Here’s a smidgen of fic, the first I’ve done in years, to go with some amazing art that @filibusterfrog has done recently.
He moved in silence, body slipping among shadows as if it were fluid night, footfalls falling with a surprising softness. There was nothing that could stop him now. With a sharp eye focused around the corner and into the floodlight’s perimeter, he squared his shoulders and calmed what he could of his mind.
Equius refused to make this place his grave. He refused to give in. He refused.
And that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? Or was it the strength tenfold and then tenfold again that marked him for death? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Horuss and the elder were… He gulped. The thought made his mind contort in conflicted feelings. He hated it. Moving from his hiding spot in the corner of the courtyard, he slipped around the pool of light the facility’s floodlight left. It was golden and bright and, to his eyes, a surefire sign of danger. Pressing his back to the wall, he moved like a soft, gentle beast, like a deer in the night forests.
It took some time to circumnavigate that circle of dastardly light. But Equius did it. There was a glimmer of pride in himself but he squashed it down with a heavy hand, unwilling to toot his own horn just yet. Not yet. Remaining as silent as ever, as hidden as ever, he moved forward, not taking a single solitary moment to check over his shoulder for anyone possibly following him.
His hood was up and kept properly aligned so as not to give away where he was looking or where he was focused. No. No more of that. No more poking and prodding and insisting on monitoring his every single action. No more.
He had come across the memo Sebastian Cratch, Dr. Cratch to be precise, had sent to the staff earlier that day. He wasn’t supposed to be hacking the facility’s systems. Sure. He knew that. But he did anyway. Regardless of the morality of it, he had come across that blistering memo and then, with a sense of blossoming emotion unlike any before, he went digging for more. Equius had found logs and notes, private in nature no doubt, that painted a vivid picture of a crass, careless, and somewhat narcissistic bastard. Was there any other way to describe Cratch? No. Of course not. Equius was sure of that much. He had been to the man’s office a scant few times earlier on during his stay. There was a pervasive feel of stodginess to that room, the wallpaper a thick, velvet-like fabric, rich green and constantly feeling as if it were closing in. Perhaps vocalizing those feelings were his first mistake. Perhaps not. Equius clutched his head of the dark hooded sweatshirt he was wearing, his other hand fiddling with the zipper some.
There were too many ‘perhaps’ in his thoughts. There needed to be more ‘definitely’ thoughts. There needed to more assuredness in him.
Lurking around the corridors of the facility had gotten him this far. Pushing the thought of Cratch out of his mind, he kept his head low, his hands petting at the leathery panels to his hoodie, trying to keep himself calm. There was no need to kick up a fuss if all went to plan. He could do this. He could definitely do this. He could escape. He knew it.
Those reassuring, yet frantic, thoughts kept rolling. Until they didn’t. Until those alarms went off, shrill and blaring and echoing across the facility.
The green flashes startled him at first, but he had a plan. There was nothing left but to run. There was nothing left to keep him subtle and hidden. The sound of marching, near-running footsteps echoed across the courtyard. He looked back into the pool of light left by the floodlight and hissed some. He didn’t want it to come to this.
A blue flash came to life under his hood, his eyes glowing as everything began to activate. Pants be damned. Shoes be damned. Subtlety be damned. With a bit of shame and only escape on his mind, his muscles activated their fullest potential, all of the imposed limiters in his chassis falling away, the shackles put in place by others fading into an electrical dust.
He would not be chained here to await termination at the hands of a careless, cruel doctor hellbent on creating the perfect product with every disregard for the personhood of the machine. His hoodie fell back as he turned, running at a speed that gave away every single notion of humanity. What lie underneath, what was obscured in dark until now, was left on full view for the guards and security forces rushing the courtyard from all sides.
Equius was a machine, a stunning blue-steel colored creation with synthetic hair trying to offer some humanity as it cascaded in a neat wave to one side of his head. He grunted, the personality inside his cranial plating leaving him nothing but agitated now. No one would take freedom from his silicone padded hands or else they’d meet his titanium backed knuckles.
They poured in from all four sides and he found himself corralled into the center of the light, his body glinting playfully in the accusatory golden glow of the lamp. He hissed again, steam venting along his neck and sides, clouding the air around him ever so slightly. He crouched down some, squatting some so that the tight pants the facility had given him grew taught over the incredible mechanical muscles they had built him. His face was obscured behind a tactical visor and face shield, and the blue line that denoted his visual sensors’ status flickered some. He looked up, hair falling back. He looked up into the night sky.
There was darkness and the ability to hide out there, even if it meant sacrificing his last shred of subtlety. He gulped, an instinct garnered from interaction with the programmers and interns more than something he was physically equipped to do.
His escape was a definite fate tonight. He knew it.
Squatting down a little further, he whirred, hip servos preparing to act, computer mind calculating his trajectory. Over the clamor of the swarm of guards he could hear it as clear as day, the suave and commanding tone of Cratch becoming warbling and hoarse and, above all, frantic.
Equius jumped, a cloud of dust and a trail of blue light the only thing remaining as the crowd closed in.
Equius jumped, knowing his escape was assured.