Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ronin entered his dwelling, closing and locking the door behind him.
His fingertips lingered on the knob. It was cold and smooth.
The accurate temperature readings and texture mapping enabled by his freshly replaced synthetic skin added dimensions to his sense of touch that he’d forgotten about during his months in the Dust.
The sun sank toward the western horizon, its orange light streaming through the front windows to cast long shadows over his worktable.
He’d hoped to find Lara in the main room upon his return, sitting at the table or perched on one of the wide windowsills, but he doubted she was capable of sitting still for long.
After closing the blinds, he placed his pack and rifle on the table and pulled off his coat, running his fingers over its rough fabric before tossing it over the back of the chair. The needle and thread he’d used to repair Lara’s boot were still out; he’d put them away later.
Ronin stepped into the kitchen. Lara wasn’t there, either.
Why would she be? There isn’t any food here yet.
He grasped the refrigerator by the sides, pulled it away from the wall, and slipped behind it to plug the cord into the electrical outlet.
Something inside the fridge rattled before the sound evened to a soft, steady hum. He was, for once, grateful for the maintenance bots keeping the home appliances in Cheyenne in working order. Lara’s food would last longer in the refrigerator, which would mean fewer trips to the vendor for Ronin.
He pressed his hand to the refrigerator’s flat face, and the sensors in his skin detected the fine, linear grooves in the brushed metal as he pushed the appliance back into place.
He’d fill it with the food he’d brought home soon enough.
Lara was likely hungry after his five-hour absence, and she’d appreciate choosing what to eat first.
Ronin strode to the foot of the stairs. “Lara?”
Ten seconds ticked by with no response.
She’s likely resting.
After a minute had passed, he went upstairs. Though Ronin knew sleep was a necessary biological function for organic creatures, much like her having to go, he could never experience it himself and therefore could not truly comprehend it. But he would still accommodate her needs.
All the upstairs doors were open. The corner of his mouth quirked.
She must’ve been familiarizing herself with her surroundings, not that there was much to see.
Many of the furnishings had been removed before Ronin took up residence here, and even the few remaining pieces were more than he required.
He walked to her room, where he found her bed inexpertly made, her trinkets spread atop the dresser, which had been pulled away from the wall, and the closet open. But there was no Lara.
His brow plates lowered.
The front door had been locked when he’d returned, and he detected no errant air currents to indicate an open window within the house. Could she have been taken? Or had she found a way out on her own?
He focused his optics on her collection, and, after moving further into the room, discovered her boots and bag on the floor beside the dresser in the corner. No, she hadn’t left on her own. She never would’ve left those things behind.
Ronin moved the dresser back into place, stepped out of her room, and continued his search.
She wasn’t in the other bedrooms, and his gear, including the pistol, was where he’d left it atop the chest at the foot of his bed.
More evidence that she hadn’t departed on her own.
All these items would’ve aided her survival.
To leave behind both her own belongings and his openly displayed tools and weapon would’ve been madness.
His processors whirred as he returned to the hallway and paced from one end to the other, running hundreds, thousands of simulations at once. None of them could fully account for the single greatest variable—human unpredictability.
Taken, then? He was certain Warlord kept keys to every residence in the bot district, and it would’ve only required a single gearhead to subdue Lara. What history did she have with Cheyenne’s ruler?
A potent buzz surged through his circuits, rage and fear intertwined into the same wavelength. What if Warlord had taken her? What if the gate guards had informed their leader that Ronin had taken not just a human, but Lara, into his residence, and Warlord had come to collect her?
Ronin halted abruptly, tilting his head down. Thick clumps of dust lay on the floor, some having already been trampled into the carpet fibers by his boots. His optics swept up to the attic hatch.
Though he’d noticed the hatch when he’d first taken residence, he’d never opened it and looked inside. Given the state of the rest of the building, logic had dictated that there was nothing of value to find up there. Why would she go up there now?
Reaching up, he grasped the broken pull-string and tugged the hatch open.
The whine of old springs and hinges warned him. He caught the ladder with his free hand before it could strike his head. Above, someone gasped.
Floorboards creaked overhead, and Lara peered over the edge, with cobwebs clinging to her loose, messy hair and a smudge of dirt on her cheek and chin. Briefly, Ronin shut out everything but his sensory input.
Lara was here. Safe.
And she was beautiful.
“Did you know somebody used to live up here?” she asked.
Her question was so unexpected that he wasn’t sure how to process it. Hello or what’s going on would have been easier to respond to.
“What are you talking about?” Ronin lowered the ladder. The wood groaned as he mounted it, rungs flexing enough beneath his weight that he had to adjust his stabilizers.
Lara backed away, allowing him enough space to climb onto the dusty attic floor.
Her footprints were everywhere, in a meandering trail from one side of the attic to the other and back again.
It was twenty-three degrees warmer here than in the hallway below.
Strands of damp hair were plastered to her face, and a sheen of perspiration covered her skin.
But it was the dried blood at her temple that his optics zeroed in on. The flesh around the small cut there was raised, taking on the red and purple coloring of a developing bruise.
His brow plates sank low.
“You’re hurt,” he said, raising a hand to brush her hair away from the cut.
She ducked out of his reach and pulled more hair over the wound. “It’s nothing. The ladder had the upper hand on me.” Lara snickered. “Get it?”
Ronin dropped his hand to his side. Internally, he combed his stored data for information about human head injuries. Were nonsensical ramblings and statements without context signs of deeper trauma?
“I…got everything I intended at the market?” he said.
“Wow. Okay. We’ll add no appreciation for witty humor to the list. Anyway—wait. What happened to your hands?”
She moved to his side, staring at his hands. He lifted them, turning his palms toward the ceiling, and inspected the new skin. It was strange to see them this way after so long. They were undoubtedly his hands, but they seemed somehow foreign to him.
“I went to the Clinic and had them reskinned. Been a long time since I’ve done it. I figured it was overdue.”
“You can do that? Like, grow new skin?”
Ronin turned his face toward her. Did she realize how close her curiosity had brought her to him?
Her scent registered with his olfactory sensors—blood, sweat, dust. But there was also a crisp freshness from the soap she’d used, and a hint of something more, something he’d not detected from anywhere else. A scent that was wholly...Lara.
Resisting the urge to move closer to her, he replied, “It’s synthesized from various materials. Not grown.”
Lara looked into his optics, her brow furrowing. “Why don’t the gearheads do it, then?”
“Because they don’t want to be mistaken for humans.”
“Yeah. Because we’re so horrible.” She rolled her eyes and walked toward the window. “Come look at this.”
Not sure how to respond to her comment, he followed her to the far end of the attic. As Lara knelt, he took in the scene—the bookcase full of jars, the blankets and clothing on the floor, the table and chair.
She picked up a book with a brown leather cover and held it out to him. “I can’t read it, but someone wrote this.”
“Every book was written by someone.” Ronin took the book, running his fingertips over the textured surface.
“No, smart ass. This one was written by hand. Not like the other ones. And this”—she gestured to the blankets—“was where he slept.”
His optics followed her gesture before returning to the book. Carefully, he opened it. The pages were stiff, but in surprisingly good condition.
Those things killed people today. Marched into town and just started killing people. I watched from the window as people were dragged into the park and executed.
“And this is what he ate,” Lara said, calling Ronin’s attention back to her. She stood near the bookcase, holding up a jar with a dark, unidentifiable substance inside it. “Trust me when I say not to open them.”
Ronin studied the objects one at a time, cataloguing them in his memory. It was impossible to say how long ago the words had been written, how long ago the writer had lived. Many, many years, certainly. “He?”
She stepped closer to him, turning the pages to reveal the photographs tucked in the middle of the book. The top one was a picture of a family. The adult male and female had dark brown hair and eyes, and the two children resembled them closely.
“Pretty sure it was him,” Lara said, tapping the man’s face.
Humans didn’t look like that anymore. It wasn’t that those in the picture had drastically different features than modern people; basic human facial structures and proportions were unchanged. No, it was the light in their eyes, the genuine smiles on their faces.
The people in the photo were happy, healthy, and alive.
Lara moved to the window. “And he had a great view.”
Outside, sunlight sparkled on the surface of the pond in the middle of the park and cast golden halos around the treetops.
I watched from the window as people were dragged into the park and executed.
“Come away from there,” Ronin said, tone sharp even to his own receptors.
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“There’s food downstairs, and you’re likely in need of hydration after spending so much time up here in the heat. Go clean yourself up and have something to eat.”
She looked down at herself. Dust clung to her clothing and sweat-dampened skin.
“Yeah…guess I didn’t notice. I maybe got a little carried away.” She plucked restlessly at the hem of her skirt before letting it drop.
“I found some more clothes for you at the market. They might not fit quite right, but they’ll be better than nothing until we can adjust them.” His boots thumped on the floorboards as he walked to the hatch. “Go on. I’d rather you get down safe before it collapses under me.”
“Okay, okay.” With one last glance at the window, she hurried over and climbed down.
Ronin’s optics lingered on the evidence of that mysterious, long departed resident before he shifted them to the book in his hand. JOURNAL was barely legible on the front cover. He slipped it into his pocket and headed downstairs.