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Boy woke to Liberty turning the key in his back. He watched her face as she did so. It was unguarded and the kindness he saw gave him hope that maybe everything was going to be okay after all. He hadn’t been so certain the night before. She had threatened several times to throw him overboard if he didn’t stop asking so many questions. Not that he worried overly much because the longer he had watched and listened the more convinced he had become she was more full of bluster than heartlessness. Was it because she had to be stronger now that her father was dead? He’d had to be stronger since his own father’s death so it only seemed natural that she had to be too.
“Good morning, Boy. What made you come to my room last night?” Liberty patted him on the head and stepped back.
He tested his limbs before answering, “I was afraid of being alone.” Even though Father had told him time after time that he couldn’t die, how could he be sure? When he wound down he had no sense of what was happening in the world around him. Wasn’t that the same as being dead?
Liberty went over and sat on the edge of the bed. She was clearly confused. “What do you know about being afraid? You’re a robot.”
Why did everyone keep telling him he was a robot, as if he didn’t already know? Was being a robot a bad thing? Even though he was covered in metal instead of skin and couldn’t breathe, he had feelings.
“I know all about feelings. I’m afraid one day I’ll wind down and no one will wind me back up. I loved my father. He created me and made certain I was always wound up, so I would never die.”
“So you think winding down and dying are the same thing?” Liberty leaned forward and studied him, as if truly interested in his reply.
What did she think when she looked at him? Boy hoped she saw the brother she’d always wanted because he saw the sister his father had promised him. She was everything he had wished for. Maybe one day she would love him like he loved her.
“Isn’t it? Father wound down and never woke up.” Why couldn’t she understand that they were the same thing? He would no longer exist if he never woke up again.
“I see your point.” Liberty reached over and grabbed her boots, slipping them on her feet. “I understand fear too. I feel it at least twenty times a day for one reason or another, but the one thing my father drilled into my head, for as long as I can remember, was never to give in to feeling love. He said love was too close to hate and that’s why the world is in the shape it is today. Without those two emotions, The Great War would never have been fought.”
Father had told him about The Great War when he had downloaded the photos from the time before the world had dissolved into chaos. With those photos Boy now had a great responsibility to the world. His father had been given them to safeguard, and before him his father, and then his father before him. They had been their Keeper until it was time to pass the photos on to the next generation.
Now he was the Keeper. Boy touched his chest. It was his job to show the rest of the world what had been lost because of hatred, so he understood why Liberty’s father had warned her about it, but not love. Love was beautiful. It gave him purpose. How could she not see that?
“Did you not love your father?” She had to, because grief was still etched onto her otherwise perfect face.
“I miss him.” Liberty looked at her hands before standing.
She was putting an end to their conversation. Boy might not have been alive for very long but he understood the subtleties of body language. Maybe it was still too early to talk about her father. He knew it hadn’t been that long since his death.
He slid to the edge of the chair, stood and waited on Liberty. The last thing he wanted to do was get in her way. There was still a possibility she might even now throw him overboard.
“Remind me to wind you up before I go to bed tonight. I can’t do anything to bring your father back, but I ‘ll do what I can to keep you from being afraid.” She turned and headed out of the cabin.
Boy followed close on her heels. Her words had given him hope. They really were going to be a family. His father had been right to send him to Liberty. They needed each other. Maybe she didn’t know it yet, but he did.