Chapter Eight

Aaron

Aaron isn’t even going to attempt falling asleep tonight. He knows he’ll just end up lying there in bed all night. It’s simply going to be one of those nights. He might as well do something with his time other than staring at the ceiling alone. He’s spotted that same person over on the roof of the building across the street again and is rather curious about what’s going on over there.

The roof is almost completely dark, but he can still see them moving about in their silly white clothes. If he thought it might be a homeless person, he might be inclined to call the authorities, but he doesn’t believe they are. For one, rats never wear white, especially at night, and he’s never heard of one camping out on a rooftop either. On top of that, they actually waved at him the other night, and they clearly aren’t signaling for help.

The only people he can think of that wear white like that are Werker employees. A nagging feeling is telling him that something is up. After seeing that prototype get put down like it had, the thought of Werker kind of puts a bad taste in his mouth. The whole thing is still eating at him. He keeps thinking about what happened, wishing he could have warned the robot, or helped it. He feels terrible for hesitating, not helping, and has been beating himself up about it.

He remembers the outfit they were wearing and how it looked like what this person on the roof has on. Not only that, but he can feel that there is a connection between the two. The thought of there being another one of them out on the loose, climbing rooftops in the night, sounds absurd. Silly notion or not, he’s sure as hell not going to hesitate this time around. He won’t be able to stomach letting another one get gunned down again while he does nothing. There was something different about that robot, and if there is a chance the one on the rooftop is like it, he has to find out.

Since he’s probably going to be climbing up to a rooftop in the dark, he puts on the clothes he usually wears out to the woods and even decides to bring his backpack along. It has things he might need, like a headlamp, flashlight, channel-lock pliers, first-aid stuff, and his big camp-knife in it. He’s never really done anything quite like this and is actually a little bit excited about it. He doesn’t necessarily like the idea of being out where homeless zealots might be around, but it’s not like he can’t cover his own ass.

Before heading out of the apartment, he looks down at himself. His pants are pretty well stained from moss and climbing over fallen trees in the woods. He has his old heavy leather logging boots on and his shirt has seen better days. He doesn’t want to stand out too much if he happens to come across anyone else out on the street. He might be able to pass himself off as at least being from out of town if anyone gets curious. There isn’t much of his mountain accent left, but he can get by on it if he needs sometimes.

Even though the lobby staff is familiar with seeing him coming home dressed like this from time to time, he still takes the stairs to stay out of sight of anyone else. It is always embarrassing when another resident threatens to call the cops on him. The farther down the stairwell he gets, the bigger his smile becomes. He always gets excited about doing off-the-wall stuff like this.

He doesn’t even make it thirty feet out of the stairwell door before a woman above him on the second level hollers at him.

“Where the hell are you going?”

With a hand on his lowered face, he turns around for an embarrassing confrontation. It’s Valerie, standing there at the edge of the glass railing. He’s not the only one with an astonished look on his face though. She’s not dressed like he was expecting, nor is her sister there with her either.

Valerie is standing there with a tall glass of orange juice, surely a screwdriver, and is hunched over the railing rather casually. She’s wearing a pair of black leggings, pink socks, and a long t-shirt with no bra on. Her hair is not combed smooth like usual and is in a little bit of a fluffy mess. She scrubs at one of her shins with the other foot, and then leans over the edge a little farther, looking at him curiously.

“You gonna come up here or what?”

“Um, I was just… alright, yeah, I’ll come on up.”

“I’ll get you a beer!”

After taking the elevator up, he finds her in the back of the lounge. She’s sitting alone, lying across one of the leather couches, and has her back propped up against the arm. Being this late, there’s no one else in the entire place but them. He notices her feet flitting back and forth as if she were listening to music, but she doesn’t have headphones in. She was looking at her tablet when he came over, but she has since turned it off and set it on the table. The drink she got him is already set out for him on the coffee table between them.

She’s really beaming at him, until she notices just how much he looks like he’s up to no good. Before she can eye him too much, he scoots his pack underneath the table and sits down. He probably looks like he’s going out to commit burglary or something. He isn’t going to answer a bunch of questions for her right away, so he goes first.

“Can’t sleep either huh?”

“No, not tonight. Clarice is out again and I’ve just got a lot on my mind. Can’t shut down ya know.” She pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them.

He nods towards her tablet “Working late then?”

“Kind of. How about you?”

“I usually have a couple nights like this a week.” It’s actually her that’s been keeping him up lately. He hasn’t been able to hardly think of anything else for days.

“Dare I ask what you do on nights like this?”

“Oh, ha, just poking about here and there I guess.” Her straight face is a good indication that she’s not satisfied. “Ok, ok. I’m bored as hell, can’t sleep, and there’s something I have to check on outside.” He glances out the front windows to see if he can see the top of the building across the street from there.

He doesn’t want to go into any more detail about what he’s doing than that, but the height of her eyebrows makes him feel like she’s not going to let him off that easy. She looks down at the tablet and then back up to where he was just looking.

“Where exactly is it you’re going?”

The strain in her tone is noticeable, but he’s not going to let her step on him with her impatience. “Just across the street. Why?”

“Why don’t you just stay here with me? You shouldn’t be out there dressed like a burglar… poking around at night.”

Her body language and tone is quite clear. For some reason, she does not want him going over there, and it’s not because she’s pining for his company. Now that she’s acting strange about it, he’s sure something is up, and he’s definitely going to go find out what. If she were simply straight forward with him, he might even oblige, and leave it be for now. All she’d have to do is tell him.

Still, he doesn’t want to make the situation any more awkward than it already is. He’d love to sit and chat with her all damn night, but he’s already committed himself to going over there for a reason. He figures he can at least not be too inconsiderate about it though.

“There’s something… off, that I can see from my apartment window and I mean to check it out.” The tone of his voice is accidentally much more firm this time. He’s not used to answering to anyone else but himself, and is caught a little off guard by her insistence.

Not wanting to leave the mood so serious, he only slightly smiles when he looks at her. I’m just gonna be across the street for a moment and then I’ll be right back.”

She folds her arms and looks out the window, in the same direction he did. She isn’t trying to be petulant, but it’s apparent in her tone. “You’d better hurry up then, but I’m not gonna be down here all night. Oh, and Aaron, please don’t go and break your neck.”

After crossing the street out front of the building, he looks back up at the second floor. Valerie is standing at the window with one hand on the glass, but strangely, it’s not him that she’s looking at. He can see that she’s looking up to the rooftop across the street. A far as he can remember, he never mentioned anything about going up there.

She only glances back down at him for a moment and then back up to where he plans to climb. He’s been down the back alley enough times to know there’s a big storm pipe going up to the roof. It’s probably going to be his best chance of getting up there.

On his way around to the back, he thinks about Valerie and how she’s kind of pushy. It’s actually one of the things he likes about her. He doesn’t feel awkward in pursuing her at his own pace and really appreciates her forward interest. Then again, he sure would feel like shit to find out that she’s only keeping an eye on him for work related reasons. He can tell that she likes him, but there’s some kind of barrier holding her at a distance.

The only way into the warehouse is through the large docking bay doors on the west side and a couple small heavy steel ones alongside them. Thought the building is three stories tall, he’s pretty sure it only has one level and has big overhead cranes inside.

After rounding the corner into the alley from the far end of the loading docks, he looks around for anyone else before putting his headlamp on. While shining the light about, he confirms that there’s no other way to the roof than up that pipe. Undeterred he’s still too curious to give up. When he looks up the length of the pipe, he almost immediately loses all of his courage. It’s a lot farther up from where he’s standing than it looked at the end of the alley. Climbing it will be dangerous as hell, but he’s confident that he’ll at least be able to make it back down safely if he can’t make it all the way up. The least he can do is give it a shot.

To not attract any attention, he turns his headlamp off and starts to climb the pipe in almost complete darkness. He knew it was going to be tough as hell, but it’s proving to be even more difficult than he’d expected. The wall brackets that hold the pipe to the wall at least help as places for him to rest at intermittently on the way up.

No matter how tough it is, all he has to do is think about is what happened to that prototype to keep going. Every time he looks down to the pavement below, he considers how stupid of a mistake he’s made, but then remembers that whoever is on the roof has already done this at least twice by now. It really makes him want to see what the hell is going on up there.

At the top, he climbs over as quietly as he can. When he looks across the flat rooftop, he can see what looks like someone’s head and shoulders outlined over the short wall on the far edge. They don’t seem to have wised up to his presence and are still looking across the street at his apartment building. While staying back quite a ways from them, he turns his light on and keeps it pointed down ahead of his feet. Even with it on, they’re staying completely still and haven’t heard him slowly encroaching on them.

When he works up the courage to, he shines his light on them. They quickly turn around and stand up. It’s a younger looking petite woman, wearing the same kind of white and red jogging suit as the last one. She raises her hand up in front of her face to block the light from blinding her eyes but doesn’t say anything. He forgot that he had such a bright flashlight and lowers it down to not be rude.

“What in the world are you doing all the way up here up here?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” His demanding tone has come back on accident. When he sees their posture stiffen at his firm voice, he holds his hand low in apology. “What are you doing up on this rooftop lady?”

“Lady?” Its voice is quiet, and in more of an introspective tone. “I’m… I’m not doing anything.”

Taking another step closer to the woman, he shines the light back up at them to see their face again. They are actually pretty cute, and have the same haircut as Valerie’s sister, but he knows it can’t be her. He’s almost positive they’re wearing the same outfit as the last one.

“I just want to talk to you. Now, can you tell me what you are doing all the way up here in the dark like this. Do you need help?” He’s using the same clear and commanding voice as he does with other robots this time.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go. Please, don’t... I didn’t even…”

Seeing that the woman is scared, he stays where he’s at and doesn’t press her further. He’s pretty damn sure she is another one of Valerie’s prototypes, but he still can’t tell for sure. At this distance, he’s not all that convinced the woman is even a robot at all. They back up another few steps away from him, to the point where their legs touch the edge of the wall. Both of his hands instinctively reach out and he lunges forward, thinking they’re going to fall.

“Oh my god! Stop!”

Before he even finishes his next step towards her, the woman darts away in a panic. He doesn’t want to make her even more afraid than she already is so he stays put while she sprints towards another side of the roof. All the way across the span of the flat rooftop, she keeps picking up more and more speed as she sprints. When she doesn’t slow down at the other edge, his heart drops a mile. It’s already too late before he screams out for her. She disappears into the darkness over the edge and is gone.

“Please… No!”

He could not have fathomed that he’d cause something like this to happen. In his mind, he can already see her body down on the pavement below. When he scrambles to the edge, he leans over the short wall and braces himself to look down, knowing very well what he’s going to see. He searches up and down the narrow street with his light, but somehow nothing is there. In a complete panic, he looks everywhere but just can’t understand what could’ve happened to her. It’s dark, but he’s sure he saw her go straight over the edge. There’s nowhere else she could’ve possibly gone.

Before turning back, a flicker of light in the distance catches his eye. It’s the woman! She’s across the alley, but on the roof of the building acrost the alley! He catches only a glimpse of her pale face peering back at him from out of the shadows. She spins away and disappears into the darkness again. He stands panting at the edge of the roof with both of his hands on his knees, trying to wrap his mind around what just happened. He shines his light around, trying to figure out how they made it to the other side, but there’s nothing there. He might as well have been chasing a ghost.

This isn’t the first time he’s seen a woman move like that this week though. He’s sure of what he’s dealing with now. There’s no way any human could have made that jump. His heart is pounding at the thought of there still being another prototype like the last one still out there. He must find it again. He shakes his head in wonder about Valerie. Werker still has another prototype on the loose and she’s been maintaining a bulletproof poker face this whole time.

What they do with their own robots is none of his business, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he sat back and watched them destroy this one too. The machine he just saw is no typical brainless unit, it wants to live, and he could see that plain as day.

The robot has run off, so he figures it’s time for him to go back. He’s certainly not going to pursue the thing anymore tonight, especially when it might drive them to take such crazy risks. They were flat out scared of him, and there’s no doubt about that. Not knowing if they’re still out there or not, he decides to call out for them anyway.

“I didn’t mean you any harm. I just wanted to help you. I’m sorry.”

He can see Valerie quite well from where he’s at when he looks over the edge. She’s standing at the glass with her arms spread wide, gesturing the question of “what happened?” He does the same to her before walking back into the darkness away from the edge. On his way back to the apartment building, he recounts what exactly had happened, just like he did after the death of other woman.

While riding up the elevator to the lounge, he’s having some difficulty figuring out how and what he’ll tell Valerie. He’s definitely not going to tell her everything if she’s going to keep holding out on him like she has been. He’s pretty damn sure the woman up there was another one of her company’s prototypes.

He know she’s not responsible for what happened to the last one, and was upset, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to so easily give her the benefit of the doubt this time. As much as he wants to believe she’d have the same intentions as himself, he won’t make that assumption. She’s clearly a different woman than he’s been imagining.

When he thinks about the woman up on the roof again, he considers what he saw in her. Panic is what stood out the most. The tone of her voice was enough to indicate that she was hiding something. Typically only a child will respond with “nothing” when they’re asked what they’re doing. For being a woman, he might’ve expected her to tell him it was none of his damn business. He chuckles at the thought. Still, the robot was wary of him. That’s actually what has him concerned the most. A robot shouldn’t have any reason to fear him, but they did. They’ve probably been hurt by someone, and that doesn’t sit well with him.

By the time he sits back down in the lounge across from Valerie again, he’s decided he’ll tell her the truth about anything she wants to know, but only if she asks. He’ll be able to figure out what’s going on just by what she asks him. What he really wants to know most of all, is what her intentions are, whether they be good or bad. Both of the prototypes were clearly scared, and that makes him feel strongly for them. He really hopes she didn’t have anything to do with that. When he reaches for his beer, she sits up rather straight and faces him.

“For a minute there, I thought you’d gotten yourself into some real trouble. There were lights flashing around and then I saw someone running. What the hell was going on up there?”

“I don’t really know. There was a woman up there. For maybe two days now, I’ve seen her watching the apartment late at night. I thought maybe it was a derelict or something. When I climbed up there to find out, I saw her, just hanging out on the roof near the edge.”

“That’s weird. How’d they get up there?”

“They had to have climbed thirty feet up the storm pipe like I did, and that shit was not easy.”

“You climbed up a storm pipe, thirty feet up! What were you thinking?”

All he can do is give her a smug smile back while he takes another sip of his beer. He continues with more details about the woman, what she looked like, what she was wearing, but not how she acted. Each time he stops to take a sip of his drink, he watches her face and gives her a roomy chance to speak up. He can tell that she’s eager for him to continue and is paying very close attention to what he’s saying.

“So this lady must’ve climbed up and back down that pipe at least twice now, without gloves, and in sneakers nonetheless. I asked what she was doing up there and she said ‘nothing’.”

“That’s all she said, and then what, just ran away, how’d she run away up on top of a thirty foot rooftop?

“Funny you should ask. She was so fucking scared, she jumped over the edge to get away from me!”

“What do you mean she jumped? Are you telling me they’re out there splatted on the pavement right now!”

The distress in her voice is nicely clear this time around. He can rest assured that she does in fact care about this one. Trying to maintain a straight face as best as he can, he speaks into the bottom of his empty glass after downing the last of his beer. “Nope, just disappeared into thin air. I couldn’t find shit.”

She plops back into the couch with a look of incredulity, and then sneaks a look out in the direction of the rooftop. She does her best to dismiss her reaction with a small smirk. “Wow, that’s wild. Wonder where they went?”

He pauses for a while and looks at her, wondering what’s going on behind those two tan eyes of hers. “You know what was weird though? I swear she was wearing that same white and red jogging suit.”

“Same as what?”

“For fuck sake Valerie… the same one as the last prototype!” He wants to be level with her, but she’s really making it hard. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Was she pretty… the woman?”

When he returns his eyes to her, she’s looking away, but concealing another smirk. He can tell she wants to let the cat out of the bag, but she has a hell of a lot of self-control. It’s annoying at the moment, but he digs it.

“Nope, she probably jumped off the roof cause she was so ugly. What else was the poor thing gonna do. It’s about the only thing that’d make any sense to me tonight.”

The indignant look on her face is more than enough to get him to smile this time. The robot was quite pretty indeed, and she damn well knows it. She can’t say a damn thing about it either.

Knowing that his mood has probably degraded, after being unable to get her to talk, he changes the subject. He doesn’t want to end the night with her thinking he’s disappointed in her. He wants to make sure she understands that it’s not her robot that he’s after, but her.

“Valerie, what are you doing tomorrow night? It’s been really cool hangin with you like this and I was hoping we could keep it going.”

“Yeah, me too. I know it’s a bit late, but you want to get another round? Just one more?”

“Actually, that would be great. You know, if you can’t fall asleep, and you’re ever up real late like this again, you should hit me up.”

Even though it sounds like he is referring to a booty call, she knows it’s not what he means. She can see it on his face, that he could use some company once in a while, like herself. “Yeah, you know what, I will.”

When the serving robot comes around and brings them another couple of drinks, he puts his boots up on the coffee table and sinks back into the couch like she is doing. They look at one another for a while, without bringing anything else up. He can’t take his eyes off of her, and it seems the same for her. When she looks down at her glass again, he goes ahead and asks her what’s on his mind.

“So, Valerie, what keeps you up at night these days? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing, but I’ve just been feeling really alone lately. With Clarice being gone so much of the time, out with Mikel, I, you know… feel left out.”

“No, I totally understand. I’ve been alone for, well let’s see, how many years now.” He counts them in his head, but desn’t say. “Yeah, pretty lonely. But, that’s not necessarily what keeps me up though. I just always have a lot going on in my mind, more than enough to settle day by day apparently.”

“You’re up late all the time aren’t you? I’ve notice light under your door down the hallway this late, like all the time. I thought maybe you just leave the lights on or something.”

“Nope, if the lights on, I’m up. Usually programming, or writing, or whatever. How about you?”

“I dunno, sometimes I’ll cook, or just watch tube, or come down here and drink, alone.” She was being sarcastic, but smiles a little bit in embarrassment of actually being down in the lounge, drinking alone.”

“You had your tablet, and it looked like you were having some nice quiet time down here. What were you reading?”

“Oh, that was just work stuff. Trying to catch up on things.”

He’s curious about what she might’ve actually been doing, but he won’t ask. She clearly knew what was going on across the street before he did. He’s finished his beer well ahead of her, but stays untill she is ready to head back upstairs. It’s definitely well past being a late night, even for him, and he really does need to sleep at least some before work in the morning. When she swings her feet down to the floor, he holds his hand out for her as he gets up. Looking down on her, he takes in her warm look as she stares back up at him. She has such a kind face this time.

In the elevator, they both lean a shoulder against the back window and look at one another on the way up. He watches her eyes moving about, but they never do end up leave his face. It doesn’t feel awkward that they’re not saying anything to one another either. They’re both really tired and she’s even a little bit buzzed. Just outside the doors on the sixth floor, she stops and turns to him.

She leans to the side with one hand against the wall, not drunkenly by any means, but with a confident look. “I’ll see you tomorrow night then, your place.”

He can’t hold back his grin this time. “Tonight you mean.”

He can see her shy smile getting even bigger as she nods and then turns away toward her end of the hall. As soon as he gets into his own apartment and locks the door behind himself, he lets out a big breath that he feels like he’s been holding in all damn day. There’s no way he’s going to be able to sleep now. The thought of her coming over to his place, just the two of them, is really exciting.