Lost Mementos of the Past, Part 3

The sun began to disappear over the horizon, with the city quickly darkening in response. Caleb saw that and knew that he had come at a bit of an impasse: he needed to set up camp as soon as possible, but there was no way Mina would be willing to stop, not when her night vision allowed her to keep searching late into the night. Even so, he needed to broach the subject, since he certainly couldn't go without rest.

Surprisingly, she was quite understanding about his particular situation. “Sure, I don't mind taking a rest for a bit. I can't see much when it gets dark, anyway.”

“Really? Even though you have night vision?”

“Night vision doesn't show you everything. Without light to reflect color, things like patterns and imagery don't show up well. I want to conserve my flashlight's batteries, too, so I'm trying not to rush in my search.”

“I see. Then shall we set up camp?”

Mina nodded as she and Caleb walked over to the ruins of a nearby building, where they sent up tents and made space for a fire. Once he started up a fire, Caleb began biting into some dried fish. As he ate, he noticed Mina staring at him with a curious look on her face.

“What's wrong? Is there something on my face?”

“No, sorry. I'd heard the rumors of a human remainer going around recently, but I didn't think I'd ever meet you. Especially like this.”

“Word gets around even with us spread all over the world, huh? Still, I'm surprised you didn't know about me already. Every remainer I meet tends to treat me like some kind of antique.”

“I don't tend to talk much with the others. I was always a loner, and becoming a remainer didn't change that.”

“You're like that even with your brother?”

Mina seemed uncomfortable. “Well, we're not that close. We've got different mothers and all. Things are complicated between us.”

Caleb seemed confused. “What does that mean? If you're family, you're family right?”

Mina chuckled. “Your upbringing's a little different, huh? You might be good at remainer work, but it seems like you don't understand basic subtleties.”

“What's that mean?” Caleb said with a raised eyebrow. “It sounds like you're making fun of me.”

Mina laughed and gave Caleb's head a rough tousle. “I'm saying you've still got a lot of growing to do, okay?”

A little while later, Caleb decided to go to bed, but not before making Mina promise not to leave without him. As he went to sleep, he thought about Kai and what he had asked him to do. What did keeping an eye on her entail? Did he want Caleb to help Mina with her search, or did he want him to stop her before she got into trouble for going off on her own? He just didn't know what Kai wanted himself.

Unfortunately for him, morning came without him ever reaching an answer. As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and climbed out of the tent, he noticed Mina coming out of hers as well. After eating a quick breakfast, the two set out to continue their search of the city.

With a new day, Mina decided to check out a separate part of the city she hadn't searched yet. Mina noticed Caleb take out the makeshift map he was using to navigate, and after perusing it with amusement, she pointed to a location on the map to show him where she wanted to go. With a concrete understanding of his destination, Caleb followed Mina through the ruined city streets.

After a short hour of travel, Caleb and Mina arrived at the destination in question, which looked like what used to be a large business district with the same sky-high buildings that seemed to reach into the sky. To Caleb, it looked about the same as every other part of the city he had explored so far, but Mina in particular seemed highly familiar with the area.

“Have you been here before?” Caleb asked as he watched Mina maneuver the streets without even a hint of hesitation or uncertainty. “You seem to know this place like the back of your hand.”

“Sort of,” Mina replied. “I lived here once, a long time ago. My memory's faded, but I can still remember these streets fairly well.”

“I'm surprised that you can even forget things like that,” Caleb marveled. “I thought your nanomachine brains remembered everything.”

“We have access to a large amount of memory, but it's not perfect,” Mina explained. “After hundreds of years, even memory paths will degrade.”

Caleb nodded. There was still a lot he didn't know or understand about the remainers, that much was clear. It would be a long time before he ever did, most likely.

Two hours of searching later, Caleb collapsed on a pile of rubble, exhausted. He was basically searching for anything that remotely seemed interesting, but there really wasn't much he could do with no knowledge about what he was even looking for. Still, he didn't want to stand around, either. Mina'd probably start wondering why he was even here.

As he started picking at some loose rubble in the corner of a destroyed convenience store, he noticed someone strolling down the road in a leisurely pace. He looked like a middle-aged man with a golden-brown beard and a gruff countenance. Caleb greeted him with a friendly wave, but was soundly ignored. Instead, the man walked straight past him and towards Mina, who was too occupied with digging through a crumbling video store to notice him.

“You're still doing this, huh?” The man mumbled in a gravelly voice.

Mina looked up only for a moment before continuing her search. “What are you doing here, Rick? I thought you hated big city places like this.”

“I'm here on a job, miss. And I knew you'd be here wasting your time like this.”

Mina ignored him, so Rick continued on. “You have to let things go, Mina. The past is the past. We have to leave our memories behind. That's the vow we made as remainers, right?”

Mina continued to silently dig through rubble and dust. Rick sighed. “Fine. I'll leave you be for now. But I want you to at least consider what I'm trying to tell you. It's for the best that you give up this search.”

Mina ignored him again. Rick sighed again and walked off. As he passed by Caleb, he gave him a knowing glance. “You should understand. Nothing comes from clinging to the past. You should try and convince her at the very least.”

Without waiting for Caleb's response, he turned around and walked off into the city once again. As Caleb watched him go, he wondered just who he was. Mina seemed to know him, so he figured the easiest way was just to ask her.

“He's my partner,” Mina admitted as she took a break from searching. “I figured he'd follow me here once he figured out where I was going, but I didn't think he find me so quickly.”

“So you ran off without telling him?” Caleb was surprised. “I'm surprised he followed you all the way out here instead of petitioning for a new partner.”

“That's the kind of guy he is,” Mina grumbled. “I bet he was an overbearing father back when he was still human.”

“I take it he isn't all that happy about what you're trying to do?”

“Of course not. You heard what he had to say, didn't you?”

“You disagree?”

“It's not like that.” Mina huffed. “I know what he's trying to say. I don't think he's wrong. But even so...”

Mina trailed off. She seemed as if she didn't know how to respond. Caleb himself didn't think Rick was wrong either. With the world the way it was, you couldn't allow yourself to be hung up on the past and cling onto memories that were fading more and more every day.

Even so, Caleb found himself putting a comforting hand on Mina's shoulder. “Why don't we keep searching? We've still got over a week before demolition starts.”

“You sure?” Mina had a sullen look that Caleb had never seen in the two to three days he had known her. “Even though we'd just be digging up the past again?”

“Why not? We've got time anyhow.”

“What about your job? Aren't you supposed to be scavenging for usable materials?”

Caleb threw his hands up. “Look at this place. I haven't seen anything remotely useful in the last three days, and I've been looking pretty diligently. Besides, it's not like I've got a quota or anything like that. If I tell them I didn't find anything, then I didn't find anything.”

Mina snickered. “If Computer hears that, you'll get in trouble.”

“I bet it's heard anyway,” Caleb grumbled. “For an artificial intelligence, it's nosier than most people I know.”

“So what? Are you just bored?”

“Not at all. I just think even if there are some things we should leave behind, they are also some things we shouldn't.”

“Huh? What does that mean? Aren't you just being contradictory?”

“I guess I am,” Caleb remarked. “But aren't humans contradictory by nature?”

Mina smirked. “What a smart aleck you turned out to be. I'd like to meet the people that raised you.”

“Yeah,” Caleb said wistfully. “I'd have loved that too.”