Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Simpson, A. (new books to read .txt) 📖

know if he would ever come back. He may have died. He may have lost the bracelet. He may have found what he was looking for and forgotten about her. She was only a machine in his eyes. Would he abandon her as easily as he’d leave behind the building and the ship?

You’re not Scarlet.

Yes. She thought. He would.

She knew she was being ridiculous, being too human, but there it was. She didn’t want to be useless again. She’d found purpose and didn’t want to be forgotten.

They worked on the formulas and recalculated the extraction point. They had no way of knowing if the dates were close enough, the only way to narrow them down was trial and error. Jessie updated his journal and was ready to jump again. He wanted to keep trying before he lost his nerve. This time he would be close enough to the planet and the failsafe would kick in. His exit point would be readjusted so he would come out on solid ground. Or maybe in a tree. He’d be ready this time, ready for anything.

Maddy double checked the coordinates one last time and watched sadly as Jessie got ready to try again. He’d only been awake for less than a day and was already leaving. He gave her a smile but no hug. No goodbye kiss.

He pushed the button.

Maddy cleaned up what little there was to clean then sat on the couch. She had eighty years to wait. She doubted his jaunts across time and space would be successful, the odds were they wouldn’t but Jessie didn’t care about the odds. She’d thought they would spend weeks between jumps going over planet wobbles, recalculating, triple checking every number but he’d done some quick math and was ready to go again. She could wander the rooms for decades or shut down again. If she’d known he’d be so hasty, they could have skipped laying in all the food from the Jalamon’s. She decided she wanted to be among people and justified it by telling herself she needed to practice being human. They were a strange people and wouldn’t notice if she made a mistake. Other savvier people would if she had to travel to more advanced worlds. She had to be ready for any eventuality.

An hour later she was in the ship and headed for the agro-planet. Maybe she was becoming too human, it was risky leaving the asteroid. Something might happen to her, what if she was unable to return and when he materialized, she wasn’t there. What if he needed her help and she failed him? She justified her trip, convinced herself if was worth the minimal risk. It was a human thing to do, talking herself into doing something that went against her original programming and logic but when she thought about it, she smiled. To do things that defied logic is part of what it meant to be human.

The agro world was much as she remembered, change was slow on agricultural planets. Larmeck wasn’t there to greet her but a lanky, six fingered man that met her as she came off the ship knew him and directed her to the common area. She had to disinfect before she left the hangar, that was different, but the enclosed plaza and the little shops were the same. The population was strictly controlled by the Jalamon’s. There would be no overpopulation, no crowded cities, no one that didn’t have a function. If too many people had too many babies then families were forced to leave.

She didn’t know why she wanted to see him, something in her wanted to share time with someone who knew who she was. She wanted the company of a friend and he was the only person she knew besides the data hacker.

She found him in a small shop working on a malfunctioning hydroponic droid. He was gray, no longer the faint shade of blue he’d been when they first met and he had a curve in his back. He looked up from his repairs, pushed away the magnifying monocle and smiled a toothless smile. He remembered her and stood to take her hands warmly.

“Never thought I’d see you again.” He said. “And you don’t look like you’ve aged a day. Life must be treating you well.”

They walked out the back door of the shop, into the orange light of the dwarf star and found a place to sit in the shade. The crops danced gently in the mild breeze and water splashed merrily in a stream that ran through his yard. Maddy didn’t have many stories to tell when he asked about their work but he liked to talk and it was easy to get him started on a rambling tale if she asked a few questions. He pulled out his pipe and stuffed it with tobacco then stopped as he was scrolling through holo images of his grandchildren, all off world and leading interesting lives.

“This is Jessie’s tobacco, you know.” He said. “Chulay is our best botany geneticist and he was able to recreate it with a molecular synthesizer. It took a few years to learn out how to make it grow and how to cure it properly, it’s very labor intensive. But we didn’t give up, I enjoy a good challenge. Once we figured it out, I started growing small batches.”

He puffed on the pipe, enjoyed the flavor and the mild nicotine rush it gave him. His smile fell and he rushed on.

“I know I don’t own the rights and don’t want to wind up before a tribunal for theft. I hope he doesn’t mind. I didn’t sell any, just grew enough for my own use.”

“It’s fine.” Maddy reassured him. “He’ll be happy that you did. He’d want me to bring some back if you have some to spare. He hasn’t had any since the last time we were here.”

The old man visibly relaxed. The small plot he’d been using to grow the tobacco had been a