“It’s the only thing that matters now.” Her thumb traced the map’s faded colors. “I have to get there. I can’t let them down.”

“It is your purpose,” Ceeron said.

Emma glanced up. “What?”

Ceeron gestured to SkD and me. “Our purpose is to install solar panels. Yours is to reach the red dot.”

A smile flickered across the human’s features. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

She returned the map to her backpack. Rising to her feet, she gave us an intense look. Her movements had a new energy. And I did not think it was entirely from the protein cube.

“Well, then.” She clapped her hands together. “Probably shouldn’t keep my purpose waiting.”

SkD spun in a circle, its screen flashing with exclamation points.

Ceeron pointed us in the correct direction. “Let us smack the road!”

00101010

The forest opened up and revealed a view of the mountains. The sight brought my movements to a halt.

These mountains hung like a curtain in the background of my life. I had seen them so many times.

Every single day.

For over twelve years.

But never like this.

Never so large.

The mountains swallowed more of the sky than they ever had before. Had they grown?

For 0.001 seconds, I thought there was an error in my visual settings. Then I realized.

The mountains were not bigger.

They were closer.

I was a highly advanced machine. I should not have been bewildered by something so basic. I came preprogrammed with the concept of perspective: The nearer you are to something, the larger it appears.

So why the confusion?

I suppose it is simply the kind of trick a mind plays on its owner. Even when that mind is made of circuitry, even when its owner is made of metal.

If you change your point of view, you see the world in a different way.

I began walking again.

With every step, the mountains seemed to grow larger.

00101011

We crossed an open field. Tall grass swayed around my knees and nearly engulfed SkD completely. I could see only the top of the smaller robot poking above the sea of green.

Now that we had left the shade of the forest, Emma squinted in the bright glare of sunshine.

She shielded her face with her hand. “I had no idea the sun could be this . . . sunny.”

My vocabulary drive pinged with a word I had never needed to know until this moment. Sunburn. Most humans could withstand several minutes/hours in direct sunlight before their skin burned. But what about a human who had lived her entire life underground? Who had only ever felt the light of sunlamps? It might take only a few minutes.

Spots of Emma’s pale skin were already turning red.

I peered ahead. The field stretched forward for over a kilometer. Shade was still a long way off.

As I was searching for a solution, Ceeron spoke up.