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V1 wasn’t built for companionship. This much it remembered.
Lurid stains of old blood on its digits. The whining of icy winds in the dark. The never-ending clangour of metal upon metal. It was alone.
(Tink, tink, tink, went the revolver, as its barrel dragged along the ground, its hilt hanging from tired arms. Tink, tink, tink.)
It had always been alone. A morbidly quiet testing site with clouds of ashen orange looming on the horizon, a battlefield filled with human screams, the droning of lasers, the screeching of electrical buzzsaws, its short crusade — all a backdrop to V1’s silent uninterrupted solitude. Its’ memory circuits, worn by an age of operation with little to no upkeep, have lost some of their capacity, but if one memory persisted, it was one of endless isolation. A desolation of the self.
In that moment, it wished it could talk. Even with no one around, nobody to listen to it, it wished it could sigh, or cuss, or hum a tune. But, nothing. Silence.
It stirred, shaking off the unpleasant thoughts. Its journey had been so long, and fuel ran so low, now; there had been one persistent urge that ate away at the back of his mind: the urge to rest. To succumb to long, dreamless sleep in the snowdrift, with the hum of its mainframe as its only companion.
Companionship.
It shook its head once more. The snow-pelted corridor before it looked just as uninviting as the one before it and all the others that preceded this floor - the last stop of its journey into Inferno. The capital of Hell was an hour’s walk away, if not less, and it could feel it in its wiring: it had never been so cold in its life, and standing around did nothing to warm it. Onwards, then.
***
A sudden yell behind it — a spark of bright and iridescent gold in the corner of its lens—
“Machine! Finally, I’ve found you!“
It barely had a fraction of a second to react, and a fraction of a second late it did, kicking out at nothing as it was swept up into marble-white plated arms and spun around in the air.
It stilled in silent panic as it was abruptly pulled into something resembling an embrace. Strong, sure arms were holding it down by its hip plates, firm, but not uncomfortably so. They floated a little above ground, moving in a slow circle, and the body against him radiated warmth.
V1 tensed in his arms, deliberating its next move. What is he here for if not to fight? They hadn’t exactly met up for any other purpose before.
And was Gabriel… laughing?
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he explained hurriedly, all while V1’s gaze trailed down his blood-caked breastplate to the sound of Gabriel’s rapturous laughter rearing yet again, clear as a bell and melodic as birdsong. It took them both a second to catch their breaths, or, well, what counted as a breath in V1’s instance.
“I’m free now, thanks to you.” he said, a smile still lingering in his voice. “I’ve given it all much thought. There is no more Council, no God to serve. Free to do as I— Machine?”
In an instant, V1 was back in his arms again. It clumsily slotted its head between Gabriel’s shoulder and helmet, latching tightly onto his chest. In the sudden quiet of the small walkway its processor whirred low, contentedly, as if quietly purring.
So warm.
Slowly, Gabriel lowered them both to the ground, extricating himself from the robot. Haloed by the mellow light emanating from his fluttering wings, his bloodied armor glistened radiantly, covered in a thin layer of melting frost. The mere sight was enough to make the starving V1 dizzy.
“Are you perhaps… Cold?”
V1 nodded enthusiastically, arms flexing by Garbiel’s sides as if to signal something: Cold. Cold and hungry. Warm blood. Please.
“I imagine your kind wasn’t built for temperatures like these.” the angel looked around, as if searching the frozen empty room for something. “I could help you with fuel, but keeping warm is another matter—“
With a finger to his helmet, it was gestured, tentatively, that he be silent. V1’s movements were sluggish as it climbed back, resting its head against Gabriel’s chest.
“Oh.”
It sat there, motionless, breast pressed to bloodied breast, absorbing warmth, as more of its systems defrosted, coming back to life.
Gabriel froze with his arms awkwardly in the air. He grunted. V1 didn’t react.
He coughed.
No reaction.
He sighed, “Very well, then,” and carefully wrapped his arms around V1’s shoulders.
“I suppose there isn’t anyone around to hold me accountable for not keeping face,” the angel chuckled half-heartedly. “Although this sort of kinship with a… mortal… they would have had me lashed for this. Demoted, even. To accounting .” he shuddered.
V1 pulled back, his sole, unblinking lens — like lamplight in the darkness — curiously studying Gabriel, head cocked to the side in a wordless question.
“Is something the matter?”
And voilá — the language barrier. If he could, V1 would have strangled its creators for its lack of a voice box.
After a second of contemplation, V1 gestured to the space between itself and Gabriel, then made an inquisitive “wrr”.
“This? It is called a hug. Do you know what a hug is?…”
It shook its head. How could it have? In retrospect, it understood why a voice box was the last thing they thought to install: it made not caring easier. Day in, day out, crash tests, stress tests, test fights; now do it again, but no refuel this time; how long will you last, how much pain can you endure? Fuck, it thought, how could they make it feel pain and then deprive it of a voice? What kind of monster—
Harsh light filling the room, a flash of searing pain; an electrical prod jammed into V1’s neck; convulsing, blinded and deafened by pain, the robot let out a mechanical screech that was drowned out by a terrifying roar of a machine that ran thousands of volts’ worth of electricity through its’ fragile insides—
It flinched as Gabriel’s arms traveled down to its waist.
“A hug is when two pe— creatures, two creatures hold each other close, like this,” he pressed his hands into the machine’s back a little tighter, “to convey affection between two kindred souls.”
V1 trembled with the violent shock of its recollection, tightening its grip on Gabriel’s shoulders; it was safe, it was safe, it was safe. If it could speak, it thought, it would have laughed with relief.
“Affection”, huh. Feels nice.
Gabriel’s voice was a low whisper in its speaker, “Machine, are you well? You’re shaking.”
It shuffled awkwardly in place before taking a step back and letting its arms fall at its sides, still trembling. Mercifully, Gabriel was still hunched over it, his hand on V1’s shoulder plate.
He studied the machine intently before nodding once.
“Let’s get you refueled.”
***
“There’s only us left on Earth, it seems.”
V1 stopped sucking on its blood bag to look up at Gabriel, who was still walking in circles around the fire. He has been pacing like that for what felt like an eternity, V1 thought; what’s up with him?
“…As I said, the Council of Heaven is no more, by my hand. It had to be done. Now, with your rampage through all but the deepest bowels of Hell, the only ones left alive are the denizens of heaven and the two of us, here. Do you follow?”
V1 nodded abscently, not giving it much thought beyond showing that it was listening, if only with half a speaker. It was all too concentrated on the way that salty, metallic, heavenly blood was flowing down its wires…
Ah. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask Gabriel why there were blood bags in Heaven. Then again, despite the fact that their mutual understanding has improved somewhat in the last hour, this sort of question might still be too difficult to convey.
“I shall not appear in Heaven henceforth. This,” Gabriel pointed his hand at the embers of a dying bonfire, “is my place of reprieve for now. I— yes, machine?”
Gabriel stopped his pacing, lowering down into a crouch beside V1 as if that would somehow better his understanding of its gesturing. It didn’t; after a solid minute of quiet back-and-forth’ing he gave a disgruntled noise and hunched next to the equally frustrated robot.
The clear white of the moon bathed the two figures in mellow silver; their silhouettes cast long, restless shadows on the forest floor. They sat in silence for a while, observing the distant blinking droplets of stars overhead. V1 watched Gabriel lift his arm to contemplatively trace invisible constellations with his finger.
“Marvelous, are they not? It eluded me for so long, the meaning of their otherworldly splendor. I understand now that they do not care for the light of God.”
Under the helmet, he smiled.
“They do not care that we are as alone in life as we are in death. Tell me,” he cocked his head to the side, “do you fear the end?”
When he looked, V1 wasn’t there. Instead, he heard, in the distance, the sound of a terminal being switched on, a few mechanical noises of displeasure, more sounds of fiddling with buttons and knobs, and there it was: a bittersweet, melancholy tune playing in the middle of the woods, loud enough to be heard clearly from where they sat. Out of the underbrush, V1 stepped into the light of the bonfire again.
It nodded.
Gabriel didn’t speak at first, so it just stood there for a while, mesmerized by the way the gold of his armor glinted in the firelight, until he said, “Give me your hand.”
V1 let out a quizzical chirp — the beginning of a question, as Gabriel has already learnt to understand. He regarded V1 for a second and snickered rather un-angelically.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “come here. We could try a… different sort of conversation.”
***
“You know of music, but not of its purpose? How strange. Your hand goes here.”
Following Gabriel’s lead, it carefully placed its hand on the angel’s waist, just underneath his chestplate; it was acutely aware of how odd it felt to put cold metal against soft skin. It took great care not to squeeze his wrist too hard; even considering the way he was towering over V1 at that moment, it held Gabriel the way only way a robot could an angel — like something precious, light as air, fragile and gentle.
“Machine, that… Is my foot. Kindly step off of it.” Gabriel winced.
It warbled an embarrassed apology as it stepped off Gabriel’s right foot and immediately lost balance—
Gabriel held V1 steady against his chest.
“Easy, let’s try this again: step back, like so.”
It followed, like so, and raised its gaze to the stars.
The sky shaded a light pink at the far rim, the morning moon pale against the translucent clouds. An owl cried; the fire crackled. V1 listened to the tender thrumming of Gabriel’s pulse under its fingers, counting the beats of his heart to the sound of music.
“You must be wondering why I was looking for you earlier.”
The two of them have fallen into an easy rhythm, swaying in unison. V1 found its head to be pleasantly empty for the first time in a long while. It was nice to hold something other than a gun in its hand for once, it thought.
“You opened my eyes when last we met, and for that I am thankful. I sought you out in an attempt to find my purpose... Now, I think, my search is complete.”
V1 closed the small distance between the two of them, pressing their bodies together.
The angel briefly glanced at the sky; the sun was due in a few hours. A few more hours, and then he’ll be no more.
“I’m running out of time, machine.”
Then stay.
V1 stood on its tiptoes, and Gabriel allowed himself to be hugged again, letting his head fall on V1’s shoulder. The music slowly faded into silence.
You won’t be alone.
“Very well.”
***
They met sunrise in each other's arms that morning.