Simon shifted back in his seat.She’s leaning too far in.He finally answered, “I hid myself. Humans . . . they were wary.”
“Humans still are wary. Mars doesn’t want there to be any of the technology from before the war being used. They’re really strict about it.”
Simon cocked an eyebrow at her. “Mars? I don’t understand. And are you going to get in trouble if I stay here?”
Nora started sorting through the clothing on the table. “No. I mean. Maybe. But, well, who is going to know all the way out here? Besides, you can’t hurt people.” She added a second later, eyebrows furrowed, “Right? That’s why you hid instead of fighting?”
Simon nodded, giving in to the desire to soothe her concerns. “Correct. We had safety limiters in our coding. I also would not hurt a human.” A flash of guilt came over his sensors.Nora does not need to know my limiters have been lifted.What if that made her turn him off again? She was in no danger from him.
Before Nora could question him further, he rushed out, “But what is Mars? It seems more significant than just being the fourth planet from the sun.”
Tilly walked back in, chalkboard in her hands. She was wearing a pair of pink, chipped, sunglasses.
“I’ll tell you more later.” Nora glanced meaningfully at Tilly.
Tilly didn’t stop though, as she put the chalkboard in front of him, a hand drawn picture of a cat on it. “Mars is nice. That’s where the rich humans live. If we can do lots of things that are good, maybe it will help us get picked to go to Mars. Right, Mama?”
“Right, Tilly. Here you forgot this one.” Nora gave a forced smile as she handed Tilly one of her dolls that was left on the table, half hidden by fabric.
“Oh, Samantha! How could I forget you!” Tilly held the doll close and went to put her in the other room.
Simon asked again, “What is Mars? Is it not like how Tilly described? ”
Nora pulled the mending roughly toward herself and focused her eyes back on the fabric. “I don’t know. There is a human colony there and they’re always sending stuff to us to try to help our lives here. Like this fabric. Apparently after Earth turned to shit, all the wealthy and powerful left to go live there.”
Simon frowned.That doesn’t make any sense.Nora didn’t offer any more information, though. Simon decided to keep his hands busy while talking. He put the chalkboard to the side and started sorting a pile of the clothing while he thought. “But the people from Mars still talk to Earth?”
“Yeah. They send supply drops sometimes. They’re even trying to help clean up Earth too. They put out something last year about how they were trying to clean up the atmosphere, some machine, and I do think it is helping.”
“They just . . . send things over? Supplies?” As far as Simon remembered, Mars was still an uninhabitable rock planet.The terraforming must have worked.
“Yeah.” Nora covered her mouth as she yawned.
“They don’t do anything else?”
“Not really.” Nora added as an afterthought, “It’s just weird. Guess they feel guilty or something.”
Simon tilted his head. “I remember . . . the humans were trying hard to terraform Mars back then. They must have succeeded.”
Without stopping her hands, Nora continued, “Oh yes, they did. I think. At least, it looks beautiful in the pictures they show. They are trying to fix Earth the same way but . . . I think it’s helping, but Earth is a bit different from starting from scratch like Mars was. They can’t do it the same way.”
Simon’s eyes narrowed.Mars is beautiful and Earth is . . . this?
Nora tapped on the table in front of Simon. “Now you tell me some. What was life like back then? What did people then do? I heard that they didn’t have to work or anything because they had robots do everything all day.”
A heavy fog came over Simon, remembering.I did everything.“Humans did not do much. Androids did all the heavy lifting.” He glanced at the window, at the outside that still had rain coming down. “The sky was clear though. There were plants everywhere. Not with this haze. There were machines for everything. Even the mending you do.”
Nora held her sewing needle in the air. “There’s some sewing machines in town. I wanted to get one but never had the money. I’ve seen them before.”
Simon opened his mouth to say more but didn’t as Tilly came running back in again, rummaging through the kitchen until she got what appeared to be a nutrition bar and a piece of a loaf of bread.If energy had a physical form, it would be Tilly.
Nora put down her mending. “Pass some to me, Tilly? I think it’s gonna rain all day. We’ll have to collect stuff from the garden tomorrow.”
“Look what Anna put in!” Tilly yelled, unpacking the bread as she came over to hand Nora the bar. There was a small cookie in her fist that she waved in the air.
“Oh that was nice. You can have it, okay?” Wearily, Nora rubbed at her tired eyes.
Simon watched as Tilly’s eyes lit up and she ate the cookie first before the bar. He looked away from Nora to the long, flat object in her hand. “Can I see those bars?”
