Dreaming in Static

Chapter 4

Polaris

Polaris stepped forward, making Andromeda visibly flinch. She was trembling, so Polaris put both hands on her shoulders and tilted her head. "Are you okay?"

Andromeda blinked in shock, but nodded almost imperceptibly and pushed Polaris's hands off her shoulders. "I should get going," she said dismissively, turning away from Polaris.

"Oh," Polaris murmured, disappointment rising in her stomach. "Okay—wait!"

Andromeda looked back.

"Um...do you by any chance have the news on your shuttle?" she asked, tugging on a lock of hair.

Andromeda raised an eyebrow. "I think it was knocked out in the crash. Why?"

Polaris sighed, but beneath it was a small victory, a hope that Andromeda would stay with her, if she gave her the news. "There's been a mass killing—well, a mass death, anyway, of pretty much every single android on Earth. Actually, technically, every single android on Earth, but seeing as I'm still alive, the death rays were obviously the wrong frequency."

Andromeda almost showed emotion at that. Polaris could see it—her brows furrowing, teeth edging forward to instinctively bite at her lip; but she retracted back into her calm, defensive manner before she could bawl like Polaris did.

"Okay," Andromeda said. "Kind of unsafe to venture out into the world as the sole survivor, then."

"But you're an android!" Polaris exclaimed, smiling. "So we're the—the dual survivors!"

It looked like Andromeda was trying very hard not to roll her eyes.

"So we can, like, fly into outer space with your shuttle and go inhabit Mars or something!" Polaris jumped up and clapped her hands.

She gave into the urge and rolled her eyes.

"Polaris, the shuttle's down. And I wouldn't take you with me even if the shuttle were suited for it. You're a Serfdroid, for heavens' sake, you wouldn't last a day in space," Andromeda replied bluntly.

Polaris's lip quivered. She hadn't really thought that she was that terribly equipped; after all, she was pretty intelligent, and while she wasn't that strong, Andromeda looked like a puff of wind could blow her over, tall and slender as she was. But if a Novadroid had said it... "Really?" Polaris whispered.

Andromeda sighed loudly. "Never mind. Come with me. We'll run a diagnosis on the shuttle to see what's usable. Maybe we'll be able to salvage a pod, and we can fly around the country."

Polaris nearly shrieked, unable to contain her joy. Flying around the country when she'd hardly set foot outside the house! She settled for hugging Andromeda tightly—"Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!"

She glimpsed Andromeda's grimace, but it was okay, she'd warm up to her soon enough.

Andromeda

How she got stuck with this dimwit, Andromeda would never know.

Honestly, they had to kill every single android except this one. Were all Serfdroids this bubbly and idiotic? Sure, she was pretty, but that just strengthened the conclusion that Serf manufacturers valued beauty over brains. Andromeda would've picked the corpse of Hugo over this android.

"Okay," Andromeda sighed, stepping through the shuttle door, with Polaris right on her heels. "Don't touch the screens. Don't touch the buttons unless I tell you to. Actually, scratch that—don't touch anything unless I tell you to."