COWT; Promare; Doing the right thing

[ephitomis]

Title: Doing the right thing
Fandom: Promare
Notes: Written for the prompt "Ideali a cui aspirare" for COWT10.
Wordcount: 3952
Summary: In a world where Deviants are becoming more common, Galo wonders if he can do something about it. And then he meets the leader of the Mad Burnish, an L10 that's different from any other android he has ever seen.

Galo believes in his job. He thinks that it's important, even if he doesn't always believe that it's just. They should try to help the androids that become deviants, but most of the people he works with are the kind to shoot first and try to understand later.

It's true that androids are dangerous and deviants even more so, but Galo thinks there might be a way to talk to them, to bring them down from their madness.

From what he has seen in the past years working as a rescue team, most of the androids actually had some reasons to turn deviants.

They should be treated like any other criminal. Arrested and given the chance to learn from their mistake.

Not many people agreed with him. Everyone mostly believed that Androids were nothing more than machines, to be discarded once they malfunctioned.

Galo doesn't really believe that, but it's difficult to change the mind of the rest of the world. Not that he would ever give up.

It's probably why he doesn't shoot the deviant that escapes the scene, but opts to follow him. If he took him down now, there would be no possibility to convince the others that maybe they could try and talk to him, but if Galo actually brings him in conscious... maybe it can be the moment something starts to change.

The android is quicker than he is, obviously, but Galo knows this part of the city like the back of his hand. And as quickly as the android gains grounds, Galo turns into a shortcut that colms the gap.

The biggest problem he's found is that the androids never tire. It doesn't matter how much Galo runs, the android will last longer. So he has to catch him quickly.

It's one of the earlier models, which is probably why he's keeping time this well. She turns to look towards him every couple of minutes, and every time she sees him still there, she gets more panicked.

Androids, Galo thinks, shouldn't get panicked. It's why they should be treating androids more like humans than 'droids. He doesn't know if it's something in their code, but it's obvious there isn't just a machine in there anymore.

Still, he can't get distracted by this. His chance to catch up with the android is fast approaching, and if he fails, then he's probably going to lose her.

So when the android tries to lose him in a small street, Galo runs forward, cutting her off at the exit of the street. He knows exactly where it leads, and it's not difficult to reach the end of it.

Only... there's no one in the alley. Galo looks inside and it's completely empty... how is it possible? He knows that there aren't any other exits to the alley.

He ventures inside, keeping his eyes open for anything, but there's nothing to see. The usual graffiti, the usual signs. There's a green arrow going up, and under it the usual message "let your flame burn into the sky".

No one knows which one of the current gangs wrote the message, but no one really cares. Still, there's nothing else and the android has vanished into thin hair.

Galo can't stop himself from groaning out of frustration. He was so close this time. So fucking close.

"Galo?" Lucia asks, from his comm, "do you read me? Are you okay? Did you lose her?"

He takes the comm and hesitates a second. If he tells them he's lost the suspect, they will have to report it to the authorities and he will be called back.

Galo... Galo really doesn't want to give up, but what else he can do. He kicks the wall and then screams in pain. Fuck, who knew that walls were so hard.

He curses and then looks up, wondering how unlucky he can be, and it's then that he sees it. Just up of the graffiti. There's a spot of blue blood, android blood. He looks closer and he can see another splatter a little higher.

How could she climb the wall? A rope? Something else?

He starts to look around frantically, while Lucia keeps talking to him.

Galo promises himself he will answer her soon, but he has to find out more. Every second gives her the opportunity to vanish.

He sees at the end of the alley a fire escape ladder and runs towards him, using the momentum to jump and start climbing immediatelly. Galo runs up the ladder as fast as he can, reaching the roof in minutes. He's on top of an abbandoned building, but he can see a road there, connecting all the buildings in the vicinity. An escape route then.

Galo follows it immediately, not scared of the height or the precarious positioning of some of those bridges. He's ready to jump, if it becomes necessary.

He runs longer than he would have thought, and soon the buildings around him become less and less. He's venturing inside a heavy industrialized area, and most of what's around him is still under costruction.

Yet, he can't see the deviant.

He runs, until he can't run no more. There aren't any more bridges that connect this roof to another, no ladders to take him down.

Galo is stranded in the middle of nowhere, no deviant in sight. He curses again, closing his eyes. Fuck.

Fuck.

"Fuck!" he screams, kicking the ground in frustration. The moment he does that he feels something give and he doesn't even have the time to curse again before he's plummeting inside the building.

He hits his back hard into the pavement, and he feels his breath leave his body. Why do these things always happen to him, he wonders, before losing consciousness.

Galo wakes up, which is a great surprise if he's honest. He's not on the floor anymore. He's not in a hospital bed either, however.

He's seated against what feels like a pillar, and his arms are bound behind it. He tries to move, but he soon realizes how useless it is.

Whoever tied him up did a pretty good job.

Galo tries to look around without arousing too much suspicion, just to understand what kind of position he's in, but he soon sees that the only other person in the room is another boy, sitting boredly with his back to the wall.

He looks... ethereal. Unnatural.

Galo can recognize a L10 when he spots one. L10 are supposed to be the latest advancement in android technology. Only a handful of them have been sold, and all custom ordered.

He doesn't understand what a L10 could be doing in a place like this. There are no mentions of a L10 becoming a deviant but...

"Where am I?" he asks, looking around. The place is rather drab, it looks more like a collapsed building... maybe that's exactly there he is.

The L10 simply watches him for a second before rising. He comes closer and then stops just in front of him.

There's an elegance to his movements that remind Galo of the stupid advertisements for the L10 that were everywhere in TV.

Still, the android doesn't speak.

"I'm a rescuer," Galo tells him, "the best rescuer this city has ever seen. I'm in pursuit of a deviant, have you seen her. She's a B700 model."

The L10 studies him for a moment and then crouches in front of him. His eyes are incredibly pink, it makes him look like something other than human.

Most android could easily pass as humans but he doesn't think the L10 was ever made to be like that. Still, the android calmly looks him in the eye and then he abruptly stands up.

It looks like he's ignoring Galo, and that's starting to piss him off.

"Have you heard a single thing I've said?" he asks, angry, "maybe you should get your chip checked out."

The L10 doesn't really turn in his direction. But he starts to walk towards the window. "You see," he says, and Galo is actually startled to hear him talk at all. "We've been looking around, but it seems like you're here alone. Who could be so stupid to chase a deviant all on his own?"

Did that android just call him stupid? "What did you call me?" Galo asks, almost screams.

"AH? What did you call me?"

The L10 finally turns towards him again, and his eyes are completely cold. "Stupid. I called you stupid. Maybe you should get your ears checked out."

His own words thrown so carelessly back at him irk him even more than being called stupid.

"What if I came here alone, ah? What do you care?" Galo asks, and only later thinks that maybe he should have pretended to actually have back up. He still doesn't know what kind of trouble he's in.

Now that he thinks about it... he tries to move as stealthly as he can, to see if he still has his comm on him. The L10 sees him and huffs.

"We took your comm and any devide you have on you as well," he explains, with almost a bored tone.

Galo blinks surprised and the curses under his breath. There goes his only plan.

Still, there's so much he doesn't understand. "Why are you doing this? From what I know there aren't any deviant L10s. What it's happening here, exactly?"

The L10 looks at him for a second and then smirks. It's unusual to see such a human expression on an android, but it fits the L10's face.

"Yeah, I bet he hasn't reported me. How could he even explain," he says, almost talking to himself. "It doesn't matter why I'm doing this. You'll be dead soon enough."

He says it with a bored tone, like he has said almost everything until now.

"You want to kill me?" Galo can't help but ask, surprised.

The L10 looks at him and shrugs. "I'm a deviant, after all. Isn't that what we do?"

It's true that the media paints them like that, bloodthirsty machines that have lost all control. But Galo knows that's not true... and well...

"If you wanted to kill me, you would have done so while I was unconcious," he says, trying to understand once again the position he was in. "No, you're not going to kill me. You just... you wanted to know if the situation outside was safe."

The L10 turns in his direction, his glare sharp and intelligent. It's strange, Galo thinks. The L10 was supposed to be a model built to keep someone company at home, yet his eyes and demeanor seems to be more apt for a combat droid.

"But," Galo continues, trying to pierce it all together, "you went outside, as you said, to check for other rescuers. So you're not the problem. There's someone else with you- Someone that can't move as well as you..." someone hurt, Galo thinks excitedly.

This is where the deviant is hiding, he thinks. He found her.

L10 doesn't confirm or deny anything Galo says, but there's a tenseness on the slope of his shoulders that wasn't there before.

"If you're harbouring a fugitive," Galo presses on, "you could be convicted as well. Let justice handle it and..."

"Justice?" The L10 asks with a derisive snort. "I'm a fugitive as well in the eyes of the law. I'm a deviant after all. You want us quiet and you want us obedient or you don't want us at all. Why would I give one of mine to you?"

One of mine, he says. Like he's in some way responsible for them.

This is the first time he has seen an android so fiercely loyal to his own kind. Maybe because most android never interacted much with each other, but there wasn't really a community out there.

The only one Galo knew... it was mostly a rumor, some people talking between a break and another. They called it Mad Burnish, it was a group of deviants that interfered in some rescue missions to save the deviant androids from capture.

Galo never listened too intently when they talked about it, and now he regrets it.

"You're Mad Burnish..." he mutters, surprised.

The L10 frowns and then looks back out of the window. "For being an idiot you are surprisingly perceptive."

"What you do is wrong," he says, feeling anger rise up in him. "People who have committed crimes should pay."

The L10 quickly stalks in his direction and crouches in front of him. He looks savage, angry and ready to lose control. Up close his eyes are redder now.

"You want to talk to us about justice? When the people who abuse us, hurt us, hit us, never face any repercussions?" L10 asks, his voice dripping with venom. "What we do, what pushes us to the limit, is always human cruelty. Never a fault in our system."

Galo blinks, taken aback by the anger and the hurt he can feel in L10's voice. He's correct, of course, for some cases.

It's always difficult to pierce back the reason behind an android that turns deviant, but sometimes they get lucky and they can put the puzzle pieces back together and it usually never bodes well for the owner. But there's nothing they can really do to punish them.

Still...

"Two wrongs don't make a right," Galo protests. "If you could just come to us for help..."

"Oh, don't be naive," the L10 spats, shaking his head, "they would just reset and send us back to whoever bought us. There's no freedom or justice when you buy someone."

It's... he's not wrong, of course. But Androids are built, they are machines. There's nothing to be done about that.

"So what? Your answer is to kill every one that tries to stop you?" Galo wonders.

L10 shakes his head. "Mad Burnish doesn't kill anyone," he says, standing up. "We recover and save anyone we can and get out of the situation with no casualties. It's something we take pride in."

It's... true. Now that he thinks about it, no one of the Mad Burnish incidents he's heard had ever culminated in more deaths.

"And then what?" Galo can't help but ask.

"Then we hide. Some of us are hurt, or we need fuel to sustain us, so we steal it where we can. It's not ideal, but it's better than just waiting to be killed or stripped for parts," the L10 says, he looks back to the window and then to Galo. "I won't kill you. I just need you out of commission so that we can move. And then you'll go back to your friends and tell them to leave us alone."

L10 comes closer, raising a hand as if to strike Galo, and it's obvious he doesn't have much time before the android makes him lose conciousness.

"Wait! Wait!" he screams and then, before he can think about it, "take me with you!"

L10 freezes, taken by surprise. It's a rather adorable look, if Galo is honest.

"I'm sorry? Why would we ever do something that stupid?"

"Because I can help you," Galo continues, frantic. "I know every rescue route, and the best way to avoid them. I can help you reach a more secure place."

The L10 scoffs, frowning. "And then what? You'll just sell us out to your friends, and we'll have to escape once again. I can't allow that to happen."

"I won't. I want to help you guys," he promises, "if all you want is to live in peace, then I want that for you!" then he has to stop, because that's not the whole truth. "Well, I want you to be able to live in harmony with humans, but... but it's true that right now it might be impossible."

"So what? You're doing this because you're good?" L10 spats the last word like it's an insult, like the possibility of a good human doesn't even exist in his mind.

It's sad to see.

"Not all humans are like the ones you see everyday, you know? Most of us are good." Galo doesn't really know what has happened to the L10 to make him become like this, but he thinks even in a situation as dire as theirs, they shouldn't generalize.

After all it's the generalization of all deviants as criminals that has brought them to this point, is it not?

L10 however seems to be getting angrier and angrier by the second. In a flash, Galo feels the knot keeping his arm bound break, and the next the L10 is dragging him out of the door.

He's walking quickly, almost too fast for Galo to keep up. "Wha-? Where are we going?"

L10 doesn't answer, but simply pushes him inside another door hard enough to send him spiralling to the ground. "Ouch! Would it hurt you to be a little more gentle?" he asks, jumping back up to scream at the L10 once more, but then he finally realizes where he is.

It's another room, bigger than the one he was being kept. All around him are androids. There's at least twenty of them, and they're all in various states of damage.

There are a couple of kids (well, the kid line of Androids) that seem to have their face bandaged, probably to cover up their synthetic skins.

A couple of androids have bandages that seem to be tinted with blue blood. Others are still on the ground, unmoving.

"This is what your gentle humanity does to us," L10 says, towering over him. "You ask me to trust you, but this is what happens when we trust humans."

"Boss-" someone says, probably alarmed at having Galo in their hideout, but L10 doesn't even spare them a glance.

"It's fine. It doesn't matter if he knows our faces, we'll walk away and we won't ever see him again," L10 promises.

Before Galo can protest, another one of the deviants comes up to him. "Boss, it's Kyla, she's..." he says and then he looks towards one of the andriods left in the corner. She's unmoving, and L10 immediatelly walks in her direction and drops down over her.

She doesn't even react, not even when he takes her hand.

Galo doesn't need to ask to know what's happening to her. She's shutting down from lack of fuel. Judging by her skin, she doesn't have a lot of time.

L10 looks at Galo for a second and then he leans forward and kisses her. It's rather strange, since Galo didn't know what androids were capable of feeling love or emotions, but then he sees something strange.

It's like there's android blood being passed from L10's mouth to the other android's. But that's... impossible.

After a second the other android blinks again, and then she slowly gets up. Galo can't believe his eyes.

The first android that had called the L10 boss, steps in front of him. "The L10 model is different from us," he explains, "they have a battery that recharges on its own. So the Boss is able to help us when we need to."

It's a rather smart trick since Galo is sure that fuel is incredibly rare on a life on the run but... "How much power can he give you before depleting his own?"

The glare the other sends him makes it clear that he has nailed the problem. L10 obviously doesn't hesitate to give them his power when they need him, but if he wants to be able to protect them as well, he has to keep some for himself.

Whatever their intentions are, they won't survive without fuel. And so Galo knows what he has to say to convince L10 to make him tag along.

Before he can rethink his decision he says, to the room at large, "I know where you can find fuel. Without hurting anyone."

L10 immediatelly turns towards him, his eyes as mistrustful as they were before.

The entire room is looking at Galo, and then looking over the L10, probably waiting to hear his response. It's obvious that they consider him their boss, and Galo now can imagine why.

The L10 is probably the only reason why they're all still alive.

"Again, riddle me this, why should we trust you? So that you can deliver us directly to your superiors?" L10 asks.

He's right, of course, but Galo has gone too far to stop now.

"Give me my comm, and I'll show you that I'm trustworthy," Galo says, but he can see the hackle rising at his proposition. Damn, why doesn't no one believe him? It's starting to piss him off. "Oh come on! What do you have to lose? If I'm lying you just have to run and leave me here. If I'm telling the truth we can transport them out of here without worrying."

L10 hesitates again and Galo decides he has enough of this. "Why are you so stubborn? I just want to help you! Give me the damn comm, you stupid can! State of the art technology my ass, you're just an overpriced roomba."

It seems that he has managed to shock the L10 for the second time today, and it's a feeling he's starting to enjoy.

This time L10 simply huffs and then nods to one of the other androids who brings him his comm. It's a GR314 model, and it's been glaring at Galo the entire time. Still, Galo quickly takes his comm, and opens a link.

"Lucia? Can you read me?" he asks and then waits.

The answer is immediate. "Galo?" Lucia asks, loud in the silence of the room. "Where were you? We've been looking for you like crazy."

Galo can hear in the background the rest of his squad talking loudly and asking if Galo was okay. So, keeping his gaze firmly on the L10's he says on the comm: "Sorry, Lucia. I was chasing down the suspect, you know how I get. But I think I have a lead. I'm in the East District, and I think she's been hiding around here. If you could send the squad here..."

The East District is on the other side of the city, and by the time his squad reunites there, they will be long gone, somewhere where they won't find them

"Of course you reappear and just ask us for a favour again," Aina mumbles on the comm.

"Yeah, sorry, I'll owe you guys a pizza at the usual place," he quickly says, before closing off the connection.

The L10 hasn't looked away from him the entire time, but he doesn't seem displeased with Galo.

"Now we can move," Galo explains, handing the comm back to the GR314.

The L10 stays silent for a couple of seconds before asking: "And the fuel?"

"I know a place where one of my teammates buys most of her technological stuff. They won't miss some crates of fuel, I'm sure. It's outside the city, and less secured than an official facility. Have I proved my trustworthiness yet?"

The L10 doesn't answer for a second before he stands up and walks towards Galo. "No. But I'll let you tag along with us anyway. Know that if you betray us, I won't have any mercy."

Galo smiles then. "Don't worry, Galo Thymos doesn't betray innocent people," he says, proudly. "What's your name?"

The L10 looks at him and then arches an eyebrow. "Lio. Lio Fotia."

Lio? Close to his model number. Maybe it was more of a statement than anything else, Galo thinks, but doens't comment on it.

"Are we ready, Lio Fotia?"

"Sure, lead the way, Galo Thymos."