Page 5 of Bender

“I want you to listen to me when I tell you to do something, Sweetheart. Even if it seems silly right now, I need you to be a good boy and obey me. If I’m gonna get what I need and get us out of here, get you and the girl out of here, I need to know you’re going to do as you’re told.”

“What do you need to find? I can help look.” I don’t know where I’ll look, but I want to try. I want to be helpful if it means he’ll really take us away from here.

“I’m looking for Huber’s external hard drive. I was told he brings it with him everywhere, but it’s not on his body.” Konrad—I guess I can think of his name since he didn’t tell me what he wants me to call him—shrugs and looks around the room at the mess.

“What’s an external hard drive?” I don’t know a lot of things. It’s been a lot of years since I got to do things normal people do. School, playing with friends, pretty much anything a person would usually do was against master’s rules.

“Don’t worry about it, Peanut. If I don’t find it soon, they can fuck off and send someone else. I’m not gonna toss this whole fuckin’ place for one piece of tech.”

I hear his mad, but I know it’s not at me, so I just sit and look down at my hands in my lap. I still have on the thick metal bracelets master welded around my wrists, and I occupy myself clicking them together.

Master hated it when I made noise with my chains. He can’t hate it now. Because his brains are falling out of his skull on the carpet. The thought makes me giggle. Konrad looks over at me quizzically but doesn’t make me explain myself.

“Why do you keep calling me Peanut?” I don’t hate it. Every time he calls me Boy or Peanut, I get a wiggle inside me that says I’m gonna be okay. I want to trust the feeling, but it’s scary.

“Cuz you’re as bitty as a peanut. If it bothers you, I’ll stop. Do you want to tell me your name?” After watching him stomp around the room upending things and searching for whatever a external driving thingy is, his stillness now is startling.

Konrad comes back to stand in front of me, his big warm hands with their rough calluses cupping my knees. His eyes search mine, but I don’t know what he’s looking for.

“Um, i-it’s okay. You can call me Peanut. I mean, if you want to. Are peanuts good to be?”

“Wait. You never had a peanut before? Are you allergic or something?”

I think this sound is shocked, although why he makes shocked sound about peanuts and he didn’t when he saw all the dead people is kinda scary.

“I don’t know what I’m allergic to. But we don’t get peanuts to eat. I don’t know what I had before I was master’s.”

“How old were you when he took you?” Konrad asks me, voicing the question Blu and I have spent ages trying to figure out. I don’t know how old I was when master bought me, but I learned really fast never to talk about the ‘before time’ when he could hear me.

I know Blu came here when she was eighteen because she talks about birthdays and stuff like that sometimes. But me? I can’t remember what those are like.

“I dunno. I been a pet for, like, a real long time. Longer than I was a boy, I think. I’m more years than Blu is, though, and she was a grown up when master bringed her here.”

“Were you here for a long time before she came?” He’s using his soft voice, the one I think he uses to be not scary.

“Yup. A long long long time. I really hate it here. You promise you don’t mind taking me with you when you and Blu leave? You don’t have to be my superhero, too, but I really, really hope you will. Blu will be sad if you don’t. Please?” I don’t cry, but I beg.

Crying is a one-way ticket to a beating, but begging sometimes gets a reward. And sometimes, rewards are good. Like a extra piece of bread I can give to Blu when master isn’t looking. I wonder if Konrad likes begging, too.

Chapter

Six

BENDER

“You’re not staying here, Peanut. Neither of you are. I’m nobody’s superhero, but you will be coming with me. Don’t you worry about that.”

The boy’s breaking my heart. Sitting there on that desk, with steel manacles still locked around his wrists, and naked save for a damn curtain he keeps trying to tuck more tightly around the girl. Not even remembering what a peanut tastes like or if he’s allergic to the fucking things.

I’m also starting to freak out that the girl’s still out cold. Shouldn’t she have woken up by now? The clock is ticking. They’re still naked aside from a curtain, there are dead bodies everywhere, and I don’t have the one thing I came here to find.

“Fuck it. Time to go, Peanut. I’m gonna give you my shirt and my boots. Think you can walk if I carry the girl?” I’ll worry about him the entire time, but time is of the essence, and there aren’t a lot of options.

I suppose I could track down someone’s room and grab clothes, but we’ve already taken too long to clear out. A mile in my socks to get to my truck will be cold but doable as long as the boy can keep up.

“I can walk. I can run if you want me to. I’ll be a good boy. I promise.” He’s trying so hard to be brave, and it sends another crack through my heart.

I’ve never had a reaction to anyone or anything like the one these two spark in me. I shake my head and try to keep my focus on the critical issue of getting us all out of here.

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