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  But I was going to die.

  And this thing…now I was sure was not human, was going to take over, destroy the last of the humans, destroy any records of humans’ existence. She had already made it into the Shelter. And now?

  I felt like a failure. I failed my mother. I failed humanity. All because I was human. I couldn’t fight this thing. Not on my own physical strength.

  For what it was worth, I couldn’t help myself. I began crying.

  Like a baby. Sobbing.

  Something switched on in Mary’s eyes as she noticed the tears running down my cheeks. She looked down into my face, fascinated.

  “You’re leaking water,” she said. “Fluid.”

  She took her palm off my nose and mouth to touch my tears. Then she brought it to her mouth.

  “Water with salt and other minerals,” she said as though she was analyzing it.

  I was gulping down air…the much-needed oxygen filling my lungs again so I can breathe.

  “Why?” Mary asked. “Why are you deliberately losing valuable fluids? Are you broken?”

  She tilted her head sideways as though she was confused by all of it.

  “It’s called, ‘crying’,” I said. “It happens when humans experience strong emotions.”

  “Emotions?” Mary asked. “What is that?”

  I relaxed a little now. “It’s what makes humans…well, human. It’s all the feelings we have, and the actions that come with it.”

  “Crying?” Mary asked. She stopped for a moment. “I see what it is, but I do not know what this…feeling is.”

  “Feelings are like emotions, but emotions are stronger. It is triggered by our brains and eyesight, and anything. There’s love, anger, desire, joy, fear, and…”

  “I do not know what they are,” Mary said.

  I tried to get up, but Mary’s weight was weighing me in place. “Um, Mary, I’ll show you.”

  She looked confused.

  “If you can let me up,” I said, “I can show you.” Maybe if I can distract her long enough, I can figure out how to take her out…before she destroys me and the Shelter.

  She stood up, letting me get up.

  “Show me,” she said.

  I pointed out my room, which was decorated like a typical teenage girl’s room from Vintage Earth. Artificial flowers and Christmas lights adorn the room. Soft cuddly plushies which Mom had made for me when I was little, sat on my bed, covered with a daisy print duvet.

  At one side of my bedroom was a mural that I painted. I had tried to copy one of the photos I found in the archives of what a sandy beach with palm trees on a tropical island paradise looked like on Vintage Earth.

  “This…” I said, “Makes me Happy.”

  “How?” Mary asked. “Why? I don’t understand.”

  “You know,” I said. “I don’t exactly understand, too. But these are things that put a smile on my face.”

  I walked over to one of my plushies…a large orange carrot with cartoon eyes and an embroidered smile. Mom’s sense of humor was to make every plushie I had, have cute faces. I reached out, pulled it close to me for a hug and a kiss.

  “This makes me happy,” I said, smiling.

  Mary walked to my side to take my stuffed carrot into her arms. She tried kissing and hugging it, but she didn’t smile. “Why? It is just fabric filled with stuffing. How does this bring happiness to people?”

  “That’s where emotions and feelings kick in. I guess for me, because my mother made it for me, it was extra special. It was made with love so I feel love for these things. And when you love something or someone, the feeling of love, makes you happy.”

  Mary was still for a moment as though processing it.

  “I do not feel love for this simulated carrot-thing,” she said.

  “Well, I guess love is subjective,” I said.

  “Guess so,” Mary said.

  “Well, maybe you can feel something more primitive…what all beings have…animals, humans…” I said.

  At that, I slapped her.

  Her eyes flashed then. She turned to me and slapped me back. Hard.

  My head fell back, and I nearly black out.

  “Wow,” I said, “Don’t know your own strength, don’t you? I was just trying to demonstrate…”

  Mary came at me again, but with a punch. She had assumed fighting pose.

  Knowing how strong she was, I knew I had to make a run for it. I took the soft throw on my bed, and threw it over Mary’s head, covering her eyes, while I ran for the door.

  I headed out, and barred my bedroom door from the outside with a steel folding chair pushed up against the doorknob.

  The doorknob rattled. I ran to the weapons storage locker, punched in a code, and grabbed a laser gun. Only, it was low in power.

  I looked around. The lights were flashing. Something was wrong with our power generator for electricity.

  I grabbed two of our old-fashioned Vintage Earth handguns, which didn’t need to power up with electricity.

  My bedroom door burst open, and Mary walked out, her eyes flashing.

  I was trained from birth to fight. I was trained to protect what was mine.

  I let loose a train of bullets at Mary.

  At this range, all of my bullets found the target. There was no way I could miss her.

  Mary stumbled back. If she was human, she would be dead.

  She fell down.

  I kept my guns aimed at her while I moved up close to examine her.

  A chill went up my spine as I remembered a quote from a television series I recently watched. Are you afraid of the dead?

  I began shaking. If Mary was dead, then it was the first time I had seen a dead person or being. Even if it was in self-defense, the thought that I caused it made me want to throw up.

  I moved up so close now to see if she had been hit.

  “Aaarh!” Mary growled. “You tried to destroy me. I must destroy you.” Steam was coming out of her body. Part of her flesh had torn off along with pieces of her rainbow print dress.

  But there was no blood. No muscles.

  Only circuits and wiring.

  Mary wasn’t human at all. She was a machine.

  SIX

  The first time I met Mary, I was only 13 years old, right after Mom had gone Above Ground and I lost track of her.

  Now I was 18 years old. It had been 5 years since that day. A lot had changed.

  I was eating the last of the fresh fruits growing in our hydroponic garden. Some strawberries, blueberries, and even grapes.

  Sitting across from me, still dressed in the rainbow-print dress, now patched up where the bullet holes had been, was Mary. Still 13 years old. Still looking the same as the day we met.

  But inside her, a lot had changed.

  Since finding out what she was, I reprogrammed her.

  I found a chip in her that explained what she was and how to fix her if she was to be broken.

  Mom had customized Mary for me. Out of a kit, which I found the box for in one container in a dark part of the Shelter. Back in Vintage Earth before the Monsters came and destroyed much of Earth and humans, robots had been perfected to resemble humans in looks, movements, and even conversations. They could be programmed and customized…like large living dolls.

  The chip within Mary had a message from Mom.

  “Happy early Birthday, Evie,” Mom said. “I saved this gift for you to give you for your 16th birthday, because that age has significance in Vintage Earth. But because I must leave you before you turn 16, I wanted to give you Mary, earlier. Should anything happen to me before you turn 16, Mary will break out of her box to go to you. If my mission was successful, and I make it back, then I could still keep this 16th birthday gift a surprise. Either way, Mary will help you. She is programmed to help you train, to get things for you, to nurse you if you get hurt, cook for you, help you with anything. This was an early prototype of the consumer-friendly robot that was to be launched back in Vintage Earth. But t
hat launch didn’t happen.

  The earliest prototypes were designed for use by the military. These robots are fighting machines, despite how friendly you customize them.

  I customized Mary to be a 13-year-old girl like you so she can also be a companion. She can play video games with you, talk with you, and learn with you. She is equipped with an intelligent chip so she can learn new things. She is amongst the first of her kind to have a brain that functions like a human’s. Her skin and flesh also closely resemble humans.

  When we established our colony on New Earth, we were given some of the robots to help us with our research. Unfortunately, all the experts on robotics perished when the Monsters attacked us. So, I had to rely on what little I knew of robots and customized Mary. If there is something wrong with Mary, there may be a solution in the digital manual embedded into the heart of Mary. She is still a prototype, which means she is first generation, and in testing mode.

  Evie, I have to tell you this… when Mary appears before you, without me, it means I could not get back to you, and you must go on without me. You are not alone, though. You have Mary. You have yourself and your incredibly amazing strength, talents, intellect, creativity, and faith. With that, you will never be alone. I love you, Evie. Always forever, Mom.”

  I could not help getting teary eyed over Mom’s message, and from hearing Mom’s voice again. She always had this gentleness but firmness with her that makes everything seem alright.

  “Tears,” Mary said, sitting across from me at the dining table. “I remember you said it was from an emotion.”

  “It is…this time it is from a mixture of emotions,” I said, bringing out an old-fashioned photo of my mother. “I was remembering the message Mom left for me about you.”

  Mary took the photo and said, “Mama. She is the woman who made me into Mary. She gave birth to me, too.” Mary laughed….a new acquirement she had as she evolved. The ability to laugh and recognize jokes.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I was supposed to look like you,” Mary said. “But Mama said it was better for me to look a little different or no one could tell us apart.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter when there isn’t anyone else here besides us,” I said, noting how complex Mary’s sense of humor had become. Irony. She could make a joke about irony.

  “We will still celebrate today,” Mary said, putting on a paper birthday hat. She stood up and walked over to the kitchen counter and came back with a birthday cake. With eighteen candles. She placed it down in front of me. “It is a strawberry and cream flourless cake. We ran out of flour a year ago.”

  “Looks delicious,” I said, putting on my paper birthday hat, and getting ready to blow out all the candles.

  “Wait,” Mary said. “You wanted Vintage Earth’s birthday theme party so…”

  She turned off the lights and the room lit up with hologram figures of party goers. They began singing, “Happy Birthday”. When they were done, I blew out the candles, and the party goers, including Mary started clapping.

  Mary came over and gave me a big hug before she said, “Now let’s eat!”

  Mary cut a large slice of the cake for me and poured me half a glass of strawberry lemonade. Today was my 18th birthday so it was a day we could indulge. My normal meals were now salads from the garden, tomatoes, and a few other vegetables. But the yield from the plants had gone drastically down.

  Mary was acting so human, I almost forgot she didn’t eat food. She sat down and put a plug into her back. It was where she can charge up. She also was equipped with solar panels under her skin, which I had added in case she needed it.

  While she was charging, I packed away the cake, the juice, and even the fruit.

  Nothing could be wasted.

  I went and picked the last of the fruits and vegetables from the garden and packed them into sealed containers that I fit neatly into a backpack.

  Fitted with solar panels on the outside, the backpack would generate cooling and even heating when I needed it. In a separate compartment, there was a panel where I could charge my electronics. Including my laser guns and power packs.

  I had to be completely prepared. There was no one else out here. No one else Above Ground to face what was out there. I will need to rely on myself. And only myself.

  I reviewed all the information about the world Above Ground. Checked all the monitors for new developments. The dark clouds that covered most of Vintage Earth seemed to have decreased. Did that mean Vintage Earth was now safer from the Monsters? Where did the Monsters go?

  From my monitors, I checked all area of coverage that was set up to see if there were any signs of life.

  There was. It looked like the same beeping light Mom went Above Ground to check out. Almost the same location.

  Something deep within me stirred. My heart lifted as I felt a tingling. Did I dare to think it? Could it be hope? Maybe there really was something out there. Maybe it was Mom.

  “Ding,” the sound of Mary’s charging filled the room. “Charging now complete.”

  Mary’s eyes opened, and she asked, “What are we going to do now?”

  “Prepare,” I said.

  Mary got up and said, “I was hoping you would say that.”

  “One final time before we head outside tomorrow,” I said.

  Mary gathered around me in the Vintage Earth-themed living room Mom and I lived in for years where we used to watch Vintage Earth films and television shows. Now it had become the hub of movie marathons I would watch with Mary to get her up to speed on human interaction, jokes, conversations, and even emotions. It was where I had learned about humans myself since I had never talked to or seen another human being besides Mom.

  I turned on the television, and played all the footage I had compiled and edited into one long video, of the Monsters. The only information I had of them, besides what I was told from Mom.

  Mary watched the screen with me, equally mesmerized.

  The first footage was captured by a pedestrian’s own camera as the Apocalypse occurred, which was when Vintage Earth was taken over by those creatures. It looked like a typical day where people were just going about their day, walking down the street, driving in cars, attending school, going to work.

  Then everyone was looking up into the sky. Suddenly, everyone was running. Chaos was everywhere, people were screaming. Standing there one minute, then the next, a dark shadow would cover them, and they’re gone.

  “What are they?” Mary asked.

  “Mom said people called them ‘Monsters’ just because they didn’t know what else to call them, and before they knew it, many people were gone. They came and attacked so swiftly, the people of Old Earth, didn’t have a chance to even fight them.”

  Mary had watched this video with me before when I reprogrammed her, preparing her for our mission to go Above Ground one day. But it seemed she now had a new perspective on it. “They’re like parasites. They feed on things. Here they feed on humans, draining them of something.”

  “You’re right, Mary.” I said. “Mom and her team who came to New Earth said the Monsters fed on fear. They were small to begin with but grew larger and larger when they attacked, growing stronger when they terrorized a person, fed on their fears, terrorize more humans, feeding on their fears, and grew and grew, as more fear spread.”

  “Are they the same Monsters that killed the humans on New Earth?” Mary asked.

  “We believe so. Mom and Dad did,” I said. “But we really don’t know.”

  “What if they are different ones?” Mary asked.

  “Then we need to prepare for that possibility,” I said.

  I turned off the television. That was enough watching. Too much, and it would begin to affect our psyche.

  Mary looked blank for a while after watching the Monster footage. Then she screamed.

  It was a blood-curdling scream.

  “Mary, Mary,” I said, going up to her and touching her shoulders. “Please stop
screaming. What is going on?”

  “Fear. It is what humans are afraid of. I screamed because I thought of something frightening.”

  “What?” I asked. “What frightened you?”

  “Images from the horror films we watched together. That frightens me. But most importantly, it scared me to lose you. What if the Monsters got you? My entire existence was created to protect humans. To protect you.”

  I hugged Mary. I never thought I would come to love a machine that would have killed me 5 years ago, but now I have. Mary was the only family I had left.