The two of them traveled through the streets. It was late in the night and there were no other vehicles—just people and trains. But no vehicles. Mainlanders were still forced to use the public transit system which was deteriorating by the year. The two people groups had come together as peaceably as possible, but the government Nolan worked for was still a mess. And now, with this new information that Des was bringing to him, the government was in for a full-blown crisis. If what Des told him was true and word got out about it, there might be an uprising. The government as it was would be finished. How could the people trust a government who had just erased a whole village by accident? It would show a reckless incompetence at best.
He glanced at Des, wishing he could read the robots better. Des was a little easier given that he had a more life-like face, but he was still a robot and his features didn’t give away what he might feel like a human’s might.
“We need to get a few things straight,” Nolan said, looking back at the road. “First, you can’t be walking all around the streets of Mainland. You’re a robot, but you’re not marked with an identifier. It would raise too many questions.”
Des didn’t say anything, though Nolan waited anyway.
“Second,” Nolan finally said, “I know you might trust Hazel and all, but she hasn’t been part of the Mainland government since you left.”
“Why not?”
“Well, if you remember, she joined the Outlanders. That didn’t sit too well with Bracken and President Morris so she never got her old job back.”
“But they kept the Soul program?”
Nolan nodded. “That’s right.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“No, probably not. But Hazel caused a lot of trouble for them.”
“Because of you,” Des said. “Did they forget that fact too?”
“That’s another thing,” Nolan said. “Lester Vaughn is the second president.”
“Second what?”
“President,” Nolan repeated. “Morris oversees the old Mainlanders and Vaughn oversees the new Mainlanders, but Morris still holds most of the power.”
“Wait a minute, why is Morris still in office?” Nolan could feel Des staring at him with intensity.
“Yeah, well Bracken is still there too.”
“That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Me neither,” Nolan said, “but I got to stay on because Vaughn asked me to. But given my past, I have to keep a low profile. I make people uncomfortable.”
“I’m surprised the citizens didn’t turn on Morris,” Des said.
“The revealing information that you so efficiently displayed to the public was forced into a spin against the late President Godfrey.”
“The president you assassinated?”
“Yeah,” Nolan said, shifting in his seat. “Anyway, I said all that to tell you that I don’t know what Hazel will be able to do for you. She’s just a regular person now. She certainly won’t be able to help you with the bomb issue.”
“Noted.”
Nolan sighed and they rode in silence for another twenty minutes before Nolan explained to Des that since he was in the Southern Zone, he wouldn’t be able to go to another part of the city without Nolan’s help. The other zones were restricted to the Outlanders in order to maintain peace.
A few minutes later, Nolan parked the truck a few streets away from Hazel’s home. He stared out the window, wondering to himself if it was a good idea to let the robot out. He figured it was too late now considering Des could overpower him and do what he wanted, but Nolan still questioned the wisdom in his actions.
“Listen to me,” Nolan said, before Des got out of the vehicle. “Use Hazel’s place to lay low for a little bit. It would ruffle some feathers if too many people found out you were here. I don’t want you to expose yourself and something happen to Hazel.”
“I understand,” Des said. He started to get out of the truck, but Nolan grabbed the robot by the wrist.
He let go quickly when Des glared at him. “Sorry,” Nolan said. “I’m going to look up your coordinates and match them with our records, okay?”
Des nodded.
“Don’t do anything until I get back to you on this. If you’re right and everything happened as you said, then something else is going on here. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Des said. “And I want to hear from you soon.”
“You will.”
“I better. Else I’ll take the investigation into my own hands.” Des opened the truck door and got out.
“Don’t do—”
The door slammed shut.
“—that,” Nolan finished. He let out a deep breath, floored by what had transpired and scared that he might learn the truth.
He looked at the coordinates Des had given him and his heart started to beat faster and harder. Was it possible that Des was telling the truth?
He hoped Des was wrong, more than anything.
9
Gizmo wasn’t programmed with Soul, so Hazel didn’t feel bad tinkering with his emotion software. His constant bickering and complaining was starting to wear on her, so she worked with the numbers to try and tone it down a little. The result was a sad-sounding Gizmo who acted like there was no reason to live. It was getting late, so she didn’t feel like messing with it any longer. At least not for the rest of the evening.
She set the robot on the ground and noticed that he dragged as he moved across the floor. “Why are you going so slow?” she asked.
Gizmo turned his little square head toward her. “I’m just not looking forward to the silence,” he said. “When you go to bed, it gets so quiet around here. The silence makes me sad.”
Hazel bit the inside of her lip and shook her head. She wasn’t sure how long she would be able to take a sad Gizmo over an angry one. At least the angry version had more spice. This one was depressing. She wondered if she should just remove all emotional programming from the little robot, or perhaps just deactivate him altogether. It wasn’t like he served much of a purpose anymore. He was terrible at cleaning. In fact, he was constantly knocking things over with his stiff robotic limbs. Before, she’d been attached to the pet project that was Gizmo, but after years of service, the novelty was finally beginning to wear off. She thought that maybe her father really appreciated having Gizmo around, but he had been asleep so much lately that Gizmo spent most of his time trying to talk to Hazel. Before this, she’d never realized how much attention her father had given the little robot.
The computer was shut down and the lights turned off. She tiptoed toward the door of her father’s bedroom and could hear him breathing quietly. Since he was blind, it wasn’t abnormal for his eyes to be closed when he wasn’t sleeping. So, before going to bed, she would whisper to him softly so as not to wake him if he was asleep, but loudly enough so he could hear her if he needed anything.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
A breath, but no answer.
“He’s been asleep for seven hours straight,” Gizmo said from the other side of the room. “Sometimes I wish I could sleep.”
“You can,” Hazel said. “Just get into your charging station and go on standby.”
“I suppose that’s a good idea,” he said. “Take my mind off the world.”
And give me some peace and quiet, Hazel thought to herself.
She stepped out of the room and returned to the desk with no intention of turning the computer back on. She should have been in bed. Her father would stir at some point in the night and she might have to help him. She needed all the rest she could get. But worrisome thoughts invaded her mind, keeping her from the sleepiness required to actually slip into unconsciousness.
This wasn’t a rare occurrence these days. This time she was thinking about the possibility of her dad dying. The thought saddened her. Sickened her was more like it. If her father, John Hawthorn, were to die because he couldn’t get the medicine he needed, then the government would be to blame. In a way, Hazel
felt she would be the one to blame. After all, things were the way they were because she had decided to side with the Outlanders in the first place. At the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do, but in retrospect it was a betrayal against the only living relative she had left. Following her thoughts to conclusion, she had ultimately decided to save the Outlanders rather than save her own father.
She couldn’t think this way. What was the point? If she could have foreseen the future, she might have chosen differently, but such a gift wasn’t afforded to her, and now she was stuck, and her father lay dying.
She wished these were uncommon thoughts. She wished she didn’t blame herself. She had labored over her decision to help Nolan and his Outlanders, but where was the payoff? There hadn’t been one for her. Things never turned out the way they were supposed to. For that she found herself in a constant state of anger, like Gizmo without a choice. Whenever the anger finally did settle, she always slipped back into the downward spiral of doubt and depression, always questioning herself and the decisions she had made.
She decided she had had enough self-loathing for one night and started toward her room when she heard a tapping noise outside.
She froze in place and turned her ear toward the house’s side door. Perhaps it was the wind, or maybe she hadn’t really heard anything at all. She waited in the middle of the room like a statue, straining to hear the noise again.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Her legs moved her toward the door and she pressed her ear against it. There was a strong possibility that it was just a robot patrol walking through the neighborhood, though that would have been odd at this time of night.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
It definitely sounded like a robot’s footsteps. But different somehow. She wanted to look outside, but she didn’t want the patrol to see her. She wasn’t sure why, but ever since she’d moved back into her dad’s house, she felt strange being noticed here. Even when there were deliveries or someone else at the door, she always made Gizmo answer because she felt like it wasn’t her place anymore.
Still, the tapping was coming closer to the house, and her curiosity got the better of her. She stepped next to the door and crouched in front of the window. The house was dark so there wouldn’t be any light shining through as she barely pulled back on the curtain. It was hard to see anything in the darkness. Whatever streetlights that might have illuminated the neighborhood had been gone for years, destroying any sense of safety they might have once offered.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some movement to the right and she quickly shut the curtain and stood straight.
Was the movement coming toward the house? She wasn’t sure. She dared to crouch one more time and take another look. This time she gasped and jumped back when she saw someone moving along the cracked sidewalk next to her house.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
She moved to the door again and pressed her ear against it. The noise changed. Whoever had been walking toward the house was now in the grass.
Then, tap, tap.
The noise stopped this time and Hazel knew that whoever the figure was, it loomed on her front porch.
Knock, knock, knock.
The metal against wood was soft and unobtrusive, but that didn’t keep Hazel from shaking at the noise. It was late at night, perhaps even morning by now. Having a visitor at this time was never a good thing.
Her thoughts of getting her dad’s gun came too late. She didn’t want to make the noise of fumbling after it in the dark, and if this person was gun-worthy, by the time she did get to it, the perpetrator would already be in the house.
“Who is it?” If the person on the other side was a human, there would have been no way he heard her. If it was a robot, however, which was what the sound of his footsteps suggested, then he would have no trouble.
“I’ve come to fulfill a promise,” a muffled voice called out from the other side.
That voice… I know that voice…
Hazel reached for the latch, unlocked the door and swung it open. When she saw Des towering in front of her, shadowed and unmoving, she nearly lost her ability to breathe. She left the door wide open as she took two steps backward, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.
“Hazel,” Des said, but he didn’t move.
She didn’t know what to say. Seeing him…seeing Des…it didn’t make any sense. She couldn’t even tell what emotion she felt in the moment. She was shocked, for sure, but deep within her was a mixture of anger and elation swirling around like a tornado.
“Des,” came the whisper.
“Yes, it’s me.”
Her mind snapped back to attention and she regained her senses. She briefly looked past the robot and motioned for him to get inside. “Hurry, come in, come in.”
Des took a couple of steps into the house and Hazel quickly shut the door behind him. She stayed there for a moment, her head resting against the wood frame. She closed her eyes to compose herself, her teeth pushing against each other.
She spun around quickly to find Des staring at her. “Where…” she shook her head. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you,” he said innocently.
“I…” she swallowed. It made her even more angry that tears started to form in her eyes. She knew if she spoke they would start falling. The lump in her throat felt huge and that frustrated her even more.
She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath. When she looked up at Des, she had to push away all her other emotions but anger. This was her defense against the tears. Some people couldn’t keep tears back when they got angry, but that wasn’t Hazel. When she was angry tears couldn’t come.
“It’s been five years,” she said. “What gives you the right to come back now?”
Des seemed stunned by Hazel’s hostility. She knew he probably didn’t expect it, and it was probably unfair of her to treat him in this way, but what else was she to do?
“Where did you go on your half-decade vacation while the rest of Mainland was burning to the ground?” She walked past Des and into the living area. She tried to keep her voice low so her dad wouldn’t wake.
“Vacation?” Des said. “You think I’ve been wandering for the last five years, enjoying my time?”
“Have you?”
Des shrugged. “Sometimes. Mostly not.”
“When you said you were going to be gone, you never said it would be this long. I thought you were dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Des said. “My concept of time was probably not the same as yours when I made my promise. Keep in mind that I’m barely five years old.”
“Spare me, Des. You might be five years old, but you’re no child.”
“I hope no child ever sees what I have had to see,” Des said.
This quieted Hazel and for some reason, anger fled from her. How could she have been so callous? What was she doing?
She stared at the floor and shook her head. “I’m…I’m sorry, Des. I just…you took me by surprise.”
“I didn’t expect you to be angry with me,” he said.
“I’m not. Again. I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath and reached out to Des for an embrace.
He held out his arms too, and she pressed her warm body of skin and bones against his body of cold metal and wires. It felt odd to embrace him. It wasn’t like the last time. When he’d left, Hazel had felt a sincere admiration for him and a true sense of love. In fact, her declaration of love was the last thing she’d ever said to him. She never knew what kind of love it was, whether it was like a mother to a son, or a sister to a brother, or a wife to a husband. There was no defining it, she’d simply loved him.
When the two let go of each other, she looked him over and noticed the metal on his body was slightly worn with scrapes and dents. His rubbery face was missing small chunks from conflicts she may never know about. But more than these, she saw his worn spirit and a look of worry on his face.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
/>
“I realize that I’ve been gone for a very long time,” he said. “And so much has changed here. It doesn’t seem for the better.”
“Things have gotten better for the Outlanders considering the way they used to live, but all of Mainland has taken a turn.”
“I wonder if you might sit and tell me about it,” Des said. “Then, I will tell you my story.”
10
Des listened as Hazel told him about the two presidents…about how Hazel had lost everything…about how the Outlanders weren’t allowed in with the Mainlanders. She told him that the government was still corrupt in its own way, but at least now there were people inside who were trying to make it better.
“Like Nolan?” Des asked.
“Maybe,” Hazel said, turning her head away.
“He’s the one that brought me here, you know.”
She turned her head back to Des quickly. “He brought you here?”
Des shrugged. “He dropped me off a few streets away to avoid detection.”
“Really,” she said, tapping her front teeth with her index finger.
“I take it you haven’t seen him in a long time?” Des asked.
“I’d say it’s been a while.” Hazel looked away from Des for a long moment, seemingly in thought, though Des didn’t want to press her too far. He enjoyed talking to her and he didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t express how happy he was to see her. Even though the images of his dead friends from the village remained fresh in his mind, seeing Hazel was a calming experience that he needed. “Details get muddled when you’re speaking of time,” Hazel said. “I don’t know when I saw him last.”
Des wasn’t sure he believed her, but he didn’t want to question her either. If there was one thing he had learned about humans over the last five years it was that none of them were afraid to tell a white lie, either to spare someone’s feelings or to avoid a potentially uncomfortable conversation. Still, he wondered why the topic of Nolan might be uncomfortable for her.
Prototype Exodus (Prototype D Series Book 2) Page 6