The Cardellian Chronicles Book One: Clinging to Reality
Chapter 4

The three of them went to the house Benny and Alfia stayed in. They had found it by chance a few years ago after Benny had turned eighteen and took on the role of her legal guardian. They were able to buy it and fix it up with the money his grandparents had left the two of them when they died just a few months later. The outside didn’t look like much. Just an old, run down house with boarded up windows, broken shutters, chipped and faded paint that was mostly gone, leaving only aged and weathered wood, that needed more work than it was worth. What you couldn’t see was how Alfia and Benny had fixed it up so that it was structurally sound and would stay the way it was on the outside until their work became obsolete. But if you went inside, you could see whether or not the work that they did was any good. The walls were all painted and each room was simply decorated with plenty of things to lounge around in. Alfia dropped her backpack on the dining room table and toed off her shoes. Benny unzipped his hoodie and hung it on the back of one of the chairs before stretching his arms above his head. Alfia took off her hat and shook her fingers through her long mint hair, tilting her head to the side to watch Benny as he stretched, appreciating the way the hem of his t-shirt lifted enough to catch a glimpse of his stomach. Nathan looked at her with amusement. She thought that she must be very funny to him because that always seemed to be the way he looked at her.

“You hungry?” Benny asked, heading towards the kitchen.

“When am I not?” she replied, “I’m going to go take a shower.”

“Okay.”

Alfia went upstairs to her bedroom and into the bathroom that was connected to it. She slipped off her clothes and dropped them into the hamper that was in there before turning on the shower and ducking into it. She stepped out of the shower fifteen minutes later and grabbed her towel, dried off, and wrapped it around herself.

“My, my,” said a boy’s voice at the door, “Ain’t someone pretty.”

Alfia whirled, grabbing the gun she had under the counter of her bath room and turning to the intruder with it raised.

Nathan raise his hands in defense, “Easy there, Allie.”

She glared at him, not lowering the gun quite yet, “Where you watching me shower?”

“Now why would I do that?” he asked innocently.

She raised an eyebrow.

“No, I wasn’t.”

She put the gun back to where it had been before.

“What were you planning to do with that anyway? You can’t shoot me. It’ll go right through me,” he said.

“I could get the satisfaction.” she said simply. “What do you want, Nathaniel?”

“Oh, so we’re to full names now?”

“You’re in my bathroom when I just got out of the shower and am only wrapped in a towel. Yeah, I think full names would be good right now.” she said.

“Fair enough,” he walked in and jumped up to sit on the counter as Alfia started to go through her after-shower routine, “But in my defense, I can only be so far from the person I downloaded to.”

“I know. That’s why I’m not working on DeProgramming you right now.” she said simply, starting to put lotion on her legs.

She saw him visibly swallow, “We both know that you wouldn’t do that.”

“You sure about that?”

“You like me too much to DeProgramm me,” he said with a cocky smile.

“In your dreams.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be in my dreams tonight, Allie.”

“You do realize that flirting with me isn’t going to get you anywhere, right? You’re an A.I., Nathan. The only semblance of a relationship you could ever get would be imagining one,” She told him.

“I know,” he said, suddenly completely sober.

“And I have Benny,” she started

“Sort of,” he interjected.

She gave him a look, “My point is that you keep flirting with me like we could actually have a relationship. Why?”

“Because it’s fun to see you squirm. And to see you try to resist it,” he said, hopping off the counter he had been sitting on.

She frowned, “But I don’t have to try.” She put her lotion back and turned to do something else, jumping when Nathan was right there.

“Yes you do,” he said softly.

She took a step back, shaking her head, “No I don’t. I have Benny.”

“As a friend, maybe, but will you two ever be more? Will you ever be what you want to be with him?” He whispered, matching her steps.

She shook her head, “You’re an A.I., Nate. You can’t touch me,” she said softly, her back hitting the counter.

“I know,” he put his hands on the counter, trapping her between his arms.

“So why are you trying to kiss me?” she whispered.

He sighed and pulled away from her turning his back, “No reason. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” she hugged herself, not because he had scared her, but because she wasn’t sure how she would have reacted if he were human.

“Would you have let me if-- you know-- if things were different?” he asked, turning back to face her.

“You mean if you were human?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know.” She pulled in a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves, “I m-mean, I’ve on-nly known you f-f-for less than a day, Nate.”

He nodded again, “Yeah. I’ll let you finish getting dressed.”

He left the bathroom and Alfia let out her breath. It was strange, she thought. She could have sworn that she felt his warmth when he got closer. She pushed that thought aside. That was ridiculous. He wasn’t human. He was a hologram. She couldn’t even touch him. It was probably her system heating up like it did when she wanted to heat up her tea earlier. She found herself almost wishing that Nate was human. That made her question her feelings towards Benny. If she could like someone as quickly as she had started to with Nate, did she really care for Benny romantically? Or was he just safe? Familiar? Or maybe she was confusing a kind of sibling affection towards him as a romantic one. She shook her head, clearing those thoughts out of her mind. She had more important things to worry about than who she wanted to date. Besides, she was only eighteen. She didn’t need to worry about that for a long time, anyways. She didn’t even know if she wanted any kind of relationship. She let out a breath and continued getting ready.

When Alfia went downstairs again, Benny was at the door. She padded over to it barefoot and looked around him. She couldn’t see who he was talking to, so she went up behind him and put her hand on his back.

He stepped back and looked down at her with a smile, “Hey, Alfie.”

“Hi,” now being able to see who was there, she grinned, “Yes! Pizza’s here!”

Benny chuckled, “Excellent observation, shorty.”

She rolled her eyes and glanced over at the delivery guy, who was eyeing her with no shame. “Did you pay him, babe?”

He followed her gaze, “Not yet,” He reached for the two boxes of pizza and gave them to her, “Why don’t you take that to the dining room table?”

“M’kay,” She took them to the table and heard the delivery man ask Benny if that was his sister.

Benny’s deep voice carried a lot clearer to her, saying that no, it was his girlfriend, and unless he wanted to taste shoe for a week he take the money needed for the pizzas and be on his way. Alfia giggled to herself at the lie. But the threat wasn’t and empty one. The pizza man was lucky that that was all he got. Others had gotten worse for a lot less. Then again, the others had been their age or older. That guy looked like he was maybe sixteen. She opened the top box of pizza and grabbed a slice. As she held it up and was putting the end in her mouth, she heard Benny chuckle behind her. She turned to face him as she took a bite.

“You couldn’t wait for me before you started to eat?” he asked.

She shrugged and continued eating.

“Two pizzas so that Ben can eat one and a half of them?” Nate asked, lounging at the head of the table.

Alfia grinned and shook her head as Benny let out a full-belly laugh, “No, not me. Alfie. Don’t let her size fool you.”

Nate raised his eyebrows in surprise, “Really?”

She nodded, taking another bite of her pizza.

“Must be all that dancing,” he surmised.

She shrugged, “I just like food. Benny here eats like a bird, too.”

“You eat more than the average teenage boy,” Benny laughed.

“Hey, you know what they say: anything less than five slices is a snack.” she finished off her first slice and grabbed her second one.

Nate let out a surprised laugh, “He hasn’t even started his first slice!”

“And?” she asked, as though asking if there was a point to his observation.

Sure enough, Alfia ate an entire pizza and half of the second one. She also had about a half of a gallon of milk along with all the pizza. She and Benny talked and laughed as they ate, with her making him allow Nate to be a part of the conversation. He might not have been her favorite person-or even human- but A.I.’s had feelings, too. Besides, without Nate, they wouldn’t have known about the Virus, the Creator, and all the damage the two of them put together could do. Whether Benny liked it or not, the three of them were a team, temporarily or permanent.

After dinner, they all went and watched a film. It was old and had terrible visual effects, but it was one of Benny’s favorite’s. Alfia watched it, curled up in the corner of the couch, and made it through the majority of it before falling asleep, the side of her head falling against the back of the sofa.

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