I heard footsteps-at least two, no, three sets of feet were coming my way. The first to arrive was a stranger. A woman in fatigues poked her head into my field of vision. I scrambled for my gun and swung into the woman’s torso.
“Whoa, whoa, take it easy! I’m not here to hurt you.” The woman backpedaled and reached for her own sidearm.
“This is Olivia Spencer, Fiona.” Eliza knelt beside me and held my head off the ground so I could see the woman better. “I promise I’ll explain more later, but right now Olivia has a stretcher with your name on it. Rest, sweetheart. We’ve got it handled.”
No sooner had she finished her sentence when my eyelids got too heavy to hold up anymore. I felt a prick at the side of my neck and fought, but Spencer had already injected me with some kind of sedative.
Not fair.
I came to in a brightly lit infirmary. Too brightly lit, in fact. I groaned and screwed my eyes shut to keep the blinding lights above out of my vision. To my right there was the clatter of a tablet falling to the floor and a warm hand pressed to my cheek.
“Hey, darling.” Eliza smoothed back what remained of my hair gently and squeezed my unbroken hand. “How are you feeling?” All things considered, I was feeling pretty darn good.
“Better.” I grimaced and sat up a little. I realized I was in a hospital bed when the surface underneath me moved up without my bidding. “I’m sorry I almost committed suicide to try and save everyone.” Eliza laughed.
“Apology received. But I’m going to be pretty angry about that for a long time.”
“That’s fair. Why am I not dead?”
“Mom!” Marcus jogged to meet us. “Thank god, you’re awake.” He reached forward to hug me but stopped at a look from Eliza and settled for a squeeze on the shoulder. “Has Momma told you yet?”
“Told me what?”
“Marcus, leave your mother alone. She and I need to talk.” He nodded and smiled at me before departing. “Long story short-we found the other human colony. Long story long, you’re not the great killer of robots you thought you were. Before you could go through with your insane plan, our friends here detonated an EMP. It short circuited every machine in a couple of miles, including the androids. The people here came out to get us. They’ve graciously offered to let us stay here and are assigning people to quarters now. They seem to be made up of people from a few different shelters. Over the years, they migrated here and got the facility up and running.”
“They got a military base up and running.”
“Yeah, I didn’t buy it at first either.” Eliza smiled gently. “But they’re clearly human. I even saw one of them prick himself on a piece of metal. They bleed red just like us. These people have been monitoring the android city longer than we knew it existed. They do regular flybys with UAVs-unmanned aerial vehicles-and when they saw us they haven’t let us out of their sight since then. There’s a kind of military discipline here. Everyone has to contribute to the everyday workings of the shelter. After our people are debriefed they’ll be put to work according to their skills.”
“Sounds fair.”
“As for you, my dear wife. You’ve done quite a number on yourself. The surgeons stitched you up just fine, but you needed a transfusion. Unfortunately for your beautiful ears, you’re one down. They can 3D print a replacement for you but you’re going to have some deafness no matter what happens.”
“Hey-hey.” I poked her in the side. “Guess what.”
Eliza rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear?”
“I’m holey. Get it? Holey...holy....” I giggled at my own bad joke.
“Okay, clearly the painkillers they gave you are working. Listen, are you going to be able to stay still while I go attend to the rest of our flock?”
I nodded. A little while later a nurse came by with some juice and crackers. She cautioned me to eat them slowly but I scarfed them down before this finished her sentence. My abused stomach protested and for one horrifying second I thought I might vomit, but I kept things down. Now that I was feeling more awake I noticed that my left arm was in a cast, my fingers sticking out of it. My heart ached a little as I saw my wedding band was gone. It was easier than losing the finger, however. A ring could be replaced.
A few visitors stopped by, including one man who introduced himself as David Wayfarer. He was the de facto leader of the shelter, being one of the older members of the shelter. He presented me with a sample set of clothing made of tan cloth, not dissimilar to the clothing we had in the shelter.
“Your wife has already explained the rules of this place?” he said.
I nodded. “You’ll have no trouble from me, sir. Thank you for welcoming our people into your shelter so quickly.”
“You’re welcome. We’re happy to have you folks here. As you know, we’ve been keeping an eye on you for some time. I’m sorry for the loss of your father, by the way. Eliza told me what happened while you were in the machine city.”
“Thank you. He was a great man. I get the feeling that you would have liked him.” We were going to do all right in this place, I decided. The return to a structured life was a welcome relief after a year of chaos and loss. While I recuperated in the
