Nayne used to tell Sidney that these robots could do that on-site, without any other machines. This one should have a syringe in its body somewhere, surely?
“Why don’t you just extract my blood with your inner syringey thingy?”
“This body does not have one.”
“Why not?”
“This body was a replacement body. It was not built for the same purpose as the other ones.”
“Well, what was it built for then?” Sidney asks, taking in the look of the thing.
The bot is dressed in a simple blue tank and black jeans, with black boots. Similar clothing to what Nayne used to wear. “Easy to travel in,” she’d said, “easy to run.”
It’s a lithe female form, light and maybe five feet eleven. Its arms are long and slim, hardly any muscle, with small rounded shoulders, and topped with a graceful neck. Its hair shines under the sunlight, short to the nape—a dark brown, almost black, with tiny blond tips at the ends.
And it’s pretty, Sidney decides as she studies its face—oval-shaped with a minuscule nose that’s slightly upturned. Cheeks as pink as a human’s, and a heart-shaped perfect mouth. Then Sidney really sees the bot’s eyes for the first time—they shimmer blue and gray in the sunlight. Smart, they tell her, and kind.
“This form was built for companionship,” the bot says. “Its memories are still clear. It was an entertainment robot, a companion robot, a loving robot.”
Huh.
“And yet you were coming to kill me,” Sidney reminds her.
“This was a last minute one. As the ones built for that purpose were all destroyed, ones like this were brought out from archives to continue their work.”
“And you’re certain this is the last one?” she asks. “Other than all the animal ones, of course?”
“It is,” the bot says, as she does some sort of internal scan. “It’s been reprogrammed now to protect the others for the re-emergence and find the ill to eliminate them. As soon as the last of the ill is taken care of, cleaning will happen and the beginning of the re-emergence.”
It sounds like a load of crock, Sidney thinks. Still, Nayne told her all this too. The other people, ready for the re-emergence, are clean, healthy Allendians selected to be preserved, selected to recreate a new world for Allenda. Here? Where? She doesn’t know. Nayne didn’t know.
“What’s your name?” Sidney asks. The bot tells her a list of numbers that don’t sound like anything, so Sidney asks what her what her task is, what her new programming is.
The bot says, “To protect the healthy for re-emergence, to eliminate the old broken history, to terminate the ill, to resurrect the frozen, to assure re-emergence at any cost.”
Hmm. Sidney runs through the words in her mind, trying to think of something that makes sense. Protect. Eliminate. Terminate. Resurrect. Assure. Finally, she says, “Your name is Petra.”
Twelve
Petra
“Petra,” she says and the robot’s head tilts to the right as the new moniker registers.
“It is new,” she claims. “I have never been named ‘Petra’ before.”
“Well, what sorts of names have you had?”
“I was Serena once, a Jeremmin, Natiolir, Rabanna, Luciana...”
“Okay,” the child says, “I get it. You’ve had lots of names. I only have one—Sidney. Nice to meet you.” She puts her right hand out, waiting for Petra to do the same.
The robot only hesitates for a moment, remembering that this was once a normal thing. She reaches out to take the child’s hand in hers and attempts a small smile. This is what makes them comfortable, she remembers.
Another training from another time reminds her that this one will need sustenance. So she pulls her hand away gently and looks out to the discarded city, pulling up details on the vault of food that has been kept. It is underground and is a ways away.
“What are you doing?” Sidney says, as she stands by Petra’s side to look out to the empty streets.
“I am calculating how far we need to go to find you sustenance. We need approximately eighteen hundred calories a day to keep your energy levels up for the walk to the southern dome, at least thirty four grams of protein.”
Sidney smiles up at her. “Well that’s cool. What sort of food are we talking here?”
“There is a vault of grains, beans, selection of canned goods that will last enough time for when the re-emergence happens. It was selected for its lasting shelf life and—”
“Well, can we go now?” Sidney asks. “I’m starving.”
“If you require sustenance sooner than several days, we need to consider something else.”
“Oh,” Sidney says, as she steps out of the building. “Lemme go grab a quick brekky and we’ll go find this food.” She runs out the door before Petra acknowledges and follows her.
The girl is halfway up a light pole, her bag on the ground beneath. Petra stands under the pole, unmoving as she watches the child climb all the way to the top then back down again, all this within three minutes.
When Sidney’s back on the ground, she shows Petra a tiny pouch made of linen she’s hung across her chest. Within it are three tiny speckled blue and brown eggs. “Brekky,” she claims with a big wide grin on her face. “I haven’t had eggs since my nayne—but we’re in a rush, so let’s do this!”
“Do you require it cooked?” Petra asks as she prepares to pop out a small lighter from within her left leg, a remnant from her hosting days.
“Nope,” Sidney says. She grabs one egg and pops it lightly on the pole. She pulls tiny shells out of her way and places the egg straight on her mouth. “Taste better this way,” she says, as she drinks from it. Petra catches her flinch as she tastes the egg, but doesn’t challenge her on it. “And easy to carry. Let’s go.”
She turns and walks north before Petra grabs her by the shoulders and points in the opposite direction. “This way, child,” she says, considering the girl’s weight.
She’s lithe, just over four feet tall, and looks about thirty kilos if that. “Perhaps I should carry you,” Petra suggests, remembering that people prefer to be asked, prefer options.
Sidney eyes her up and down, considering her words. Then says, “I like the walk. Let’s go.” And she strides ahead, the second egg already on her lips.
Petra looks over to the big cat. “Stay,” she says, and turns to walk beside the child.
Thirteen
Sidney
The eggs are gone and she’s still hungry, but she can’t wait to get to this place Petra has talked about.
To think that there’s a vault somewhere filled with food, and she’s been barely surviving on flying rats and their eggs this entire time. Well not any more, her head recites as her stomach growls.
She ignores it though. Staying hungry will be worth it... maybe there will be real meat in this vault. Lamb. Oh maybe fruits that aren’t just berries. What she would do right now for anything that doesn’t taste like nasty tough pigeons, and all their gizzards...
She looks over at Petra, walking by her side like a tall shadow. She wonders about all Petra’s old names, her life as a companion.
Why would a companion bot be turned into an assassin? And how fast will she turn to kill Sidney once she’s somehow fixed? Okay she just has to make sure they get nowhere near that dome she’s mentioned. After finding this vault of food, Sidney has to find a way to get away from her or to stop her from working somehow. Who knows how massive this vault will be, considering it’s saved for all the people in the ‘re-emergence’...
“How many are there?” Sidney asks. “How many were saved for this ‘re-emergence’?”
“My data says just under ten thousand.”
“And—where are they all?” She’s been around most parts of this dome. This is her dome, born and raised, so she knows none of them can be here. She would have found some sign of them by now.
“They’re off-site,” Petra says.
“Where?” she insists. �
�Like another dome? How many domes are there?”
“Three domes. They are not in another, they are off-site.”
What does that mean?
“What makes them so special, anyway?” she asks, remembering Nayne. Remembering the way she was those last few days. She was sick, she wanted to leave, so that Sidney didn’t have to see what happened to her, but Sidney followed her anyway. She’d stayed up as much as she could just to stay by Nayne’s side. She wasn’t leaving her alone, no matter how much her nayne had insisted.
Now her nayne’s gone, and these—these people will come back at some point, take over this place and the other domes. For what?
“Who are they that they’re allowed to live here and the rest of us weren’t?”
“They’re not sick,” is Petra’s simple answer.
Sidney knows that, but big deal. It’s not like those who were sick were bad people. It’s not even a bad sickness. It’s just a small flu. That’s what Nayne told her. It doesn’t kill anyone, it doesn’t do anything but leave them with a slight fever. “It’s a flu that just needs a small pill,” she mutters.
“What did you say?” Petra asks as she stops walking. “What do you know of the flu?”
“I only know what my nayne taught me,” she replies. “Nothing more. She didn’t understand why people who were ill deserved to be hunted down and killed when a mere pill could cure them.”
“No pill can cure this flu,” Petra says matter-of-factly. “This is why I’m charged with cleaning up the flu-ridden. The people who re-emerge can only emerge to a clean Allenda.”
Sure, Sidney thinks, but why are they more important? She doesn’t ask though. She knows better than to argue. Nayne always taught her to be more polite than that.
They keep walking and when it’s clear to Sidney that the bot’s not much of a talker, she takes out her little book, still struggling to read past the point where Nayne had left off before she’d died.
She doesn’t need to look up and see where they’re walking. She can feel the bot’s presence by her side just fine. Then she gets stuck on another word and sounds it out, like Nayne showed her. Her lips form the word, but it still doesn’t sound like anything.
“What is this?” Petra asks, stopping as she stares at the book Sidney’s holding.
“Just a bit of light reading,” Sidney jokes, “while we walk. You know.”
The bot watches her, bemused. “Can you read? You haven’t had access to formal school work. Who has taught you to read?”
Sidney feels like she should get mad at the thing for such personal questions, but then, she’s grown up on the streets of a near-empty Blue Dome in Allenda. Still, she says, “My nayne tried to teach me—before she—died.”
She’s never talked to anyone else about Nayne’s death—the memory of that last day slams into her chest and for a moment, she thinks she won’t be able to speak again. Like the rest of the last year, she breathes through it like Nayne had trained her to do for weeks before her death. “You have to keep breathing,” Nayne had said. “The moment you stop, you’ll start to lose. And I’ll be mad.”
So she keeps breathing.
The bot watches her as if waiting for her to continue the conversation.
Instead, Sidney says, “What’s this word here?” She points to a part of the book, one of the bigger words she’s skipped over many times, only to end up getting lost later on in the story.
“This word is ‘astonishing’,” Petra says.
“Which means what?”
The bot’s eyes stare ahead and Sidney wonders what she’s doing, then realizes she’s probably scanning something internally, reading aloud as she does.
“Astonishing is an adjective, the origin of which is the verb ‘astonish’ meaning ‘to fill with sudden surprise or wonder.’ Other words for astonishing are listed as: astounding, breathtaking, marvelous—”
“Okay,” Sidney says, cutting Petra off with her hands in the air. Still, she thinks this should be handy, having a walking dictionary with her will help her finish this book sooner than later. She keeps walking, a smile on her face. What great luck, she thinks. She can’t remember the last time she’d had such good fortune.
When Petra stills, Sidney walks two more steps before finally stopping to look back at her. “Why have you stopped?” she asks. “Surely we’re not there already.”
The bot shakes her head no, then points down to a mound of dirt ten feet ahead.
What’s the big deal? There are mounds of dirt everywhere in Allenda, far as Sidney knows. The street cleaners do their job, but not as often, this far from the city center.
Unless Petra means to have Sidney look under this pile. She could find some lizards or bugs hiding in there. She’s not inclined to, not with the promise of real food at some point.
Still, she walks up to the mound, meaning to push it over just to see. Habit.
Petra’s hand on her shoulder stops her in her tracks as the bot whispers, “It’s moving. I suggest we run.”
Before she finishes her sentence, she’s already sprinting to another outer building they’d passed not a minute ago. They both stop as Sidney catches her breath and they peer around the corner to watch the mound of dirt move into a crouch, then stare back from a dirty bearded face.
“A raider,” Petra whispers to Sidney and the girl wets her pants.
Fourteen
Petra
The child shakes beside Petra as a slightly tangy scent reaches the bot’s nose. She looks down to see a trickle of urine fall on the ground beneath Sidney.
“Child,” she says, “you have soiled yourself.”
“It’s—” Sidney stutters. “It eats people. That’s what Nayne told me. It will try to eat me.”
The bot looks back up to watch the crouched raider as he struggles back down into a lying position. She’s only come across raiders once, and they were eating birds and eggs just like Sidney has been this entire time. They were certainly not eating each other.
On the other hand, Petra knows that hardly makes raiders a harmless entity. She knows what they are capable of and knows the child has every reason to be afraid.
“He’s injured,” she surmises. “He will not be able to harm you. Not with me beside you. I suggest we walk around him, take a longer way.”
“What if it’s a trap?” Sidney whispers back. “They’re never alone. Are they?”
“I will protect you,” Petra says. “I can protect you from them.”
Sidney stands to eye-level with Petra. “Do you promise,” she asks, her voice gravelly. She brings up her right hand, holds it up to Petra’s face with her smallest finger outstretched. Another programming from another time kicks in as Petra recognizes the gesture.
“Certainly,” Petra says, though she’s not sure why she needs to do such a thing. Her word has always been enough. Still, she brings her right hand up with the same gesture, and wraps her pinky finger slightly around Sidney’s.
“Okay,” the child says. “Let’s walk around him—but don’t take your eyes off our surroundings. I’ll keep my eyes on him while you watch out for any others.”
They take a long way around the man on the ground, hardly making a sound. Petra’s eyes scan the vicinity, but she’s certain he is the only one around for days.
Then Sidney hisses, “he’s moving.” She pushes on Petra, as if to make her run.
Petra turns her head around, sees the man reach out a dirty arm as he mutters, “Help.”
Her training kicks in to help an injured Allendian, and she’s by his side before she notices that Sidney’s trying to pull her away.
“What are you doing?” the child yells. “You promised you’d protect ME.”
Petra scans for injuries and finds a long gash on the man’s right side, blood pooling under him. He’s tried to stem the flow with a makeshift bandage, which is soaked through with blood and dirt and his life is close to ending.
“I have to help all Allendians,” Petra rep
lies. “There is life yet in him. I must help him heal.” And she goes about doing so. She pulls the bandage gently off him, and attends to his injuries.
The child beside her starts crying. “You promised...”
“And that is what I will do,” Petra says, as she continues to fix the broken figure.
“And if he’s healed and he tries to—eat—me?”
“I will protect you,” is the curt response.
Sidney moves back from her and walks back to the building they’d left. Petra still senses she’s close as she continues to fix the man.
He grunts and groans and she senses that he’s close to death. Still, she must keep working until there isn’t a breath left in him, until three minutes after his heart stops beating. This is her training.
She reaches for a compartment in her left leg and pulls out a square container with anti-bacterial medicine. Data shows that she now has 80 mg of the liquid. It should be enough to last their journey until they find the vault where more food and more medicine awaits.
She applies the liquid to his side, then places a pill in his mouth. “You must swallow this,” she instructs. “It will help with the swelling, it will help with the pain.”
He groans again and chews on the pill. Then Petra unwraps a clean white bandage and pulls him in gently to wrap it under his bleeding gash.
She senses that he does not have a fever and steps back. Then turns to find Sidney waiting in the small building enclave.
“He will be fine,” Petra states, “but we need to bring him with us until we find more medicine. Otherwise he will die from blood poisoning. We need to bring him along for when we find medicine. The vault will—”
“What’s the matter with you?” Sidney says. “Why would you help a—a raider!”
“I must help all people of Allenda,” Petra says matter-of-factly. “Unless they have the flu. I can not tell if he does. We must bring him.”
Petra: Allendian Post-Apocalypse Page 3
