Time Is Money

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Copyright © 2012 elaineharlington & NancyNoon

        Ruby ambled down the same sidewalk that just hours ago she had passed by with the tender flame of hope in her heart. Or what could be called a heart. Mark was walking beside her, trying to keep up with her brisk pace despite the strain on his slightly rusted ankles. The skin had finally worn out and the metal showed through. He had been due for a skin replacement that would cost at least two years of his already waning time. Ruby didn’t want him to stop for fear that he wouldn’t be able to move again if she did. Their destination was only a few more blocks anyway.

    “I bet they’re the same as ever. How exactly are they doing?” Mark asked.

    “Simply marvelous,” Ruby replied, her voice full of sarcasm. She had been changing more and more since she had last left the house of her childhood. She was becoming more human, the very thing that had scared her parents in the first place. She remembered the Examinator's disgust when he saw her Core. She remembered her parents' shock when he told them, "You truly must take drastic measures. This could quickly escalate out of your control. Her Core is far too bright, and it's simply dripping with human emotions!" Ruby had been confused.

    She remembered asking her parents about it. "My Core is bad because it's too good?"

    "Ruby, bright Cores are dangerous. Don't you remember your lessons? Look what happened to the humans, when they neglected to dim the Cores of lower classes. Surely you can recall the American word for 'Core'?" They had asked her.

    She did, of course. "Soul; the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part," she had responded mechanically.

    Conversations like this were quite common when Ruby had been younger, but as she got older and even more inquisitive, her parents became concerned. "Yes, Ruby, we know, Ruby, we understand that you wish to learn Android anatomy," they had told her, though there was no way they could understand, "but you simply were not designed to be an Engineer!"

    Eventually they stopped explaining altogether, instead getting nervous and skittish when she asked questions. "I simply don't know, Ruby! Now go to the Database, I won't let you skip another day this week. And don't ask any questions while you're there!"

    That was when Ruby had known that there was something really different about her. And that her difference could be a danger, both to herself and to her world. Automatons were meant to be workers, handlers of those jobs that the humans couldn’t do, not philosophers or thinkers. She had tried to stay normal, oh she had tried, but it became harder day by day to pretend that she couldn’t care. And then it really did escalate out of her control. Ruby had lost her temper and had blindly walked out of the only life that she had ever known.

    Ruby shook herself mentally, then proceeded to answer her brother’s question.

    “I only saw mother though, dearest father was busy at work but I gleaned from the conversation that we would be allowed to stay at their house again,” As long as I promised to stay good, Ruby added ruefully to herself.

    “So, you never really got permission for us to stay there?” Mark asked interrupting her thoughts.

    “Well, no. But they’re our parents, right? They can’t really reject us, can they?” Ruby said brightly, trying to keep Mark in his happy mood.