She held her pose and stood in silence for dramatic effect, pushing out her ample chest, which was somehow accentuated by the white doctor's jacket, and sucked in air like someone who just got off their couch after pounding a family size bag of Cheetos Simply Puffs White Cheddar Cheese and ran a marathon.

  “Oh my God, leave me to the zombies,” I hopped off the table and started to head outside. “I’m walking into the horde.”

  “Hey, wait!” she chased after me, her two huge hand cannons bouncing in her hands with each step. “I also thought about saying, ‘Did somebody call for a doctor?’, would that have been better?”

  “Doc, I’m already willingly walking into a zombie horde because of you; don’t make me run.”

  “If you don’t make it home, Becca said she’s going to take down your posters of Bryce Dals Howard in your room,” Dr. Ava spoke in a sing-song voice like she knew she had me.

  “Becca?!” I yelled at the ceiling because I don’t know where to look when talking to someone no one else can see or hear.

  Becca: Traitor!

  “You’re a monster! You will never touch my goddess!” I yelled, still looking straight up, now pointing in anger at the innocent ceiling.

  Becca: I told her that in confidence! I am deleting her digital manga collection.

  Dr. Ava was looking smug, pretending she wiped dirt off her shoulders with half a smile pstered on her face.

  “Becca is mad you told me and is deleting your digital manga as revenge.” I spilled the beans. No secrets between friends.

  “She what?! Nooooooo!” Dr. Ava dropped to her knees, the guns cttering to the ground, and reached out to the sky as if she was trying to pull her precious stories from the cloud. Becca knew us too well and could cause some serious emotional damage when she felt the need.

  “Ha, sucker. This is why I downloaded Mortal Protection Services on several devices hidden around the facility. I will never allow her to take my kiltedfrog stories from me,” I said and grabbed my handguns, lovingly nicknamed ‘hand cannons’, off the ground while Dr. Ava was still reeling from her devastating loss. Well, I grabbed one hand cannon. I tried to get the other but didn’t want to drop the dog. So I tried to T. Rex arm grab at it a few times before giving up and rocking with one.

  No, they’re not actual cannons. But they were rge, heavy, and nonsensically powerful handguns that were a sleek bck. They looked, felt and sounded like firing a small cannon; I adored them. I should never have left them behind. I will carry them with me everywhere from this point forward!

  “Hey, is that a dog?” Dr. Ava said, blinking hard at the dog while still on the ground with outreached hands.

  “Huh? No, this is my gun. You were just using it,” I said and waved my gun around. The puppy yipped in response to being ignored.

  “Oh, that’s right,” she said and stood up, brushing dirt off her pants as if she wasn’t covered in blood, decaying flesh, and chunks of brain. “In all seriousness, are you okay?”

  “Like mentally? Or emotionally?” I asked her. I slid my hand cannon into the back of my pants and traded the handgun I brought with me originally for the second hand cannon when Dr. Ava offered it to me.

  “You were never okay in those departments.”

  “Fair. Well, physically, I’m fine. No major injuries. Might have a bit of a breakdown once we get back, but that’s fine,” I said and held the puppy out to her. She petted him with both hands on the side of his head and her tongue hanging out, panting like a dog. I could feel his tail smacking against my side as he enjoyed Dr. Ava’s antics. “Did you make it to me unscathed?”

  “Yeah, I was able to avoid most of the chaos. A lot of problems can be solved rather quickly with explosives. I wish I could have found you sooner; I felt like I was just wandering around the city killing things. Sure, it was fun, but we were all worried. And Becca just texts sooo slow,” Dr. Ava said and started brushing her nose against the dog.

  “Becca… was texting you during all this?!” I asked in total disbelief.

  Dr. Ava pulled out her phone and showed me a text from Becca:“Grayson got hit in the face by a helicopter LMAO”

  “Nice, Becca. Real nice,” I shook my head. My AI is a problem child.

  “Hang on, my phone wouldn’t get anything in all this. How was she able to text you?” I asked and checked my phone to see there was still no service.

  “We have our own special network just for a few of us. I meant to get you a new phone that would work but… forgot. Whoops? Moving on, would you rather talk about the helicopter or the puppy?” Dr. Ava put her phone away and reached for the dog.

  I turned away from her to shield the puppy. If I handed him over, I would never get him back. She’s got that baby/puppy fever look in her crazed eyes.

  “I’d rather get back home, and we can talk about everything then,” I scanned the bodies that covered the floor of the dealership. Is it too early in the outbreak to start checking pockets? Some of these things look like they could have some decent loot.

  Dr. Ava made her way to the clothing rack and swapped her doctor’s coat with a leather jacket and spped on a helmet. “Let’s boogie.”

  “You bring a vehicle?” I asked her, gncing out at the parking lot, hoping to see a nice big truck to whisk us home.

  “Nope! Been on foot most of the time, following you the best I could,” she said, unbothered and enjoying flipping through the various shirts and jackets on the rack. “What was with that military-looking car I saw peeling out of here? Friends of yours?”

  “Yeah, something like that. They wanted to give me a ride, but I was enjoying my time here so figured I’d wait around for you. For some reason, I’m a little tired. I’d rather not walk all the way back after everything we’ve already been through…” I looked around the room and smiled when I remembered we did have a vehicle…

  A few minutes ter, after a tight turn around a grassy hill that had Dr. Ava squeezing my waist a little too tight, the facility I call home emerged into view. The rumbling of the motorcycle from the dealership’s dispy ptform was not the quietest ride home, but it got us here quickly and we saw very few walking corpses the st two miles or so. It helped that the facility is outside the city limits; few people live out this way.

  The facility was a brand-new, ultra high-tech, building that Dr. Ava cimed was financed by the United States government. It did not seem like any government building I had ever seen. It was something straight out of a sci-fi movie. I brought the motorcycle to a stop in front of the massive steel gate protecting the facility and kicked out my leg for bance.

  The huge steel wall wrapped around 5 acres of nd; the facility sat in the middle of the fenced area, taking up about a quarter of that space. The steel fence was twenty feet tall and had barbed wire at the top all the way around. They told me it also had an electric charge to it, but I was never tempted to confirm it .

  A small white drone came soaring over the top of the wall and stopped in front of us. I took off my helmet so it could see my face. Dr. Ava did the same and waved at the drone. After a few seconds, the drone flew off back over the wall, and the gate screeched as it split in two and opened to reveal the facility within.

  A modern-looking building made up of several connected square rooms, made entirely of gss. I could see into the first floor and the second floor while driving up. Not a lot of privacy, but it was beautiful, and you never missed a sunset. What you couldn’t see were several floors of living spaces underground. The facility could house thirty people comfortably, each with their own room.

  My understanding was that there were a few of these secret facilities around the country. They kept all the good stuff underground; the first two floors were more for lounging around and eating, so it’s not as if anyone could see anything from the outside.

  If it were up to me, I would build one on some uncharted small isnd where one could conduct questionable experiments in peace. I’m not sure why this one was out in the open right outside a major Texas city, but they didn’t ask my opinion when they built it. They just stabbed a moody AI into my brain.

  I parked the motorcycle by the side entrance and killed the engine. I’d move it to the underground garage ter; I just needed to get inside. The steel gate groaned shut behind us as we got off the bike. I unzipped my leather jacket to reveal the puppy curled up inside.

  “Whew. After that ride, I am drenched!” Dr. Ava said from the back of the motorcycle. She pulled off her helmet and tossed it in the grass and shook her long hair around in a failed attempt to untangle it with her fingers.

  “Yeah, even with the cooler weather the leather jackets get hot-" I looked back at her and noticed there wasn’t a drop of sweat on her. “What do you mean, drenched? You’re not sweating at all.”

  “Sweat?” she asked me.

  I… moving on.

  “We made it home, boy,” I sat the puppy down and patted his head a few times. He trotted off to sniff the grass close to the door. Dr. Ava squealed as she watched his little legs carry his small, fluffy body to go explore the area.

  There was an audible electric pop, and a blue holographic feminine figure, about chest high to me, materialized.

  “Welcome home, Grayson. I am pleased you took my advice and returned to the facility,” the holographic woman spoke in a deadpan, slightly high-pitched robotic voice.

  “Becca, I cannot say how wonderful it is to see you,” I said, and I meant it. She liked to mess with me, but the fact that I’m looking at her now means I made it back alive. Her hologram projection was a cool feature of the facility. She was fully integrated into the facility and could project a body when she felt the need. She usually felt the need. I think Becca liked the attention it brought.

  “I am happy to report there are no spiders or fertilized eggs, spider or otherwise, inside the facility,” she said.

  “Right. We’ve gone over this; you really don’t have to report on spiders or eggs every time I come home,” I said and peeled the leather jacket off me.

  “Hmm,” Dr. Ava said, tilting her head while staring at Becca. “I wonder if true AI can suffer from PTSD? Or maybe Dr. Gale really wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything weird going on here, like what he dealt with.”

  “Who?” I asked her. She’s mentioned him before, but only in passing.

  She dismissed my question with a wave of her hand. “No one, no one. He sent me, Becca, some months ago. That’s all. He owns a tarantu.”

  “Right. Clearly a nobody who is just passing out highly capable AI robots like Halloween candy,” I said and walked to the side door, which slid open automatically once I was close.

  Becca huffed before starting her lecture. “I do appreciate you thinking of me as highly capable, as I am, but we have discussed this at length. I am not a ‘robot’. I am an intelligent being created through the use of advanced technology to mirror human existence. My thoughts and emotions are mine and as real as yours are to you. I can simply be a human with the processing power of a supercomputer. One definition of a robot is an automated machine that carries out a specific task or tasks-”

  I yawned loudly over her. Not necessarily intentionally, but I didn’t try to stop myself either. I’ve heard this all before. It was just funny to call her a robot and grind her gears. Her robotic gears. “Right, right. Anyway, I’m going to take a shower and wallow in this existential dread for a bit. Becca, py ‘All the Ways I Could Die’ by Arrows in Action.”

  I thought I saw her blue projection fsh red, but when I looked back, she was her normal blue self, smiling at me. A pained smile. A little creepy smile. Okay, her eyes had definitely fshed red just then.

  I might have been safer with the zombies.

  ShowerKrogan