by C A Gleason
He wanted to get a better look at her without the space suit on. Touch her arm. Feel her skin. Feel her close to him without his fatigues on, but only if she wanted to. Hug her. Kiss her. Without her helmet. He blushed again.
At least right now he felt accepted. It was all he really wanted. He wondered how long it would last.
28. Royah
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Is it uncomfortable or something?”
Again, he slowly shook his head. For such a big and strong-looking man, he seemed nervous. She knew bad men all too well. Recognized their leers and the wild look in their eyes.
He, on the other hand, looked kind. There was intelligence in his eyes, not savagery. And under all his hair and beard, he looked to be quite handsome.
“I’m from Westo. Where are you from?”
He stared.
“Would you like to know where I’m going?”
Royah didn’t wait for him to respond. She handed the baby over, which was already harder to do than she thought it would be. While holding her rifle out, she spun her backpack in front of her. She dug around inside and took out the map and spread it open.
“I’m going,” she lowered her backpack on the ground and balanced her rifle against her leg, “beyond Easto into the unknown.” She then tapped AD on the map with her finger. “Here. I know there might be poison but I have to risk it.”
He looked down at where she pointed and laid a giant hand over the area, nearly covering half the map, and in a deep voice said, “Dangerous.”
“Yes. But see this?” Royah showed him the necklace. “It’s extremely important. The information on this device might change the world.”
“What’s in it?”
She shrugged. “It’s why I’m going to A-D. To find out.”
“Dangerous,” he said again. “But you won’t need a helmet.”
Royah rolled her eyes. The helmet was obscuring her view. As if she needed an additional reason. She lifted it off and tossed it onto the ground. “Not if you come with me. I can breathe so much easier now.”
He studied her. As if really seeing her for the first time.
“I know we don’t know each other. Yet. But you were the first person I met since leaving Westo and you shot at me. Think of what someone else might do?”
It seemed his feelings had been hurt. He looked down at the baby he was holding so, so delicately. She knew the man was capable of caring. And she was a little ashamed she was trying to manipulate him. But she needed help. If she were being honest, she needed the protection.
Because of what was known about him, who better? Who would be crazy enough to mess with him? It was her mom who even suggested she meet people who might possibly agree to help her.
All Royah needed to do was convince him. It didn’t look like he was going anywhere in particular. Nowhere important. The way he acted, made her think anywhere on Home was fine with him.
“I know you were just trying to get my attention when you shot near me. Which proves how accurate of a marksman you are.”
His upper lip rose. What might be considered a smile.
“If you went along, with me, I would make it to A-D safer than I would on my own. Even if you only accompany me to the next town. Hopefully, there we can find some kind of transportation more efficient than on foot. Plus, you need someone to feed little ‘what’s her name’ here. How did you find her anyway?”
He said nothing.
“Maybe you could tell me about it along the way? It’ll give us something to talk about. Allow us to get to know each other better. The point is, I need a partner and you need someone to feed the baby.”
Royah put the map away, put the backpack back on, shouldered the rifle strap, and extended her hands up. He carefully placed the baby in her arms.
“So, what do you say?”
His eyes moved across the flat into the distance, clearly thinking about what was being asked of him, truly considering it.
Then he looked at her and dipped his head up and down. He would be a worthy ally. And she didn’t think so just because he’d agreed to join her, but because strength emanated from him.
Everyone she knew of—who knew of him—was afraid of him, and she would keep an eye on him no matter what her first impression, or second impression was, and her guns ready. But he could probably help her get to AD better than anyone.
He’d shot at her and missed on purpose. Anybody who could shoot and miss, could probably also hit whatever they aimed at.
“I’m Royah,” she pressed the baby to her chest, and held out a hand, peering up. “What’s your name?”
Her hand disappeared inside his massive one as he carefully shook it. “Onnin.”
29. Yohiro
After finding what felt like stable ground, he allowed both feet to touch. The lights were tiny ones in a row and were secured to the ground. Still working after all these years.
No doubt they were probably still connected to a solar cord, a link buried in the ground somewhere near the surface. The end of those cords were often a good distance away from where they illuminated, placed optimally, to ensure power.
He still couldn’t see well even with them functional. The purpose of the lights was to be bright enough for a path to be seen if the main power went down, which had occurred. Wherever the source was, it was likely in pieces.
What remained was emergency lighting, so he peered around the bunker as best he could, creeping as slowly as he needed to safely explore the place. And not fall into a hole leading to oblivion.
There were splintery pieces of burnt debris and unidentifiable chunks everywhere. They’d likely been whole furniture. The explosion was more catastrophic than he realized. Flames burned much of what was down here to a crisp.
Then he spotted the ashy white of a human skeleton behind a scorched couch. Someone definitely called this place home.
The way the bones were positioned, the person likely tried to hide from the blast. In his or her desperation, they’d been curled up in a fetal position. Survival hadn’t been possible though.
Because of how big the place was, it was likely there’d been multiple people living down here. But he didn’t see any more grisly proof. He wouldn’t be surprised if he stumbled upon more bones though.
Why would someone live down here by themselves?
There was no elevator wreckage at the bottom as far as he could tell. And he’d climbed down as far as possible, if this was indeed the bottom. The elevator must have been destroyed at the top of the elevator shaft. It made sense because there was only one skeleton.
So it was likely there were at least two people living down here: one vaporized in the elevator, and the other retreated but was still killed by the blast. Even at this depth.
The more he thought about it, whoever lived here was likely targeted. There weren’t any other blast marks near the surface. It had been a surgical strike. He listened to customers in his father’s store hypothesize about the war and that happening. The thought sent a shiver up his spine.
The bunker wasn’t completely enclosed. Probably not stable either because he somehow felt the wind. He kept imagining tunnels leading to bottomless pits, so he was careful, and wondered if his weight might cause the floor to give way.
And then everything would fall into some deep, dark place at the center of a nightmare. He must be cautious because he wasn’t familiar with his surroundings.
The bunker ended up being far bigger than he initially thought. The lights ran along the floor in multiple directions, leading into multiple rooms sprawling into the unknown, so even more careful footsteps were required to explore the expansion.
There was a living room; obvious from a shattered television and stand. A bathroom and bedroom combined. And an exercise room. The furniture was still intact in those rooms, but covered in debris.
The bunker was practically a small town. He wondered what had been on the floors above. More of the same probably.
Except they’d been targeted. It was impossible for him to know the reason or their involvement.
The setup and furniture and arrangements reminded him of how people lived on Earth. How he’d overheard they lived there. An old decorum even though tech advancements made it all obsolete, especially the television.
People liked to talk in town, and especially at a place where emergers congregated, like his father’s store, so he heard many stories. From his father and others.
He wondered if the people from the bunker were some of the first people who colonized the planet because it seemed their existence was designed for pleasure. As if they hadn’t foreseen the war. But then why a bunker?
Although he could have stayed down here for days alleviating curiosities, he didn’t have the time. It would be night soon. He needed to get back before his father began to worry and went out searching for him. He was down here for a reason.
He decided on the exercise room. He pulled the strap over his head and set the bag of currency down, feeling instant relief in his shoulder. After briefly massaging the soreness, he pulled some debris—what looked to be part of a nearby wall—over the pack.
Being so deep underground, it was the perfect hiding spot. The bunker had remained in this condition since the war and the war was hundreds of years ago. Nothing down here was going anywhere anytime soon. And he didn’t plan on climbing down here all the time.
Although he would likely need some currency at some point, he had no immediate plans to spend it. He would be able to get to it whenever necessary. No one would think to look for currency in a bunker they didn’t know existed.
As far as he knew, only he was aware of it. Everyone else was dead.
And even if someone decided to launch another missile strike, and they targeted these exact coordinates, the currency wouldn’t be destroyed. Maybe if it was hit directly? Even then likely impossible.
Currency on Home wasn’t the same as on Earth, he’d been told. Home’s was practically indestructible. It couldn’t burn, couldn’t be torn by hand, and was about as easy to cut in two as a rock with a pair of scissors. It was made of sturdy material, which some said was alien.
Yohiro doubted it.
But currency was valuable and something of value was desirable. The truth concerned him. Desperate outliers would do anything for wealth, so it was possible someone might stumble upon his secret.
But hardly anyone was as skilled as him, and anybody else who discovered the bunker would probably fall to their death while climbing down. The currency was camouflaged and the bunker was hidden well. His secret was safe. Yohiro wouldn’t even tell his father its location.
The exercise room contained various equipment; machines he didn’t understand and which probably no longer worked, and weights for lifting.
There’d been mirrors lining the walls of the entire room. Someone was vain enough to want to watch themselves exercise. But there were mostly just shards now. A few mirrors were somewhat intact but all of them were splintered.
When Yohiro peered into the nearest reflection, he sliced in different directions, noticing the shape of a man behind him.
He spun.
Not someone. Something. Something unexpected. Out of place. Sort of like him being underground.
Yohiro felt the corner of his mouth lift up into a half-grin. Climbing out of the bunker and returning to alleviate his father’s worry would definitely have to wait.
30. Yohiro
In the far corner of the bunker’s exercise room was some sort of robot. It was toppled over. Likely caused by the concussion from the missile impact hundreds of years before. The robot still looked to be in one piece.
Yohiro crept. It might spring up and attack him.
It did not. He lifted it upright, and learned it was a lot heavier than it looked. Until it balanced itself on a wheeled base. Low to the floor sank its weight.
His next thought was how valuable it must be. But then he noticed there was a sword, a real one, clasped in its right hand. Curious.
He actually saw a robot before, when he was younger, and was fascinated. GUN-BOT read along the middle of that particular one. When it passed through his father’s store, Ito retained a large amount of currency after selling it.
Yohiro envisioned the hidden bag of currency. No doubt much of the plentiful amount inside it came from the sale all those years ago. He could imagine the attention another robot would cause. And the follow-up questions.
It probably weighed twice as much as he did, so he could only imagine how he would transport it up to the surface.
There was similar lettering as there’d been on the Gun-bot. In the middle of it the same way, along the breastplate resembling armor.
He couldn’t read it as it was covered, so he wiped grime away and blew, snapping his head back and rubbing dust out of his eyes. The cloud dissipated.
It read: SWORD-BOT.
The mobility of the robots was a throwback program from Earth. It aided training soldiers. With a high production rate, they were built to be destroyed, hence their name. But the one before him was clearly modified.
Also reprogrammed. The robots were supposed to hold guns, not swords. Whoever had owned the robot had definitely been rich for such a collectible. Maybe they were even important. A leader, or an investor, from Home’s past.
The inventor of the robots had been rich too, except he lived on Earth thousands of years ago. The old relics were collectibles to some, similar to old phones. It was interesting how phone technology eventually evolved so much.
On Home, emergers went back in time to use basic military radios to communicate. It’s what the soldiers used to train. To Yohiro’s mind, it meant the radio wasn’t broken to begin with.
The Sword-bot was in the shape of a man, except where two legs would normally be there, was an interconnected base with wheels.
Because the purpose of the robots didn’t end after disarmament, its arm joints allowed extreme movement—hyperextending stretch capability—so they wouldn’t snap under hand to hand combat training. His father had told him.
Whoever brought the robots to Home must have done it for the purpose of training new recruits, but this one was augmented. A gift maybe. To a former soldier?
Whoever lived in the bunker was someone with an old-school mind frame having collected old technology.
Yohiro appreciated it. He always felt like he belonged in the past too. He couldn’t tell how the robot functioned, but he felt a rush of excitement. He was meant to be down here.
He read ancient books about warriors from Earth who used swords like the one grasped by the Sword-bot. The illustrations showed strong-looking, disciplined men. Every one of them looked like him and his father.
The books showed up in his father’s store, sold or traded, and some of their pages were missing or consisted of only pictures, but Yohiro did his best to obtain them anyway.
He even volunteered to sweep and clean even more than he already did, promising to do whatever else that was needed to be done. In exchange for them.
His father went along with his requests, even though they were collector items and worth a lot of currency. Ito even inspected Yohiro’s extra work and sometimes he insisted he go over it again.
But then, afterward, he always seemed to enjoy giving the books over and patting Yohiro’s head. His plan from the beginning, flashing the half-grin Yohiro learned from him.
Yohiro took pride in earning the books. He was intrigued because the people in the pictures looked to be the same race as him. He always wanted to know more about his ancestors. He wondered if they were related.
And there was also a feeling he couldn’t shake, even before the bunker and the robot. He was fascinated to the point he believed—no, he knew—he
was meant to be like them. Maybe it was natural to emulate people he resembled?
The robot itself was almost faceless; the rounded features of a human head and bumpy protrusions where the eyebrows, nose, mouth, and chin should be.
It was human enough for training purposes; a flat metallic surface with thin textured, armored material for skin. The skin looked to be the same armored substance as the body armor, which soldiers wore during the war.
Body armor in all their pieces passed through his father’s store on occasion too. But Ito did his best to reserve all of it for those who really needed it. And also worthy of it. Not outliers. Who always seemed to be after it.
The metal arms looked designed to be struck as hard as a trainee could manage, or even be shot with a gun. Yohiro glanced around the exercise room and spotted a weapon rack at the far side. He hadn’t noticed it before.
Upon walking over and giving a better inspection, he saw that it was filled with swords similar to the one the robot held. Nearly all of them had ended up on the floor.
After a brief examination, one drew him more than the others, its intricately designed scabbard struck a chord with him, and after lifting the sword and scabbard, he gently withdrew the shiny, metallic blade.
Raising it up, the perfectly curved sword glinted even by the dim solar lights throughout the exercise room. He was amazed how tightly he could grip the handle one-handed. It felt warm beneath his grasp. It was as if it were crafted to fit in his hand alone.
Movement caught his attention. He reflected off thousands of shards of mirror plastering the walls. Jagged, splintered remnants scattered the floor and sharpened toward one another.
Thousands of Yohiros held thousands of swords.
Excited now, he hurried back over to the robot to give it a more thorough examination. Human face to a manufactured face, he squinted, trying to figure it out, but he saw no way to operate it.
Then he noticed another protrusion at the center of its chest, barely noticeable in the dark. Moving the pegs aside, and when they were out of the way, there were depressions for something about the size of fingers.
