The blonde woman stood at the edge of the park and waited. She stomped her feet against the ground to keep her warm blood threading through her body and coughed into the cold autumn air, blowing out a cloud of her own breath. It floated around the top of her head before vanishing up into the starry night sky.

Behind her the park was quiet and empty. The wooden playground equipment had long been stripped to apart and burnt for fuel, but the metal swing set still remained behind. Its long chains creaked and moaned, and the seats gently swung as the wind pushed against them. Raindrops sparkled on patches of sand and shaggy grass. Scraps of sodden paper garbage rustled between the links of the fence, spitting excess water, while swollen soda cans drooled beneath the underbrush. Dark trees closed in around the park, their topmost leaves crowned with moonlight.

The blonde woman coughed again, and then made a choking noise and pitched over and spat into the grass. Huddling back, she pressed her naked legs together for warmth until her knees were knocking, smashing red welts into the paper thin flesh. Her hands were thrust deep into the pockets of her windbreaker. The zipper was twisted and broken and the jacket sagged open, but with her hands still buried she had wrapped it around her body like a cloak. Her runners were soaked but her socks were still dry, save for a little dampness gathering at the toes, moisture sucked into the wool when she cropped the wet grass as she walked. Her feet were bone cold. It felt as if the chill had sunk through her flesh and settled into her marrow like hoarfrost. Beads of sweat glistened on her white brow.

She shivered and bent her head down to nose the collar of her jacket, sucking in a breath of the warm air trapped against her breast. There were two horse chestnuts in the bottom of the left pocket, and she rolled them between her fingers as she waited. A sidelong glance to the left and the right assured her that she was still alone. The last thing she wanted was to be caught unaware by a neighbour on a nocturnal prowl. After the night Emily West’s body was found beneath the railroad bridge at the bottom of the ravine, everyone knew what happened to women who went out alone.

The blonde woman blew a frayed cough into her jacket, spraying liquid mist against the fabric. Sunken eyes flickered shut at the force of the expulsion, but even after the fit subsided she kept them closed. Dan would be furious if he knew that she had slipped out of the house on her own. He would shout and storm and his dark eyes would burn, and he would turn as pale as a ghost. They would rage fiercely at one another and then go to bed angry with a gulf of cold sheets stretching between them. This is what always happened. She did not like being cooped up inside the house, and he did not like worrying. It was an old argument now.

However, this time, the blonde woman did not plan on being alone for very long. This was no darting raid for food or supplies, or a chance moment eagerly snatched to gallop about the streets and stretch her aching legs and remember what it felt like to be free on a crisp autumn night. This time she was meeting someone, an old friend. Every minute spent with him would be a minute of dreadful peril as they risked the ancient fear of discovery, but at the same time she knew-

A sharp crack echoed out of the woods as a branch snapped unseen in the distance. The blonde woman’s head snapped up. Her breath streamed out from between her teeth and wreathed her face in vapour as her chest heaved in an effort to draw air into her lungs. Behind the shifting cloud her eyes shone brightly.

Beyond the edge of the park, just inside the trees, the ground abruptly dropped into a steep hill that descended straight down for nearly seventy feet. At the foot of that hill was a deep ravine, one wild and dark and so struck from a lack of sunlight that in its thicketed gloom lingered a malignant chill. Choked in weeds and bramble, its bottom was sheltered from the prying eyes of curious neighbours, although everyone knew that a little creek with ugly black eddies wandered through it, the same way everyone knew that a lonely railroad bridge spanned the place where its water gathered deepest, and its banks were chopped with sucking mud.

The blonde woman tensed, listening intently for the telltale thud of human footsteps. More branches popped and crackled in the woods, and in her fevered imagination the sounds seemed like a sputtering fuse, one that grew shorter by the minute as the flame crawled near. In the right pocket of her jacket her thin fingers groped and dug through the fabric until they touched a bone handle. Grasping it tightly without removing her hand from her pocket, she slid one foot back through the grass, dragging a dark swath through the shining raindrops. Her stance grew taut, wary. The muscles of her calves and thighs leapt up beneath the dry skin sheathing her legs. Weary bones lifted her onto the balls of her feet.

She waited, poised on the brink of flight. Blood seemed to be wheezing and rushing through her ears. Dead leaves crumpled and she heard the withered hiss of disturbed grass. There was a brief rustle of the branches at the very edge of the woods, a subtle shift in the foliage, and then a tall grey robot stood there, so silent and still that for all the world he might have been a tree himself. His body was crossed with leaves and shadows and his orange eyes glowed down through the thick canopy.

“Whoa,” said the robot, holding up his hands in a placating gesture as he observed her stress. “Time to switch to decaf, Julie.”

“Hey there, Spaceman,” chattered Julie.

“Hey Sloopy,” returned Deuce, grinning.

Every muscle in her body went limp at once as Julie sagged in relief. Inside her pocket her fingers slackened around the bone handle. She pulled one hand free and damped her glossy forehead with the inside of her wrist. Her pulse fluttered wildly between the bones and tendons, palpating the livid skin.

“You’ve got to start giving me a warning someday,” she said, steadying her breathing. “This is taking years off my life.”

“Sorry,” said Deuce, which Julie noted was by no means a promise. “Didn’t the Maine boys pass on my message?”

“Of course they did,” said Julie. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be out here waiting for you to scare the shit out of me, would I.”

“Sorry,” repeated Deuce, cackling.

By degrees Julie felt her heart calm in her chest. She rubbed her hand over it, the white fingers smoothing across her breastbone over and over again. Inside the trees the grey robot was watching her with affected carelessness, but she could see the shrewd gleam in his optics that went deeper than his casual expression. She had little doubt that he was testing the air between them and sizing her up, and therefore she felt no guilt or shame in returning the gaze candidly, taking advantage of his distraction to slide her gaze over his metal frame in the slow, methodical fashion of age.

After years of squatting down with fellow humans in a primitive state, the robot was a jolting douse of alien technology. His optics made two points of lamplight high up in the leafy shade. Bit of bark and green vegetation were slapped against his plating where the metal was shiny and wet from rain. Across the distance that separated them she could hear the soft whir of shifting mechanics as he flexed his limbs, and smell the sinewy traces of oil and smoke and greasy sludge that were generated deep in his furnace, a chemical odour that was seldom worn away from any large machinery. She could savour it under her tongue and in the back of her throat where, before that night, she could only taste the curdled spume of ill health.

He looked exactly as she remembered him. It was a comforting thought in more ways than one. Alive, unhurt, it was as if he had stepped with his vinegar grin directly off of an old picture in her memory. A few new scratches laced his face and arms like silver wrinkles, a little more paint was chipped away, and a filthy layer of brown grime had worked itself into every crack in his frame, but the lean grey body was the same as ever, and Julie could sense that all of his whipcord energy was still coiled up in there somewhere, undiminished over the years.

Deuce was grinning down at her through the branches. She had to crane back her head to meet his gaze. She was amazed that she had forgotten how tall the robot was. It was like staring up a telephone pole. Nevertheless she was always silently grateful that he never once stooped to her level unless hurling himself to the ground in a fit of incorrigible laziness. He always kept to his feet and stood to address her, the same way he would for anyone else, whether they were a human or a Cybertronian.

Ace bent down. Ace was a sweet fellow, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she found the gesture very patronising, even though she knew he never intended it to be that way. It was something that you did for pets and small children. Julie disliked both intensely. And she never asked for anyone to accommodate her.

“Well,” she sighed. “I guess you were right.”

Deuce stared blankly. “I was?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that’s nice. What was I right about?”

Julie smiled. “I did recognise you.”

The memory she was referring to apparently struck him, because he grinned with pleasure, his teeth flashing white in the darkness. “In that case, I told you so.”

“You certainly did.”

With some amusement she noticed that Deuce was inching forward slightly, edging his toes closer to the unkempt line where the wild trees met the fringe of the park. He seemed unaware of the way his wings were bending the closest branches into bow shapes, straining the boughs until the bark split and leaves quivered. His expression was nonchalant, but she wondered at his thoughts. Did he want to take that final forbidden step back into the threadbare remnants of human civilization? Or had he studied her weathered face and compared it to a picture of a lithe young girl stashed away in his own perfect memory, and not trusted his eyes?

“You cut your hair,” said Deuce.

Taken aback, Julie said, “I’m sorry?”

Deuce made a vague circling gesture around his head. “You cut your hair.”

She touched her tatty mess of blonde spikes. They prickled under her fingers. “I guess I did.”

“It looks terrible on you.”

Julie laughed and let her hand drop. “Dan told me it made me look like an actress.”

“Dan’s got piss poor taste.”

“You’re good for my ego, Deuce.”

“I know,” said the grey robot. “When did this happen?”

“About a year ago,” said Julie. “Look, Deuce, we can’t talk long.”

“I’ve missed you, Julie,” he said.

Julie blinked. “I’ve missed you too.”

“What’s it been, four years this time?”

“Six,” she corrected him, mystified.

“I was close, cut me some slack.”

“Just this once.”

“It really is nice to see you again,” said Deuce, his orange optics gleaming.

The glint did not pass unnoticed. Now Julie could see what he was warming up to, and with good humour she decided to oblige, for old time’s sake. “Well, you too, Deuce.”

“Even if you do look like something from the Sears leather collection.”

Julie grinned. It was a homely, comfortable thing to know that despite the fissure of years that had separated them, they could jump across the gap and be right back to where they had started from, or at least stand as close to it as they could hope to get. Deuce’s random abuse had not bothered her as a young girl, and it did not trouble her now. She knew that it was all part of the complex test of character that the grey robot savagely hedged himself with. Not many people passed it. Not many people passed through it. Julie poked holes in it lovingly. He swatted at her from the inside.

He lacked the vitriol. She lacked the feminine pride. He appreciated her for it. She appreciated him for his respect. It was a respect for strength of character. It was a strange sort of respect that not many people would bother looking for, but it was there all the same, and it was all for her. Were there many other people who could claim to have earned the friendship of one of the giant metal invaders? Selfishly, she hoped not. She wanted to keep thinking that there was at least one thing that made her stand a little apart from a world where a climate of oppression and fear kept everyone pressed down into the same flat mould of poverty.

She thumbed her chin thoughtfully, turning her head this way and that as if inspecting her reflection in an invisible mirror. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

“Oh, it’s that bad,” said Deuce.

“I always knew I’d get a few wrinkles as I got older.”

“Trust me, they invited some friends over to party on your face”

“I think you’re just exaggerating.”

“No, honestly, woman,” said Deuce happily. “Throw out a little cash and scrub some nice lotion on that catcher’s mitt of yours, or you’re never going to snag yourself a man.”

Julie smiled humorously. “What about Dan?”

“The judges are still out on Dan.”

Deuce paused, resting his weight over one leg as he curled his hand and inspected it, running the thumb idly over his fingertips. After a moment he added without looking up, “How is Starsky doing these days, anyway?”

“Pretty good. Look, Deuce, I wasn’t kidding when I said-“

“Ace gives his best,” said Deuce abruptly.

Nonplussed at the second interruption, Julie leaned over to peer around him, half-expecting the red robot to melt out of the woods in his usual soft-footed manner. “Where is he, anyway?”

Deuce chucked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got him keeping an eye on our route out the west side of town.”

“Is it safe for him to be out there all alone?”

“Oh sure. He likes it. And he’s got a real knack for dodging patrols.”

“You’re a good friend, Deuce,” said Julie dryly.

Deuce grinned. “Sweet, I’ve got you fooled too.”

“Probably. Now, look-“

“I was just kidding before,” said Deuce. “You look great, Julie.”

Julie gave up and looked down at herself. “You think so?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, thank you. You’re looking pretty good yourself.”

Deuce gave her a close, weedy look. “But are you sick or something? You seem a little pale.”

“It’s just a cold,” said Julie. She sniffed harshly and then wiped her hand underneath her nose to illustrate. “I get one every year in the fall. It’s a seasonal thing.”

“Well, no small wonder,” harped Deuce, thrusting out his arms to gesture down at her with both hands. “You’re running around in a tiny jacket and shorts, for god’s sake. One day I’m going to sit you down and teach you how to wear pants.”

Julie laughed. “I’m holding you to that. I want to see if reality really can exceed the mental images I’m getting.”

The grey robot’s expression softened. “But seriously, you do look good. You look beautiful.”

Julie shook her head. “I’ll have to disagree with you on this one. I think I look like cheap white trailer trash.”

“Julie,” growled Deuce.

With her hands thrust into her pockets Julie pulled open her jacket to bare her narrow torso at him. “I mean, come on. A White Snake T-shirt and leopard print spandex shorts? Greasy hair? Growing pot-belly? Stick a rum and coke in one hand and feed me a cigarette and I might as well start barbequing chicken fingers on the hood of my car.”

“Julie-“

“What?” she said. She rolled one thin shoulder in a shrug and let her jacket flap shut. “It happens. I don’t care.”

After a moment of thought she added, “I don’t have a car.”

“What about your truck?” said Deuce, struggling to veer the conversation in a new direction.

“It died shortly after we got to Maine.”

“Completely shot?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Do you still have it stashed somewhere?”

“No, I traded it to some guys from Illinois who were looking for Nissan replacement parts.”

Deuce swore.

Julie reared back in surprise. “What?”

“For a moment there I thought I could pinch the gas tank off you.”

“What for?”

“Ace,” said Deuce, and pantomimed the snap of an invisible object between his hands. “He’s been cracking open every wreck we’ve stumbled across from Montana to Labrador. Some people abandon them with fuel still in the tank.”

Julie let out a low whistle. “Hoo lordy. He must be hungry.”

“That’s nothing,” said Deuce sourly. “Have you ever tried sucking oil out of a Harley Davidson?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t say that I have.”

“Then you haven’t lived yet, my girl.”

“Well, as much as I’d love to give Ace gas,” said Julie dryly. “I’m afraid to say that my truck is long gone.”

“That’s a shame,” said Deuce. “But it wasn’t looking too healthy towards the end, if memory serves me correctly.”

With weary good grace Julie neglected to remind him that he had been directly responsible for the accident that had left the aging vehicle in such a wretched state. Instead she said, “No, it was pretty much on its last legs. Things rattled, and the engine made horrible noises in certain gears. Why do you think Dan was always so keen to get behind Ace’s wheel?”

“I thought it was because he’s a Camaro.”

“That was part of it,” Julie admitted. “No offence, Dee, but your buddy’s car mode is hot as hell.”

Looking indignant, Deuce thumped one fist against his chest, the balled up hand coming to rest just above the glass canopy of his alternate mode. His wings were flattened back. “And what’s mine, scrap metal?”

Julie pointed at his crotch. “I do like your new piece.”

Slightly mollified, the grey robot gave her a smouldering look as he leaned back and struck a pose against the trees. “Pretty sexy, huh?”

“Very.”

Deuce grinned and, lounging back, patted the butt of the black pistol holstered with a magnetic clasp against his hip. “Nice, eh? I find it helps to keep the misunderstandings down to manageable levels.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Found it.”

Julie eyed him. She didn’t like his shifty tone. “It doesn’t look very friendly, mind you.”

“Excuse me? Excuse me? Who was the one who used to keep badgering me about taking better care of myself?”

“…That was me.”

“Hell, yes!”

With narrowed eyes Julie said, “Has your aim improved at all?”

“It’s getting there,” said Deuce, scratching his chin with his gaze averted to disguise his chagrin.

Julie gazed up at her old friend shrewdly. The last comment seemed to have taken a little of the wind out of his sails. The moments where Deuce was caught deflated were fleeting and rare, so she immediately leapt at the chance to nail him to the floor and bring up the subject that he had been dodging for the past ten minutes.

“Look here, Deuce,” she said firmly, stabbing one finger down at the ground. “Don’t give me any more of your gyp. We’ve only got a short time to talk before-“

The grey robot immediately kicked out one leg for her inspection, resting his foot on its heel and swishing it back and forth. “Does this look like rust to you?”

Julie howled inside her head. Oh, that was it. No more stalling. She loved her friend dearly, but it was time for him to swallow a little cold dose of reality and accept the fact that they couldn’t stand around in the park all night, so very nearly exposed and open. It was dangerous for him, and even more so for her.

She bared mental fists and readied herself for a verbal rabbit-punch that would hit little closer to the belt and stop him cold. “Deuce, I’m pregnant.”

Deuce went stock still. “You’re-”

“Pregnant.”

“With-“

“Child, yes,” said Julie patiently.

It was impossible for a robot to go pale, but with the aid of waxing moonlight Deuce managed admirably. His expression didn’t fall from his face so much as it drained.

“You-“ he said in a shaky voice.

Julie was amused. “Swami disapproves?”

“Yes. Well, no. Well-“

With her hands still in her pockets Julie put her hands on her hips, making her jacket bunch up around her waist. “I can’t wait to hear this explanation. Dig away.”

It was obvious that Deuce was groping for a safe reply. One of his hands traced aimless circles in the air, as if he were attempting to wind back time. He looked extremely flustered, and Julie, gladly ensconced in her private joke, relished the opportunity to sit back and enjoy his discomfort.

“Well, er,” he said gamely, struggling for composure. “How did this happen?”

“The usual way, I imagine.”

“Does Dan know?”

Silently chortling, Julie said, “No, not yet.”

“But you’re going to tell him, right?”

“No, I thought I’d let him read about it in the society pages. Of course I’m going to tell him, you twit.”

“When?”

“When I feel it’s an appropriate time to bring it up.”

“So-“

“So?”

She waited. Waiting was cold, and she shivered in her jacket, rubbing her sides for warmth. Deuce noticed, and something in his demeanour seemed to wrestle with itself and then fall away. He offered her a feeble grin.

“Congratulations?” he ventured.

“Damn straight,” said Julie.

The grey robot visibly relaxed. His wingtips slumped and he toed the ground, adopting a casual stance against a sturdy tree with his head propped against the knuckles of one hand. His voice was plucked with strain when he said, “So, have you thought up any names for the little monster yet?”

It was hard to keep a straight face, but Julie persevered. “I've got a few picked out, yeah.”

Deuce said nothing, looking heartily depressed. Julie took pity on him and decided that it was safe to bring him back around to her original conversation. She was immeasurably grateful that he hadn’t tried to make a little speech about bringing a brand new spark of life into a dark and terrible world. At the moment he only looked embarrassed and more than willing to keep his mouth shut.

An icy chill bit down into her bones and she shuddered, wrapping her jacket more tightly around her body and gripping it in place with her folded arms. Already clouds were scudding across the sky, and the moon shone down through the rifts between them. The night was only growing colder, and older, and they had little time to talk. Someone was bound to spot them if they lingered, and if the alert was raised Julie didn’t want to imagine what would happen to both of them. Some of the local squatters could be violently unpredictable. In a sudden convulsion of terror, or hunger, or anger they could spring to the attack like staghounds, a terrible pack whose enmity menaced from empty windows and vacant homes, until whole streets were barbed with a malignant unvoiced threat.

The next tremor that rattled her was not from the cold. With unsmiling gravity Julie thrust her hands beneath her arms and shivered and said in a low voice, “As I was trying to tell you earlier, we can’t talk long or we’ll risk being seen together.”

Deuce glanced down at himself. “I know I’m no prize, but-“

“I’m being serious,” said Julie sharply. “This is a rough neighbourhood. We get a lot of refugees drifting in here who’ve seen the worst of the Autobot occupation. They’ve lost friends or family to attacks or work camps. A lot of them aren’t exactly feeling very tolerant right now.”

Deuce sobered rapidly and took a step back into the trees. “Not a robot-friendly town, you’re saying?”

“The Decepticons are afraid to come here.”

A mix of sardonic resignation and surprise crossed Deuce’s face. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding, and god knows they’ve tried. It’s not that they’re afraid for themselves. But they know their arrival only kicks off a lot of ugly feelings. If they get anywhere near the town a bunch of people who would otherwise be happy to forget about what’s happened and go on with their lives suddenly find themselves thinking real hard about robots. It’s like throwing gas on a fire. People with similar thoughts start grouping together, a couple of angry guys with angry opinions will brush up, you get some sparks, and the next thing you know there are fights flaring up all over the streets.”

“What a nice little town you’ve found for yourselves.”

“Most of it is still intact, at least.”

“Anybody hurt yet?”

“Hurt?” said Julie. “Oh, sure. You see them go after one another all the time, and then the next day they come out into the open and they’re all bloodied up and mad and watching where they walk. They’re real careful then. What you don’t see right away are the murders. They bob up a little later, one at a time.”

“Murders?” echoed Deuce.

“Yeah, there have been five that we know of so far, two men and three women.”

“You’re kidding.”

Julie raised a brow. “You’d be surprised. Twelve years ago most of these people could have lived side by side without any problems. But then you take away their homes and their families and their fences and their whole life gets kicked out from underneath them and they go a little crazy, but they still remember what it was like so they just wind up and stay quiet. But sooner or later you get small jolts here and there, and then bigger ones, and the next thing you know someone has been bumped a little too hard and unwound in the opposite direction all at once…”

She trailed off.

“Primus,” said Deuce.

“Autobots are big jolts. But Decepticons are too.”

“They’re all just robots in the end?”

Julie nodded.

Deuce looked grim. “So you think me being here could be one of those big jolts?”

“You look like a Decepticon.”

"Come on," he scoffed.

"From our perspective? A giant robot made out of a jet? Yes, you do."

“I just wanted to see you again," said Deuce, stepping closer. Branches gently crunched and lashed behind him.

Alarmed, Julie waved him away, and after swaying onto his toes he grudgingly retreated back into the woods.

“I know,” she assured him, and swept on before he could descend into a maudlin display of sincerity. “But it’s a rough bunch, like I said. You live around here, and every day you’re walking on thin glass. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t shake the tree. Nobody’s looking at anybody else, but we’re all watching our neighbours real close. Some of these guys are wound up so tight they’re just looking for an excuse.”

“But you and Dan are fine?” said Deuce uneasily. “Nobody is bothering you, right?”

After levelling him a steady look Julie deliberately said, “Deuce, I’m blonde, I’m thin, and I’m a woman. Dan was almost a cop. What do you think?”

“No.”

Julie turned her head and gazed out over the empty park. The wet grass was nearly blue in the moonlight, striped vividly down the middle with the wandering path she had taken to reach the edge of the woods. Her feet had left tracks like dabs of dark paint.

“When you think about it that way, I suppose it’s just a matter of time,” she said heavily. “I guess we’re pretty stupid to tempt fate by hanging around here, but we honestly can’t think of anywhere else to go right now.”

“No,” said Deuce.

“That’s what Dan said,” noted Julie. “Right before he boarded up our windows and put double-locks on all of the doors.”

Deuce was slowly shaking his head. “But you’re, you know-“

He motioned the unspeakable words at her stomach.

Julie laughed bitterly. “So? You think I’ve announced it? Do you really think someone desperate enough would stop long enough to consider it? This is not a good time to be a woman, Deuce. It’s not all living in caves like little misplaced suburbanites, and fighting the good fight with your friends and allies. In the case of most people you get hit hard once by the Autobots, and it just knocks everything out of you. So you take what you can get where you can find it, and you skulk around grabbing up all of the bits that other people have had knocked out of them.”

She jabbed her own finger hard into the centre of her chest, leaning into the blow. “I’m it. I’m an it. I’m one of those things guys are nosing around for. I’m not saying it because I’m proud of it. I’m saying it because I’ve seen it happen already to other women like me. Just like me!”

“Don’t shout,” hissed Deuce, his optics darting.

They stood back and regarded one another in moody silence, swelling defensively. The woman fluffed out her jacket and dragged down rasping dregs of air, and the robot bristled all of his plating. They hissed steam in the cold air. Moon shadows cast from drifting clouds sailed across the stretch of wet grass that lay between them. Bats twitched across the park, scooping up insects in flight. A dog yapped in the distance. After a minute had passed both woman and robot seemed to shrink and smooth back their quills.

“Sorry,” said Deuce.

“I should know better,” muttered Julie.

The grey robot still looked cross and, uncharacteristically, upset. His hands were opening and closing into fists at his sides and he was staring at the ground. “I had no idea things were this bad.”

“Maybe in years things will get a little better,” said Julie quietly. “But in the meantime they can get worse in a matter of hours. There wasn’t much you could have known because it’s still happening.”

“Why on earth are you hanging around here for?” said Deuce, his dark brow clouded with anger. “What are you even doing here in the first place?”

Julie sniffed, scrubbed her nose with her balled up sleeve, and revived herself. “Well,” she said. “For starters, you can’t beat the low mortgage rates.”

Deuce stared. “I’m sorry?”

A grin spread a little of her old wry life across her face. “Dan and I are squatters now too. We found a nice empty home here in one of the abandoned crescents and we’re living in it.”

“That’s only just a little creepy.”

“It is,” Julie admitted. “You walk around this house and it’s still got all of the original owners’ things in it, from furniture to cups and plates, right down to photographs. There are old footprints in the carpet, dishes in the sink, stuff like that. We sleep in their bed, wear their clothing. Somebody in our family sure liked jam and marmalade, because there are bottles and bottles of it down in the basement, still cold. We've been trading it for toilet paper.”

A morbid interest seemed to have been roused in Deuce despite his better instincts. With frowning curiosity he said, “What provoked this change in lifestyle?”

“I don’t know,” said Julie. “The Autobots, maybe?”

He waved it aside. “No, I mean, surely there are other towns in Maine that haven’t been touched yet, places with electricity and sanitary conditions and some form of law still in place. Why not go to them?”

Julie grunted. “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it. ‘Yet.’ What’s the saying… lightning never strikes the same place twice?”

“I’m sorry?”

She pensively scratched the side of her face. “I remember reading once that soldiers back in World War One would take shelter in a crater because they knew that chances were slim that a second shell would land in it, on account that by that time the artillery would be aiming elsewhere. So, this is our crater, and we’re sitting tight in the bottom of it.”

“Well, I won’t argue that it’s not an ugly hole in the ground,” said Deuce as he stared out through the trees. Julie could see his gaze sliding over the empty streets encircling the park, most of which were strewn with a dusty coating of ash and powdered bricks and broken glass, pocked here and there with rubble from tumbled houses.

His optics returned to her face. “But I thought you two left Portland in order to live with Dan’s parents?”

Julie answered his question with tight-lipped silence.

“Oh,” he said.

“Anyway, it’s a squalid hellhole, but has its advantages,” continued Julie, her pale face lending her a wraithlike appearance as her voice gave a high and breathy hitch from her throat. “Nobody owns these houses anymore so nobody cares if you loot them. There’s a lot of useful stuff stashed away like cups and forks and knives and batteries, flashlights, soap, blankets, razors, string, etcetera. You just have to scratch around a bit to find them.”

“Primus, Julie,” said Deuce. “What’s it called?”

“What, the town?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re on White Oaks Crescent,” she replied. “I think the town is called Bewdley. Ellsworth is just south of us. That’s where the biggest Maine resistance cell is holed up.”

Deuce nodded. “I know, that’s where I radioed my message. They’re in a ball bearing factory.”

Julie grinned faintly, her fingers tucking around the chestnuts in her pocket. “The Autobots hit the GM plant but left that one alone.”

“I guess they weren’t in the market,” said Deuce, amused.

A wicked spark returned to Julie’s grey eyes. “A patrol that passed to north of here got a dose of them a few years back.”

“What, ball bearings?” chuckled the robot.

“Yuck it up, tin man. The Autobots didn’t think it was quite so funny when they realised they were magnetised.”

Deuce stopped laughing and winced. “That’s nasty.”

“You bet. When it comes to deadly balls of steel, our boys can’t be beat.”

“How do they deploy them?”

Julie measured off a length with her hands. “They’ve built a sort of homemade launcher out of ABS tubing and some kind of propellant, about this long, like a big shotgun, or a potato gun. They just have to load up a plastic shell full of bearings, aim high, and bam, instant scrambled hard drives.”

Deuce’s wince writhed into a full-body cringe. “That’s an evil shot of rock salt.”

“Don’t you know it.”

The grey robot shifted on his feet in the uncomfortable manner of a gentleman discreetly rearranging his trousers in an effort to pull them out of his groin. Drawing back his dignity he said, “Has the Ellsworth cell been taking good care of local refugees?”

Julie’s legs were growing tired, and she squatted in readiness to sit on the grass. Then she remembered it was soaked with rain and quickly stood upright again.

“We can’t complain,” she said, stretching her stiff calves. “They scrounge up food and medical supplies and necessary provisions and try to smuggle them into the camps that need them most. Their workforce is spread pretty thin and unspoilt rations can get scarce when the gangs start raiding farmsteads, but we usually end up with something to get us through the month.”

Deuce gave her a sceptical up and down look. “It doesn’t look like you’ve been getting enough.”

Julie smiled faintly. “It’s better than nothing.”

With a hard edge to his voice the robot said, “Those squatters you mentioned haven’t been giving you grief over things like food shares, have they?”

“They used to, but we’ve found ways of getting around them. Dan walks all the way down to Ellsworth to pick up our packet now. It takes a couple days, but he spends a night with the resistance and then hikes back cross-country. I stay with one of the family groups until he gets back. Nobody bothers me there. I used to go with him, but too many tramps would drift out of town and follow us onto the road. Or we’d get back home and find squatters had broken into our house. So now I stay behind and wait.”

Deuce looked sick. “What do you do while he’s gone?”

“A whole lot of thinking. Maybe a bit of laundry.”

A calculating glint was gaining vitality behind Deuce’s optics, and a sly curl lifted the corner of his mouth. Together they were slowly forming an expression that Julie was certain she didn’t like at all. The delta wings of his jet form stretched to their full wingspan, and he ran the ball of one thumb down the edge of his jaw, cupping his chin with the rest of his palm, his gaze unfocused from inner meditations. The grey robot’s body appeared to be surreptitiously winding up, as if he were preparing to spring. She steeled herself.

“You know,” he said, tapping one finger in midair. “Maybe I could-“

“Don’t say it!” yelped Julie.

Deuce jumped and gaped down at her. “Say what?”

Her own furious finger shot up towards his nose. Despite the fact that he towered over her wasted body he still reflexively jerked back. With eyes blazing Julie met his shocked gaze and growled, “I don’t want to hear anything about staying behind to protect me! Or anything about a rescue! I don’t need rescuing! You can’t just sweep me away and fix everything! You want to save something, go out there and help fix things, out there, then come back! We’ll have beer and chicken fingers! Jesus!”

Judging from his sullen glare she had hit the mark. He mouthed a few words and then said, “I was only going to suggest that-“

“Dah!” barked Julie. “What did I just say?”

“All right, I get it,” snapped the robot peevishly.

“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the gesture,” said Julie in an agreeable voice when her temper had settled. “I’m just tired of running. It’s stupid. Where’s the point in bolting from one bad situation to another one? It doesn’t make you forget your problems. It just makes you tired. Everything is lousy. Besides, you’ve probably got enough on your plate. You’re still doing your broadcasts, right?”

“Yeah,” grumbled Deuce, prickled.

“Is it all reconnaissance stuff these days?”

“Yeah. I monitor units sometimes, give the rebels on the ground early warning, direct them to and from Autobot patrols, drop quarters on people, etcetera. It’s all pretty basic. I work with what they’ve got. And right now they’ve got no aircraft, unless you count the Decepticons, and the Decepticons don’t.”

“See, there you go. I wish I could say I’ve heard your broadcasts, but I lost my only radio when the truck went tits up. There’s no power in town, so it’s not like I can just plug in a stereo and listen. How are they going?”

“All right.”

“Good! Good.” Julie paused, and her aggressive stance faltered. She sank back on her heels and pulled her hands into the sleeves of her jacket and flapped them for warmth. Her gaze grew distant. “I miss hearing them. It was like being part of this great private joke in a secret language between clubhouse friends. Or thumbing your nose at the Autobots and knowing they’d get that you were insulting them but not see how you were doing it. Did they ever crack your code?”

Despite himself, Deuce’s lip twitched into a grin. “Yeah, twice. But the resistance just keeps developing new ones for me to use, and the Autobots keep devoting precious intelligence towards deciphering them, diverting bits of it from the field. The human cells lob out whatever raids or evacuations they can squeeze between those little windows. All it really does is harass them, but at least its something. If we’re real lucky it’ll give Prime a terrible ulcer in his diodes, or a facial tic, or something.”

“Now that would be a feather in your cap,” drawled Julie. “I guess they haven’t caught up with you yet and bent your fingers the wrong way, huh?”

Deuce touched the side of his nose slyly. “Who, me? No, I won’t lie to you, I’ve had a few close calls. But I’m almost constantly in the sky these days, and it’s not like they can flap up after me.”

“What about the jet Autobots?”

The grey robot hooted. “The Aerialbots? Captain Concorde and the Whisky Delta squad? They might have me worried if they were slapped off each others throats. Maybe one day when somebody walks them through BVR radar modes I’ll start watching my back. Until then I can spot those turkeys from miles away, and hustle my tailfin around them.”

“Good enough,” said Julie. “What about poor Ace?”

Deuce held up his left hand and wriggled the fingers with a pained grimace. “Ace can take care of himself. Remember?”

Julie did. She still woke bolt upright some nights with raw mechanical screams echoing hollowly from her dreams, and the wet tempo of a knife slashing through a metal jaw thudding above the sound of her heartbeat, striking over, and over, and over again…

“So I guess you’ve both pretty much given up on journalism, huh?” she said, shaking herself out of her reverie.

“Nah,” said Deuce, now grinning broadly. He mimed licking one finger and chalked a tally on an invisible blackboard. “You could say we’re still taking notes.”

“Anything incriminating?”

“Nothing pleasant.”

“Good for you,” said Julie. “Settle their hash.”

“Gladly.”

“Ah, Deuce,” she sighed gustily, touching her cheek in imitation of a young girl’s shy deference. “If I were only a million years older, twenty feet taller, and made out of stainless steel- hey, hang on, that reminds me. Give me your hand.”

Deuce stared at her blankly. “What hand?”

Julie rudely pointed. “That one. The one you were holding up, nimrod. The one she tore into shreds.”

Deuce immediately recoiled into the trees and held it up against his chest, somewhat gratuitously keeping it out of her reach. His orange optics glowed warily from the shadows of the overhead canopy. “What, why?”

“Don’t be such a wuss. I’m not going to bite you. Give it here.”

Alive with suspicion, the grey robot obediently lowered his hand, the black fingers uncurling even as his knees bent and his midsection creased, until he was forced into a crouch on his haunches, leaning forward onto his toes with his long black shadow stretched out in front of him. With a creak of gears his hand swept down and flattened above the ground, throwing little eddies of wind across the grass. Julie remained motionless where she was, absently scratching her stomach as she took in his guarded manner, the tentative way he bared his palm at her level, the rapid tick of high-tension cables coiling up beneath the armour of his legs, his angled wings, swept back and held rigid.

“Wow,” she said. “And you were saying I was jumpy?”

“Ah, shut it. Come on, hurry up. I’ve got things grinding the wrong way in my knees over here.”

His tart Brooklyn accent only made the complaint absurdly funny, and Julie laughed as she pulled her jacket up tight against her body and picked her way towards him. Her feet swished lightly through the grass, flicking up raindrops. She stopped at the threshold of his fingertips and laid her hands upon them, flinching slightly at the piercing chill until her own blood warmed the metal enough for her to endure it.

It looked like his old hand, but there were small differences that her sharp eyes immediately picked out. The knuckles were square, less rounded, less scraped and worn where the joints knit together. The gouges where a sharp knife had licked through the iron and bit deep into the fine mechanics underneath were missing. Instead there were manufacturing fissures and lines of dapper solder where a stratum of plates were neatly fused together, rather than a curving seamless surface. It was a close match, but not close enough to match the eight million year old digits of his original right hand.

Deuce was watching her closely, his brow knit with perplexity.

“So, what do you read in my future?” he said, straining for a joke.

Julie sidestepped and slipped into the little hollow between his thumb and index finger. Like an old radiator in a cold apartment the inside of his hand gave off a little heat and she shuffled closer, welcoming the chance to warm her frozen legs. After stamping her feet and slapping her sides she turned her attention down to his palm and frowned in a meditative fashion. Deuce fidgeted under the weight of her gaze, but she noticed that he was taking great pains to keep his hand perfectly still while she stood within reach. Not even the bent tips of grass rumpled beneath his fingers were trembling, bearing testament to the care and delicacy he was exerting to maintain the gesture for her.

Bones creaked and groaned metallically as she stretched out and ran one hand along one of the long dark lines that crossed his palm, tracing out its life beneath her fingers. The grey robot twitched.

“No, let me guess,” he said hurriedly. “Tomorrow I’ll meet a gruesome end at the hands of a dark stranger and dance the grim fandango. No! I’ll be hit by a bus, which will immediately transform into an Autobot. A bird strike. Electrical aneurism. Bad gazpacho!”

“Nope,” said Julie. “You’re going to live a long and happy life. Sorry.”

Braced up on her hands, she leaned forward and closed her eyes and touched her lips to his palm.

“Sorry,” she added as she fell back again and noticed his stunned expression. “I had a chance to do that before you and Ace left for Canada with the damn thing hanging in ribbons off your wrist like you’d punched your fist through a blender, and it’s always pissed me off that I never took it.”

“You-“

“I know, I’m just a soppy old romantic at heart,” agreed Julie.

The grey robot opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out.

“Oh, by the way,” she added, patting his thumb. “That was a complete lie about the pregnancy thing.”

Deuce gawked at her for a long time. Then, with his orange optics burning like cinders, he inhaled furiously, swelled out his chest, and shot a draconian jet of smoke from his intakes.

“It - was - a - what?!” he hissed.

“Yeah,” said Julie baldly. “I just wanted to shut you up so I could get a word in edgewise.”

“You-!“

“So, you don’t have to worry about that,” she finished, grinning as he huffed and spluttered. After casting a glance up at the night sky and noting the direction in which the moon was sinking, she gave his palm one last regretful pat and detached herself, trailing backwards away from his fingers, once again burying herself deeply into her jacket.

“I’d better go,” said Julie. “I’ve been out too long. You’d better scram as well, before you’re spotted.”

With a percussion of cavernous rumbling sounds Deuce slowly rose to his feet, his pale form rearing high overhead until it swept back into the grey trees. There was a strange look on his face, and he held his left hand in a peculiar manner, with the fingers of the other hand wrapped around the wrist, as though it were injured, or cradling a small bird.

"What?" said Julie.

“I’ll never wash this hand again,” he said reverently.

“Oh lord.”

One orange optic guttered out in a wink.

“Hey,” he said, brightening as a new thought struck him. “Hang on, let’s not hurry this. I’ve still got a little time. How about it, eh? One quick flight to the coast, there and back again? It won’t take twenty minutes. We can even take off from the edge of town, where we’re less likely to be spotted. Come on. You’re game, right?”

Julie hesitated. There was an eager look on his face that reminded her so strongly of years long passed in Montana, and it yet worried her far more than it ever did when she was a young girl. Maybe it was because he was speaking to her as if she were that same young girl, no matter what his eyes were telling him. Maybe he still thought of her that way, and believed she could still dash boldly across the path of any new adventure, and spring up like a sapling no matter how hard she was bent. Or maybe she was just getting old, and more conscious of her own mortality as every gruelling day forced it into sharper focus.

And yet for the first time in years a small, forgotten part of herself gave a start as it began to remember the sensation of flight. For a long time it had lain trampled in the pit of her stomach, flogged down by the acid of ulcerous stress, but now it startled, jerked, unfurled itself, and made a shy, crinkled little bloom, welcoming the invitation of wind and open air and the gentle radiance of a vast, wild sky. Her stomach immediately ached and she flattened a hand over her belly, dragging wrinkles across the front of her jacket.

Slowly, she shook her head. “I’d better not. With the way I’m feeling I’d just ruin your upholstery.”

A little of the light in Deuce’s optics began to dim. “Well, maybe later,” he said, and the bloom in her stomach withered into ash to see the way he was carefully composing himself, rearranging his face to hide his dismay.

“Sure,” said Julie softly. “Just make sure it’s not another six years, would you?”

Genuine feeling lifted his smile this time. “All right. I’ll bring Ace with me next time.”

“Great. He’s still got all of my Jefferson Airplane tapes.”

Deuce laughed and stepped sideways into the trees, lingering with one foot on the verge of the woods. “Yeah, I should go,” he said vaguely. “I got a lot of stuff going on, things to do. You’ll look us up if you ever come back to the west coast, right?”

Julie smiled. He had to know that she would probably never leave this town for the rest of her life.

“I will,” she said.

The grey robot said nothing. His expression faded as he studied her face, his optics dimmed and his mouth pressed into a flat line; he lifted his hand once and then with a flick of his wings he turned, and the branches flung themselves upwards and thrashed their leaves, and he was gone. She was alone, with the empty town looming behind her in a series of jagged peaks, and nothing but a little trampled soil and the tread of footsteps in the woods to remind her that her old friend had once stood in front of her with an outstretched hand.

Julie wiped her eyes. She went home.