The Saffron Malformation (61 page)

             
He was looking at her in that way she liked, an animal stalking its prey, as he closed on her and tore the towel from her body.  He traced the lines of her, the curve of her hips, the flat of her belly—flatter now after weeks on the road—and the gentle swell of her breasts.  He pounced her onto the bed, tossing his own towel aside and wasted no time, she was more than ready and accepted him with ease.  Kissing feverishly, they tore about the sheets like kids, fingers, lips and tongues exploring familiar flesh as if it was the first time.  Finally she was atop him where she danced, her hips moving to a rhythm only they could hear, maneuvering him inside her just how she liked, just how she needed to…

             
Her eyes drifted.  Her body fluttered.  She sighed soft and satisfied.

             
A moment after Arnie sat up against her and kissed her nipples then tossed her onto her back where she found her second pleasure, watching the animalistic ferocity take hold of him.  It was an energy that rushed through her as she looked up at him, so intense and yet so gentle.  Her hands ran across his back and gripped him until he pushed deep and groaned and when she felt him burst this time she liked it just fine.  When his spasm subsided she pulled him down and let him settle on top of her.  He nuzzled her neck and slowly went limp inside her.

             
“I love you,” she told him.

             
He rolled off of her and looked into her eyes.  “I’m glad I crashed your van,” he replied and she laughed then kissed him.

             
“Me too,” she said.  They found their way beneath the blankets and slept on a bed that might have been a cloud in a past life.  When they awoke hours later they found they had refreshed vitality.  This time they paced themselves, ramping slowly toward a nearly simultaneous finish she directed from under him through whispering into his ear.  It was a series of not yets, then almost, then now.

             
Afterward they lay together talking, joking mostly.  Arnie was good at making her laugh and she fancied herself quite amusing as well.  It was night before anyone saw them again, and that was just long enough to get some food and water in their bellies.  They were like teenagers again, and so they quickly managed to retire back to their room for yet another romp.

             
Quey took a moment to revel in being clean as he stepped from his room freshly dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans.  The soreness the road inflicted on him seemed to lessen, as if the old sweat and layer of grime had mixed and mingled into a toxin weighing him down.  Now that it was gone his joints seemed to move with a bit more ease.

             
He found Reggie in the kitchen, making some burgers.

             
“You know, Reg,” Quey said with a hint of sarcasm.  “I think you might be the only man I know who actually gets darker when he’s clean.”

             
Reggie laughed as he flipped the burgers.  “Yeah, I was gettin’ a bit ashy there wasn’t I?  Hey, you don’t think she’ll mind I made some burgers do you?” he asked as he flipped the last patty.  “I mean the robot said to make ourselves at home.”

             
Quey shook his head, “I don’t think she’ll mind.”  He remembered the last time he was here.  Three days he didn’t recall seeing her eat a thing.

             
“Good,” Reggie continued, “Because I took a peek in the fridge and you wouldn’t believe how fresh this shit is.  I think these are going to be some grade A tasty motherfuckers right here.”

             
Quey looked and saw the big man had four in a pan and a half dozen or so on a plate beside the stove.

             
“Would have liked to grill ‘em,” he added with a shrug, “But I wasn’t about to go wanderin around looking for one.”

             
Quey chuckled, “Good call.”

             
The others joined them one by one (all save Rain and Arnie, of course) freshly washed and dressed.  They laughed easily at jokes as they shared Reggie’s burgers.  It was the first good time they’d had in a while, what with the brood coming at them relentlessly, forcing them to roll hard and stop only when it was necessary. 

             
Having things as simple as a shower and a bed and a meal to share at a table seemed to bring everyone’s spirits up again.  They were laughing when Ryla stepped into the room, her long brown hair pulled into a tight tail at the back of her head.  She wore only a simple cotton slip and made no noise as she walked gracefully on her bare feet.

             
The conversation stopped when they noticed her.

             
“Ryla,” Quey announced.  “Everyone, this is Ryla.  Ryla, Reggie, Leone, Rachel, Natalie and Amber,” he said going around the table.  “Rain and Arnie are… indisposed,” he concluded.

             
Reggie stood and moved toward her, meaning to shake hands, and she backed away, eyes wide.  “Did you tell them about the defense gate parameters?” she asked Quey.

             
The big man looked to him and Quey admitted, “I thought it best to wait on that.”

             
“What’s she talking about?” Natalie asked.

             
“Nothing to big.  But it’s not a good idea to touch her.”

             
“Whats that mean?” Reggie asked perplexed.

             
“Physical contact violates one of the defense gates,” she said simply.

             
Reggie looked to her and said, “Wanna try that again.”

             
She thought for a moment then realized, “You don’t understand,” and seemed rather pleased she’d drawn that conclusion on her own.  “The building will kill you,” she added then turned her attention to the table full of people.

             
The big man looked at her and swallowed hard, nodding.  “Right.  Hands to yourself,” he said.  “Important safety tip.”

             
“That’s what Quey said,” she noted.

             
Rachel looked nervous and saw the others, save Quey, were in a similar state so she asked, “Anything else the building might kill us for?”

             
Ryla shifted her attention to Rachel and answered simply, “Aiming a gun.  Accessing a bots control panel.  There’s a list on any terminal, you’re welcome to review.”

             
Natalie looked over at Quey, “This is the safe place you brought us to?  A building that’ll try to kill us if we step wrong.”

             
“You can step anywhere you like,” Ryla said optimistically.  The look she got in return made her feel small.

             
Quey raised his hands, “Now listen, there’s no reason any of us should go around aiming guns or messing about in her robots.  We’re not going to accidentally set off any of the defenses, are we?” he asked, looking to Ryla.

             
“Defense gate protocol’s,” Ryla corrected, looking back at him.  Then she said, “It’s impossible to violate them if you’re not hostel.”

             
“Right,” Quey agreed.  “And I don’t fathom a way to be accidentally hostel, do you?” he asked the group.  The adults mulled this circumstance over in their minds during a silent moment.

             
Amber was staring at the woman, tall and slender and still as a statue in her thin slip of cotton.  She was under a long sleeve shirt and jeans and she still felt trembly in the cold of this place.  “Why don’t you want to be touched?” Amber asked.

             
Ryla looked at her.  “I don’t want to be attacked.”

             
Leone, sitting across from her, added with a chuckle, “We’re not going to attack you.”

             
“Yeah, why would you think such a thing,” Amber chimed in.

             
Ryla looked at them.  “Your intent isn’t certain.”

             
“You mean you don’t trust us,” Rachel chimed in.

             
“You lack protocol.  Your actions can’t be predicted, therefore the outcome of any one of them is unknown.”

             
“That’s weird,” Amber said softly and without thinking.  Ryla looked away for a moment.

             
Leone looked from Ryla to Amber and said, “Maybe not.  I mean we are a bunch of strangers in her home.”

             
Ryla looked at the boy.  The others were wary of her but this one seemed to try to understand her.  He hadn’t decided, as Quey and probably the others had, that she didn’t want to be touched because she was a robot, but that she was in fear of her safety.

             
“We promise not to attack you,” Amber said with a smile.

             
“Amber,” Natalie said in her ‘drop it,’ tone.

             
“What?” she continued.  “I just think we should all be friends, not just us at the table and her off by herself.”

             
“And maybe we will,” Quey said.  He looked up to Ryla and added, “In time.”

             
“Well,” Reggie interjected, “If you’d like I made some burgers.  Even set one aside for you.”

             
She looked at the big man’s smile and found it genuine enough.  “Thank you,” she said.  “But I came for the data you collected.  I’d like to get started on the analysis of it.”

             
Quey nodded, “I’ll get it for you.”

             
“You’re all welcome to go to the first floor,” Ryla said and they looked to her.  “The second floor… just try not to touch anything.”

             
“If we do will some machine come to kill us?” Natalie asked a little sour.

             
“No,” Ryla answered simply.

             
“What’s on the second floor?” Leone asked as he chewed some burger.

             
She looked at the boy.  “My workshop... part of it.”

             
“Oh, hey,” he added with a snap of his finger as he remembered what he’d wanted to ask.  “So we we’re wondering if you painted all this?”

             
For a moment the boy thought she almost smiled and said, “Yes.”

             
“It’s really good,” he told her.

             
“There’s a holoscreen on that wall,” Ryla said indicating the one opposite the couch.  “Botler can show you how to use it and I have full renderings of every Nintendo game ever made.  Even the Earth ones,” she added.

             
Leone was impressed and a bit excited.  “I can play?” he asked and she nodded.

             
“You have to use a controller for some of the older ones, the digit scanning’s don’t always translate properly.”

             
Quey returned with the sheet they’d downloaded the tower’s database onto and the memory pin from Geo.  He set them on the table and returned to his seat.  Ryla seemed to glide as she stepped forward and collected the objects.

             
“Thank you,” she said calmly then turned and walked away.

             
“That is one interesting… whatever,” Reggie said as she stepped around the corner.

             
Ryla stood down the hall before the opened elevator doors and listened to the girl, Amber, say, “She looks so real.”

             
“She is real,” Leone protested.

             
“No I know,” Amber explained, “I just mean… I thought they quit doing that centuries’ ago.  I didn’t even know they could anymore.”

             
“Do we know she’s a robot?” Rachel asked Quey.

             
“Thank you, no, we don’t,” he replied.  “As I said before I don’t know.”

             
“Either way there’s something off about her,” Reggie said.

             
“Agreed,” Natalie added.  Quey gave her a look so she added, defensively, “look if she’s not going to trust us not to attack her without threat of execution why should we not question her motives?”

             
“That does seem a bit extreme,” Rachel sympathized.

             
“Who cares?” the boy asked with a shrug.  “So she’s a bit skittish when it comes to hugs.  She’s cool.  If she’s a robot then she’s cooler.”

             
The elevator was still waiting for Ryla so she stepped inside and took it to the second floor.

Rain and Ryla

             
Rain couldn’t sleep anymore, despite it being long into night.  She wasn’t sure what time zone they were in any longer but she suspected that wasn’t the cause of her restlessness.  It had more to do with the week she’d spent on bed rest, sleeping most days and nights away in the back of Natalie’s van.  Now that she was feeling better she also found she contained too much energy so she stepped quietly from the bed, leaving Arnie snoring softly behind her, and went to take another shower, just because she could.

             
It felt good to move around.  It felt good to be off the road.

             
Afterward she slipped into some pajama’s she found in one of the drawers in her room and went to explore.  She saw a dull light glowing in the main room but when she went to it she found it was the painting of the sky glowing softly over Leone and Amber, sitting side by side playing a game on the holoscreen.

             
“This is awesome,” Leone said when he saw her.  She moved to join them, sitting on the other side of the boy.

             
“What’s she have?” Rain asked.

             
“Everything,” he replied, fingers twitching frantically as he tried to keep his character alive.

             
“What do you mean everything?” she asked doubtful.

             
“I literally mean everything.  Even the old planet shit.”

             
Rain ruffled his hair and hugged him.  She didn’t know why, she just wanted to.  He allowed it but when she kissed his cheek and started to nuzzle him he began to protest.  “Okay, okay.  Yeah, I love you too,” he said and she was satisfied.

             
“There anymore of those burgers?” Rain asked.

             
“I don’t think Ryla ate her’s,” Leone offered.

             
Rain scrunched up her face and said, “I don’t want to take her’s.”

             
“You think she eats?” Amber asked, ponderously.

             
“What do you mean?” Rain asked.

             
“She’s pretty advanced, she might eat,” Leone said.

             
“I thought Quey said he didn’t know if she was a robot?” Rain thought for a moment, “So she is then?”

             
“Probably,” Leone said with a shrug as his hand flicked to one side, keeping his character in the game at least a bit longer.  “She’s definitely… different,” he added.

             
She poked him and said, “Well I hope you were nice.”

             
“Ou,” he protested with a laugh as the poke tickled more than it hurt, but it put his guy in jeopardy and he was certain he was nearly through the level.  “I was,” he defended.

             
Rain gave him another brief hug and said, “Good.”  Then she ruffled his hair again and said, “You two have fun.”

             
“Alright,” Leone said absently as he tried to keep his holographic character from dying… again.  The game was hard.

             
Rain was curious so she decided to explore and see if maybe she could find this Ryla.  Maybe she’d get a read on her.

             
Inside the elevator she saw the three buttons but before she pressed one she noticed something else.  There was a panel below the buttons and with a bit of effort she managed to pry it open.  Inside there was another set, these were marked B-1 through 3.  She pondered momentarily, then decided to start by working her way down.

             
The doors opened on a hall and a bitter cold rushed over her.  She hugged herself inside her thick pjs’ as she saw light flickering from beyond a door ahead and to the left.  Stepping forward she heard music playing softly, some sort of jazz, and went to the door and peered inside.  There were tables spaced throughout the room and a bank of computers at the center where a dozen or so hologram monitors flashed long lines of data through the air then paused to calculate and continued.

             
Rain stepped into the room.  A small robot with a long neck and oval body crawled toward her on legs that looked like they should belong to a dog and stopped.  It peered up at her with massive lens eyes.  She saw the robot had been painted to look like a turtle and aside from the legs it was magnificently lifelike.  Even in the pale light of the room she could see its brilliant coloring, the detail in every crevice of its shell and the personality in the slight imperfections of its coloring.  She knelt before it and smiled and it backed away slightly then moved forward again, extending it’s long neck toward her.

             
“Hello there,” she said and it blinked at her.  Rain was amazed by the way it moved.  In school she’d read about the robotics age, when the goal was to make the most lifelike robots possible.  It had been a disaster.  As it turned out people liked robots being robotic.  They accepted lifelike qualities to a point but once it went beyond that they had a tendency to grow paranoid.  This turtle robot was like that.  It almost seemed alive as it addressed her tentatively, unsure of her intention.  Rain held her hand out, the way she might to a stray dog or cat and waited.  The bot looked at her fingers waving at him then up at her.

             
“Koop-bot,” a soft voice said.  Still it startled Rain and she jumped as she looked up from the robot.  A slender figure draped in a thin layer of fabric was standing before an opened door with the light from a holograph flashing behind her.  Rain stood slowly, the robot watching as she rose.  “Koopbot Troopbot really, but that seems a bit long.”

             
“Ryla?” Rain asked and the figure nodded as she stepped forward.

             
“Bop his head.”  The girl was smiling.  Rain looked down at the robot on the floor.  It was looking up at her with its big eyes, its head slightly cocked at the end of its long swanlike neck.

             
She looked back at Ryla and said, “But he’s so cute, and done nothing to warrant a smack.”

             
Ryla looked at Rain for a long moment then said, “You’re nice.”

             
Rain smiled with a hint of a laugh.

             
“Leone was nice,” Ryla added, looking back to her bot.

             
“The others weren’t?” Rain questioned.

             
“The others are worried.”

             
“About what?”

             
Ryla met her eyes and said matter of factly, “That I’m a robot.  And that I’ll kill them.”

             
Rain laughed and Ryla stared at her.  “I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her arms strait and waving them up and down as she marched in place and added, “I just don’t see you as the evil cyborg killing type.”

             
Ryla smiled at her.  “I try not to be.”

             
Rain laughed, “Quey told me you were learning to be funny.  Look,” Rain began.  “I’m so wired right now, I just spent a week sleeping and I don’t think I can take anymore of it so would you mind some company with… whatever you’re doing?”

             
Ryla rocked on her heals and replied, “I wouldn’t mind.”

             
“So what are you doing?”

             
“Waiting for the data Quey brought me to compile.”

             
Rain nodded.  “Have anything to drink?” she asked.

             
“As in alcohol?”

             
“As in,” Rain affirmed.

             
“There’s some in here,” she answered then led Rain into the lounge where she’d brought Shybot after he was finished to test his systems.

             
“Woah,” Rain said, taking half a step back and tossing her hands up as if to frame the room with them.  She noted the holoscreen and the bar and the small kitchen behind it and declared, “Now this is a break room.”

             
“A break room?”

             
“Yeah, you know, a place to kick back, have a sip and maybe listen to some tunes.”

             
“Tunes?”

             
“Music,” she answered pointing up toward the ceiling as if that’s where the jazz was coming from.

             
Ryla smiled.  “I enjoy music.”  She went to the bar and touched a panel on the wall at the end.  “I have everything right here.”

             
Rain hurried behind the bar and stood across from Ryla, looking over the list of artists displayed on the panel.  “May I?” she asked and Ryla sat back on one of the stools.  Rain searched through the database until she spotted something that stopped her.

             
“You like Dead Doll Dilemma?” she asked.

             
Ryla shrugged with a nod.

             
“They’re, like, one of my favorites,” Rain told her as she selected a song that began with an elegant piano and built into an accompaniment of aggressive guitars and drum fills.  Ryla swayed on her stool with the rhythm of the music while Rain searched the bar.

             
“Hey,” she said, leaning on the bar and drumming it with her fingertips.  Ryla turned to her and she asked, “Got any of Quey’s shine?”

             
Ryla shook her head.

             
“Awe,” she pouted, complete with sad eyes and a slump in her shoulders.  “Sad.”

             
“He offered some but I didn’t need any.”

             
“No,” Rain agreed returning her attention to what was on the shelves behind the bar.  “You have quite the selection back here as is, but…” she leaned against the bar again, head cocked and added, “Quey’s shine is fucking amazing.  Don’t you think?”

             
Ryla looked embarrassed, “I haven’t had any.”

             
“That’s a shame,” she said.  “You really missed out.”  Rain went back to looking through the stash then asked, “How about vodka?”  She held up the bottle and added, “Maybe you have some lemon tonic or something.”

             
“I don’t drink,” Ryla said plainly.

             
Rain furrowed her face as if someone had just slapped it.  “You’re kidding?”  Ryla shook her head.  “Wait,” she said thoughtfully, “Can’t or don’t?”

             
Ryla looked down for a moment then back at the girl and replied, “Don’t.”

             
Rain smiled, “Then why have all this?”

             
“It was already there,” she answered with a shrug.

             
Rain nodded.  Then she set a pair of glasses on the bar, poured a bit of vodka in each and opened the fridge where she found a bit of grape cranberry juice.  She filled the glasses saying, “There, now it’s like wine.”

             
“I don’t think I should,” Ryla said.

             
“Why not?” Rain asked.  Ryla had no answer.  “Come on, at least have one with me so I won’t feel like a lush.  Besides, whenever you make a new friend you should drink to them.”  She lifted one of the glasses, tapped the other gently, pushing it closer to Ryla, then raised her’s to eye level and said, “To friends.”

             
Ryla looked at the red liquid and decided it couldn’t hurt her, she’d seen people drink far more of the stuff than was in her glass.  Hell, Quey had put an entire bottle in his belly last time he’d been around and then there was Drunky.  He was a small bot she’d fitted with the alcohol intake sensor and the program that ran it.  Essentially he was a robot that could get drunk if the sensor detected enough alcohol in his system.  He could drink a lot, Ryla thought as she lifted the glass and Rain tapped it again before they both drank.

             
“Ahh,” Rain sighed after with a smack of her lips.  “That is good juice.  Where do you get it?”

             
“From the food depot,” she replied, taking another sip.

             
“The food depot?”

             
“Yes.  It’s function is to keep the compound stocked with edibles.”

             
“Well where does the food depot get the stuff?”

             
Ryla shrugged.  “It makes it.”

             
Rain’s eyebrows flared as she took a backwards step.  “It makes it?”

             
Ryla nodded.

             
“How’s that work?”