Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“I didn’t say Cheyenne is the only one,” Ronin said. “There are other towns where things are in order, but some places were turned into craters where the rubble is so fine you can sift it through your fingers. Entire cities turned to dust.”
Would it have been better if he was unable to track the miles? If he couldn’t recall, with undiluted clarity, all the dead places he’d traversed? Somewhere, deep within his tattered data banks, memories of those places from before the Blackout awaited discovery.
Uncovering them wasn’t likely to bring comfort.
“Oh.” Lara glanced away, shoulders sagging. “Do you…like what you do? Scavenging out in the Dust?”
Ronin’s processors whirred, analyzing her question and seeking out the best answer. There wasn’t supposed to be like or dislike for him, only programming and its fulfillment.
“It’s preferable to repairing buildings or mowing grass,” he replied.
“So, you like being out there?”
How could he explain it to her? In the Dust, Ronin fought for his existence, earned it, and found some semblance of his purpose in the battle. It was not his programming, not entirely, not exactly, but it was the closest he ever came.
“I find moments of joy,” he said finally.
Her eyes met his optics. Had the sky once been their shade of blue, or was that a fragment of his corrupted data?
“You actually feel joy?”
Why had she asked as though she didn’t believe him?
And why couldn’t Ronin formulate a satisfying answer?
“Perhaps…fulfillment is a better word.” It was no truer, though.
Lara’s brow creased. “But you said joy. Why would you say that if it’s not what you meant?”
He tilted his head, scrutinizing Lara. She was difficult enough to decipher as it was. Her questions only complicated the puzzle.
“Don’t humans often say things they don’t mean?” he asked.
“Yeah, but you’re not human.”
The statement hung in the air between them. Ronin couldn’t take offense. Even if he didn’t know what he was created for, he knew what he was. Still, he suspected she’d meant it, at least in part, as an insult.
“Bots always say what they mean,” she continued when he didn’t respond, “and always do what they say.”
“There are so many words with abstract, situational meanings. How are bots supposed to maintain a perfect track record when neither of our kinds fully understands them all the time?” Definitions only went so far to explain concepts like love, honor, and hatred.
Beneath their simple explanations ran countless, complex layers of emotion.
“I may not know as many words as you,” Lara said, walking past him to sit on the edge of the dining table, “but I know the difference between fulfillment and enjoyment. And so do you.”
In her new position, her shirt—his shirt—crept up, granting Ronin a glimpse of her lower thighs.
That shirt touched me, and now it is touching her. Her nipples are brushing against it, that patch of copper hair is separated from my sight only by a thin bit of cloth…
Ronin shifted his optics back to her face.
How long had he stared? Seconds? By the set of her brow and the firmness of her mouth, it had been long enough for her to notice.
His processors could handle massive amounts of data at once, could simultaneously monitor his entire field of vision, his hearing, touch, and movement without missing anything. Bots didn’t get distracted.
So how had this woman seized all his attention? More specifically, how had her body done so? She should’ve meant nothing to him.
Lara tipped her head just a few degrees to the right. “Anyway, since we’re talking about fulfillment…you want me to dance for you now?”
He wanted nothing more, and that was disconcerting.
“No. Not tonight. Your end of the arrangement will begin tomorrow, when I return.” He didn’t trust himself to resist the urge to violate her conditions. Not yet.
“What do you mean, when you return?” She lifted her posterior off the table and tugged the hem of the shirt down.
“This place isn’t properly stocked to support a human. If our arrangement is going to last, I must keep my word. I must do what I said.”
“So, you’re just leaving me here. Alone.”
“Would you prefer I take you to the market, where all the humans and bots will see the two of us together?”
The displeasure in her expression deepened. “Will I be safe here?”
“Yes. There’s a lock on the door.”
She laughed. It was a strange sound to Ronin, akin to a word in an unfamiliar language. He understood only that it was devoid of humor. What would her laughter sound like when she was genuinely amused?
“I’m sure that’ll do wonders to keep bots out,” she said.
“Most of them, yes.”
“But not all.”
“You walked into this part of town with me, Lara Brooks.”
“You can drop the Brooks. That’s not how humans refer to each other.”
“I’m not human. Am I now expected to conform to your norms?”
“Sarcasm from a bot? Just when I thought I’d hit rock bottom…”
“My point, unless you plan to go on another tangent, is that you saw what this area looks like when you came in. Do you really think I have anything in here that a bot can’t get elsewhere? There’s no reason for anyone to come in.”
“Guess this pit’s even lower than I thought.”
Ronin narrowed his gaze, studying her face. There’d been a subtle change in her expression—more light in her eyes, a slight tick of her jaw. Small differences, but they didn’t strike him as good.
“You’re offended,” he said.
“I am not,” she replied quickly. Too quickly.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what I said to upset you.”
“You’re afraid? There you go again, using words you don’t mean.”
Once again, her tone suggested an intent to insult him. He reviewed their conversation, analyzing every word, hoping to determine what had provoked Lara’s reaction, but he found no answer. “Explain it to me.”
“I’m not some meatbag, bot-banging whore!” She hopped off the table and approached him, bare feet slapping the floor.
“No touching,” he said carefully. “That was the agreement.”
“As if I’d willingly touch you.” She stalked past him toward the stairs.
Information blazed across his processors, threatening to blow a circuit. There had to be a reason. He’d said something wrong, but what? Had he simply underestimated the complexity of humans and their emotions?
And yet…her anger had sparked something inside him. Something hot, akin to the impatience he’d experienced with the gearheads earlier. No, impatience wasn’t correct, he knew that much, but he could get no closer to understanding it.
He strode after her, his boots far louder on the floorboards than her feet, catching up as she reached the bottom step. “You do not get to say things like that to me and then walk away.”
Lara paused with a hand on the railing and twisted to look at him, her expression hard. “I’m not walking. I’m storming.” As though to prove it, she continued up the stairs, stomping her feet. “See? I said what I meant, and I’m doing it!”
Ronin followed, despite a brief risk assessment warning of a chance of receiving further damage in the process.
Humans were volatile, and Lara took the term to a new level.
An electric tingle arced across his palm.
An impulse, perhaps due to damaged coding deep in his operating system, to reach out and grab her arm. To force her to stop and talk.
That would guarantee an unfavorable ending to the confrontation.
The heat in his mind faded. This situation was beyond his ability to comprehend, enough so that it was almost amusing.
It had to be the result of a simple miscommunication.
He’d failed to say precisely what he’d meant, she’d interpreted his words in an unintended fashion, and it had escalated into this.
He halted at the top of the stairs as a phrase flitted across his processors.
What the fuck?
Though Lara had never uttered that phrase in his presence, he could almost hear it in her voice, and it fit the situation perfectly.
For the first time in his remembrance, Ronin laughed. It was short, abrupt, similar to the sound most humans made after being punched in the gut, but it was a laugh.
Already at the end of the hallway, Lara paused at the entrance of her room, staring at Ronin with her jaw agape as he approached.
“Don’t you dare fucking laugh at me!” She disappeared inside and slammed the door shut.
It rattled in its frame, the vibrations running through the nearby walls, and Ronin registered displaced air flowing over his bare skin.
Lara fumbled on the other side. After a muffled curse from her, the lock engaged with a click.
Ronin stood in place, optics focused on the door. There was no defusing the situation; it had already exploded. He didn’t desire an adversarial relationship with Lara. All he wanted, all he told himself he wanted, was to see her dance.
He couldn’t leave things like this.
He rapped on the door.
“Go. Away,” she snapped.
Moderating his tone to something gentle, he said, “Open the door.”
“No.”
She’d been right in thinking that doors, especially the relatively flimsy ones inside this house, weren’t obstacles to bots. But what would he accomplish by breaking in? He was not her jailer, was not her keeper. He’d offered her food, comfort, and security.
“I’m sorry I upset you, Lara.”
Though his internal clock tracked every passing microsecond, time soon lost meaning. She didn’t answer. Once, he heard a faint rustle of cloth that might have been her moving, but it was gone too quickly to be sure.
After five minutes and thirty-three seconds, Ronin turned and walked to his room. He had equipment to care for—weapons to clean, tools to inspect, clothing to mend.
Perhaps some rest would cool Lara’s temper.
Or perhaps I need to be more mindful of what I say to her.
I’m sorry I upset you, Lara.
Speechless, with her anger having vanished, Lara stared at the door.
When she’d slammed it, she’d expected him to kick it in and teach her a lesson. Determined not to show her fear, she’d been ready to fight tooth and nail…
Ready to fight to the death.
But Ronin had asked her to open the door, and he’d apologized to her after she refused.
What the fuck?
Never in her twenty-three years had she heard of a bot apologizing to a human.
His footsteps retreated down the hall, and she heard his door open and close softly.
She’d entered this agreement with him assuming she knew all about bots and their nature. Accepting that, even if Ronin didn’t harm her, she’d be nothing more than a pet to him, a curiosity for his amusement. It was a small price to pay if it helped her find Tabitha.
But Ronin was different. He was unpredictable, surprisingly deep, even kind of funny in an infuriating way. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t quite figure him out.
Remorse tightened her chest. Though he was good at evading her questions, he hadn’t been lying.
He didn’t understand what triggered her outburst. How could he?
Even if he displayed signs of feeling emotion, he had nothing to be insecure about.
He couldn’t know how insignificant his words had made her feel.
Do you really think I have anything in here that a bot can’t get elsewhere?
Before her thoughts took another dark turn, she forced herself toward the bed. Her day had started early, and her encounter with Devon had set the tone for the rest of it—the rainstorm and loss of the ring, the ups and downs with Ronin…
Their last fight had left her physically and mentally exhausted.
She pulled back the blanket and tested the bed’s softness with a hand. Would she even be able to sleep in this strange place, on this cushy thing, knowing she was on the wrong side of the wall?
Glancing at the light switch near the door, she paused, taking her lower lip between her teeth.
Too tired to go back and turn it off.
Or so she told herself.
Guess I’m too tired to call my own bullshit, too.
She lay down and pulled the blanket up to her chin. The bed gave way beneath her, cradling her body, enveloping her in softness and warmth. She didn’t remember closing her eyes before weariness claimed her.