Page 130 of Dustwalker

Ronin followed her into the corridor. The tail of her coat drifted behind her as she wove through the hallways with surprising speed.There were fewer people than before in the large chamber, and different soldiers patrolled the catwalks. The woman led Ronin into the passageway with green paint marking the floor.

After walking through another collection of labyrinthine corridors, they finally arrived at a doorway withInfirmarypainted on the wall beside it.

They entered a low-ceilinged room that was divided by curtains hanging from metal rods. Ronin counted forty such partitions, only six of which were closed.

Narrow, neatly made beds stood in the open sections, surrounded by pieces of equipment similar to what he’d glimpsed in the unused rooms at the Clinic. The machinery for bot repairs in the far corner looked more advanced than anything in Cheyenne.

The woman led him to one of the closed curtains. A soft, steady beeping came from within.

She stopped at the narrow gap between the curtains and turned to Ronin. “You need to understand that she’s still in serious condition. She’s stable, but that can change any moment. She’s got a broken arm, fractured ribs, several lacerations, and severe bruising. The swelling should go down in time, and we don’t believe her vision will be affected.”

Ronin nodded and moved to step past her, but she stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest.

“You also need to know that she suffered head trauma. She’s in a coma. We don’t know when, orif, she’ll wake up.”

Ronin’s processors halted, either unable or unwilling to assimilate that information. If he’d listened to Lara and left Cheyenne when she’d first suggested it, if he hadn’t insisted on one more run, if he hadn’t allowed himself to grow so complacent that he’d missed the countless signs of danger all around…

The woman sidestepped and opened the curtain. Ronin walked through.

Lara’s hair caught his attention first. It was clean and woven into a braid, standing out in bold contrast to the white bedding. Dark bruises marred the pale skin of her face. Both her eyes were swollen, a four-centimeter-long line of stitches marred her left cheek, and her left arm was splinted and wrapped against her chest in a sling.

Apart from the shallow rise and fall of her chest, she was still, and she looked so slight in the pristine bed surrounded by medical equipment.Though a blanket covered her abdomen and legs, he knew the flesh hidden beneath was mottled with bruises.

His optics followed the tube in her right arm up to a jar of liquid suspended on a pole beside the bed before shifting to the monitor displaying her heartrate. Its beat was slow, but steady.

Gently, he placed his hand over hers. “Don’t leave yet.”

Lara didn’t respond. Seconds dragged into minutes.

“I’ll get you a chair,” the woman in the white coat said, drawing Ronin’s attention to the open curtain. Had she stood there the entire time?

“I don’t need to sit.”

“I’ll get one anyway, in case you change your mind.” Stepping back, she took hold of the hanging cloth. “Talk to her. It’ll do her good to hear a familiar voice.”

The woman closed the curtain, and her soft footfalls faded as she left the room.

Squeezing Lara’s hand, Ronin brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. He trailed a fingertip over the tiny patch of uninjured skin on her cheek.

“Remember the ocean, Lara? I asked you what places you’d like to see, and that was your answer. You didn’t even have to think about it. I’ll take you there once you’ve recovered. You can dance barefoot in the sand to the music of the waves and collect as many seashells and bits of driftwood as you want. We can watch the sun set over the water and pretend we’re the only two people in existence.”

He struggled to picture it in his head, to piece together images from his memory to create the scene. How content would they be if they were the last two survivors?

But the images eluded him, and the logical part of his mind listed the myriad challenges such a scenario would pose. How could he guarantee her food supply, or proper medical care? Would she be saddened if she never saw another flesh-and-blood person, if she never knew what it was like to carry a child, to see a family grow around her?

Another part of him set those concerns aside, if only for an instant, and saw the happiness, the intimacy, the companionship.

He loved Lara, and it didn’t matter if his emotions had begun as a simulation, didn’t matter if they were still classified as such. Whatever they were, whatever people like William Anderson called them, Ronin feltthem.

He stroked the back of Lara’s hand with his thumb. “I spent a long time searching for my purpose. For my core programming. All of us were made for a reason.” He chuckled. “It’s not a reason I would have guessed…but it doesn’t matter anymore. I found what I was looking for before Newton told me any of that.

“It wasyou, Lara. You’re my purpose, you’re my reason for carrying on, the reason I haven’t sat down in an abandoned building and never stood up again. I don’t think I’m selfish, normally, but I need you. I only just found you, and I don’t think I can go any further without you.”

Her only response was through the steady, indifferent beeping of electronics.

Twelve minutes and fifteen seconds later, the woman in the white coat returned with an ancient-looking chair. The cushion was flat and ragged, but the metal frame was solid and rust-free. She quietly set it down several feet from the bed and checked the equipment.

Reluctantly, Ronin sat on the chair to keep out of her way, fixing his optics on Lara’s unchanging face. It would take no effort to call up his memories of her dances, or the first time he’d heard her laugh, or any of the hundreds of moments with her he’d forever cherish, but he refrained. What would reminiscing bring other than more pain? The past was gone, and it could never be reclaimed no matter how impeccable his recall.