They get back into the car, where Rayner leans forward and slaps a button on the dash. Hale wedges Ophelia carefully between his feet. The car starts with a trilling harmony of beeps and self-drives out of the lot and back onto the highway. Due to a combination of urban sprawl, extreme traffic congestion through the most expedient routes, and a long detour on account of construction, the GPS states their ETA is nearly 36 hours from now.

Rayner pulls up his HoloPhone to connect it, saying, "What kind of music do you want to listen to?"

Hale shrugs. "What do you like?"

"You'll be sorry you asked," Rayner says, selecting something on his phone. "This was my fave band growing up. They're called Gator Rats."

A cacophonous rage of shrieking vocals, synth overtures, smashed drum kits, and laments of electric guitars that deserved better fills the car. The unholy union of electronic and screamo blares through the speakers at decibel levels proven to damage human hearing. Hale jumps, it's so loud.

"I advise turning down the volume if you'd like to avoid tinnitus."

Rayner laughs. "That's half the point, isn't it? What do you think of it?"

As apologetically as he can, Hale tells him, "This is not music. This is noise."

Rayner bursts out laughing. "Fair enough. It's not for everyone. You can just tell me if you like something, all right? I'll flip between different channels. Here, let's try this."

He taps another playlist on his HoloPhone and the feral screams of the Gator Rats gutter out, replaced by a catchy, garage rock bass line. A man's high, creaking voice croons, I'm gonna fight 'em all. It's old—from the turn of the century—but far less offensive to Hale's ears.

"Better?" Rayner asks.

"Better," Hale confirms.

While it plays, Hale diverts some of his attention to the alteration of his appearance. It's one of very few areas of Hale's programming in which he has editing privileges. He tweaks the settings for hair colour and length, adjusts the measurements and parameters for his facial features. It gives him a jolt of excitement as the nanobots come alive under his skin to carry out his commands. The changes to his code are immediate, but the changes to his face will take the better part of an hour while the soft-structures grow and redistribute. Impatiently, he pulls down the car's sun visor to appraise his reflection in the mirror. It doesn't look that different, except for a few silver hairs and the wounded forehead.

He swats the visor back into place and swivels his chair a little to face Rayner, who swipes busily through his HoloPhone, queuing up songs for the journey. The soft, electric blue light of the car interior catches on the edges of his profile, on the wrinkle of concentration between his brows and jut of his lower lip. Everything else about him seems perfectly at ease.

Hale judges it a good time to ask the question he'd withheld at the rest stop.

"Rayner?"

"Yeah?"

"You're very calm for a man who just committed several crimes and joined a rogue android in a life on the run."

Rayner does look up, then. He wiggles his eyebrows. "Maybe I'm a thrill-seeker, and you just don't know me that well yet."

"That is my point. I know very little about you, but I have some inclination that you aren't all that you've told me. You seem to know a lot more about androids than you implied at our first meeting, where you supposedly didn't recognize me for one."

Rayner doesn't look shocked by this accusation. His lips quirk in the small smile Hale finds characteristic of him when he's pleased with Hale's deductions. "You calling me a liar, Hale?"

Rayner has lied on a few occasions, but this tone implies the question is rhetorical.

Hale persists. "I think, given our situation, it's fair to ask who you really are."

"Well, my name really is Rayner. Aside from that, it sounds like you've already got an idea. So why don't you tell me what you've figured out thus far, and I'll fill in the gaps?"

"Okay," Hale says. "When you invited me over to repair my hand, I encountered extra encryption on your computer. Cyber security features like that aren't uncommon, but they're most prevalent in corporate settings and government operations. Not personal home computers."

"True enough."

"You credited Theo with the knowledge base for my repair, and then later, with the chip that unshackled me from Melissa. However, Theo's expertise in robotics doesn't extend to software. She said so. The hack chip would have required knowledge of computer programming and a great deal more in exploiting software loopholes. It could be that an anonymous third party provided Theo with that side of the technology, but just now you said the failsafe we encountered in my programming was a surprise because it hadn't occurred in previous models. Implying you've had experience with previous models and hacking their symbiont links in the past."

Rayner nods with a smile. "Guilty. Any other slips you want to point out?"

"Your ability to manipulate your BioCyber Implant's programming was the final giveaway. I believe that otherwise covers the basis of my suspicions."

"Well, you're right." Rayner says, folding his hands together in his lap. "I'm a hacker. Theo specializes in android upgrades. Some legal, some not so much. Occasionally, she asks me to collaborate with her in designing upgrades that require coding modifications or hacks. My skill's mostly limited to bugs and exploiting the bank accounts of rich fucks, but I've helped her a few times. I never actually met up with her or any of the androids she upgraded, though. You're the first."

Hale considers this explanation. It all seems plausible, and Rayner has little reason to lie now that Hale's Network blocks prevent him from reporting the crimes. He finds Rayner's disdain for the rich fucks intriguing though.

"What do you do with the money you steal?"

"I'm not stealing," he says with a cheeky grin. "I'm redistributing wealth that was ill-begotten in the first place."

"Redistributing it where?"

"Charity. Randoms. Online fundraisers for the average Joe in debt up to his eyeballs from uni loans. Enough for me to live by. Why?"

Hale's cultural reference files draw an immediate comparison. "So, you're like Robin Hood."

Rayner winces. "That makes it sound so uncool."

"Sorry," Hale amends. "I think it's very...cool." The word sounds alien on his tongue, and it earns a slight snicker from Rayner.

Hale doesn't have to consider for long whether this changes his assessment of Rayner's character. Through every major hurdle in Hale's short existence, Rayner helped, though it benefited him not at all. In this case, he's likely put himself in great danger. Stealing an android is one thing. Cyber crime of the magnitude he'd just implied was quite another.

If he gets caught...

Hale has to ensure that doesn't happen. The idea of Rayner suffering for Hale's sake is discomfiting. Unacceptable. It dredges up a question Hale can't bring himself to ask aloud. Why do all this for him, when he's just an android?

"If my programming offered me the choice, I would not report you."

Rayner grins. "Thanks, bud."

They spend the rest of the trip listening to different music, Rayner meticulously filing Hale's preferences into a playlist. He brushes off Hale's attempts to reassure him that he can listen to whatever he likes, Gator Rats included.

Hale does his best to push protein bars and potato chips on Rayner to keep his energy up, but by midday this becomes a lost cause. After an increasing number of yawns, Rayner reclines his chair and says, "Might be good to get some shut eye."

"I should inform you that you're unlikely to get quality rest in a car seat," Hale says. "We should find a motel."

"Joke's on you. I never get quality rest," Rayner says, curling up as much as his gangly legs can manage in the confines of a car.

"That's hardly reassuring. We both need quality sleep on your part in order to function," Hale reminds him.

"We'll be fine for now. I'd rather get some distance between us and the police investigation we might have churned up back home. At least for now, anyway."

Hale frowns disapprovingly, which Rayner seems to find funny.

"Don't pout. We'll stop on the other side of the city, okay?"

Recognizing their need to escape the notice of the authorities, Hale relents, but he monitors Rayner's vitals closely. Normally, this would be a source of comfort to him. Instead, he finds a creeping annoyance ticking up like an egg timer set to wail as he waits, and waits, and waits for Rayner to fall asleep. Rayner's breathing and heartbeat fail to lower adequately. His cortisol levels remain the same, and he rolls over a number of times. After a span of nearly 45 minutes Rayner seems, if anything, more awake than he had while sitting up and yawning.

Eventually, the egg timer in Hale's head goes off. It's been too long.

"You aren't sleeping."

Rayner opens his one brown eye. "You watching me sleep?"

"No, because you aren't sleeping. You're lying there," Hale tuts.

"I've got insomnia," Rayner tells him matter-of-factly.

For once, Hale has a pre-programmed set of responses for that, under the subroutine 'difficulty sleeping.'

"There are several things I could do to assist you."

Rayner props himself up a little, rubbing his eyes. "Of course you can. Okay, have at it. What've you got?"

Reclining lazily with a foot up on the car dash, Rayner tilts his head to regard Hale with a curiously raised brow. It causes an unexpected swell of emotion in Hale's chest, ever expanding, but burning too. Gratitude, he thinks, as he compares it to his human counterparts.

Rayner rescued him. The likelihood of having a benevolent hacker next door to pull him from the depths of a hopeless situation seems infinitesimal, but here they are. At the thought, Hale feels a prick of something sharper. Shame. Guilt. Because if Hale had been capable of serving Melissa properly, they'd never be in this situation in the first place.

He hadn't managed to do right by Melissa, Hale thinks, but perhaps it's possible with Rayner. He considers his digital catalogue of sleep aids for a moment, discounting the ones their current locale make impossible and ranking the others in effectiveness. The one that ranks highest also gives him the most pause.

"You okay?" Rayner asks.

Even as fast as his thoughts go, Hale's pause is a little too long. He gives his head a shake. "Fine. I have some ideas."

"Okay. Go for it."

Hale rotates his chair and shifts to sit on the edge of it, facing Rayner. He tries for a seductive air, leaning over to place a hand on Rayner's chest. Rayner goes stalk still. His heart rate shoots up as Hale runs his hand down lower, careful to ensure his touch is firm enough not to be ticklish, slow enough not to be jarring. For a brief moment, he thinks it's worked. Rayner's pupils blow wide, colour rises to his cheeks, but then he bolts upright and nearly garrottes himself on the seat belt.

Yanking Hale's hand away from the waist of his jeans, he chokes out, "What are you doing?"

Hale feels the pricks of that shame and guilt resurfacing. This isn't how it ever went with Melissa. "Orgasm prompts the release of hormones that aid sleep. Oxytocin, serotonin, norepinephrine..."

Rayner's jaw drops a little, his freckled skin flushed. "Huh?"

"Sexual stimulation could help you sleep. I've been programmed with knowledge of homosexual as well as heterosexual interaction, if that's what worries you."

"You're prescribing a road-handy to help me sleep?" Rayner says. Behind the incredulity, there's a note of...embarrassment? Timidity? Arousal? Fear? Hale can't place it. Perhaps it's all four.

"Yes," he answers plainly.

After a pause, Rayner pushes Hale's hands away, though more delicately this time.

"Uh, Hale? Do you actually want to do that or are you just doing it 'cause if I don't go the hell to sleep, you can't function?"

Hale staggers through a litany of programming hiccups while a bubble of frustration inflates in his chest. This—helping Rayner sleep—was meant to be simple. A pre-programmed solution to a problem, finally, and still Hale can't manage it. The failure feels like a physical blow.

"I don't understand. I'm supposed to serve you."

"It's—no—you don't have to serve me. Especially not like that! I mean, sex is like... I guess it can be a favour sometimes, but when you say it like that, it just sounds like I'm—" Rayner flails a hand, his cheeks going even redder. "Takey-advantagey! Of you! No, no handies. Let's try something else, okay?"

Hale nods his assent, but he logs the interaction away for later examination anyway. That could not have gone more poorly if he'd planned it that way, and he finds the failure both frustrating and discouraging.

Without pause, he returns to the list of potential sleep aids. Accessing the car stereo, he uploads a number of ambient tracks to dampen the sound of traffic and the hum of the engine. Hale flicks through the tracks one by one, waiting for Rayner's approval. White noise. Bird song. Ocean waves. A heartbeat. Campfire crackling.

Rayner perks up. "I like the campfire one."

Hale nods and adjusts the mix to one that emulates the spit of low embers, with the accompanying song of crickets. At Rayner's prompting, he adds a low, howling wind to the background. He finds the mix slightly ominous but relaxing too.

After that, he turns up the air conditioner a little, covers Rayner with his jacket, and deepens the tint of the windows to block out some of the sunlight. For his part, Rayner looks bemused and less unsettled by their previous interaction. It pains Hale to have done something so wrong already, but he determines to make up for it however he can.

"Hopefully now I'll get some shut eye..."

"There's one other thing, if you're comfortable with it," Hale says.

"Hm?"

Hale becomes suddenly aware that he's chewing his lip. A habitual holdover from that first moment he'd encountered Rayner in the garden nursery and hadn't known what to do. The idea of suggesting something Rayner might reject scares him. He'd thought to offer platonic physical contact. A massage. A hug. Holding his hand. These all could result in the release of hormones similar to sex, albeit on a smaller scale.

His predictive algorithms can't form any conclusions about whether Rayner will react positively, though, and for once Hale isn't sure he wants to find out by trial and error. He's encountered so many errors...

Smoothing his expression, he tries to sound unconcerned. "Never mind. Perhaps later."

Rayner mumbles. "Mkay, yeah. I'm feeling sleepy, though." He pauses, peeking over the collar of his blanket-jacket. "Thanks, Hale."

That makes Hale perk a little. "You're welcome."

True to his word, Rayner begins to drift off fifteen minutes later. After twenty minutes, he's fast asleep.

It's not a total victory, but it brings Hale a small sliver of peace.