Rehash

Six.

There was no point in trying to sleep. I already knew it when I got into bed that night, and a few hours of staring up at the ceiling later, I didn't understand why I bothered trying.

If Alan knew there was an android in our building, he would freak out. Maybe even have me arrested.

This would all be over if I reached for my laptop and called the university. Just one call, and I'd be the hero who caught an renegade android.

It was what I was ought to do, according to everyone I knew... Except for me. I couldn't right all the wrongs that had been done to androids in the past. I couldn't help them, but I could help Zed right now. Here.

All these thoughts whirling in my head had me twisting and turning until I finally gave up around five in the morning, put my clothes on, and snuck out of the apartment to check the basement.

Zed had seemed uncomfortable in the dark. But he was also an android made for war and espionage. That thought had struck me, once again, while in bed. Odds were he'd been playing me like a fiddle and was lying about his motivation and everything else so far.

Still, no matter how stupid I told myself I was being, I was worried.

I quietly knocked on our storage room's door.

"Zed?" I muttered.

When there was no response, I opened the door slightly, peeking inside through the crack. I saw faint, red lights flickering on and off.

"Zed?" I repeated.

"Just a moment, please. Wait," Zed's voice finally replied from the dark. I had, however, already activated the movement sensors with my presence. The sudden, bright fluorescent light made me squeeze my eyes to slits, but I could still make out Zed sitting on the floor. 

There was something wrong.

Zed had taken off his shirt. His spine was bent forward in an unnatural position. Snapped like the stem of a flower in the field. Skin was torn open, revealing a plastic spinal cord, circuits, wires, and other parts I couldn't tell the function of.

"I told you to wait!" Zed hastily shifted his body, turned it so I could no longer directly see his completely bare 'spin cord' and insides. I'd already seen enough, however.

"Zed, is something broken? I saw the red, flickering light."

Zed's body made a buzzing sound as his spine straightened itself, and the skin closed itself up.

"Of course. You're a Lenora student. You know what a red light means." Zed shot me a smile. "I need to replace some of my power connectors. They got damaged all those years ago, but I've been able to patch them up. Until now."

Zed made light of it, but Zekiye had once explained to me how important power connectors were. They connected the motherboard - the nerve endings - to communicate everything throughout his body.

"Damn, that's pre-war tech." I frowned. "They probably don't make your connectors anymore... Do you have a serial number for me? I can try getting them for you in the morning anyway."

Zed tilted his head to the side and peeked up at me. "Does this mean you decided to help me?"

"I'm not going to turn you in or let you die. That much I promise."

"Fair enough." Zed's lips tugged up slightly. "But you're not going to find what I need to repair myself in a store. You can't even ask for it without raising suspicion, or at the very least a few eyebrows. There's only one place where you can get the spare parts."