Chapter 3

"Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay." -R. Frost, "Nothing gold can stay"

Orson woke up slowly, his consciousness crawling out of a cloud on earth. Orson faded in and out of being asleep, and he stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, before getting up, and, satisfyingly, the bed did not creak. He stood up, becoming dizzy from getting up so fast, and it took him a second to regain himself. He stretched out, and popped the joints that cooperated. Some joints popped that didn’t pop yesterday morning, and some didn’t pop that did previously. Obviously this morning stretch thing was going to be inconsistent.
He looked at himself in the mirror. He still looked groggy.
He made a lap around the bunker, and the girl was nowhere, but the door to the room she claimed was still closed, so she must still be asleep. He didn’t blame her, the outside world is probably amuck with dangers, so now that she was safe he could understand why she would want to stay in bed longer than most.
Most being, of course, himself.
His morning workout routine felt somehow sluggish, but satisfying. However, when he took a shower, it felt cleansing. Usually showers are just the morning routine. People are supposed to take showers, but showers after a night in a pillow fortress somehow felt…Better. He looked at his hand. There was still a small mark of dirt from where he touched the girl’s arm yesterday afternoon. He gently rubbed his palm, and the dirt disappeared, leaving a trail of dark water falling off the puddle forming in his hand, and escaping down the drain.

He had just finished the second entry, when he heard a door open in the room hallway. Orson quietly felt very good about this. There was another person here with him, for the first time in a long time. He listened as she walked to the shower, and the water came to life. Orson, for the first time in as long as he can remember, wasn’t in control of the showers. Eventually, after a very long shower, the sound of hard footsteps on the tiles leading up to the social area was accompanied by a deep sigh on her part. Orson looked at the doorway as she walked in.
 Her hair was wet and messy, she was wearing the standard grey pants, and black socks, and black shirt. But the white shoes and grey over shirt were missing.
“Do you not know where the rest of it is?” Orson asked her, she was holding a small towel to her hair and squinted at him.
“The uniform?” He continued.
“Why do I need to wear shoes in this place? Or an over shirt? And why’re you still copying that guy’s stuff?” She asked walking into the kitchen.
“What’s for breakfast?” She called, not giving Orson a change to answer any of her questions.
“I see you found the shower,” Orson said, getting up and following her into the kitchen, his hand twitching towards her when she started to open small, air tight bag of dry crackers, and she cracked open a small bottle of water. She noticed his lack of comfort at her tampering with the food.
“What’sa matter with you?”
“Usually, I uh, don’t eat breakfast.” He said. She gained the same look on her face when she first saw him writing down the radio broadcast. Slightly parted lips, a scrunched brow.
“It depletes the food too fast” He droddled on. The girl’s shoulder’s fell and Orson felt like she was disappointed in him again.
“This place is designed to hold 8 people right?” She asked. Orson nodded. He made that very clear yesterday during his tour of the bunker.
“Okay, so there’s enough food to help 8 people for a very long time, with the garden replenishing some of that right?” She asked, in that same robotic voice. For a moment Orson wondered if she was secretly a robot posing as a human, but then he realized she was speaking slowly on purpose. Why?
He nodded his head.
“Alright, there’s only two of us, see?” She gestured to her and then him, then back to her.
“We can eat like abunch more than we’re ‘supposed’ to, and still be fine for a really long time.” She said, raising her eyebrows in expectance for him to understand.
Orson looked at her for a second, letting this soak in, then he felt something in his chest, and his eyes stung for a second. He stepped out of the kitchen quickly, putting up the radio notebook and getting his learning one.
“Kid,” The girl said from the kitchen, sighing. He didn’t respond, even though it made him feel like a bad person, he just walked into the hallway and made his way to the library.
“Hey, kid!” The girl started following him and Orson began walking quicker. He walked into the library, and down to the end of the hallway and turned left into the small garden, and walked to the center and began setting up his premature learning session.
The girl, outside, began knocking on the door.
“You can’t come in!” He called to the door.
“You have food, and no food can come into the garden!” He said matter-o-factly.
“Chilo.” She said. Was this another word that he didn’t understand.
A long pause of silence came before she something else.
“I promised I would tell you my name. It’s Chilo.” She spoke again.

He opened the door to see she didn’t have actually have any food with her.
“What is your name?” She asked him.
“…Orson.” He said.
Chilo let a bubble of amusement escape her chest.
“What?” He asked, confused, as always with this girl.
“Chilo and Orson. It’s just not your typical cast of misfits. She raised the black undershirt to reveal her hip.
“What is that?” He asked, looking at reveal.
“A promise,” She traced the noose tattoo.
“One day as a little kid me and my brother were attacked by some thugs. They killed my brother, and took all of my stuff. The older I got and the more I realized how the people in this world were terrible, the more I realized that the reason those thugs didn’t kill me is because they had different plans in store for me. I made a machine that made ink marks in your skin that never went away, and I practiced on the thugs I did a beating on. I hardly killed ‘no one, usually just left ‘em unconscious. I would practice my art on them, so when they woke up they would get the sloppy practice results, a message no anyone who messes with me, and a hell of scarring pain when they woke up. If anyone comes up to me with a noose tattoo on their forehead I know I dealt with them in the past and I should run like hell ’cause they sure remember me. Eventually I got good enough to do this to myself.”
“Why would you want to give yourself a permanent mark of something so…Dark?” He asked.
“If it’s on someone else, it’s a message. When it’s on me, it’s a promise. I’ll never lose, and if I do,” She reached behind her and pulled a rough looking gun out of her pants.
“They’ll never get the satisfaction of doin’ me in themselves.” She said.
“Is that why those people were chasing you? Outside the bunker?” He asked. She nodded.
“I marked one of theirs. They wanted payback. There were just too many of them.” She shrugged, and put the gun back in the back of her pants, which made Orson much more comfortable.
“Worked out okay for me I guess.” She looked around the garden.
“You love your notebooks, don’t cha?” She saw the notebook, pen, and CYL patiently waiting to begin the social session.
“It’s like school, for me.” He explained, expecting her to understand. To Orson’s knowledge, school was a normal thing.
“School? That’s a thing here?” She asked, taken a back.
“ Yeah, it’s designed to teach the children of the bunker basic social skills and advanced knowledge of the world.” He explained.
“Wow, this place is dreary. Is there any paint? I think the grey is making me want to paint the walls red.” She looked around.
Orson looked at her, trying to understand. Does grey turn into red easily?
Chilo noticed his confusion.
“Oh. You probably don’t know what that means. Y’know…” She pressed two fingers to her temple with her thumb up, then pressed her thumb down and made a weird noise with her mouth, pretending to shoot herself.
Orson took a step back.
“Why would you say that?” He asked, looking at her like she just set the place on fire.
“No, no, kid it’s a joke. I was being sarcastic-“She saw the look on his face then sighed.
“I’m sorry, that isn’t funny. I gotcha. I won’t say stuff like that anymore.” She looked around.
“Listen, I’m sorry that I kinda turned your world upside-down, but we just gotta deal with each other for a month, then I’ll be outta your hair.” She said looking around.
“But I’m sure you have a lot to teach me, and I have a lot to teach you. We’ll help each other out, so when it comes time for us to part ways, we’ll be better than we were before, deal?” She asked.
Orson imagined what life would be like in a month, after she was gone, and he could back to his daily routine.
“Okay, deal.” He said, turning around, but she grabbed his shoulder, and turned him around.
“Lesson one,” She said, looking him in the eyes intensely. Orson noticed she had a scar on her lip, a tiny, permanent scratch.
“Stop taking lessons from a robot, until I go of course. It’s kinda creepy. Instead of taking lessons from it, once a day, we’re gonna sit on the couch, and I’m gonna tell you about my travels across the Expanse.”
“The expanse?” He asked.
“It’s what the folk that travel around it call the big wasteland. It’s a whole lot of nothing, mostly, but it’s full of stuff to do, and I’ve done a lot of it. Instead of learning what life was like before the invasion, I’m gonna teach you what life is like outside, in the now.”
Orson thought about it for a long time.
“Alright.”