...For One more Day With You

The brief moments he was without Thomas were the longest five minutes of his life...And the walk he had to do as he waited for the flames to consume his life (which, blessedly, they did) was the most arduous task he'd ever overcome. Eventually, Guy, in all his misery, collapsed in the sand, a blackened naked husk. The last thought that went through his overheated, abused RAM, was why, why did he let Thomas leave him?

...And upon death, Guy realized he loved his silver headed companion...He loved him and he'd allowed him end his own life...

---
Two and a half days after the signals had been sent the pickups were finally arriving. As they'd expected, Joie was nothing more than little bits and pieces but strangely he was put into a convenient pile. The small vessel hovered just above the sand as the movers flew out, gathered up the pieces and placed them in a slot. Every little piece was important. They hovered in the middle of the slot, securely stored, as the movers replaced themselves on the pickup vessel and it went about it's business again.

The next signal had come from some miles away and it was rather scratchy, suggesting that the robot had damaged itself along with throwing its switch. As the pickup got closer, its operator saw strange black marks in the ground. The signal was strong from some of them. The pickup lowered and allowed the movers to collected shattered pieces of a Gold's, most likely Félicité's mask. The movers stayed out as the pickup slowly followed the black trail. Eventually it came to an unusual and unexpected sight; A Gold robot had, probably, set itself on fire and fell in the sand, severely burned and blackened. It's face was turned to the side slightly and it's arms and legs were outstretched. The movers gathered him up and put him in the slot next to the self destructed bits the Silver robot and the two hovered next to each other as the pickup flew away, back towards the robots' town or origin; Tenor.
---
The pickup arrived and two boxes were delivered, one box went east, the other west, a wall was put between them. When Joie's remains arrived in the reconstruction facility, three or four Silvers went to work on him immediately. Several bits of the pile were loaded into a heating vat filled with the remains of hundreds of other Silvers who'd chosen to use their kill switches around the same time. Not every part can simply be remolded, however. such pieces, like the RAM, the central Controllers, the ALU and the AUX memory boards had to be repaired, which was possible, surprisingly. The kill switches were designed to simply break down and scatter the body, not necessarily destroy it. If all of the parts of a robot are separated, it cannot function, similar to any other machine. Once Joie's memory bits had been restored and cleaned, they were put into place and left suspended. Eventually his head piece, usually called the mask, was remolded and tagged with his pre-determined expiration date. This is arguably the most important date of a robot's life. It is decided for them and most robots expire within a century or more of their construction. If they are important or successful enough, they can request an extension. However, it is likely that Joie's fellow countrymen will never find him that important.

Within the hour, the casing was completely remolded and the new extremities were almost finished being constructed and wired. Joie's memory parts, some of which go in the head, some in the torso, were clipped inside the working insides, the moving arms, legs and spinal array. His ports and wires were then added. Finally he was given his shiny new casing, complete with a flat, blank panel on the back where his kill switch used to be. Each robot from Tenor (and some other towns) were only allowed the use of ONE kill switch.

A Silver rolled Joie on a dolly to a recharge bench. They, with the help of a coworker, sat him on the bench and plugged him into a reformatter (just to make sure he would start up once the bench had completely charged him and that his limbs and joints would all work properly). They left him like that because they had other people to reconstruct.

Joie would wake up alone in a crowd.
---
When Thomas finally woke up he found himself in a well lit facility sitting amongst several other Silvers. A bot next to him gave him an encouraging look but he just looked at his lap. He couldn't stop thinking about Guy. He was pretty sure that it was the first word he thought upon entering his new body. Guy was alone, he'd left him that way. Was he still alive? Still walking through the desert outside Aria? He quietly hoped that Guy had not flipped his own switch. If he did, then he too would have to wake up alone in this much hated town, their home town Tenor.
---
As fate would have it, Guy DID wake up in Tenor, but on the Gold side of course.

When Félicité's remains arrived at the Gold reconstruction center, several robots there were already working tirelessly. Many people had taken their own lives in that week alone and they did not immediately have time for him. It was troubling news considering that this was the fourth centicycle that Silver suicide rates were noticeably lower than Gold. If this trend did not change soon, a ban might be put in place.

Eventually, an overworked Gold in need of an oil changed DID approach the unusual charred remains of Félicité in the rather poorly lit room. For some reason, the Gold death workers operated better in low lighting, though it did give a bit of a scare to the Golds who rebooted in this dark setting.

Félicité's body then went through a procedure that almost perfectly mirrored the Silver's. He was left to charge on a bench and felt only sadness upon rebooting. He knew where he would most likely find Joie and he wanted to hurry. He left the facility with many optical units following his gate.
---
It was interesting being naked again. Félicité could hear his rectangular metal feet clacking against the pavement as he walked. He walked miserably through the segregated town. He didn't even bother looking at the graffiti of Silvers being killed and burned, all the epithets denouncing the shiny robots on the other side of the wall. He just wanted to leave, quickly. He had been given a new registration card, one that showed he'd already committed suicide once and had been made completely fire proof as a result. His first card had likely melted in the fire.

He just wanted to get to their place.
---
Joie sat quietly on the bench outside Tenor. The ends of the town had check out stations. The rules of most countries on the planet dictated that one could only leave their town once they'd acquired a profession and could get paid. Outside the Gold and Silver check out stations was a sign post with two arrows; one completely Silver pointing to the east and one a brilliant Gold pointing west. There were no words on this post as none were needed. There were also two benches. Likely, one was meant for Gold and the other Silver but the two friends ignored that as did most everyone else who used them. Joie heaved a sigh.

Then he noticed movement off of his peripherals.

The young Silver looked up to see his greatly longed for friend. The Gold was just standing there, awkwardly scratching the back of his head as if he could actually feel it.

Joie leaped up and hugged his friend. Félicité returned the gesture.

"Don't ever kill yourself again, Joie!" He whimpered.

"I'm sorry, I did not mean to leave you alone." He responded.

"It was unbearable."

"I'm sorry, Guy-Man." He repeated himself. His friend separated from him abruptly.

"NO. Never again. Don't ever call me that again." The Gold seethed.

"Why not? I thought you liked that name?" The Silver asked.

"Not anymore. Your urge to make us human only amplified our suffering. We should just accept who we are and try our best to be happy together. My name. Is. Félicité."

"B-But Guy-Man-"

"Félicité-6-51-081! That is my name!" He shouted, his fan activating from all the anger. Joie stared for a moment, hurt.

"...Yes. Joie-6-51-223. I'll stop calling you by your human name." He sighed. Maybe it was just a dream. A childish one at that. He reached out and gripped his best friend's hands tightly. As long as he had Félicité, any happiness that being human could possibly give him paled in comparison.