Chapter Epilogue

A9 stood before the huge window that overlooked the valley. Her eyes surveyed the abandoned cactus fields that stretched out to the horizon to her left, and then found their growing community of gardens to the right. There, they were growing things they could actually eat. It was bustling with activity and life.

A9 was one of the only ones who felt comfortable in the abandoned mother ship, even though there was no longer an eerie sense of cleanliness about it, and the airlocks had all been destroyed. She liked it’s solemnity. She liked the grand windows that overlooked the entire known world. She liked the poignant reminder that the foreigners were gone -- that they, the humans, were truly free.

Well, of them.

She turned to look at E7 who stood by the table where she had left him. His eyes stared blankly ahead -- unseeing and unfeeling. Her heart hurt once more as her unwarranted mind projected her memories of him onto this shell that remained. He didn’t speak. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t move unless she guided him. He had eyes that were the same color and shape as they always had been, but her E7 was nowhere in them.

They had tried everything. All the music in the world could not bring him back to himself. The foreigners had destroyed him, and she would never forgive them for that. But he had known what he was doing. What he gave up was worth the hundreds of lives he saved. There was not a person among them that didn’t think of him every day with reverence.

Even this shell of him was precious to them. They would care for him until the numbness killed him.

would care for him. She loved him no less now than she ever had --

For he was the great musician.

“You will miss the singing and dancing,” A voice said, pulling her out of her thoughts. It was D5, a young woman who had once been a shipmaid, and had now become one of her closest friends. She stood at the door balancing a child on her hip. There was a sad smile on her face. It must have been much too obvious where A9’s thoughts had been.

The baby on the girl’s hip cooed and waved her two fleshy little arms excitedly, bringing a smile to A9’s face. D5 had taken to calling this one Melody. She had been one of many found in artificial wombs in the mothership. With no sign of mechanical limbs of robotic eyes, these had become the center of their new community. For they were untainted, and wholly human. Everyone knew they were the real future of this world.

“Thank you D5, we’ll be down in just a minute.” A9 said. The girl nodded and disappeared from view.

A9 walked over to stand in front of E7, looking up at his blank, listless eyes. There was a lump in her throat as she stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. His eyes didn’t even move.

“Come, Love, let’s go dance,” She said.

She slipped her hand around his and lead his slow, shuffling body through the door, following the echoes of Melody’s laughter.