“Strongly agree,” comes U-me’s voice from the doorway leading to the living room, and I glare at her. But then Hero coughs out a wet laugh. A real one. This is our normal. Voyeuristic androids and tears shed over our overlords.
Slowly, we separate ourselves. Even more slowly, we get dressed, prolonging the present. As I tighten the drawstring to my cargos, Hero pauses, sweater caught around his elbows. His gaze drifts.
“Hero?”
Eyes refocusing, he shrugs his head through the neck opening. It leaves his hair going every which way. “Will you come with me somewhere?”
Honestly, I was looking to stay in. In this house, I feel protected. Kept at a distance—however slight—from the sea. Justified in defending my home and life.
But Hero looks like he needs air, so I open the kitchen door and say, “Lead the way.”
Hero does, pausing only when U-me follows us down the porch. “U-me, mind if it’s just us?”
U-me whirs.
“She doesn’t do questions,” I explain to Hero, then to U-me: “Stay, U-me.”
U-me blinks, unhappy with the order, but honoring it and letting me and Hero go.
We trek past the rocks behind the house, over the squidgy mud and then the shale scape. The fog is thick today, reducing visibility to mere meters, but Hero moves as if he took this path not too long ago.
“Why do you think I was made?” he asks casually, some minutes into our walk.
I try to give an equally casual answer. “I don’t know.”
“You were made to wake your sister.”
“Sure.”
“Who’s supposed to wake the entire population. And I’m supposed to end you.” You don’t know that—but I guess there’s no one else on this island for him to kill. “Why?” asks Hero.
The topic feels morbid, but I should be glad Hero is comfortable enough to talk about it. “Dunno. Maybe the person who made you didn’t want the entire population waking up.”
“Sounds like an asshole.”
“We don’t know what the world…” I trail off, searching for the right verb tense. “Was like. Maybe everyone turned evil, and whoever made you was trying to do good.”
“You don’t have to make me feel better, Cee.”
His voice, while quiet, holds a rare edge. My mouth opens and closes, fishing for words.
“Sorry.” We speak at the same time, break off, and try again. “I just—”
I smile. “Joules, are we a mess.”
Hero shakes his head. “I’m a mess. I’m not even programmed with the right language.”
“Right language?”
“Yeah. You say words I don’t understand, like ‘Joules.’”
“How do you know Joules isn’t my secret lover?” I tease as we walk around a shelf of shale.
Hero doesn’t say anything for a second. “Do you? Have a secret lover.”
“Did,” I correct. “And I—” I correct myself. “Celia … well, she knew a lot of boys.”
“And here I thought I had no competition.”
“Consider yourself lucky we met on this island,” I say, and Hero laughs, but silence descends as we come to the ridge.
On a day like this, I can’t see the top. It’s just an ombre of gray fog and stone, the neon-orange rope the only thing breaking up the monochrome. I catch myself wondering if the ridge was always a ridge, or if it once served some practical purpose. It couldn’t have been a mountain—it’s too narrow in width—but maybe it was a—
Levee. The thought comes abruptly. And the shrines on the other side used to be houses. People lived in them, 989 years ago.
Eerie. I run my tongue over the backs of my teeth, noticing the build-up of plaque. “Want to turn back?”
“If you want to,” says Hero.
Something in his voice makes me hesitate. “What do you want?”
Don’t ask me that, he said last night, when I posed the same question.
But today, he says, “To climb.”
“For fun?”
“Why not? If beach yoga is your thing, rock-climbing can be mine.”
Add extreme sports to our list of common hobbies, then. “Okay,” I say, grabbing the rope. “But I want a shoulder massage afterward.”
“Can do,” says Hero, taking a hold of the leftover rope behind me.
I’ve been away from the ridge long enough that my muscles are stiff. Maybe a normal human can’t even make this climb without dying, and as I near the top, I recall Kay’s words.