Yes, please? / Timothy

Did he just ask me if I wanted orange juice?
At this point, I was ready to believe that I'd dreamt the last several minutes of my life; it'd make more sense that way.
A strange young man had blown away my boyfriend, hit him with his car, kidnapped me, walked me through his little bunker, and was now offering me orange juice.
I halfway resigned myself to the dream.
"Uh... Yes, please?"
He awkwardly handed me the cup. I didn't take a sip.

Now that he'd extended me some kind of weird courtesy, he seemed to shake himself of whatever awkwardness he'd been wearing, and looked me straight in the eye.
"You'd better sit down; I should explain things," he said. I wasn't exactly ready to argue, and sitting down actually sounded like the only way I wasn't going to go crazy.

We sat down at a tiny table in what barely passed for a dining room. He gave himself a moment to compose his thoughts, then started to speak.
"So you saw all the books, right?"
"Yeah; what kind of super-commando are you?" I asked in a sarcastic tone.
He smirked. "Nothing of the sort." He paused for a moment, apparently slightly disturbed at my joke. "Those books are what I use to help people."
Of this I was skeptical. "By shooting them?"
"By shooting their robot boyfriends," he snapped back, with a distinct "you stupid ungrateful girl" tone.
I suddenly stopped. Stopped talking, thinking, and breathing.
Timothy was a robot?
It sounded so stupid that I wanted to laugh, but I couldn't. I'd seen the false skin torn away from the shotgun blast; I'd seen the metal fibers that made up his muscles--I always thought he seemed strong.


I'd forgotten until now: why I was running; why he was trying to kill me.
I'd just spent most of the day hanging out with Gina, my oldest and dearest friend. After a day of nothing but girl time, I figured I should randomly drop by my boyfriend's apartment and pay him a visit; he liked that--or at least I thought he did.
He lived alone; I always thought that was weird. He was only eighteen and barely out of high school, but was somehow already supporting himself. He worked a normal teenager's job at a grocery store, and everyone seemed to like him a lot. People sometimes told me that he seemed a little distant and melancholy, only brightening up when I was around. We all took that to mean that he really liked me.
His place wasn't too far from Gina's; I just walked. After all, it was a warm San Francisco afternoon; why would anyone not want to be outdoors? When I got to his apartment, I saw that his door was cracked open. He never left his door open like that; he was way too careful. I saw his car parked outside; he was definitely there. "Timothy?" I called, slowly opening the door. He didn't answer me, but I saw his shadow in the doorway of the bathroom; he had his hands near his head as if he was putting on a bandage or something. I was worried that he might be hurt, so I walked over. When I finally walked around the doorway, I saw his hands adjusting something on the inside of a metal panel. In his head.

He turned and saw me, completely surprised. I don't know how exactly he didn't hear me before; maybe because of whatever needed adjusting in his head?
For a moment I felt like I was looking at one of those optical illusions that messes with your depth perception. How could that stuff be inside his head? What on Earth am I looking at?

I was more than a little jumpy at this point. I hadn't realized it, but I was already stepping back in confusion. Nothing was clear; none of it made sense. What wasn't unclear was his expression: it shifted from the surprised look of the boy I'd adored to the vengeful look of someone completely different. He was staring at me with a scowl, as if he was about to jump forward and choke me to death.
I ran.
I got as far as the parking lot across the street when he caught me.