5. The First Night

Their first night camping outside of the human settlement, it poured.

ATLAS and P-body squeezed together under one of the larger trees, rain sliding down its leaves and the roofs of the human settlement before them. The tree barely provided enough shelter for the two of them, the rain falling around them in a curtain.

ATLAS stuck out a hand, and flinched as the first raindrop hit. But the water slid harmlessly down its finger, and ATLAS's tense expression softened.

Together, the robots placed down their portal guns and stepped out in to the clearing.

The human settlement was nearly silent except for the falling rain. It bounced off the robots at odd angles, sliding down their wide-open optics, and when they looked to the sky they could see every individual drop splayed around them. Their feet sank in to the earth as they walked slowly and deliberately, arms rigid and optics constantly seeking every dark corner.

Just behind ATLAS, P-body stepped in to a puddle, the splash nearly silent underneath the rain, but still startling. Both robots froze in place.

But no humans stepped out of their homes, and no houses stirred with light. ATLAS chirped experimentally, and when it was greeted only with silence ATLAS chirped yet again, motioning to the puddle.

P-body raised and lowered its leg, splashing again. It was a larger splash this time, spraying water on to ATLAS's face. ATLAS leaned down and drove a fist in to the puddle, splashing P-body back.

The two robots ran circles around each other, laughing and splashing, both by this point completely soaked. Whether their bodies could even handle this much water, or if the human beings would hear them and awaken, never once crossed their minds. They fled around buildings, hiding and seeking and exchanging gleeful trills from across the row of houses, their footprints leaving spiraling, playful trails.

As they passed them, they looked inside the human's homes, peeking through pane-less windows at the settlement's sleeping residents. Their chests rose and fell, they turned and squirmed and spoke in their sleep.

They stopped playing when the rain stopped, the sky lightening to deep blue instead of black and the air quiet enough to hear every piston in their bodies move. They met up in the middle of the settlement, and looked once more to the houses around them. They were sturdy buildings, despite the rain, and the robots wondered how they were built and what they were built with. They wondered how these humans lived where they did, and why-

A light flicked on. Startled, ATLAS and P-body ran back in to the forest, grabbing their portal guns and running deep enough in to the trees that they could hardly see the rest of the settlement light up.

And though they spent the entire day shaking water out of every space in their bodies, though the humans in the settlement looked with worry at the robots' deep footprints in the mud, ATLAS and P-body were content.