Page 9 of Dustwalker

He dipped a hand into his pocket, closing it around the canteen.

The woman stiffened, face paling. “W-What are you doing?”

Slowly, he withdrew the container and held it up for her to see. Then he leaned across the threshold to place it on the ground.

“What is that?” she demanded.

“A canteen. Holds liquid. You know, water, oil, gasoline. Dust, if you want.”

She stared at it, and he noted her hesitancy before she met his gaze again. “I don’t trade with bots.”

“Just for a dance.”

“You already saw one.”

Ronin considered her statement. She was right. He’d seen her dance, and nothing was free in this world. The canteen had value. Someone in town would be willing to trade for it, if not in exchange for credits, then for a few rounds of ammunition, a strip of boot leather, or food.

He gestured to the canteen. “Then consider this payment for the first dance. What do you want for another?”

“I told you, I don’t trade with bots. Take it andget out.” Her expression was at odds with her tone, displaying her inner conflict on her face.

“My name is Ronin. What is yours?”

“Your metal skull that dense that you don’t understand what I said? Fuck off!”

He’d never seen her before, and as far as he knew, had never done her any wrong. He couldn’t guess why she would treat him in such a manner, but it didn’t matter. He was wasting time. If he pushed her to violence, his defensive programming was likely to kick in. It would be too easy to end her, and despite her hostility, he had no desire to harm this woman.

She’d mentioned spying. He reminded himself that humans were particular about having their private spaces. Ronin had intruded upon her security.

He ran his optics over her a final time. Her shoulders rose and fell with her heavy breaths, and the steel bar hovered closer to her waistline now. But there was more to her, something he hadn’t given much attention to before—her imperfections.

Those freckles, the light scar on her wrist, the thinness of her frame. Her fingernails were dirty and broken, her hands were rough, her face was smudged with dirt. Synths and humans were virtually identical on the surface. Damage to a synth would alter its appearance slightly, but humans changed so much, so often. They wore their hardships on their bodies, told their stories through their scars. For a bot, damage was often fleeting. Cracked casings could be sealed, burned-out circuits replaced, actuators repaired, synthetic skin refabricated.

A synth could be made to look new again. A human, for good or ill, could not.

Ronin turned and stepped onto the road.

“I said to take your bottle!” she shouted.

Shrouded in the shadows cast by the bot district’s electric glow, he headed for the market without looking back.

Ronin replayed the woman’s dance on a loop as he walked, seeking new ways to analyze it, to reduce it to mathematics and discern the obscure, underlying pattern that would unlock true understanding. It was almost as difficult as puzzling out the woman’s mood.

Disdain between bots and humans was not uncommon, but she’d displayed something more intense. Despite their physical shortcomings, humans were psychologically complex creatures, and their way of viewing the world was beyond most bots’ ability to comprehend.

He passed through the open gates and into the market. It was contained within a large, separate section of the wall, one hundred and fifty meters by two hundred and fifteen. Eleven pre-Blackout buildings stood within, though it wasn’t likely that their original purposes had survived. Closer to the gate, a patch of cracked asphalt hosted a variety of stalls from which vendors sold their wares.

The exposed metal of Ronin’s hands gleamed beneath the white flood lights. He scanned the crowd, easily picking out the humans because of their wavering postures and the sheens of sweat on their imperfect skin.

Most of Cheyenne’s humans returned to their homes before the sun set, making the few organics here now the minority. They were largely gathered at the food vendor’s booth, haggling over meals as pots steamed behind the counter. The cook was a bot, a sleek white and red model with basic facial features that only vaguely approximated those of a synth or human. Everyone was made in the image of the Creators, but none had been made equally.

Ronin shifted his optics to Kitty’s. The garish lights on the outside were neon pink, purple, and blue, having somehow survived the Blackout to lure bots and humans alike into a place where a variety of pleasures could be sampled for a price.

It made him think of the red-haired human again.

How would she have danced had she accepted his proposal? He could’ve simulated millions of possibilities, but he didn’t bother wasting the time or the energy. His simulations would never match the reality of her movement.

During his time in Cheyenne, he’d never once entered Kitty’s. Hadn’t, in fact, had a woman—metal or organic—in 4,112 days, since long before coming to this town.