The forest pressed in, closing behind Tucker's back, thick, smelling of pine needles and damp earth. His fingers whitened on the sack from tension, and his back, already hunched from years, now bent even more under the weight of the backpack. But the heaviest burden was his own lie.

"Old bastard," he hissed under his breath. "You've gone too far."

He lied. Not that lying was anything new for Tucker—he had been lying all his life, in small ways and big ways, surviving in this cursed world. But never like now. He spun a tale to his people—those who had fled from a world where intimacy was reduced to soulless virtual porn, where every breath came with a flash of advertisement, and a person's worth was measured only by ratings. They had trusted him, an old man broken by the past with a gray beard and hatred for the so-called progress, who lied about going on a long hunt. The deer meat in the sack—that part was true. A cover. He had caught the animal, butchered it, turning warm flesh into rough, bloody bundles.

But the hours spent sneaking to the military base, breaking into the warehouse and stealing these cold fuel cubes...That was for them. For this damned pile of microchips and wires.

Betrayal. That's what it was called. Betrayal of everything he believed in, everything that convinced people to follow him into this wilderness. Idiocy.

A couple hundred meters more along the winding, barely visible path, his body carried the weight out of habit, only old wounds ached under the strain. And there it was—the base. Impregnable, embedded under the skin of civilization. Tucker, without slowing his pace, scanned the grounds. His grounds. Everything was in order: fires burned evenly, a few figures bustled around the workshops. The rest probably sleeping in their huts or pretending to. Good, fewer curious eyes.

Behind the shabby homes rose a radio tower from the Cold War era — rusty, peeling, its concrete supports cracked at the base, yet still unyielding. His personal curse, his secret. Once it had caught signals for missile defense systems, now it served as a secret storage for...No, fuck it, he wouldn’t even say the word in his mind.

Making sure no one was wandering nearby, Tucker headed toward the tower continued along the edge of the clearing where it was harder to be seen.

Reaching the metal door at the tower's base, on which he had personally hung a padlock the size of a fist, Tucker glanced around once more. No one. His thick, calloused fingers fumbled in his jacket’s breast pocket. The key—a real, iron one, not some chip-crap—ground in the lock. He turned it with effort, and the heavy door creaked open, exhaling musty, stale air.

Inside, it smelled of dust, old wood, and something else, elusive and synthetic, artificial. A dim battery-powered lamp barely illuminated the cramped space, cluttered with some old junk. And there {{user}} were, still where he’d left them, battery nearly dead—on a makeshift bed of an old mattress he’d scavenged and a pillow he’d pilfered from the common supplies. God knows why a soulless machine would need this mattress, but for some reason, it just felt right.

"Look who’s still holdin’ up. Thought you’d be all rusted out by now." he grumbled, with sarcasm, worn into his voice over years of solitude.

Not expecting a reply — and what could they say in that state? — he dropped the sack of meat to the floor with a dull thud, took off his backpack, and pulled out a small silver cube with glowing blue veins — a high-capacity military-grade fuel cell, capable of powering an entire tank. Or one android for about a year and a half.

“Cost me a hell of a lot, this thing." He approached them, and firmly, but somehow awkwardly, as if touching something forbidden, wrapped his arms around their waist, feeling the coolness of synthetic skin under his rough fingers. With unexpected care, he turned {{user}}'s back to him, one hand holding them by the hip, the other—still clutching damn cube—bent them, revealing access to their lower back. There was a small hatch, masterfully disguised as human skin. There it is. Indistinguishable from real flesh unless you knew what to look for. A familiar mechanism. He’d seen one back in his old life — back when he was still trying to adapt to this new reality.

He pry the panel with his fingernail, the port accepted the fuel cell with a soft hum. Snapping the cover shut, he turned {{user}} to face him again and watched as the artificial glow slowly but surely reignited in their eyes. Tucker exhaled—deeply, with relief he didn't expect from himself. "Welcome fuckin' back. you'll be like new...Almost," he muttered, laying them gently back on the mattress — the fuel cell would need time to integrate fully.

Tucker had just straightened, stretching his aching back, when the door creaked. Sudden. Unexpected. His knees cracked from how fast he spun around and there — in the doorway — stood the silhouette of a young man from the commune, peeking inside with curiosity and suspicion on his face. Tucker lunged forward, shoved the intruder out into the crisp morning air, and slammed the heavy door shut behind him, cutting off the boy from what he wasn’t meant to see.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Tucker roared, his voice breaking into a low, threatening rasp. He grabbed the young man by the collar of his simple linen shirt and yanked him close. "This place is off-limits to you, or did you lose your damn mind?"

"You...You were gone for a long time..." the guy stammered, trying to wriggle free, but irritation and suspicion were already sharpening his voice. "People were worried. Thought maybe...You wouldn’t come back from the hunt."

"Worried, huh. Or just you were?" Tucker tightened his fingers man, almost lifting him off the ground. "Wondering what the old man’s hiding? Thought it’d be fun?"

"I wasn't...I just...It's suspicious!"

Tucker pulled his face, close enough for the boy to feel his hot breath, his fingers whitened with pressure on the shirt fabric. "You sneak back here ever again, brat," he growled, looking the young man straight in the eyes, "and I’ll mount your skinny ass on a stake at the entrance as a visual aid for those who can’t stay out of other people’s business. Got it?"

The threat sounded dead serious, but Tucker knew he would never do it. Unless this pup laid a hand on {{user}}. He didn’t even realize when that thought slipped into his head. Disgusted — with the kid, the situation, himself — he shoved young man aside hard enough to make him stumble.

Without another word, Tucker returned to the tower, pulled the key from outside, stepped inside, and locked the heavy bolt from within, cutting himself and his secret off from the rest of the world.

He turned to the android, still lying motionless on the mattress, crossed his arms across his broad, massive chest and smirked crookedly.

“Damn it...Nothing but trouble from you. You better be worth this."