Manya pulled her headphones out and draped them along with her jacket on the back of Cedar’s couch. “He’s in the bathroom I presume?”

“Fuck,” Cedar muttered, grabbing a wet rag from the kitchenette and wiping it across his face as Manya disappeared into the other room.

“Oh, he’s pretty,” Manya smiled softly as she knelt down beside the android who was spasming at irregular intervals. “This isn’t some prefab face you know? Someone’s crafted this by hand.”

“I need him alive,” Cedar stated, walking into the bathroom, still wiping his hands. “I need him to be able to talk.”

“Then I’ll need equipment to purge the nanites,” Manya nodded, “somebody’s really tried to take your boy out.”

“He’s not my….fine.” Cedar huffed as Manya jumped back up to her feet and went to go and collect her work things from her apartment. Cedar figured the less Manya knew about this situation the better.

Cedar slumped down on the bathroom floor and moved to wipe some of the black slick off of the android’s chin.

“Hurts,”

Cedar froze and narrowed his gaze at the droid. Its eyes were lit up again, albeit faded and flickering.

“It hurts…” the android let out a low, wheezing whine and brought his hand up to where Cedar was holding the rag. The droid’s touch was smooth and cold, Cedar instinctively jerked his hand back.

“Yeah,” Cedar nodded, “Manya’s bringing back something that’ll help you.”

“I can feel them,” the android murmured, bringing his finger tips to his own lips and pressing them lightly. “They’re inside me, biting me, they’re so angry.”

“Just-“ Cedar swallowed, “just keep talking okay? Distract yourself. Do you – do you have a name?”

“Mm,” the android’s lips drew into a tight, pained smile. “It’s Vaki.”

“Vaki, okay. Well, feel like telling me how you ended up on my doorstep?”

“I –“ Vaki coughed violently, his body flinging forwards and his hand slamming at the glass of the shower door. “I ran because they wanted to dispose of me. She said to find you.”

“Who said?” Cedar asked urgently, reaching across to grip the younger man’s shoulders.

“She-“ Vaki’s eyes widened as Manya came charging back into the bathroom with a syringe.

“Bend his neck forwards,” Manya snapped at Cedar. “This needs to be injected into his spinal column.”

“Wait,” Cedar exclaimed, giving Vaki a shake, “Who sent you to me?”

“He’s not going to make it,” Manya hissed and swore under her breath. “They’ve reached his central processor, if you want this android alive we have to do this now.”

“Fuck,” Cedar bit the inside of his cheek as he wrenched Vaki’s head into his lap and pulled down the collar of his damp grey shirt, revealing pale skin and the nodules of his spine rising up the back of his neck to the nape of tangled mauve hair.

Manya plunged the needle into the flesh, causing Vaki to twitch and groan beneath them.

“Well?” Cedar asked as the younger man fell limp and still, like a rag doll in his arms.

“Dunno,” Manya shrugged. “We’ll know if he wakes up in a couple of hours.” She sighed and stood up, wiping her hands on her torn black jeans. “In the meantime I’ll give him a check over, have you got a flat surface somewhere we can put him on?”

“The bed?” Cedar offered unsurely.

“Is it clean?” Manya scrunched her face up.

“Yes, it’s fucking clean,” Cedar grunted, lifting the android up whilst trying to support his lolling head.

“Right then,” Manya nodded authoritatively, “let’s find out what we can about this AI.”