Page 47 of Dustwalker
“I didn’t need a name to identify myself,” he said.
“But you gave yourself one anyway.”
“For the benefit of others. Easier than sayingthat botorhey you.”
“Then why does everyone around here call youdustwalker?”
“Because there are few who choose to do as I do. There are rarely more than one or two successful dustwalkers in any given settlement at a time, and we’re constantly traveling. Always…on the outside. More convenient to remember our role than our names. The term carries respect, but also a little fear.”
“Why are there so few of you?” Lara folded a slice of meat and slipped it into her mouth.
“Bots operate on logic. Constantly assessing risk ver?—”
“Isn’t it more logical to not go into the Dust?”
Ronin smirked. “Yes, but settlements need raw materials to continue producing the parts bots need to function. Someone has to go find them.”
“Why do you?”
“Should I be making a list of these questions so I can eventually answer them all, or do you just lose interest if my answer is more than a few words long?”
She chewed slowly, brow arched as she stared at him. Seconds ticked by. The only sounds were Lara’s mastication and the refrigerator’s soft hum.
“Getting a little irritated there, dustwalker?” she finally asked.
“I prefer you call me Ronin.”
“Why?”
He couldn’t tell for sure, but there seemed to be a hint of humor in her voice. “I think I’m through answering questions for now,human.“
“Point taken.”
“May I get back to what I was saying?”
She picked up the canteen, unscrewed the cap, and took a drink. Seeing her use it made him feel something close to satisfaction. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she nodded.
“You asked why there are so few dustwalkers.” Ronin rested his hand on the table. “It’s because most who take up the calling meet their ends in the Dust. Whether a walker is a human or a bot, nobody goes looking for them when they don’t return.”
The motion of her jaw slowed. “And…you go out there by choice?”
“Yes.” Because he was compelled to.
“Why?”
“Perhaps my risk calculation processes were damaged in the Blackout.”
“But you knowthe risks. You said you were trying to survive, just like me. How is putting yourself in danger like that survival?”
Ronin lifted his hand and scratched his cheek. Touching it with something other than the bare metal of his fingers was nearly as strange as the impulse to scratch in the first place.
He lowered his hand back to the table. “It’s survival because I’m still moving. Existence is a constant battle, and I choose to engage it on my own terms. If I were to stay in a place like this all the time, at some point, I’d sit down and never get up again.”
“Because you feel like you have no purpose.”
Her words flared across his processors like a physical blow. A second passed; three seconds; fifteen.
It was half a minute before he formulated a response. “I never said that.”
