34. Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
Atlas
Atlas kept pace with Zero as they surveyed the farming area. The sun was high in the sky, a beautiful blue that had only a smattering of the clouds that usually drifted overhead during the summertime.
Zero was in his element, noting the manufacturing modifications to the barn that needed to be made.
He had a computer pad in front of him, already loaded with the schematics and existing underground utilities.
Seven already had a shovel and was digging a trench for a water line.
Fifteen took measurements by his side, a full arsenal of equipment on his tool belt.
Others were pacing the property, almost making Atlas feel antsy with their determined energy.
Atlas watched from the sidelines. The entire cohort of model-Ms were positively giddy about the thought of a new construction project.
Where did Anna go though? She was noticeably absent.
He turned around. Maybe back to the warehouse?
He couldn’t leave just then to find her, not with Zero dogging his footsteps and demanding input.
Finally, everyone had their tasks sorted. Atlas lagged behind until the group moved on, following Simon and discussing modifications. Instead of catching back up with them, he then walked in the opposite direction, faster.
The front of her warehouse and inside was empty when he looked.
Where was Anna? Not at her new house. But there was no way she could be far.
His footsteps softened almost immediately when he turned the corner.
Anna was sitting on the long log out in front of the pasture.
Her light brown hair floated down her back as she stared straight ahead at the cows.
“There you are!” He hurried toward her.
Anna’s shoulders hunched even more as he came near. He narrowed his eyes. His sensors examined the tilt of her head. Is she okay?
“Anna? Are you alright?” He sat on the log’s edge next to her. “They’re getting to work on all the modifications now.”
“Yeah.” She rubbed at her nose. “I’m alright.”
He gently tapped her arm. “Everything is coming together. Zero is currently trying to figure out how to get you water.”
“Thank you . . . thank him.” She rubbed at her nose and her cheeks. “Gah.”
“You’re crying?” He tracked tears as they traveled down her face. No. No. What do I do?
“Oh.” Anna grimaced a second later, hands on her side. “I got too emotional. Shit.”
His medical side took over. He scooted closer. “Another contraction?”
“Yeah. I need to calm down.” She took a deep, staggering breath. “But this thing. That chip. It’s not letting me get angry, and when I do, I can’t think about it. I can get sad, but not angry. Or even a little irritated.”
Can’t feel angry? Well, that was what the chip did. What its purpose was. Rage flooded him instead. “It’s not hurting you, is it?”
“No, I don’t think so. It just feels funny.”
Her abdomen was hard as he gently touched it. Definitely a contraction.
“Breathe, Anna.” He took a deep breath with her. “You can stay. Your own home. That’s what you wanted, right?” He pulled his sweater sleeve over his hand and wiped at her eyes with the soft fabric. “Why are you crying?”
“It was something Zero said.” She shuffled her feet in the dirt. “I know he didn’t mean anything, but he called us an experiment. That’s like what Stella said, that it makes sense we live out here since we are used to chaos, and are more like . . ." She swallowed. "Animals.”
Oh. Oh. Everything in him ached. “No, Anna. Zero is excited, he didn’t mean it like that.” He said. “Zero is in no way like Stella.”
“But, Stella . . .”
“Forget Stella. She is complex. She lost a lot during the war and only lets fear think for her.”
“I get it though.” Anna wiped her face the rest of the way. “I lost a lot too. All of humanity did. But she’s got us wrong. All wrong.”
His fingers gently touched her arm. “I know, Anna.”
Her shoulders stiffened, and she backed out from where his hand rested on her. “With this thing on me, I’m not sure what I feel.”
“Is it hurting you at all?”
“No but something else is. . .” Her voice hitched. “You agreed with Zero about this all being an experiment. Are you sure you don’t think like they do? That I’m wild?”
He recoiled back. “No. I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve come to understand so much more now.”
Brown strands of her hair twisted in her fingers. Her voice caught as she said, “Are you sure, Atlas?”
“Anna.” A part of his neural mind frayed. “It’s not like that at all . . . I don’t.” He reached out to pull her toward him with the most delicate touch he could manage.
But she pushed back against his chest. “I’m okay, Atlas. You don’t need to artificially comfort me or something.”
It isn’t artificial. He slowly lowered his arms. “Anna . . .”
Her hair was stuck up where she had tugged on it. “I wish I was more useful. All I can offer is my body.”
“What do you mean?”
“This chip.” She gripped her stomach. “Maybe if I had more to offer, I wouldn’t have had to make the dumb deal I did.”
“It wasn’t dumb.” He shook his head fast. “Nothing you did was dumb.”
Her whole body heaved as she took deep breaths. “I think they’re watching me now, for entertainment.”
What could he even say? “Not all of them.”
“I knew it. But that doesn’t matter.” Anna put her hands on her belly.
“I’m this baby’s mother. Atlas, I feel it, right now.
I’m needed for this little baby. It has been a long time since I felt like I was needed or wanted—for anything.
And it . . . terrifies me. But hell, all I know how to do is bake.
I sold my body to be this experiment the first chance I could . . .”
“. . . Anna.”
“I did it,” She sobbed out, “because I have nothing more I could offer!”
Slowly, wary of another rejection, he moved to sit closer to her, taking her hand and holding it in his own.
He put as much feeling into his words as he could.
“I think the neurochip is clouding your emotions, Anna. You’re not able to get angry, so it might be making you sad instead.
What you did . . . it was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. ”
“Brave?” She took a jagged breath in. “Or foolish?”
“Brave. Absolutely.” He pushed her hair behind her ear. “You are the kind of brave the world could use more of.”
“I wish I could believe it.” She ducked her head. “Back on Earth, I was meek, weak, Anna. I know Nora . . . I love Nora—but I know she always saw me like that.”
“Nora cares about you.”
“She does, but she never understood why I stayed with Paul. And she was right. I was gonna have this baby and still be with Paul.” Anna hung her head, putting it right over their conjoined hands. “And . . . hell, I am such a fool.”
He squeezed the hand he still held in her lap. “No you aren’t, Anna. Do you know what I see?”
Her eyes peeked out over her fingers. “A pregnant mess?”
“Hmm. Only when you refuse to rest.” He peeled her hand away from her face. “No. I see someone who is doing what’s right. Even if they’re confused and not sure.”
“Right, right.”
“Anna.” Atlas said. “You are wearing a chip literally on your skin. And you’re doing it to protect your baby. That’s why you’re brave.”
She shook a minute, then wiped her eyes.
"I mean it," he said.
“You're right.” She gave a watery grin. “I think I’m having a hard time adjusting to this.”
“There’s a lot to adjust to. You kind of turned everything upside down in an afternoon.”
“My specialty.” Anna weakly chuckled.
"It sure is."
He sat there, eyes resting on their conjoined hands. His silicone smooth. Hers just as calloused as he remembered before.
"“You know what?" She straightened herself on the log. "Last night was the first night I actually slept well. Paul took so much. I’m not gonna . . . I’m not gonna let Stella or anyone take more from me.”
“There you go, yes.”
Lifting Atlas’s hand, she pulled it from her lap with both of her own.
“So, they can say whatever they want. Be entertained by me.” She grinned.
“They can think I’m an animal. I’m one of the cows now.
” She took a deep breath. “And even if they change their minds about us staying here, I’m not going to go along with it. ”
Atlas froze. This. This was what they’d been afraid of. This fire. And it wasn’t even anger. It’s willpower. Integrity. His body stiffened. She’s not controllable. It was the androids’ worst fear—but in Anna . . .
In Anna, her agency was beautiful.
He itched to intervene, to rip the chip off of her. She didn’t need fixing.
She pulled her hands away from his, then leaned over, awkwardly, to pick at some blades of grass around the log. Then she grinned at him again. . . “Grass is still the same?”
He smiled back. “Same seeds brought over from Earth.”
Suddenly, her gaze whipped to his face. She waved the grass blades in the air. “The biggest question I have then is . . . why are you here, Atlas?”
Why? Her eyes pierced him. Did she not want him here? “Do you want me to leave?”
“No! No I don’t!” She waved her hands, then dropped her voice. “Well, maybe yes. I think it depends on why you’re really here. I know you don’t see me the way Stella does, but then why are you here?”
“To help?”
“Is it just that though?” She let the grass drop from her fingers. “Is it because you feel bad for me? Is it because you’re technically my doctor?”
Her eyes. The vulnerability in them. Atlas could look at them forever. Be lost in them forever. And it wouldn’t be enough time. “. . . No.”
“Is it because you’re curious too?”
The sun suddenly felt bright overhead. Those eyes pierced him. Atlas picked his words carefully. “Initially, yes, I was. I did see you clinically before. I helped before because it was medically expected of me.” Then softer, he added, “That’s no longer the case, Anna.”
“Oh.” The fire in her eyes dimmed into softness. “Damn. . .You confuse me, Atlas.”
“Confuse you?” His mouth quirked. “Not as much as you confuse me.”
That familiar heartbeat of Anna’s galloped, then with almost a twitch, it slowed.
Without thinking, Atlas took his hand and put it over her breast where it pounded. “Ah sorry! Sorry! That’s not where I should touch.” He quickly pulled his hand away. “Sorry. Your heart started pounding. I think the neurochip made it slow back down.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “That is also another thing I wondered.”
“What?”
“I just want to be clear.” She pointed down to her body. “I’m not really interested in anything physical right now. If that’s also what you were thinking. Especially now, being pregnant.”
Atlas took a minute to understand. Anything physical?
“. . .You think that’s what I want?” He stuttered. “That’s what I’m here for?”
“I don’t know?” Anna’s voice cracked. “Isn’t that what men want? Why do they stay around? I’m not here to be an experiment, an adventure. A fun time with a human.”
His processors spun. The other humans used her. And then anger. Used and hurt her. The wind picked up, lifting her hair. She rejected him before, but it didn’t matter. He slid from the log and took both her hands in his.
This human.
“Oh Anna.” His voice softened. “No. I don’t see you as anything like that at all.”
“. . .You don’t?”
“No.” He held her gaze. “I am attracted to you, but not for that reason only.” He lowered his voice, staring deep into her eyes.
“Something in me wants to hold you carefully. To be soft with you. There’s an ache that doesn’t make logical sense.
When you cry, everything in me spins to figure out why. ”
Tears came again. But this time her cheeks also flushed. “Oh.”
“I’m here for your heart.” Tentatively, he placed his hand over her heartbeat again, pushing firmly in. “I’m trying to figure this out.”
“My heart.” She echoed.
Atlas moved his hand away from her heart, cupping her cheek. “Will you help me? Or even let me?”
Swallowing, her voice caught. “I don’t know. That . . .”
Atlas wiped the remaining tears on her face. His body remembered exactly where Anna had hugged him the other day. The small touches, the small smiles. Like he was permanently branded. And he didn’t mind. “I’m here. But nothing needs to change. This can be figured out slowly.”
“It can be? Slowly?”
“Yes. Do you want to?”
She swallowed. “I think. Yes.”
Everything in him swelled. She wanted to. She wanted to. A sense of rightness fell over every part of him.
“Good. Good. We can try.” He grinned, waving behind him. “And see? Look. You are going to stay here now. In your little warehouse home. That’s what matters.”
“You’re right.” She leaned in on her own, her touch featherlight on his arm. “There are cows here, Atlas. Maybe you knew all along, showing me them on the ship.”
Atlas placed his hand over hers. If he had instincts, would this be what they were like? “Can I record you saying I’m right?”
Finally, a watery laugh. “Sure.”
Suddenly she looked up. Her eyes were bright. “I can do this, Atlas. I can make this a home. I can make this good for baby girl.”
He leaned in closer, squeezing her hand. “Yes. Yes you can.”