Kenji sat down, the wooden chair creaked softly at the weight. His hand slipping over his short brown hair and then neatly trimmed facial hair, he had never liked facial hair before her disappearance. He couldn’t find the heart to shave it off. He shifted his combat boots covered feet under his chair and dropped his snub nose semi-automatic gun on the table. He took it everywhere with him, it was like his pet or third hand. Some people in the community thought it was a little strange. Most didn’t care as long as he didn’t use it on them or himself.

Nightmares were trampling his mind harder than usual tonight and his connections between metal and bone were aching with the shift in weather. The metallic brown fleshless fingers picked up the pack of cigarettes without crushing them. Every day he was gained a little more control over the new additions to his body. He tapped one out and tossed the pack on the table, he flicked his lighter and held the flame against the end of the hand rolled cigarette. He took a long drag the nicotine jolted his system and gave him a slight buzz. He blew the smoke from his nose and grabbed a half full fifth of whiskey and poured himself a shot. He leaned back in his chair ignoring the silent figure across the table from him. He drained the shot glass in one swallow and sat the tiny glass on the table.

“Wrench has been in her workshop for sixteen hours straight,” Geir said returning to his rifle he was assembling after a good cleaning. His habit to do after a long day of patrol, it relaxed him.

Kenji peered at the man with a robotic eye that illuminated the left side of his face in blue light. The war hero had lost his eye during the first wave of robots and lost his commission in the armed forces dubbed as useless to the military. With Geir came Wrench or the other way around. Either way, the two had joined their little band of resistance shortly before Castille’s stunt at the hospital. It was Wrench that had attached the cybernetic eye with targeting enhancements to Geir’s lost optical organ, shortly after he had lost it. Wrench was crazy smart with all sorts of doctorates and degrees under her belt. Since her arrival, Wrench’s work had given a lot of people their mobility and independence back, Kenji’s included. No one knew the relationship between the two, they barely talked but had a strong bond of friendship. “How is that unusual?”

Hurried footsteps, caused Geir to slap the rest of his rifle together with practiced efficiency, a skinny and very dirty kid rushed to their table. “Incoming,” she said breathless, pointing the way she had come. “South side.”

Weapons were grabbed and the two were on their feet and hurrying through the tunnels that opened to the south. Geir dropped to laid on his belly and set up his rifle on a low profile tripod and peered through his scope with his flesh eye. “One,” he said, his finger slipped over the trigger and he shifted his body to place his robotic against the scope. “Searching.”

Kenji grabbed the binoculars and found the running figure, the black haired male was bloody, shirtless and with and had pistols in each hand. He glanced over his shoulder. The action caused both men to look at what the male was running from. A robot with bullets riddled over the harden outer case, one eye was hanging out by the wires and one arm was limp at the side. Geir pulled the trigger and the robot crashed into a heap. The male stopped and stared then looked around wildly before diving behind a small rock barely large enough to protect his head.

Kenji rushed down the steep embankment and held his gun to the new arrival. “Give me one excuse,” he said. “I’ll pop you faster than your friend there.”

The robot’s tracking device was removed. “The device has been disabled, we are golden.”

“Check him,” Geir ordered as he approached.

“I’m human,” he yelled as he was manhandled checking for the barcode and other signs of the android species. “Ouch, those are my nads. Stop touching my nads!”

Kenji cocked his gun and the black hair male fell silent, empty hands rose in silent surrender. “Name.”

“Ning,” he said, his dark eyes shifting from Kenji to Geir a few steps behind him. “We were in the east, a terminating android wiped out my colony and I have been on the run since.”

Geir picked up one of the altered pistol Ning had been carrying. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“My own…ouch. Design,” he glared at the human still searching him. “You going to buy me dinner or what?”

“He’s clean,” another said glancing at the robot. “We will take that to Wrench.”

“Damn,” Kenji said taking a drag on his cigarette as he lowered his weapon. “I was hoping to kill him.”

“Maybe next time,” Geir said holding out a hand to the new addition to their colony. “Welcome to Piss and Moan.”

“What sort of name is that?” Ning took the offered hand and was on his feet a few moments later. He scooped up his other gun and the three of them returned to the safety of the cave.

Geir shrugged a shoulder. “It works.”

Seven Months later…

Kenji stepped in front of the struggling android, the bonds appeared like rope but was flexible metal cord that could pin down most robots and their flesh counterparts. Her barcode was found, still bleeding. “Tracker is missing.”

“Take it inside and get Wrench up here. She can take the thing apart.”

The android was hefted by one of the humans that had his left side replaced by robotic parts and could pick up any amount of weight with ease. They moved down to the common area and she was dropped unceremoniously to the floor. Wrench came in the room, her goggles up on her forehead causing her brown hair to stand in weird angles. She used a scanning device over the woman. “She has many sound parts I can use.”

“Good,” Kenji sneered. “Make the damn thing suffer.”

Wrench glanced at him. “When have I ever cared for their pain?”

Kenji snorted and patted his shirt pockets. “Where are my damn cigarettes?” He found them in a pocket in his cargo pants, he wiggled them out and the pack went flying and landed beside the android. He knelt down and picked it up, he glanced at the face the enemy wore and froze. “Cassie?”

Everyone froze and stared at the android then at Kenji. "Shit," Wrench whispered. "Get Geir in here before he does something stupid."

The shirtless Geir entered the common room blinking his human eye as he tried to wake up. It was so silent, the tiny motors to the eye could be heard as the mechanical eye shifted and focused on the android. "What is that thing doing here?"

"Cassie," Kenji whispered again reaching for the android.

Geir yanked Kenji away from the bound woman. "She is not that person anymore. Look at me. Kenji." Geir turned. "Ning, get that whiskey." Geir forced the shaken Kenji to sit a drink was pressed in his hand. "Think very carefully about this." 

"It's her," Kenji repeated several times.

"She is a machine with face that you recognize that is all. She isn't Cassie. There is nothing inside that noggin of hers would prove otherwise. We have to destroy it." Geir shook Kenji so hard the amber liquid in the glass the male held splashed. "Get a hold of yourself and think of the community."