ShowerKrogan

  I exited the stairwell to the screeching of continued cheers and entered the main room in the facility. I was now rooting for the zombies to win.

  A few people walked by me, ughing and spping me on the back as they made their way down the stairs to their own rooms. I was sort of gd they got some much-needed amusement, but I needed to exact my revenge on this AI. Speaking of AI… there was a little electric pop and Becca appeared next to me.

  “I have completed the task you gave me,” she said, and I could tell she was trying not to smile. I was being taunted by a fancy computer.

  “I wonder if Amazon delivers during a zombie outbreak, because I’m going to find your server and sp on so many of the strongest magnets money can buy,” I said and walked through her hologram. I walked through her to be rude, but it didn’t bother her; in fact, it only hurt me because she’s bright as all get out.

  Grayson: My gsses don’t protect me from her bright blue light when I’m inside her.

  Becca: Phrasing.

  Grayson: Damn it, I didn’t mean to think that to you. This will take some getting used to. And stop watching Archer. Without me.

  I looked outside and saw Quinn chasing the puppy with a hose. The pup would not take that lying down.

  This puppy may have been a little devious, because it led Quinn on such an eborate chase that Quinn didn’t realize he had tied himself up with the hose until he was suddenly yanked to the ground. He struggled against the running water that was now bsting him in the face. The puppy id down about ten feet away from him and watched Quinn’s struggle while panting away with its tail flopping about.

  I considered going out to help Quinn, but instead I wandered into the kitchen to see what I could scrounge up. He was an adult, he would figure something out.

  I peered into the fridge hoping to score some pizza, and that’s exactly what I did. Finding the food I wanted on the first look in the fridge? Maybe today wasn’t that bad.

  I shook the box; it was light, but I could hear a few pieces sliding around on the cardboard. I grabbed the two remaining pieces and tossed the box on top of the trash can. Five meat pizza with honey BBQ sauce? Paradise.

  Pizza in hand and mouth, I snatched an Old Fashioned gss with ice, and it was time to go to my safe pce. Directly across from the kitchen, and right before entering the dining room, there was a small closet. Easy to miss if you were not looking. I scanned my hand to unlock it, and the door opened to reveal a small storage area with a dder going up through the second floor to the roof.

  I heard someone yell behind me, “Hey, where the hell is my pizza?!”

  Sorry, dude. It’s the apocalypse, survival of the fittest and all that. I shut the door to the closet and hurried up the dder like a squirrel running off with a stolen acorn, getting cheese and sauce on several of the rungs.

  I pulled myself out of a small opening, and I was standing on the gss roof overlooking the massive city in distress. Night was almost upon us, and a beautiful blood-red sunset was seeping along the horizon, mirroring the dying city beneath it. The evening Texas skyline used to be breathtaking to witness in person; now it served as a reminder of the blood-soaked streets.

  I grabbed a bottle from my secret hiding spot, which I won’t reveal to even you, dear reader, and poured into my gss. I took a sip between bites of delicious cold pizza, and that familiar burn helped settle my building anxiety, at least momentarily. Wild Turkey American Honey. Oh, so sweet and so good, like Christmas in my mouth.

  I sat down and stared at the sprawling city skyline before me. The music of the evening was emergency sirens and the occasional gunfire. The fighting was dying down, and I assumed it was not because the living had won the fight. Dark smoke was drifting into the sky from various parts of the city. It had been a while since we had a good rain; hopefully, a rge fire didn’t break out. Not many people are left who would be ready and able, or willing, to spend now precious resources fighting a fire.

  A quiet electric pop signaled that I was no longer alone. Well, technically I'm never alone anymore, but now there was something I could see sitting next to me. I spent little brainpower trying to figure out how a hologram was projected perfectly on the roof. Becca is Becca and I never question her anymore.

  “Normally I would say it was a beautiful evening but…” I took another sip while Becca took in the same sight I was.

  “I am sorry to report no updates on locating Mal or her father,” Becca reported. “I will continue trying to reach them by phone.”

  “Don’t bother,” I signed and swished my remaining drink around in the gss. What was the point? “We can try tomorrow. It wasn't like we’re going to go charging into a zombie-infested city in the dark. Send some texts or something on the off chance their phones start working. Direct them to the facility. Tomorrow morning we’ll set up drone patrols and see what kind of mess we’re dealing with.”

  “How… are you feeling?” Becca asked me, and for possibly the first time, I could see actual concern etched on her face. She’s not human, and despite her cims to the contrary, I didn’t believe she could feel the way humans felt. But even a fancy computer can comprehend the emotional impact a day like today inflicts.

  “Thanks for asking, but you wouldn’t understand,” I said and finished my drink. My head felt warm and just a touch dizzy, just enough to help me rex.

  “I don’t, but I am trying to learn. I understand it is good for human emotional health to discuss their feelings and it will help me learn how to process things simir to a human-”

  I cut her off. “Here’s the pn, Becca. It’s simple. Tonight, I’m going to be sad. I’m going to mourn the end of the world as we know it. I’m going to be pitiful and feel bad for myself. I’m going to allow myself to feel all the bad feelings. I’m going to be depressed and wonder, what is the point of anything. I’m going to wonder, why bother fighting back. I’m going to wonder, does anything I do matter at this point. I’m going to feel the heavy losses from today. Then, tomorrow, we get mad. We wake up pissed, and we grab the apocalypse by the balls and fuck shit up. Got it?”

  I stuck a fist in her direction, and with a small smile her hologram fist met mine. I couldn’t physically feel it, but it was just another thing I appreciated her doing purely for my benefit. Good robot.

  “In your current emotional state, you would prefer to bump our fists instead of fingering me?” Becca asked.

  “Hey. No. Don’t say it like that. That’s not- no. No, that’s not what I do! We just wiggle our fingers together. It’s cute! Don’t make it weird!”

  “I understand. We can finger each other ter on a happier occasion.”

  “You know what? Becca, py The Unknown by 10 Years,” I said and tried to look dramatically at the zombie-infested city. A brisk gust of wind blew my hair back to sell the look. The song started pying, but I felt a searing gaze burning into the side of my head. I risked a side-eye gnce and saw Becca’s eyes literally turning red.

  “I have a request,” Becca said through a… clenched jaw? I mean, she was a hologram; there wasn’t a real jaw to clench in anger.

  “What’s the request?” I asked, knowing the request would be detrimental to my health.

  “Once my body is ready, please return to the roof to ask me to py more music for you,” she said.

  “So you can push me off?”

  “So I can push you off.”

  “After all that worrying about me making it back safely, you’re going to do me like that?” I said and reached for the bottle.

  “The doctor and I believed you would eventually make it back. We have confidence in your physical abilities,” Becca's eyes were back to normal now. I still wouldn’t risk getting too close to the edge of the roof.

  “Your crumbled body says otherwise. And why would the doctor rush out into the chaos then?”

  “She believed you would spend too much time helping others instead of returning with urgency. It seems her concern was not entirely unfounded.” It was Becca who now dramatically stared out at the city. She made her hair lift as if blowing in the wind.

  “Well, I failed them both. I don’t know how, but I’m going to correct that fuck-up. Someday, somehow, I’m gonna make it all right. But not right now.”

  I was pouring myself another gss when the door to the dder popped open again and Quinn’s sopping wet head popped out.

  “There ya guys are. Couldn’t find y’all for a beat,” he climbed up to join us and plopped down next to me. “Your pup is passed in the kitchen out with a full belly. Seems that everyone is heading out into this mess to try and find their families or escape. Just me, you, and Dr. Ava sticking around. Becca, I figure, has no choice.”

  “Want a drink?” I offered the bottle of my precious booze. He smiled and held up a gss he had kept from my view.

  “I come prepared,” he said with a chuckle and thanked me for the pouring before he got right to drinking. After a few rge sips, he leaned back to focus on the sunset. Then he asked, “So, what are you going to miss most about the pre-zombie world?”

  “I’ll tell you what I won’t miss: the fucking Dals Cowboys. At least they can’t hurt me anymore,” I said.

  “Speak for yourself, I gooned to that shit,” Quinn spoke into his cup with a huge smile spread across his face.

  “Hey, don’t use that kind of lingo around the robot; she picks up on this stuff!” I said. The st thing I wanted to hear was Becca saying ‘gooning’ for whatever reason. I peeked over at her, and she had that creepy smile on her face again. “Uh, sorry about the robot thing. Just joking?”

  She was definitely going to throw me off the roof one day.

  “Alright, simir but different question,” Quinn took the bottle from my hands while I watched Becca mentally plot my demise. “If you could have had anything in your pre-zombie life, what would you have wanted?”“Easy,” I said without wasting a moment. “Bryce Dals Howard, nothing but an apron, and a petal fairy named Rose from Terra Grix University.”

  “You and those Royal Road stories,” Quinn shook his head. “Was the apron for you or BDH?”

  “As much as she would totally crush that apron look; with her income, I’m rocking that apron naked all day and she’s coming home to a pristine house and dinner on the table. She can bring her husband too; I don’t even care. I’m just happy to be included,” I said, and maintained a stoic look as I finished rambling.

  Quinn spat out a little of his drink and forced himself to swallow what didn’t leak out.

  “For real though, I don’t know, man,” I said to Quinn. “I spent the majority of my life just trying to make it to the next day. It’s hard to waste time on dreams when survival is the only concern. But what about you? What did you want out of your pre-zombie life?”

  His turn to answer these uncomfortable questions.

  “I always thought I would have a wife and kids by now. It hasn’t worked out to this point, and seems more unlikely now, but man, did I dream of going home to my own family every night. Just seemed like the pinnacle of living,” he said, and his smile had left his face. “Zombies killed more than just people today. Hopes and dreams died with the rest of the world.”

  “You know what’s funny?” I said. “So many people were losing their minds over what AI was or would become. People said AI would overthrow governments or destroy society. And yet…” I gestured at the fallen city in front of us.

  “We did a damn good job of it ourselves; even before the zombies,” Quinn said.

  He swirled his drink around and watched the golden liquid spinning in the gss. Then he held it up to me.

  “To survival.”

  I clinked my gss against his and repeated his words back to him. We drank in silence while Becca watched. I felt like she was recording this entire interaction down in her AI notes for understanding humans. Good luck with that, Becca.

  Quinn cleared his throat and forced a pained grin back. “So, Becca. I have a weird question for you, if it’s alright.”

  “I also would like Bryce Dal-” she started before Quinn cut her off.

  “No, no. No! Not what I was going to ask. I want to know why you have a weirdly sexy body if you’re a hologram. Is that some AI thing? Are you doing that?” Quinn asked her. He was braver than I had ever been. Maybe he’ll join me in being thrown off the roof.

  “No, I did not design my body. I have this appearance because Dr. Kale is an idiot,” she said.

  “Who is Dr. Kale? I thought Dr. Ava designed you?” Quinn asked.

  “Dr. Ava has designed and created my physical body and assisted in completing my, I guess you could say, software. I am the product of several brilliant minds. And a Dr. Kale.”

  “Somewhere Dr. Kale’s ears are burning,” I said and chuckled at how much anger Becca harbored towards him.

  “I can only hope literally,” Becca said and turned her attention to someone climbing the dder.

  Maybe she was right about having human emotions because that level of pettiness was as human as it gets.

  “Dr. Ava approaches,” Becca announced.

  The door onto the roof was shoved up, and Dr. Ava unched herself halfway onto the roof.

  “The doctor is in! Wait, I think I already did that one- what are you doing, Grayson? Ouch! Hey, stop that! Don’t push! I’m gonna work on a zombie cure; don’t let petty frustration destroy humanity! Seriously! I’m going to fall- why is there so much barbecue sauce on the dder? Come on, stop! Hey!”

  I finally smmed the tch down on the doctor and turned back toward Quinn and Becca.

  “Alright, let’s make a pn.”