The Saffron Malformation (62 page)

             
“There’s a series of basements under this building.  In the first there’s a garden and grows plants and meats.  There’s a few bots that tend and harvest them and then they make all this.  I don’t really need what they produce and a lot of it gets thrown away when they restock every two weeks but it’s the only purpose those bots have so I decided to just let them continue with it.  Seems to make them happy.”

             
Rain smiled with a chuckle.  “You’re nice,” she said, pointing then took another drink.  It’d been a long time and the strength of the booze was more than she was used to.  She felt a tingle in her head already, the beginnings of a very nice buzz.  “So how long have you been here?” Rain asked.

             
“Long as I can remember.”

             
A chill found Rain and she shivered slightly.  “It’s cold in here,” she noted.  Then she looked down at what Ryla was wearing, confused for a moment and asked, “Aren’t you cold in that?”

             
Ryla looked down at her thin slip and shook her head.

             
“Why do you keep it so cold?”

             
“Cold is good for computer parts,” she answered with a shrug.

             
Rain watched her for a moment as she sipped lightly and Ryla felt a bit self-conscious, but Rain wasn’t worried if Ryla was a robot or not.  Before she’d met her there was a part of her that thought that might be the case, that the idea might have led to ill thoughts but the truth was she didn’t care.  Either way, she was an interesting person and Rain would bet everything on her being harmless enough.

             
Rain finished the liquid in her glass, nodding, and began making a new drink.  “How about we have a seat on that cozy looking couch over there?”  She didn’t wait for an answer, when she was done mixing her drink she simply started over to it and Ryla followed.  “So,” she began when they were settled, “You been here all by your lonesome for long?”

             
Ryla took another sip and said, “Yes.”

             
Rain looked at her, sympathetically.  “What happened?”

             
Ryla looked down into her glass and took another, longer sip.  She sort of enjoyed whatever the alcohol was doing to her and it seemed to give her what she needed to answer.  “There used to be men here… and women.  People who thought this place was a toy.  They were mean to the robots.  I was young.  I didn’t understand a lot.  One of the men was nice though.  I think he was my father.  I don’t know, maybe that’s not right.  Anyway, he wrote a program for the robots.  There was an argument, a disagreement I didn’t understand and then there was a fight.  He was hurt and they were attacking the robots.  I didn’t know what to do so I accessed his computer and initiated his program.”  Ryla shrugged, taking another long sip from her glass.  “I didn’t know,” she said again.  “The Robots came up.  The ones in the basement… there were screams.  I saw blood.  Then it was quiet.”

             
Rain felt sobered by this.

             
“They didn’t hurt me though,” she said.  “They left me be.  Others came after that.  They were mean to me.”  The drink in the glass was doing something to her.  She didn’t mean to say what she was but she couldn’t stop herself.  “I found that to be the case with people.  If you aren’t like them or don’t try to be they’re mean.  I go to the cities and they’re mean.  They come to my home and they’re mean.  I try to understand.  I read.  I watch the signal.  I don’t get it.  Why be mean?”  Ryla shrugged, her eyes swimming slightly as she looked to Rain for that answer.

             
Rain looked at her, seeing the deep sadness that had come to the surface and she leaned over and hugged her.

             
Ryla was tense in her arms and so Rain tried to reassure her with words, “Its okay,” she told her.  Ryla shoved her away, hard.  That was when she noticed the red lights flashing, one in each corner of the room and there was a dull buzz.  “Security protocol engaged,” a female voice announced.

             
“Why did you do that?” Ryla asked but Rain simply sat, dumbfounded.  Ryla heard the hum of the elevator, not the one they used to move about the compound but the one the things in the third basement used.  The ones that were coming to her just like Bowserbot and Mechaganon would be.  “Stay here and get down,” Ryla warned as she leapt to her feet and dashed through the door and into the large room beyond, a series of delicate dance steps that carried her out of site.

             
Rain felt her heart race in her chest, uncertain of what had happened or what she’d done.  There was the gentle hum of a machine and then the door opened slowly.  Rain saw the bot roll in, the pigman on its chest holding its trident to the sky as lightning flashed on the mountaintop behind it, its open mouth full of white teeth and massive tusks.  Above that was the robots head and the red light flashing atop it like a tiny hat of doom gave Rain a chill.

             
Mechaganon raised one of its massive arms, training in on her and her eyes bulged.  All she could think was, ‘not again.’

             
The red lights flashing around the room, and more importantly the one on the robots head, stopped.  Mechaganon looked at her for what seemed to be an eternity, his gun pointed true, then turned and rolled away.

             
Ryla burst through the doors and looked at her, eyes wild and breathing hard.  “What were you thinking?”

             
“I don’t… what happened?”

             
“You can’t touch me!”

             
“I didn’t know,” Rain said absently.

             
“I told everyone about the defense protocols.”

             
Rain shook her head.  All she could say was, “I’m sorry, no one told me.”

             
Ryla sat on the couch beside her.

             
Rain sat up and looked at her.  “All that because I touched you?”

             
Ryla nodded.

             
“They were going to kill me?”  The reality of that started to catch up to her as Ryla nodded.  “So, no one touches you?”

             
Ryla shook her head.

             
Rain found that very sad as she asked, “Why?”

             
“Its not necessary.”

             
“What if you want a hug or kiss or… what if you just want to.”

             
“Why would I?” she asked with a shrug.

             
“Because people need it sometimes,” Rain said gently.  Ryla looked up at her and smiled a little.  “And someone might want to touch you.”

             
Ryla looked at her.  “You want to touch me?”

             
Rain smiled.  “Yeah.  I like to hug my friends, but not just me.  I think Quey might welcome it as well.”

             
Her brow furrowed, “Yeah, I know all about that.”

             
Rain smirked, “He’s that obvious hu?”

             
She nodded.  “I’ve caught him trying to look at my eyes too.”  Rain smiled as she thought how cute that was.  Then Ryla continued and her smile faded.  “He thinks you can’t do eyes.  He’s wrong though, you can.  Eyes are easy enough.  He probably thinks you can’t because boyfriend doesn’t have eyes but that’s just because… well he’s sort of in progress right now.”

             
“Boyfriend?”

             
“Yeah.  I have a boyfriend, just like the girls in the shows.  He’s not done though.  I can’t seem to get him right.  But its not the eyes,” she assured Rain.  “Its skin.  You can’t do skin.  Not really.  I mean, you can get it to look alright but it never feels real.”

             
Rain gaped at her and Ryla suddenly felt very aware of herself.  “You’re trying to figure out what I am.”  When no answer came Ryla assured her, “Its alright.  I don’t mind, you can say so.”

             
Rain shook her head.  “I’m not sure.”  None of this had been an issue until a hug had nearly gotten her killed.  Now she thought she understood a bit of what people felt when they’d looked at the bots from the robotics age.

             
Ryla liked Rain and she wanted to be liked by her so she held her arm out, thin and smooth and as normal looking as any other.  Rain looked up at Ryla’s eyes.  They were full of worry and the fear that her new friend would be afraid of her, as she was afraid of her new friend.

             
“Go ahead.  The security is off until I restart the system.”

             
Rain reached out and touched Ryla’s arm, running her hand along it and looked up at her and smiled.  “Hmmm,” is all she said.  Then she pulled Ryla to her and gave her a long hug, running her fingers through her hair.  After a few moments Ryla hugged back.  “What is this,” she asked softly and Rain could hear the tremble in her voice.

             
“Shh, it’s okay,” she assured the girl, the way she’d assured Leone when he’d fallen on the playground or Gren or Voz had teased him in some way.

             
Ryla gripped her and buried her face against her.  “I don’t understand.”

             
“Don’t try,” Rain told her.  After that the girl in her arms settled and Rain began to rock her slightly.  “It must have been so hard, growing up here all by yourself.  Whatever happened wasn’t your fault.”  Ryla’s arms closed so tight Rain found it hard to breathe but she didn’t complain.  She shifted in the grip and pet her new friends hair.

             
“Don’t tell,” Ryla finally said.  “I don’t want them to know.”

             
Rain wasn’t sure what part Ryla was referring to but she decided she’d just keep the whole night to herself, mostly.  So instead of probing further she simply agreed and let Ryla settle against.

             
“You have beautiful hair,” Rain told her after a spell.  “I’d like to do something with it.”

             
“Like what?”

             
She lifted strands and looked at them, shiny and flawless.  “Braid it.  Add some bits of jewels or something.  I used to make jewelry you know, same principal only you’re using strands of hair instead of silver or gold.”

             
Ryla sat up and looked at her.  “Why do people do it?”

             
Rain smiled, “Reminds others how pretty you are.”  She caressed Ryla’s cheek and added, “And that, I think, is the real reason Quey wants to touch you.”

             
“I don’t understand,” she said seeming a slight bit meeker.

             
“He likes you.  Likes you in the way where you want to touch,” Rain replied.

             
“How do you know that?”

             
She thought for a spell and decided Ryla was the sort who’d take the truth well in this instance so she told her.  “We were together once.”  Ryla seemed puzzled so she clarified, “We had sex,” and there was understanding.  “Anyway.  Afterword… he said your name.”

             
Ryla’s brow furrowed a bit, “Why would he do that?”

             
Rain smiled and said, “Why indeed,” then kissed her forehead and said, “How about another drink?”

             
Ryla decided maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.  She’d never had the opportunity to feel some of the things she had tonight and that had taken its toll.  After a few more glasses she called in Drunky and showed him to Rain.  He drank heavily and stumbled about the top of the bar.  Twice they had to catch him to keep him from falling off, and he was funny too.  He’d been programmed with a slew of old jokes and even had the ability to improv a few of his own, though those didn’t seem to go as well.  Ryla thought briefly about how maybe she should put that sensor in Jacob and give him a bottle of something.  Maybe it’d relax him a bit.  She smiled at the thought and laughed, knowing full well how ridiculous it was but enjoying it nonetheless.

             
Rain didn’t sleep.  When Ryla finally decided to go upstairs she followed but spent the night on the couch with the holoscreen’s remote in one hand and a glass of what she’d decided to call ‘red devil juice’ in the other.  She scanned the signal for broadcast shows she enjoyed and sipped gingerly at her beverage.  In school she remembered a kid in her class had done a report on the early days of entertainment.  There had been a thing called television and for decades people were at its mercy, forced to schedule their lives around this box.  They were its slave, gathering around at a time it set.  She couldn’t imagine such restrictions.  Here she was, more than three weeks absent from her favorite show and catching up at her leisure.  She sipped some of the red devil and let the thought go as her show came back from the advert block.