After eating, she went and found Tilly out back by the chickens, talking with them like they were her friends. She was sitting on the ground right outside the coop, pushing some of the chicken feed through the mesh opening.
Nora waved at her. “C’mon Tilly. Did you feed the chickens a big amount already?”
“Yeah.”
Nora leaned over to riffle through her hair, earning a grumpy look back. “Okay. Let’s go to town.”
Tilly’s eyes lit up as she stood and ran ahead of her. Nora followed as she glanced up at the drone overhead that had been there the moment she walked out of the house.Yep. Dronesand androids.She shielded her eyes and gave a shy wave upward. There was no response.
At some point, after thinking hard and sleeping on everything Simon revealed, she made peace with the drone’s presence in her life. It honestly was a better outcome than her being worried about it and Simon nonstop.And feels good to get some answers for why it’s always hovering.
Nora also knew she was going to need to talk with the drones, and the androids behind them. She hurried her footsteps.That’s gonna have to wait a bit though.Not right now, when she hadn’t had time to think through what she wanted to say. Her feet pounded the dirt walkway in her haste.Can’t do that when I’m in a hurry.
Her eyes, though, trailed up to watch the drone as she walked back to the house to finish getting ready.Androids. Really.What would everyone else think if they knew? Nora shuddered as she finished hustling Tilly to leave.They wouldn’t think anything good, that’s for sure. Would they?
When all three of them got to the garage, everything was still in the hover from when they scavenged, before they got sick. It was all sitting there just ready for them to go. All except the emergency scooters, one of which Tilly had taken out and was playing with in the yard while Nora did the final checks. She looked over her shoulder. “Tilly, get that scooter back in before we go.”
Simon was also dawdling, standing by the smaller hover, the one he had taken to town himself a day before. “A moment, Nora.”
Nora went over to him as he trailed his hand over the smaller one, her eyes snagging on his fingers as he spoke. “I worked on it in the night some more. Look inside.”
Nora saw the cables neatly organized in the engine. Places where it was tangled were now repaired and oiled. “Did it run fine yesterday when you took it out?”
Simon nodded, and Nora’s eyes lingered on his frame as he organized the wires and closed the hood. “Yes. I fixed what remained of what was off with it last night while you slept. But let’s just keep this little hover as a backup instead of selling.”
“Okay, that’s fine. We got enough scrap anyways.” She pointed at the third, mostly in pieces, hover in the corner of the garage. “We got this one too if we wanted to fix up another one to resell anyways.”
“Yes, but that one is missing a lot of what it needs to be functional.”
Nora considered, looking at it carefully. “I don’t know if Max would even consider that scrap for our deal. Might be able to sell that outright elsewhere.”
“Depends on how much it would be worth for us to take the risk.”
“Probably not worth as much as some of these magazines, but still a lot.”
“Hmm.” Simon's fingers tapped on the tiny hover's side.
Nora didn’t respond to that but instead went to her normal, larger hover and got in. Simon climbed in next to her after lifting Tilly into the back, the scooter put back in with her. They had put on the jumpsuits again, as the haze was strong.
Simon didn’t have a jumpsuit, only the shirt and pants, but there wasn’t time this morning to fix that. Nora watched him get settled as she put a mask on to filter the dust.Does he even need to breathe?The dust didn’t seem to bother him as much.
Nora reached back to help Tilly with her goggles. “I hope that maybe after this atmosphere sweep tonight, they’ll fix this haze a bit. Would be nice to travel without the goggles all the time instead of only right after some rain.”
Tilly yelled something from the back but Nora couldn’t catch what it was as she turned on the hover. The engine made a deafening roar as it started before it settled down to idle. Nora checked the glove box for her gun and slipped it into her pocket before taking the hover out, leaving their small house and possessions behind.
***
Max’s eyes were big as they brought him the latest scrap. Simon’s eyes were smug as Nora saw him eye the money they received in return.
Nora looked at Max cautiously as she pocketed the money. “All good?”
“You weren’t kidding, you absolutely did find some different stuff,” Max said, examining the covers on the magazines.
“Yep. I’ll be back with more too.” Nora’s shoulders sagged in relief.Thank goodness he seems happy.The nagging tension that had plagued her on the ride in was now erased.
Max didn't even look up from the magazines. “I’ll be waiting.”
As they walked away, Nora turned around to see Max looking through the pages himself, an interested expression on his face.
