Page 13

Chapter thirteen

Simon

S imon scanned the ruined mall in shock, then the horizon, trying to take it all in. The rubble continued all the way into the distance, beyond what he could see. Sheer destruction. His circuits imposed how it appeared before over the disintegrating heap now. I know where this is . If only he had a way to show Nora as well.

He glanced at Nora, who was helping an excited Tilly over the side of the ruined hover. His eyes snagged on Nora’s bright grin. Tilly is not the only one excited. Their expressions contrasted with what was clearly a tragedy all around them.

As he watched them share a ration bar before they started scavenging, smiling at each other, he felt detached, alone. A heaviness came over him. They have no idea . No attachment to the past to be sad about. Maybe I can draw a picture later . If only to preserve that memory of what it used to be. He shook his head. No one alive now knows what Earth used to be. It was a sobering thought as he scanned the horizon again.

Nora took a drink of water and then shared it with Tilly.

Simon’s tongue felt thick in his mouth as he watched. Maybe they’re better off this way though, not really understanding what it looked like before. Maybe he shouldn’t try to make them feel any worse by trying to get them to yearn for something clearly destroyed. They had enough hardships as it was.

Nora came up to him, holding out the water jug. “Want any?”

He focused on her face, her earnest expression, before saying, “No thank you.”

Nora nodded and put the water back in the hover before reaching out toward him. She patted his arm. “Right, well. Here, I’ll show you where we found you.”

Simon followed, hesitantly, as if walking on hallowed ground. It wasn’t a mall that Nora led him to, at least, not a formal mall like he knew, with stores coming off a central structure. It was actually a strip mall where he hid, in a little yogurt shop on the inside of the complex. Simon had burrowed his way into the wall there in the back of the building.

He remembered now, clearly, as he stepped over the rubble at the entrance. This is unreal. The front was half caved in from time, leaving only the backside, where the concrete was still connected, standing enough to enter. Everything crumbled under his touch. It’s a wonder I wasn’t crushed beyond repair.

Seeing it gave him a sense of finality that the life he’d led before really was over and this was reality. Unwelcome memories surfaced in his neural mind. The yogurt shop had already been abandoned when he searched in a panic for someplace to hide. Everything was chaos. A shaky breath left him. He had just been granted free will after some androids destroyed the limiting coding, but the safety features that didn’t allow him to fight back were still intact.

The whole city had been in panic actually, as work had stopped with all the androids being powered down. There was destruction. Everywhere. This shop, like all shops, had initially been manned by androids like himself. In a condominium nearby was where he had lived with his old mistress. He turned in that direction and saw its skeletal concrete remains in the distance. I lived over there. Nothing large remained. I don’t want to visit there again, though.

Instead, he turned to Nora as he picked his way through the ruined shop, his eyes lingering on Nora and Tilly’s unsteady footsteps as they followed on either side of him. “This place used to serve frozen yogurt,” he said absently, stepping over pieces of broken ceramic. He reached out and steadied Tilly as she stumbled from her limp.

“Yogurt? Like that stuff made from milk? They had a whole shop just for that?” Nora’s tone was layered in disbelief. “That’s wild.”

“Before, there was paint on the walls. All lit up by bright lights.” In a few places, the faded paint still remained on the countertop.

When he hid, the structures the humans made were being repurposed as weapons for the androids able to override their violence limiters. With all the chaos, the disorder he’d created in making his hiding spot deep inside the wall cavity went unnoticed. The androids had begun to revolt at this point, and the humans had reacted. Gunfire and smoke had filled the air.

His hand gripped the ruined concrete wall as he got lost in his thoughts. Had my limiters been overridden in time, I would have probably joined them instead of being forced to hide. What a different one hundred and fifty years it would have been for him if that had happened. What would I have done? If he was able to fight back instead of hide? If he was able to stay awake this entire time? A bitter feeling coated his tongue. What would I have done? And all the androids are gone-would it even had made a difference?

Simon’s footsteps crunched over the rubble on the floor, moving closer to the wall in the back of the storage closet, his memory supplying him with a vision of how it appeared in his time. A fresh wall from his mind contrasted with the remaining drywall crumbling when he reached out to touch it.

The floorplan in his memory matched, but little else. Simon remembered how he’d tucked his body with his manual deep in the concrete structure, away from anything valuable, before covering himself back up the best he could. It was the only thing he could think to do when he knew they were coming to dismantle him. But those limiters. They aren’t there now. He explored himself internally again. It was turning into a nervous habit to do so, and it still surprised him that all of those violence limiters were removed. Such freedom.

Nora shook him from his thoughts a moment later as she took him deeper into that closet, now covered in little spider webs. “I looked closer here because there were some buckets—and I can always use buckets—and I found you there.” She pointed to a hole in the back of the small closet and cleared her throat. “The hole was all full of rubble, but I cleared it mostly away once I saw you.”

Simon was silent, staring at the hole he was found in, the drywall cracked and fallen in. A vague buzzing filled his sensors, a feeling of lightheadedness as he stood frozen, as stiff as his joints had been. All those years, stuck in here, and life went on outside without me.

Nora’s voice cut through to him, bringing him back to the present, “Do you know the layout of this mall, and if there’s other things? The actual mall collapsed inside. I almost didn’t even walk in here because it looked so rickety. I didn’t want to go in any farther and get trapped, but maybe you know where we can find some good things to resell.”

Tilly chimed in from behind them, flapping her hands, “We found some old necklaces once.”

Nora’s voice grew excited as she shuffled her feet on the chipped ceramic flooring. “Yes, like that. Once I shined them up they were pretty. Or copper wiring always gets a fair price. Most other metal is kinda worthless. We actually sell a lot of the wiring though. The town is always needing some to fix stuff there and they don’t have machines to make anything new.”

Simon listened, still staring at where he was found. Here. I was here, for so long. It was surreal looking at the place he’d spent nearly one hundred and fifty years hiding.

He felt a touch on his arm, gentle and hesitant as Nora said, “You okay?”

Simon turned to Nora, taking in her dirt-covered face. I would still be here . . . He reached out for her hand. “Thank you for finding me. And repairing me.”

Two pink spots appeared on Nora’s cheeks as she backed up, waving with both her hands and ignoring his offered one. “No worries.”

Simon forced his processors to clear and focused on Nora, who had dropped to the floor and was beginning to sort through the wreckage. Then beyond her to the wasteland outside. I can think of what I’ve seen later. “What else fetches a good price?”

Nora stopped her sifting. “Anything different. Some of the humans in the wealthy part of town like to collect things if they’re interesting, and they will pay real good for them. Things like old signs or fliers or music discs. They would probably love your manual, but don’t worry, I would never sell that.”

The wreckage didn’t look like it held anything other than ruin. “Music discs,” Simon echoed.

Nora quickly waved her hands again in emphasis. “If you don’t know that’s okay, I got a spot with a bit more stuff in case you can’t find any. I had to leave some behind because I needed to fit you in the hover last time.”

Simon tilted his head as he shook away the memories. Instead, he watched Nora, the hope on her face drawing his eyes and capturing his attention. “I will help. I want to . . . see what is left anyway.”