Chapter 21: Cue, a Robot, a Woman, and a Baby pt2

“The last few days were all a dream and you’re going to let me go back to sleep?” Cue asked, stroking Rat’s belly as he stretched out in her lap.

“Nope! Gunner found a trailer so we loaded everything up and we’re ready to go!”

Cue blinked, looking around again at her dome and realizing it was truly empty. Even the Polaroids are gone. The only sign that anyone has ever lived here is the two of them sitting by a fire that’s gone to ashes.

“My pictures?” Cue asked, her voice shaking.

“In the tank, nice and safe in a special box.”

Cue nodded, not feeling herself move as Trigger helped her stand up. “Where are we going?” She asked, blinking at the bright light as she stepped out of the dome with Trigger.

“Little bit this way, little bit that way,” Trigger said, non-committedly. “We have a few more places to check here in the city, then I guess we’ll pick a direction and go find the next one.”

“The next city?”

“The next living breathing human beings.”

“What’s it even like outside the city?” Cue asked, unable to believe any of this was happening.

“Well, nature kinda took over everywhere. It’s greener than green.”

“How?” Cue asked, looking around at the dead and grey park all around her as if there was no possible way.

“No pesticides and shit in the wild? I dunno. Just keep a sharp eye out for animals that have changed,” Trigger shivered, and made a gagging noise in her throat. “I once saw a bear that was mostly skeleton eating a corpse. Do you ever wonder why they eat? The body was falling right back out onto the ground because the bear had no stomach…”

“That's an image I could have lived without my whole life!”

“What are friends for?” Trigger asked as she climbed up the tank.

Cue watched her go, stunned to silence. Friends? She hadn’t had a friend since she was a little girl. When bunks were lined in rows throughout the dome there was no more room for survivors. Having a friend again…it was almost too much for her to bear. Too much to think about losing again.

A grunt from behind her had Cue jumping in surprise, but it was just Gunner, holding Rat. He offered Cue her pet as if it wasn’t unusual that he was touching him. Cue took him gingerly, watching the huge EHEC as he stared at her through his helmet.

She knew what he was hiding under that mirrored surface, and though she could only see her reflection, she could swear she saw a flash of red before the robot turned away and climbed into the driver's seat of the tank.

Cue paused, taking a moment to see the park for the last time. The trailer hooked to the tank is laden with everything, furniture included, from the Dome. The sandy ground blew dust into her face. There was nothing left here for Cue, and there hadn’t been for a long time.

She took one final moment to look up at the skyscraper where Barrow and his men are, and frowned. “I hope you all starve!” she snarled, and then climbed up the tank and slipped inside to experience true safety for the first time in her life.

“Hey, you two, come here a sec,” Cue said, waiving them toward the dome with a Polaroid camera in her hands. Trigger and Genner came over, Trigger with her arm around Cue’s shoulders, and Gunner standing behind with his arms crossed over his chest. Cue smiled shyly at both of them and then raised the camera, taking the picture.

“The last photo with the dome,” she said wistfully.

“And it will be the first one on top of the box!” Trigger said happily, taking the photo and shaking it as she got into the tank. Cue followed, but took one last look at the Dome and the park before climbing up.

Cue was scared, thrilled, and apprehensive all at the same time. Something in the way the hatch closed behind her, and the way Trigger smiled at her, told her this was where she was meant to be. That everything was going to be alright, somehow.

Cue felt it as the tank started to move, the rumble and crunching of dirt beneath the tracks so loud that she could hardly hear herself think.

“Look!” Trigger shouted, pointing at a screen near the front of the tank. Cue gathered closer, hunkering down next to the chair Trigger was in, and stared in awe. On the screen was a tiny version of the outside world. It was dusty and blurry, but there was no doubt about it. That was her Dome on the screen, as the visual turned, she could see the enormous hole in the wall that led to the city beyond.

Cue swallowed hard, trying not to fall victim to the fear bubbling up her throat. Everything was going to change now, everything and somehow nothing at all. She’s still fighting for her life in a post-apocalyptic world. She just had people to watch her fail now. Well, a person, and an EHEC.