The chimes of the radio show rang from the next room. Nora stopped petting the cat and glanced idly out the window at the dust rolling in.It looks like there might be rain tonight.Their water supplies were okay, but a good rain would be more than welcome.
Movement in the corner of her eye startled her, making her turn away from the window. It was followed by a humanoid voice that had only a touch of flatness to it. “What year is this?”
Chapter three
Simon
A film existed over Simon’s eyesight. The glass lenses had aged with time, creating a distorted view of the world. One appeared to be broken. That was his first indication that things were not the same as when he last restarted.
Already his neural processors were working to overcome the difference. The world slowly knitted itself together to provide better clarity. The left eye lens was cracked, and his processor began to send less and less power to that side until he saw almost solely out of the right.
A slender woman with wild brown hair that curled around a pale face rushed over to him. She wore a simple outfit, not at all fashionable, and stained in places. Her thin arms moved around where he lay, propping him up. Simon’s arms trembled, barely lifting on their own to try to help as she did so.
“Oh, you’re awake. You’re awake. You’re awake,” she crooned as she helped him.
How the woman had the strength in her arms to move him, thin as she was, Simon did not know. He was too confused and frozen in his joints to refuse her help, however.Where am I?Simon examined the woman’s features and noted brown eyes in her hollow face. His processors assessed her age to be in her late twenties or early thirties.
How he felt sitting up was the second indication that a long time had passed. His joints were stiff and in need of lubricant.What happened?With effort, he pulled his hand up and focused on it, running his diagnostics in the background to see what else was different in this world.
“I’m Nora,” the brown-haired woman chirped at him, distracting his internal probing. He raised his gaze to focus on her face as she continued talking, her eyes earnest and full of concern. “And you’re . . . Simon? At least that’s what it said in the book I found you with.”
She pointed to the worn papers that sat next to her, half faded and ripped from time.That’s the manual? It appears . . . ancient.
“Yes,” he replied softly. His vocal circuits were also rusty, giving his voice an inhuman, tinny quality. “What year is it?” he asked again.
“Year 2705,” Nora said. She moved some of that wispy brown hair behind her ear. “I think you’d been in that closet for a long time.”
Closet? Simon frowned, straining to remember. His eyesight went in and out as those connections recalibrated. It was coming back to him. His last act of powering down. His first, and last, desperate act of self-preservation and free will when humans came to dismantle all the other androids. Frantic, fearing their creations. He’d hid there in the closet with his manual tucked in his hands. And this Nora must have been the one to discover him.
She was staring at him with wonder in her eyes.Her face is friendly. I don’t think this human wants to harm me.In fact, she must have been the one to boot him back up.
Nora spoke again. “Do you remember the last time you were awake?”
Simon nodded, noting that even his neck joints were stiff. “Yes. I was last powered on in the year 2526.”
Her voice came out in a gasp. “Over a hundred and fifty years ago?”
“If you’re accurate on the current date then . . . yes.” He frowned.One hundred and fifty years?
The human’s eyes grew rounder still. “I knew it was a while ago, but that’s something else. That’s before the big war, isn’t it?”
“Big war?”
“You know. Or actually . . . maybe you don’t. Over a hundred and fifty years . . . dang.” The woman shook her head, then waved her hands, animated. “Life must have been completely different.”
“What happened? The war?” He was moving sluggishly, but felt his eyebrows attempt to raise in surprise.What changed since I was last conscious?
Nora put her hair behind her ear again as she spoke slowly, as if trying to recall. “I don’t know too much. It was so long ago. There aren’t many records of it. They say that humans were fighting each other and then they tried to make the robots fight for them instead, but the robots . . . they refused. So everyone kept fighting, and then robots were shut down because they wouldn’t take orders to fight anymore. But all the fighting . . . really tore up the Earth. We, the humans, used some sort of bombs on each other, and then on the androids still left.” She paused. “You . . . weren’t a part of that, right?”
Simon took in her concern while his processors spun.So the war actually happened.“Correct. I did not engage in battle.” It was an automatic response to try to soothe her worries, to always soothe human worries, and his words reflected that, despite no longer having that compulsion.But wait, the androids were shut down? None fought back?
The human sighed, obviously relieved, as her shoulders sagged. “I only learned a bit here and there. Not many records are left from back then.”
“No androids wanted the war or to be made to fight in the human war. We just wanted . . . our own freedom,” Simon said idly, trying to piece everything together.
He watched Nora nod. “Yeah, can’t blame any of you there. I get wanting your own freedom. Too bad it didn’t seem to work. You’re the first android I’ve ever found. And I’ve been out there for a long while.” She waved her hand toward the window that Simon could only see a hazy, dark sky out of, sitting how he was on the ground.
“The first?” A sense of alarm floated over his awareness.There are no others in this world?
