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Micro was so happy they were helping her that the little robot had a bounce in her step as she followed them from the depot. Xian couldn’t help thinking the creature adorable and wondered how such a tiny being with such cute, childlike proportions could have possibly been a danger to them or even once threatened them in its language.
Micro seemed innocent and helpful, skipping in Xian’s wake, pointing out useful things in the surrounding ruins and debris, “singing” a merry tune in her beeping, staticky voice. Sometimes she held Xian’s hand and skipped at her side, which only made Xian love the little robot more. She was annoyed that Zune stubbornly remained wary, occasionally reminding Xian that infiltration units were dangerous.
“You should have allowed me to terminate it,” Zune said quietly, so that the jolly, skipping little robot couldn’t hear as it followed behind, hopping in mud puddles.
“Zune!” cried Xian in exasperation. “Her head is shaped like a ping-pong ball! How dangerous could she be?”
“Looks can be deceiving, Xian,” Zune insisted darkly. “But you are young, and I know experience is the ultimate teacher, so I will caution you no further.”
Xian rolled her eyes, thinking, Good.
The journey to the junkyard would take a couple hours on foot. Xian wished they had bikes or that they could at least have ridden one of the wild t-units that frequented the ruins, but the transportation units were very difficult to capture and tame and usually not worth the effort given how loud they were, constantly snorting and whinnying, their hooves clicking.
They would have made camp inside the depot, except Zune believed it would have been too risky. If the two men from earlier knew about it, there was a chance other rogues did as well and would come poking through it for supplies. And so, as the sun rose over the jagged black skyscrapers of Sector TW7, they camped in the ruins, sitting around a low fire and enjoying nutrition cubes as Micro “sang” a slow, sad song that perfectly imitated the notes of a keyboard. The little robot looked so dejected that Xian glanced anxiously across the fire at it and asked Zune, “Will Micro be all right?”
“She’ll be fine,” said Zune, who was eating a nutrition cube. “It’s her friend. She’s afraid something will happen to her while we’re off searching for the battery.”
Xian understood. Scavengers were always attacking robots for their parts. If Micro’s friend was rundown and out of power, then she was vulnerable to attack. If scavengers found her, she would be unable to defend herself. Micro had been her friend’s only defense, and she had left her to brave the ruins alone, in search of aid.
Xian looked at Zune, trying to imagine what she would do if Zune were injured and she had to leave her to find help. She could decently patch Zune up, but what if Zune needed a part she didn’t have? What if Zune was too injured to move and Xian had to leave her alone? When Xian voiced her concerns, Zune actually smiled.
“But what’s so funny?” Xian demanded, more in awe than in anger.
Zune glanced up from her nutrition cube. “If only you understood just how long I have been alone, you would never worry about leaving me again.”
Xian frowned. “I’m pretty damn certain if I understood how long you’d been alone, I’d never leave your side again!”
Zune seemed taken aback by that, but as always when sudden emotions hit her, she chose not to comment on them. Instead, she examined her half-eaten nutrition cube as she said, “There was a time when I was so damaged from a battle that I had to go offline so that my systems could reboot and rebuild. I stayed that way, unmoving, for fifty-two years.”
Xian gasped. “The fuck? And you were conscious?”
“Yes.”
“And you just stood there?”
“Yes. It only took an hour for all systems to restore, but there was no reason to move,” said Zune, shrugging. “So I decided to stand there and keep watch.”
There it was again, Xian thought: Zune felt purposeless and now that she was with Xian, Xian was her purpose. Xian still hadn’t decided if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She watched Zune take a bite of her bright blue nutrition cube and asked with sudden curiosity, “So do you even need to eat? I mean, if you can stand in place for fifty-two years and not die—”
“Food is fuel to me the same as it’s fuel to you,” said Zune calmly, “but I cannot die of starvation.”
“Can you drown?”
“No.”
“Asphyxiation?”
Zune frowned. “This conversation has taken a morbid turn.”
Xian couldn’t help laughing. “It’s just . . . You’re amazing! I can’t believe the kind of tech the ancients had!”
Zune’s inscrutable blue eyes simply stared at Xian across the fire, and Xian felt frustrated by the cold mask Zune’s face was so prone to sliding into. It was rare that she smiled, rare that she laughed, rare that she showed human emotion at all. In fact, she had only shown emotion two times in Xian’s presence. The first time was when they made love. The second time was when the rogues had tried to take Xian. Zune had been furious then, her hands almost shaking. In the past, she had always fought off Xubertrons with cold indifference, but the men threatening Xian had brought fire to her eyes.
Xian came around the fire and sat beside Zune. “Do you regret becoming a cyborg?” she asked anxiously.
Zune shook her head. “How can I regret what I can’t even remember? I don’t remember if I had a family or a lover. I don’t remember why I made this choice.”
“Well,” said Xian, staring up at Zune with doting green eyes, “whatever the reason, you must’ve been very brave to have done it. I can’t imagine what it was like back then, the world ending, and all those scary robots blowing everything up.”
Zune stared into space a moment, and Xian thought her blue eyes were haunted. She reached over and quietly took Zune’s hand to comfort her. She was relieved when Zune’s lips turned in the slightest hint of a smile. Her eyes were soft with affection when she looked down at Xian. Xian felt her heart skip a beat, and for a moment, she was taken back to the rooftop.
“There’s one thing you remember, at least,” Xian said, cocking a brow as she thought of their happy hours together under the pale light of the giant moon. Zune had been an incredible lover.
Zune squeezed Xian’s small hand, her fingers very gentle for fear of harming her.
As the sun rose higher, Micro stood, and Xian watched in astonishment as the tiny robot’s arms and legs retracted inside her body, disappearing completely. Her now-limbless torso fell with a clatter to the ground, standing upright, and when her glowing eyes snapped shut and her head sank slightly down, she looked like a trash bin.
Xian’s mouth fell open. “What’s happened to—?”
“It’s fine,” said Zune. “Micro is recharging.” She nodded at the sun.
“Oh . . .” said Xian, feeling foolish, but a glowing halo suddenly appeared above Micro’s head, swirling as it indicated that the robot was indeed charging. Xian bit into her nutrition cube, avoiding Zune’s eye for her embarrassment. “Is she really called Micro, though?” she asked to distract Zune from how silly she’d been.
“It’s what all the small infiltration units were called, usually with a serial number. Micro Z71 is her full designation, Z71 being her serial number. It came up on my scans.”
“I suppose her friend is a Micro unit like her, then.”
“Perhaps. I guess we shall see after we’ve finished this ridiculous and ill-advised little adventure.”
Xian smiled, amused by Zune’s sour tone. “You’re a soldier! Isn’t it your job to help people?”
“No,” said Zune at once. She was sitting with her knees wide, her elbows resting on them as she leaned toward the fire, and Xian thought the position made her seem broody and grim. “It is my job to protect people. If Micro were being attacked by a giant Xubertron, I’d gladly step in. But instead, we are running errands, fetching a battery from across the sector, and putting you at great risk by—”
Xian suddenly kissed Zune. She couldn’t help it: Zune was so cute when she was worried about her. When she pulled away, Zune looked a little flustered. Xian smiled and rested her head on Zune’s shoulder. She was starting to wonder more and more if she should bother going to the settlement after all. The settlements did not allow cyborgs inside, so if Xian wanted to live in one, Zune could not come with her. Instead, the cyborg soldier would be forced to return to the ruins and continue her endless existence alone. The very thought made Xian sad and she frowned.
Zune gently hooked her pinky in Xian’s pinky (Xian smiled) and said softly, “What’s the matter, Xian? What do you need?”
Xian’s heart fluttered to hear the low, intimate tone of Zune’s voice. She took Zune’s hand in hers and said, “What if I don’t go to the settlement?”
Zune went still. “What do you mean?”
“What if I stayed in the ruins with you?”
“But it isn’t safe in the ruins,” Zune said at once. “And you said it yourself: you are tired of eating rats and crows. You need clean water and real food and—”
“But what does all that matter if you can’t come to the settlement with me?” Xian said over her. Her heart skipped a beat when Zune touched her cheek. The hand that touched her could have crushed her face in given the heavy muscle weaving from her upgrades, and yet, it was tender, gentle, as Zune said with frightened blue eyes, “If you were hurt because I failed to protect you, I could not live with it. Do you understand? The ruins are not safe. Nothing is worth your death! Not even the warmth of my arms!”
Xian impatiently pulled her face from Zune’s touch and sat up. “But isn’t that my choice? You can’t make it for me, Zune! Are you my lover or my mother?”
“The ruins are too dangerous,” Zune insisted, “and you won’t survive very long on your own—”
“I survived these ruins for two years on my own!” Xian snapped, eyes wide in outrage. “Long before you ever came into the picture!”
“You lost your family to these ruins,” went on Zune doggedly. “You have suffered the pain of their loss. Would you suffer it again for me? Should I suffer?”
In the pause that followed, the fire crackled softly, and Xian could hear the low, steady hum of Micro’s little body as the robot recharged in the ever-brightening sun. A cluster of black crows hovered nearby, cawing and hopping through a puddle. Many animals had perished as a result of the ancient war, but the crows and cockroaches had only flourished, it seemed. If not for the rations in the depot, they would have eaten crow for breakfast. Xian tried to imagine herself eating crow every morning with Zune for the rest of life and thought it wouldn’t have been as terrible as she had thought before. Zune, however, seemed to have taken her complaints to heart.
“We will finish this nonsense with the Micro unit,” said Zune darkly, “and then I will take you to the settlement.”
Xian glared. “Is that an order?”
Zune didn’t answer, staring coldly into the fire.
Tears rose suddenly to blind Xian, and she said with a sob in her voice, “All I know is that I love being with you, and I want you.” She sprang to her feet, not seeing how Zune frowned sadly. “And if you don’t want me, then I guess there’s no point in my staying around—”
“Xian!”
But Xian ignored Zune, running fast into the ruins.