“Well I suppose you’re right as usual Eliza, I probably need a change of scenery, but you’re coming with me! There’s no debate about that!”
“Very well sir, I will bring the elevator down. I advise you gather what you think you might need and remember to fill up some bottles of water.”

While Eliza enters the computer room, you start packing up your stuff. Funny that you never needed most of it. Eliza never gave you problems ever once, in robot or Shelter form she always ran fine. You might need it on the surface though, you are very curious to see what’s occurred after twenty years. You definitely make sure to bring your pistol.

When you’re done Eliza is waiting patiently for you by the elevator door, which opens up. You both enter. On the way up, Eliza holds your hand, and actually squeezes it a bit. If she was human you’d guess she was nervous, however being robotic, her squeeze is a bit painful and you have to tell her to stop. She apologizes and looks down as it was yet another reminder that she’s not human. You of course kiss her on her cheek and tell her it’s alright, in an effort to reassure her that you’re not mad or anything.

When you arrive at the destination you and Eliza exit the elevator into the same foyer you entered twenty years ago. Same ATM like machine is there except its screen is completely black.

When you exit the shelter you can barely see as its night time. The stars and moon provide a little “light” but not much.

You can’t entirely be sure due to the darkness, but your immediate surroundings look relatively untouched. You can only assume there weren’t any bombs falling near this area. You also see your van, you’d completely forgotten about it. It looks like it’s even in worse condition than when you left it, which you never thought was possible. It looks like its been stripped for parts, which pretty much means you know that people have passed by here at one point. You wonder if they attempted to get in the shelter.

“Hey nobody ever attempted to get into you did they?”
“Oh yes sir, when I was not yet in this form I did detect a few humans in the foyer about thirteen years ago. They pressed a few buttons on the payment machine and attempted to pry the elevator door open, but that was it. I believe they were in a hurry. I didn’t inform you since they weren’t successful and didn’t stay long. I saw no reason to concern you.”
“Hmm, well anyway I guess we’re walking.”

As you look down the empty road you see a tall structure which is lit up in the distance. A rebuilt pocket of civilization perhaps? Not knowing where else to go, you head that way.

As you and Eliza make your way to what you believe to be civilization, you think about the bizarre situation of how this would almost be considered a “romantic moonlit” walk if you weren’t walking with a robot in a post apocalyptic world. Then again there’s no reason why it still can’t be considered that. Now that you’re on the surface there’s lots more things you can do together with Eliza. You’ve been watching Eliza and she seems just as interested in studying the outside world as you are, this is a new experience for her as well. You put your arm around Eliza as you walk and tell her that you should stop when the sun starts coming up, so you can watch it rise together.

“Holy fuck Jake! Take a fuckin’ look at this crazy shit! Its some old dude and some fuckin’ naked robot chick!” some high pitch voice says from the darkness while shining a flashlight in your direction.
“What? Well I’ll be fuckin’ greased and fried! See Wally? I told you, if you hang out in the wasteland long enough you see all kinds of weird shit. Remember that fuckin’ big ass mutated wolf that ate Richard? Hey guys! Come over here! We got some unexpected company.”

Two men in their twenties wearing leather jackets approach you. You can see them a little better when they get closer, but you could already tell by their voices they didn’t seem very reputable. Two more biker looking figures arrive behind them, one of them carries a shot gun. You reach for your own gun and get in front of Eliza. They don’t look worried.

“Hey Pops, what the hell are you doing out here? Don’t you know the wasteland is for the young and strong, not the old and decrepit?”
“Shit, look at him Wally, this old fuck has been working out, I bet he could kick your ass! Ha ha! Naw, I bet this guy is one of those real bad ass survivalist motherfuckers. Probably been scavenging and living off the land or some shit, for years.”
“Yeah? Well where the hell did he get that robot chick huh? I wasn’t aware they had those just lying around in the wilderness. I remember reading a book one time…
“You can fuckin’ read Wally?”
“Shut up Jake! No I remember readin’ this old book an’ it talked about these kind of robot chicks they made before the war. I think only rich people could afford them, but they’d do everything you wanted and you could even fuck ‘em!”
“Is that right? Well, I don’t care where he got it from; I’m just interested in if he’s sharing…”
“Why don’t we just take it Jake?”
“Where the fuck are we gonna put the goddamn thing Wally? It’ll slow us down! No, all we need it for right now is to alleviate some…tension. Besides I dunno about you, but I typically like my pussy, warm, wet, and squirming if possible heh heh. So, old timer how about you all let us have a ride on Rosie over there? Don’t do anything stupid, I’m bein’ an uncharacteristically nice guy here. We’ll even make sure to return her in good condition, hell Wally’s turn won’t even take that long! Har har!”

Before you can reply, Eliza whispers in your ear.

“Sir, you can’t fight them all; you’re out numbered and out gunned. I don’t want you to get hurt…I’ll go with them. I’ll be okay. It’ll be the safest course of action. It won’t mean anything to me you know. I’m just a machine.”

You look at her.

“Eliza… you always did underestimate my feelings for you.”

You pull your pistol and drill Jake in the head with a single shot. The rest of the bikers are taken off guard and you mange to shoot Wally in the chest before he can get off a shot. Thank god you kept up your shooting skills at the paintball range in the shelter.

The other two bikers begin to fire, one of them misses, but the one with the shotgun hits…Eliza. She ran in the way to prevent to from getting shot. She crashes to the ground, and you blast the shotgun biker in the eye, exploding half of his face, ending his life.

The other biker’s courage leaves him and he tries to run off back to his bike, but you tag him in the leg and then follow up with another couple shots to his skull. You run back to Eliza.

You kneel down to pick her up and see her internal motor sparking and making bad noises. She’s leaking fluid from her side.

“Aw shit! FUCK! Hang on Eliza!”

You grab your tool kit in some vain effort to fix her, but you can do nothing for her. You don’t have the skill or the parts. You keep working on her all throughout the night before finally giving up.

“I’m sorry Eliza…I can’t fix you…I’m sorry…damn it! Fuck…(Sob)”
“Its alrr-rright sir…I’m just glad you’re ok-kk-kkay. I didn’t want you to get hur-hurt…is th-that the sun c-c-coming up?”

You look to where Eliza is pointing and you see a bright light, you forgot how blinding the sun could be. You hold Eliza tightly as you both watch the sunrise in her final moments.

“It was beautiful s-s-sir…th-th-thank you for treat-t-ting me like a r-real person.”

Her motor then ceases permanently.

After weeping for a little while, you kiss Eliza on her metallic lips and lay her down. You almost think about ending your own life, but then you realize Eliza wouldn’t want you to do that. She gave her life to save yours. To kill yourself, would make her sacrifice in vain.

You search the bodies of the bikers and take a leather jacket, the shotgun, one of their pistols and all the ammo you can carry. They also had some water and canned food which will certainly come in handy. You assume the leader of this pack of miscreants was probably Jake, so you take his bike keys since you figure he’ll have the best one. You’ve never rode a motorcycle before, but you’ll have time and plenty of open space to learn. You see yourself when you stand by Eliza’s still shiny body.

“Jesus, Eliza. I look like a fuckin’ road warrior reject…(Sigh) this isn’t how I pictured it, but I’m not giving up on you just yet…you mean too much to me.”

You take your tool kit and open up her head; you figure her memory chip should still be intact. It is. You pull it out and place it in a little metal container that you found one of the bikers which was just holding some loaded dice.

You close the container and place it in your shirt pocket…close to your heart.

“I’ll try to find someway of bringing you back Eliza there’s gotta be more robotic bodies still out there somewhere, maybe I can even upgrade you to a newer one like you always wanted.”

You get on Jake’s bike and start it up. You’re a little cautious at first, but you soon get the hang of it. You then ride towards the tall structure in the distance leaving everything behind.

You don’t know if you’ll be successful in your new found “quest”, but you have to try and you undoubtedly have something to keep you busy in this new world now.

Odd that even in death, Eliza is still doing her best to keep you occupied.