“No,” he says as he stares back at the window again. “But I have a feeling she should be done by now. What does your gut tell you?”
Those were Nayne’s types of words, she thinks. That’s strange, that a raider would talk like her nayne did. Then she realizes, she doesn’t even know his name, this raider that reminds her of her nayne’s words. “Who are you anyway?” she utters, though the words came out ruder than she intended. “I mean what’s your name?”
“Henry,” he says, “and it’s nice to meet you too, Sidney.” He puts a dirty hand out to her.
She grabs his hand grudgingly, shakes it once and drops it.
Her gut tells her to run away from the house, but then something else tells her maybe Petra’s in trouble. Why does she feel inclined to help the bot, when it would kill her without hesitation if its scanners were working? Still, she doesn’t ignore the need to find out if the bot is okay, if she’s still in the house or not. Sidney doesn’t believe Petra would take off without her, though she’s not entirely sure why.
“My gut tells me she’s still in there,” Sidney says, pointing back at the house. “But I don’t know where or why. I don’t really want to go back in there.”
“Neither do I,” Henry agrees. “How about we take a walk around it, see if there’s another way in but the door. Maybe we can sneak in—”
His voice has changed somewhat, and Sidney suspects it’s probably because he’s not convinced of his own words.
Still, she follows him around the right side of the house where a large plant of sorts climbs up the brick, past the roof twenty meters above them. She eyes the raider’s back suspiciously, remembering she doesn’t trust him. As long as he has his back to her and not the other way around, she’s not too worried.
As they walk around another corner not a minute later, it’s clear there’s no other way into the brick home. No way but the front door, through which Sidney never intends to walk again.
When they turn the corner, she wonders what’ll happen now. With Petra gone, she has no interest in staying with this raider. So she pauses though he keeps walking ahead, muttering about structures and walls. She turns her head to look around, wonders if she could make it through the trees without him on her shadow. She’s a fast runner when she wants to be, and today might just be the day she wants to be.
Then she holds her breath when she hears a sound—a distinct whimper from their right. The raider heard it too as he turns and moves swiftly to the right, away from the house and its massive green vines.
When his breath hitches, Sidney finally twists around him to see what he’s looking at.
On the ground, naked with what looks like a sheen of sweat on her, Petra curls into herself as though she’s cold. It’s a balmy twenty five degrees Celsius though—the same temperature year in and year out in all of the Blue Dome.
Still whimpering, she holds her arms around her bare legs and stares up at them without a hint of recognition in her eyes.
Twenty-Eight
Petra
All she remembers is a wall closing in on her, then—nothing. Memories from before the wall flash every now and then, but for the most part, her mind is blank.
So the man and girl staring down at her as though they know her is bemusing. Who are they? What do they want? Did they have something to do with the wall she was stuck in?
“What happened to you?” The man shrugs off his dirty brown overcoat and places it gently around her naked shoulders. His hand touches her shoulder slightly and she shivers and moves away from him.
She doesn’t really know what happened to her, but says, “I was stuck between moving walls. They wouldn’t stop—” She remembers a sensation of being squeezed, intense pressure in her nerve endings that translated to pain—nothing like she’d ever experienced before.
The little girl takes a sharp breath in and her eyes grow wide. The bot, suddenly remembering her own name is Petra, looks at the child up and down, trying to remember a name for her. Nothing comes at first.
She’s never seen a girl like this before. She’s five feet tall, slight, with an airy look around her like she’s about to take flight at any moment. Her hair is a mass of dark brown strands, thick and scraggly, some of it sticking to her face like it has its own sense of gravity.
She’s dressed in ripped jeans that are too big, she’s rolled the hem up and keeps it around her waist with a makeshift belt made of a—scarf. She wears mismatched shoes—one a ripped blue, the other reddish brown, two different sized loafers with multi-colored laces that she’s clearly colored herself.
“What—” Petra says, as she starts to recognize her, but still can’t place the name. “Who are you?”
The girl steps back for a moment, then approaches her like she’s an injured animal. She puts one hand out with the palm facing up, then says, “Don’t you remember me, Petra?”
Well, one thing she knows—the girl knows her name. But she still can’t remember the girl’s or the man’s names. The memories flicker in the back of her mind, trying to fight their way to the forefront.
She knows it will take a few minutes.
In the meantime, another memory reminds her they shouldn’t stay in this place any longer. “We need to go,” she says as she jumps to her feet and pulls the coat around her as the man turns around.
She does up the few remaining buttons on the worn outfit, aware that it’s not the right size, nor the usual type of gear she’d wear.
Memories fight to come to her again, but the first one, the most important, tells her they need to run. And now.
“We need to go. Now!” she repeats as she grabs the girl’s hand and runs towards the edge of the forest. She has no idea where it leads, and doesn’t much care as long as it leads far away from here.
The man runs behind them, and they don’t come to a stop until they’re back on a terrain that Petra recognizes somewhat.
She stops and looks back as the man and girl—Henry and Sidney, she remembers, both huff and try to catch their breaths while they lean on their knees. They look so alike in that position, Petra wonders if they’re related.
“Sidney,” she says as the girl looks up. “Your name is Sidney. You’re Henry. I remember—”
“What made you forget in the first place?” Sidney asks as she takes in another deep breath. “And why were you naked? How did you get out of there?”
She can’t answer—she doesn’t know.
Henry says, “I think I might know. I’ve seen bots like you before—but—”
When he doesn’t continue, Sidney huffs out loud again.
“Well, can we get out of here, I don’t want to bump into those twins again. Can we get as far away from them as possible, please?”
Petra and Henry both nod and they walk towards the south, to the vault where Petra now remembers they were heading.
Twenty-Nine
Sidney
Sidney eyes Petra walking under Henry’s dirty brown coat and still wonders what happened to her. And why doesn’t Henry say anything about how she could have gotten out of there?
As they walk, she also notices that there are several other changes but she didn’t really have the chance to take a closer look at Petra until now. The bot’s hair was short when she’d first seen her. Like a boy-cut short hairstyle, and it was dark—mostly chocolate brown but nearly black in some places.
Now, it’s a lighter brown, like Sidney’s eyes, and it reaches the middle of her back.
“How come your hair’s long now?” Sidney asks as she stares up at her. “And your eyes are a different color too.”
She remembers thinking what pretty blue eyes Petra had, but now they look down at her, all silvery gray with hints of green. So many changes—and she still doesn’t remember how she got out of that place.
Petra looks down, clasping a handful of her hair. She watches Sidney curiously, then says, “I think these are things I can change easily. In another—programming, I was a host—of sorts.
Watch—”
Then, looking down again, as if she’s not sure she can do it, she watches as her hair shrinks away from her hand.
Sidney stops walking at the same moment Henry does. They both stare at Petra as her long brown hair retracts until, not a minute later, it’s all of four inches long like it was when they’d first met her.
“Wha—” Sidney says. “Where did it all go?” She reaches up to touch Petra’s head gingerly, but there’s no slot or anything to indicate how the hair disappeared.
“It’s inside,” Petra says as she points at her brain—or where her brain should be.
Sidney’s eyes grow even wider as she realizes what Petra’s said and pictures a wad of hair sitting inside the bot’s head, maybe some inside her neck given that there was so much of it.
Then Petra’s eyes change from silver to green to amber to blue again.
“Woah—” Sidney says as she steps even closer. “Can you make them pink? Purple? Oh oh! Lime green!”
As she utters the words, Petra’s eyes change to the corresponding color.
“That is so cool!” Sidney laughs as she claps her hands and jumps on her feet. For the first time since Petra and Henry have met Sidney, she looks exactly as a girl of ten should, all toothy grins and giggles, a spark of happiness in her eyes that seemed to have long since disappeared.
When Henry doesn’t react though, Sidney frowns at him. “Don’t you think that’s cool?” she says.
He nods, his eyes still on Petra, but he doesn’t utter a word. Sidney wonders again what he’s not saying.
Then Petra abruptly throws off Henry’s coat and she’s stark naked again.
Some old-style Allendian music emanates from somewhere within her and she sways and dances to it as it grows louder. She lifts her hands up to the air and continues to sway as the other two stare.
“What—are you doing?” Henry finally says as he moves to pick up the jacket. He tries to place it back over Petra’s shoulders but she shrugs it off again to continue dancing.
When Sidney sees that the bot’s not about to let up anytime soon, she plops herself on the ground to watch the dance. Nayne used to dance some times, when the rains weren’t so bad. She loved it—she said it “energized” her. So Sidney wonders if that’s what’s happening now, with Petra. If she’s just getting “energized”.
Henry moves over to the side but keeps his eyes off the bot, as if he’s ashamed of her nakedness or something, which Sidney doesn’t understand because she thinks Petra’s beautiful right now, her pale arms in the air, the sun’s rays warming her up.
The music is beautiful—slow and melancholy, it makes tears fight to the surface of Sidney’s eyes and she wipes at them. She doesn’t know why she’d be sad.
The dance looks like it’s finally slowing and when Petra’s arms come down to her sides, Sidney stands back to her feet, wondering if the bot’s ready to keep walking.
Instead, she begins to twirl on the spot. The music has stopped, but Petra hums in its stead.
This is a new thing, Sidney thinks. She’s not acting at all like her usual Petra-self. Though Sidney hasn’t known her long, she knows this is not something the old Petra would have done.
“Something’s wrong with her,” Henry states, confirming what Sidney’s thinking. “Something’s broken on the inside.”
Petra continues to spin, then she sings, “You and I, we’re both the same, for don’t you know from dust we came?”
And she sings the same words over and over again until the look on Henry’s face tells Sidney this is serious. She doesn’t know what to do other than wait it out. She doesn’t know what the words mean either. She’s not made of dust. “Skin and bones and liquid.” That’s what Nayne said. “Mostly skin and bones these days,” because they were hungry a lot.
“You and I, we’re both the same, for don’t you know from dust we came?” Petra sings as she twirls on the spot.
Sidney counts that the bot sings it over a hundred times before she finally stops again and keeps her arms by her side long enough for the others to realize she’s done. Sidney stays frozen, staring at her. Well that was a bit silly, she thinks, but also pretty to watch.
Petra just stares ahead of her, doesn’t move.
Henry places the coat back over her shoulders. “All right, can we keep going now?”
Her face remains passive. She’s still as a statue.
Sidney says, “What’s she doing now?”
“Darned if I know,” Henry replies. “Maybe whatever she went through has taken all the charge out of her. Maybe she’s replenishing now. So you and I have two options—”
“We’re staying with her,” Sidney says, cutting him off. Like she’d even consider going anywhere with him, without Petra in tow. Right. “We’ll make camp here.”
“Sounds like a great plan,” a gruff voice says to their right and, turning, Sidney flinches when she stares into the sneering eyes of another raider. He’s just under five feet tall, dressed in ratty blue jeans and a shirt that could have been blue once.
Sidney stands to run to a tree, but not before she sees Henry painstakingly move between herself and Petra and the man.
He’s still not quite healed, she knows, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he ran off. Instead he stands in front of the man in a slight crouch, like he’s ready for a fight. What’s he thinking? He’ll get himself killed.
“Nuthin’ for ya here, mate,” Henry growls. “Just walk away.”
To which the man utters a sound that almost comes across as a howl to Sidney.
“We can barter,” he says as he takes a step forward. “You not in fightin’ shape, mate. I have medicine that’ll help you. Just give me one. You can keep the other—”
His words are cut off when Henry slams into him with his head and hands first. When a distinct grunt reaches her ears, Sidney knows that action probably cost Henry some. Still, he doesn’t let up though the stranger looks like he could kill him with one finger.
Henry’s on his back with the stranger over him, throwing punches at his head. Sidney drops to the ground again, not thinking about it, just knowing she can’t watch this happen, watch the man kill Henry. Even if Henry is a raider.
One part of her wants to run away, far enough that she’ll never know what had happened here. Another part knows she doesn’t actually want to leave Petra in this frozen state.
Yet another part already has her running at full speed, not stopping until she jumps on the raider’s broad back and, without thinking about it, she opens her mouth wide and sinks her teeth into his grody neck.
He howls again, but this time there’s a lot less humor in the sound.
Then he drops to his side and Sidney falls off his back as Henry jumps on to his feet, blood dripping from his head. Both of them face the raider head on, one on either side of him.
Then he grins a big yellow gap-toothed grin and pulls a long metal rod from his side.
She eyes it, recognizing it to be some sort of antenna from an old bot or vehicle.
He brandishes the weapon and smiles even wider, despite blood pooling on the side of his neck, with Sidney’s teeth marks clear.
“You’ve just made this even more fun, girlie,” he says to her. Then he moves forward with his arm high, about to whack it into her face.
Henry grunts again and scrambles forward, but he’s not fast enough.
The raider’s rod slams into the side of Sidney’s face and she cries out, feeling like the entire left side of her face has just been ripped off. She raises her left hand to hold it against her cheek as it burns and throbs.
Her left eye’s shut, but she sees clearly with her right. Henry’s already got the raider on the ground and he’s slamming his fists into the man’s head. He must be in pain, she thinks, and simply moving with pure rage at this point.
She stands again, meaning to help him stop the raider, but by the time she gets to them, the raider’s already pushed Henry off him and he runs t
owards where Petra stands, leans in to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder.
Oh—hell no, Sidney thinks, and she rams into him again, at the same time Henry attacks him from the side, kicking him until he’s down, his breaths shallow.
Before she can grab at him, before Henry can kick him again, he stands and stumbles towards the trees, running faster than either one of them can catch him.
They both lean over their knees, staring after him silently, and Sidney worries that’s not the last they’ll see of him but she can’t catch a breath, least of all chase after him.
She looks at Henry’s bloody, huffy form, and knows he’s in a worse state than she is.
Then he looks at her and offers a small smile. “We make a good team,” he says. She doesn’t respond, still not trusting him entirely, but knowing something’s changed between them.
She knows to remain wary, but at the same time, there’s something that tells her he’s not as dangerous as that raider they’d just fought.
He says, “I know you still think I’m this awful human being, but I promise to never hurt you or Petra.”
He fights to take a deep breath and stands a little taller. “You saved my life. Both of you. I intend to return the favor, for the rest of my life.”
Though she knows they’re just words, she’s inclined to believe him. She’ll still watch her back of course, but she decides he can’t be all bad after all that. He nearly got himself killed—again—to stop that raider from grabbing her or Petra.
So when a part of her softens to him, she doesn’t fight the small smile she offers in return.
She looks around them, finally seeing that they’re still surrounded by trees but are in a clearing of sorts, far enough in the forest they can easily camp out of view of wandering raiders or creepy twins.
Henry’s already up and picking up branches and dry leaves from the forest floor, gasping every now and then from the pain.
Petra: Allendian Post-Apocalypse Page 8