Interstate 25, Rocky Mountain Preserve, Colorado-Wyoming, 7:29:04 pm
They had been driving in silence since they left Denver several hours ago, heading steadily northward. Ro leaned her head against the icy cold window, her breath making patterns on the gathering layer of frost. She inattentively watched the landscape go by, changing from the developed city to more rural towns, and finally into the forested area they drove through now, some kind of natural park or something.
It was a rare sight, wilderness untouched by technology in 2043, and she was fascinated at first by the numerous dark pines, and the snow clinging to the soft yellow aspens. But soon the blizzard thickened, clouding her view, and she discovered that no matter how many miles you drive into the wilderness, it still looks very much the same.
She turned her attention to the front of the car, where she could see Zee's head directly in front of her, blocking her view of the windshield. His neck was about eye level towards her, and she boredly studied it. It was sort of interesting, in a weird way.
Going down his neck were a number of jagged dark hairs, randomly scattered, jutting out in many directions, giving him the impression that he hadn't had trim in awhile. While it seemed so very natural, every single one of those hairs was meticulously placed to give that sensation, hardly random. She wondered whether the hairs ever "grew," if he would elongate them as time went by, if they were ever positioned differently or if they were always in the same place. The latter seemed more likely.
She had never really noticed before the detail that Zee put into his hologram. There was a small mole just peeking out under a strand of hair, his neck muscles moved ever so slightly when he took a breath or spoke, and even the collar of his navy trench coat was rumpled and the tag was jutting out a bit. It amazed her that someone would put thought into making a trench coat look rumpled. How many annoying little details passed through his mind every second? Even right now he was staring at the road directly ahead, looking at the scenery, but at the same time thinking seven hundred inane little thoughts.
Zeta continued taking in the wilderness, categorizing every tree and animal he saw, bringing to mind their scientific and common names. At the same time, however, most of his attention was focused on Eve, on the hope that she might present to him, but also on her in general.
She was a strange woman, not alike Ro at all. Perhaps it was Ro who was a strange woman, in which case he would have to do some recategorizing on human behaviors. He had thought it natural for humans to talk incessantly more for the sake of breaking the silence than the actual topic of conversation.
However, he told himself, this wasn't always true, not even with Ro. He was intimidated by Eve's silence and her absolute concentration on the road ahead, very unlike Ro who would get bored or distracted within minutes of attempting to concentrate on something. But in his experience of Ro, it would be typical to ignore all other passengers and purposely attempt to concentrate on something else if she were angry.
But why would Eve be angry? As far as he knew, he hadn't done anything offensive, and Ro hadn't spoken, something that generally helped to not offend other humans. He didn't find anything offensive about Ro, but her dark sarcasm sometimes put her at odds with other humans. Still, it was possible that there had been a cause for anger that he had missed.
Maybe Ro was angry too, she had been very silent as well. He glanced back at her, and she let the corner of her mouth turn up in a small smile, before pretending to stifle an elaborate yawn, a gesture to show that she was bored. He smiled back, and then turned to Eve.
He wanted very much to ask her about her plans to prove his innocence, but he did not wish to provoke her, and it seemed that asking questions to an angry Ro always produced short hostile answers or long rants that really had nothing to do with the question. Either way, it would be more fulfilling to save the question until the mood passed. But Ro was never angry with him for long, and Eve had ignored him now for nearly three hours.
Perhaps he had to be the one to break the silence? He wished for a way to ask Ro's advice, but there didn't seem to be a way to do it privately. He would have to deal with this on his own, something that he couldn't stand. Human behaviors never ceased to puzzle him. He cleared his throat, even though the only two people in the car knew that he didn't really have a throat to clear.
"Eve?"
"Yes?"
"Would you mind if I ask you a question?"
"No."
"Alright, then. How do you plan to prove my innocence?"
"I was wondering why you hadn't asked yet," she paused, as if thinking. "Do you know the procedures involved in the building process of an NSA regulated synthoid?"
"I am not aware of them. I would assume the security would be very high?"
Eve nodded, her ponytail bobbing. "Extremely high. The NSA can't risk that some sort of terrorist operative could somehow modify the synthoid's programming. Of course, even the doctors themselves are not aware of many of the procedures"
"Such as?"
"There is always an undercover operative on the design team. That was my duty on the Eta Project. This operative monitors all the scientists, and scans for holograms. There are also hidden security cameras that always monitor the synthoid, and run a diagnosis on any programs installed during the building process. If they don't fit into the original blueprints, the program is scanned for anything dangerous, and then catalogued away if nothing is found. This program fills with data quickly, as last minute designs and modules are always a part of the building process."
"But, in my case, one of the data logs would show that a conscience module had been installed in my system."
"Doubtful. Dr. Selig probably disguised the program as something else. But if the diagnosis on the programming were compared to the programming of the actual module, we could prove that it was the same, and had activated at the time when you ran from the NSA."
Zeta looked away from her for a moment, at the road ahead which she was strangely not even watching. They were coming to a clearing in the woods, and a sign informed him that the nearest town, Coal Creek, Wyoming, was less than 60 miles away.
"Where are these files located?"
"Possibly Gotham Headquarters."
"No. Bucky would have found them."
"Bucky?"
"Our friend." He heard Ro snicker to make clear her own feelings about Bucky, his first indication that she was actually listening. Her head was leaning against the window, and her eyelids were closed, so he had assumed she was sleeping.
"Sometimes he hacks into the NSA, and tries to find information to help us. If any relevant files on me were located there, he would have found them. He learned to bypass NSA security systems a long time ago."
Eve stared blankly at the road ahead. Again, Zeta wondered if she was offended by something, but she turned to him again in a moment.
"Then I don't know where they are."
"Oh." Zeta looked up at the sky, fluffy clouds streaked with pink and a deep purple, the first few stars splayed out against the growing presence of navy blue.
"I'm sorry. But I promise, we can find them. I'm going to help you get your freedom, Zeta."
"You can call me Zee, if you like," he smiled at her.
"Okay, I promise I'm going to help you, Zee."
"Thank you, Eve. Even though we just, met, I can already tell you'll be a good friend-"
"Yeah, I hate to interrupt this touching moment and everything, but I haven't eaten anything since hot chocolate yesterday, and I'm not looking forward to being cramped up in this car with the two of you all night. So maybe we should pull over in Coal Creek, if it's not too much trouble, since the next town is hours away." Her voice had a very sharp edge to it.
Zeta rarely experienced annoyance, but this was definitely annoying. Now that he had managed to solve the mystery of Eve's moods, Ro was suddenly mad for no apparent reason. He supposed it was because he was ignoring her. Now that he thought about it, he felt badly for not paying attention to her. She was his friend too, and she was most likely still suffering the effects of last night's injuries.
"I'm sorry, Ro. We'll pull over and find you someplace to eat, alright Eve?"
They pulled, several minutes later, into the parking lot of an old diner. He was deliberate in helping Ro out of the car, but this only served to annoy her further.
"Zee, I can get out of a car without your help. Go make sure Eve is okay or something," she complained, putting emphasis on Eve's name.
"But I'm fairly sure Eve is capable of getting out of a car without assistance as well," he said confusedly.
She sighed exasperatedly. "You can be so clueless sometimes!" he heard her mutter under her breath.
Zeta hated for Ro to be angry with him, but he assured himself that it was a common enough occurrence for human adolescents, especially ones with irregular sleep patterns such as Ro. She would most likely feel better after eating and sleeping the required amount of hours.
Once inside, Ro sat down on the edge of the booth. Eve and Zeta sat across from her, and an elderly waitress wearing large amounts of mascara came to take their order. Ro ordered a cheeseburger and a large root beer, and Zee himself ordered a milkshake. Eve waved away the waitress with a "Sorry, had a big lunch," and a sweet smile.
After several minutes, the waitress returned with the food. Ro's temper was, as Zeta had predicted, ebbed as she ate, ignoring Eve who was glancing out the window with an air of impatience, and Zee who was peering at her curiously, stirring around his milkshake, pausing occasionally to place his "lips" on the straw and changing his hologram to look as though the drink was disappearing.
This was a technique he had developed after a rather nasty incident where a drunken cook in a similar diner took it as a personal insult that he refused to order. Unfortunately, this technique wasn't completely flawless. After they left, the waitress would be very surprised to find a full chocolate milkshake where an empty one had been, but it was better than trying to talk his way out of a fight with a man who would be enraged to find he could just as effectively punch Zeta as he could a large army tank.
Zeta gave the waitress his CredCard and she scanned it, gratefully accepting his gracious tip. The three then checked into the nearby motel. Ro flopped down on the mattress of a springy twin bed and sighed. Zeta cautiously walked over to her and sat down next to her. She no longer seemed angry, just tired, and maybe a little sad. It puzzled him.
"Hi, Ro."
"Where's Eve?"
"She went to purchase a new car. It will be safer than driving hers, which has a registered license plate."
"Oh." There was a long pause. "So, what's up, tin man?"
"Are you alright? You seem sad, and later you were angry."
"It's nothing, Zee, I'm just tired. Well, also-" she stopped abruptly.
"Yes?"
Ro shook her head, thinking as if not sure she should speak. Finally, she said softly "I really don't like Eve."
Zee sat back, letting the surprise show on his face.
"Why? I like her!"
"I kinda noticed."
"But-"
"Know what, Zee? Forget I said anything. It doesn't matter." She turned away, not looking at him. "G'Night," she said finally, pulling the covers over her head.
"Good night, Ro," he said, knowing she wasn't asleep yet, only pretending. He watched her for a long time, listening to the soft sound of her breathing under the covers until her breaths became slow and steady and he knew she was really asleep. Not long after, Eve returned.
"Hey, Zee. I made a deal with a car dealer. He'll trade cars with us. His is kind of run down, but he doesn't have much of a selection."
"Are you going to sleep, Eve?"
"Nope, not really tired."
He looked at her for a minute, her last statement possibly confirming his suspicions.
"Who are you Eve? Really?"
"I told you, I'm Eve Jones, in charge of mission programming on the Eta Project. Your friend."
"No, you aren't human. I suspect you are an android, is this correct?"
Eve looked horrified, as if she had just been caught in the act of a crime. She sighed deeply, and turned to him, large green eyes pleading. "Yeah. . .Yeah, I am. Look, Zee, I know I lied, but I really do want to help you. I just thought that if I told you I was a robot, you'd think I was sent to destroy you."
Zeta smiled warmly at her, to show his intentions. "No. I don't believe you were. I'm not sure why. Just. . .a feeling."
Eve smiled back at him, placing and arm on his shoulder and looking up at him with an almost adoring expression. "Zee, I really did do work on the Eta Project. I was sent to track your activities, as research. But, everywhere I went, I heard great things about you. I didn't want to see you turned into the NSA. I'm like you, because I don't want to see innocent people. . .or synthoids. . .hurt. We can get our freedom together, Zee!"
He looked at her a moment, his face blank and expressionless, thoughts running through his head. This was more than he expected. Living. . .well, not exactly. . .proof that a machine could have emotions and feelings, that everything he was couldn't be the result of some mistake or terrorist module because she was that way, too. She was someone who would understand how it felt to be a sentient machine in a human world.
"Yes, we can," he said, knowing that he sounded stupid but unsure of what would be more appropriate. Then, there was the question he wanted to ask. He worried momentarily whether it would be tactful, but then remembered that she was robotic, too- for once, he did not have to worry about offending her through some misunderstanding or mistake. "But, Eve. . .the files, were they real?"
And as he predicted, she wasn't offended by this diversion from their more meaningful conversation. She simply gave him a small, hopeful smile. "There were some on the Eta Project. I don't know about you, but we can hope, can't we?"
He smiled in response, but another thought came to mind. Ro would hate this. She already disliked Eve. If she found out Eve was an android, she might not want to believe Eve was good. He didn't have any proof himself, just a feeling. It was a new experience for him, to believe in something without logic behind it, merely emotion. He rather liked it, and he didn't want Ro to ruin that for him. So as strange and wrong as it felt for him to even consider lying to Ro, he made a decision.
"Eve? Don't tell Ro you're an android."
Eve had no expression of remorse on her face when she said simply "Ro isn't very fond of me, is she?"
He didn't really want to answer the question, but lying would do no good. "She wouldn't like that you're an android. But don't mind her, she'll come to like you." He smiled reassuringly, although he wasn't sure this would be true. Ro was a mystery to him as always, but when she formulated an opinion on someone, she was very reluctant to give it up.
"Zee? May I ask you a rather personal question?"
"Yes," he responded automatically, having very few personal thoughts that he wished to keep to himself.
"I've been rather puzzled by this. What is the benefit of travelling with Ro? She doesn't have any physical or intellectual qualities that really stand out as useful. And she isn't even a very nice person, so I don't see why you would choose her to travel with as opposed to any other human."
Zee paused for a moment, contemplating the question. He knew this was one of those things he wished to keep to himself, mostly because he didn't understand. He was puzzled by it, bothered by it. He had never really stopped to think why he travelled with Ro, she was just a constant in his life. He knew that he wanted her with him, but it was very difficult to put the feeling into words, only strange thoughts that he deleted as soon as they appeared, assuming that they were bugs in his system.
"I don't know," he admitted softly, frowning upon the sleeping figure of Ro. "I know it's more than just that she follows me, or that she was my first real friend. I think it's even more than she's always believed me and helped me. There's something about her that makes me feel so strange. Not in a bad way, exactly. . .I don't know what I would do if she wasn't there, if one day I didn't have her. I don't understand why, but I know that I would do anything for her."
He sighs deeply, wishing that he could understand the strange phenomenon of Ro, or at least explain what exactly was so strange about it. He rather curiously scanned the sleeping form and knew that he liked what he saw, but he could never explain or understand it. Finally, he gave up.
"I should rest, as well. Do you need to?"
"No, I'll stay up and look for information on the files. Goodnight, Zee."
"Goodnight, Eve."
Zeta sat down in his chair, hologram flickering out. Immediately, he was snoring. Eve remained awake, a small wire from her palm connected to the computer, eyes scanning the contents of the page as she downloaded it.
They had been driving in silence since they left Denver several hours ago, heading steadily northward. Ro leaned her head against the icy cold window, her breath making patterns on the gathering layer of frost. She inattentively watched the landscape go by, changing from the developed city to more rural towns, and finally into the forested area they drove through now, some kind of natural park or something.
It was a rare sight, wilderness untouched by technology in 2043, and she was fascinated at first by the numerous dark pines, and the snow clinging to the soft yellow aspens. But soon the blizzard thickened, clouding her view, and she discovered that no matter how many miles you drive into the wilderness, it still looks very much the same.
She turned her attention to the front of the car, where she could see Zee's head directly in front of her, blocking her view of the windshield. His neck was about eye level towards her, and she boredly studied it. It was sort of interesting, in a weird way.
Going down his neck were a number of jagged dark hairs, randomly scattered, jutting out in many directions, giving him the impression that he hadn't had trim in awhile. While it seemed so very natural, every single one of those hairs was meticulously placed to give that sensation, hardly random. She wondered whether the hairs ever "grew," if he would elongate them as time went by, if they were ever positioned differently or if they were always in the same place. The latter seemed more likely.
She had never really noticed before the detail that Zee put into his hologram. There was a small mole just peeking out under a strand of hair, his neck muscles moved ever so slightly when he took a breath or spoke, and even the collar of his navy trench coat was rumpled and the tag was jutting out a bit. It amazed her that someone would put thought into making a trench coat look rumpled. How many annoying little details passed through his mind every second? Even right now he was staring at the road directly ahead, looking at the scenery, but at the same time thinking seven hundred inane little thoughts.
Zeta continued taking in the wilderness, categorizing every tree and animal he saw, bringing to mind their scientific and common names. At the same time, however, most of his attention was focused on Eve, on the hope that she might present to him, but also on her in general.
She was a strange woman, not alike Ro at all. Perhaps it was Ro who was a strange woman, in which case he would have to do some recategorizing on human behaviors. He had thought it natural for humans to talk incessantly more for the sake of breaking the silence than the actual topic of conversation.
However, he told himself, this wasn't always true, not even with Ro. He was intimidated by Eve's silence and her absolute concentration on the road ahead, very unlike Ro who would get bored or distracted within minutes of attempting to concentrate on something. But in his experience of Ro, it would be typical to ignore all other passengers and purposely attempt to concentrate on something else if she were angry.
But why would Eve be angry? As far as he knew, he hadn't done anything offensive, and Ro hadn't spoken, something that generally helped to not offend other humans. He didn't find anything offensive about Ro, but her dark sarcasm sometimes put her at odds with other humans. Still, it was possible that there had been a cause for anger that he had missed.
Maybe Ro was angry too, she had been very silent as well. He glanced back at her, and she let the corner of her mouth turn up in a small smile, before pretending to stifle an elaborate yawn, a gesture to show that she was bored. He smiled back, and then turned to Eve.
He wanted very much to ask her about her plans to prove his innocence, but he did not wish to provoke her, and it seemed that asking questions to an angry Ro always produced short hostile answers or long rants that really had nothing to do with the question. Either way, it would be more fulfilling to save the question until the mood passed. But Ro was never angry with him for long, and Eve had ignored him now for nearly three hours.
Perhaps he had to be the one to break the silence? He wished for a way to ask Ro's advice, but there didn't seem to be a way to do it privately. He would have to deal with this on his own, something that he couldn't stand. Human behaviors never ceased to puzzle him. He cleared his throat, even though the only two people in the car knew that he didn't really have a throat to clear.
"Eve?"
"Yes?"
"Would you mind if I ask you a question?"
"No."
"Alright, then. How do you plan to prove my innocence?"
"I was wondering why you hadn't asked yet," she paused, as if thinking. "Do you know the procedures involved in the building process of an NSA regulated synthoid?"
"I am not aware of them. I would assume the security would be very high?"
Eve nodded, her ponytail bobbing. "Extremely high. The NSA can't risk that some sort of terrorist operative could somehow modify the synthoid's programming. Of course, even the doctors themselves are not aware of many of the procedures"
"Such as?"
"There is always an undercover operative on the design team. That was my duty on the Eta Project. This operative monitors all the scientists, and scans for holograms. There are also hidden security cameras that always monitor the synthoid, and run a diagnosis on any programs installed during the building process. If they don't fit into the original blueprints, the program is scanned for anything dangerous, and then catalogued away if nothing is found. This program fills with data quickly, as last minute designs and modules are always a part of the building process."
"But, in my case, one of the data logs would show that a conscience module had been installed in my system."
"Doubtful. Dr. Selig probably disguised the program as something else. But if the diagnosis on the programming were compared to the programming of the actual module, we could prove that it was the same, and had activated at the time when you ran from the NSA."
Zeta looked away from her for a moment, at the road ahead which she was strangely not even watching. They were coming to a clearing in the woods, and a sign informed him that the nearest town, Coal Creek, Wyoming, was less than 60 miles away.
"Where are these files located?"
"Possibly Gotham Headquarters."
"No. Bucky would have found them."
"Bucky?"
"Our friend." He heard Ro snicker to make clear her own feelings about Bucky, his first indication that she was actually listening. Her head was leaning against the window, and her eyelids were closed, so he had assumed she was sleeping.
"Sometimes he hacks into the NSA, and tries to find information to help us. If any relevant files on me were located there, he would have found them. He learned to bypass NSA security systems a long time ago."
Eve stared blankly at the road ahead. Again, Zeta wondered if she was offended by something, but she turned to him again in a moment.
"Then I don't know where they are."
"Oh." Zeta looked up at the sky, fluffy clouds streaked with pink and a deep purple, the first few stars splayed out against the growing presence of navy blue.
"I'm sorry. But I promise, we can find them. I'm going to help you get your freedom, Zeta."
"You can call me Zee, if you like," he smiled at her.
"Okay, I promise I'm going to help you, Zee."
"Thank you, Eve. Even though we just, met, I can already tell you'll be a good friend-"
"Yeah, I hate to interrupt this touching moment and everything, but I haven't eaten anything since hot chocolate yesterday, and I'm not looking forward to being cramped up in this car with the two of you all night. So maybe we should pull over in Coal Creek, if it's not too much trouble, since the next town is hours away." Her voice had a very sharp edge to it.
Zeta rarely experienced annoyance, but this was definitely annoying. Now that he had managed to solve the mystery of Eve's moods, Ro was suddenly mad for no apparent reason. He supposed it was because he was ignoring her. Now that he thought about it, he felt badly for not paying attention to her. She was his friend too, and she was most likely still suffering the effects of last night's injuries.
"I'm sorry, Ro. We'll pull over and find you someplace to eat, alright Eve?"
They pulled, several minutes later, into the parking lot of an old diner. He was deliberate in helping Ro out of the car, but this only served to annoy her further.
"Zee, I can get out of a car without your help. Go make sure Eve is okay or something," she complained, putting emphasis on Eve's name.
"But I'm fairly sure Eve is capable of getting out of a car without assistance as well," he said confusedly.
She sighed exasperatedly. "You can be so clueless sometimes!" he heard her mutter under her breath.
Zeta hated for Ro to be angry with him, but he assured himself that it was a common enough occurrence for human adolescents, especially ones with irregular sleep patterns such as Ro. She would most likely feel better after eating and sleeping the required amount of hours.
Once inside, Ro sat down on the edge of the booth. Eve and Zeta sat across from her, and an elderly waitress wearing large amounts of mascara came to take their order. Ro ordered a cheeseburger and a large root beer, and Zee himself ordered a milkshake. Eve waved away the waitress with a "Sorry, had a big lunch," and a sweet smile.
After several minutes, the waitress returned with the food. Ro's temper was, as Zeta had predicted, ebbed as she ate, ignoring Eve who was glancing out the window with an air of impatience, and Zee who was peering at her curiously, stirring around his milkshake, pausing occasionally to place his "lips" on the straw and changing his hologram to look as though the drink was disappearing.
This was a technique he had developed after a rather nasty incident where a drunken cook in a similar diner took it as a personal insult that he refused to order. Unfortunately, this technique wasn't completely flawless. After they left, the waitress would be very surprised to find a full chocolate milkshake where an empty one had been, but it was better than trying to talk his way out of a fight with a man who would be enraged to find he could just as effectively punch Zeta as he could a large army tank.
Zeta gave the waitress his CredCard and she scanned it, gratefully accepting his gracious tip. The three then checked into the nearby motel. Ro flopped down on the mattress of a springy twin bed and sighed. Zeta cautiously walked over to her and sat down next to her. She no longer seemed angry, just tired, and maybe a little sad. It puzzled him.
"Hi, Ro."
"Where's Eve?"
"She went to purchase a new car. It will be safer than driving hers, which has a registered license plate."
"Oh." There was a long pause. "So, what's up, tin man?"
"Are you alright? You seem sad, and later you were angry."
"It's nothing, Zee, I'm just tired. Well, also-" she stopped abruptly.
"Yes?"
Ro shook her head, thinking as if not sure she should speak. Finally, she said softly "I really don't like Eve."
Zee sat back, letting the surprise show on his face.
"Why? I like her!"
"I kinda noticed."
"But-"
"Know what, Zee? Forget I said anything. It doesn't matter." She turned away, not looking at him. "G'Night," she said finally, pulling the covers over her head.
"Good night, Ro," he said, knowing she wasn't asleep yet, only pretending. He watched her for a long time, listening to the soft sound of her breathing under the covers until her breaths became slow and steady and he knew she was really asleep. Not long after, Eve returned.
"Hey, Zee. I made a deal with a car dealer. He'll trade cars with us. His is kind of run down, but he doesn't have much of a selection."
"Are you going to sleep, Eve?"
"Nope, not really tired."
He looked at her for a minute, her last statement possibly confirming his suspicions.
"Who are you Eve? Really?"
"I told you, I'm Eve Jones, in charge of mission programming on the Eta Project. Your friend."
"No, you aren't human. I suspect you are an android, is this correct?"
Eve looked horrified, as if she had just been caught in the act of a crime. She sighed deeply, and turned to him, large green eyes pleading. "Yeah. . .Yeah, I am. Look, Zee, I know I lied, but I really do want to help you. I just thought that if I told you I was a robot, you'd think I was sent to destroy you."
Zeta smiled warmly at her, to show his intentions. "No. I don't believe you were. I'm not sure why. Just. . .a feeling."
Eve smiled back at him, placing and arm on his shoulder and looking up at him with an almost adoring expression. "Zee, I really did do work on the Eta Project. I was sent to track your activities, as research. But, everywhere I went, I heard great things about you. I didn't want to see you turned into the NSA. I'm like you, because I don't want to see innocent people. . .or synthoids. . .hurt. We can get our freedom together, Zee!"
He looked at her a moment, his face blank and expressionless, thoughts running through his head. This was more than he expected. Living. . .well, not exactly. . .proof that a machine could have emotions and feelings, that everything he was couldn't be the result of some mistake or terrorist module because she was that way, too. She was someone who would understand how it felt to be a sentient machine in a human world.
"Yes, we can," he said, knowing that he sounded stupid but unsure of what would be more appropriate. Then, there was the question he wanted to ask. He worried momentarily whether it would be tactful, but then remembered that she was robotic, too- for once, he did not have to worry about offending her through some misunderstanding or mistake. "But, Eve. . .the files, were they real?"
And as he predicted, she wasn't offended by this diversion from their more meaningful conversation. She simply gave him a small, hopeful smile. "There were some on the Eta Project. I don't know about you, but we can hope, can't we?"
He smiled in response, but another thought came to mind. Ro would hate this. She already disliked Eve. If she found out Eve was an android, she might not want to believe Eve was good. He didn't have any proof himself, just a feeling. It was a new experience for him, to believe in something without logic behind it, merely emotion. He rather liked it, and he didn't want Ro to ruin that for him. So as strange and wrong as it felt for him to even consider lying to Ro, he made a decision.
"Eve? Don't tell Ro you're an android."
Eve had no expression of remorse on her face when she said simply "Ro isn't very fond of me, is she?"
He didn't really want to answer the question, but lying would do no good. "She wouldn't like that you're an android. But don't mind her, she'll come to like you." He smiled reassuringly, although he wasn't sure this would be true. Ro was a mystery to him as always, but when she formulated an opinion on someone, she was very reluctant to give it up.
"Zee? May I ask you a rather personal question?"
"Yes," he responded automatically, having very few personal thoughts that he wished to keep to himself.
"I've been rather puzzled by this. What is the benefit of travelling with Ro? She doesn't have any physical or intellectual qualities that really stand out as useful. And she isn't even a very nice person, so I don't see why you would choose her to travel with as opposed to any other human."
Zee paused for a moment, contemplating the question. He knew this was one of those things he wished to keep to himself, mostly because he didn't understand. He was puzzled by it, bothered by it. He had never really stopped to think why he travelled with Ro, she was just a constant in his life. He knew that he wanted her with him, but it was very difficult to put the feeling into words, only strange thoughts that he deleted as soon as they appeared, assuming that they were bugs in his system.
"I don't know," he admitted softly, frowning upon the sleeping figure of Ro. "I know it's more than just that she follows me, or that she was my first real friend. I think it's even more than she's always believed me and helped me. There's something about her that makes me feel so strange. Not in a bad way, exactly. . .I don't know what I would do if she wasn't there, if one day I didn't have her. I don't understand why, but I know that I would do anything for her."
He sighs deeply, wishing that he could understand the strange phenomenon of Ro, or at least explain what exactly was so strange about it. He rather curiously scanned the sleeping form and knew that he liked what he saw, but he could never explain or understand it. Finally, he gave up.
"I should rest, as well. Do you need to?"
"No, I'll stay up and look for information on the files. Goodnight, Zee."
"Goodnight, Eve."
Zeta sat down in his chair, hologram flickering out. Immediately, he was snoring. Eve remained awake, a small wire from her palm connected to the computer, eyes scanning the contents of the page as she downloaded it.