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Part Thirty-One
Ernest struggled to open his eyes, to make sense of what he was hearing and feeling. Breaking through his nanite-induced stupor was not unlike prying himself out of the Deaconate holding cell with the twisted wreck of his own shunt. Painful, difficult…and necessary.
He was horizontal. He noticed that first—not because it was uncomfortable, which it was—but because his sedated mind was somehow convinced upon waking that he was back in his POD, and the sensation of being vulnerably supine shattered that illusion as his internal sense of spatial orientation engaged.
So why would he have thought he was in his POD? Maybe it was the radiation…although, honestly, the nausea did seem much improved. Maybe, then, the obliterated feeling of forced slumber reminded him of Louise's embrace. Though how the sedation could overcome the horizontal position, Ernest wasn't sure. Or maybe it had something to do with….
"Ernest, can you hear me? Ernest? Baby?"
Whoever that was. It must have been Audrey, or maybe Elizabeth. But to his confused senses, it sounded exactly like, "Louise." His voice was a dry whisper.
"He's awake! He's awake! Elizabeth! Will!"
The ceiling swam when he forced his eyes open. He'd expected the ceiling of the train car, so again he needed to readjust his reading to compensate for what he saw. Bricks. Windows. He was in an old-time building—or was he? The place was much smaller than all the old-time buildings Ernest had ever seen. And it had the air about it of something that had been recently constructed; the bricks were stacked as if they'd never quite had the chance to settle.
He raised his head to get a better look at his surroundings, and the voice that sounded so much like Louise's said, "Lie still, Ernest. You're safe. Just rest."
Weakness (rather than obedience) caused Ernest to comply, but as he lay his head down again, a silver curtain was dashed aside with a loud crinkle, and muted daylight filled the room. There in the doorway, broad shoulders and spiky hair backlit, was Will. "You're awake?" He sank down to one knee and gathered up the hand of Ernest's shunt arm in both of his hands—only now, Ernest saw, his shunt arm was no longer brownish red and shiny with clear coat, though a few flaky remains of the bandage clung to the downy hair on his forearm. His arm bore a long scar, and seemed thinner and more fragile than it had before he'd torn his shunt loose, but it was no longer a mangled tube of clotted blood.
"Does this mean I'm cured?" Ernest said. He'd been aiming for a light tone, but his throat was so rusty with disuse he had to force it out a word at a time.
Will, for once at a loss for words, could only press his cheek to Ernest's chest and stroke him everywhere he could reach—hair, face, neck, shoulder and arm. Ernest wondered if he actually was real after all, or if perhaps the last firings of his neurons had been devoted to spinning out some kind of strange fantasy with Will and Louise, and once he was demagnetized, the fantasy would fade, like mist in the sunrise.
And then Audrey pushed into the enclosure and said, "You look like death warmed over." She hugged herself with glee. "I've been waiting to say that all day."
"Oh, Ernest." That voice again…just when Ernest had convinced himself he was lucid.
"I keep hearing things."
Audrey said, "I guess that means your ears are functional."
Ernest sighed. "Not necessarily…I think I'm hallucinating. It sounds like Louise is talking to me."
"Surprise!" Audrey stepped over Will so she could tweak a few dangling wires in a jumble of plastic, copper, fiberglass and other materials, bundled together with strips of silver blanket and a few patches of clear coat, hanging from a peg on the wall. She licked her thumb and buffed one of the connections with her saliva. "Doesn't the audio sound amazing? Almost as good as your old internal POD speakers—not that they were top-of-the-line. All from spare parts."
"You're such a smart girl," Louise said. "You're lucky you have such good friends, Ernest."
"Are you sure you didn't reprogram her so she'd brag about you all day?" Will asked. If Ernest needed to reassure himself that Louise's return was more than neurons firing in his dying brain, all he needed to do was analyze Will's expression to do it. Annoyed. But resigned.
"Nope! I erased all the Deaconate blind spots, updated her vocabulary, and created some preference files. I left those empty, since I figured Ernest would want her preferences to develop organically. That's what I did with Charlie, and that's what I like best about him. He's his own person."
Ernest strained to get a better look at the mass of components that held Louise. Not the L0U15E-model POD anymore. Only the POD-mind. If he didn't see it working, he would have assumed it was a tangle of discarded components. Something swelled inside his chest at the sight of the untidy bundle, something warm and wonderful, and painful too, but mostly joyous. "I don't understand. How did you salvage her hard drive while her tattle strip was screaming out to every op in the sector?"
"Oh, Ernest." Was it Ernest's imagination, or did Louise sound ashamed?
"This isn't her original drive. It's part of the clock radio microwave MP3 player you found in the old store. It's amazing how much computing power they wasted on those old-time languages. She fits in the circuit board with room to spare." Audrey caressed the bundle, and tweaked another connection. "I always back up an AI's data first thing when I open 'em up. Accidentally deleting someone's POD-mind," she shrugged in embarrassment, "that's something you only do once."
Ernest gawked at the intricate mass of parts and wondered when Audrey had found time to assemble it. Then he reviewed the rest of his surroundings—the walls, the polymer-shielded windows, the doorway with its crinkly silver curtain. "How long have I been in forced slumber?"
"Five days, ten hours, twenty-eight minutes," Louise said, and the memory of awakening from his last forced slumber caused the skin to creep on the back of Ernest's neck. She added, "Welcome back. It's wonderful to see you again. I was so worried."
"You built this in five days?" Ernest wasn't sure if he was asking Audrey about Louise's new processor or Will about the shelter. Maybe both.
Will turned, with his head pillowed on Ernest's chest, and gazed up at the ceiling. "We're running out of food and it'll take time to synthesize more protein, so we figured we might as well stay here a while and rest. The security ops would never make it this far, plus we've got water nearby, and all this polybrick from an old train station just lying around waiting to be stacked."
Louise said, "I still think it's safer to stay in the train car with Elizabeth and Audrey."
"Don't be so sure of that." Audrey lifted Louise from the wall. She cradled the AI in the crook of her arm as she plucked the fine web of sensors from the wall and hooked them onto her shirt for safekeeping. "As soon as I get that protein tank online, I'm plotting out my own house." She stepped over Will and paused in the doorway, beaming. "Isn't that exciting? A house. Like an old-time pioneer."
Ernest followed Will's gaze up to the patched-together Styrofoam ceiling, considered Audrey's question, and said, "I suppose it is. Where are you going with Louise?"
"Mission one, complete. She was monitoring you during your recovery—we could hardly put Charlie on that detail with Louise around. But you're awake, and you seem relatively intact. Now her main duties begin."
"Duties?"
"Well, sure. You're not a big larva anymore that needs an AI to take care of every little thing for you. Abraham says Louise will run the protein tank."
"I'll miss you, Ernest." Louise sounded truly pained. Her speakers might be small, but she'd never had that much inflection in her voice. It brought a lump to Ernest's throat.
Audrey said, "I think we can spare enough power to have her transmit to your earpiece. That way you can hear her from anywhere in…is this a city? Our own city?"
"Cities traditionally contain at least ten thousand people," Louise said in her dictionary voice, and then she added, "cities, plural? How could there be more than one?"
"So what do you think," Audrey asked Ernest. "Audio link?"
Ernest looked down at Will, who was watching him quietly. Before Ernest had met Will, the only person in his life was Louise—and he did consider her to be a person. But if he wanted there to be room for both of them, and everyone else in their group, he could no longer be hardwired to Louise. "I don't think so. Louise will have more of a chance to build her preferences if everybody can hear her, and she's able to interact with all of us."
"No better way to build up her files," Audrey said. Ernest thought she sounded pleased.
Will gave a wavery smile. He looked relieved.
"She's staying here when she's not at work," Ernest informed him.
Will's smile broadened. "I suppose I've cached enough badass reputation that I can risk living with my mother-in--law."
"What law?" Ernest said, though he supposed from the way Audrey's face brightened, it must have been an idiom.
**
"Good morning, Ernest. Time to wake up. The temperature outside is 21.4 degrees. Sunrise occurred at 5:32 am. Sunset is predicted at 8:29 pm. Current time is 7:00 am. Would you like to hear some music?"
"No, thank you." Ernest pushed aside the crinkly blanket and knuckled the dry-grit remains of sleep from his eyes. While at first the necessity of doing such things for himself had seemed inconvenient, as well as unsanitary, he now saw the value in being able to care for himself, rather than entrusting all his functions to a POD.
As for other details, he didn't exactly relish the sensation of sleeping horizontally—but he was accustomed to it.
"Where's Will?" Ernest smoothed the blanket over Will's side of the bed, something he seldom got a chance to do, since Will always clung to sleep much more tenaciously than he did.
"Did Will go somewhere? I hadn't noticed."
If there was one thing Ernest couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams, it was that Louise would have the capacity to be playful. He did his best not to seem choked up when she showed off her lighter side.
"He's not out digging again, is he?" Their house had become so full of old-time artifacts, Ernest had needed to institute a one-piece-in, one-piece-out rule.
"Why don't you go see for yourself?"
Ernest opened the door—which didn't have a W3 lock on it like a modern door, nor did it even have hinges and a doorknob like a historic door. Even so, the slab of Styrofoam blocked the sounds of their neighbors pretty well, and kept the building cool on the warmest days. And since it weighed far less than a polymer door, Ernest could lift it aside with no problem. He'd eventually bulked up a bit since his days of having testosterone filtered from his system were long gone, but he'd never be as muscular as Will. C754s just weren't designed that way.
Scratching sounds drifted over from the train car, where Elizabeth swept soil and dried leaves from the perimeter of the door flap with a bundle of fine twigs. Everyone else had learned to live with the constant creep of dirt, grit and dried organic matter that resulted from homesteading in the wilderness, but Elizabeth had proclaimed that cleaning was her hobby, and the subject was tacitly dropped.
Nothing else moved in the communal area between the buildings, until Will, crouching on the ground, took two bare wires from a bundle of components and brought them together. There was a loud pop, and wisp of smoke curled up. It smelled of burnt polymer.
"What are you doing?" Ernest knelt opposite the strange pile of stuff. "And why is Audrey letting you launch one of her projects without her?"
"She'll be along soon. I'm just making sure everything's ready."
Ernest recognized a solar panel and a heating coil, but the glass and plastic tubular thing with the water in it was nothing he'd ever seen before. "Did you find that behind the train station?"
"Yep."
"Any idea what it is?"
"French press."
"What are Frenches?"
"If I told you," Will said, "it'd ruin the surprise."
Audrey returned from the well-worn path to the stream with a tray of small polymer containers that sparkled with waterdrops. "Are you doing some kind of experiment?" Ernest suggested.
"You'll see." Will held his gaze for a long moment and treated him to a secret smile.
Audrey set down the tray, took the two wires from Will and tapped them together until sparks fell from the connection and shimmers of intense heat rose in the air around the coil. The French press went opaque with steam, then cleared again as the water began to boil.
"Now we're cooking with gas," she said. Ernest didn't ask her to clarify. He couldn't keep up with her idioms, so he'd learned to read her tone rather than her vocabulary.
"All ready," she said, and Will squared his body over the antique press and pushed down on a plunger. The water turned a deep, rich brown.
Will chafed his hands together. "Okay."
"Okay?" Audrey repeated. "That's it?"
"That's it. Go get Abraham. He won't want to miss it."
Audrey scampered off to the tiny house at the edge of the woods. Ernest looked from Will to the French press and back again, but it wasn't until Will poured some of the brown water into one of the makeshift cups that Ernest smelled, and he understood.
"Coffee? Real coffee?"
Will held the cup under his nose and inhaled the steam. "I'd stashed some away, hoping to celebrate someday, but then I got so caught up in all the work around here that I forgot about it—until I found this." He patted the French press with affection, though he pulled his hand away quickly when it scalded his fingertips.
He handed the cup to Ernest. "I want you to be the first."
"Me? Oh, no. I can't. This is yours. You're the coffee expert."
"And seeing you smile is the light that powers the solar panel of my heart. So drink up."
Ernest could hear Audrey's bright voice rising and falling, mingling with Abraham's and Benjamin's lower, more subdued tones. Even the rasp of Elizabeth's broom had stopped. In a moment everyone would be huddled around the coffee device, but right now it was just Ernest, and just Will.
Ernest raised the cup to his lips, and drank.
And nearly spat it back out. Hot. Bitter. Hot and bitter. Very bitter. Horribly bitter. He swallowed convulsively to try to choke the coffee down. Tears sprang to his eyes as his throat seized around the bitterness, and his tongue felt like it would shrivel in on itself and disappear.
"Good and strong?" Will said.
Ernest handed the cup back to him and turned away, gasping.
Will tipped the cup back, drank, and said, "Ah." And not like he'd just been poisoned, either. "Don't worry. Remember what I told you the first time you had a rush? It's an acquired taste."
Ernest pressed his knuckles to his lips and nodded vigorously. Choking sounds fought to escape him, and while he was sure Will had seen it all before, it didn't seem polite to retch.
"I remember my first cup of coffee," Audrey announced, crouching beside Ernest. She selected a cup and held it out for Will to pour. "That's when I learned the saying, 'Bouncing off the walls'."
Benjamin and Elizabeth elected to try smaller samples of the brew, while Will poured Abraham a brimming cup. Abraham smiled his sad smile—the one that meant he was remembering something he and Martha had once done together—took a careful sip, and nodded. He didn't choke at all.
Elizabeth finished her coffee in small sips. She declared it was "interesting." Benjamin seemed more leery of the beverage, but he certainly wouldn't allow himself to be outdone by a fragile slip of a woman like her. He pronounced it, "good," though his eyes were watering.
Conversation turned to whether coffee could be synthesized (maybe) and whether it was worth the effort (most definitely, at least according to Audrey.) Once all the coffee had been extracted from the precious grounds and the components of the heating apparatus disassembled, the neighbors all went their various ways, and Ernest and Will were alone.
"It looked so good in old-time feeds," Ernest said. "I really wanted to like it."
Will laughed. "You were almost fodder for the Reclaim machine, and now here you are: no Deaconate filling your head with lies, unplugged from the W3, living in an actual house, programming our nanites yourself instead of just cleaning up the code of other programmers…" he eased himself closer to Ernest so they were side by side, and slipped an arm around him. "Who gives a damn about the coffee?"
Will was still smiling—he smiled a lot now, not a smirk, or a grin, but an unmistakable, genuine smile—when he leaned in and pressed his mouth to Ernest's. His lips were warm, and his breath had a earthen coffee bitterness that was much more appealing than the coffee itself, because it tasted like the coffee shop used to smell, and beneath that, like Will's kisses.
Ernest cupped Will's jaw with his fingers so Will didn't break the kiss before he was finished. Their tongues touched and slid. Saliva mingled. Will breathed the air that Ernest exhaled, and Ernest took it back and breathed it again. The aftertaste of coffee lingered, mellowed by their kiss. Bitter, but good. Yes. Definitely good.
-the end-
Thank you for joining me on the 30-month journey that was the writing of Zero Hour! I will leave this draft up, so that anyone who wants to read it can do so, free. A re-edited version with significant changes and illustrations is now available in ebook and paperback.
Read my thoughts on the writing process of Zero Hour
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