Epilogue
Zero
“So. How is it out at the farm?” Stella’s tone was light, casual.
Calculated to be friendly. She leaned up against the wall where Zero worked.
Her body was back to its original specifications.
It had only taken a few hours of work to reconnect her.
It was a shame that repairing her didn’t wipe her personality as well.
Zero, though, didn’t look up. “Stella, you know we aren’t friends, right? Especially after the crap you pulled.”
“I’m attempting to be different.” Her fake smile flickered.
“No one is giving you any details for a reason. You can’t pretend your way back into everyone’s good graces. The fact that you’re even trying me now . . .”
“I really am curious how they are.”
“Not buying it.” Zero adjusted his shirt, wiping his brow. “Look, lady, I’m just here to fix the pipes.”
“But—“
“Move on.” Then quieter, he added, “Everyone is sick of your crap. You got put back together; leave everything alone.”
“Nevermind.” Stella rolled her eyes and huffed. “Forget I even tried.”
Zero pushed himself off the wall. “We get the baby pictures. That’s all they want to share with everyone. You need to be satisfied with that.” He turned back to the pipes. “If you are feeling different, maybe go visit Earth again yourself? Actually help there this time?”
He glanced up to see her reaction. And there it was. Her mask slipped, and the disgust showed as her eyes tightened.
Zero’s lip curled, regarding her. She is still raging. That’s all she ever seemed to do since she was put back together. Only she did so in secret now, hidden from the communal mind that no longer wanted anything to do with her thoughts or plans.
Stella was angry that the baby now lived outside their control, and about how she no longer had any influence whatsoever.
Zero could see right through her.
She covered up her disgust a second later, sliding the professional grin back into place. “I was just curious. No need to go that far. Besides, it looks like everyone is wanting to visit Earth.”
“. . . Just about.”
“Even you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you wanting to bring a human back too?” she asked.
Zero wiped the grease on his brow. The truth was, he did want to. But that wasn’t for Stella to know. “I need to see what they are like first.”
Stella watched him a moment longer, clearly dissatisfied with his answer, then finally left.
He returned to replacing the seals on the pipes.
It was a maintenance task he had been doing every ten years around the whole facility without fail for over one hundred and fifty years now.
There were changes happening with Earth.
But the way forward was even more muddled now that the neurochip plan had been deemed unethical.
What were they to do? Only take in the weaker females and children of Earth? What about male babies?
The males were the aggressive ones. From the drones, he saw footage.
Men hoarding the resources from the drops.
Warfare. The women sometimes engaged in fights right alongside them, but it was disproportionately men.
The remaining humans treated each other with harsh hands and hard eyes.
Not all were like Nora. Or Tilly. Or Anna.
And that was the problem.
On an individual basis, they could see goodness in humanity.
The protective look in Anna’s eye, the way she clung and sobbed over that baby when it was given back, and how the baby quieted, as if knowing it was back where it belonged, the tiny body hiccuping from the separation—it broke through to a lot of them.
The resounding echo in the consensus mind was curiosity and joy when Anna sent them photos. And shame that it took them that long to see she was not one of the humans they needed to guard against. A gentle truce now existed.
Zero finished his work and returned to his quarters, decorated with tanks filled with small animals, lizards, and frogs.
A few generations ago, he even had a dog, but he hadn’t had responsibility to another creature like that for a long time.
He liked medicine. He wasn’t as good at it as he was at maintenance—but fixing things, caring for creatures .
. . well, that filled an emptiness deep inside.
And it was not a lie to Stella that he was also now interested in Earth.
There was a reason he’d been so accommodating to Anna. So willing to help. Even before he really understood the morality of the neurochip plans.
Because there was a woman, you see. One that Zero had noticed remotely that he wished he could help the same way Atlas and Simon had helped Anna and Nora.
He’d noticed her, living on a coastline in one of the most polluted areas of the planet. The ocean had brought toxic sludge to shores that the humans filtered through a refinery. All of the Earth’s beaches were once so beautiful. Once upon a time.
Zero leaned against the desk, starting the Earth feeds now. He zoomed over the wasteland, over the ocean. And imagined. He was already signed up for the next drop visit to Earth. He was going to be the chief medical officer. He could hardly believe it. Him, a maintenance model-M.
Everything in him was alert. Ready. Soon they would leave for Earth again.
And with that, there would come a time, very soon, When Zero Counted.