Page 15

Chapter fifteen

Simon

Simon could feel Nora and Tilly’s excitement as they loaded the hover. With him helping, the sun had barely hit late afternoon by the time they had gathered what Nora declared, “A good haul.”

In the back of the hover lay the items he had collected. He resisted the urge to reorganize the components Nora stacked in the back, his natural tendency toward organization clashing with the way she loaded. He was not heated from the sun but saw Nora was. She wiped her brow frequently as they put the last bit of the wiring in. The wiring, at least, he was able to coil into a long, neat loop. It sat next to Tilly, who was busy putting her seatbelt on.

Nora handed him the two sealed books once he was seated back on the container in the hover. “Here, these are too important to go back there. Can you hold them?”

“Yes.” The books were transferred over to his lap.

Nora started the hover and sat for a moment, drinking some water. She pointed with the canteen toward the books. “Are those any good, those books? I know we need to sell them, but I like to . . . we only have a few books to read ourselves. Nothing like old stories like that.”

Simon looked down at the weathered packaging, the inside barely readable through the yellowed plastic. One was on finance and the other was a self help book with a dove flying away on the cover. Are there even doves anymore? He held them in front of him, finger resting on top of the dove. “No. They are both more like manuals instead of stories.”

The hover rumbled as they started to pull away. Nora shook her head. “Well, I guess I feel better having to sell them then, and won’t be tempted to try to read them. The radio stories can get kinda bland sometimes.”

“I know some others I could share. Stories.” The words left his mouth before he could pull them back, but he didn’t regret them when he saw how Nora’s eyes sparkled.

“I bet you do. We have some things. Songs mostly.” She hummed an unfamiliar tune, bending over so her voice carried to the back.

Tilly joined in, singing loudly over the hover's engine as the miles began to fly underneath.

The song made him smile. He listened to their tune, committing it to his memory processor. Their joy is infectious. Simon couldn’t help also feeling positive despite the conflicting feelings he had from seeing the mall.

As they drove back, he noticed that the drone from before was hovering over them again. He frowned, scanning its dusty green metal side as it flew overhead. It really does seem to be following.

Nora wasn’t paying attention to it though, so he didn’t bring it up again, enjoying the sound of them singing. He continued to watch the drone out of the corner of his eye as its shadow followed them on the ground. What does it want? Eventually, he breathed easier once it left, as swiftly as it came, across the desert afternoon.

He sat in quiet contemplation the rest of the ride back. Seeing the mall and where he hid brought a finality to his thoughts that was not there before, along with a sense of acceptance that he was truly living in a different time and a different reality. Ultimately, he was an android, so he was predisposed to be logical, but with his sentience there was always a bit of incongruence when strong emotions came into play.

This trip, seeing the larger world, also allowed him to think about what he wanted to do going forward. Helping Nora and Tilly happened automatically; his subservience instinct was strong even without his limiters. But later? After he figured out more?

What do I want to do now? What should I do now? That remained the ultimate question.

He pondered it as Nora drove him back to her house and Tilly sang from the backseat. Tilly moved onto singing the theme song to Princess Pearl and the Dastardly Three and Nora kept the beat on the steering wheel.

Warmth spread throughout his sensory inputs while listening to them. His eyes softened. They are joyful. These two. Whatever I do later on, I do not regret helping now. He looked ahead, out the cracked windshield of the hover, lost in his thoughts. After all, I owe Nora for waking me back up.

Nora patted his arm, jolting him back to awareness. He felt a small heat spike from her as she did so, which made him tilt his head toward her in confusion.

She spoke loudly, over Tilly’s singing and the engine’s humming. “Simon. Did you go to that mall often to know where everything was? Are there other places nearby you can maybe look on the map that were good?”

“All over. Everything was built up.” He pointed at the wreckage lining the sides of the road. “Every place you see destroyed was once a house or a store. It’s just a matter of if the building was big enough for anything to remain now, and if it’s still possible to go inside.”

“Yeah, everything is all twisted up and useless.”

Already Simon was beginning to feel detached from the ruins, as if the past was truly gone. “The dust shifting and blowing has buried a lot as well. Your house is up next to the mountain, protecting it, which is why I expect it survived better.”

“Huh, never thought of that. Makes sense though.” Nora’s hands tapped on the steering wheel before she asked, “Are you okay, after seeing the mall today?”

Am I okay? Her concern confused him. He didn’t know how to respond. “It was difficult, but really it helped in a lot of ways. Made everything feel more real.”

She reached out to pat his arm again, quickly, and that same heat spike followed. “I can only imagine.”

When they got back, Nora waved him down, stopping him from unloading. “We’ll just keep this here for when we go to town in the next day or so. It’s later than I thought. Let’s rest tomorrow and then go into town soon.”

Tilly climbed out of the hover with much less energy than the morning, even as she raced back to the house to catch her radio program. Simon followed, but turned as Nora’s voice floated to him from where she walked a few steps back. “Phew, I’m tired too. You tired? You did most of the climbing around.”

Again, her checking in with him was unnerving. Simon’s brows knit together, trying to make sense of it. “I’m an android, Nora. I do not feel pain or tiredness.”

Nora rubbed her face. “Oh right. Need to charge or anything?”

They crossed the threshold from the garage to outside. Simon closed the door before Nora could. “I’ll grab one of the solar cells on the way in.” He peered at her closely. “You do appear tired. You haven’t eaten since the morning.”

“Yeah, I’ll make something real fast.”

They walked in through the front door, the radio already playing in the other room. Nora poured a cup of water. She offered one to Simon first and then poured a cup for herself and drank it, wiping her face a bit with her hand where the water spilled out of her mouth in her haste. His eyes lingered on the movement.

Simon watched next as Nora got out a saucepan and some potatoes, then started a pot of water, cranking up the heat so it would boil over a little burner connected to a battery.

“Can I help?” he asked, seeing her cut the potatoes into chunks.

“Sure.” Nora moved to the side and flashed him a smile. “Let me get Tilly some water while you do that. She didn’t drink enough today with being in the heat. She’ll get a headache.”

Simon took over Nora’s spot with practiced ease. It was comforting, in a lot of ways, just slicing the potatoes and adding them to the pot. Nora came back a few minutes later, changed into a soft tank top and pants, her face washed and ready for bed. By then the food was almost ready. Well, potatoes at least. He was used to cooking much more elaborate meals than just potatoes for dinner. Fancy meals that would sometimes take hours. The potatoes seemed inadequate as he scooped them out to mash.

He scanned the countertops, coming up blank. “Do you have any seasonings?”

“Uhh . . .” Nora opened one of the cupboards, sliding up close next to him, her body touching his side and making him shift away. “Some salt, yeah. Got some freeze-dried butter too.” She mashed the potato on a plate and salted it before holding the plate out. “Want some? Not much for your first meal, but you did say you could eat? How does that work?”

Simon looked at it before pushing it back to Nora. I can’t take any food from her. “You have it. I can use the batteries and you can only eat this.”

Nora didn’t seem offended as she took the plate to the table. “Okay. Wish I could use batteries too.” She took the other serving to Tilly in the other room and then sat back at the kitchen table with Simon and a ration bar to add to her meal. “I usually eat with Tilly, but sometimes the silence is nice while she listens.” She ducked her head. “I know it’s simple, but potatoes are just great.”

Simon snorted, seeing the relish in Nora’s eyes as she dug in. “Yes, they are.”

In between bites she pointed at him with her fork. “You said seeing the mall helped earlier. Helped to make it feel more real. Is everything seeming more normal to you now?”

Simon didn’t know how to answer, watching Nora eat. He went with the truth. “Not really. If anything, it only gave me more questions.”

Nora’s voice was soft in return. “I wish I had more answers for you.”