Abandoned

Chapter 2 – Let them talk

Maria was driving her old pick up truck down the town main street to the cemetery, a bunch of flowers on the co-driver seat. Although she was concentrating on the traffic, her face had a dreamy but yet sad expression. Pulling into the parking lot and coming to a hold, she grabs the flowers and headed for the entrance of the cemetery. Walking down the long lines of graves, she stopped before one that reads 'Eric Miller'. She bends down to take the nearly dying flowers out of the vase on the grave to replace them with the ones she brought with her, whispering "See daddy, I brought you a bunch of violets, you always loved them, you said, because their color reminded you of me, as my eye color is the same."

Standing there for some minutes, she could hear footsteps on the gravel coming down from the entrance. She didn't bother to look for the source, but when the steps coming closer she could hear some hushed voices saying

"Isn't that the..."

"Oh yes it is..."

"Mr. Miller must have gone out of his mind, to leave all his belongings to tha.."

"Not so loud, " said one of the four older woman "I've been told, they have very good hearing."

"... to her." finished the other woman.

As the group of four woman passing by Maria, she turned around, giving them a small smile, than turned and walked back to her car.

"Maybe she hadn't overheard us" said the woman that was stopped before she could say something rude.

Maria was already out of the cemetery, but could still hear the group chat about her and her daddy, things like "Must have been his age" "She surely wasn't there to do only chores..." and all the things she had heard a hundred times before, but she couldn't care less, some people can't be convinced of the truth even if you slap them right in the face with it.

Shrugging that notion off of her mind, she drove back to the center of the middle sized town, to go to the only persocom and electronic shop a hundred miles around.

Climbing out of the car she walked up to the shops door only limping slightly "Better watch were I put that damned fork next time" she grumbles, when she was greeted by a joyful "Hello, Maria" from behind her back. She turned around to be faced by a woman with a warm smile on her face.

"Haven't seen you around lately Maria."

"Hello Eva, nice to see you, was to busy to do any shopping the last weeks."

"To bad" said Eva "would be nice to have you over for some smalltalk again."

"Sure thing, when the rainy season is over and the horses can graze again, I'll give you a call." smiled Maria.

"Looking forward to it. By the way, was I seeing right, you seem to limp on your right leg Maria, hopefully nothing to serious?!"

"Not really, haven't watched my step and tripped over a fork, banged that damn thing at the wall, now I have not only my leg repaired but also a hole in my stable wall." Maria said with a grin.

"Watch your temper darling, might get you in trouble one day." said Eva, then her smile dropped "I know it's still hard, since your father passed away."

Maria noted, Eva saying father without that unspoken but sometimes audible apostrophes around the word, like some others did when they talk to her about Eric, if they talk to her at all.

"Yes, It was a hard time for me. But friends like you, Tom, Britta and so many other helped me trough that time, when all I ever wanted to do is break down and cry, all of you were there to build me up again. And there also were the horses I had to take care of and look after, after … daddy died" Maria said, the last two words coming out as if she was about to cry.

Eva, a reassuring smile on her face, opened her arms to pull Maria into a big hug. Maria returning the hug mumbling just "Thank you".

"Anytime darling" said Eva

When they parted, Eva walked on the way she was heading before, waving at Maria, who waved back and then turned to the shop ones more to finally enter it.

Tom and Britta, the owners of the shop called it the "The electronic store at the end of the universe" making a pun on some old SciFi story that Maria never got around to read, still find it a funny name.

She did not have to make herself known to he inhabitants of the shop, as there was always this annoying fanfare when the door was opened.

Soon enough, she was greeted by some hushed curses when she first heard a bang and than a sound of what must be the walls of Jericho crumbling. "Damn it!" she heard the voice of Tom coming from the store room, then a female voice from the office "Told you to put that crap away some weeks ago!" "Would have done that, if that wasn't the basic of our business!" With that reply, Tom was turning around the corner of the store room, making all but a friendly face till he saw Maria standing under the door, who was looking somewhat dumbfounded at Tom as his face brightens up.

"Maria" he said "nice to see you again" then turning to the office to shout "Britta, see what the cat brought in."

Maria didn't mind that joke, although it took her a little to get used to this kind of humor at first and asked "So what was that noise back there?"

"Got a stack of 100GBit multifiber 64 channel transmitter from the scrap yard for a bargain." answered Tom.

"Heard of that" said Maria "If I remember right, they were quite popular... around the time when the telephone was invented"

"Touche" smirked Tom.

But when Maria stepped forward, still limping, the smirk on Toms face soon becomes an expression of worry, at that moment Britta came from the office into the salesroom and saw Maria limping towards the counter, she hurried over to Maria, her face also full of concern.

"What have you been up to" she asked "Hopefully not into a fight about something that some silly people still whispering behind your back about..." Britta started, but was stopped by Maria, who gave her a warm smile and waved her hand as to calm her down "Na, I'm over that for a long time."

When Britta and Maria met, they gave each other a big hug and a kiss on the check.

"Good to hear that my dear." said Britta with a huge relief in her voice "But how come you injured your leg?" And Maria retold her story a second time this day, which includes a fork, a wall and some curses Britta had never heard of before. Turning to Tom, who meanwhile was approaching the female couple with a outstretched hand to greet Maria, stopped dead in his tracks when he heard Maria cursing, with a head as bright red as a stop sign on fire.

Taking Maria's hand to shake it he finally got a "Fine to see you're back to your energetic self" out, a slight smile on his face.

Ushering Maria to the back of the sails room, where a persocom diagnostic and repair station stands, Maria sat down on the diagnostic chair. As Maria is wearing a skirt and a pair of sandals and no socks, it was plain to see what caused her to limp, the fork had made its way right through her right ankle.

"Mind to stop and stare and start some diagnostics" said Maria, who had already pushed her jet black hair aside and opened her right ear and held a cable in her hand, pointing at the diagnostic screen.

"Sure" answered Tom, taking the cable and plugged it into the console, all the while Britta was sitting at her left side, giving her a reassuring smile.

As the console sprang to life, Maria's violet eyes ware glazed over by white streaks, and a faint humming could be heard from within her body. All this only took some seconds to complete, after which the console sounds a short beep and the screen read:

' Unit: 032567TC '

' Name: Maria Miller '

' Owner: None '

More lines flying by all in a green text, till the console gave a double beep, stopping at some lines in red:

' Skin damage at sectors RA325 and RA324'

' Internal damage at sectors RA012 and RA023'

Both Britta and Tom gave up a loud sigh of relief.

Maria, who was already out of her diagnostic trance, turned her head to both of them looking inquisitive, asking "So what's the deal?"

"Fortunately nothing serious dear. Only two signal traces are broken and some minor skin damage, We'll patch that up in some minutes. Not even the need to shut your CPU down for that, with the diagnostic terminal, we can suppress any signal from the sensors in your right leg, so you will not feel anything, while we bring your ankle up to as good as new." answered Britta.

"Glad to hear that." said Maria, also looking very relieved that there was no need for her to be shut down, which not steamed from the fact that she was completely helpless when shut down, because she knew that she could trust her life with Tom and Britta, but from her feeling as if she was dying when her system goes into shut down mode.

True to their promise, the whole procedure just took some minutes. Not being faint at heart, all the while Maria was looking curious at what's going on at her right ankle.

When she finally disconnected from the terminal and stood up and taking some steps forward, she really felt as if her ankle was good as new.

"Thank you very much" said Maria, a small smile on her face "What do I owe you two?"

"Nothing" came the answer from Britta and Tom in unison "But we would not mind..." started Tom "...if you bring some of your delicious apple pie with you next time we met." closed Britta.

"If you two are always that cheap, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a 'For sale' sign in your show window next time I come by."

All three had a good laugh at that.

Maria gave Britta and Tom a big hug and bid them goodby.

When Maria had left, Britta turned to Tom saying "I only wish she would find someone to life with her on that farm of hers"

"But she seemed quite happy being there on her own, and have to take care of her horses will surely take up most of her time anyway" replied Tom.

Britta turning her eyes skywards and said "But even the horses are sleeping at night, and knowing what a hard worker Maria is, I'm sure she makes short work of the chores, and there are many nights when she is all alone in her bed"

"Never thought about..." Tom started, till it dawned in his head what Britta was hinting at and his head turned red again as if to illuminate the whole town.

Meanwhile, Maria was already half way down the way to her farm, her old CD player blasting "Nights in white satin" into her ears, making her think that there a many things better today than it was in the past, but it always appeared to her as if music wasn't on of those things. And her father being a lover of all music before the turn of the millennium surely gave her a very biased view on that topic. All that run through her head, while she was humming along with the line "Gazing at people, some hand in hand. Just what I'm going through they can't understand..." from Moody Blues.

Her humming gave way to a deep sigh "Oh daddy, you've always understand me, I know you loved me even before the incident with that mysterious persocom, that gave all persecoms the ability to truly feel emotions, instead of all the affection just being a calculus"

But in thinking back to the days before the incident, she found that she always had some kind of affection towards her father and towards horses. She remembered many days, when she was just sitting on the fence of the pasture, looking with dreamy eyes at the herd when they grazed, played 'catch me' or standing in pairs grooming each other.

Maybe this persocom didn't gave other persocoms the ability to feel, and it was more like unlocking their ability to do so in full, no longer just being a part of their programming.

To her it always appeared to be the most ill-timed point in her life when that incident happened, because it was just some days, after her father Eric Miller died.

She was kneeling at her fathers grave, when that pulse shut through her, making her stiff as a rock, her eyes turning from violet to just dark pools. Eva, Britta and Tom being with her at that time, letter told her, they nearly freaked out about her behavior, not knowing what was going on, at first thinking that it was because of the loss of her father and her system had totally crashed.

But it got even worse, when the incident was over. Her new ability to have emotions hit her like a hammer to her head, or more, it was like someone ripped her heart out of her chest, holding it up before her eyes still beating and than crushed it to pieces.

All that turmoil of feelings in her heart made her eyes glazed over by so many streaks, they became nearly totally white and her vision blurred. When she thought, this would be the end of her existence, she felt that she was picked up by her friends, all three encircling her with their hugs. At first she could only hear whispering voices, soothing, concerned, crying...

It was then, when her eyes returned to her normal violet color and her vision cleared, that she saw her best friends standing around her, holding her tight, all had tears in their eyes and very sad looks on their faces, when the sobbing in her chest broke free and her vision blurred again, not because her eyes glazed over again, but from the tears gathering in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. The four of them standing there till the sobbing ebbed away eventually, their eyes still watered, their faces still full of sorrow and pain, but knowing they had each other to get through this hard time.

For several weeks after that day, Eva made her self at home on Maria's farm, knowing how fragile and alone Maria still feels. And she wouldn't leave, despite the fact that Maria tried to convince her that she would do just fine on her own, and that Eva had her own life to lead. Eva was even more destined on staying at Maria's farm, when she heard in the news what happened that dreadfully day at the grave, and Maria now truly was capable of having emotions. Although to Eva it never appeared that Maria was without emotions, always being a loving and caring daughter to her father Eric, a good and caring companion for their horses and a heart warming company to her friends. And Eva never get tired of telling that to Maria and that her father knew she was loving him.

Maria snapped out of her thoughts at seeing she nearly missed the branch to her farm and the day had turned into night, turning the road into a kind of black hole, she pulled a stunt by taking the turn to the branch on two tires, chuckling to herself, about how silly she can be at times, losing some of the tension that her thoughts hat build up in her.

But her chuckles died down the moment the headlights of her truck swept over the side of the stable and revealed to her that the door to the side entrance was wide open.

The tires protested with a squeaking noise as she nearly kicked the break pedal through the bottom of her car, at the same time unlocked her safety belt and opened the driver door, jumping out of the car and dashed to the open door.

"Who ever is in there better has a very good explanation at hand, or if they had done something to the horses..." she thought in a rage "I'll use that god damned fork to shove it spikes first into their..."

Here her dash came to a hold, just as her thoughts did, seeing a dead body caught in the headlights of her car. Taking a step closer she could see, it wasn't a corpse, it was a... persocom.