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“There’s water at the station, but it isn’t potable,” she added.She thumbed in the kitchen’s direction.“Take a water bottle with you.My kitchen pump works fine, and the water tastes funny, but it won’t kill you.”
RH103’s programming would eliminate any parasites or bacteria present in dirty water, but he didn’t say that.He hated that she would have had to drink the water to know if it was safe.“Thank you, I will.”
She adjusted her sunhat.“See you tonight, RH103.”
“See you,” he said, echoing her farewell as she left the house.
As he walked down the stairs, taking in the pictures of a happier Hannah and her family in better days, he thought about how his numerical designation had never bothered him until now.He’d never spent time with organic people; none of his previous clones had, except for the original Rhys Hammond, scant as his memories of him were.
He found a battered tin water bottle in the kitchen and filled it at the pump, its chill pleasant through his gloved hands.When he left the house, stepping into the bright summer sunshine, he wondered if it wasn’t time to take on a regular human name now that he lived among them.
The same groupof cyborgs that Hannah met earlier in the day were back at the fields, harvesting food with their same remarkable speed.SP29 stood up from where he was crouching when she approached the field and saluted her, a smile on his face.
She’d never seen a cyborg smile so easily.God knew it didn’t come easy to RH103.She wasn’t sure how to react to it or the salute, so she said what she would have to a regular human: “At ease, soldier.”
“Welcome back,” SP29 said when she took a position at a tomato plant.“We’re on track to have everything harvested that needs to be done within the next two days.”
Stunned, Hannah’s hand hovered over a ripe tomato.“Are you fucking serious?”
“Of course.We also noticed the canning supplies in the barn over there.Itisa barn, isn’t it?”SP29 pointed to the structure that held the remains of New Eden’s livestock.It was a small structure, the only one that could be repaired after the larger, main barn fell to pieces in the quake, taking all of New Eden’s cows and most of its chickens with it.
“It’s a pretty pathetic excuse for a barn, but yeah, that’s it.”
“Your chickens are in good health, by the way.We checked.”
“Thank you.”
“The building itself could use some reinforcements.”
“I’m not surprised.We were in a hurry to fix it after the earthquake.”
SP29 nodded.“I see.Well, we can certainly help with the foundation repairs.”
The barn didn’t have much of a foundation to begin with, so anything they could do would be helpful.“Thank you.”
“Thankyoufor your hospitality,” SP29 replied, then he changed the subject.“I’ve found a room in a house with Jasmine.She said she’s your friend?”
“My best friend, yeah.”Not that they had spent much time together since the quake.Hannah didn’t have the wherewithal to be a good friend in these times.
But Jasmine had still always been there for her, waiting until she was ready to talk.Hannah wondered if that day would ever come.
As if SP29 understood that Hannah didn’t want to talk about her social relationships, he steered the conversation back to agriculture.“Would you like us to start canning tomatoes, or would you prefer we start harvesting potatoes or apples?We noticed the crops have come in.”
“Canning,” Hannah replied.“I’m so behind on all of that, and I don’t want these tomatoes to go to waste any more than they already have.I’ll show you our setup.”
SP29 closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, and the rest of the cyborgs stood up, then followed him and Hannah to the barn.
“I noticed there’s a large section of the field that used to grow wheat,” SP29 said.
“We don’t have the manpower to do that now.”
“You didn’t, until now,” SP29 corrected her.“I found your thresher in the barn.We can repair it, then clone seeds to start growing wheat.”
The thought of eating bread again nearly made tears return to Hannah’s eyes.It had been solongsince she or any other New Edeners had enjoyed such a luxury.She willed the tears away.She’d spent more than enough time weeping lately, and it was getting embarrassing.“You could really do that?”she asked as she opened the barn door.
“I think the more immediate priority is saving what we can of the food already grown, but cultivating wheat is within our capabilities.”A couple of cyborgs behind them joined in a chorus of yeses.“What do you think?”
“I agree,” Hannah replied, hoping her voice didn’t waver.“We’ve lost a lot of crops already, since there aren’t enough hands to grow it.”Baskets of tomatoes crammed every table in the canning area.God, she was sick of everything tomato-related, but the crops were stubborn, and there was enough to feed everyone.“Let me show you our canning equipment.The jars have been here since before I was born, and we don’t have the means to produce new glass anymore, so you’ll have to be careful with them.We have acidifiers made from the local sugar berries, so that’ll make the process easier.”
