9)

Thunder began without warning, flashes of lightning took place in the sky, and rain pattered to the needy ground, all before Jasper returned to Zeta and Ro. They sheltered under the oak tree, having no where else to go.
Zeta caught Ro longingly stare at the barn not far off, just on the other side of the house, in a grange area of buildings and huts. He touched her arm to stop her from getting any ideas. "We told Jas we'd wait here. And we're waiting here."
"But I'm getting wet!"
"Well, I'd give you an umbrella. . . ." he trailed off his words, and Ro knew what he meant to imply.
"A little water won't melt me. I'm not made of sugar, you know."
Ro leaned into Zeta. She was damp, a little chilled and getting more depressed. He folded the edges of his jacket over her, to keep her moderately dry. He felt on his chin the pressure as it rested on the top of Ro's hair, but not the feeling of her hair. He had faith--that was the word, faith--the storm would not last long. It was the pitiful outside edge to a more threatening storm cell. For several minutes the tempest flared, reached a pale paramount, then withered. Thunder and lightning nearly disappeared, and the rain receded to a sheen mist. Zeta watched the clouds roll and sway, the lightning flicker until, exponentially, it was just a vague, momentary brightness.
While Ro had a view of the road toward the main street, the way they had come, Zeta had his back turned to it. So when Ro started to see a car approach through the glaze of the falling silver streaks, she warned Zeta. He flipped about and scanned.
"Uh oh," he uttered, and looked down at Ro.
"I don't like the sound of that 'uh oh'. What is it?" She glanced beyond his arm to see for herself what his sudden fright was all about. And she saw. "Uh oh," she said. "That's a cop car, Zee. That's a big, ugly, no good cop car." She looked up at him. "What do we do? They're too close, we can't hide anywhere."
"I know." He scanned the car one more time, then grabbed Ro tightly. "Hold on. Don't speak."
Ro winced as she became part of Zeta's holographic image. It was a strange feeling, like being caught up in the middle of a tornado. But, no, she was caught in the middle of a tree. It was like being inside of something truly real, but the mind is all thrown this way and that, knowing without a doubt that what is thought of is real is not at all, just an illusion. Ro held tightly to Zeta, in his synthoid form, and listened as the car stalled on the drive of Jas's home. There were voices on the porch: Jas's, Jas's parents, and the police officers'. Synthoid and girl breathed a tremendous sigh of relief; the cops were there to check on Jasper and for no other apparent reason. Jas talked in no great detail about his adventure and how far he'd gone, and that he just wanted to come back home. Luckily, the cops were too stupid to ask many questions, particularly how Jasper came to be home so fast. The car started up again, and the sound of the motor could be detected. Zeta waited until it was well in the distance before he disengaged the hologram. By then the storm had moved on. Some rumbles of thunder were off in the distance, but the rain had lessened to a steady drip-drip, a sonorous beat that fell from the leaves of trees and the openings of gutter spouts.
Jasper was around the side yard searching for his lost company. They seemed to have vanished. "Ro? Zee?" When he ran back to the front, they were standing almost exactly where he'd left them. And he swore they weren't there less than a minute ago. Humans were often very unobservant. "I'm sorry about that," he said as he neared them and came to a halt. "I didn't know the cops were going to show up, honest. I hope it didn't scare you." He was looking at Ro as he said it, as if Ro could ever actually be scared of anything. He didn't believe it was possible. Still, if he'd examined her close enough, he would've seen the quivering of her startled eyes and the shaking of her nervous hands. But Jas could not see fault in what he thought was the epitome of human perfection.
Zeta's reply was gentle. "We're fine. How is everything going with your parents?"
"So far so good. I've told them about the two of you, and I begged them not to spill it to the cops. Hopefully they'll let you stay awhile. That is unless you have some where else you have to be."
Ro loved the idea of being guests of his family, but she also didn't want to be an inconvenience. People always say that uninvited guests aren't an inconvenience, but when it's visible on their face the truth is known. "We're not in a hurry to get anywhere. Trust me."
Jas turned back to the house, with Ro and Zeta about to follow. But his parents were coming, across the wide lawn, through the quartet of narrow oak trees. His mother was positively beaming, and her plain brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that bobbed on her neck as she traipsed to her son. Jas's father was the rough cowboy type, but also one of those everyday sort of guys who could not be intimidating. These were farming people, simple people. But like anyone, any parent, their children meant the world to them. Jas's mother set her hands to rest on her son's sloped shoulders, emphatically pleased to be meeting his saviors.
"Jas told me what you did, bringing him back all the way back here. I'm sure it must've taken you out of your own way. I want to thank you."
Instead of a cordial, cool American handshake, Jas's mother hugged Ro gingerly, in that very matronly manner. Ro found herself comforted by the hug, and missed her own mother so much for just a moment she thought she would split in two. The devoted mother then thanked Zeta, also with a hug and a kiss on his cheek. Jas's father expressed his gratitude, far less emotionally than his wife, and just with shakes of the hand.
"You're both nearly soaking," he said. "Jas shouldn't have left you out in the rain. Why don't you come inside and dry off? Another round of storms is coming in, in a bit. Is that all right with you?" he asked of his wife, just to be sure. It might be his house, and he might be the ruler of it, at least in his eye, but he knew who really ran things.
Jas was insistent, and begged that Ro and Zeta should stay for dinner. It was still being decided and smiled over as the party made it into the house. In the foyer, just as they stepped in, sat a fat, spoiled yellow lab before one of Jas's siblings, the younger of his older sisters. Jas took his sister's hand and shoved her forward, over the tame, disinterested dog, so she may also be introduced to Ro and Zeta.
"Ro," Jas said, "this is my sister Julie. Julie, this is Ro."
Julie and Ro took each other's hands, staring at each other, sizing each other up like females of an equal age do. Julie had long, golden-brown hair, and she wore half of it pulled back and braided, so it trickled down her back. Her face was plain, somehow chipper, youthful, but her eyes were not so innocent. Ro leered suspiciously, especially as Julie was introduced to Zeta. Jas's parents also realized they'd neglected to mention their names, Tess and Warren Dumes, and invited Ro and Zee to address them as such. Zeta had said his name was Zee Smith, and Ro just went by Ro, and, when she wanted, she added the surname Smith.
Zeta leaned over to pet the yellow lab, and the dog began to bark with sudden, startling animation. Zee lurched back his hand. Tess reprimanded the dog. "Boom-Boom! Don't! Be good to our guests!" The dog lounged again on the rug of the foyer, as though it was the only spot he knew, and contemptuously peered at Zee. Tess apologized profusely, rather embarrassed. "He's really such a gentle dog. I'm sure I don't know what got into him." Zeta told her that it happened to him all the time.
They sat together in the crowded family room, littered with all sorts of objects and foreign articles and strange but pleasant smells that make a house so cozy and warm. Tess asked if either Ro and Zeta would like something to drink.
"Water for me," Ro said. "Zee won't have anything."
Tess looked at Zeta's navy-blue eyes. "You sure? Not even some water after that long walk?"
"No, Mrs. Tess, I'm fine, thank you."
Jas smothered laughter behind his hand. He was laughing both at the 'Mrs. Tess' remark and his mother unknowingly offering a drink to a robot.
Julie began asking a question, just as her mother rose for the drinks. "So, where are you two from?"
"Um," Ro started, and possessively touched Zeta's arm, "Zee's from Gotham. I'm from Spring City. We're cousins, but we didn't grow up together, hardly saw each other, really. Nasty family quarrel, you know how it is." Ro clenched her teeth and smiled as brightly as she could. Good lies, Ro, she thought to herself. She always had a story at hand for emergencies.
"Cousins, huh?" Julie smiled back at Ro. As she leaned on her elbows, it more in the direction of Zee, as if trying to get him to answer. "What in the world are you two doing all the way out in West Country, in the High Desert? To be in this place from Gotham City! Imagine! What a hole this is to end up in."
Zeta blinked, and his speedy processor attempted to formulate a lie that was both believable and followed along with Ro's story. "It's something we Smiths try to do once a year. It was our turn this year. We trace the paths our ancestors took when they left Gotham for parts unknown centuries ago. We can trace our ancestors all the way back to the mid-nineteenth century."
Warren Dumes was greatly interested in this. For a while, a good five minutes after Tess brought Ro the water, Zeta and Warren carried on a conversation about different parts of West Country. Ro was horrified but surprised at Zeta's abundant batch of lies. Suppose someone was to find out they had no relatives in West Country? Why leave it at that? What if someone found out they had no relatives, period? Ro grew uncomfortable and tried her best not to let it show. She hid behind her water glass and tapped her foot nervously upon the floor.
Another storm flew in by the time dinner was to be set on the table. It was easy for the Dumes' to say the "cousins" could stay, at least for a little while longer. Ro was looking forward to a home-cooked farm meal. Zeta, however, was not. He remained worried about Ro, in his own way, since she still did not seem to be acting much like herself. She was as callous and cool as ever, but what was apparent to Zeta was a greater sadness, no doubt procured by a deep lack. He excused himself early from the dinner table, after not touching his meal. It left Jas's parents wondering over the eating habits of the curious Zee Smith. Ro made an excuse for him with a mouthful of buttery biscuit. "He had a big lunch," she said.
Zeta wandered around the family room, and eventually found his way into a study in the back of the house. The room was dark, no lamps lighted. The windows facing to the south were no help, as it had grown beastly dark outside, the sky thick with heavy, falling clouds. Zeta scanned the den's built-in bookcase, finding titles of classics familiar to his encyclopedic brain. There was a book of Greek mythology he glanced over. The story of the Pleiades was beginning to stir him, as it was Ro's interest that made him so aware of the myth. He frowned when he read Merope's life, one of the Seven Sisters. Then smiled to himself, as one always does amid a touch of fateful irony. He replaced the book where he found it, and discovered another familiar title he examined. He shut the book and turned, just in time to see the shadow of someone appear in the doorway. He scanned, detected shape and audio, and knew it was Julie Dumes, the teenage sister of Jas.
"How can you see what you're doing, Zee Smith?" Julie asked, and flipped on the blaring light overhead. The room was illumined by an ancient chandelier, crystal drops tinkling, as though touched by some old ghost's caress.
"I wasn't really paying much attention," Zeta responded after a delayed moment. He carried the book he'd chosen over to the desk in the corner, a wide mahogany piece of furniture covered in a smattering of gray dust. "Do you have any paper and a pen?"
"Sure," Julie said, and rummaged through the drawers of the desk to find the articles he'd summoned. She placed them out for him nicely. "Your cousin is in the bath. Mother wanted me to ask if you'd like to use it after her."
"No, thank you," was his reply. He sat himself down in a comfortable chair that squished as he fell into it.
"I didn't think so. I told her that you smelled fine the way you are." Julie was hardly self-conscious, not even when Zeta looked up at her with an intense expression. "She asked me how I knew that, and I said I got close enough to you so that I could smell you, if all I did was inhale a little. Like this." Julie set herself on the edge of the desk, set her palms flat on the top and leaned over to Zee, just near his jaw. She inhaled deeply, like life would never end, then breathed out upon him. When she tilted back, she was smiling warmly. "Very nice smell. Reminds me of something." Julie tapped a finger to her lip, thinking. "I know!" She touched his shoulder after flinging her long locks. "Like the computer lab at school. Like electronics. Like overheated vidphones and new plastic keyboards. Perhaps you're a scientist who spends too much time involved in his work."
Zeta gave her a pleasant grin, really with little clue what was wrong with the girl. He couldn't understand, without going into a psychological debate with himself, why more young girls didn't show the sense they obviously had. Perhaps that's what he liked about Ro. She was wise far beyond her mere seventeen years, thanks to the life she'd led. She showed none of the shallow values to which most teens adhered. "A scientist? You could say that." He turned to his book, facing a poem that he wanted to copy, and picked up the pen.
"What are you reading, anyway?"
"Byron," Zeta said.
"Oh, good old George Gordon!"
"You know Byron?"
"Everyone knows Byron." Again, she leaned toward him. "I'm not as stupid and innocent as I look."
"That's too bad."
Julie launched herself off the desk and meandered lifelessly about the room she knew so well. "How old is your cousin, anyway?"
"She's seventeen."
"Oh, is she in college?"
"Not at the present time."
"Are you? Are you in college? Maybe you're a teacher."
"No. I have enough knowledge to last me a while." He'd said it to be ironic, but Julie could not appreciate the irony. Only Ro would, but Ro was not there.
"My older brother and sister are at school now--the state school. I plan to go out east when my time comes."
Jas entered the room then, and was immediately on guard once he spotted his sister there. "Julie, Mom wants to see you. You forgot to help clear the table."
"I know, but I didn't forget." Julie headed for the door, but turned around for a lingering look at Zee. She whispered to her brother. "You should run away more if you're going to bring men like that home with you."
"Julie!" Jas, embarrassed, shoved his older sister away at the shoulder. "You don't know what you're talking about. At some point you'll probably wish you hadn't said that."
Julie shrugged, a mysterious, playful glint in her eye. "We'll see." She left the room and headed for the kitchen. Jas met with Zeta at the desk, where the synthoid was copying something out of a book in meticulous rhythm.
"Be careful with Julie, Zee," Jas warned, his tone warm, nearly at the edge of laughter.
Zeta looked up momentarily from his work. "What do you mean? Is she in danger?"
Jas just lifted his eyebrows. He should've known a synthoid would be so innocent. "It's a good thing you're not human. That's all I've got to say. What are you doing?"
"I'm copying Byron." Zeta held his forehead in the palm of his hand, while his other wrote out the words of the classic poem to a piece of white lined paper. His handwriting was messy but legible, and Ro's was worse. It'd taken him a long moment to figure out how to hold a pen, and another to tap into his visual printing guide to the American language. But he could mimic, and mimicking was all that he was doing. He already knew what the poem said, what the words meant, and, more poignantly, of what time the poem was a reminder.
"What for?"
"For Ro."
"Did she ask for it?"
"No. Ro doesn't ask for much."
The sound of the pen scratching went on, even after Jasper left the quiet synthoid to the book.

--

Note

Boom-Boom
Named after the X-men: Evolution character, Tabitha "Boom-Boom".

"Zee's from Gotham, I'm from Spring City."
Gotham . . . come on. . . you know what that is, and I won't insult your intelligence.
Spring City. Mentioned commonly in TZP episodes. The show's creators might've pegged it to be National City, which is outside San Diego. Too prosaic for me! So I made it synonymous with Baltimore. Barry Levinson would be proud.