Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As Lara showered, Ronin banished himself to the lower level, doing all he could to keep from simulating images of her naked body glistening in the water.
He moved his bag into the kitchen and unpacked the food, setting it out on the island counter.
After refilling her canteen, he carried it to the table, sat down, and removed the journal from his pocket.
A human had penned it, just as Lara said, and Ronin knew the story it told would not be comforting to either of them.
He brushed his thumb over the cover, but he didn’t open it.
After eleven minutes and fourteen seconds, Lara entered the kitchen, her wet hair hanging down her back.
She wore some of the clothes he’d obtained for her—olive fatigues with patches on the knees and a baggy, off-white wool sweater.
Its broad neck sagged off her pale, freckled shoulder.
He averted his gaze as she hurried to the food.
Thankful for the distraction, Ronin pocketed the journal and watched her eat.
The eclectic meal she’d selected, consisting of smoked meat and roasted vegetables, rapidly vanished.
He couldn’t look away as her expression subtly changed with each new flavor, as her tongue slipped out to lick her lips clean, as she made soft, contented sounds in her throat.
Even in something as simple as food, she found pleasure. No programming required.
“So,” she said around a mouthful of food, “Ronin your real name?”
“It’s the only one I have,” he replied, forcing his optics to meet her eyes.
“Did someone give it to you, or did you choose it?”
“I chose it twelve years after I was reactivated.”
“Twelve years with no name?” She swallowed, ran her tongue over her teeth, and took another bite.
Though he’d been fully operational, those early years were confusing to him, and his memories of them were disorienting.
Despite all the data he’d accumulated since, his recollection of that period was forever tainted by how little he’d understood at the time.
He’d known the world was broken, that everything was wrong, but couldn’t determine how or why.
“I didn’t need a name to identify myself,” he said.
“But you gave yourself one anyway.”
“For the benefit of others. Easier than saying that bot or hey you.”
“Then why does everyone around here call you dustwalker?”
“Because there are few who choose to do as I do. There are rarely more than one or two successful dustwalkers in any given settlement at a time, and we’re constantly traveling.
Always…on the outside. More convenient to remember our role than our names.
The term carries respect, but also a little fear. ”
“Why are there so few of you?” Lara folded a slice of meat and slipped it into her mouth.
“Bots operate on logic. Constantly assessing risk ver—”
“Isn’t it more logical to not go into the Dust?”
Ronin smirked. “Yes, but settlements need raw materials to continue producing the parts bots need to function. Someone has to go find them.”
“Why do you?”
“Should I be making a list of these questions so I can eventually answer them all, or do you just lose interest if my answer is more than a few words long?”
She chewed slowly, brow arched as she stared at him. Seconds ticked by. The only sounds were Lara’s mastication and the refrigerator’s soft hum.
“Getting a little irritated there, dustwalker?” she finally asked.
“I prefer you call me Ronin.”
“Why?”
He couldn’t tell for sure, but there seemed to be a hint of humor in her voice. “I think I’m through answering questions for now, human.“
“Point taken.”
“May I get back to what I was saying?”
She picked up the canteen, unscrewed the cap, and took a drink. Seeing her use it made him feel something close to satisfaction. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she nodded.
“You asked why there are so few dustwalkers.” Ronin rested his hand on the table. “It’s because most who take up the calling meet their ends in the Dust. Whether a walker is a human or a bot, nobody goes looking for them when they don’t return.”
The motion of her jaw slowed. “And…you go out there by choice?”
“Yes.” Because he was compelled to.
“Why?”
“Perhaps my risk calculation processes were damaged in the Blackout.”
“But you know the risks. You said you were trying to survive, just like me. How is putting yourself in danger like that survival?”
Ronin lifted his hand and scratched his cheek. Touching it with something other than the bare metal of his fingers was nearly as strange as the impulse to scratch in the first place.
He lowered his hand back to the table. “It’s survival because I’m still moving. Existence is a constant battle, and I choose to engage it on my own terms. If I were to stay in a place like this all the time, at some point, I’d sit down and never get up again.”
“Because you feel like you have no purpose.”
Her words flared across his processors like a physical blow. A second passed; three seconds; fifteen.
It was half a minute before he formulated a response. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.” She slid the food wrapper away with half a strip of meat and three slices of carrot atop it. “Why’d you pick Ronin?”
Electrodes crackled across his cheek again, demanding physical stimulation, but he kept his hand down. After all his years of surviving, was he really so easy to read?
“In the twelfth year after I was awoken, I found a book. There were many more books back then. This one was about a country called Japan during a period of history that occurred many centuries ago. It spoke of warriors called samurai. They were the elite of their society, trained from young ages, feared by their enemies. But it was the ronin who caught my interest. In Japanese, it means wave man. They were soldiers without masters, seeking causes worthy of their skill. Wandering the lengths of their land, bound by nothing but their blades and how far their feet could carry them. It…spoke to me.”
“How much of it spoke to you?”
“Enough to choose Ronin as my name.” He dragged the paper closer and wrapped the remaining food. His chair scraped over the floor as he stood up. Gathering the other food, he placed it all in the refrigerator and returned to his seat.
Lara’s brow was furrowed, her eyes fixed on him. Her expression was thoughtful, but there were still hints of wariness in her posture. “You’re not like the other bots.”
“Doubt either of us have spent enough time around other bots to know for certain.”
“I’ve been around enough. You’re different.”
“And you’re different from the other humans I’ve dealt with.” It was an understatement, but he couldn’t put his complex reasoning into words. He still didn’t quite comprehend why she was different.
Her expression shifted again. It was another subtle change, but he was recognizing them with more ease, even if he didn’t know what they meant.
“You mentioned your sister,” he said when she made no reply. “Is there anyone else?”
Lara dropped her gaze to the table. “Don’t think so. Never knew who my father was, if he was dead or alive. Don’t think Mom did either. I remember her being sick a lot, but she went scavenging every day, anyway. One time, she just never came back. I was five, I think.”
Ronin realized then how little he’d thought about the way humans changed over the courses of their lives.
How they were born so small, so helpless, even more delicate and vulnerable than they were as adults, how they slowly grew over the years, bodies and minds developing and changing.
It was a process Ronin’s kind couldn’t experience.
They weathered the passage of time unchanging.
What had Lara looked like as a child? If he were to see an image of her at that age, would he recognize her, or had she changed too much?
“Cheyenne’s slums don’t seem like a good place for a five-year-old on her own,” he said.
“They’re not.” She leaned back in her chair, placing a hand on her abdomen. “I was crying one day because my stomach hurt. Mom always told me to be quiet and suck it up, so I never cried when she was around. But this time, I couldn’t help it. It just hurt so much that I was sure I was dying.”
Frowning, she shifted forward again, folding her arms on the edge of the table.
“It was Tabitha who found me like that. She was a few years older and had already been on her own for about a year.
She scavenged as best she could, but it was hard being a kid on your own, and there are people who took advantage of that.
They bully, beat, and steal from the weak.
I think some of the adults took pity and helped her out sometimes.
“So when Tabitha found me, she sat down next to me, hugged me, and asked why I was crying. But I couldn’t stop, not even long enough to answer her.
She knew, though. Even without me saying anything, she knew I was alone and hungry.
She held me, comforted me, and after a while, she gave me a potato from her pocket.
That…that was all the food she had. Then she told me we were sisters and that she’d always take care of me. ”
Lara smiled softly, moisture glistening in her blue eyes. “I’ll never forget that moment. I think… I know it was the first time I ever felt like someone cared about me. The first time I ever felt loved.”
Her smile fell away as she met his gaze again. “I need to find her, Ronin. She’s all I have.”
The emotions in her voice and expression were almost too layered to decipher. Fear, sorrow, determination, affection…loneliness? Solitude was familiar to Ronin. He’d wandered the Dust for so many years by himself, never staying in one place for long, never building lasting relationships.
What would it be like to have a companion, to share his existence with another person?
Would it be like this?
“I’ll do everything I can, Lara.”