PART III: LOVE OF SPROCKET AND OF JUAN

chapter I

           

            The unconventional summer rain beat down on Katie’s window like little fists that tried to pound their way inside. It rarely rained this time of the year, at least not here, not in Humboldt. Katie wasn’t sure what to do. It was past twelve o’clock, and here she was, wide awake, a feeling of hollowness in her bones. She sat up to get a drink and startled when she spotted Sprocket sitting outside, rain rolling down him in tendrils. He was tending the charcoal and ashes from the brass fire pit, which they were sitting round, hours ago.

            Katie wasn’t sure if robots ever felt “cold” or “hot”, but something deep inside her made her want to wrap a blanket around her robotic friend. She put some water in the microwave, set it to a minute and twelve-seconds (the perfect time to warm water up for tea, in her opinion,) and waved halfheartedly outside. Realizing she was waving to his missing optic, she went to the glass door and tapped. His head turned and he frowned.

            “Be right back," the young human woman whispered through the thick, glass-paned doors. Walking on the balls of her toes, she went quickly back to her room, pulled on the old pair of Wellington galoshes, and threw a bathrobe over her light pink pajamas.

            Beep, beep, beep. Her water waited for her, so she tiptoed back to the kitchen. Sprocket had seated himself on her porch, which was use to his wear-and-tear and was missing its handrails because of the old bot. Waving a finger in the air, Katie put a bag of peppermint tea in her steaming glass, and then joined him outside.

            The rain was colder than she thought, and she winced as it rolled down her brown hair. “Hey Sprocks,” she said softly. “I made some tea.” She lifted the glass, offering it to him, but he just sighed. “You know that stuff won’t settle with me,” he said, scratching the bald spot on his back:  the burn. The memory.  Katie couldn’t look at it, trying her best to keep her eyes on the robot’s one hazel optic. “You’ll catch a cold,” she said.

            “I can handle more extreme colds than this. You get back inside. You’re the one susceptible to the weather, remember.” He smiled a little. “Meet me in the front lawn.” She turned from him, but paused to look over her shoulder. “Okay?”

            Sprocket chuckled a little. “Okay.” He knew his story had affected her. It had affected him, too. He hadn’t told anyone that story. Could she comprehend that his emotions were just as complex as hers? He already knew Katie knew the Decepticons were evil…should he had told her just how far down the rabbit hole they could go?