After and Under

Part 3

Mira thought she was taking all these revelations quite well.

Of course, she was also too weak to really fret about these things. She was lucid, so not as sick as she'd been Before, but certainly on her way there.

Because one thing was certain – she wouldn't last much longer. Without a doctor and a cure, the engineered germs she'd been hit with would keep burning through her, killing her slowly.

By her own measure, she reckoned she had, maybe, a few weeks left.

She couldn't blame the robot for her eventual, inevitable death, even though it was by his hand that she'd woken; even if he'd left her be, who knew how much longer the cryofreezer would have lasted in this apocalypse world? And when it did break down and thaw her out, she would still have been as doctorless, as hopeless, just without a robot there to stop her lying in her own messes before she dropped.

And he was trying so hard to keep her alive. He spent his days waiting on her, bringing her food and drink and carrying her about and cleaning up her messes. Poor Keep – poor Peace-Keep Unit. He didn't know it was useless.

It was still comforting to know she'd die with him to watch over her.

Keep was waiting for her when she woke. The whine of his processors was too close to her ears, invading her dreams, and when she finally opened her eyes, Mira found herself staring directly into the glowing blue orb that served as the robot's eye hovering over her head.

'Morning,' she rasped, struggling to sit upright.

'Awaken,' the robot ordered. 'Please receive blood transfusions.'

She rubbed sleep from her grimy eyes, struggling to comprehend. 'Blood transfusion?'

'Blood for transfusion has been made available,' Keep said. 'Please offer your left arm.'

'Hold up a sec,' she said, halting the robot. 'Where does a robot find blood for transfusion when there's supposedly only one human left in known existence?'

'Blood for transfusion has been made available by native fauna.'

'Did you get it from an animal? How can that possibly be good for me?'

'Blood transfusion delivers disease resistance and antibodies.'

'Not if it's not human blood.'

The eye spun, aperture whirring. 'This will be your fourth session. You have been improving steadily since the first.'

She doubted that. 'Just because it says I need it in my file or whatever, doesn't mean you can do it with whatever's next best.'

'Please offer your left arm.' That was Keep's only reply, but it was his military voice and it wasn't a really request any longer.

She wished, as he took her arm in his firm metal grip, that begging and pleading would work, that there was some way to rationalize with him. Why wouldn't he answer where he'd gotten the blood? Three times he'd ignored her question.

But, as she'd learnt in these days of being the warbot's patient, there wasn't, and since her continued survival depended on not pissing him off or offending his programming or whatever... Mira grumbled, but she did it quietly.

Keep opened the compartment in his abdomen and revealed the blood stashed in a bag – not a real blood bag but a sandwich bag, scavenged from some long-abandoned kitchen – and a chunky length of pipe with a chunky needle attached.

Oh no. She really did not want that going into her.

Too late to balk; he jabbed the fat needle into the crook of her arm with all the finesse of a robot built to wield a gun.

She yelped and his blue eye flashed. The needle was withdrawn and a thick line of dark red blood welled up and ran from the wound left behind.

'Are you just going to let that bleed?' she asked incredulously as he produce a chipped bowl to catch the run-off before it fell on the sheets.

His eye rolled around slowly to see her face. 'Increasing your blood volume without first reducing it would cause hypertensive complications.'

The free flow of her blood stopped itself quite quickly. Well, at least there was nothing wrong with her clotting ability. He reinserted the needle, opening the wound again, and again a third time.

'Why cut me open just to replace what I'm losing?' she asked as he filled a quarter of the bowl.

'This blood is better.' He jabbed the needle unto her once more, this time emptying the thickened blood he refused to explain into the tube. 'It is restorative.'

She watched with detached apathy as the mystery blood ran into her veins. The robot pinged cheerfully when it was done and promised her a change for good health would soon result.

Sure. And maybe her own immune response to this tainted animal blood would kill her before the weapon's disease did. Ah well, one death was much the same as the other.