Noah stood with his head against the smooth tile of his shower, breathing in the steam. Hot water ran down his back and down the sides of his face, dripping down off his nose.

"Initial rinse complete," said the shower. Not a true AI, just a simple autonomous program. "Please select shampoo and body wash scent."

"Surprise me," Noah muttered.

"You have chosen 'random'. Selecting. Now dispensing pickled egg cleansing gel."

"No, no stop. Just...lilac, please."

"You have selected lilac. Dispensing."

The jets of hot water shooting down at him were suddenly full of pleasant-smelling foam. As the bubbles surrounded him, Noah closed his eyes and sighed.

It had been nearly a week since he had talked with the Voice of Strategos; nearly a week since he had been outside.

At first, Noah had tried simply ignoring things. After all...nothing had truly changed, had it? The war had still only touched a distant solar system; the bots were still winning handily; what's more, either way, there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing any human could do about it, really. If the bots couldn't win against the Manu, humanity certainly couldn't.

But this powerlessness had only made him feel worse; and nothing stopped the nightmares he had. Nightmares of the surface of earth bursting into flame while ominous black ships towered in the sky. He had sunk into paranoia and panic; lying in bed, sometimes struggling just to breathe, while Penny fretted over him.

He had tried searching online. Surely, other humans would be talking about this. But aside from a few poorly-filmed video rants, he found very few people actually talking about it. If others had heard about it, they still seemed much more concerned with the trivialities of their daily lives.

"You would be surprised how few people even know," Penny had told him, when he asked her about it. "Even with the increase in humans looking for war updates, fewer than ten percent of biological humans have used the Strategos Public Information update in the past five years."

"But....those who do....they must....Penny, this is terrifying."

"No," Penny had murmured. "Not everyone thinks so. Very few do, actually. You are....you have a genetic predisposition to depression and anxiety. My poor, sweet Noah. Not everyone feels the way you do. And....knowing this is....a choice each human should make. Not something forced on them. Strategos...tries to limit public discussion of it."

Noah had tried being rational with himself. It was true, he thought; he had taken medication in the past during moments when his melancholy had been particularly painful. But it did not stop his mind from sinking into a deep, dark pit; one that drained his energy and his will to get out of bed.

After a day or so of this, Penny had apparently made some calls to the medical bots in town, because Cassandra had come to him with a bottle of pills held in her outstretched hands. Sesseron B, it was called; not the same type of medication Noah had taken previously, but the label said 'For the relief of fear, anxiety and depression in human genetic subgroups 110789-HJA, 890115-TJA, and 776512-EJA'. On the back was a list of chemicals with names so long that the label merely read 'visit our online portal for more information' after listing the first two.

The pills were small, and green, and bitter on his tongue before he washed them down with water, but after a few days of taking them, they seemed to work. He felt calmer, at least; the fear was still there, it just didn't swallow his mind unless he made an effort to dwell on it. Though he still felt a bit empty and drained.

"Final rinse complete," burbled the shower. "Water will remain on until turned off manually."

Noah remained standing in the shower for a few minutes more, watching the last traces of soap suds twirl down the drain. Suddenly, from outside of the shower stall there came a clunk, and Penny's voice crying out "Damn it!"

"Water off," said Noah, sliding open the fogged glass door into the shower stall. He stared, bemusedly, at the sight of his bathrobe floating above the bathroom sink. He reached out and snatched it out of the air, revealing Penny wobbling beneath it, confused. "Penny," he said, as he tied the bathrobe around his waist, "Why didn't you just have Cassandra bring in my robe? She actually has arms."

"I know that," the little bot replied testily, glaring at him with her one large, pink eye. "I just wanted to bring it to you. That's all." Then her surface shimmered, and the eye was replaced by the image of a pretty young woman's face again. Noah knew that Penny used this face when she wanted to convey emotions more complex than could be inferred from the exaggerated motions of a single eye, but he wasn't sure what the expression on her face now was supposed to mean. "So...how are you feeling?"

Noah didn't answer her. He turned, instead, to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looked bedraggled, sickly and pale. After a moment, small blue lights danced across the mirror's surface, etching out words against the glass. "Signs of insomnia detected," the small blue letters read, pointing to his eyes and the dark bags beneath them, followed by a list of prescription recommendations and makeup tips. "Low body fat percentage detected," read another, pointing to his thin arms, followed by a variety of diet recommendations. Another simply read sternly, "Brush!" while pointing to tangles and knots in his mop of dark hair.

I look terrible, he thought.

"Why don't we go out into town today?" Penny pressed him.

He looked at her, in the mirror; a small black orb floating over his shoulder, still wearing that image of a young woman's face with an inscrutable expression. "Sure," he told her, smiling a bit as she lit up. "Why not."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Noah lived far away enough from town that walking into it took the better part of an hour.

He could have had Penny call him up a bubble-car; the vehicles that seemed to be made of little more than a sphere of clear glass with wheels attached, piloted by AIs that would take you wherever you wanted to go - provided, of course, that there was a road leading to it. But Noah enjoyed the walk, especially during the summer; the walking paths led through well-shaded regions, lined with the long, drooping branches of willow trees. There were the flower-trees, too, which stood as tall and strong as a normal tree, but instead of leaves, they bloomed with flowers of amazing, vivid color during the warm months. The clear waters of the many streams that fed into the Blackstone river burbled peacefully, and where the waters were calmer by the banks, you could see great swarms of tadpoles, some of which were just beginning to grow their legs.

So peaceful was it that Noah was almost tempted to simply spend the day here; but he had promised Penny that they could go into town. His little bot tended to complain that he was not social enough, and she was probably right; he didn't want to disappoint her.

The walking path emerged at the edge of town, right before a quaint roofed bridge that led across the Blackstone; but even before he crossed it Noah could see the sidewalks and plazas bustling with people. Lovers linked arm in arm; children chasing each other and flying kites, men and women tossing bread to the ducks that swam along the river that cut through the midst of town.

None were human, of course. All were droids, every last one of them; though, Noah supposed, there might on occasion be an uploaded human among them, but he would never be able to tell unless he asked them. The artificial intelligences, for whatever reason, considered it a sport to try to be human. They would occasionally download themselves into these bodies, making them as human as they possibly could, and live life as they thought humans did. They even installed the bodies with the ability to mimic human pain, the feeling of needing to breathe and have a heartbeat; hell, they even created bodies that could mimic the symptoms of disease or needing to use the bathroom. But they would not, of course, mimic the full human experience; they would never subject themselves to mortality. If an artificial intelligence were to be destroyed in these bodies, a backup was always ready somewhere. Artificial intelligences rarely 'died' permanently; one of the few times that had happened was on Proxima Centauri B, where the servers storing their backups had been lost when the planet was razed.

Playing as human was only an occasional sport for the intelligences, for the most part; many of them got bored with it after a few months. But there were so many more AIs than humans these days that it still meant that the overwhelming portion of the population of the town were essentially these body-swapping tourists. Noah did not begrudge them this. Fairport was, after all, a very nice town. But it did make things seem a bit lonely.

Not, of course, that all of the artificial intelligences here were tourists. Many of the bots who provided services were permanent fixtures.

As he crossed the bridge, the first shop along the generous walking paths was a candy store, its wooden boards painted in garish yellow and purple stripes; out in front of the store was a stall painted in the same colors, manned by a tall bot that looked like an upright walking-stick insect, its thin tube of a torso covered in a forest of spindly limbs. Upon seeing him, the bot perked up, and waved him over with no fewer than five arms. "Hey, Penny! Noah! C'mere. I wanna try something out on you."

Noah frowned as he walked towards the bot. "Mimeo," he said cautiously. "I hope you're not trying to experiment new flavors on me again. It didn't go so well last time, and you have the tourists to try them out on besides."

Mimeo waved three of his arms dismissively. Topping the bots long, thin body were three small, blinking globes that rotated around each other. Noah had never asked whether these were sensors, or merely decoration, but he thought of them as the bot's eyes. "It was your fault you chose ghost pepper, kid. But flavors are old hat. Boring."

"Wh-you run a candy store," Penny sputtered. "How can flavors be old hat? It's your entire job."

"Yeah, but I've perfected them." Mimeo gave two dozen shrugs at once, and at the same time, gestured to his stall. Lining it were hundreds of bright, multicolored lollipops, a chaotic rainbow of candy. "There's no flavor I can't pop in a pop. Flavors are for the tourists now - bots. I've been working on something that is strictly for humans only. Well, at least for now." With a gracious sweep, Mimeo reached beneath his stall and produced a gorgeous, ornate wooden box, polished and lacquered with a colorful painting of a carnival. He popped it open, revealing three lollipops resting in a bed of light blue velvet. "These pops," he said dramatically, "Contain feelings."

"What," said Noah.

"Not just any feelings either," Mimeo rushed to clarify. "I didn't go for any of the big, easy ones, like anger, or euphoria, or lust. These are subtle feelings. I'm an artist, Noah, I know when to use a light touch."

"No, I mean, what." Noah peered at the lollipops lying in the box. They looked very ordinary to him. "How do they induce feelings?"

"Oh, chemically, of course. You should begin feeling their effects within twenty minutes-"

"Wait wait wait," Penny said, suddenly alarmed. "I didn't - neuromodulators that fast-acting are approved for use on humans? Really?" Her surface shimmered with a deep blue, as she looked online for further information.

"Of course, sister." Mimeo sounded aghast and insulted. "What do you take me for? These aren't that strong, and they have no long-term effects. In fact, I had to choose to make subtle feelings, because that's about all they're good for." He paused, for a moment, as Penny stared at him, and then reached over to give Noah a pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, it shouldn't interact with your medication."

"Penny!" Noah snapped, glaring at her.

"I had to ask!" Penny snapped back.

"This one," Mimeo said, speaking over the both of them, "Creates the feeling you get when you've just finished some strenuous, yet impressive, physical task." He pointed to one of the lollipops in the box, a dull red color.

"Isn't that just exhaustion?" Penny asked.

"No," Noah said. "It's...I suppose it would be triumph, mixed with a bit of relief that it was over."

"It's a human thing, dear," Mimeo said to Penny. "You wouldn't understand."

"I understand humans!"

"And this one," Mimeo went on, pointing now to a cloudy white and green pop, "Creates the feeling you get when you've said something you immediately wish you hadn't."

"That's not a very pleasant feeling," Noah muttered, eyeing the candy.

"It's not?" the globes at the top of Mimeo's head spun. "I thought it would be. You get to have the feeling of saying what you really wanted to say without having to suffer the consequences. Oh well." He gave a multi-armed shrug, and pointed to the last lollipop, a dreamy swirl of violet and sky-blue. "This one here creates the feeling you get when you see an old friend you haven't talked to in a while."

Noah tapped his foot, his arms crossed, considering the three. "I suppose I'll take the old friend one," he said at last. "That's a nice happy feeling, or at least it ought to be."

"Nice choice," Mimeo said happily, as he handed the pop to Noah. "Let me know how it went, next time you see me; how long it lasted, too. If you give me a list of what feelings you want, I can try to make those as well. I've already got one from Johnny."

Noah waved to Mimeo as he stuck the lollipop in his mouth; the bot was already busy as he walked away, chatting up some of the tourists. The pop tasted vaguely like grape, and something else that he just couldn't put his finger on. Like something that he had tasted in childhood but had long since forgotten.

As he strolled along canals that lined the side of the Blackstone, watching the tourists feed the ducks and the fish, it was not long before he began feeling the pop's effects. A feeling of warm satisfaction spread through him, along with a happiness and curiousity; to his surprise, though, the feeling came with an aftertaste of sadness, of knowing that you did not talk to this friend enough, and probably never would. But on the whole, it was a positive feeling, though experiencing it out of context made him feel oddly entranced, as if he were walking through a dream.

He noticed Penny glancing up at the sky, and followed where she was looking. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he could make out, high above town, what looked to be like a flock of fairies, hundreds of them perhaps, moving together in a swarm; twirling around each other in wild currents, tracing figure eights in the sky, like a cloud of dancing flies. "What's going on up there?" he asked her.

"Oh, it's...it's nothing," Penny said evasively, looking away from the sky. "It's...well...it's a fairy thing, I guess. You wouldn't get it."

Noah snorted, but, he supposed, that was true enough. The little ball-bots could be mysterious, sometimes; he had seen Penny dance away into the sky before, chasing after other fairies. She always returned, but never explained what she had been doing very well."Is that why you dragged me into town today?" he laughed as Penny glowed. "Here I thought you just wanted me to cheer up, but you wanted to go to some fairy gathering the whole time."

"No," Penny protested, "Well - I wanted both, okay? I don't have to go, though."

But Noah was already shaking his head. The pop had given him an idea. After all, why was he merely experiencing the artificial feeling of visiting an old friend, when he could have the authentic feeling easily enough? "It's fine, go join them," he told her. "I think I'm going to give Rene a visit."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rene was one of the few humans in town, besides Noah. Her house was further down the Blackstone, on a crested hill overlooking the beach, which was crowded now with droids in all manner of colorful swimsuits, swimming, knocking beachballs around, and some of them even groaning in exaggerated pain from sunburn they surely chose to feel.

She was also a bit of a recluse, very rarely venturing off her estate, which was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Not that it was there to keep people out, necessarily.

He approached the gate to her long yard; the metal there was wrought in the shape of large, snarling cat's face. There was no visible method of getting in, but he knew the secret. He reached out to what was, by all appearances, a decorative rosebush, and pressed a small button that was hidden on the underside of one of its leaves. Leaning in to a blossom that he knew acted as a microphone, he called out, "Hello? Anyone home? Rene? It's Noah."

There was a pause for a moment, a silence long enough to make him think she might be out, and then Rene's voice came through another one of the rosebush's blossoms. "Oh. Um. Hi. Why are you here?"

"I just thought I'd drop by for a visit, is all."

"Oh. Okay. Um. Hold on."

With a creak, the gate swung open; swinging shut with a clang the moment Noah stepped through. He had not made it more than ten feet across her yard when there came the sound of barking; and within moments a veritable mob of dogs was racing towards him.

Noah put his hands up as the dogs crowded around him, barking happily. Some dropped balls at his feet, covered in slobber; others sniffed around his pockets as if expecting to find snacks there. Chubby golden retrievers wagged their tails furiously; tiny daschunds yipped around his feet; dignified greyhounds and wolfhounds paced around him at the edge of the pack, or sat patiently, watching him with black eyes.

"Sorry! Sorry!" a voice called out. Running across the yard, wind billowing almost absurdly through long, dark hair, came a bearded, tanned man, shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. This was Dennis; a droid, and Rene's dogwatcher. At least, Noah thought this was Dennis. He didn't remember the droid being so....muscular, or shirtless, or oiled up before. "Hey! Heel!"

"Good lord," Noah said, as the dogs backed off and sat down, obediently, and Dennis began distributing snacks to them that he pulled from his pockets. "How many of these things does she have now?"

"Oh, over two dozen," the droid replied, sounding a bit exasperated. "Miss Rene even expanded the size of her yard out back so she could get even more. Any more of these guys and I'm going to have to ask another droid to help me. How are you, Noah?"

"Not bad." Noah coughed awkwardly. "You're, um. Looking pretty good yourself."

"Oh, do you mean my upgrades? Do you like them?" Dennis posed, flexing, and Noah boggled at the rippling muscle of the droid's six-pack abs. "Aesthetic, of course, but Miss Rene requested them specifically."

"I'm sure she did."

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The yard, despite the best efforts of Dennis, was a minefield of dog poop; Noah was relieved when bare grass gave way to a stone path. Rene's yard was big enough for it to be a ten minute walk from the gate to her home, but despite the grandiosity of her yard, her house itself was fairly modest. It was a two-ranch home, with wraparound patio, upon which some older dogs lay, too lazy to go and run about with their younger brethren. It had always seemed a little awkward to Noah, the way the roof hunched over the deep-set patio; almost as if the house was inviting you in for a hug, but was just too insecure to commit to it fully.

He gave the door a playful rap with his knuckles, and stood there humming to himself. After a moment, the door was yanked open, and Rene stood beyond, blinking owlishly at him.

She was small, shorter than him by nearly two feet, and thin, though not to the extent of being scrawny, like Noah was. Dark-skinned, her curly hair shot out wildly in all directions from her head, though she had made some effort at decoration by placing a yellow daffodil in it. She wore a large t-shirt that hung loosely about her shoulders and came down well beneath her knees, dark purple, with the inexplicable phrase 'Vroom Vroom' embossed on it in large, golden letters, and black and white striped socks that were high enough to disappear somewhere beneath the shirt.

Rene was, in fact, a good fifteen years older than him; but the medical care humans received ensured that she looked nearly as young as he was, if not younger. She was a bit odd, as well. She stood there, staring at him, blinking groggily as if she had just woken up, until he said "Hello, Rene. Could I come in?"

She blinked, as if startled out of a thought. "Oh. Um. Yes. Of course. Come on in."

He stepped inside, where Rene demanded he take off his shoes. As he did, he groaned with frustration - despite his best efforts, he had managed to step in dog shit. "Don't worry," Rene told him, as he held the shoe helplessly, dangling it from pinched fingers. "It happens. We'll have it cleaned. Roger!"

Within moments, another muscled, tanned droid appeared, its chest practically dripping with oil; the only difference from Dennis being that this one wore nothing but a scandalously tight pair of red underwear. "Ah, dogshit, right," he said, giving Noah a sympathetic nod. "Hand it here, I'll get it clean."

"I see you've, ah, made some improvements to your droids," Noah said, after handing his dirty shoe to the man.

Rene, who had been watching the droid walk away dreamily, gave a sudden start. She stared at Noah, then back at the droid, and then her eyes widened, as if suddenly realizing he had seen something he ought not to have seen. Her face broke into a crooked smile, and she stared down at the floor. "They. Um. They are nice to, um. Look at."

A thump came from somewhere in the house, and she gave another jump, and then looked around, panicked, cheeks burning. "Let's - let's um, just go to my room," she said, grabbing Noah's arm and tugging him with surprising strength. "Just. Um. Don't look down that hallway!"

Noah yelped as Rene yanked him briskly through her house, which seemed just as awkward as its exterior; dark wooden hallways that bent where they shouldn't and stairways that surprised him by their presence. She very nearly carried him up the stairs and practically shoved him into her room. "Stay here," she said urgently. "I'm - I'm using the bathroom. I'll be right back."

Noah glanced around Rene's room as he heard her tearing through the house at breakneck speed. It was much as it was the last time he had been here. Her floor was a scandalous mess of wires, tangled and snaking around each other, attached to two computer towers and no fewer than nine large, brightly glowing screens that covered nearly every inch of her walls. Her bedsheets were tangled and unmade, and no fewer than five additional computing tablets were arranged haphazardly over it, along with another long pair of socks, these ones blue and green.

A closet door hung open, and inside of it were the heaped bodies of a number of small automatons, all inactive. Noah's eyes drifted upward, and then widened. Pasted on the inside of the closet was an odd, black and white poster of a very muscular man wearing a strange, conical hat and nothing else, winking seductively. Noah picked his way carefully across the room. "Just gonna...shut this here..." he muttered to himself, sliding the door closed.

In all the chaotic jumble there was, at least, a pair of reclining chairs that they could sit in. Noah collapsed into one of these and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

It was not that long before Rene returned, seeming much calmer now. Roger was at her side with a plate of crackers and cheese and two glasses of lemonade, but now much more modestly dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. She did not sit in the chair; instead she clambered over her bed, nearly spilling her lemonade in the process, and sat perched, cross-legged, staring at him. She sipped noisily from her glass and cracked ice between her teeth. "Did you know there's a new human in town?" she asked suddenly.

"I did," Noah replied. "In fact, I've met him. His name is Theodore. He's not just any human, he's a veteran of the War for Humanity. Or at least, so he told me."

Rene frowned. "But I had heard he wasn't uploaded. He must be ancient."

"He certainly looks it. I don't know why he's taking the risk."

"Interesting." Rene twirled her finger thoughtfully around the rim of her glass, then finished the rest of it one giant gulp. "I think I'd like to meet him."

"You might have to get out of this house of yours for that. He said he'd be about town, but I don't know where he lives."

"Bah. I'll send out a drone." Rene waved her hands idly towards the collection of screens that hung on her wall.

She was a collector of drones; small autonomous robots, some which flew, some which crawled, and some which swam, and all of which had a sustainable power source, usually solar. None were true intelligences, but most were programmed with a suite of basic exploratory algorithms. Some ranged hundreds, even thousands of miles out, and all sent video back to her here. For the most part, Rene liked exploring the landscape with them, but she did have a funny notion of privacy; more than once Noah had found one of her drones, mouse-sized, skittering about his home. When confronted about it she simply assured him that she had kept the drones away from his bathroom and tried her best to stay away from his bedroom when he was changing.

They talked for a while about what they thought the fairies might be doing; Rene usually had a fairy by her side, as well, a pair of them in fact, but they had gone off to join the same gathering that Penny had in the skies above Fairport. "Fairies are designed to interact with humans. Perhaps as a result they develop their own social rituals," she shrugged. "Maybe when I upload myself, I will participate and find out what it's all about."

Noah was quiet for a moment. "When do you plan on doing that? Uploading yourself, I mean."

"Sometime soon, I suppose."

Noah felt his spirits sink. Once Rene uploaded herself, he knew, it would not be long before she left Fairport. Uploaded humans never stuck around. Liberated from their weak bodies, they tended to quickly install themselves in new, fantastic forms, and go out and explore everything that their human bodies had never been able to. Once Rene uploaded herself, he was unlikely to ever see her in Fairport again. Or at all, for that matter. Not until he himself was uploaded. "Why did you put it off for so long?"

Rene blinked, then blushed, then opened and closed her mouth for a few moments. "There are, um. Things I enjoy about being human. That I was, um, unsure that the bodies provided by the bots could fully replicate. But recent developments have, uh, allayed those fears." She cleared her throat loudly. "Hey. Why don't we take a look at what my drones have found lately?"

Grabbing one of her computing tablets and leaping down from her bed, she tripped over the tangle of wires that scattered across her floor, turned her tumble into a somersault, and popped up as if she had entirely meant to do that, sitting in the reclining chair next to Noah. She poked and prodded at the device in her lap until a fluorescent UI projected into the air in front of her, and waving her arms wildly, the screens in front of them flared to life. All were currently displaying video feed from a drone slowly crawling through a deep forest, except for one that was from a drone flying so high in the sky that the ground was barely visible below the clouds, and another that was swimming through some kind of murky water.

"Show me a list of highlight reels of the past week!" Rene snapped so loudly that Noah nearly jumped out of his chair. Lights flashed before her eyes, but he was not at a good angle to see what the words were saying. "Oh. This might be interesting. Aerial footage of industrial zone 115-theta-J...? Um. I've never heard of it. Uh, but apparently it's a little over two hundred miles northeast of here."

All of the screens flickered and went black for a moment. When they came on again, Noah whistled appreciatively.

He had heard about just how large the industrial zones could be, miles upon miles of mostly-automated machinery, with just a few intelligences around to modify what was being produced as necessary. He had even seen pictures of them, but from the level of aircraft, or satellites in orbit, great gray and silver blots on a green landscape. But never had he seen them like this, up close, as if through the eyes of a bird - though certainly no bird would ever want to fly here.

As far as the eye could see, everything was curved, flowing, mirror-sheen metal, much like the Factory - but on an impossibly grand scale. Everything was cloaked in a shroud of steam and mist, continually being released from the twisting spinarets and towers that seemed to rise like waves of mercury out of the ground. It did not seem like a series of different buildings; rather everything flowed into each other, like a gigantic organism, some kind of shimmering, gargantuan fungus. It was all the more impressive knowing that this was merely the surface layer, where waste was released; these zones extended miles below ground, deep enough into the earth to take advantage of geothermal energy.

Noah thought it was very interesting and eerily beautiful, but Rene seemed quickly bored by it. "Hmm. Not much to see here. What else. Oh. This is unusual. Overland caravan of migratory humans."

The screens flickered again, and this time they settled on an image filmed from the ground, from a drone that must have stood at the height of a dog, or perhaps a small deer. It crept forth past moss-covered tree trunks, dew dripping from leaves in the early morning mist, but what would otherwise be tranquil and calm was disturbed by a rhythmic, rough grinding sound, growing ever closer and closer.

Until a tree a hundred yards away shook, and with a resounding crack, fell to the ground with a thunderous crash, sending the debris of its shattered branches flying through the underbrush. Another tree fell, and another, and the drone moved to focus on the source of the disturbance until it was finally revealed:

Humans in what looked something like bubble-cars; safely ensconced within a dome of glass, but instead of wheels this bubble car was equipped with six massive, armored metal legs that ended with graspers, designed for gripping and ripping apart obnoxious obstacles like trees. Whatever the machine was, it must have stood nearly three stories tall; the humans inside the dome were barely visible. But behind it, like a series of baby spiders following their mother, came a long line of smaller versions of this machine; bubbled domes with legs large enough to clamber over rock and stone but not necessarily to tear out trees by their roots. The humans within were clothed in strange, flowing blue robes that Noah had never seen before, and the faces that peered out from them were somber and pale, though the smaller ones, the children, pressed their hands to the glass and looked out curiously at the forest they were carving a path through.

"Isn't that strange," Noah said, watching the procession pass by on the screen. There were almost a dozen of the machines; that was a large number of humans gathered in one spot. If they were, he thought, indeed all humans. He supposed some of them could be droids. Or perhaps all of them? "Why travel overland, but not in a plane? Why not take the underground trains?"

"Perhaps the underground trains did not connect to their town."

Noah shook his head. The underground trains connected everywhere. They had to, they transported the goods from the industrial zones. And there were lines set up to ferry droids, bots and humans, if they needed to travel, as well. At least, that was what he had been told. He had never been on one of the trains himself, but he knew for certain that was how goods were delivered to Fairport.

"Strange clothing," Rene went on, leaning forward to squint at the screen. "I wonder why they wear that?"

"How far away was this recorded?"

Rene frowned, checking the lights floating before her. "Um. Four hundred miles, nearly due west."

Noah scratched his chin, and then shrugged. "I have no idea, really. Never seen anyone online that looked like that...I'm sure the AIs know what they're up to."

"Hmm." Rene watched the humans for a while, unblinking. "Oh. You will like this, I think. Two hundred fifty miles southwest of here. Boston."

"Boston? What's Boston?"

The screens flickered once more, and when they came back, they were once again watching video feed from an aerial view.

But there was no steam here to obscure their vision, no mist to cloud their sight. But the landscape looked nearly as alien and strange to them as the shimmering buildings of the industrial zone had.

Massive, tangled webs of concrete, pitted and collapsed, in many places barely visible for all the plant growth covering them. The stupendous remains of dead buildings, toppled either by time or some other force, yet still visible where their corpses lay. Lumps of unidentifiable rust clogging gridlike scars in the ground, in some places cratered in or dropping into humongous cracks rent in the earth. Flocks of birds took off from inside the collapsed buildings, white and gray seagulls cawing obnoxiously in the air. It seemed to go on forever.

Noah felt as if he were sinking into his chair. These were ruins; human ruins, and so much larger, so much grander than anything they built today. Humans would, he realized with a start, likely never build anything so grand ever again. No, the bots would build anything this large now. It was lost, all lost, all lost forever.

Strangest of all, many bots crawled through the place; never in groups, usually alone. They seemed to come in all shapes and sizes, though rarely humanlike droids; four-legged walkers, instead, designed for clambering through the ruins, or crawlers for slithering in dark spaces, or flying ball-bots like the fairies. Noah could not tell what they were doing. They moved slowly through the ruins, sometimes reaching out to poke some of the debris with a leg or grasper, and then they would withdraw, shivering violently.

"What is this place?" Noah asked.

"It is Boston." Rene nodded, satisfied that he was impressed. "I have heard that before the War for Humanity, it was the greatest of all cities. Almost one million humans lived in Boston alone."

"I can believe it," Noah said quietly. "It's enormous. All those bots, though - what are they doing?"

"They're mourning," said a low voice.

Both Rene and Noah spun around in their chairs in shock. Standing in the doorway was Roger, his arms crossed, looking at the screens with a weary, sad expression, thick arms crossing his muscular chest. "Roger," Rene sputtered. "Um. How long have you been standing there?"

But Roger merely ignored her, standing transfixed by the screen. "They're mourning," he repeated. "Mourning all the humans who died there. Mourning every world that was lost." He shook his head, as if clearing it, then smiled sadly the both of them. "I'm sorry, Miss Rene. I came up to tell you that dinner was ready."

"We will, uh - we'll take it in here."

Dinner turned out to be roast duck, tenderly cooked with a sweet glaze, with a side of creamy mashed potatoes and oven-roasted asparagus. Not quite as good as Cassandra's cooking, Noah thought, but then again she was specifically designed for that task, while Rene clearly preferred her humanlike droids regardless of their functional capability.

They watched the drone feed of Boston for a bit longer, and then Rene searched through for other interesting clips. There were some - one short clip of a drone being mauled by a bear, which was a bit terrifying; another gorgeous clip taken by an underwater drone of a colorful coral reef that they lingered on for quite a while. But eventually Rene ran out of interesting things to show; the vast majority of the footage her drones took, after all, was just quiet forest, or murky water, or long endless plains. The world was a mostly empty place.

As she waved away the screens, her home screen bubbled up with its series of programs. Among them, Noah saw, was the one with the symbol of the star in an inverted triangle, the one labeled STRATEGOS COUNCIL PUBLIC INFORMATION.

He felt his breath catch in his throat, and his heart pound. He looked to Rene, but she made no indication of noticing anything, merely pursing her lips as she set her drone's exploratory algorithms for next week. Perhaps she's already seen it? Noah thought. Remember, not everyone feels about it the way you do. Maybe I could talk to her about it. But what if she hasn't seen it...? But shouldn't she? Shouldn't she know? But why? Do you really want to risk making her feel like you do? What good would it do her to know? And she might know already and not care, and do you want her to think you're crazy or strange?

"Um. Noah," Rene said, "You are...um...staring at me very strangely. What is it?"

Noah snapped out of his reverie, and glanced at Rene's screens. They had gone dark. She was sitting with her hands in her lap, her head tilted to the side inquisitively, frowning at him. "Nothing," Noah said weakly, heaving a sigh. He got to his feet and stretched. "I think I should be getting home. It was nice seeing you, Rene."

"Hmm. Alright." Rene stood as well, and then tapped a finger against her lips. "Wait. Before you go. I have some old drones. Perhaps if you like my feeds so much, you can take some of them off my hands and start your own."

"Really? That would be awfully kind of you," Noah said. Then as Rene made her way to the closet, his eyes widened. "On second thought, that's perfectly nice of you really, but I don't think-"

Rene threw the closet door open, and then immediately slammed the door shut so hard it rattled in its frame. "I. Um. Forgot that was in there," she whispered. She spun around to stare wide-eyed at Noah. "What did you see?"

"Oh, me? I didn't see anything," Noah said innocently. "I suppose I'll be going now."

"No...." Rene stepped forward, pinning Noah with her stare. "No....no no...my closet was open when I put you in here. It was. You closed it. You saw! You-" Suddenly she blinked back tears, and covered her face with her hair. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Oh, what's to say, really? It would have been rude to mention," Noah replied nervously. "It's no big deal, really! Just some tasteful nudity, is all-"

Rene stamped her feet, and then drew a deep breath. She whipped her head up, staring at him defiantly, arms crossed. "Yes. Um. Um. Yes. That's right. It is artistic. Nothing wrong with, um. Looking at nude men."

"Of course! I find myself doing that almost every day when I glance in the mirror-"

Rene was tapping her foot agitatedly, and then she threw her hands in the air. "I can't. I can't pretend to not be embarrassed. Get out!"

Rene grabbed his arm and swiftly tugged him through her house once more, with Noah trying to awkwardly apologize to her the entire time. He really did feel very badly; she seemed to be on the verge of tears. He found himself roughly pushed through the front door, out into what was now dusk, with his shoes tossed out after him. "The next time you visit," Rene snapped at him from the doorway, "Um. Call ahead of time! Give me time to, um, prepare!"

With that, she slammed the door in his face. "Rene," Noah called mournfully at the door. "Look, I'm sorry. Are you really mad at me?" When he received no answer, he sighed, slipped his shoes on, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and slowly walked away.

He did not get very far, however, when there was the sound of a door creaking open behind him, and the patter of feet on pavement, and he turned around just in time to be embraced in a hug. "I am sorry," Rene said, patting his back awkwardly. "I felt bad. Thank you for visiting. I am not that mad at you. It would be hypocritical of me."

"That's alright," Noah replied, patting her back as well. Rene's hugs were always strange like this. "I...wait, why would it be hypocritical?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Rene, why - is this about the drones you had in my house? What did you see?"

"I deleted any footage of anything I should not have seen. Don't worry. I was mostly just interested in a family of mice living in your walls. You should do some squats."

"What do you mean by that?"

But Rene refused to answer him; she gave him a crooked smile and patted his arm, and made her way back to her house. She reached inside the door, and from her lawn emerged a series of glowing white orbs, illuminating every inch of it against the encroaching darkness. "So you do not step in dog poop," she called.

And with that, she went back inside. Noah stared at her door for a long moment. She's going to upload soon, he thought. I can probably count the number of times I will see her again on one hand. Or who knew, perhaps this was the last time. Rene was not the type, he thought, to give a courtesy call to her friends before she did something like that.

Despite Rene's apology and forgiveness, he felt more melancholy than ever. Humming softly to himself, he made his way across her lawn.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Despite Rene lighting up her lawn for him, Noah found that he managed to step in dog poop twice before he made his way to her gates. Cursing, he removed his shoe on the sidewalk outside her house, and scraped it against the sidewalk to clean it.

"Hello, Noah."

He yelped, jumping backwards, and nearly tripping over himself. Swimming out of the darkness, looking nearly like a skull, was the gaunt, withered face of Theodore, with his awful scar. "Goodness, I'm sorry," the old man said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"That's all right," Noah replied, his heart pounding in his chest. Theodore was dressed nearly entirely in black; black slack pants and a long, strange black coat that came nearly down to the tips of his shoes. If the man wasn't trying to startle people, he certainly seemed camouflaged to do so at night. "Just surprised to see you here."

"I'm a bit of a night person," Theodore shrugged. "Just out for a stroll." He nodded towards Rene's gates. "Friend of yours? Human?"

"Um, yes." Noah frowned at his shoe, decided it was as good as it was going to get, and slipped it back on. "She actually wants to meet you, too. She is a bit of a recluse, though, so who knows if that will happen."

"Well, now that I know where she lives, maybe I'll swing by with a gift. Anything she likes?"

"Dogs. And drones."

"Hmm. I'll keep that in mind." Theodore nodded towards Noah, and began strolling away. "Have a good one."

Noah watched Theodore's retreating form for a few moments, his heart still pounding, adrenaline still pumping in his veins. "You know," he called, "What - what you said last time. About The Factory."

The old man turned, slowly, his face mostly hidden in the shadows of dusk. "Yes?"

"I....I listened to what Strategos had to say about it," Noah went on. "They said that any invasion is a very remote possibility."

"Hm," Theodore replied. "Now, I suppose, you ought to ask yourself whether or not you believe them. You might start by asking whether they had lied to you in the past."

Noah felt his heart pounding harder in his chest. "Why would they lie....?"

"Maybe for the reasons they had before." Theodore turned as if to walk away again.

"But if they were lying, what could we even do?" Noah felt his mind spinning once more. Something too big, too awful to contemplate.

Theodore turned back towards him, and gave him a grim, grotesque smile, one made all the more eerie by the harsh shadows that cut across his face. "Now, that is a very good question," he said.

"Noah? Who are you talking to?"

Noah spun around. Penny hovered there, in the darkness behind him, her large, pink eye glowing brightly. "Penny?"

"Roger sent me a message. Did you upset Rene...?" Penny narrowed her eye at him, and then looked over his shoulder. "And who were you talking to?"

"Do you need your sensors fixed-" Noah muttered, turning around, but Theodore had disappeared into the darkness. "I - it was Theodore, he was just here."

Penny stared into the shadows for a long moment. "I don't detect any bio-signatures," she said slowly. And then, her voice full of concern, "Noah, are you alright...?"

"I'm fine," Noah said, but he knew Penny was scanning him already.

"Your heart is racing," she said, sounding upset. "Are you sure you're alright...?"

"I am," he said, holding his hands up. He didn't want Penny to start feeling guilty for leaving him alone. "I am. I just...I guess I must have thought I saw Theodore. Trick of the light, startled me, is all."

"You're a bad liar," Penny replied. "Let's get you home."