"Of course," Jude said, feeling a little strange that Nyx had asked him that, "And there are no cameras out there!"
Grinning from ear to ear, Jude grabbed Nyx's hand, feeling the excitement pull him closer and closer to the door.
Looking around the corner, he did a quick check to make sure no one was out and held the door open for Nyx.
"Go ahead." He laughed.
Nyx stepped outside, eyes going wide as he looked up at the sky. "Is it usually so…big?" he asked slowly, standing rooted to the spot as he looked up at the sky. He wasn't used to this. He was used to four walls and a roof and a floor, not…this. This seemed endless in comparison, even though he knew it wasn't.
"Always," Jude said, "You should see it at sunset," Crossing his arms, he leaned back on the side of the building.
"It gets real sweet." He felt like he'd done something good, This is right. Jude nodded, watching as Nyx took in his surroundings.
(gtg back to bed now lol. good night!)
Nyx clenched and unclenched his hands, staring up at the blue sky in wonder and amazement, his blue eyes wide. He took a few steps out into the empty parking lot, still looking up at the sky, not at the dirty, cracked asphalt beneath his feet. He had no shoes or socks, the cold metal of his feet hitting the pavement.
Jude watched Nyx step out into the open, so curious, like an animal caged in captivity for so long.. he didn't know how to react. All he knew was that he deserved to live life as he did. Jude pulled out a cigarette from its pack and lit it with a loose match from his pocket. "Pretty, right?" He smiled to himself.
Nyx blinked, and glanced over at him, nodding a little. "Yeah." He said softly, then looked back up at the sky. He looked around the parking lot, and walked over to a streetlight. Studying it for a moment, he climbed up it, hanging from it in nearly the same way as a sailor might hang from a ships rigging.
Jude grinned as he watched Nyx hang from the streetlight, the same way the actors did in Singing In the Rain, and old musical he watched as a kid. He looked up to the sky, trying to feel a similar sense of gratitude and childlike wonder.
Nyx kept his head tipped up to the sky, a faint smile on his face. It was almost heartbreaking, that someone already 18 years old was so in awe of the sky. That someone already an older teen had never seen the sky before. Heartbreaking, that what most people took for granted, he had been desperate to see just once.
Jude stood, thinking, wondering, pondering what it would take for Nyx to be able to function and live freely on his own. It would take a lot of 3D printing, that's for sure. But Jude knew that these were the steps he'd need to take to give Nyx his own life, outside of the facility.
Nyx stared up at the sky for a long time. A plane flew overhead, and he jumped down from the streetlight, and looked over at Jude. "What's that?" He asked slowly, looking back up at the plane and squinting at it.
"It's an airplane." Jude replied, "They're piloted, carry people and cargo across long distances." He laughed, flicking ash onto the pavement and remember all the solo flights he'd gone on as a kid when his parents would go on vacation, and he'd stay with his grandparents in Florida.
Nyx narrowed his eyes for a moment, thinking, then nodded quickly. "Oh. Alright." He replied. He sat down cross-legged on the ground, eyes still fastened on the sky as if he couldn't get enough of it. As if he was a starving man set in front of a feast. He didn't want to stop.
Suddenly, Jude had an idea. Flicking his cigarette butt on the ground, he called out to Nyx,
"Hey, go inside for a sec, I wanna show you somethin'." Jude skipped over to his parked car, a matte black Porsche, gifted from his father, unlocking it and grabbing his backpack from the passenger side.
Nyx frowned a little, then went inside. He had been programmed to follow instructions, even if he didn't want to. So he did, going back inside and waiting for what he would be told to do next.
Jude watched curiously as Nyx went inside without hesitation, but shrugged it off, hurrying back inside with his bag, already unzipping it. He skipped through the door and from his backpack, produced his laptop, covered in stickers.
"You know what this is, right?" He asked.
Nyx nodded a little. "Yeah. It's a laptop." He replied, cocking his head a little bit. "Why?" He asked, looking at Jude, then the laptop, then Jude again. He was standing with his arms by his sides. His eyes darted to the door, then back to Jude and the laptop.
"I want to show you some stuff," He said, signing in and clicking on his browser icon.
"Type in anything you want, it'll show you." Jude nodded, "I was thinking, you could use this until you get to see the real thing."
Nyx's eyes lit up, and he smiled as he did what Jude had said to. "I…thank you." He said softly, looking up at Jude for a moment, then looking back at the laptop. He kept his touch gentle and very, very light, since he didn't want to punch a hole through it with his fingers.
Jude watched as Nyx hands danced gently across the keyboard, almost like a piano.. He thought, Piano!
Turning back to his bag, he took out a small notebook. He flipped to a page titled "Things to show Nyx" which he'd started the night before. So far, he had written Titanic, The Notebook, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Tupac, The Beatles, Picasso, Other Art, Jude clicked his pen and wrote down Piano Before handing the notebook to Nyx.
Nyx looked at the notebook, and then typed in "Titanic". He cocked his head a little bit, studying the results. "It's…a big ship." He said, arching an eyebrow. "Sailed in 1914, was famous…uhm…one of the most disastrous naval accidents in history…" He trailed off, reading through the overview of it that Google had pulled up.
"No–" Jude laughed, turning the laptop in his direction and additionally typing in- The movie.
"It's a film, really nice– won a bunch of awards, and has a really cute lead actor." He laughed, not specifying whether he was talking about Leo or Kate. "I think you'll like it."
"Oh." Nyx nodded a little. "Are we watching it now?" He asked, raising an eyebrow and looking up at Jude curiously, holding the laptop gently. "Or do you mean later at some point?"
Jude shrugged, "I dunno, you could watch it now if you like, I gotta make a phone call to get your pod down here."
He pulled out his phone from his pocket, the newest model, of course, and scrolled through his contacts, walking to a far corner and finding the name, "Jeremy (from high school.)"
(I won't be super active tonight. I got something going on)
Nyx felt strangely disappointed by that. He didn't know why. He had…sort of thought that Jude would watch it with him. That they could maybe be…be friends? That was the word, right? But he should have remembered. Maybe Jude was being kind, but in the end, Jude was rich and fully a person, and Nyx could only ever be an experiment. He looked down at the computer again.
(don't worry bout it)
"..Yeah man..you too." He laughed before hanging up. The moving guys would be here in a few hours, so he had time to kill. He looked over at Nyx and suddenly remember what else he'd bought. "Oh! Right." Jude exclaimed, skipping over to his backpack, digging through and pulling out a giant blanket, intact, and wrapped together with some thread cables. "I came prepared!" He laughed, waving the giant loaf of fluff over his head.