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“I’m sorry.”
Harmony turned from gazing out the window, to look at Griffin. “Don’t be. We would have had to have face the Overseers sooner or later. I’m glad it’s on our terms and not theirs.
Griffin looked around their cell. “This doesn’t look like it’s on our terms.”
She laughed and slid down the wall, to sit on the bare wood floor. “Oh, it is. They just don’t know it yet.” She crossed her ankles and folded her arms across her chest. “I can’t believe we never crossed paths with them before. I guess it was just pure dumb luck.”
Griffin crouched down beside her. He tucked a long black curl behind her ear. “They only got the steam engines working a couple of years ago, and even then, didn’t venture out as far as The Forbidden Lands until a few months ago.” He looked where Walker and Shadow were huddled together, whispering quietly. “The idea crossed my mind then that it might have been a way out of here, but since I wasn’t certain how badly the world had been destroyed by The Great War, I thought it best to stay with what I knew.”
Harmony nodded toward Walker and Shadow. “You didn’t say she’s your sister.”
He glanced at Shadow before meeting Harmony’s eyes again. “I didn’t know.”
“How’s that possible?”
“We were taken from our family as soon as we were born, and raised by slave robots. That’s why I trusted Molly with Walker and Journey’s lives. She’s the robot who was selected to raise me. I’ve known for a long time that she doesn’t approve of the Overseers’ way of doing things.” Griffin looked at Shadow again. His voice cracked, and tears welled in his brown eyes. “It’s impossible to know if we really are brother and sister. Until recently, I thought I was the only citizen here who had my skin color.”
He cleared his throat before sitting next to her, tilting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. “I should never have asked you to bring me back to this place. I knew before I came that the Overseers were only looking for an excuse to get rid of my kind. Molly told me that was why I wouldn’t be allowed to have a mate or any children.” He opened his eyes again, only to stare at the opposite wall. “Now it seems they have a reason to get rid of Shadow too.” He shook his head. “They’ve never threatened to kill anyone before. It never occurred to me they would now. I thought they would lock me in here for a short time, to make an example out of me.”
“I don’t understand. What does your skin color have to do with anything?” She entwined his dark brown fingers with her milky white ones and couldn’t imagine a more beautiful sight.
It was only now he met her eyes. His smile was tainted with sadness, though. “I didn’t know I was different, because I lived alone with Molly. It wasn’t until I was allowed to interact with other boys my age that I saw my skin was not the same as theirs.”
Harmony’s family had always cherished their differences, so it was hard to understand that someone might not be appreciated for theirs. “What happened with the other boys? Did it make a difference to them?” Harmony traced the edge of one of his tattoos, one that circled his arm. No matter how many times she saw them, they still fascinated her.
Griffin shrugged. “At first they teased me, but over time, no one seemed to notice anymore. We weren’t the same on the outside but we were so much alike on the inside.” He touched his shoulder to hers. “As the years passed, I no longer thought about the difference either. Molly discovered there were only two of my kind left in Freedom, me and Shadow. Since the Overseers consider slave robots to be so inferior, they often speak of their plans in front of them, not believing they have enough intelligence to understand what’s being discussed. She overheard their plan to let the two of us be operated on, so we couldn’t have children. They were willing to let us live out our lives out if we couldn’t reproduce, for after our deaths, the world would finally be rid of our kind forever. What The Great War hadn’t accomplished, the Overseers finally would.”
He looked at their entwined fingers. “No more differences – only sameness.”
Harmony stood and pulled him to his feet. She looked out the window and smiled. “But that’s never going to happen.”