"Gunnm" and all its associated concepts are the
creation and property of Yukito Kishiro, hallowed be thy name.
As for the story, it revolves around the AR series, so if you've only seen the Battle Angel anime or if you're expecting a story about Alita herself, you might be disappointed. By the way, my most up-to-date fanfics can always be found at my homepage. Finally, any response/criticism/accolade will be received with respect. So feel free to contact me at astillar@yahoo.com. Anywho, I hope you enjoy reading this.
***
A threatening wave of consciousness surged against her non-thought and she tensed. The danger seethed and gurgled against the fence, bulging through the gaps, then faltered and faded away, clawing against the walls as it fell back into oblivion. She waited for a long time afterwards before relaxing. She had been waiting a long time and her mind was starving for engagement and it was growing more difficult to keep her thoughts clear. These panic attacks were brought on by her mind turning on itself in a cannibalistic frenzy. She opened her eyes to feed it the pale meal of vision.
A slanted square of light cut high on the blank wall across the room. She had come to learn how to tell time simply by noting the position of that square, but she ignored what it currently read. She knew all too well what time it was and how much of it she had spent waiting here. Her days were linked into one long silent trial and despite the discomfort each one promised, she did not dread them. Her eyes moved away from the light.
Her equipment was neatly piled in the corner. She knew the heft, balance, shape, sound, and smell of every piece although it had been a veritable eternity since she had last used them. The weapons that felt natural in her hands, yet she could not so much as touch them without permission. The room slid across her field of vision as she moved her head. Covered by a thin veil of dust, the floor shone dully under the illumination of the single bulb in the ceiling that burned at all hours. A few black flakes littered the tile underneath the bench she sat on. She glanced at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. It was trained on her, as she knew it would be.
The idle time had allowed her to understand her value, which was determined by her usefulness to her masters. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to ensure her continued existence and probably never would be. All of her being drove her to meet the needs of her masters and the knowledge that she couldn't made her despise herself.
She could hear the sound of the wind rasping faintly against the window above her head and feeling an irrational impulse, stood up to look outside before she could think the better of it. Her ears heard the whirring of the camera as it repositioned itself bet she ignored the sound. Her attention was filled by the panorama outside. A cruelly tortured boulder a few feet away completely occupied the view. With each gust of wind, airborne snakes of sand flew into view and disintegrated against the rock. Her hand moved of its own accord to splay against the reinforced glass. Entranced, she watched the countless golden grains tumble down the rough face and out of view. The window creaked as it flexed outward against its frame.
[Zero-B.]
She whirled around and snapped into a rigid stance. A cloud of dust rose from her hair at the quick movement.
[Take up your equipment. You have a new mission.]
A feeling of peace and security that can come only from knowing one's purpose wrapped around her as she put on her armor. In seconds she was fully prepared and listened to her orders raptly as panic waited for the doors to be opened.
The waves crashed against the cliffs and died as valiant sprays of foam. In the rare moments when the jetsam cleared, it revealed the deep blue indicative of a great depth. From the cacophony of the breakers, the stone dove through the water and dwindling light to the silent depths of the ocean floor. The dark rock of the cliffs was streaked white from the guano of kittiwakes that nested in the crags. Those white birds with black wingtips were perpetually wheeling and spinning through the air to plunge into the water in pursuit of fish, which in turn fed off of the creatures that lived on the submerged stone face. The bluff offered a broad view of the ocean, pushing the horizon back by miles when the sea mist was not present. At this hour the surface of the sea glittered from the descending sun and those standing at the edge of the cliff had to shield their eyes against it.
"It's not my fault if you get in trouble!" yelled a small tanned boy for the third time. Next to him crouched a larger boy who was quiet with concentration.
"Quit yelling!" came a shout from beyond the edge of the cliff. Below the edge another boy dangled at the end of a rope, a rope that now felt dangerously slender in his hand. He held that rope tightly with one hand as he kept himself steady with his other. The rock was hot and rough against his bare feet as he sidled across the face. The swirling flight paths of the seabirds changed and their calls became more agitated as the intruder neared their roosts. He had been planning this for nearly a week and knew that it had to be around here somewhere. "Gimme more rope, Ganbe!" He could just hear a grunt from above as more rope was let out. He clutched at the mass of knots that connected his waist to the rope as he took a stomach-lightening drop. As he descended, his foot touched something soft and scratchy. "Okay, okay, Ganbe!" He heard another grunt as the rope's release was arrested.
He looked down at the meager nest just below his waist. Guano, feathers, and other filth littered the rock around the nest and to the boy's delight, a pair of eggs was in it. They were beige and speckled black, he noticed as he hunted for the biggest. Out of the side of his eye, he saw the surging sea far below and hastily grabbed one to put in his breast pocket. Shaking fingers fumbled to button his pocket before he called to the top again. "Okay guys, I'm ready!" With the help of his friends up above, the boy was able to make it back up to the top.
He found them breathing heavily and lying on the ground. "You weigh a ton Aric," panted Tillean, the smaller of the two.
Aric was too preoccupied with the reassuring feeling of solid ground to respond. He got up slowly and moved away from the edge. "I got it," he said in a voice as unsteady as his legs. He sat down after having gone only a few steps. "I got it." He undid his breast pocket and removed the egg. It felt surprisingly light.
Tillean crawled over to view the prize. "It's small," he said. "And dirty."
Aric rubbed off the grit so that the egg shone.
"You only got one?" Tillean continued.
"Yeah."
"I thought you were going to get one for each of us."
"You can go down next and get your own."
" . . . One's okay."
"We're gonna teach it to catch fish for us, right?" asked Ganbe who now stood behind them with the coiled rope.
"And to carry secret messages."
"And what else?" asked Tillean.
"Tricks too. Like loop de loops and dives and stuff," answered Aric.
"Aw, all the other birds can do that already."
"But this one will be better."
"What are we gonna name it?" asked Ganbe.
"Uh . . ." Aric had overlooked this necessity.
"Fireball," volunteered Tillean.
"Fireball?"
"Yup, Fireball. It sounds cool. And fast."
"I don't know . . ."
"Fireball sounds okay to me," said Ganbe.
Aric disagreed but didn't say so. "Where's the box Ganbe?"
"Oh yeah. I'll get it." He came back with a black-colored cardboard box and opened it. Aric dug out a small burrow in the cotton for the egg while Tillean watched with an uncomfortable expression; they had raided his mother's bathroom for those cotton swabs and she had yet to find out. Aric placed the egg inside and closed the lid.
"Bingo. Okay, let's get this back to the clubhouse."
Zero-B patted the slope of coarse sand at the base of the rocky outcropping and the responding dull echo was the only sign of the weapons buried underneath. She rose and surveyed the valley below, brushing the dust from her scored palms as she did so.
The closest rows started just a few meters away, squat and gnarled trees with smooth-looking bark. The verdant green of the trees looked quite unnatural after days of unbroken grays and browns. Despite the harsh sun in the cloudless sky beating down on the earth, the trees showed no signs of submitting to the heat. Quite the opposite, their shiny waxy leaves seemed impervious to the heat. The rows radiated from a large congregation of dully-colored buildings in the center of the valley floor and ascended the sloping sides to just short of where she stood. The valley itself sloped towards the west and the trees ended where the soil gave way to rock, a few hundred yards before an abrupt cliff. Beyond that lay a slowly undulating plane of blue-green that stretched to the rounded horizon. Although she had traveled afar during her years of service, she had never encountered anything remotely similar to what lay to the west. It wasn't only unfamiliar, but wholly alien to her. She had noticed a change of scent in the air the day before and now that strange smell dominated the gusting breezes coming from the west. The glittering expanse tempted her eyes, pulling them away from her objective below.
A mental blink caused a map to superimpose itself upon her vision under the pretense of re-checking the location. The map verified this Farm as her destination, but her attention was on what the map defined the strange field as. A blue topographical line marking the discontinuity was the only information she could find and the map disappeared as she returned to examining the lay of the land.
An inland road ran eastward from the town out of the valley and the only fork wound its way to the other side of the far mountains. The discolored sky above the mountains marked the location of the mine at the end of that road. A dirt road ran in the other direction from the town to an accessible beach, where the docks housed about a dozen craft of various sizes. A pumping station stood some distance to her left and the concrete irrigation ditch it serviced lay just before her feet, currently occupied only by a thin bed of loess.
She could feel that her operator was not currently with her and hesitated. It seemed logical that her next task would be to enter the town to better determine its strategic strengths and weaknesses, but her orders had been vague. Vague orders left room for error and the blame for any error would be laid at her feet. Zero-B stood there and let the seconds pass, in case her operator might again assume command. The wind continued to rise and fall as she waited, carrying with it dust and the scent of salt. The presence of the operator did not arrive. Inactivity could be read as disobedience and so it was with uneasy reluctance that she crossed the ditch and began walking towards the town.
Zero-B took care to listen for the arrival of her operator, but found her attention drifting to the multitude of leaves around her rustling in the wind. Leaves didn't exist in the desert and being surrounded by so many at once filled her eyes and ears. She knew that allowing herself to be distracted was a transgression of her duties and this knowledge only made her feel more uneasy and desperate for guidance.
She could now see the side of a building through the opening at the end of the rows and stayed close to the trees to hide her silhouette from a possible watcher within the town. She knew it was foolhardy to carry out reconnaissance during the day, but could think of no better use of her time. Even with her ability at stealth, it was difficult to avoid leaving footsteps, as the hard-baked soil often broke under her massive weight. She heard something on her right and froze. The sound of footfalls was swiftly approaching. Zero-B flipped up her hood, ducked under the umbrella of foliage of the nearest tree, and dropped to the ground, her camouflaged cloak disappearing into the bed of dead leaves once it settled. The pacing of footsteps alternated, slowing every time the maker crossed into the open between the trees and then quickening as it hurried through the branches and leaves, mindless of the noise it created. The target seemed to be avoiding visual detection, while unconcerned with audio signals. Zero-B noted this and shifted her weight in preparation for a possible discovery and her responding attack. She glanced at the last set of footprints she had created and then returned to watching the trees where the target would emerge.
Aric leaned out from the screen of the tree's foliage and looked down the row. No one was visible, so he continued. There usually weren't many people on this side of town unless they were working in the groves, but Aric wasn't going to risk apprehension when he was so close to getting away with his grand caper.
"Okay, hurry up guys." He said as he lead them out of the row of trees to the dirt road beyond. On the far side of the narrow road was a small unpainted shed. A concrete foundation rose from the barren soil and from that, many pipes, which in turn entered the wall of the shed. This outbuilding was the boys' destination. The door was locked by a simple length of wire twisted around a nail, which they quickly undid before entering. There were no windows, but the clapboards nearest the concrete had long ago rotted away, thereby allowing a fair bit of light to enter. In the shadowy light the boys wriggled around the numerous pipes, handles, meters and miscellaneous tools toward the back where there was an open space about thirty feet square, their clubhouse.
The three boys had made this place their own as best as they could. Bits of carpet served as chairs, there were candles and matches, the empty wrappers of snacks, a few thin books and some dismembered toys that were too far gone to make the trip back home. They sat down in the empty corner, with their prize.
Ganbe got the matches to light a stub of candle and then placed that in the middle of the floor. Tillean pulled the largest book from the pile and opened it where it was bookmarked and leaned towards the gap near the floor so he could read by the outdoor light. The other two waited quietly. Aric opened the box just enough to peek and closed it again.
Tillean's lips moved silently until he found what he was looking for. "'The majority of birds ges-ge-ges . . . tate their young at temperatures ranging anywhere from twenty to thirty degrees Cen-Ti-Grade,'" read Tillean from the encyclopedia. He closed the book. "We need twenty to thirty degrees of centigrade for the egg."
"Ah, don't close it. Does it say more about seagulls?" Aric asked while Ganbe rummaged around for the thermometer they had brought here earlier. "Does that say centigrade?" he asked once Ganbe had found it.
Tillean looked up from the pages he was flipping through to shout, "Hey! Be careful with that!"
"Be quiet Tillean," ordered Aric.
"No you be quiet. If you break that, I'm gonna get in trouble. And I'll tell on you," he threatened.
"You better not or I'll beat you up," Aric threatened in return, half-rising from his seat.
"Then give me back my thermometer."
"You can have it when the bird hatches."
"Nooo," wailed Tillean. "I need it back tonight. Before my mom finds out I took it."
"She won't find out if you don't tell her, stupid."
"It's mine," stated Tillean as he made a grab for the thermometer.
Aric pulled it out of reach and said, "Not now. Just wait."
Tillean pulled on the arm that held the thermometer, only to have Aric switch hands. Aric fended him off with his free hand and soon the two began wrestling in earnest.
Ganbe watched them wrangle on the floor. Tillean kept yelling, "Give me it, it's mine!" while Aric kept answering, "Just wait, just wait," but Tillean wanted his way. They struggled with difficulty, but the thermometer was always kept clear of the feud by an outstretched arm. The candle was knocked over and rolled along the floor, spilling an arc of molten wax. Ganbe picked it up, blew it out, and waited for them to finish. A fist knocked over the stack of books also and Ganbe sighed at the growing mess. "Somebody is going to hear you, " he said.
This warning was enough to halt the red-faced wrestlers. They froze in their tangle, listening for their discovery. Tillean afraid that his mother knew what he had filched from home, Aric afraid that his father wanted him and was looking for him. Tillean was the one on the floor and was able to look out through the space between the boards and floor. All he could see was the dusty ground and the bottom of the trees. No adults.
"There's nobody out there," he said.
"There could've been," shrugged Ganbe.
Aric climbed off of Tillean and sat back down, hiding the thermometer from view. "That's why I told you to be quiet, stupid."
"You be quiet too, stupid." muttered Tillean, getting up.
Ganbe re-lit the candle and returned it to its spot in the middle of the floor. "Is the candle gonna keep the egg warm enough?"
Aric looked at Tillean, who crossed his arms and set his jaw. Aric pulled out the thermometer and brought it close to the candle. Aric and Ganbe peered at the markings along the thermometer and noticed that the mercury was in the high thirties. "Oh no," moaned Aric. "It's going to fry it."
Ganbe crooked his head. "I think it's hot because it was in your hand."
"Oh."
"Just don't hold it with your fingers."
Aric stacked the books again and leaned the thermometer against them near the candle. They began watching the thermometer again. It took a long time, but the mercury slowly slid down and dipped below thirty.
"Ha ha!" shouted Tillean, who had also been watching.
Aric clapped a hand to his ear. "Ouch. Be quiet."
Tillean covered his mouth. "Mm orry," he apologized in a muffled voice.
"Okay, okay, we just leave this here like this and it'll hatch."
"How long is it going to take?"
Aric shrugged. "Maybe tomorrow. All we have to do is check."
Aric patted his hands against his lap idly, at a loss for what to do next and even Aric seemed to have run out of ideas.
Then Ganbe spoke. "What is it going to eat?"
Aric brightened. "Oh yeah, we have to get some worms for the chick!"
Tillean looked doubtful. "But it's a seagull. Don't they eat fish?"
Aric shook his head. "No. Seagulls eat fish, chicks eat worms."
"Okay," replied Tillean. "Where can we get worms?"
"We need to get a shovel first. Let's go get one," answered Aric as he led them out of the shack.
On the way out, Tillean offered, "My dog's got worms . . ."
Within the darkness and renewed silence of the deserted shack, a shape divulged itself from the shadows beneath the pipes and stepped out into the clear space of concrete. Zero-B looked down at the makeshift crib at her feet and then at the short candle and bits of toys strewn about on the floor. Her cloak pooled into a pile on the dusty concrete floor as she knelt to examine the stack of books. She moved the thermometer aside so that she could pick up the book on the top of the stack. She turned it in her hands so that she could read the cover, the corners of which were blunt and frayed. "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" read the title.
Aric dropped the bucket again and stopped. The handle fell to the side with a clack once he let go of it and looked at his hands with a frown. His palms were an aggravated pink and creased from the load. The bucket full of dirt was almost too heavy for him to carry and he could only go for a few steps at a time before the discomfort in his hands made him let go. He looked up from his hands to see how much farther he had to go.
He was far within the trees of the grove. Only a small section of buildings was visible through the opening at the far end of the row. In that direction, in the dirt, lay many circular depressions left by the bucket he was constantly dropping. In the other direction, the row extended a bit further before intersecting the dirt road that led to the pump house. Aric was sweaty; the sun was high overhead and at full strength. The effort was tiring him, but every time he stopped, he imagined a hungry baby bird all by itself and found himself able to continue. With a grunt, Aric picked the bucket up again and took a few more steps.
He pushed the door open with the bucket and dropped it on the floor with an explosive sigh. For a moment he relished the feeling of relief in his hands that wanted to curl into claws after that exertion then he pushed the bucket further inside so that he could enter the shady interior also. He shut the door behind him and paused to listen for chirping. Despite what his imagination had prepared him for, there was no chirping and there was no baby bird waiting for him and he felt a bit of disappointment. He got over his disappointment within a second and began pushing the bucket towards the back, speaking loudly over the scraping noise to the unhatched chick.
"If you want to come out, it's okay. We're ready for you," he said. "That's why we were digging all day. Ooof!" grunted Aric as the bucket caught on a crack in the concrete slab and stopped. He wiggled the bucket loose and continued pushing. "Look what we got for you!"
"What is it?"
Aric froze on the edge of flight. The unfamiliar mature voice instantly reminded him that this building was off-limits to kids and he knew he had been caught red-handed. Slowly, he looked up, afraid to face the adult that had caught him.
Aric did not recognize who stood before him and was so surprised that he stood staring at the stranger, totally agog and mindless of the countless warnings he had heard about strangers.
The stranger stood in the middle of their club, taller than him, but not by much. She wore bulky faded clothes similar to what the merchants of the desert caravans wore and on top of that, a cloak mottled gray and brown. Aric was only ten years old, but he could see that she did not have much of a figure. In fact, she was so slight and small that if he did not know better, he would have guessed she were a teenager. Her face however, kept him from thinking that. Though her face was unlined by age and almost cherubic in appearance, her eyes were completely devoid of any youth or vitality. They were expressionless and unblinking. Though she looked directly at him, it felt like the sightless gaze of a blind person and this made Aric feel uncomfortable before her. He could not meet her gaze for more than an instant at a time and with eyes averted, "Who-Who are you?" he stammered breathlessly.
The stranger cocked her head to the side at a slight angle, considering him, considering his question, still with those empty eyes and then she straightened. "This . . ." Her voice sounded equally empty and faint, like dust on stone. "Is an acceptable transaction." She spoke slowly; her lethargic speech lacked any phonetic rhythm. "Unit designation is AR prototype Zero-B."
"Serobi?" repeated Aric. He dared a longer glance. She was still staring.
"Affirmative." intoned the stranger. She lifted her hands from her side, each of which held a book. One was a thick, heavy tome, the other a thin book. "Are you familiar with these books?" she asked, with strange emphasis on the last word, as if she had never said it before.
Aric looked at what she held. One was the dictionary they had been using earlier, the smaller book was the only other one they had found about seagulls. Aric scratched his head; her question seemed too simple to answer. "Yeah?" he replied.
Serobi nodded woodenly, but did not say anything further, only watched him.
"Uh . . . What about them?"
Serobi nodded again and held up the encyclopedia. "This book was useful." She lowered the encyclopedia and held up the smaller book. "This book . . . Zero-B did not understand. What is the utility of this text?"
Gaining a bit of confidence, Aric stepped forward to turn it so that he could read the cover of the book in question. "Oh," he said. "This book is kind of for fun. It's a nice story."
"Nice story . . ." repeated Serobi as if that were not the answer she had expected. She looked at the book to reconsider it, then back at the boy.
"Where'd you come from?" asked Aric, starting to feel more at ease with this stranger.
The cyborg swept her cloak clear and sat down on the bare concrete floor with legs crossed, setting the books in her lap. "Zero-B came from the north and west. Zero-B is not permitted to divulge more information than that."
Aric sat down as well, with an inkling that this person had a fantastic story. Her eyes were no longer quite so intimidating, but still difficult to meet directly. "From the Scrapyard?" he asked quickly.
"Your question must be purchased with an answer first. Explain why this is a 'nice story'," she requested, gently touching the spine of the book in question.
Aric hesitantly took the book from her, opened it, and began leafing through the pages, pausing to look at the ghostly sketches of seagulls in flight. He shrugged. "Well . . ." As he skimmed through the story, his talking became louder and more confident. " . . . It's about a bird that wanted to fly real good aaaaaand . . . he got in trouble, but he didn't give up and he wins in the end. He was the best. That's a happy ending." He shut the book with a clap. "That's why it's good."
Serobi was silent and gave no indication whether that answer had satisfied her. After a moment, she blinked and answered Aric's earlier question, "Zero-B has never visited the Scrapyard."
"Aw. Me neither. I hear it's crazy though. They say everyone there is a cyborg and ten feet tall. And that they eat brains and kill each other for fun." Aric rocked back and forth excitedly as he mentioned the tall tales. Zero-B did not follow his comment and instead asked, "Do you have more books?" She was now saying that word more easily.
"Yeah, I got some," answered Aric. "Why, do you like reading? I like my comic books more, kinda cause they don't have so many words, but they're expensive, so I read Tillean's. My mom makes me do chores if I want money for comics."
Serobi hesitated before answering and then spoke haltingly, as if speaking tired her. "Zero-B . . . recognizes . . . the utility of books. Would you . . . permit Zero-B to read your books?"
Aric almost answered in the affirmative, but had an idea that was so clever that he smiled, then schooled his expression to one of indifference. "Yeah," he drawled slowly. "I guess I could let you read them . . . But why should I? I don't get anything from it."
Serobi watched him flatly.
Aric continued. "If I didn't have my books to read, I'd have to do something else." The cunning grin reappeared on his face and he threw down his ultimatum. "If I let you read my books, you have to play with me!" He smiled broadly, pleased with his own cleverness, wishing that Tillean or Ganbe were here to see how smart he was. But when Serobi did not agree, the smile began to slip and fade from Aric's face. She sat silent and Aric thought he might've asked for too much. He saw her index finger drift along the corner of the dictionary. Now that he thought about it, maybe she wasn't the kind of person it was safe to play with. He now recalled warnings about meeting strangers and became acutely aware of just how far away from home he was.
Zero-B recited clearly, "Insofar as your company will not compromise the mission and or missions of AR prototype unit Zero-B in any way, or infract upon any Factory laws or regulations, the proposed transaction is possible . . . Are these terms acceptable to you?"
Aric had no idea what she said, but it sounded to him like she was agreeing. "Yeah, yeah, that's good. Whatever you say."
"Acknowledged. State your name so that unit Zero-B may finalize the agreement."
"Aric," he answered with an out-stretched hand. "Nice ta meetcha, Ms. Serobi."
Zero-B paused just outside the old pump house as Aric led the way. Standing on the blanched hard ground dotted with tufts of weeds and the pale blue sky overhead, Zero-B watched the boy head down the dirt alley towards the town, but did not follow.
Aric noticed she wasn't following and turned around. "What's the matter?"
Zero-B lifted an arm to point at the town. "Zero-B cannot be detected until required by mission parameters."
Aric looked towards the buildings. "You can't go into town?"
Zero-B lowered her arm. "Correct."
Aric looked back at the town one more time and said, "Okay. We can go to my house." He turned away from the town and began heading towards home. After a dozen steps or so, he noticed again that Serobi wasn't following and stopped. "You can't go there either, huh?"
"Correct."
Aric frowned and thought; he wanted to go someplace more fun than this, but she didn't seem to want to go anywhere. While thinking of where they could go without meeting anyone, something else occurred to Aric. "You can't let anyone see you?"
"Correct."
"Even my friends? Ganbe and Tillean won't tell anyone about you if you ask em not to."
"That is not possible."
"Aw," moaned Aric. All of a sudden, Serobi's company lost a lot of its charm, now that he couldn't show her off to anyone. He began kicking at the dirt to uproot a weed at his feet. "Well . . . I guess we could go to the beach if you want." The weed toppled as its roots were exposed and broken by his shoe.
Zero-B conjured up the map of the area but failed to find any locations by that name. "Where is this 'beach'?"
"It's that way," answered Aric, jutting his thumb at the empty plain behind the grove. He watched her peer out over the plains and he had the feeling she would say no again when she spoke.
"That is an acceptable option."
Aric sighed dramatically. "Finally. Let's go." He turned and began walking in the direction of the beach.
Zero-B caught up to Aric easily, as her strides were longer than his were and walked abreast of him. He tried walking closer, but every time he did, Serobi stepped away, constantly keeping a few feet of distance between them.
Aric looked up at her while they walked between the rows of green trees. In the sunlight he could see her much better. Her hair was the most curious thing about her. It was short, only a few inches long, like a boy's haircut and the color was strange too, it looked very much like a coyote's fur, with orange, yellow, and black accents. However, that was not what drew Aric's eye the most. On the left side of her head, from her temple almost to the back of her skull, the hair was only a stubble, exposing skin crisscrossed by angry furrow and welts, as if it had been recently burned. In the middle of the injury was her mangled left ear of which most of the ear lobe and cartilage was missing. Aric grimaced as he imagined the pain it must cause her and asked with trepidation, "How did that happen?"
Zero-B glanced at him but did not answer.
"What happened to your ear?"
After a few more silent steps Serobi answered, "The damage in question was incurred during a previous engagement . . . Unit Zero-B yielded undesirable results and the unit's status was consequently downgraded."
"Does it hurt?"
"Negative."
"It looks pretty bad. Is your hair going to grow back?"
Another pause. "Negative. The 'hair' of unit Zero-B was manufactured to optimize camouflage, durability, and to increase shock resistance for the skull. It does not grow."
"Oh," replied Aric, nodding as if he understood. A trace of his frown remained; it certainly looked like it hurt. Ugly at the very least. He didn't like the way it looked so he went around to walk on the other side of her and she evaded his approach again.
They left the edge of the grove and began crossing untouched desert terrain. Behind them the wall of green of the grove extended to the main road of the town, nearly a mile away. The dirt road was quickly lost from sight behind the slight contours of the land, but paralleled their path to the sea. Aric split his attention between looking out for rocks and thorny plants underfoot and his companion. She sure did look strange, Aric privately concluded again. The intermittent wind toyed with her hair and animated her cloak, but could not elicit a single blink from her, even when it came head-on. She was impressive, whoever she was. "Where are you from again?"
"Zero-B is not permitted to divulge that information."
"But not from the Scrapyard, right?"
"Correct."
"It's 'cause I never seen a person like you before."
Zero-B glanced down at him but did not reply.
As she strode along the hard ground and her cloak opened, Aric was able to catch glimpses of the clothing she wore. The bulky blouse and trousers were an indeterminate shade of gray and made of coarse cotton canvas. Her clothing looked very old, as the seams were stretched and the faded canvas worn paper-thin, where it hadn't already been torn and crudely patched back together. A black bodysuit showed through holes and gaps that had not yet been repaired. Besides being threadbare, her clothing and cloak were dirty and sported many old stains, some very dark.
The state of her clothing coupled with her battered appearance led Aric to ask. "Are you homeless?"
" . . . Correct," answered Zero-B.
Aric nodded; her answer made sense. "Do you want to stay at my house?" Aric spoke before Serobi could do more than open her mouth. "Ah, I forgot. You can't let anybody see you."
"Correct."
"How come you let me see you then?"
Zero-B looked him square in the eye without breaking stride. "That was an error."
Rather than take offense, Aric smiled. "I'm lucky then. Or else no one would've known you were ever here." Zero-B looked back to the direction they were headed and declared strongly. "No one will know that Zero-B was here."
"Don't worry," replied Aric as he made the motion of zipping his lips shut, locking them, and throwing away the key.
Just then the two of them reached the top of the rise of land behind the grove and Zero-B stopped stock-still. Aric stopped too and looked at her, not sure why she had stopped. "What is it?"
Zero-B did not answer though, remaining silent and transfixed by the new sight before them. It was the living blue from before, but closer now and in detail. The texture was sharper now, accented with white animated wrinkles that slowly traversed the blue body. She could now see that it was not only blue, but green also, with areas of brown or yellow accents. At the edge of the blue body nearest their position, the white grew profuse and almost violent in its action, only to softly touch the limit of the land. Only the sky above could match the size and awe of what lay before them. Zero-B felt herself on the verge of being overwhelmed by its scope and hurriedly concentrated.
"That is 'the beach'?" Zero-B asked.
"Yup," answered Aric.
"Does it pose any dangers?"
"Well, if you can't swim, you better stay out of the water. And there's jellyfish too. I hate the jellyfish."
"Understood."
"Actually, that's not the beach down there. There's a really cool spot thattaways," he said, pointing to the empty beach north of their location. "They don't want us playing near the docks," he said, nodding towards the stone pier directly before them that extended past the surf into calmer, deeper water. The main road had re-emerged from hiding to connect to the docks, then angle south along the coast, out of sight.
"Docks plural?" asked Zero-B, when she noticed only one.
"Huh?"
"Is there another of those structures?"
"Oh yeah, but you can't see it." Aric pointed to the southern end of the coast. "The Factory dock is down that way. It's just below Ranger's Point. Can you see it?"
Zero-B consulted her map, which confirmed the mountainous ridge to the south as that point.
"We're not allowed to go there at all," continued Aric. "No kids at all." He looked back at the nearby dock. "The third one on that side . . . the little blue one, that one used to be my dad's. He had to sell it so we don't go fishing on it anymore. That's okay because boats make me sick . . ." Aric paused for a moment and then continued. "That one with the line on it is Mr. Cray's. It's spoiled pretty bad." He looked up at his companion to see if she was listening and continued. "All the really big boats are gone right now. They might come back in um, three days? Or what's today? I don't know."
Aware of how exposed they were on this high point, Zero-B prompted, "Continue moving."