Only Human Chapter 2: The Tinderbox (Of A Heart)

It was strange to wake up in one’s own bed after being away for so long. Zoey rubbed her eyes as the sunlight from her sole window burned through her eyelids. Reluctantly, she dragged herself out of bed. The floorboards creaked as she made her way across to the bathroom.

By this time she finished and got dressed, she noticed that the house was eerily silent. Neither her mother nor her father seemed to be at home. She glanced at the wall clock, a quarter till nine. She made herself some toast and flipped on the television.

Television, and cable in particular, had gotten a lot stranger in the years Zoey had been away. Local news, on the other hand, was only more transparent than usual. As she flipped channels, she saw faces and fashions she didn’t recognize. The fact that she was watching something in English was surreal. Zoey was used to watching alien broadcasts that, if she were lucky, had English subtitles available.

“Look who’s up!” Alice and Harold came through the door, carrying some bags.

“Where were you guys?” said Zoey, turning off the television.

“We were just getting some morning air and picked up some things from the local grocery,” said Harold. He helped Alice to put the various items away. “What with us having another mouth to feed.”

“And what have you been up to?” asked Alice.

“Nothing, really. I just got up.”

“So,” said Harold. “What are your plans exactly? Are you going to be staying long or…”

“I’m not sure,” replied Zoey. “It’s all kind of new to me.”

“New?” asked Alice. “What have you been doing lately if not drifting around?”

“It’s complicated, Mom.”

“Why don’t you try and explain it to us then?”

“Because I don’t know if I can,” said Zoey. “I need to go. Can I borrow the car?”

“We’re in the middle of something,” started her mother.

“Here you go,” interrupted her father, handing her the keys. “Drive safely.”

“I will,” she replied quietly and left.

“Why did you let her go like that?” asked Alice as soon as Zoey was gone.

“Give her some space, my dear, or she’ll just run away again,” he said as he put away the groceries.

“Aren’t you the least bit worried? About what she could be hiding?”

“She’s our daughter. Would we love her any less?”

“It’s not a question of love,” countered Alice. “It’s our duty to make sure she’s not making some huge mistake. God, what if she got into drugs?”

“Have a little faith, Alice. She’ll open up when she’s ready. She’s just in a state of transition.”

“She’s always in a state of transition. She should have a steady job by now, and a boyfriend, and…”

“Life doesn’t always go according to a schedule. Sometimes, you just have to be flexible.”

“I hate being flexible.”

“Are you going to help me, or am I going to have to put these all away by myself?”

Zoey sat staring at the steering wheel in front of her. It was a strange déjà vu feeling, the distant instinct of driving. She had no use of the skill while she was on distant planets, pampered by Sara or public transportation. She could feel her mind dusting off the cobwebs as she turned the engine over.

She pulled out of the drive and onto the roads engraved in her memory. But the buildings around them had changed; the city itself had changed. Zoey watched in awe as if she was visiting the city for the first time. The stores she remembered years ago were gone, replaced by vacancy signs and realty ads.

Zoey’s mind was not focused on this. In fact, she was repeating over and over the speech she rehearsed on her trip home. In which she confessed to her parents. “I’m sorry,” she would say. “I’m just not categorically human anymore. I mean, can you have a conversation with a motherboard?”

She couldn’t even image what her parents’ reaction would be to this news. They certainly wouldn’t believe her, and she would have to prove to them that she was not insane, just cybernetically enhanced. In all honesty, she never mustered the courage to even see what the mysterious madman known only as Doctor Zeitgeist had done to her.

She soon arrived at her designation, an inconspicuous building covered with tall, reflective windows. A large sign with the embossed title, Wintermute Co., sat by the driveway. She pulled in and stopped to check in with the security guard. He waved her through, and soon, she found herself parking her parents’ car.

Zoey got out of the car, locked it, and made her way up the stairs to the entrance of Wintermute Co. After getting waved through even more security, she is met with a familiar face, Michael McManus. The man was a little older than her father and was clearly living well as evident as his round gut. His hair was more salt-and-pepper than Zoey remembered, and the 5 O’ Clock shadow meant long nights at work.

“Zoey, I hardly recognized you; you’ve grown so much,” he said as he shook her hand.

“You keeping Dad out of trouble?”

“Never,” he said with a grin. “How about you? Last I saw you, you were five inches shorter and just getting out of college.”

“This and that. Traveling some. I haven’t really settled into any one thing. How’s Kyle?”

“He’s off earning some degree. The poor lad feels like he’s got to prove himself. Do you know what I mean?”

“I believe I do.”

“My job offer still stands, by the way. Your father was one of my best employees, great at troubleshooting. I know you have your father’s knack for technology. In fact, I figured some day you and Kyle would be running the company.”

“That would be something,” said Zoey. “Is Sean still working here?”

“Sure does. Fine hardworking lad, he is.”

“How is he? We haven’t talked in ages.”

“He’s probably here by now, so why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“Well, okay, “ replied Zoey.

Michael led her down the hallway and into a noisy workroom. There, several technicians were diligently working on complicated machinery strewn out onto long tables. Miscellaneous wiring draped the table and coiled itself on the floor.

Sean White was few inches taller but the same age as Zoey. A little heavy set, he wore baggy clothes, with an unbuttoned plaid shirt over his t-shirt. His sandy blonde hair was growing long in the back, and the first signs of a beard were forming on his round face.

He smiled as he looked up and saw Zoey approach. They hugged awkwardly, fumbling with the right words to greet each other.
“How are things?” asked Sean. “You look good.”

“Thanks. So do you,” replied Zoey. “I see they’re keeping you busy.”

“Yeah, I’m managing supervisor now,” he said leading her over to a quiet corner. “No one else wanted it, so I got the job.”

“Congratulations. What are you guys working on?”

“To be honest, I can’t say. For the last year, Wintermute Co. has been filling government contracts. I’m not thrilled, but it pays the bills. It seems like forever ago that we were designing hard drives for Apple and apps for the latest toys.”

“Sworn to secrecy, huh?”

“Something like that. The strange thing is we only work on some small pieces of it. We’re never told what the whole thing is, so I’m not sure all the secrecy is worth it.”

“Maybe I’m a spy, here to steal the plans.”

“I wouldn’t joke about that here. Besides, I’ve known you long enough to think otherwise.” Sean took a glance around. “Why don’t we go somewhere a little less distracting?”

Shortly, Zoey found herself sitting in a busy bistro across the street. As Sean was getting them sandwiches, Zoey looked around at the little pockets of humanity forming around her. Zoey could only smile at the thought of something once so familiar was now so alien to her.

“What?” asked Sean as he returned with their lunch on a tray. “What is it?”

“Nothing, really,” said Zoey. “It just seems like ages since I’ve been in a café.”

“Is Mars that different from us?”

“No, Sean, not Mars.”

“Then where, Zoey? Where have you been?”

Zoey smirked and looked away. “What if I told you that beyond Mars, beyond the Solar System, there are galaxies filled with life?”

“You’re joking. Come on, aliens? Really, Zoey?”

“What’s so unbelievable about aliens?”

“Who can believe in little green men?”

“Most aliens are not little and certainly not green,” said Zoey before pausing. “Great. Now, I sound like Sara.”

“Who’s Sara?”

“She’s someone I met on my trip. She’s almost more of a mentor than a friend.”

“If she was such an influence on you, why didn’t you invite her back here?”

“The thing is,” said Zoey. “We kind of had an argument, and that’s why I came back here in the first place.”
“Not one you could forgive and forget?”

“No, though I might have been a little hotheaded at the time.”

“There’s nothing worse than when friends grow distant over time.”

They sat in silence, taking in what had just been said and what had been unsaid. Zoey urgently thought of something to say to break the dreaded silence, one thing in particular came to mind. No, no, do not ask him that, she thought. Definitely, absolutely. Not that.

“Are you seeing someone?” asked Sean, reading her mind.

“No,” said Zoey. “And you?”

“I met Sandra a couple months ago. We’ve really hit it off, and…” Sean continued to talk about his girlfriend, but Zoey no longer cared.

She just wanted to curl up in the corner until someone put her out of her misery.

The day seemed to drift by all too quickly for Zoey. Before she knew it, she was lying on her back, staring at the darkened ceiling of her room while trying to fall asleep. She kept thinking about what Sean has said to her when they arrived back at Wintermute Co.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he had asked. “I know when something’s bugging you.”

“It’s just that I have to tell my parents something, and I don’t know how to break it to them.”

“Break what to them?”

“About something that happened on Mars.”

“Well,” he said. “Whatever it is, Ms Mystery, it’s okay to tell them. They’re not going to stop loving you. I mean, I see them at Mass every week. They’ll understand.”

She believed Sean and already knew what he had said was true, but she did not have the courage to say anything during dinner, just enough to avoid starting another argument with her mother.

Zoey closed her eyes, dwelling on tomorrow. No hostages. No shootouts. No evil scientists. It wasn’t much longer after that she found herself asleep.

Zoey was in her parents’ dining room, having the same dinner she had hours earlier, only she had been chained to her chair. Her parents were talking, but she couldn’t understand them. There was a loud rumble that shook the house, and her parents instructed her to check the basement, even though she still didn’t understand what they were saying.

Zoey got out of her chair; the chains were now gone. She started down the stairs, but the stairs disappeared, and she fell into darkness. She found herself in a large cavern, not at all the sewer system she was expecting.

There had been something immense there, but it had moved on. Large tread marks led her to an area of remains, piles of wreckage of some kind. There was a skeleton lying there with red glass eyes that followed her around. She knew that it was sneering at her, if it only had lips. Digging through the mess, Zoey found a naked mannequin, or more accurately, pieces of it.
She turned it over to see its blank, smooth face. Except for its sharp green eyes.

Zoey awoke to someone shaking her.

“Zoey,” hissed Alice. “Wake up.” Though still groggy, Zoey knew it was bad if her mother was calling her by her nickname.

“What?” she managed. “What is it?”

“There’s an inspector downstairs,” said Alice. She paused, unsure how to continue. “Sean’s been killed.”

Click here to read Chapter 3

Written by J M Emmons. The story and all characters are copyrighted by J M Emmons.