I emptied another glass of beer, and I felt I needed a time-out. It’s safe to say that at this point I was utterly confused by all the things around me: the music, the bar, the beer, these people… Everything was new, and complicated, and it took way too much energy to process. Leste hadn’t been completely wrong with his remark about me being half robot: I had been used to robots and predictability for all of my adult life, and I had become more like them that I’d like to admit. And these humans here were completely unpredictable and rather unreasonable, or at least illogical. On to of that they were way too emotional to handle, and they had a history with each other that I didn’t know anything about and couldn’t really understand everything of.
On the other hand I still had some kind of pride left somewhere, which told me that I couldn’t show my uneasiness too much. Evelith the barmaid and Leste the living anachronism who shared the table with me were still looking in my direction expectantly, waiting for me to say something again, now that there was a pause in between the acts on stage. Leste seemed to be wanting to say something himself, but Evelith kept him silent only by small signals from her eyes. Man, these things were hard! I had forgotten how complicated human communication was. Would I really be able to use all those unspoken languages again that were assumed but never explicitly taught? In my memory human language had just been words, simple and plain words. But now that I was among humans again it seemed body language was at least as important. And I was very bad at that.
“I’m not scared of you people.”
I mumbled it to neither of them in particular, and they both turned towards me. ‘Bad move’ I thought immediately. My inner dialogue had turned up one of the worst conversation starters in the history of awkward communication. The reaction wasn't that catastrophic though. Leste answered with a mocking look that just asked for an answer, while Evelith showed a faint smile of mild amusement at my awkwardness. I couldn’t lose face like this, I had to talk like an actual human. My brain ran like mad to find a way to bring the conversation back on track. I turned to Leste, and decided it might be best to bring the talk back to his own territory. There were so much questions that I had about this place, and about his curious projections.
“So tell me, Leste. You are the one broadcasting these holographs from centuries ago, not? Where did they come from? The educomputers taught me when I was a kid that all those things except for a very few known ones were destroyed around the time of the first president of the WGOAP, more than 100 years ago by the other party.”
That seemed to catch his attention. His mocking smile seemed replaced by genuine interest in the subject. “Well, that is true, they destroyed what they could find, but we found a whole archive of micro-discs in a hidden bunker, with music, video and books from the 20th to early 22th century in the old time. And we’ve been investigating those for a few years now. The dancers don’t really care for them except for Yelati, but it gave us a new audience and much-needed new income. Well if you speak of the devil…”
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He suddenly waved to a girl that I’d seen dancing before. She still had hardly any clothes on, a very pale body and an enormous hairdo of tiny and almost perfectly white curls. Everything about her glittered strangely in the light when she walked up to our table, ans she seemed more blue than I had ever seen a human being. “Come greet the new customer, Yela!”
The woman named Yelati came in our direction without much enthusiasm. “Hi new customer!” She said uninterestedly, and her metallic blue eyes completely ignored mine. “He likes my videos more than your dancing.” Leste said teasingly. She gave him a bored and slightly annoyed look. “Well, good for him. As long as he brings in money, everything is okay for me.” It was clear she didn’t care much for my presence or opinion.
She took the time to look at me again before she spoke again, not to me but to Leste. “He might actually be right, but it’s not that there’s much hope for human culture left, is it?” She looked at us with a mix of condescension and hopelessness.
”So what is the club of real humans going to do now? Are you gonna start a book club?”
I moved myself away from her. This woman drained my energy just with her strong presence. Her look was almost shooting me down with lightning, her body looked too fake to even be material and her perfume was too strong. She must have felt roughly the same towards me as I did towards her, because she suddenly said. “Well, I have to do things. See you later, Les, Ev, new guy maybe.” and then she was gone before I could blink an eye while I sat still staring at the empty place next to our table.
“Did… Did I say something wrong?” I asked Leste. He nodded no. “No, it’s more something between her and Ev, and probably even me… A difference in worldview and such. But that’s too complicated for your little robobrain to understand for now. Don’t let it bother you. She might open up later. Within a century or so…” He smiled sarcastically and patted my head as if I was a cute puppybot.
“Don’t you have a job to to, Les?” Evelith asked, seemingly irritated by him now. “I actually do, Oh mighty mistress Anathemina! Thanks for reminding me.” He said theatrically, and then completely changed tone while pricking his finger almost into her nose ”But don’t forget that you do to, Ev. so please bring me a beer first, and one more for you too, new guy?” He looked at me, took my glance as a yes and added “one for him too.” she walked to the bar, and came back with a plate with 3 beers. He handed one to both of us, and put the last one on the table for herself. “I’m doing my round to see if anyone needs something and take the empty glasses.”
She left me alone, and so did Leste after finishing his beer. A new performance from ancient times on the stage, a man with wild grey hair clothed in black playing too much notes on an enormous piano, but I ignored the music for now.
I needed some time with my own thoughts to process things.
And I still hadn't retrieved my sweater back from Evelith...