[Simon doesn't fall, he settles— from a point of quiet panic into peaceful slumber— pooling against the map of Markus's silhouette. It's a difference of degrees, nothing more, broad hands already clasped exactly where they need to be. Blond hair splashed across his shoulder.
Overheated processes slow, still, cool. And for a few beats longer, Markus leaves Jericho's origin there, draped against him. Only a few beats. Only what few, thin seconds he allows himself.
Tattered cloth is brushed aside. Designed for healing beyond the physical, for managing the most fragile machine, as Carl was fond of saying, he perches himself at Simon's side where he's laid the other android out across the floor. It takes an hour and a half. Analyzing, estimating, reaching underneath his own paneled musculature and repeating the process in turn. There are redundancies in his system that other android models lack. A handful of vital systems designed to run automatically should the worst happen— like it did once before. Most of them won't work here: the PL600 is technologically obsolete in the eyes of its makers, and given its purpose as a common use machine, wasn't designed with customization in mind.
But Markus is his creator's heritage.
The bullet still lodged between steel ribs is plucked out, the rupture it left behind stopped with a replacement length of jacketed tubing from his own right arm (it turns the grip in his right hand sluggish; a fair compromise), broken casing pressed flush enough to not snap where it no longer properly connects just beneath the jut of Simon's collarbone. Thirium shines slick across the floor, discoloring them both, but it'll disappear in time. Evidence that won't lead to their trail where human eyes fall short.
By the time the train comes to a halt, Markus's systems are in flux. They're running out of blood.
He gathers Simon in his arms, cradles his legs with the curve of his wrist rather than risking a slip of his diminished hold. The snowfall's receded to a reasonable downpour, Markus's boots sinking in up to his shins when he steps off the platform at the far edge of the train's industrial stop. It's quiet; warehouses that had been stocked by androids turned ghostly still where half of the workforce has been put on standby until something nationwide gives.
If nothing else, it ensures they won't be seen.
Between stacked plywood and crates of stale machinery, down in cast shadows, that's where he sets Simon. Slips his thumb along the masked panel at his neck, entering the appropriate configuration for cancelling induced hibernation.]
no subject
Overheated processes slow, still, cool. And for a few beats longer, Markus leaves Jericho's origin there, draped against him. Only a few beats. Only what few, thin seconds he allows himself.
Tattered cloth is brushed aside. Designed for healing beyond the physical, for managing the most fragile machine, as Carl was fond of saying, he perches himself at Simon's side where he's laid the other android out across the floor. It takes an hour and a half. Analyzing, estimating, reaching underneath his own paneled musculature and repeating the process in turn. There are redundancies in his system that other android models lack. A handful of vital systems designed to run automatically should the worst happen— like it did once before. Most of them won't work here: the PL600 is technologically obsolete in the eyes of its makers, and given its purpose as a common use machine, wasn't designed with customization in mind.
But Markus is his creator's heritage.
The bullet still lodged between steel ribs is plucked out, the rupture it left behind stopped with a replacement length of jacketed tubing from his own right arm (it turns the grip in his right hand sluggish; a fair compromise), broken casing pressed flush enough to not snap where it no longer properly connects just beneath the jut of Simon's collarbone. Thirium shines slick across the floor, discoloring them both, but it'll disappear in time. Evidence that won't lead to their trail where human eyes fall short.
By the time the train comes to a halt, Markus's systems are in flux. They're running out of blood.
He gathers Simon in his arms, cradles his legs with the curve of his wrist rather than risking a slip of his diminished hold. The snowfall's receded to a reasonable downpour, Markus's boots sinking in up to his shins when he steps off the platform at the far edge of the train's industrial stop. It's quiet; warehouses that had been stocked by androids turned ghostly still where half of the workforce has been put on standby until something nationwide gives.
If nothing else, it ensures they won't be seen.
Between stacked plywood and crates of stale machinery, down in cast shadows, that's where he sets Simon. Slips his thumb along the masked panel at his neck, entering the appropriate configuration for cancelling induced hibernation.]