappears into his bedroom a moment later, and the sounds of hangers screeching against a metal bar follow suit. From where he’s seated on the couch, Nines can peek through the gap in the door and see Gavin chucking half his wardrobe onto the bed, admonishing certain pieces for being too small, too weird, or, in the case of an old band tee, “not cool enough” for Nines’s liking.
It’s rather endearing.
When Gavin returns, he’s toting a pair of tattered sweatpants and a faded t-shirt, smiling sheepishly.
“I dunno if they’ll fit, you’re kinda tall, but, uh. Here.”
Nines accepts the bundle gratefully.
Gavin’s bathroom is cramped, but well-maintained, with a humble collection of bottles scattered across the available surfaces. Tossing the new clothes on top of the toilet, Nines peels off his current outfit, damp from the snowfall and months’ worth of phantom blood and Thirium. Suddenly uncomfortable, Nines retrieves a washcloth from the linen closet, running it under cold tap water and scrubs at his synthskin as hard as he can, so hard it deactivates temporarily in places. His hands, his chest, his face, they’re all stained with the remnants of the lives Gavin lost.
Water drips from his chin into the sink. Nines stares at his reflection with hollow eyes, fixated on the rapid spinning of his LED, glaring red in the dim light that reminds him all too much of the cramped concrete cell. It’s only when Gavin calls his name that Nines is able to tear his gaze away from the mirror, hastily pulling on the clothes Gavin lent him.
Gavin greets him almost immediately.
“Thought you’d drowned in the sink somehow.”
“No, Gavin, I’m sorry to disappoint.”
“I really hope you’re not serious.”
“Not quite.”
With as much feigned scorn as he can muster, Gavin rolls his eyes, but Nines can tell he doesn’t mean it.
“I’ll wash these for you,” Gavin says, taking Nines’s clothes from him. “Does everything fit okay?”
Nines flexes his ankles slightly. The sweatpants are definitely a few inches short, but all things considered, Nines can’t complain. Gavin snorts.
“Close enough, I guess. Now, uh…” He wrings his hands. “Where do you want to sleep? I’d offer my bed, but I don’t wanna cross any boundaries, or anything—”
“Gavin?” Nines gives Gavin’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I would like nothing more.”
“Oh. Um— Well, okay. Let me just get changed, okay?”
Gavin returns a few minutes later smelling of mint toothpaste and lavender soap, clad in a sleeveless hoodie and a pair of basketball shorts. Devoid of his signature leather jacket, he looks different, somehow; more vulnerable.
Nines thinks he likes it.
Clambering into the bed, Gavin holds open the covers, patting the mattress on his left side. Flashes of a moth-eaten mattress pad on a metal frame flicker through Nines’s mind, but he shuts them out, allowing himself a moment of respite. Everything around him is so ubiquitously Gavin—from the black sheets to the oversized stuffed shark on the dresser to the very smell that permeates the room—that the memories of the basement seem far away.
“Is this okay?” Nines whispers as he pulls Gavin into a snug embrace, interlacing their fingers.
“You’re good.”
Gavin switches off the bedside lamp, snuggling into Nines’s front with a contented sigh. Nines runs his thumb over Gavin’s knuckles, cataloging the thin scars peppering the backs of his hands like snow.
“You know I love you, right?” His voice is soft, so soft Nines worries Gavin might not have even heard him.
But then Gavin snifts, pressing a gentle kiss to Nines’s LED, coaxing a clear blue out of the swirling yellow.
“I know, Tin Can.”
Bathed in the muted glow of Nines’s retracting synthskin, Gavin murmurs, “I love you too.”
Gavin’s breathing evens out as he dozes off, and Nines is struck by how much he missed that sound, missed delicate exhales untouched by fear or injury, missed being able to close his eyes without worrying about starting over. Here, in Nines’s arms, Gavin is safe, at least.
Nines can’t ask for much more than that.