vN The First Machine Dynasty(18)

Rick looked at the water barrels, then into the trees. Only now did Amy notice the total absence of either fire or ashes, or even the drying clothes and ice chests and speaker sets that she'd seen at the other campsites. The site looked so clean, by comparison. Rick and Melissa hadn't been here long enough to spread out, or create much waste.



Something's wrong.



Amy glanced at the RV. Its door yawned open, drifting almost shut in a hot breath of breeze before opening again, briefly exposing the cramped spaces within. They would have an interface in there. She imagined thumbing in the numbers and letters and hearing her parents' voices. Hadn't her mom always said that if Amy were ever in trouble, she would drop everything and come get her? That it didn't matter what time it was or how far apart they were, she would still show up? Charlotte drilled it into Amy's mind before she started school. No matter what, if Amy was scared or hurt or if one of the human kids got mean, she could always call and come home. "That's true now and it'll be true when you have your own daughter," her mom had said. "There's no such thing as a bad time for you to call me."



"I can't," Amy said.



"Sorry?" Rick asked, frowning.



"I can't," Amy repeated, stepping away from the RV.



"You sure about that, now?" Rick asked, almost like he knew she was lying.



Amy forced herself to nod. "Yes. I'm sure." She ducked her head. "Thanks for the offer. I have to be going, now."



"Come back anytime," he said.



Amy had already turned around and found the road. She paid little attention to her direction or how long she walked. Instead, she watched her white prison slippers slapping the black asphalt, its progress occasionally broken by treacherous roots or lightning forks once split by earthquakes, as she moved farther and farther away from Rick and Melissa's RV. Maybe she couldn't trust Javier with her cash, but he was right: her parents' tubes probably were under surveillance. And she couldn't involve strangers in this – especially nice strangers.





"You have a nice pout?" Javier asked when he returned to the campsite. He'd been gone by the time Amy had made it back. She spent the next hour trying to absorb more sunlight and quiet the hunger still whining through her bones.



"I wasn't pouting."



He smiled. "That lower lip of yours is telling me a different story."



Amy folded her arms. "Where were you?"



Javier lightly tossed Junior in the air and caught him. Briefly, Amy worried about Javier's missing thumb, but his fingers looked just as capable as ever. "Playground."



Amy stood. "There's a playground?"

Javier tossed and caught his son again. "What, you missed it on your epic journey? It's on the other side of the campground, near the second set of bathrooms."



Amy winced. "I guess I was going in circles. I didn't even know there were two sets." She nodded at Junior. "You take him to playgrounds?"



Javier's brows furrowed. "Why wouldn't I?"



"My mom never took me. She wouldn't let me go."



Javier rolled his eyes. He placed Junior on the grass. "Let me guess. She thought you'd witness some evil preschool brawl and fry your brain?"



Amy watched Junior place one hand in front of the other tentatively. With a sudden spurt of energy, he crawled after nothing in particular and came to an equally abrupt, rocking stop. She shrugged. "I guess so."



Javier snorted. "Your mom was paranoid. I take my kids the first chance I get. How else will they learn how to play with humans?"



"That's what I tried to tell her, but…" Again, Amy shrugged. "I guess I wasn't very convincing."



"Oh, you're plenty convincing. You just asked the wrong parent." Javier knelt in the grass at the far end of the campsite, in Junior's line of sight. He snapped his fingers. "Mijo. Levántante."



The baby lurched forward on his palms, then burst forward in another sprint of crawling. A few steps from Javier's knees, he paused to look up at his father. Javier scowled. "¿Por qué tú estás sentado allí?" His head tilted, doglike. "The little bastard should be up and walking by now."



"Isn't that a little soon?" Amy asked. She sat in the grass next to Junior, criss-cross style. She opened her hands, and Junior beamed hugely and crawled eagerly into her lap. She lifted him so that he sat facing his father. "Human babies can't even crawl right away, you know."



"He's not a human baby." Javier pushed himself up off the ground, let himself into the car, and brought out three bars of vN food. He handed one to Amy, then picked Junior up out of her lap. "He's my baby, and all my babies have damn strong legs."