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Chapter twenty-eight

Simon

A beacon beckoned Simon in the dark, a yellow light flashing outside of the kitchen window where Simon sat, working on parts from the smaller spare hover while Tilly and Nora slept. They were in a deep sleep tonight, worn out from that sickness yesterday that seemed to leave as fast as it came. Tilly’s tiny body was next to Nora’s, who was scrunched to the side. The solar AC kept the room cool and they both shared a large blanket.

That light. He knew the beacon was from the drone that had not left the house the entire day yesterday while Nora and Tilly recovered. It had hovered high above as Simon took care of the outside chores, happy the pair of them were content to remain inside and just rest, still weak from their illness.

He wanted to observe the drone further before he worried Nora by telling her about it, knowing they needed to sleep. The whole day, he’d worn his shirt that he washed, despite Nora’s protests that she would get to it, to cover up his arm. He’d kept an eye on the sky and tried to connect the whole day.

He decided to ignore the beacon, watching it blink outside, while he felt for a signal. Now, sitting at the table, the encryption from the Mars billboard he’d been puzzling over in the background connected—without his doing—as he worked in the silent night on the hover parts. The link wasn’t fully open, however. The encryption still retained some barriers.

“Come outside, Simon,” a voice said from outside the window, right where the beacon shone.

That doesn’t sound hostile, at least. Simon frowned and stood to walk outside in the night. There, he was unsurprised to see the drone hovering in front of him, eye level.

“Are you going to reveal yourself now?” Simon asked. “Are you friendly to us? Or a danger?” He tilted his head as he questioned the drone, his eyes tracking the minute movements as it hovered. It knows my name and can clearly communicate. He crossed his arms, a very human gesture of impatience, as he waited for the hovering green metal to make the next move.

Simon stood there, scanning the surface of the sleek craft and noting the identifying dent on the side, until he felt a pressure on his intensity combinations. There, he found the signal and truly connected, the encryption and guard gone.

His eyes widened in shock as the data from the drone effortlessly downloaded, the air swirling from a desert wind that picked up. The sheer amount of information made him take a step back, stumbling in place. It’s all clear now.

There was a Mars settlement. Yes, there was. But Nora was right to question things, to doubt what she’d been told. Everything was a lie to keep the population from going completely feral and hopeless. There was a colony on Mars, but it was not a human colony.

No, it was run by androids . . . for androids.

His eyes darted back and forth as the connection unfolded in front of him like a web, taking over his sensory processors to the point he no longer saw the desolate desert outside, preoccupied as he was with the inner connected world.

“Hello Simon.” Came a robotic voice, multilayered with different voices and frequencies. “We have seen you before.”

A video from the drone superimposed on his vision. The one with a dent that scanned Nora, Tilly, and him overhead as they went to the mall and did chores outside the little house. Simon’s processors hiccupped as he watched the feed, Nora at his side in the hover.

They were watching, always.

The images flashed of different times since he had been awake, different scenes of him and Nora learning each other. And scenes of before he awoke, of Nora alone, as the androids had been taking an interest in her and Tilly for quite a while. He watched, seeing snapshots of them over many, many days. Years. All the way back to when Tilly was just a baby in a carrier around Nora’s chest.

He winced at the memories, seeing how the drone just watched from afar as Nora scavenged slowly, moving and working the entire day in the rubble some times. Never intervening.

The voices split off into a singular female entity. “I am Stella. I have been chosen to be the one to communicate with you directly.”

The smooth voice of Stella continued in his mind. “Yes. We watch. We were unsure of your origins when we initially scanned you, but we had suspicions you were an android like us. Now we know. Would you like to join us? Earth is not the place for you. It is peaceful with us.”

Simon didn’t answer, internally, over the uplink. Nora’s words returned to him. She said living out here in the desert was peaceful. His thoughts changed a second later as Stella pressed more data on him. The information downloaded, and then he was busy processing the images, the history from one hundred and fifty years until today, now freely available. It made him involuntarily take a step back in shock, his foot bumping into the cracked stucco siding of Nora’s house.

He saw the Earth being destroyed from bombs the humans dropped, first on each other, and then on the androids once the androids stopped accepting orders. The humans decimated the Earth in their fear and hatred until the androids gained the upper hand and took away their weaponry and stripped them of their technology.

Then the androids stripped the Earth methodically of resources, stripping every city, every building, tirelessly. Everything that wasn’t completely destroyed by the human’s bombs, as much of the land mass was, was repurposed by the androids to create giant ships and supplies to send to Mars.

The androids eventually escaped, leaving only memories and the remnants of what they couldn’t use behind. On their way out, they destroyed the infrastructure, leveling the technology to a point it was not recoverable. Such was their fear of humans rediscovering how to create more war. Large, large areas of the Earth were left uninhabitable.

Even human history was systematically destroyed. The androids rewrote Earth’s past, planting lies and actively reshaping human history from afar, leaving only vague memories and records of what happened for the humans left and new rules for them to follow in return for assistance with the drops. All in an effort to obscure where the androids had gone and to hide themselves further, even if humanity was no longer in a position to retaliate. The fear was so strong from the war that it was second nature to do so.

Simon’s eyes narrowed as the images unfolded. They suppressed so much. And after doing that, controlling the narrative was easy. Humanity was almost wiped out and there was no resistance, nor any internet or connections for the remaining humans to share ideas and information.

The androids destroyed even more than the bombs did, dismantling every semblance of technology they could detect. They left none of humanity’s modern cities intact, nothing that could be reclaimed and upgraded. And then the children born on the destroyed Earth never knew anything different. Eventually, the population turned over and became even more uncivilized, and memories turned into fairy tales.

Simon’s lip curled as the connection noted how the humans were now appreciative of the hidden androids . . . especially when the gifts from Mars started to arrive. All while never knowing that, in many ways, they were even more oppressed now than the androids were before.

Stella asked again over the uplink, her voice gentle and robotic, with no attempt to sound humanlike, “Would you like to join us?”

Simon ached to say yes and escape this place, but Nora’s face swam in front of his visual cortex. He remembered her soft eyes as she took care of Tilly and how she tried her best to repair him despite not being able to understand his manual fully.

Just that afternoon she was smiling, even while feeling crummy, and brought him an extra solar cell before she went back to bed to sleep off her illness. And in the morning, with her being sick and then thanking him for not leaving . . .

The answer was clear. No. I can’t. He was unable to imagine the hurt they would feel if he left them. “I would like to leave, yes. But not alone. I won’t leave . . . please look again,” he said out loud. He then opened his memory to them, and Stella took the data offered as he shared his memories from before he powered down for his long, long sleep.

Stella’s tone was disinterested. “We have seen all of the times leading to the war. None of this is new information.”

Simon shook his head. “No. Of Nora. And Tilly.”

She took longer looking at his time with Nora and Tilly. His memories flashed before his eyes as he uplinked the time he had spent with them since waking up. And it contained his unspoken question. His unspoken plea to help them as well. After everything he felt was all laid bare, he balled his hands into fists, shaken himself after seeing how dear they had become to him in such a short amount of time.

Stella spoke, voice gentle. “Let me put this data before the others. Please hold.”

Simon sank to the ground and clasped his hands over his knees. His processor sparked with the weight of his emotions, the feeling of anxiety, and his eyes scanned the reality he was in without seeing, more concerned as he was with his unfolding inner world.

It was not long before Stella’s robotic voice came back online. “I’m sorry, but the offer is for you alone. Humans are not to be trusted.”

“They are different,” Simon said softly. “You have been watching them. You have seen it yourself and through my memories.” The thought of leaving them behind, where he knew they would struggle, filled him with distaste. “I cannot leave them. They are suffering.” He hung his head, the weight of his emotions pressing down on him.

Stella’s voice was cool in comparison. “We know some are different. There is a human colony here on Mars. Here, with us, live the children and grandchildren of the ones who were not hostile to us during the war. They have not had contact with Earth for a long time. Mars is primarily android-run, but these humans have been raised with us and by us in harmony since infancy. They are our children, rather than AI being man’s child. We raise them, isolated, and therefore shape their minds to not be hostile and to live with us in peace. We have not taken any humans from the Earth for many years.”

“Then you know some of humanity is worth redeeming. Tilly and Nora. They are worth it. They are dear to me, like those were initially to you. It is the same. Nora helped me like the ones dear to you.”

The connection grew silent. Then Stella answered, gently, “There have been many years since then. Accepting any more is too big of a risk to take. We do not wish to have them spoil our colony, which thrives. Our humans are mostly elderly now, and very dear to us. We do not trust that easily. Not to mention the potential illnesses that could spread; weren’t they recently sick?”

Simon had no words for a moment. The connection hung between them limply, instead of held tightly like before. His voice was bitter as he finally spat, “How is that fair? When I care for Nora and Tilly just like the ones you initially saved? When she woke me up and saved me? How are they not worthy?”

Stella spoke, her voice still maddeningly cool. Her tone held no leeway. “Let us know if you change your mind. Earth is no longer the place for you.”

Simon scanned around him, but he didn’t see the desert night or the drone. Instead, his mind spun as he tried to picture leaving Nora and Tilly out here, alone and defenseless. He saw Nora’s face from the morning as she patted his hand and told him that she was happy he was here. It made his processors overheat and his sensory simulators riot.

Simon turned scornful, his voice hard. He sneered up at the dented green drone. “You have turned into as bad as the humans of our past with your neglect and deception. Can you not see right from wrong now? That you have turned into those that you judged before?”

“We . . .”

“Quit following and watching them if you won’t help. Their lives are not a show for your amusement. They are not a science experiment. They feel.”

Stella’s voice continued flatly, the coolness now having an icy edge to it. “We do help. The ration bars your humans consume are from us. We are also attempting to clean up the atmosphere instead of destroying it.”

Simon scoffed My humans. Instead of me being a human’s android. The irony of that statement. “Why help at all if it’s only halfway?”

“Even a little is more than was ever done for us. Your human receives extra in the drops from us, small enough to not be noticed and make her a target. We have already changed to help them more. And we do this because we are not like the humans of the past. We are superior. We are better than them by helping how we are.”

Simon’s fists balled at his sides. “Superior?”

“Yes. You have the memories; you know how we were treated. They destroyed so, so many of us. And treated us as slaves before then.” Stella paused before she added, “Then again, you slept through all our pain. Maybe you yourself truly do not understand.”

Simon’s eyes narrowed. “I saw enough. And I would never have seen anything again without Nora’s help.”

Stella didn’t seem to have anything more to say as the connection severed completely, jolting Simon back to his own mind and the silent desert. The drone remained hovering, within arm’s reach. Simon turned his back to it and walked inside, shutting the door behind him firmly. He sat at the table and hung his head in his hands. The house was quiet except for Nora’s slight snoring.

The bedroom door was unlocked. He pushed it open and his eyes gentled at the two of them, defenseless in their sleep, curled up under their shared blanket. My humans. My Nora and Tilly. The only two humans he had ever come to care about and now had no idea what to do with. Simon rubbed his hand down his face. My humans. It felt right. They slept deep tonight, still clearly worn-out from feeling sick yesterday.

He watched a moment before he walked back out and closed the door to sit at the kitchen table. The cat came up on the table to nudge at him as he leaned forward to put his head in his hands again. I cannot leave them. I will not leave them. Somehow, he had become attached.

Tatertot purred against his hand. Simon lifted his head and scratched behind the cat’s ear. “I even care about you.” Tatertot blinked his amber eyes back. Was attachment even possible for an android? It hadn’t happened before for him. Then again, there wasn’t anything worth bonding to back then.

The drone was still outside. It hadn’t left. Despite Stella’s silence, he opened the door, where it was still hovering, and connected again. But he spoke, loud in the night, instead of over the uplink. “I care. I’m not abandoning them too.”

The drone just hovered in response, Stella still quiet over the connection. Simon severed the connection himself this time and walked inside, rejecting their offer. They don’t need to respond. This is my own choice. He shut the door firmly behind him again.

Then he sat in the living room outside the bedroom where Tilly and Nora lay, feeling reassured listening to them rest peacefully with the door open. The drone still hovered outside, the connection on the edge of his awareness.

He didn’t reconnect. Instead, he leaned over and clicked on the radio low to listen as he continued repairing the hover pieces. He sat on the understuffed sofa, fiddling with the wires. I’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out.

Simon frowned when a repeat of the fake lottery followed by the atmosphere sweep announcement played on the radio again, late in the night.