F41L//S4F3

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

The gun jumped between his hands as he sat there. Every once in a while his thumb played with the safety. On. Off. On. Off. It took no more than a squeeze and the electronic lock registered the pressure, the grooves of his fingerprint scanned. "Engaged. Disengaged." The little automatic voice chirped up, it being the only other sound besides the metal of the gun colliding with his palms as he hot-potatoed the thing. His leg was restless as it bounced up and down, his heel never actually striking the chipped tile floor. He'd have to get that looked at eventually. Jamie knew a tile guy, he thought. Or at least he said he knew a guy. Coulda been some kinda family connection where he'd get a finder's fee. Or just some shit heel sitting on plaster and a few dozen stolen stacks of porcelain.

Probably the latter. Jamie was always kind of a cocksucker in that regard. "I know a guy" he'd insist, and the guy would always end up being some kinda bastard who could barely be described as human, let alone decent. Real "IQ and chromosome count match" kinda fuckers, to put it impolitely. Not that there was anything wrong with them on a human level outside the fact that the third thing that lined up was the number of teeth. Just... not exactly humans. Maybe rediscovered troglodytes. Neanderthals brought back by cloning, maybe. Who could say?

"Are you in there?"

The voice was feminine and vaguely digitally artifacted. It- She knew he was in there. The door was locked and unfortunately she no doubt caught a glimpse of the open foam-lined case now suspiciously missing both magazine and firearm that sat on the office table. It was a moot question, no doubt one designed to try and talk him away from the finality in front of him. The ever-staring abyss of the gunmetal barrel. He could still walk away. Drop the unloaded thing on the floor, stand up from his perch on the scratched toilet seat cover, unlock the door, and step out into the arms of the singular thing that hadn't left him. It would be harder than the alternative. To choose to live. Choose the nightmare of living over the sweet, sweet, silence of eternity.

No more hearing the neon hum outside his window. No more hearing his beloved glitch slightly and twitch. No more wall-to-wall rug that he could never get completely clean. No more drippy sink. No more nagging work or shithead customers that only looked through him instead of at him. "Yeah." He finally spoke up, turning his head away from the tool of finality in his hand to the wall mirror. When had he gotten so old? His beard and hair had grays in them. His eyes, dull and hollowed out from a lifetime of being reminded just how worthless he was. "I'm still here." He turned to look at the door, watching the handle jiggle as it- she tried to open the door.

She had been gently trying since she spoke up, but the object in his hands commanded more attention. " 's locked, y'know." He could FEEL the groan. "And I could just rip the door off its hinges, y'know." She could. He'd seen it happen once and that time was when he fell asleep in the shower standing up and She had gotten worried. She ALWAYS worried. He had been assigned Her as a form of "mental wellness checking", they said. "Barely know it's there", they lied. He knew better now. He remembered joking about "going to do it" and an unfamiliar voice crackled from Her of some 988 reject who was more interested in quota than people.

"If I hafta do this, we're not getting the same door people." She said, testing the handle again and finding it just as locked as it was thirty seconds ago. "Now are you really the type of guy who's gonna make his cutie patootie repeat this thing?" Her metal nails tapped on the metal door in a Tickety-tickety-tickety-tickety rhythm ever more growing louder and in an ever-increasing staccato until, thankfully, She relented. He heard her slump against the door, head making contact seconds after her back as she slid to the door, making a slight pumpf sound as her shiny metal ass met disco wall-to-wall carpet.

"I'll outlast you." She chimed in an almost singsong voice. "You'll get hungry sooner or later." "Not if I get a hankering for .45 ACP aspirin." Bang. Fist on the door. "Don't joke like that." "S-sorry." It was reflexive but even He knew that he had a nerve.. circuit.. whatever.

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

The gun jumped between his hands as he sat there. Safety on. Off. On. Off. "Engaged. Disengaged. Engaged. Disengaged."

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The watch on her wrist slowly, agonizingly, counted down the seconds of the standoff. Kachoon, went the door and She found herself now lying flat halfway into the bathroom. "Hey, you." She said, unable to hide the twitch at the corner of her metallic mouth at seeing Him, even if he looked like one hundred seventy-some odd pounds of refried shit. "Keep this away from me for a bit. I don't like the things it says."

Click. Clack.

The gun hit the tile and sat there.
Safety on.
"Disengaged."