Love, Death, Robots and Zombies by Oliver Higgs

Author:Oliver Higgs
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: zombies, science fiction, ai, postapocalyptic, adventure scifi, robots ai, robot apocalypse, new scifi, apocalypse zombies, robots and zombies

Chapter 14.

Twelve days isn’t a very long time in the scheme of things.

But then, time is relative. The few seconds it took to kill Ballard lasted quite a while. The entire year before that, on the other hand, has blurred together into a memory that might as well have only lasted a week or two. Our time on the road to Apolis lies somewhere between those extremes, though it definitely stretches beyond its implied length.

By the fourth day, Echo isn’t talking to me. She’s being childish. I try to tell her so, but the brief flare of anger in her eyes could burn holes through me, and then she’s not talking to me “even more,” if that makes any sense. She talks to Byron and Jarvis instead. Half the time I think she does it just to spite me. Jarvis, fine–he follows her around like a puppy. But Byron? He can’t be that interesting. She refuses to go hunting with me. She sets her own snares when we stop, and at night she starts using a blanket she borrowed from the caravaners. Still, that’s okay. I just spend more time with Octavia.

There’s something sweet and pure about Octavia. She’s so … undamaged. Like that one house in a village left miraculously untouched by the Fall. Yet sometimes she’s empty-headed about the world around her. She says things that leave me staring at her in disbelief. She admires Cove, for instance. She thinks they’re working for the good of the world. She even wants to go there one day. I can’t resist telling her they burned my village. She thinks that’s terrible, but also adds:

“Oh, but you mustn’t blame Cove itself, Tristan. I’m sure those soldiers were acting against orders. Cove doesn’t do things like that.”

“Well, they did,” I say. She gives me this pitying look like I’ve tragically misunderstood the murder of my friends and family. That leaves me sour for most of the day, but my anger cools when we stop again, and we form an unspoken agreement to avoid the subject. I can’t help but forgive her. She’s just so nice to look at.

Ambrose contributes to our conversations and is frequently a topic himself. Octavia spends a lot of her time worrying over and caring for him. Occasionally, Ambrose is unintentionally rude. He asks awkward questions about Echo and brings up Cove when it’s inappropriate. Other times, he’s disarmingly childlike.

On the sixth day out from Hapsburg, the three of us wander into a patch of forest during a midday break. The land is particularly healthy here. You can feel it. Sunlight slants through the trees, illuminating small insects, suffusing the leaves until they positively drip with golden light. Bird-calls echo throughout. Theoretically I’m hunting, but really I’m prepared to starve if it means getting closer to Octavia.

Ambrose starts a game. He runs off laughing and insists Octavia has to find him. I should really thank him for this, because immediately a whole range of possibilities open up. She

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