6)

Jasper was resting along the shore, itching fresh mosquito bites and poking at the soft sand with the stick that had been his fishing rod. He'd caught nothing else in Zee's absence. Nothing edible, except the insects caught him. And he was growing impatient. They'd been gone almost an hour. Should he ditch them and move on alone? But he felt they were useful creatures: a synthoid is always useful, though this one was vastly different than any synthoid he'd heard about, and the girl had her strengths as well. No, he decided that he must stay with them as long as he could, and it mattered little which direction they were headed, just as long as it wasn't toward Glenview!
Jas was not surprised when Zee appeared as a robot--and a synthoid, no less. Throughout the hour he'd been alone, Jas would occasionally remind himself that he'd known, somehow, what sort of creature Zee was. Perhaps his hopes of becoming a robotic engineer in the distant future were not as bleak as he'd thought. He could design better Zetas, better androids, designs that would prove more useful to all of humanity, and not just for wars and terrorists, like expensive toys for the government puppets. Jas knew how far society had to go before they accepted the technology encompassing their lives in daily ways, and he wanted to aid this progress. All Jas needed to do was look at Zeta, the synthoid, to know that humans as a whole still wouldn't accept a robot as an independent being. There was the occasional exception who knew robots could be their own masters, of course, like himself and Ro. He'd heard of such people, but they did not exist in Glenview.
The rustling of hedges startled Jas, and he was at once on his guard, stick extended like an edgeless sword. He was relieved when he saw Zee return, no longer looking like the robot but looking like the man, a man who cradled a helpless Ro.
"Is she all right?" Jas questioned in a rush to greet them. Upon his examination, he saw that Ro was asleep, perhaps unconscious, with a few mending crimson scratches across her face and on her bare arms, among the splotches of drying mud. She was soaked to the bone and lifelessly pale. "What happened?"
Zeta explained the adventure with little verbosity. Jasper was smart enough to gather the information as fast as the robot decreed.
"Jasper," Zee said, turning his attention to the boy, "did you know what I was?"
"Oh, yes," the kid smiled at Zee, in the most contagiously mirthful way.
"Good. I was afraid I would frighten you. I know what people think of synthoids. I don't harm people, Jas. I'm not built that way. I no longer destroy, if I don't have to."
"I don't know much of infiltration units like you, Zee. We're not supposed to. But I can't help but hear rumors."
"Of course."
"I've often thought about studying robotics, and I hope that someday I will. That way, people like me can help people like you."
"That sounds hopeful," Zeta said, and he meant it. He had more hope for the future generations than the ones who currently ran the world.
Zeta had set Ro down to the ground, in a fluffed bed of soft, dry moss and layered with branches he'd gathered from an obliging conifer. He set her alabaster hand from her side to her gently suspiring breast, and gave the slim fingers an affectionate squeeze.
"What will happen to her?" Jas watched Ro in fascination. His larger than life friend seemed so shrunken, so human. He felt sorry for her.
"She'll be all right." Zee swept from her forehead locks of her damp hair, contemplating the scenario of what must have happened. "She mentioned that she was losing her mind, then she fell asleep. She almost drowned. That river is dangerously deep in some parts. She was lucky to get through the rapids alive."
Jas watched Zeta's affected state as a result of Ro's accident. "Ro's lucky to have you."
"She knows that. And maybe it's more the other way around."
Zeta occupied himself by taking off his blue-violet overcoat. Though not real clothing necessarily, in a tight spot it would have to do, and it was real enough. He laid it over Ro while she slept, then rose with his arms folded over his middle tightly, his lips pursed. Jasper knew he was thinking. He'd never seen a robot so--so caring! Jas watched the hologram man in complete awe, as though he wielded some theistic power. Perhaps Zeta could herd angels and make the heavens sing Psalms.
Jas finally found the courage to speak, and then it was only jokingly. "Are you sure you're not human?"
Zeta was flattered. If he was capable of blushing he would have. "I'm sure. Are you hungry?"
Jas nodded, afraid to admit that his stomach was starting to eat itself.
"I'll catch a fish for you. Keep an eye on Ro. She may awaken soon. I don't want her to think she's alone."
Jas sat beside Ro on the moss and high grass. He looked at the girl and paid no mind to the robot wading through the water, strategically fishing, like the way the aboriginals had over a thousand years ago. Ro, however, was still not awake by the time Zeta returned. He carted two large trout with him, one tail in each hand. Their mouths hung open, their eyes filmy and dead. Jas gazed at the lifeless fish, somehow feeling so mortal in the face of their own death.
Zeta began to gather sticks for making a fire. He took some steps into the woods, gathered dry wood and had flames going in no time. Over scaling the fish, he talked to Jas about Ro, about life.
"What has she told you, Jas, about herself?"
"Nothing," replied the boy, not daring to watch as Zee ripped apart the aquatic vertebrae creature. "She's seventeen. She's known you for two years. She said you two 'stumbled across each other.'"
Zeta tried again to laugh. Just once, boldly; it came out like a flat chord on an antique organ. "Two years?" he restated, and thought about in revered solemnity. "Has it been that long? Look at her," Zeta suggested, and Jas did so, "she doesn't look a day older than when we met."
Jas looked away from Ro to the hologram man who met his stern gaze.
"She's a runaway, Jas," Zee pronounced. "Like you."
Jas wasn't surprised at this new revelation. He had had his previous suspicions. "What's she running from now? You two--you're running from something."
Zeta couldn't bring himself to answer, because if he had to lie he refused to say anything at all. A lie was something he said when he wasn't being himself, when he was a hologram. And to Jas, he was the synthoid Zeta, not a role. "Why did you run? I know why she did. But why did you?"
The smell of the cooking trout caused Jas's stomach to let out a loud and rude grumble. Jas covered the squeaky abdomen with his hand, his look to Zeta apologetic. "Sorry," he said, "I'm starving."
"It's almost ready." Zeta left the cooking for a moment to step over to Ro. He allowed Jas to ponder the question asked, but Zeta didn't mind if it went unanswered. He was more concerned with Ro. The girl was still asleep, and he smiled to himself. Two years! He couldn't believe it. In human terms that was so long--almost twenty-four months, over seven-hundred days, tens of thousands of hours, and they'd hardly been out of each other's sight. After all they'd been through! Not just him, he hardly thought of himself. But poor Ro. It could be a rough life for a human, that of government outlaw, and he respected her cool handling of a nasty, complicated way of existing. They'd grown so used to it. There hadn't been a morning or a night for two years that they weren't looking carefully over their shoulder to see who was lurking, who might be following them, not an hour when they didn't think of NSA agent bounty hunters by the names of Bennett, West, Rush. And for two years she'd been known to the NSA as Infiltration Unit Zeta's 'accomplice', but by then they knew her name, everything about her, and certainly more than Ro knew about herself. The NSA probably knew who her parents were, where her brother was, the Rowens' extended family, probably their genealogical history. All information at their greedy fingertips. Yet, Zeta thought as he sighed, not information enough to prove the innocence of a robot who'd never done any harm. "When will it end, Ro?" he whispered, and Ro twitched in her sleep. "How will it end? What then?" The thought of Ro growing older pained him. The thought of her missing out on life warped him. He prodded her in the side, that part of her ribs where she was most ticklish. Tickling was a fascination to Zeta, since he had no nerve endings he could not be tickled, but he could pretend to be tickled. He poked at her again, and she was finally awake enough to swat at his hand. He was smarted, and rubbed his hand gently, as though he could feel the sting she'd inflicted.
"What's that smell?" Ro flipped open her eyes, glanced at Zeta, whose presence she was so used to it no longer surprised her, and chose instead to soak in the glorious paradise of their surroundings, the northern end of the deep woods, just at the edge of sagebrush land. She nearly reiterated the question, but no longer required a response. "Oh," she groaned, "trout. Zee, Zee," she wrestled with her weakened arms to rise, "I desperately want some chocolate. Chocolate ice cream. Chocolate donut. Chocolate pudding. Anything!"
Jasper laughed. "Leave it to a girl to think of chocolate out in the middle of the woods!"
"Kid," Ro snapped, suddenly restored to her old, cantankerous self, "you're a little too wise beyond your years. Someday someone's going to take advantage of you. Be careful."
Jas lifted the corner of his lip. He knew what she was saying.
Ro looked down at what garment she was wearing, and her eyes widened in horror, and she glanced at Zeta. He was wearing his immaculate outfit of gray t-shirt and black pants, but was absent of his beloved long coat. She cautiously touched it at the black collar, and sensed the soft velveteen, like a horse's nose. The jacket felt just as it normally did, whenever she would lay her hand upon it before, but it was always on Zee, never off the synthoid's holographic body. At times she wondered if his favorite coat was only his favorite coat because it was his most-used hologram, and she also wondered if the thing hadn't been glued to him somehow.
"No," Zeta quickly spoke, "it isn't real, Ro. What of me really is?"
She drew her brows together quizzically, her small mouth forming a frown. "You breathe, don't you, Zee? You breathe, and it's enough to save a life. My life."
Zeta had nothing to say. He returned to flipping the snapping, sizzling trout as it cooked on a hot stone set amid leaping orange flames. She would've lived, even if he hadn't done what he did. But this was unspeakable to him.
With ample strength she rose to her feet, her knees still weak but she wouldn't allow it to show. After going through enough since she was Jas's age, a little harmless near-drowning accident should be nothing consequential. As she looped the jacket over her arm, Ro took a hard gander at herself. There were scratches, bruises, a small rip in her damp jeans. "You know," she announced to her friends, "I had no idea I would come out of that looking so good." Running a finger lightly through her short, cropped hair, she attempted to give it some lift, but it just flopped down again, and she knew the tangled rat's nest was no good. "At least my hair got washed. It smells like fish, though. Everything smells like fish out here! Zeta, if you make me eat fish again anytime soon I will have to rip your arm off." She didn't mean it, of course. There was too much appreciation in her for anything Zee provided.
Zeta handed a stick with trout skewered on it to a ravenously hungry Jasper. Growing boys needed ample amounts of food, and Zeta knew that. Jasper ate heartily, and Zeta cautioned him to please remember to chew the food, not inhale it. There'd been enough rescued people for one day. He crouched before the fire, poking at the cinders. Ro tried to hand his favorite garment back to him, but he wouldn't take it.
"Put it on, Ro," he commanded, spoken in a secret authoritative tone he barely utilized. "You're still damp. It's cold in the shade. The sun's getting weaker as it goes down."
"But----" Ro tried to protest.
"Please?"
"It takes too much energy for you to--"
"Please?"
She did as was commanded. The hologram slipped over her shoulders fine enough, still in Zeta's size: some inches cresting six-feet, average build. She was not tall herself, but neither was she short, but possessed thin long arms. The sleeves were no problem, then, though the hem of the coat reached nearly to her heels. She spun around in it, admiring herself and allowing Jas, who continued to stuff his face, and Zeta, to admire her as well. A woman always deserves to be admired, especially after a harrowing day. Every day seemed to bring along some other near-death experience for Ro.
"I can change the color, the style," Zeta informed her. "Anything you want."
"You don't have to change a thing." She clutched the velveteen collar closer to her neck, and the warmth of the coat seeped through her. In it she felt vigorous, alive, energetic--but still hungry. She refused to believe that the smell of fried fish was actually tempting her taste buds.
"Have some trout, Ro. You need protein." He skewered some on a slender, knotless stick for her, and she accepted it with great hesitation. "Pretend it's chocolate trout," he suggested.
Jasper put away most of one trout by himself. Piece after piece he ate. Ro joked he would turn into a fish himself if he wasn't careful, and they'd have to throw him in the river just so he could breathe. He just smiled, then ate more. She huffed, and stared at her fish in detest. Already with three portions floating in her weakly acidic stomach, Ro was feeling better, but doubted very much that trout would ever be enough to make her truly stuffed. Only food you really want to eat does that.
Jas tossed his utensil onto the fire, then watched as it caught flame. "We going to stay here tonight, or what?"
"Staying here," Zeta said, his mood still desultory, but he never yielded to any one mood, really. "Ro has no strength to go on tonight. Have you? I don't want to assume."
Ro approved, even if she didn't want to. "We stay. That's fine. Anyway, I've got things I need to tell you, Jas."
Jas observed her, his insight trained to an older person's attempts to preach. "Really? Are you going to tell me why you ran away, too?"
She wrinkled her nose, and shoved Jas playfully on his shoulder. "No, kid, I'm not. That's my business. But I am going to tell you a little bit about my past. It's important for you to understand what it's like out there." Ro's voice grew dark and deep, her tones rounded, her articulation increased. She began to remember what it was like, what she had been through. The tale she weaved was not without its magic and horror and intensity, and Jasper listened to her, his heart and mind open to receive. It was, perhaps, the part of her story where she said she'd almost been shot by her fellow gang members that most snared Jas's attention. He faintly shuttered, but continued to concentrate whole-heartedly. He'd never felt such sympathy for someone before. He was too young, really, to know what sympathy was, and empathy was years away if it ever came, but he was feeling something nameless and new. The images she painted in his mind were not things he wished to encounter in real life. The Big City sounded like a livable nightmare, light years from the small town charm of Glenview, the only place he'd ever known. As Ro's story trailed off to the present, and she'd left out plenty of details, Jasper was nearly moved to tears.
"You're a saint, Ro," he said.
She tilted her head, sniffled, uncomfortable with such a childish compliment.
"No, I mean it," Jas persisted. "The first time I saw you I thought you might be an angel. Now I'm absolutely sure you are."
Ro kept quiet. She tucked a piece of unruly hair behind her ear. It was silly to feel self-conscious. Ro wouldn't know a halo from a shoe, really.
"Ro," Jas said, in such great serenity that she looked up at him, "I'm afraid of death. I don't like the idea of dying."
"No one does," she said. "If you continue on, Jas, the idea of dying is something you're going to have to deal with. There are worse things than being at home with parents who love you. There's the thought of dying. And there's also the thought of dying alone."
"I know."
"You could end up like me. No home. No relatives. No brothers or sisters."
"I have two sisters and a brother--all older than me." Jas stared away, the image of his siblings suddenly so dear to him. He felt his heart swell. He loved his family. What was he doing away from them? Suddenly he felt incredibly homesick.
"Zeta is all the family I've got," Ro told Jas straightforwardly. She glanced at Zeta, sitting there placidly, the firelight dancing across him, and he looked tribal and a touch formidable. "Not bad family to have, I guess. He's sort of everything rolled into one. Mother, father, brother, sister."
Jas snickered. "Sister!"
Playing along, Zeta toyed with his hologram device, suddenly appearing before them in a collaboration of everything Ro had said. A letter jacket from a high school to represent the brother; pearls and checkered pink apron to represent mother; a curled bob of black hair with bows in it to represent the sister; a pipe and thick hardcover book to represent the father figure. Jas giggled, and Ro was moderately amused.
"Enough clowning around, Zee."
Zeta flashed back to his other self, breaking into no smile, which only made Jasper laugh harder. Zeta's emotionless jokes could be thought of as beguiling and amusing. But Ro always preferred his innocence and literalism. That was really what she appreciated about Zeta, that he was funny in spite of himself, when he did not mean to be. The more he did not mean to be, the more her laughter grew in volume.
"Jas," Ro began, "the point is that your family are your best friends. You cannot live your life without having someone there to be your family, whether or not they're actually related to you. You rely on them to be there for you no matter what. You look up to them. You expect them to help you. And you love them." Ro looked away to the dusky earth, picked at stones and watched bugs crawl. She meant what she'd said, only it embarrassed her. "Take it from me, Jas. Being a runaway is a lonely life, especially if you weren't so lonely before. And you weren't. You had your family. You have to decide, and you know well enough that I can't make up your mind for you. That's something you have to do."
There was quiet. The day was falling, and the birds were out for their evening chatter, like gossiping neighbors high in the tall treetops that swayed in the fresh and crisp breeze. The flicker of the fire, the crackle of the logs, broke the sonorous impression of the natural world that surrounded them. They were so far away from everything mid-twenty-first century. They existed at no present time, no past time, no future time. It was like they were nowhere.
"Ro," Jas started, then halted but she waited, already knowing what he wanted to say. "I miss them. I want to go home."
"I thought you'd say that!" She winked. "Jas, I think I'm meant to take you home. How about it, Zee? How far are we from Glenview, anyway?"
"Glenview is south-southeast, and twenty-two-point-seven-five miles from our precise location," Zeta responded. "It is located in an arid climate known for its cattle land and---"
"Zee," Ro said as a warning.
Zee discontinued his elaborate report of Glenview. "We could be there tomorrow, if we find some way to get there."
"Great!" Jasper exclaimed. His eyes twinkled with hope and happiness, the thought of being loved again by his parents exultant. The imagining was not without its negative reverberations, however: Jas felt panged by fear. "Will they be mad at me, do you think?"
"No," Ro said, immediately knowing the answer. Her imagination had always provided her with happy endings when she saw fit. "They'll be so thrilled to see you that they won't even think of grounding you, or taking away your VR for a month. And you might actually get to drive when you turn sixteen, too, as long as you stay on your best behavior for three years."
"Oh, I will. I will!"
"Why'd you leave, Jas?" Ro dared ask.
"We had a fight," he said, after starting and stalling a few times to find the right words to explain the misery he had felt a few days ago. What was misery, really, after hearing Ro's tale? He knew nothing of real misery. "I don't do much in my family. I'm kind of--kind of useless. I think they think that I am, too. Stupid and useless."
"But you're not," Ro said. "You just go home and tell them that you're sorry. And they'll probably say they're sorry too. I'm sure they must be feeling guilty. You'll fit in well with them. They're your family, anyway. They'll love you no matter what. Things will get better. You'll see."
Jasper hugged Ro tightly. Ro didn't know what to do. She patted his back cautiously, grateful to have been so profound in this young man's life. Hugs always made her feel peculiar; she was not an affectionate sort of girl at all, except with Zeta, perhaps. For a blazing fast moment, Ro wondered why it was that so many people seemed to like her, when she held contempt for so much of the world and most of the human race. Yet, people were intrigued by her. What sort of crime had she committed to be mercilessly punished by being well-liked?
The three of them conversed for a while longer, until the sky grew dim and black, the stars appeared, and Jasper began to stifle yawns. It was not long before he took up his burlap sack and pulled out a wool blanket to cover himself. Ro remembered her own old wool blanket, that had kept her warm her first nights on the road, away from the Morgans, and felt the insecurity of hurtful memories momentarily devour her.
Jasper paid her no attention, his mind already half to sleep. He shoved the sack into a makeshift pillow, tucked it proportionately under his head, then curled up under his wool blanket. "Goodnight, Ro, Zee," he said. They told him good night, sweet dreams, and pleasantly reminded him they would try to get him home tomorrow.
Ro pulled Zeta's great coat tighter around her shoulders. She was not cold, and the fire still cranked out ample warmth, but she felt peculiar, scared. The insecurity she'd felt as a child was still with her, and the memories would not leave her alone. She rested her forehead in her upturned palm, closed her eyes and tried to remember how easy it was to breathe and be alive. She was not that little girl anymore. She was Rosalie Rowen, seventeen-year-old outlaw. A big difference between the two existed, maybe not to some, but at least to her.
Zeta shifted and threw his stick in the low flames, then peered at Ro. Her head was turned from the firelight, aimed downward, so he could observe her without the impregnable guard. A rare occasion. "Ro," he called softly.
"Yes, Zee?" She did not look up but rubbed her brow, massaging away the pain the day had vengefully left behind.
"We should talk."
She courageously met his gaze, and found it neither contemptuous nor comforting. Her knees were pulled up to her chin, and she wrapped her arms over her shins, shielding herself. "Some how, Zee," she sighed, "I knew you were going to say that tonight. I hate it when you say it, too, because you're always right. We do need to talk."

--

Note

And a synthoid, no less!
Gasp! Gulp! A synthoid? Yep . . . see, in my little Zeta world, androids are quite common, but synthoids, the more elaborate, expensive and intelligent android cousins, are still mighty rare.

Zeta's coat
Well, I was never able to come up with a good reason how Zeta was able to keep his holographic coat away from him, when in the show it was obvious he had to be touching something in order for it to transfer the holographic signal. If it is possible, it would have to be some kind of HHE thing (haptic holographic emitter). If it isn't some kind of independent HHE, then my only other guess is some other kind of modification, and that would certainly follow along with Ro's complaint later that it takes a lot of energy to keep a hologram away from him. . . . H'mm!