“No more.” Anna said, waving toward him. “If it’s anything like that food eating contest, I’ll pass.”
Atlas shifted his feet. These fast paced programs grated on his sensors. His restlessness lessened as he noticed Anna and Nora more making fun of the programs instead of being enraptured. Every few minutes they found something new to point at and laugh. From the way the humans did their hair, to thecommercials and jingles that still played in between for products that no longer existed.
But then a nature scene came on.
“Nora,” Anna whispered, “now that’s something to see.”
“. . . Sure is.”
Anna’s mouth almost hung open as the narrator showed scenes of one of Earth’s rainforests before it was lost. “That’s freaking beautiful.”
Beautiful. Atlas joined Simon on the couch, watching Anna. The nature feed kept playing, and all of them whispered to one another, talking about the birds as a British male voice droned on about the wildlife.
Nature was a huge step up from what was played before. And Anna's reactions. . .
He thought of the older movies. The ones that he scoffed at before, showing humans working together, until he came to love them. Sweet ones with families. Ones about love. Better than the reality television. Would Anna look atFriday Morningthe same way she did the nature shows? Would she make fun of it? Or would it feel more true?
Atlas startled when the clock on the wall dinged the hour.
“Oh. Time flew.” He tore his eyes away from Anna. He gestured for the remote. “May I turn it off? It’s time for dinner.”
“Yes, here.” Anna handed the remote over. “We’re about ready to have our own soap opera ourselves.” She fanned out her hair. “How do we look? I don’t have any of that makeup.”
The joke actually made him smile, which widened when she laughed herself. And he did look at her, wearing a new pair of pants but the same shirt from earlier, only clean and mud free. She looked presentable, but nowhere near as primped and polished as the humans on the video feed.
Then again, she was alive in a way they never were.
He hit the off button on the remote. “You can watch more later.”
“Nah. That’s alright.” She waved at the screen. “It’s interesting, but kind of weird watching it, knowing what happened, well . . . now.”
“Ah.” Atlas set the remote down. The humans before couldn’t turn away. But that life was literally another time. A different society. All dead now. “I understand. I feel the same way.”
“And the items, the stuff they wanted to sell . . . it all seemed unnecessary.”
Simon cut in, “Those were the commercials.”
“Yeah.” Anna stepped away from the screen, standing and stretching. “The dates on the bottom said the program was over two hundred years old, but it still looked like useless stuff. There was one product for changing a person’s skin color.”
Atlas blinked. A vision of UV lights came to him. “Tanning.”
“Right!” Anna’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t get it; why didn’t they just go outside?”
Atlas grimaced. It drove him mad to see skin burned back then. “It was the fashion.”
“Fashion?” Anna frowned, touching her sunburn. “To feel like this?”
“Yes.” Atlas again assessed the sunburn on her cheeks. “I never did like to see any of the humans damaging their skin on purpose.”
The low hum Simon emitted now was different from earlier. It was hidden before, when the television was turned up. Atlas listened to the frequency, memorizing it. “They did the upgrades fast.”
“Mm-hm.” Simon flexed his hand in front of him. “There are still some firewalls in place, but I’m able to access a lot more.”
Atlas frowned.Blame Stella for that.She was not going to allow Simon to offer more of his opinion. Not after seeing howmuch her grip on the consensus had slipped from Atlas’s input earlier. But he didn’t say that directly. Maybe later, when they were in a more private setting, he would clue Simon in or help him connect directly using Atlas’s own access.
“Alright.” Simon was stretching, holding Tilly by the hand, who was dancing in place. “This one seems to have gotten her energy back while resting, so let’s go eat.”
Atlas reached out his sensors now.So many are gathered in the dining room.There had been enough talk—it was time for the colony to directly get to know the new humans. And for a colony that operated in measured perfection, he didn’t want to have the humans be too late for their first, in-person impression.
