How to Date an Android

How to Date an Android Chapter 42

How to Date an Android Chapter 42

Sure enough Barbara's eyes open. She looks at me quickly and begins to stand up.

"Um, there's something wrong with her?" I said to Ruth.

"Come on Barbara please," I whispered.

She's activated but won't talk and seems to be staring off into space. But she does blink and she looks at me. Just like a normal computer's safe mode, she is running only the bare minimum programs to live and be awake. I don't say that aloud, because it would feel bad to hear. But it is strange to see it.

Still she did somehow manage to reach out and hold my hand while looking me in the eye. Her fingers are interlocked in mine much the way lovers would hold their hands and fingers together. She still gives me a very intense look, staring deep in my eyes.

"It's OK Jack," Ruth said.

"How is it OK?" I retorted with a lot of frustration.

"She's supposed to be like that. Her core personality is trying to save every bit of power that it can and to use as little movement as possible since she knows she's having the equivalent of a near heart failure if you compare it to a human. So we need to get her repaired fast. We won't be able to look at her until we get to your shop. When we get there, the first thing we want to do is connect her to a power source. She's like this using auto follow under the assumption that you her partner would take her to get fixed right away," she said.

Damn.

Double damn.

This is majorly screwed up.

The utilities should fail any hour now too. Having both utility loss and Barbara hurt wounds my heart exponentially right now.

Ruth is still trying to crush zombie scum, coming up the ramp. It's become an endless chore but she's doing good at buying us a future, no matter how grim it is.

Barbara is following me though, still looking zoned out. She keeps hold of my hand somehow while I try to move us away carefully with stealth. Even though she's silent, her eyes are full of recognition. And despite safe mode she shouldn't be able to hold hands with me if what Ruth said is true.

Does that mean her love is real and stronger than I thought, because she can do that?

But where is the best way to escape and leave from? I have to decide quickly.

"Jack, try and clear the zombies from the outside of the building where we climbed up. Most of the zombies are inside and I don't think many of them should be outside yet. If you do that quietly we can probably get out without too much trouble," Ruth said while still splashing the undead.

Wishful thinking, I thought. But it might be our only good option. I need to think ahead, think of how to adjust quickly before things happen. It's the only way we'll make this work.

I turned to move that direction towards our escape.

Ruth is still playing 'wack a mole' with steady even grace and power. She's got a good black blood puddle going in the room below us now. After cracking so many heads there must be a good inch of undead blood collecting there from all of them.

So going into that room at all means instant infection and also check mate. There's no telling if skin could even protect against being submersed in that shit. What if it got between toenails and toe skin? And if someone had athletes food or a rash, that might be an instant infection too.