Pomegranate Trees / Apartments

Pomegranate Trees: Mei Wu

Eighteen years.

Eighteen badly made cakes with sticks for candles, eighteen handmade gifts with brown paper wrapping and twine string, and eighteen games of truth or dare.

Even though Ad had hyped up their eighteenth birthday for forever (“We’ll be adults, Fey, c’mon… it’ll be exciting…”), Fey didn’t feel much different at all when she woke up in her concrete room, her bedsheets a mess and her blanket strewn on the floor. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she wasn’t prettier or wrinkly-er. To her disappointment, she didn’t even grow taller than Ad.

Ad was tall– not much taller than Fey, but tall enough so that Fey had to crane her neck to look up at him. He had dark, curly hair that fell in beautiful ringlets around his face. One of his eyes was a dark hazel while the other was a vibrant sort of gold or bronze color. When Ad moved, he moved with practicality and intention. His strides were smooth before he lunged and snagged a rabbit, and his ever-twitching fingers always seemed to be itching for something to throw or old. But his predatory strength and killer instincts didn’t stop him from being kind to Ad. His dark skin wrinkled every time he smiled, and he never hesitated to defend Fey from any sort of danger. There was never a moment where Fey fell over and Ad didn’t reach out his hand to help her up, and most importantly, he was always there to comfort Fey.

There was never a moment in Fey’s lifetime where Ad wasn’t by her side. They grew up together, in the bunker, which was a rusty hollow metal shell that stretched out across different levels, both underground and above ground. The bunker and its rooms were like a collection of rabbit tunnels. One hallway eventually led to the next, which then led to a flight of stairs or an elevator, which then led to some other hallway with other sets of rooms, stairs, and elevators. In the very middle of the bunker, like the large queen egg-laying chamber for ants, was a solar reactor, which constantly hummed with energy from the solar panels on the roof of the greenhouse.

The bunker took a while for young Ad and Fey to get used to. Droid had to watch over the two day and night to make sure they didn’t get stuck in a closet or tiny cupboard, but eventually both Fey and Ad got the hang of it. Now, the two of them could be blindfolded and be able to walk through it without breaking a limb, even if Droid would come rushing over to scold them for being so reckless. Humanoid and even taller than Ad, something even as small as a scratch or bruise on Ad or Fey would cause Droid’s clunky metal legs to sprint over hastily. Its arrival was announced by the sound of hands brushing against each other, which was followed by periodic whirs and beeps. Droid didn’t wear any clothes, its body consisted of a smooth dark gray carbon-fiber exoskeleton along with sets of springs and thin silver connecting rods which acted as human tendons. Droid’s joints were hinged together with steel latches, and its torso made up of a series of neatly welded metal plates and a few bolts here and there.

What made Droid most unique, however, was its face. Droid’s face was the only part of its body that was completely covered and molded with a light gray silicone rubber. It had two retractable antennas protruding from its forehead which twitched if Fey cried or Ad screamed with anger. At the sides of the Droid’s cheeks were two circles, which appeared almost like cartoonish blush, except the circles were a slightly darker colored plastic gray. When Droid opened its mouth to speak, its lips would move effortlessly to purse during the “o”s and part during the “a”s. Its eyes, which had a tiny blue electric light bulb to light behind it to create the illusion of life, would blink every few seconds.

Droid, whether Ad or Fey wanted its presence, was always there for Ad and Fey. It made sure that they they didn’t do anything stupid, that they learned how to write and speak, hunt, and learn basic skills. It made sure that the stitches on wounds stayed close, it made sure that the reactor kept on running smoothly, it made sure that Ad and Fey could spin and dye their clothes. Fey’s talented skill with a needle and fabric was thanks to Droid, who patiently sat down with her one day to learn how to backstitch. Droid was the first thing five year old Ad ran to when he experienced his first roaring thunderstorm. Droid was the one who offered to play cards with Fey when she couldn’t sleep at 2:00 AM. Droid was there to encourage Fey and Ad through their challenges, no matter how robotic its “you got this” and semi-lame pats on the backs were.

But even though Droid was endlessly benevolent, affectionate, and caring, there were always questions he wouldn’t answer. For example– In Fey’s almost eighteen years of life, she only knew two people– Ad, and if Droid counted as a human, Droid. All three of them were alone and isolated, in the middle of a giant field surrounded by a giant forest.

The only person who seemed to know why was Droid.

But Droid never provided an answer to Fey’s questions. Countless pestering questions of “Are the three of us alone?”s never cracked a fulfilling answer out of the robot. Eventually, at some point, Fey had bugged Droid so much that Droid began to ignore Fey.

However, it did answer one time, and one time only, when Droid and Fey were alone in the kitchen. Droid was chopping up some home-grown carrots Ad had pulled up from the dirt of the greenhouse, and Fey was scooping out some pomegranate seeds from its fruit. Fey vividly remembered throwing the remnants of the emptied pomegranate into the compost bin and innocently popping the question again, as somewhat of a joke. She had long known that Droid wouldn’t answer, but to her immediate surprise, Droid stopped chopping the carrots and replied: “For now.”

Fey whipped around from the compost bin to ogle at Droid. “What?”

“For now,” Droid reiterated. “For now.”

Fey frowned and picked up the next pomegranate from the basket. “Does it have to do w–”

“Fey,” Droid warned, his blue eyes flashing. “What’s the first rule that I’ve taught you, ever since you were born?”

She sighed. “Don’t go to places I shouldn’t go to.”

“Yes.” Droid continued chopping its carrots, the dull thump of the knife against the cutting board filling the silence between them.

Two years had passed since that strange interaction which left Fey with more questions than answers.

The day– Ad and Fey’s birthday, 2093. The time– well, the sun was halfway across the sky already. The weather– appropriate. Not necessarily, cold, not necessarily hot.

Warm.

She took a step outside of the bunker, stretched her arms, and yawned. The sun kissed her skin with its rays, and she bathed in the sunshine for a minute or two, enjoying her peaceful surroundings. Somewhere in the distance, there seemed to be thousands of birds chirping and singing their songs. A quiet zephyr blew and ruffled her loose fiery-red hair.

Then, Fey heard it. Like a whip cracking through silence, the sound of the clang of metal rang through the air. Fey’s sea-green eyes opened, wide, and looked to the direction from where the sound came from.

400 feet away, right underneath the pomegranate tree, Fey could see the faint familiar shine of metal reflecting off the sun’s rays.

She sprinted through the broad green field where the grass reached her torso. Her heart pounded through her chest, her veins throbbed. Her eyes were fixated on the thick trunk of the pomegranate tree while her heart pumped oxygen through her blood so that the rest of her body could keep up with her legs. She tasted the salt of sweat and blood– she must’ve accidentally bit it on the way. The bitterness drowned her senses.

When she was closing on distance to the pomegranate tree, she saw Droid’s crumpled underneath the tree.

Her throat constricted. “Droid?” She screamed. “Droid?”

One of the pomegranate tree’s loose roots sent her stumbling forwards, and she landed on all fours right in front of Droid’s metal feet. Her palms and knees stung, but she recovered. Fey gripped the robot’s shoulders and shook hard. “Droid? Are you alright? Droid?” She asked, her tone of desperation increasing. Panicked tears hid away behind the corners of her eyes and her lips began to tremble. “Ad,” She yelled, as loud as she could, her voice cracking. “Ad? Ad. Help.”

Her heart was pounding as second after second passed without Ad’s response. She shook the Android’s shoulders. Its head wobbled back and forth on its connecting rod like a child’s toy. Tears threatened to stream down her cheeks.

“Please,” she pleaded. “Please.”

Fey’s hands moved to clutch the sides of the android’s jaw and flinched. The Droid’s previously blue eyes, now devoid of color, stared back at her– black, unseeing, and eerie. She shook its head this time, begging for electricity to rush back into the lifeless piece of metal, but to no avail. The robot’s metallic jaw unhinged. Fey pushed the jack back up, attempting to close the robot’s mouth, but watched as it fell open again. “Stupid piece of junk,” she spluttered. “Stupid, stupid piece of junk– why?–”

In a flurry of panic, she slapped the robot forcefully on the left cheek.

A circular compartment on Droid’s cheek hissed open. In the corner of Fey’s eye, she saw something small and black bouncing through the grass and in between the tree’s roots. She stopped breathing for a second.

With red eyes and shaky hands, Fey picked up the fallen hard drive and looked at it. It was a rectangular piece of metal, with a slight black knob on the end for holding. It seemed normal, regular– not powerful, not significant, not something that Droid would have held in its cheek for almost two decades. Fey had only seen the hard drive one other time in her life, and that was many years ago, when Droid was running through some memory problems.

Fey turned the hard drive around and around in her palms. She looked up from the hard drive to the robot’s lifeless form and stared into its dark, blank eyes.

A beat.

The electric blue behind Droid’s eyes didn’t relight. Fey’s jaw tensed. She took a deep breath, rose, and took a step back and stared at the lifeless form of the robot.

Fey turned away and ran– ran as fast as her legs could, through the coarse dirt between the pomegranate tree’s roots and the grassy fields– and back into the bunker. She flung open the heavy metal door and rushed down the stairs. Her blood coursed through her veins and her lungs burned as she navigated hallway after hallway, door after door, stairs after stairs.

Fey finally came to a stop in front of a plain looking black wooden door.

For a short period of time, when Fey was a child, the only thing on Fey’s mind had been the black door. There were many times where Fey tried to convince Ad to go see what was behind the black door by bribing him with the possibility of sweets. However Ad never was interested in the room behind the door as much as Fey had been. In his mind, Droid’s warnings were enough for him. In his mind, Droid catching Fey trying to peek through the keyhole was enough for him. In his mind, Droid giving Fey a firm scolding and robotic version of a yelling was enough for him. But for Fey, even years later, she never stopped thinking about the black door. The black door on the bottom level, the black door with a silver knob, the black door with no crack underneath for Fey to slide any flattened out paper airplanes under…

She gripped the silver knob and twisted quickly. To her surprise, the door swung open easily. There was no hiss of air nor creak from old hinges like the rest of the doors were in the bunker.

Darkness swallowed her senses. The smell of dust was so strong that Fey could taste it on her tongue, dry, and unpleasant. She blindly grasped the walls for a lightswitch. Suddenly, the lights turned on, and the immediate humm of energy filled her ears. She winced. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the light change, but once she took in her surroundings, she realized that she was in a concrete room.

A plain, concrete room. Cubical. If it weren’t for the large amounts of dust and the large, rectangular block of plastic and metal in the very center, Fey would’ve thought that she just accidentally walked into an extra room.

She cautiously walked over to the machine, her fingers clasping around the hard drive. The cold metal dug into her sweaty palms as she circled the machine and observed the grooves, buttons, and panels.

There were many holes of different shapes in the machine. Fey reached out her hand and gently trailed her fingers over them. There was a large one that was bigger than the size of her fist, a circular one that was traced with yellow, and one that was a semicircle. But the very last hole was a small-ish rectangular one. She looked at the hard drive in her hands, then looked back up at the machine.

Her hands shook as she raised the little hard drive and pushed it into the rectangular hole. It slid in perfectly. To her relief, the machine didn’t swallow up the entire hard drive, but stopped at the place where metal met plastic.

Upon being inserted in, the machine whirred to life. Small lights flashed within the machine, and the humming gradually became louder. Fey put her hands at the back of her head and took a step back anxiously.

A few seconds passed by, and there was nothing. The humming of the machine eventually died down and switched to a quiet whirr.

Something in the machine clicked, and Fey’s eyes widened. Another light turned on, but this time, it projected a screen into the air which flickered every few seconds. Fey approached the machine again and looked up at the image. There were nine pictures of folders– KNOWLEDGE, MEMORY, DATA, SPEECH, EMOTION, MOVEMENT, SECURITY, and SYSTEM. But Fey’s eyes directly were drawn to the folder that said IMPORTANT.

She reached out a hand towards the folder. Click.

Another image opened up, but this time, instead of folders, there were little text boxes with dates as titles. Underneath the text were small snapshots of the files, some images, others short worded descriptions. The first one Fey saw was in the bottom right corner of the screen. The text showed that the file was made on 2/14/2090. The tiny image below it showed a picture of a clock– 1:57 AM.

Fey reached a hand out towards it. Click.

A video opened up and showed a concrete room, almost exactly like the one she was currently in, but with large windows that showed a view to outside. The familiar pans and plates littered the countertops, the windows showed that it was dark. The analog clock on the wall read 1:57 AM.

She saw herself– Fifteen year old Fey, sitting at the kitchen table, her hands cupped around a mug of tea, staring out of the window. The video inched closer and closer towards young Fey, who raised the mug of tea to her lips, until it stopped a few feet in front of her.

“Can’t sleep?” Droid asked, and Fey realized that she was watching herself from the robot’s point of view. One of Droid’s hands rested on the wooden table as it watched fifteen year old Fey put down the mug of tea, sigh, and shrug. “Yeah,” Fey #2 said. “Gave up on pretending to try.”

Droid paused, and Fey #1 heard the usual robotic whirrs and clicks from Droid while it thought of a proper response. A beat passed, and Droid finally responded: “Well. How are you going to pass the time?”

Fey #2 looked up at Droid and frowned, her pink lips tugging downwards. She tucked a stray strand of red hair behind her ear and shrugged, again. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”

The video swung to the left of the kitchen. Droid walked over to one of the kitchen drawers and pulled it open. The video panned over the contents and Droid gently grabbed a deck of cards. “You know how to play cards?” Droid asked Fey #2 as it pushed the drawer back in. The video swung back around to focus on Fey #2, who blinked.

“No,” she answered. “Ad’s tried to convince me to play a few times, though.”

Droid hummed, slid into a chair across from Fey #2, and opened the pack of playing cards. “I can teach you how.”

Fey #2 blinked again and took her own few seconds to consider Droid’s offer. Her face then broke into a smile, and she finally said: “Sure. Why not?”

~

The screen went back to the various contents of the IMPORTANT folder. Fey stood there, hugging herself, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her breaths were ragged, and her chest felt like somebody had carved her heart out. Fey wrapped her arms around herself tighter and bit the bottom of her lip to keep herself from crying out.

After a moment, she sniffed, bunched up her sleeves to roughly wipe away the sadness from her eyes, and looked at the other files in the folder. 8/24/2080, with a preview image of Ad curled up in his blankets. 10/1/2082, with a preview image of Fey holding up a needle and thread with a toothy grin. 12/31/2084, Ad holding up his hand comically to his face while Fey laughed in the background. A teapot, the culprit, sat on the countertop between them. 3/12/2085, Ad holding up his first kill, a rabbit, smiling proudly.

There were countless more as Fey scrolled up, the most recent one was a week ago, with a preview image of Ad and Fey facing each other, their faces contorted with anger. But as Fey scrolled down, the further the dates went back. There were several files on the date of her and Ad’s birth– July 7th, 2075, eighteen years ago– but there was also one that was labeled November 8th, 2075.

The preview image was the pomegranate tree– a bit smaller in size, but still large as ever– and an unfamiliar figure, who wore a simple beige cotton-spun dress.

Fey’s hands shook as she reached towards the video file.

This time, the video began with Droid’s hands pressed against the ground in between several large winding roots. Ants crawled all over the coarse dirt beneath the pomegranate tree, and Droid watched the insects’ antennas twitch while they dragged over small bits of pomegranate into their homes.

The short blades of grass hiding in the dirt swayed in the wind. There were no signs of clouds; the sky was as blue as ever. The birds, presumably in the pomegranate tree above, whistled their song to each other.

The video swung to the right, and the bottom half of a person appeared. Their dress fluttered in the breeze, and their feet were bare against the dirt.

Then, the video swung up, and a woman with wavy, dark brown-black hair that was graying in some places appeared. She had her hair in a somewhat loose bun that was pinned up at the back of her head.

Fey sometimes had her hair up like that. Droid taught her how when she was eight.

The woman smiled, and wrinkles on the edges of her cheeks and the corner of her eyes appeared. Her olive skin glowed in the sunlight, wiped of any sort of impurities or dirt, more clean than Fey and Ad had ever been in their life. But her soft features and kind smile didn’t stop Fey from noticing her eyes, which were sharp and calculating. Almond-shaped and hazel, her eyes had flakes of gold and purple in them– oddly familiar. Her cotton-spun ankle-length dress was flawless but artificial. The construction and seams were far too perfect compared to Fey’s usual simple hand stitching.

When the woman spoke, her voice was melodic, like an alto jazz singer in the singular record Droid used to play. It entranced Fey and made the hair on her arms stand up.

“What do you think?” The woman said to Droid, her smile still plastered onto her face. “It’s quite a beautiful place, isn’t it?” the woman added, tilting her head to the side. “A family would have a wonderful time living here.

Somehow, her smile broadened further, full of hidden meaning.

Droid looked back down to the dirt where the ants and bits of pomegranates were. As the wind blew, a few of the pomegranate tree’s green oval leaves fluttered to the ground. Droid picked one up and held it between its carbon-fiber fingers. It whirred and clicked while taking its sweet time preparing a response. The woman patiently waited while staring at Droid, her hands clasped together.

The robot looked up at the woman and cocked its head to the side.

“Did you used to live here? With a family?”

The woman’s hands grasped each other, startled by the robot’s question. She stared off to the side of Droid’s field of vision, her broad grin gone. Replacing it was an unreadable expression that made Fey lean in closer to the screen.

The woman’s plush pink lips parted into a soft smile. “Oh, that was a long time ago…”

Her beige dress rustled as she walked over towards a low-hanging pomegranate tree branch. She plucked a pomegranate off, dug her nails into the outer shell of the fruit, and pried its soft flesh open. The android rose and looked at the glittering red jewel-like seeds curiously. It reached out a metallic hand towards the pomegranate and, as delicately as it could, picked up a singular seed and held it to the sunlight just as it did with the leaf.

“I used to share pomegranates with my daughter,” the woman murmured as she continued to watch Droid. “When we were both alone in this world. She was my first miracle.”

Droid looked away from the seed and up at the tree with wonder. From their view, the tree’s branches spread across the sky like giant spiderwebs with enormous glimmering red fruit for morning dewdrops. “How old was she when she left you?”

The woman tensed, and the android’s antennas twitched. It watched the woman’s long eyelashes flutter several times. Even her olive skin seemed to stop glowing for a moment.

“About 12. She left the world too soon.”

The Android’s glowing blue eyes made contact with the woman’s dark purple. For a brief moment, the millions of birds within their vicinity stopped chirping. The only sound around them was the unnatural sound of whirring coming from the inside of the android's skull.

“Died?” Droid asked.

“Shut down. Died. Passed away. Left.” Mother heaved a soft sigh and cupped the pomegranate in her hands tighter. “Eventually it happens to all my creations at some point.”

“Your creations?” Droid repeated, quicker, its programming desperate for answers.

A tight smile formed onto Mother’s face, and for a moment, Fey felt alarmed for Droid. The wrinkles in the corner of Mother’s eyes disappeared. Replacing the previous friendliness was a colder, more analyzing glint.

“Sweet machine,” the woman said, her words dripping in artificial honey as if she were a condescending adult speaking to a clueless child. She placed a delicate hand onto the left side of her invention’s cheek. “The hard drive here–” her fingers pressed down, and with a hiss, a hard drive presented itself “–is decades of your work.”

“My work?” The robot asked, astonished.

“Your work. This is the fifteenth conversation I’ve had with you.”

Droid paused.

“Are they all the same?”

“No. You’re much more advanced now.” The woman caressed the smooth metal sheets wired together to form her creation’s jawline. “Heightened emotional sensitivity.” Her hand reached up to touch the two thin metal sticks protruding from the android’s shiny forehead. “Adding the antennas was a good touch on my part,” she said with a hint of pride. “Perfect for your task. Which is,” She retracted her hand. “What we’re here to talk about.”

The woman gathered her dress into her hands and lowered herself onto a boulder, smoothed the dirt off, and clasped her hands together. The android remained standing.

The woman immediately let loose a speech that she seemed to have been holding for decades.

“There are two embryos left in this world, Android, and currently they lay in artificial wombs in my basement. Now– your job is to raise these two children. A boy, a girl. Different parents, of course. Both genetically diverse enough so that there are no illnesses, no physical deformities, or whatever.”

The woman swept her eyes over Droid’s face, analyzing.

“But it’ll be your responsibility to ensure that they grow up to be adults and reproduce. I’ve programmed your hard drive so that once they reach their eighteenth birthday, you’ll automatically shut down.”

The robot blinked. The woman patiently waited, again, for the millionth time, as her creation processed her information. Two seconds passed, and the android’s mouth opened.

“I don’t understand,” Droid said. “Why?”

“Because you’ll no longer be needed.”

More whirs and clicks. “Why?” It repeated, and the woman sighed. She looked more irritated than proud now.

“It’s nature’s natural order. Robins don’t teach hatchlings how to fly, she only prepares them for it. And after that,” she declared. “Independence. The two will be fine without your help. It’ll be like you were never there.”

Droid fell silent.

The woman tsked and sighed. “My dear,” she murmured, her voice more soft and pitiful as she placed her hand onto Droid’s. “You are the fifteenth of your kind that I’ve made to aid in restoring this planet.”

She hesitated and lifted up both her hands to cradle the sides of Droid’s face again– but this time, more lovingly, more motherly than ever, with a gentler, tender light in her eyes– and kissed the left side of Droid’s face, where the hard drive lay.

“Do not fail me.”

~

Fey burst out the black door of the room and navigated the burrow-like hallways as fast as she could. For the second time that day, she sprinted out of the bunker and towards the pomegranate tree.

As she got closer and closer, she saw a tall, lean figure with a fishnet bag thrown over his shoulder, standing next to Droid’s crumpled form. His dark, curly hair shone in the sun, and Fey gasped. “Ad,” she yelled, a small wave of relief rushing through her. “AD!”

Ad looked up and caught sight of Fey, whose red hair billowed behind her. “Fey?” He said with a hint of confusion, his beautiful brow furrowing. “Fey, what’s wrong with D–”

Fey rushed over to Ad, hugged him, and let her tears loose. She put her head onto the center of his rib cage, wrapped her arms around his neck, and sobbed as she listened to the soothing steady beat of Ad’s heart. She felt Ad rest his chin atop of her head as she cried and wind his strong arms under hers.

Droid’s lifeless body lay a yard away from their feet.

Somewhere above the clouds, an older man, with white hair, beard, and hazel eyes leaned over to his wife.

“Eighteen years. Congrats,” he whispered, his voice filled with wonder and excitement. “You’ve done it.”

His wife, whose hair was now completely gray yet still pinned up behind her head in a loose bun, stared at the hologram in front of her. She dabbed away the tears hiding in the corners of her watery purple eyes and nodded silently. She swallowed, then said, with very artificial cheeriness: “Yes. I supposed I did.”