Maple Trees
“What flavor did you pick?” Crystal asks.
“Maple” Bethany answers, not really having anything else to add. She shakes one end of the packet to shift its contents away from the side she intends to tear.
“Smart choice. You would think in this gorgeous mansion with this million dollar kitchen we could have a nice breakfast. Ha, no. It’s all packets and cans here at château des mis.”
Bethany smiles briefly as a response. Having found a spoon, she awkwardly stirs the dry contents of the oatmeal packet in her bowl. She considers what response she could give. Or something to say before asking for a ride.
Crystal saves her the effort. “You know why me and Bruce came out to the middle of nowhere. What brought you here?”
Pouring dry oatmeal and flavored powered off her spoon, Bethany starts to answer and stops. Crystal hadn’t seemed too open to the idea of robots. No use lying, but she feels self-conscious answering, “I heard rumor this was a resistance group.”
Crystal barks out a laugh that dissolves into tinkling giggles. “Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. Alexander is more like an armchair rebel, you know what I mean?”
Bethany does. “Yeah along those lines, I need to get back into town. Perchance, can I get a ride from you and or Bruce?”
“Ow,” Crystal scratches her head. Her hair is in a messy braid this morning, and a single strand pulls out slightly. “Bruce and I are on a tight schedule in terms of how much time we can spend here. But Alexander has a car! I think he’s out front,” Crystal provides before quickly disappearing.
Bethany adds hot water to her bowls of sugary grains before heading to the front porch, where she does indeed find Alexander. Sitting on the edge of the porch with a mug of coffee, Alexander appears to be staring into the distance. Bethany puts even odds on him thinking about something really deep or not thinking about anything at all. In a Buddhist way, not thinking is a deep activity.
“Hi,” she says sitting on the edge of the porch next to Alexander. “I have a favor to ask,” she continues before Alexander really has a chance to respond.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, amused.
Avoiding the brutal truth that coming to this isolated cabin of lethargy was a horrible mistake, she sticks to the practical concerns. “I need a ride back into town,” Bethany explains, eating a bite of oatmeal before she continues. “I can pay for gas.” Honestly this whole crazy episode will leave her tight on her bills, but she’s asking for a lot in terms of his time. She has to offer something back.
“Yeah okay,” he agrees easily. He seems a lot quieter today, but not necessarily in a bad mood.
Bethany finishes another bite of oatmeal before the uncertainity is too much. “So I have to finish eating breakfast, and like wash my bowl, but after that I’ll be ready to leave whenever.” The implied question being if Alexander had any time commitments.
“We can leave now,” Alexander offers standing up and stretching.
“Oh okay,” Bethany stammers. Her mouth full of sweet cereal glue. She rushes to follow Alexander, her backpack hanging on her elbow.
While she knew that at least one or two people currently residing at the cabin had to have cars, she hadn’t seen any cars and she hadn’t thought about it. Alexander leads her to the side of the cabin down a slope, which is the driveway down to a garage. He pulls open the garage door because electricity isn’t a thing.
Speaking of no electricity, the garage is thoroughly dark. A pool of light floods the entrace, creating a safe pool of concrete. Beyound that the black cavernous hole growls at Bethany with its silence. She imagines red robot eyes opening in the distance as she develes further.
Alexander has no such qualms as he unerringly strides towards the outline of a car that must be his. Bethany scurries after him, positioning herself expectantly at the passanger door.
“It’s unlocked,” he supplies.
Of course it is. Bethany opens the door inviting some extra light along with her. Alexander shoves some stay papers to the backseat. His car is more cluttered than dirty, but it has that slightly wet smell that cars in the Pacific Northwest get.
The backpack goes on the floor in front of her. One of the perks of being short. But Bethany is quick to close and lock her door, not able to completely shake the fear off. An image of an old TV show flashes in her mind, causing her to discretely check the back seat for the patient body of a murderer.
An inconclusive scan reveals no other entities in the car.
The car rumbles into life, and Alexander pulls out of the garage. Just outside the garage door, Alexander stops the car, jacking up the e-brake as the car is on the sloop, and he hops out to manually pull the door down.
Bethany takes this opportunity to twist her body around and throughly insepct the backseat in full light. They’re good. Logically she knew that from the get-go.
Alexander eases back into the driver’s seat, one hand casually on the steering wheel. “Where are we going?”
“<Town name>,” Bethany supplies.
“Cool,” Alexander says. “Are you leaving?” There’s a tone to the question that makes Bethany uneasy.
“Yeah,” she answers quickly.
“So you came one night and are leaving the next morning? That’s a short trip.” Alexander presses.
Although that might be a joke. That might be what Alexander sounds like when he’s teasing. At any rate, Bethany doesn’t really want to explain herself, “Yeah.”
“Throwing in the towel on your dreams of fighting our robot overlords?” His question sounds ernest.
“No? Maybe, for now. I want to do something, but… You know, hardly anyone believes that robots have replaced our law-makers. It’s not like I can go volunteer for a activist group. There are no protests.”
“Right,” Alexander agrees. He keeps his eyes on the road. “And you thought we were an activist group?” He really doesn’t give up.
“Yeah.” There’s about two bites of oatmeal left, but it’s cold now. Thick, cold, glue. “So why did Darren think you were a rebel cell?”
Alexander chuckles. “I guess I just wanted to live my life. I think you could consider it a type of rebellion to leave the system, do things your own way.”
“How do you eat?” THe question is a bit odd, considering that Bethany is still holding her oatmeal bowl.
“Not sure what you mean.” Alexander replies, unflapped. As a person, he’s proving to be very even keeled.
“How do you pay for food? I’m assuming you can’t work from the cabin,” Bethany clarifies her question. Outside the car, they pass a mailbox. It’s the first sign of human life they’ve seen since they left the cabin.
Alexander hesitates answering, and Bethany immediately realizes how rude her question was.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she cuts him off quickly.
He slows down slightly for the start of a windy bit of road. “What about you? How do you pay for food?”
“I work at a robotics lab, actually.” Bethany had been waiting for this inquiry. “That’s a large part of why I started to believe the conspiracy theories. I started seeing people describe the specs for the robots. I mean there’s always crazy people that spout nonsense. But the more rational posters were all describing the same thing, and it was-”