RoboNomics

Chapter 56 - 2016

The mask became a necessity for me not long after Oz released Austin and I from Chris. That's when we started living in the subway cars with the rest of the Resistance. 

That's when I picked up the habit of covering my face whenever I stepped onto the surface of Toronto.

"Come on," the man says. "Don't tell me you don't remember me, Andrea. I haven't changed that much."

I squint at him, trying to place his features. Suddenly, he snaps into place in my mind. 

I catch my breath and turn on my heel. I force myself to walk away slowly and calmly, even though what I want to do is bolt into a run.

"I sure remember you, Andrea." 

He starts to follow me. I glance back. His hands are in his pockets. I wonder what he has in there. I begin to panic and walk faster. 

"It's Oz, remember?" I don't stop. "God, the last time I saw you, you were locked in a basement with your husband. You remember?"

I flick my head to look at him again. He's still following me.

"You look pretty different," he calls. "But then I guess everyone does. My kids are practically sticks. So sick and hungry. Are you hungry, Andrea? You look small but not sick. You can't be that bad off if you're not sick. Maybe you can show me where you get food? After all, the way I figure...you owe me."

"Look," I turn on him. I can't have him follow me to where we live. "I don't know who you're talking about. My name is not Andrea. So just get out of here."

He stops and takes a wide stance. He scrutinizes me. 

"If you're not Andrea, then what's your name?"

"Emily," I say without hesitation.

"The hell it is. I'd know that voice anywhere. Do you have any food? My kids are starving and dying of some sickness. You're running around healthy. You should know where I can find something to eat."

I hesitate. He's barely skin and bones. Torn canvas pants hang loose from his hips. Maybe he's telling the truth. Maybe he doesn't know how to find food.

"Fine," I say. "I'll help you this time. But my name is not Andrea, all right?"

"Okay, okay. Whatever you say."

"Follow me." I lead him down Wellington.

Toronto has always been a little wild compared to other cities. During the summers, city officials never felt the need to prune or trim the flora that grew up through the cracks in pavement, hung over fences and engulfed houses. 

But in the three years since the bots disappeared from the city, whole neighborhoods have been swallowed by forest.

This part of town is no different. The tall buildings surrounding us cast long shadows. Their windows half smashed, their walls half tumbled. 

The maple trees that grow out of the cracks in the broad sidewalk are covered with leaves, withered in the heat of this long, blazing summer. The pavement around them is cracked; their roots burst through. 

The street's asphalt has crumbled and its white lane markings are nearly gone. There is trash everywhere: bits of broken glass gather in the curb's crease. Fabric and paper and metal and plastic are strewn across the road, sprinkled in among the weeds.

Other than those artifacts, this could be a Canadian wilderness. Ivy covers the walls of an old bank. Bushes, lush as animal fur, grow out of the roadbed and out of the floors of shops. The sidewalks are bordered by lichen and moss.

"So..." Oz ventures once we've walked down Wellington and turn up University Avenue. "How've you been doing all this time?"

I'm surprised by his banal, polite question. 

"How does it look?" I gesture to myself. 

The original clothes that Austin and I took with us when we left our house have been mended again and again and are close to disintegration. We use bed sheets, curtains, and old t-shirts -- whatever we can find littered on the streets -- to fill in the holes. We wear our creations until they fade from sweat and are grey from caked dirt.

"Not bad. Better than most. Guess you did okay after I let you go?"

"I guess." 

He has a point. That first winter we hid under the city and it hadn't been bad for Austin and I. The Resistance took care of us. We wore the blue emblems of iTronics under our clothes, and we soon became an important part of the group. 

All of us former professionals: doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, professors. All of us helped to make sure that the people of Toronto had what they needed to survive. 

Sure, the ARs had all the real power: they horded electricity and other resources. They made sure that energy was doled out or taken away to those who 'deserved' it. 

But they tolerated our efforts at order and peace. The ARs would never admit it, but this city wouldn't be able to run without the Resistance.

Austin's patients kept him busy and in exchange we had access to food, water, and shelter in the subway tunnels. But then during a mid-winter thaw that year, water seeped into the tunnels, pooling between the rail beds. 

The spring thaw two months later happened fast. With no one to keep up with the subway tunnel maintenance, they began to fill up. We were forced to return to the surface of the city. And that's when things got bad for us.

"Austin's sick," I admit out loud. 

It's not often that I talk about it. Now that he can't tend patients anymore, we get little help from the Resistance. If he isn't 'working', no one can afford to 'pay' him.

"Yeah, my kids are sick too." 

I nod as Oz says it. But I know it's not the same. The spring and summer after we left the underground, the strange flu that had been contained to quarantine cars was suddenly out in the open, on the streets. Everyone was trying to find a cool place to settle for the summer, and concrete buildings became quickly overcrowded. 

Austin, along with other doctors in the Resistance, tried to fend off the virus that tore through the city's population. He worked too hard. I tried to convince him to slow down.

"It's my oath, Andrea," He'd tell me. "I can't just stand by and watch people die. I have to help. Besides, how else will we eat if I don't help?" 

I was constantly reminded that in these days of fighting the ARs for basic human needs, organized education wasn't exactly a top priority.

But even with that Hippocratic oath, even with all the training he'd had, he could only do so much. Eventually, he pushed himself too far. Now he has the virus himself.

"We're here," I say as we reach the intersection of Spadina and Dundas.

"You've got to be kidding me," Oz calls to me over the clamor of the crowd. "This is where you get food?"

(Continued in Chapter 57...)

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