Amy hated the feeling of waking drenched in sweat, but as long as she chose to live in an abandoned house without electricity, she just had to get used to it. Still, it was difficult to sleep while the room was so stuffy, and to make it worse, she was sleeping in the attic instead of the bottom floor because a flood had ruined the house, which was the reason it had been abandoned. The walls of the bottom floor were rotting and covered in mold, and the attic was the only place to escape from the terrible smell.

Amy opened her ears. There was the familiar sound of sandpaper scraping against plastic. Rain had been pounding against the roof, but it seemed to have stopped while she had been sleeping.

Amy yawned and stretched her arms. She put her hands behind her back, and she pushed herself upright. The attic was a large enough space for two sleeping cots, a couple of shelves full of robot parts and tools, and a big table with two chairs, where Geordi and Scotty were sitting. A butane lamp had been hung over the table to illuminate the space. The spine and shoulders of a robot rested on the table. Geordi was scraping the edges of a plastic upper torso with some sandpaper, and Scotty sat on the opposite end of the table, soldering microchips, diodes, and other things to a computer board with a cordless iron.

The two of them were working so diligently on their project that Amy wondered if it would be okay for her to bother them.

"Ah, good morning—day—whatever," Amy said.

They both turned to her.

"Oh, did we wake you?" Geordi asked, setting down her plastic torso.

"No, no, it's time for me to get up, anyway."

Amy found a black wheelchair leaning against the wall beside her cot. She dragged it closer to her, making sure it was at an angle instead of placing the wheel flat against the cot, and then she set her foot on the footplate before she swung her body into the seat. After she readjusted herself in the wheelchair, she went to the table to take a closer look at the robot parts on the table.

"These are security android parts, aren't they?" Amy observed. "They're metal."

"Yes, we found them today," Geordi said, but her skin turned ashen as she spoke.

"Oh, that's right. You went to Indianapolis today to get some parts."

"I wanted to find some metal casing because I wanted to build a stronger robot. I didn't find everything I wanted, but I can make due with what I have."

"Did someone ask you to build one like that for them? These kinds of machines are normally really expensive."

"No, no one *asked* me to make it. I just wanted to."

"Just for the challenge, huh?"

Geordi shrugged her shoulders, and she gave a small smile. It looked forced, and she somehow turned even paler.

"Yeah, I just wanted to do it," she repeated, and then she picked up the plastic torso again and went back to sanding its edges.

"Are you all right?" Amy asked. "You don't look like you're feeling very well."

"Ah, well—"

"A lot happened while we were up there," Scotty added when Geordi's voice trailed off.

Amy went back and forth between their faces. Scotty continued to work on his computer board, and Geordi paused from sanding to nervously rub an old scar on her neck.

"Do you mean something bad?" she asked.

Geordi told Amy about Scotty hacking into the camera system to shut them down for a short time, and then she explained how they had to avoid the big combat prototypes.

"War machines?" Amy repeated. "Why in the world would they be testing war machines? And at a recycling plant of all places!"

"Indiana likes to waste money," Scotty said. "That's why."

"They weren't that big of a deal to us, anyway," Geordi said. "They didn't catch us or anything while we were there."

"Okay, so what did happen, then?"

"We were running around the building trying to avoid the combat units, but we—well, we stumbled across a dead body."

Amy gasped, covering her mouth with her hand, but as she watched Geordi's eyes fill with tears, she wrapped her arms around her. Geordi returned the gesture, and she pressed her face into Amy's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Geordi. That must have been so scary."

"It was."

"You didn't see what happened, did you?" Amy asked, pushing away from Geordi to look at Scotty as well.

"No, we didn't see what happened to them.

"Do you want to talk about it? Both of you?"

"No, no, I'm fine. This helped, and Scotty helped, too. I'm not sure I would have made it home without him."

Amy went to Scotty's side, and she put a hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you, Scotty, for helping Geordi today—all the time, actually," she said. "The two of us owe you a lot."

"You guys have helped me through a lot, too," Scotty said, shrugging.

"Do you need to talk about this?"

"I'm fine. Seeing that person there didn't have the same impact on me as I'm sure it did Geordi."

Amy realized he must have been referring to the incident from two years ago when they had witnessed a man break into their home and kill Amy's parents. They had managed to escape with their lives, but it was only because their mother had distracted the killer. Geordi must have been replaying the scene over and over again in her head—ever since she had seen that body.

The three of them went silent. Geordi swiped at her eyes, and she went back to sanding the plastic torso for her android. Scotty had never stopped working on soldering pieces to the computer. Amy watched them work, wishing there was more she could do to help them.