Maggie's Reanimation (Part 3/3)

	She sat in the passenger seat and did not say a single word the whole drive home. The few times I was able to glance over at her, she was staring out the window at the passing buildings and trees. I couldn't blame her, given the hard news thrown her way. If YOU woke up after a hundred years and were told everyone you knew died decades ago, would you be in the mood to talk?
	The call could not have come at a better time. Sarah, my darling wife, had been nagging me to clean the garage for the past few days. That morning, I sucked it up and went over to do it, and less than five minutes later, she ran out and told me Marty was on the line. I held the phone to my ear and expected him to tell me Avery's internal fan was fixed, given that I dropped her off the day before, but what he told me made me sprint to my car. He said that my "special order" was finally ready.
	When I got to the shop, I saw a bald-headed metal nandroid in the waiting room wearing only a RISD hoodie surrounded by Marty and the other bots. Odd, I thought, I distinctly remember dropping off a mahogany table in a trash bag. As he quietly brought me up to speed, I overheard the girls practically interrogating the poor droid with thousands of questions she couldn't easily answer.
	"What's your name?" one asked.
"...It's Maggie," she mumbled, confused.
	"What's the last thing you remember?" a different voice chimed in.
"I... I was being wound down for... the trip to Oregon. Mister was moving there... and I was going with."
	"What year was it then?" the first questioner again asked.
"18... Late March... 1882. What year is it now?"

	From the backseat, Avery tried to lighten the mood.
"This century has a lot of cool stuff to check out, Mags! I think you wouldn't be so down if you were to see it all!"
	No response.
"Were you involved in the Civil War? There's a great museum in Mass we could take you to!"
	Silence.
"Give it a rest, Avery. She's still coping with the big change'a scenery," I told her.
	"Hmph, just tryin' to help is all," she grumbled in that moody tone I was accustomed to.
	I should explain something: Avery is not MY droid, she's my neighbor's. I'd have to sell my house to even afford an obsolete model!
	Two years ago, I saw this clean-cut rich kid move in across the street, and by appearance alone, I expected him to be a spoiled brat who looks in the mirror too much. I thought I was proven right when I walked over to welcome him to the neighborhood, and he rudely shooed me away! It took him just shy of am hour later to come over and apologize, claiming the move put a lot of stress on him. He brought his nandroid with him and introduced her to Sarah and I, which I thought was odd, given that he lived alone. By this point, I had seen the Sterling commercials on TV hundreds of times, seen many on the streets of Providence and Charleston, and even made small talk with a few at the grocery store... yet I had never come across a bot that dressed or acted like this one. She wore a belly-exposing top and short athletic shorts that I caught my wife frowning at, a far cry from those light blue dresses you always see them wear. On top of that, her red hair was unkempt and her snarky attitude reminded me of my kids when they each turned 14.
	Despite Sarah's comment: ("He's screwing that thing, without a doubt!") after they left, I invited them over for our barbeque the following week. I talked to the kid over a cold beer and found out that he took over his father's high paying management position at a power plant in Warwick after he retired. His droid, Avery, had been in his family as far back as he could remember, and as the years passed, he unintentionally molded her from a posh nanny into his tomboyish best friend. Not to judge or anything, but when I looked in his eyes while he was talking about her, I could tell Sarah's remark was true.
	A few months after that, he received another promotion that increased work hours along with pay, which left her rare maintenance appointments in my hands. It wasn't much trouble at all. About every half a year, some part might need to be fixed or replaced, so he'd leave it to me to drop her off at Marty's along with a check. Now if I had to pay for every visit, then there'd be a friggin' problem.

	We got back to my house just before 9. With any luck, the pot of coffee in the kitchen would still be warm. What broke Maggie out of her trance was seeing Avery and I open our doors and step out into the morning air. She fumbled with her handle for a second before doing the same and walking over to us outside, still silent.
	"Thanks for picking me up, chief!" Avery said to me, half turned towards her house.
"Eh, it was no prahblem, but tell what's-his-face he owes me, awright?"
	Her eyes briefly looked behind me before she flashed a grin and suddenly sprinted over. In a split second, her lips collided with my hairy cheek like a car crashing into a brick wall.
	"Hey!" Sarah's voice barked from the porch, "That's enough, Avery! Go on home now!"
She snickered like an idiot as she turned around and left, guaranteeing I'd be given the cold shoulder for a while.

	A few hours later, I was sitting at the kitchen table and watching the small TV on the counter. To be specific, it was a rerun of an old Dukes of Hazzard episode; just something to keep me entertained while I ate lunch. Then, out of nowhere, a sheepish female voice snuck up behind me.
	"What is that?"
	I spun around and Maggie was standing there, still wearing only a sweatshirt and pointing at the tiny screen. My eyebrows shot up in surprise to finally see her talking again, and I gulped down my sandwich bite to reply.
	"What, the TV?" I asked while smirking and directing my thumb at it.
She nodded without taking her big eyes off it.
	"...A TV, is it? It's... mesmerizing. How does it work?"
I scratched a mild itch on the top of my head and tried to think of how to explain such a thing.
	"Uh... there ah stations that send out video signals that are received awn the screen, like a radio. You know what that is, right?"
	She finally looked at me...
"A radio? No."
	...And then her eyes returned to the screen. The conversation stopped for a few minutes while we both watched the show. 'Them Duke boys' were in the middle of another off-road car chase, and during the exciting sequence, she inched over, slowly pulled out the chair next to me and sat down. As soon as the commercial break hit, I stood up to put my dirty plate in the sink.
	"The have a rebel flag on the top of their carriage," she commented aloud.
"Yeah, well, the show takes place in Geawgia," I replied, "Did you notice that when they jumped ovah the rivah, their cah hawn played Dixie?"
	Hearing that last word made her blink several times. "Dixie," she repeated to herself with a growing frown, "...I had a friend years ago named Dixie, but she's most likely broken by now."
	"Broken?" I asked, wondering if I might have misheard.
"Yes, I said broken. She was a nandroid that belonged to my owner's son-in-law. He was a general in the Confederate army during the Civil War, and she somehow managed to serve alongside him."
	No way.
	That was too specific for her not to be talking about anyone else. I was already suspicious when I heard her friend's name was "Dixie", but her description just confirmed what I thought. I promptly switched the TV off and sat down directly across from her.
	"Hold on, you knew THE Dixie? The most famous robot in American history?!"
She scoffed and grinned only slightly, not knowing the reason behind my reaction.
	"Yes I did... So? Did she gain more notoriety while I was away?"
"No, it's just..." Something obvious then dawned on me. I sped over to the phone on the edge of the counter and said, "Boy, do I have a surprise for you!"
	I gestured her over while my finger went to work on the keypad.

>A lot had changed since her "birthday" back in July
>Only a few days following it, there was a knock at the door, and you couldn't believe who you saw on your doorstep
>It was Mom, who swiftly hugged you and sincerely asked for forgiveness
>She was vague about the details, but she suffered some kind of near-death experience on the 7th
>Reminded of how easily life can be taken away, she felt she had to mend all her broken relationships in order to secure her place up above when the inevitable happens
>After you, Dixie was next in line to be apologized to, and though she was hesitant at first, she eventually forgave Mom too
>And just like that, the Ardwick family was whole again... but not exactly
>Every once in a while, there'd be a disagreement between Dixie and Mom that would reach an unreasonable volume, but it would happen MUCH less often and be not nearly as loud as before
>To name a specific argument, Mom's new puritanical religious beliefs clashed with the noticeable "upgrades" Dixie had gotten while she was away, so much so that you had to act as an arbiter to solve it
>As a compromise, Dixie reluctantly emptied them of almost half the liquid inside, shrinking them down to a modest size that rarely got a second glance
>Unfortunately for Mom, neither she nor Dad ever found out about Dixie's 'other' upgrade that wasn't so easily seen

>Anyway, you were silently sitting in your usual corner of the sofa with your feet kicked up on the coffee table
>You had to read a decent chunk of a book's chapters for the class discussion tomorrow, which by that time, had already eaten up a half hour of your morning
>You were only skimming through the paragraphs, though; just enough to understand the basic plot points
>Mom was napping on the other side of the couch, and when the phone rang in the kitchen, the noise somehow didn't wake her up
>Five seconds passed and it was still ringing, despite you last remembering Dixie walking into that room minutes ago
>"Dixie, could you get that?" you half-whispered at the doorframe
>She didn't reply, but the phone's persistent alarm did
>With a sigh, you stood up, dropped the book on the table open-side down, and trudged into the kitchen
>Grabbing the phone and holding it to your ear, your "Hello?" was welcomed by a familiar voice
>"Hey, Anawn!" Dave greeted from the other end, "How've you been, champ?"
>"Oh, hey, Dave! I've been doing pretty okay la-"
>"Sahrry, but is Dixie theah?" he interrupted, "I have someone heah that would really like to tawk to her!"
>"Yeah, hold on," you said before lowering the phone and leaning towards the staircase
>"Hey, Dixie! Dave's on the phone and he wants to talk to you!"
>"...Be right down, hon!" a yell echoed from the upstairs hall
>A couple seconds later, she flew down the steps and into the room, her shrunken upgrades hardly swaying with each stride
>You were initially disappointed to see them decrease in size, but you grew to find her more appealing somehow, as if her proportions now matched a human woman of similar height
>Accepting the phone from your hand, she held it up and put on a smile that he couldn't see
>"Afternoon, Dave!" she greeted, "What can I do for ya?"
>"Uh, you remembah that old wooden droid I bawght a few months ago at that antique shop?"
>"Sure do!" she immediately answered, "What happened? Did you ever get her workin'?"
>"Funny you should ask... She's right here next to me and she wants to tawk to you!"
>"Well then," she said while chuckling, "by all means, put her on!"

	"Just talk into the bottom part," I whispered to Maggie as she carefully took it. Mirroring what I did, she held it up to where an ear would be. I reminded her, "The Dixie you know's on the other end."
	Her eyes widened as she opened her mouth, but not a word escaped her mouth. "Hello? Is she on the line?" asked a tinny female voice from the receiver. Her pupils nervously bounced all around the room, and after a wordless moment, she shamefully handed the phone back to me.
	"She won't recognize my voice," she frantically whispered, "I can't break this news to her through audio alone! I need to meet her in person!"
"I won't recognize WHOSE voice?" Dixie quietly probed, "Who's there?"
	I tried to calm both the bots down at once; one with a waving gesture and the other with my words. "Eh, she got cold feet. Guess she doesn't wanna tawk right now, sahrry to say."
"This some kinda joke, Dave?"
	"-No, no, it isn't! Look, I'll bring her alawng with me when I visit in Decembah! That okay?"
She sighed, "Sure, but I hope she can talk to me at least once in the meantime. Did you get her name at least?"
	"Yeah, her name's Ma-" Suddenly, something out of the corner of my eye ripped the phone right out of my hand. "Dixie, it's me, Maggie!" she shouted into it.
"...Maggie?" the bewildered Southron on the other end mumbled, "...That wooden nandroid at the pawn shop was YOU?"

	She was on that kitchen phone with her old friend for almost two hours before she had to hang up for her own battery's sake. Before ending the call, she promised Dixie that she would continue the conversation tomorrow. She made good on that promise, and by the end of the week, she had become a completely different bot than the one I retrieved on Sunday morning. She was no longer in a state of permanent shell-shock, and she now sported a long reddish-blonde wig on her formerly bald head.
	Sarah came to enjoy her company just as fast as I did, surprisingly. With both our kids in college, I guess it felt nice to have someone else in the house to talk to and spend time with. She'd often accompany us at dinner and tell stories of the war: her nandroid regiment, her Colonel who mysteriously collapsed and died at Antietam, her time in Andersonville, etc.
	Don't tell her I said this, but I think she's a little better at telling these stories than Dixie. The latter has a little more of a hazy memory about her war experience, but I can forgive that, with her brain having 125 years of information crammed into it.

	Maybe I'll take Maggie down to Carolina before December, just so she can see her friend earlier...

THE END