In the morning, before Sorrel was up, he left, boxes stacked carefully one on top of the either, and walked home. He put the boxes on the counter and sorted through the shirts and tapes and cds. He found a power strip and plugged in the player and put Bjork in.

Suatre swayed with the music he hadn’t heard in so long, letting the emotions that rise in him. Forgotten memories only his body could recall. He didn’t notice Charlie come in.

He jumped when Charlie put a hand on his shoulder. Hanging back in the door was Jun. They both were looking at him.

“Charlie,” Suatre said. “Oh my god, I’m sorry about yesterday. I just got scared and went to Sorrel’s place, and I don’t know how to call you, and I feel really bad for leaving but, yeah. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Charlie said gently. “I’m just happy you’re all right.”

“What did they say to you?” Suatre asked, fearful but needing to know.

“Oh, Suatre... they just asked me...if I was your caretaker…” Charlie looked embarrassed, his eyes lowering behind his glasses. Jun came into the shop and shut the door, coming to lean against the counter next to Charlie.

“Ohhhh...” Suatre flushed. Of course. “They thought I was crazy.”

“No, they just...they suggested you might want to find a therapist.” Charlie shrugged. “I apologize. I know I offered to help you but I don’t really know anything about you. I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds or anything.”

“God. No, you’ve been so nice to me and helping me even though I’m like a fucking brain dead old person who doesn’t know shit about technology or like, have an ID or whatever..” He clicked the music off. 

“Don’t worry. Look...you can tell me to fuck off here if I’m meddling, but I made an appointment with a therapist for you. You just seemed...like, I don’t know. I’m not a professional is all. I can put androids back together,” Charlie said, and Jun shot him a look. “But I’m not really great with fellow humans.”

Suatre nodded. “I get it. I really appreciate it. Like. Um...so when’s the appointment?”

“Soon,” Jun said. “I’ll go with you. It’s just a walk.”

“You will?” Suatre asked.

“I’ve got to work,” Charlie said, “and...if you don’t mind me saying, Jun..” Jun shrugged. “Well, I’ve been asking him to go see someone too. So maybe...it’d be good for him to go in, at least. See the process.”

Suatre nodded.

Suatre and Jun walked through the cold sunny day. The bare trees on the sides of the road reached to the sky with their bony branches.

“You scared Charlie,” Jun said. “He felt really bad, thinking you were out in the rain by yourself.”

Suatre nodded. “He’s a good guy, isn’t he?”

“You have no idea.”

“You love him.”

Jun huffed his dry laugh. “Yeah.”

“Can I ask...why does he want you to see someone?”

Jun kind of rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Well. I freak out sometimes. I get angry and depressed. It’s bad.”

“Sorry this is gonna sound like, real ignorant but, I didn’t know um, robots?” Jun nod-shrugged. “I didn’t know you could get depressed.”

“Hah. Yes, well, I don’t think it’s common. But neither am I.” Jun said, smirking.

“You’re the first robot I’ve….that I remember meeting.”

“Yeah? Am I scarryyyy?”

“No way,” Suatre said. “You’re like 5 feet tall.”

“Almost,” Jun muttered. “I wanna be taller but Charlie likes me like this...I mean...not that he likes me SHORT...I think he just likes ME, and he’d be cool if I changed. But,” he said with a faint smile and a faraway look, “when someone likes you the way you are, that helps. It helps a little.”

The office felt normal, a small waiting room with some quiet people filling out paperwork. Suatre’s appointment was called almost as soon as he was done checking in. He left Jun on a waiting room chair, legs dangling but not swinging.

The therapist was Karadas. His hair was blue and his skin was spotted with shimmery highlights that glowed ever so slightly. The whole person glowed wherever his clothes didn’t cover. Very faintly but enough to blur the outlines of the therapist just a little. It made him look angelic. He had ears more similar to Sorrel's than to humans, but shaped more like two elf ears stacked together. His name was Garret.

“Hi, um, Sa-tra, is it?” He said, squinting at the paperwork.

“Swa-tray,” Suatre said.

“Sorry. Suatre. Thanks for coming. So, first appointment is pretty loose, we can just get to know each other if that’s fine with you.”

“Sure.” Suatre sighed. What was he even going to say?

“So I hear you have some memory loss from a car accident?”

“I do have memory loss, but I don’t think I was in an accident.”

“What happened, do you think?”

“I don’t know. But man. I’ll just be honest with you. I don’t belong here. I was brought here from another time and place and I woke up here in this city in a home I never have to pay rent on, and I just..squander this second chance by laying in bed all day, or feeling fucking sorry for myself, or making the only people who know me worry.”

“What do you mean, you were brought here.”

“I MEAN,” Suatre said, then settled back a bit. No need to yell at this guy. “I mean the last year I remember is 1999.”

“And that’s...in the future.”

“No man, THIS is the future.” Frustration building. “Where I’m from, there’s no aliens and no flying cars and we use money and have to work to pay rent and fucking die in the street if you can’t afford anything.”

This was the point in tv shows where the shrink would start writing something on his pad. He didn’t do that.

“Ok. So you’re in the future. How does that make you feel?”

He didn’t believe. Well, of course not. “Weird. Bad? But I feel weird and bad a lot anyway.”

“Why do you feel weird and bad a lot?”

“I don’t know. Genetics?”

Garret nodded. He waited.

“That’s why my neighbor was...trying to help me. I was really sad and confused.” Suatre shrugged, pushing down the threatening heavy feeling of tears in his throat. “Like...It happened when I hit puberty. 12, 13, 14...I don’t remember. But I went crazy back then. Just super emotional, cutting myself. They said I was bi polar.”

“Who did?”

“Doctors.”

“Do you still cut yourself?”

Suatre unconsciously touched his chest, where beneath his shirt, the new tattoo was still sore and healing. “No.”

Now Garret was writing something. He stopped and asked, “I know you came in because someone was concerned about you and suggested it. But I want to know if there’s anything you want to get out of therapy.”

“Um, like what?”

“Well...do you have goals?”

“I...I don’t know. I don’t feel like I belong here. It’s hard to have goals.”

“Do you want to belong here? Or do you want to go back to your time?”

Suatre looked at him. “Do you believe me?”

“Truthfully, I don’t believe in time travel. But I believe you believe.”

Suatre nodded. “Yeah I mean. I wouldn’t have thought I believed in time travel either. So….do you think I’m crazy?”

“I think you’re going through a hard time of transition, and you’ve been dealing with mental illness for a long time. Do you think you’re delusional?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes. Maybe. Nothing makes sense.” He didn’t want to bring up the key, the house, the boxes, the music. Too much to deal with, there.

“So let’s figure out a goal for you, and I hope you’ll come back to see me, and we can see how your progress has gone.”

“Okay. A goal… I don’t know, man, what’s a good goal? When I feel like everything is dark and I’m alone and no one comes to my shop and I don’t know how this world works…”

“How about...finding out more about, ah, this world. Find out about your area.”

“I did go do some stuff with the neighborhood union one time. My neighbor took me door to door.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it was about the vote. We were trying to get people to vote yes.”

“I see. That was your first time with the neighborhood union?”

“Yeah. It was okay. Bothering strangers is stressful.”

“Would you want to do it again?”

“I guess I should. Since the vote’s coming up.”

“Do you want to?”

“Hmm. Yeah. If I can go with Charlie again.”

“How about your goal can be, you try to do that. And even if it’s not about the vote, you could do anything else. Helping other people is good for us. As long as you’re not putting their needs above yours, if you’re in need. You know? Taking care of each other helps ourselves, but we can’t help each other if we don’t take care of ourselves too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I’ll volunteer again, get out of my place.”

“And...about your, ah, bi polar did you say?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you want, I’ll refer you a doctor, they can check you out and prescribe anything you need. I assume you don’t have a doctor?”

“No…” I barely had an official identity before yesterday, he thought.

“And...you don’t have an implant.”

“Nope.” He was starting to feel really small.

“Well, make sure you print some kind of messaging device, so we can contact you.”

Suatre promised he would. Their time was up and Suatre left, finding Jun in the waiting room, playing a game on his screens. Jun shut them off quickly and they left together.

“How was it?” Jun asked.

“Fine. He was chill. I don’t know what I expected.”

“I see.”

“I have to go to a doctor though. I don’t have a phone or whatever...Can you help me?”

“Yep,” Jun said. “But I have to teach you how to use the printer. You can’t be asking us to help you in the middle of the night when you need to print some toilet paper or something.”

Suatre laughed. “Sure.”

At the shop, Jun did his best to explain the menus, the categories and the catalogs. Suatre eventually got to the point where he thought he could, if needed, print some toilet paper, or tattoo machine equipment, or some clothes, not that he was running low on any of those things.

Then Jun asked for a tattoo. He showed Suatre a doodle he’d done on the back of an android order receipt. It reminded him of an old school tribal tattoo, in the shape of an eye and a weird circle…

“It’s like. A power button and an evil eye. To watch my back, like you said,” Jun smirked.

“Power button, that’s cool.” Suatre said, looking at it. “You wanna do this now?”

“Yeah. Charlie’s busy and I’m bored.”

They set up. Suatre wanted to ask if he even could tattoo a robot, but Jun’s skin felt soft and normal, and he figured if it wasn’t possible why would Jun want one? He put the stencil on Jun’s upper back, centered beneath his neck. The machine buzzed and Suatre traced the lines. Jun didn’t move, or seem to breath. He put his head down on his arms, resting against the chair’s head holder, closed his eyes.

“So um. How’d you and Charlie meet?” Suatre asked.

“Oh. Well, my last owner abandoned me at the store,” Jun said. “She didn’t like me, I guess I was creeping her out. Charlie just decided to keep me.”

“Did...did you want to stay?”

“Oh, yeah. Charlie...he wouldn’t keep me if I wanted to leave. Even though, like, human-made robots don’t have official human rights. But the Empire treats AI like sentient people, which we are. And so does Charlie, even though he’s human. He loves working on robots, and...yeah. So we ended up getting along.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah. Charlie...He’s so good.”

Suatre chuckled. “He really does seem like a good guy.”

“He never had a hard time in life. Supportive family, grew up in the union. He sees the good in everyone. Sometimes it’s annoying,” Jun said fondly.

“You seem like a good guy too,” Suatre said. The tattoo was coming along quickly despite Suatre taking his time. He didn’t want to be alone again yet.

Jun snorted. “I’m evil,” he said. “That’s why I’m giving everyone the evil eye with this.”

“Hah, you’re just short.”

“What?”

“Short people are always feisty.”

“I said I was evil, not feisty.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

They both laughed.

The tattoo turned out great. Suatre wiped it down and admired it before showing Jun, who loved it. It didn’t need to be bandaged.

Jun said, “What do I owe you?”

Suatre shrugged. “We don’t do money, I thought.”

“No, like. Can I do something for you?”

“You already did.”

“I MEAN,” Jun said, slightly exasperated, “for THIS. You should get paid something for your work.”

“Should I?”

“You have like one other client, right? What do you charge them?”

“Nothing. Never really thought about it and he didn’t offer anything.”

“That’s rude. He should. You tell him he owes you.”

“He helped me too. He didn’t have to. None of you did. I…” Shit, he was getting emotional again. “It’s the least I can do. Or the most. I don’t know. I can’t do anything except tattoo. Or play guitar, but I don’t have one.”

Jun slapped his own forehead with the palm of his hand. “You doofus, you can print anything you want!”

Suatre stared at him. “Oh...right.” Why did he keep forgetting? Shit was too easy. He wasn’t used to it.

“Ugh. Okay. Just. Chill out. I’ll find one and print it for you, in exchange for this tattoo, okay? A cool one. I’ll customize it. What kind?”

“Um. Acoustic?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yeah.” It was so hard to tell what he wanted.

“Kay. I’ll do some research and find a good one. See you later then.”

And Suatre was alone again. The rain poured outside.