Page 22 of Dustwalker

“I don’t know.”

“I needto know.”

“And I don’tknow. You’re a bot, you see his cronies in the market all the time.”

“I’ve never been to the market with you. There a reason they’d look at you different than anyone else?”

She dropped her gaze. “They don’t like humans.”

The rain filled the silence between them. Ronin’s processors would melt before he figured this woman out. With the way she’d reacted to him when she’d first realized he was a bot, her refusal to trade with him because of what he was, and this aversion to Warlord’s enforcers…

“What did they do to you, Lara?”

She was close enough that a slight move of his arm could’ve settled his hand on her hip. How would she respond to such contact? Why did he want it? She’d suffered, somehow, and something hidden deep in his coding directed him to touch her, to holdher, to comfort her until she felt better.

“They didn’t do anything to me.” She lifted her chin and met his optics. “There’s nothing to talk about. We going, or what?”

Ronin curled his fingers into a fist and let it hang at his side. No touching; that was one of her conditions. Perhaps he’d been hasty in agreeing to it. She was hiding something, but what could he do about it?

Watch her dance and provide for her. That was the deal.

He resumed his walk, leading her through the gates into the market. The large, heavy steel doors of a shipping container had been used to build the entrance, and Ronin had yet to see them closed.

They moved past the scrapper’s and half a dozen vendor stands, with Lara never more than a single stride behind him. She said nothing,and that was concerning. The woman hadn’t let so much as ten seconds pass between her protests while he’d carried her back to her dwelling. Her silence now couldn’t be good, especially given her obvious anxiousness.

The gap between them increased only when they passed the food vendor. Ronin glanced over his shoulder to see Lara stopped, staring at the food with her bottom lip curled in and caught between her teeth. Was she still hungry? He recalled the way she’d eaten the dried meat, thougheatdidn’t seem a strong enough term.

There was no food in his dwelling, and that was amongst the most basic of her needs. How had he failed to realize that sooner?

He returned to her side, surveying the stand’s selection. “The meat was the only food I had. Choose some more to bring.”

“But…this stuff costs credits,” she said, not taking her eyes off the bot working the stand. The red-and-white bot’s head was elongated to mimic some sort of hat. It was slicing a carrot, its knife rising and falling onto the cutting board quickly enough to sound like the report of a distant machine gun.

Crates of produce filled most of the counter—carrots, cabbages, potatoes, and onions were in abundance. More dried meat hung to one side, over what he assumed were smoked cuts of pronghorn and goat. Behind the cook, two pots steamed on a stovetop.

The bot stepped toward Lara. “Good evening,” it said pleasantly, the blank space where its mouth would have been lighting up subtly with its words. “My name is Greene. How may I assist you?”

“That a nickname?” Lara asked.

The bot’s optics dilated. “I do not understand your query.”

“You’re white and red.”

“No. I am Greene.”

“There’s nothing green about you.”

The vendor’s optics adjusted again, shutters twisting closed and then opening slowly. “Good evening. My name is Greene. How may I assist you?”

Lara stared at the bot for seven seconds before turning to look at Ronin. Her eyebrows were creased, and her nose was wrinkled. She’d clearly not dealt with AIs of Greene’s class before.

“Just order some food,” Ronin said, keeping a smile from his lips.

“Anything?”

He pulled his rifle strap more securely over his shoulder and dipped a hand into his pocket, drawing out a few chits.

“Enough to get you through tonight and tomorrow morning.”