31. Wallace
Wallace
Wallace gingerly changed his grip on his boyfriend’s lifeless shoulder, angled the needle-nosed pliers, and tried again.
“Please come out,” he whispered. “Please, please come out.”
It was caught on something and he didn’t dare bend it. He needed it intact. He shifted it one more time and… there. He eased the nickel out of the narrow passage, then held it up to stare at it.
It took a moment for his brain to make sense of what he saw.
What the actual fuck? This wasn’t the white nickel with the Orbit logo that he’d copied the FashionMax app to earlier.
This one was pink with a little red heart.
His gorge rose in his throat when it recognized it as the one Colton Alexander had shoved into his hand so many months ago. He’d thought he’d lost it, and good riddance.
He sent a mental apology to Max for thinking this was his fault. Max might have sent him some buggy code, but nothing like this.
This was much more sinister. But why had it even happened?
Wallace hadn’t seen Colton since that day outside his apartment building, but why had the sleazy man wanted him to have this nickel so badly? Was this even the same nickel drive, or had he slipped another into his pocket at some point?
He’d never scanned the code in the back or paid for anything, so at worst it should have given the user a prompt to pay for something online. This was… was…
Fuck.
This was so much worse than even what Colton had claimed, and that was already disgusting.
Wallace looked around on the floor, catching sight of the white Orbit drive, far too late, just under his dresser. It must have rolled back there, and Volt had picked up the creepy pink one from somewhere else instead.
Fuck. What if Wallace had actually given the pink nickel to Volt, all those months ago, in a misguided attempt to win his love? The thought was horrifying.
He knew what love was now. It was this rush of emotion every time he saw this man.
It was the way that his heart felt like it was clawing through his chest, seeing his Daddy incapacitated like this.
He plucked the pink nickel free of the pliers, then pulled out his phone to scan the code on the back. It connected him to a friendly, innocuous website where he could enter his financial information, but he wanted a phone number.
Actually, what he wanted was blood. Revenge. To make Colton pay for every horrible second that Volt was experiencing right now.
But the phone number was the most important thing right now.
He called it. “Colton Alexander,” the smarmy voice answered. “Leave a message.”
“Colton, you asshole. Volt used the pink nickel you gave me last spring, and now he’s completely unresponsive. I need the unlock code now.” He recited his phone number, probably unnecessarily, through clenched teeth.
The cost for activating the drive, if he’d chosen to do that, had been high. He could only imagine that the unlock code would cost even more.
And he would pay it, gladly. Anything to get Volt back.
Then he would sic the cops on that asshole and get him put away for life.
None of that was bringing his Daddy back, though.
Volt was still frozen, eyes unblinking, one arm crossed over his body.
He made another attempt. “Volt model three six seven, return autonomous speech functionality.”
Nothing.
No, was that…? It looked like Volt’s lip twitched.
And then he screamed, a sound that would haunt Wallace’s nightmares for the rest of his life. Not coming from Volt’s mouth, but from the speakers hidden under his hair.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Wallace whispered, rocking back and forth.
Before, Wallace had been able to hope that Volt was merely shut down, unable to communicate. But this was a thousand times worse. Daddy was trapped and hurting.
There were no rules for how long sparks could remain unresponsive and still be alright. Damage from a virus could happen in seconds. Recovery could take months.
Still, everything felt frantic. If taking out the nickel and giving voice commands couldn’t help, Wallace needed cables for diagnostics. He knew there were some at Prism, but they only had a limited set of tools.
The obvious place to take Volt was back to Orbit. There was a whole team of experts who did this kind of work every day.
Except that Wallace had quit his job today. He’d stormed out in a blaze of glory, not just burning the bridge with his father, but leaving a smoking crater in his wake.
The idea of leaving Volt there overnight, maybe even for days or weeks, after Wallace was gone, sent shivers through him.
All it would take was one little switch flipped, a little bribe slipped into someone’s hands, and the CEO of Orbit Industries could wipe out his disappointment of a son’s boyfriend for good.
Not that Wallace thought his father was a murderer, but… Yeah, he could see it happening. For the family’s name. For his father’s fucked up prejudices against gays and sparks.
No, he wasn’t taking Volt back to Orbit.
Maybe a repair shop? They would have all the tools. But he needed somebody good. Somebody who understood sparks, and not just bot repair. Someone who could hack through…
He froze as an idea occurred to him.
There was a knowledge out there who could solve anything. A knowledge and his genius boyfriend.
They both probably hated Wallace—he was sure of it—but if there was anyone he trusted to figure this out, it was Ben and Max. Oliver, if that was his name now and not someone else.
Wallace grabbed his phone, glad that it still held Ben’s number.
It rang and rang, then instructed him to leave a message.
“Ben? Um, this is Wallace Wollencroft, your, uh, ex-boss.” Oh, god.
This was beyond awkward. What was he supposed to say?
“I, uh, I fucked something up. And I really need your help. And, uh, maybe Max if he’s still there?
” Well, Wallace knew he was, but he wasn’t supposed to know.
“I think he is, but I didn’t tell anyone,” he added quickly.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know who else to go to.
So, uh, please? If you could call me back? ”
He hung up. There was no way Ben was going to return the call.
He started looking up repair shops. Maybe there were places that worked with sparks? Kind of like a doctor’s office or something?
Yes, it looked like there was one an hour away. Surely there was a closer…
He nearly dropped his phone when it rang.
“Wallace,” Ben barked.
Fuck. He could do this. He just had to… bare all of his insecurities and private life to his arch enemy and beg for forgiveness.
And then pray that Ben would agree to help him, after he’d been the one who’d nearly gotten Ben’s boyfriend killed. Hopefully Maxamillion was right, and they would have more in common than he’d thought.
“Hey, uh, Ben. I’m… I’m sorry for calling you. I’m sorry for… God, I’m sorry for everything. Tell Ol- Maxamillion that I’m sorry for everything, too.”
“You’re not forgiven,” Ben snarled, though he didn’t hang up. He just made Wallace wait in pained desperation. “But I’m listening.”
Okay, okay, shit. Here it was. Maybe if Ben wouldn’t help Wallace, he’d still be willing to help Volt.
“I need your help. Please. You and Max. I… There’s a spark.
And he’s got… I guess it has to be a takeover mod.
I took out the nickel already, but he’s still only responding to limited voice commands. ”
“Shit,” Ben swore. “Did you say ‘return all autonomous functions to independent control?’”
“Uhhh…” Had he said it that way? He couldn’t remember. He turned to Volt. “Volt model three six seven, return all autonomous functions to independent control.”
Nothing changed, and then another horrific groan filled the room.
“Fuck. Is that him?”
“Yeah. I think he’s in pain. I haven’t run any diagnostics yet. I don’t have the cables at home.”
“Bring him into Orbit,” Ben said, like it should have been obvious.
“I can’t. I quit.” That wasn’t the whole reason, but the last thing he needed to talk with Ben about was his family issues.
“Wow. Did not see that one coming. Okay, bring him over here.”
It was that easy? “Thank you, thank you, thank…”
He stopped talking when he realized Ben had hung up.
But a message popped up a moment later with Ben’s address.
Wallace already knew where he lived because the private investigators had followed up on Ben’s move out to the expensive estate just across the city line. But he wasn’t supposed to know. And he would have been way too frantic to find the info buried in his emails anyway.
Now he only had to get Volt downstairs, into the car, and across town. Without making anyone think he was doing something creepy.
Fuck. Okay. He could do this.
“Volt model three six seven, walk forward.”
For a moment, he didn’t think it would work, but then Volt lumbered forward without any of his usual grace.
That was scary in its own right, because Volt’s underlying programming was naturally sensuous.
They’d talked about it before, that Volt had to intentionally work not to sway his hips or prowl seductively across a room.
Wallace was so worried, taking it in, that he forgot to say… “Volt, stop!”
He watched in despair as his Daddy stopped a second before hitting the wall… and then toppled forward into it, one leg raised as he paused mid-stride.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Shit!
This was going to be harder than he thought.
But at least he didn’t need to say Volt’s model number. That was good.
“Volt, take one step back.”
He breathed out a sigh of relief when that worked.
“Volt, turn ninety degrees to the right.”
Jesus. This was going to take all night.
But at least it was a response. At least they were going somewhere.
“Volt, walk six steps forward.”
They made it to the hallway.
Wallace pulled out his phone, instructing his car to leave its parking spot and meet him at the elevator doors of the garage underneath his building.
Then he called down to the front desk and explained that he would need to leave the car there for a few minutes to help a friend, his mind scrambling frantically the whole time.