Turkeys Are Scary

Felix peeked over the fallen log and into the clearing ahead. There was a solitary figure stepping through the underbrush in the morning light; a massive, round bird with a proud tail of plumage and mound of ruby red flesh descending from its wrinkled head. It walked with a haughtiness akin to Astus before stopping, then seemed to puff up even bigger as waves shook through its feathers.

“So that’s who was creeping around,” Arlo muttered, joining his friend.

“What kind of bird is that?” Felix asked.

“It’s called a turkey.”

“It’s so big,” the boy marveled. “It’s a good thing Capri’s still back eating breakfast, bigger birds make him feel self-conscious.”

“How do you know he—” Arlo began, before the turkey let out a gurgling cry so loud and unexpected that both Felix and Arlo dropped down behind their cover.

A silence followed. They heard another cautious step from the clearing, then another that sounded as if it was walking away from them.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Felix asked.

“Maybe calling for other turkeys?”

“Oh.” Felix peeked back over the log. “So cool… I never saw anything like that before I got to Seventy-Seven. Or after I got there either, actually.”

Arlo joined him in watching the bird again. “One of the old magazines Lavinia has back home said that a really ancient people called the Mayans honored turkeys as the vessels of their gods. They even domesticated them as symbols of power.”

“I would too, he's so big and weird looking. Did people still worship them in your time Back Before?”

“My memories from then are still… hazy…” Arlo replied, rubbing the side of his head. “But I don’t think so. I don’t even remember seeing one alive, in person, before now.”

The other boy frowned. “Not alive?”

“Well, when this place was all a single country still, there was some autumn holiday where people ate turkeys. So… not alive.”

“People ate birds?!” Felix shouted, turning to Arlo in revulsion.

Arlo cringed, and the other boy covered his mouth and froze when he realized how loud he was. He slowly glanced back out past the log, and found the turkey’s dark eyes locked squarely onto his. The bird’s fathers puffed up again as they stared at one another, and a bolt of terror shot through Felix. Both boys took off running, as the turkey flapped across the clearing and onto the log they hid behind.

Not far away, Lavinia kicked dirt over their smoldering campfire while Mira watched from the cart. Everything was packed up for their third day on the road and they were ready to hit the road. The only thing missing were the two boys.

Lavinia glanced around at the surrounding forest, her hands on her hips. For what Felix had to leave for, he surely didn’t need to go far. She was hesitant to have let Arlo go with him (for safety, Arlo claimed), given his condition, and if they were gone for much longer then she’d have to go looking for them.

But as soon as she considered that possibility, they burst back out of the trees. Felix dropped to the ground, fighting hard to catch his breath, while Arlo scanned the forest behind them.

“Woah, woah, what’s the rush for?” Lavinia said as she went up to them. “And where’d you two disappear to? I thought you just had to go pee.”

“I-I did, but… Heard noise… Big angry bird…” was all Felix could manage to get out. Lavinia instead turned to Arlo.

“We found a turkey, but it saw us and chased us off,” he explained.

Lavinia laughed, “That’s what had ya’ll running like that? I thought a bear was after you two!”

Felix pushed himself back up onto shaking legs, and Capri flapped down onto his shoulder. The boy stroked the crow’s feathers. “You’re still my favorite kind of bird, Capri.”

The crow turned to the boy and bit a lock of his hair. Lavinia smiled and patted his other shoulder.

“C’mon, time to get back on the road. You too, Arlo.”

Felix and Arlo followed her back and climbed into the cart, taking their regular seats away from Mira. Lavinia got onto the driver’s bench and they were soon on their way again. As they went, the girl looked at them.

“Why would you go after a turkey?” she asked. “They're mean."

“Well, we know that now…” Felix breathed.

Mecha Questions

“Do you think there are any other mechas out there?” Felix asked.

That innocuous question, presented by the boy as he observed Arlo on a dull and quiet part of the ride, was the spark to a convoluted debate for near to an hour. Lavina believed it was entirely possible that there were since both Mira and Arlo were still around. Mira asserted that the two of them were the only functioning mechas remaining, barring any secret societies that escaped her notice during her travels, or whatever might be happening on the other continents. And Arlo had no clue either way.

“What if somebody forgot they were a mecha, though?” he pondered out loud. “We look pretty close to humans.”

“If a mecha’s processors were damaged enough that they forgot they even were a mecha, they wouldn’t be operational for much longer,” Mira said. Then, realizing what she said and who she said it to, immediately clammed up and turned away. Arlo too shrank up and wouldn’t look at her.

“Oh, oh, but what about if they were like, pretending to be human,” Lavinia added. Whether she was attempting to break up the renewed awkward atmosphere Mira created, or if she were oblivious to it, nobody could tell.

“How could they pretend to be a human?” Felix asked.

“It… wouldn’t be impossible,” Mira mutters. “I did it, now and again. There’s obviously a lot of differences between mechas and humans. Like, most youth models weren’t made anatomically accurate, after some legal whatevers.” Arlo blushed at her frankness, but she continued. “We can also sleep to recharge, but even though we can eat, it takes a long time for us to digest animal proteins, and it’s really uncomfortable and gross. They added that to reduce the risk of mechas eating their human owner again.”

“Wait, again?” Lavinia demanded.

Mira either ignores the question or chooses not to answer, because she instead says, “But adult models, especially ones for ‘personal’ use, have all the same parts as real humans. So maybe a mecha could blend in with humans if they said they were vegan.”

Felix considers her words, but frowns. “What’s vegan?”

“They’re people who don’t eat food containing animal protein,” Arlo answers. “They only eat plants, mushrooms, and such.”

“Oh, so do I!”

“Me too, and dairy make me feel sick,” Lavinia said. Then she’s quiet for a long while, staring ahead into the distance. “I get sick eating animal protein… And I have a preference towards machines… What if I am secretly a mecha and forgot?”

“Lavinia, you have a biological mother and pictures of you as a child at home,” Arlo reminds her.

“Oh yeah, I guess that disqualifies me…” Lavinia concedes. Then she’s quiet again. “Mae doesn’t eat animal stuff either though, what if she’s a mecha?”

The boy frowns. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

“What? No way, if she was a mecha too, then…” She trails off, and soon her cheeks turn crimson.

“The point is, there probably aren’t any secret mechas hiding out in the world anymore. And all the factories that made us have been inoperable for a super long time.” Mira smiled to herself, “Me and Arlo are the only mechas left, and that’s just fine with me.”

“That’s sad, that there aren’t gonna be any more mechas,” Felix said. He held Capri in his hands and was scratching his feathers, to the crow’s content. “Hey, did they ever make animal mechas?”

“No.”

“Aw…”

Rain

They’d managed to avoid it for the first two and a half days, but nature finally caught up to them that afternoon. Heavy, overcast skies appeared a few hours after their departure, and opened up in practically no time at all.

The patched canvas over the top of the cart was mostly intact, with only a few holes let in a steady drip. The leaks fell to bare wood after the three children pushed aside what stacked cargo was below. Lavinia, however, had no covering over the driver’s bench. But Felix volunteered to sit beside her and cover her with an umbrella they wisely thought to bring.

That left Arlo in the back of the cart, uncomfortably close to Mira with Capri perched above. As it turned out, the crow was also not a fan of the rain. The two children sat in silence as the cart slowly continued along the road. Mira was still wounded from Arlo’s lashing out the day before, and although not sorry for the sentiment behind those words, the boy regretted the malice with which he said it. Despite that, he couldn’t find a way to apologize. And he wasn’t wholly convinced if he should.

Astus seemed the only one inconvenienced by the rain, only shaking his head now and again to throw away the accumulated water from his fur.

Time dragged on, and as the cart turned around a curve in the road, Arlo heard a girl’s laughter. He glances over at Mira to see if it was her, but she was still consumed by their awkward silence. The laughing came again while he watched her, proving that it wasn’t her playing some trick on him.

There was an odd familiarity about it, but it was far too light and airy to be Lavinia. She was talking to Felix at the same time, anyway.

“Arlo!” the laughing voice called out. He jerked forward as if out of instinct, startling both Mira and Capri. Mira said something, but he didn’t hear her. The strange, familiar voice called out again and he stood up, scanning all around.

That’s when he saw it. A small form peeking out from behind the trees back down the road, glowing like a spotlight illuminated it against the rain. It was her. She called his name again, and without realizing it, he was out of the cart and running to her. Mira and surely Lavinia were calling behind him. But the girl running back into the forest was the stronger influence, her call an unbreakable order beckoning him forward through the rain.

He was in another time as he dodged the trees. The empty, ruined cities were gone. Lavinia and Felix were gone. The very air was different. Sun was shining down through the shimmering canopy, and he was hurrying behind a young girl in a sunflower pattern dress. Clumps of grass and wildflowers parted in their wake, brambles and bushes grabbed at them. For Arlo they were nothing, branches no more dangerous to him than the flowers. But the girl ahead of him wasn’t as sturdy.

“Slow down, Anne!” he called to her.

She turned back to him, beaming. “I’m gonna beat you back to camp!”

“You’re only gonna trip and hurt yourself, or tear your dress! And watch where you’re going!”

Anne, at the outset of claiming “No I won’t,” suddenly went tumbling down to the ground in a premature act of fate. Arlo dropped down and slid beside her like a baseball player to home plate. He rested her head in his lap and scanned her for any life-threatening injuries, but she only reached up and playfully poked his cheek. Arlo looked at her dirtied face, leaves stuck in her hair, and found her smiling still.

Arlo can’t help but smile too as relief broke down his worry. He scooped the girl up in his arms and carries her back to the trail.

“Come on, let’s get back to Ms. Luisa.”

“You always take care of me,” Anne says as she wraps her arms around Arlo.

He can see the glinting campfire further along the path and Luisa's voice and laughter mingling with their small radio. If the tents aren't pitched yet, he can take care of that after cleaning Anne up, then—

The boy is suddenly pulled backward, spun around on the spot. He stops in the rain, his arm empty, facing Lavinia looking more terrified than he’d ever seen her. She’s speaking to him, but he can’t hear her. A million thoughts race through Arlo’s mind as his eyes dart across everything visible, from the grey sky to the overgrown trail, to Felix and Mira further back behind Lavinia as they stared on with wide, uncertain eyes.

But the girl was just in his arms—he felt the weight as he lifted her and the warmth of their contact. She was there. Wasn’t she?

“S-She was… I was carrying her.” Arlo stammers, “We—I—there was the campsite, we camped here because there weren’t as many people. I have to bring her back, Ms. Luisa’s waiting. You saw her! She called my name from the woods, it was a game, racing back. Didn’t you see her?”

Lavinia shakes her head. “I only saw you, jumping out the cart and running away. There wasn’t anyone else here. You scared me half to death, you can’t do that anymore…”

Arlo stepped away and turned all around as if the sun and the girl would appear if he could no longer see Lavinia or Felix and Mira behind her. But there was only the empty forest, its only sound the rain that fell through the trees. She was gone like the left arm he helped carry her with, and he still had no idea who she even was to him. The boy dropped to the muddy, burying his face in his arm as tears mixed with rain.

“I can’t live like this,” he sobbed. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore…”

Lavinia fell by his side and pulled him to her, with Felix joining on his other side. Together, they held the crying boy as the rain fell over them all. Both knew there were no words to appease the boy or lessen his anguish. Their physical, affirming presence there would have to be enough, for the moment. He could at least know that they were real.

Mira, meanwhile, stood off to the side. She was invisible to the other three, but not from a self-conscious hesitancy. Rather, she was attempting to discern how what he said was possible. The memory chip she removed erased Luisa and her daughter from Arlo’s mind. Not even a fragmented memory could have remained, no matter how severely he was malfunctioning. And, even more inexplicable…

How had she seen Anne too?