If people were going to get angry at him over nothing, as if he and Tabitha hadn't been fighting like this the entire time they'd been in Zapville, then Jin was going to patrol the perimeter alone without any of their annoying questions.
The barrier still hissed around the edges of their camp, as loud as ever. They had made no progress. Or at least, he didn't feel like they'd learned anything useful. All this touchy feely crap he'd been trapped into was a waste of time.
He crossed his arms tight. Then wrapped them a little tighter around himself.
Whoever was in charge could probably see him right then, if the electricity of the barrier wasn't interfering with their camera signal. Not that he could see where a camera was. But he didn't care. Let them watch him be miserable. That's what they wanted. That's why they'd stuck him in this internment camp.
He wasn't sure how long he walked near the edge of the barrier, close enough to see where it touched dirt but not so close he could feel the way it torched the air. He slowly paced that large circle, through the parts of Zapville he hadn't been able to investigate for months, past strange equipment and mysterious buildings, before the sound of footsteps interrupted his pointless walking.
He looked up. Okay, but Freya was cool. He was willing to be into that touchy feely crap and do this with a partner for her.
She smiled at him like he wasn't the kind of complete loser that didn't deserve to be smiled at.
"Learn anything new?" she asked.
"I've learned nothing. My mind is empty of anything but complete stupidity. This place is nothing but questions with no answers. I'm so angry."
"It's like Angharad says, we have to keep our spirits up or we'll never get anywhere. Despair is bad for your wits."
"Don't tell me what Angharad says. I don't want to hear what she says."
Freya frowned, her gaze sharp and probing. "Why are you angry at Angharad?"
"I'm not angry at her. I'm just angry. Why can't I be angry?"
She took several measured steps toward him. Her steps were always measured and her every movement deliberate. She didn't stumble into everything in life like he did, she just made choices and acted. He didn't know if what he felt at that moment was envy or awe.
"Remember what I said—" Freya put a gentle hand on his shoulder as she spoke, only the lightest pressure over his uniform jacket, "—that time in the museum after the fighting had stopped and I let you lean on my shoulder."
"I remember." He put his hands to her face.
"You don't have to carry this alone," she said.
He kissed her, because why wouldn't he? She let him kiss her and pulled him closer. It was dangerous. Stupid even, when anyone could walk up and see them. Wouldn't even have to, when he wasn't sure where the cameras in Zapville were, and the door to the surveillance room wasn't locked.
Behind them the barrier hummed like a threat.
He pulled away from the kiss to glare at it. "You won't get me today!"
Freya laughed.
From there they walked together for some time. He pointed at some of the buildings on her side (and why couldn't he stop thinking of it that way, her side? as if it weren't just one big happy camp now), and asked her questions.
"That one?" she said, looking at one of many dark, foreboding sheds he'd pointed out. "That's the freezer. There were microwave meals in there but a team of people took them out once they'd made Rod Spark fix the bar fridges from some of the downed craft. Now the meals are in mini fridges and that room is full of corpses."
"Gross."
"Extremely."
"Is it wrong that I'm happy I didn't help with that?" he asked.
"We were playing to our strengths, making notes on buildings and meeting each other's friends. I don't think it's wrong."
"What about that one?" he asked, easily twenty metres on.
"That is an empty cabin. Paolo used to sleep in there but he got himself killed very early. Then there was just Ted in there but whatever killed him left his exsanguinated body outside the gymnasium. Now nobody wants to go in there. Gael thinks it's cursed."
Jin froze in realisation. "Now I know where the blood in the taps came from. This place is too depressing."
From there, they slowly meandered back towards her cabin, in the hope that the Major and her companion wouldn't be there.
Until Colonel Huppert marched up to them, looking vaguely harassed. "Oh, Jin and Freya, how fortuitous. Just when I have a need of strong young people."
Jin raised his eyebrows.
"Rod Spark needs people to lift things, and if I am constantly forced to deal with him on my own I shall surely kill him, which would be unfortunate as he might actually be useful. Please, come, rescue us all from that potential fate," the Colonel said.
Freya bounced on the spot and said, "Okay."
Well, if she was doing it Jin wasn't going to be left behind.
*
Rod Spark grunted and sweated as he tried to lift things from one of the crafts, red-skinned and gross like Jin's grandfather when he drank too much.
"Someone lift up the other end," Spark said, while he leaned on a small red and white craft, one of the few less damaged in the accident.
Freya shrugged and lifted the other end, one-handed. There was a clinking sound while everything in the craft rushed along the floor and collected at Spark's end.
Spark froze, then let out a nervous laugh. "I feel like an extra that just wandered onto the set of the wrong movie."
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The Colonel slapped him on the shoulder. "I'm sure they find you very funny at home."
Spark made some stupid quip that Jin couldn't be bothered to listen to and plunged his hands into the craft to pull various filthy things out. Every time he tried to hand something to Jin, Jin passed it to the Colonel instead.
Spark pulled out a grubby tin can with stubby metal plates for arms and a badly painted on face, clutched it to his body, and yelled, "Tinny! My friend since the early days. I missed you, buddy."
The Colonel smiled and patted Spark on the shoulder. "Is this sort of thing why you originally started your company?"
Spark scoffed. "No, I started my company to make millions of dollars and date models."
"You know what," Jin said, "Freya is stronger than me, so she can help you and I'm going to do something that doesn't make me want to blow my brains out."
"Jin!" Freya shrieked. "Don't abandon me here!"
"Wash your hands, Spark," Jin shouted, already moving away.
*
It had to be after midnight by the time Angharad felt nobody would stop her leaving her room and strolling around the camp. The cool air was refreshing that night. Icy, perhaps, leaving her fingers nearly numb, but it was a relief from the excessive heat of her room, where Sophie slept on, red-faced and loud as the last of her sickness left.
She looked up, trying to see if she could see stars. Were the distant pinpricks of light she could see real, or yet more fakery?
Gazing up at the sky told her nothing. And when she looked back down again, expecting to be alone, instead she saw 1090 standing fifty metres away instead.
"Do you come to me or I come to you?" she mouthed, knowing 1090 would know what she was saying.
1090 moved one step closer, then stopped. Angharad laughed and moved one step to match.
"Okay, we slowly meet in the middle. You're just going to watch me and not say anything."
But 1090 said, loud across the distance, "I will speak if you need me to."
Something about that voice bothered Angharad. But she was used to ignoring the small things that tugged at her mind and charging forward. This wouldn't be the moment she would stop that.
She stepped two steps forward and stopped, waiting to see if 1090 would match. And she did. It was like a childish game. Angharad had drawn something like this 1090 a lot when she was young, a machine woman to fill out her imperfect, lonely family. Useful like all the little robots in the house, but human-shaped, able to have a conversation. It was a silly childish fantasy. Angharad wasn't sure the real thing quite lived up to her dreams.
The closer they got, the more dissatisfied Angharad felt, and she wasn't sure why. She was curious, yes. Vaguely amused. She should have been delighted. Jin teased her all the time that this must have been exactly what she wanted, that she wished so hard at night a robot woman appeared. But 1090's surface was shiny and reflective, reflecting only a warped image of Angharad herself, and she rarely spoke.
"You're a voyeur," Angharad said.
"You're a voyeur," 1090 said, like an echo.
Unsettled, that was what she felt. Unsettled and emptied out. But it was late at night and she was cold and her roommate was sick, so she should have expected exactly those feelings.
She breathed out the cold night air and closed her eyes. Maybe she would just stand there a moment before heading back.
When she opened her eyes again, Niall Turner was in her way instead.
"We meet again," he said.
"We do."
"We could keep meeting like this. Your company is pleasant. Not as pleasant as my sister, of course."
"Of course." Angharad smiled up at him. He probably thought he was charming when he smiled down at her.
"There was something I meant to ask you but now I can't remember. I must be going mad. I'm sure you understand the feeling."
Angharad raised an eyebrow at him.
He cleared his throat. "That is to say, not that I think you're mad."
"You're a lot nicer to me when other people aren't around," she said.
"1090 is here. We aren't alone."
He looked over at their robotic voyeur, and so did Angharad. 1090 merely shifted in place.
"We're never alone," Angharad said, pointing at one of the cameras. "But you know what I meant."
"Technically..."
"Anyway," Angharad said, turning to pace around, "I came out here because I can't stop thinking about Tabitha."
"The prognosis isn't good."
"Right. It's all kind of inevitable. So I think I'm going to go think of Tabitha in the hospital, in case the doctor needs me in the morning." She pointed at her direction, and walked past him before waiting for his response. And she stubbornly didn't look at 1090 as she passed, either.