The other place called H.O.M.E.

"Home is a little green house in the midwest in 2001. It's a place in the past. It doesn't exist anymore." Heather said, a little uncertain. She wanted a soda.

"This guy lived in a greenhouse?" Greg said, pretending not to understand. He was a robot. He understood almost everything.

"Yeah, he was a plant. Didn't I tell you?" Heather replied sarcastically. She kept touching her throat as if that would help her thirst.

"Is that right? It doesn't sound right." Greg said absentmindedly while typing into a computer terminal. His foot intermittently tapped on the ground. The lack of pattern bothered Heather.

"Could you stop that. It's annoying," Heather grumbled, "And, no. I'm not sure that's the exact quote. It's one of those things I found one day, thought it was cool, committed it to memory, but then forgot exactly how it went."

Greg planted his feet firmly on the ground, "So, when you say 'committed it to memory,' you mean..?" He let the question trail off.

Heather was not amused, "I mean I remembered the general shape of the quote, but no, not the exact quote word-for-word."

"You and I mean different things when it comes to the phrase, 'committed it to memory,'" Greg muttered, "I'll have to remember that, in case I need you to commit something like directions to memory." He looked up from the terminal and gave Heather a wry robot smile.

"Hardy, har, har." Heather said back playfully, but also irritated at him for not understanding this part of her personality.

"Welp," Greg said, leaning back in his chair, "I can't find anything about it in the computer's database. Maybe you made it up afterall."

"I definitely did not make it up."

"I don't know what to tell you, Featherweight, it's not in there." Featherweight was Greg's nickname for Heather. She did not like it. Heather was small and thin, and didn't like being reminded of this. She considered her size and stature a weakness, and it set off something primal inside her.

"Listen here, Go-bot," Heather shot back at Greg, "This place is supposed to have an archive of every literary work in the world. It was supposed to be like having the Internet"

Greg took a beat. He knew he had exacerbated the situation. The only thing he could think to do was be silent and smile at Heather.

"I'm going to get a drink," Heather said, storming out of the room.

Greg followed her as far as the hallway and called out after her, "I mean, I get what you're saying. Like, the sentiment behind the quote, I get it." He watched her round the corner into the kitchen. Greg went back to tapping his foot.

Heather walked into the kitchen with heavy footsteps. A voice from a loudspeaker politely addressed her, "Good afternoon, Heather. Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes. It's best not to snack until then."

"Shut up, Roger. I'm just grabbing a soda," Heather shot back at the voice. Roger was the facility's AI. It scheduled everything from meals to routine maintenance to Heather's work schedule. In a way, this made Roger Heather's manager.

The entire kitchen was an off-green color. All the walls were bare, with the exception of a large sign with blocky black letters that read:

YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO COMPLETE THE WORK, BUT NEITHER ARE YOU FREE TO ABANDON IT. THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE H.O.M.E.

This sign could be found in every room of the facility. It was so ubiquitous that Heather almost stopped seeing it.

"One soda coming right up," Roger said cheerfully. A small door in the wall slid open. It revealed a pneumatic tube and a landing tray. The sound of a powerful vacuum filled the kitchen and out of the tube plopped a can of soda. The vacuum sound died down to silence and the hum of the fluorescent lights. The can was silver with no brand markings. It was cool, but not cold.

"Thanks, Rog," Heather said, popping open the top and taking a few hefty gulps.

"You're welcome, Heather. See you later for dinner." Roger said as Heather exited the kitchen. She went to find Greg.

He was still in front of the computer terminal. Heather found him hunched over scanning through quotes. He was still searching for her lost quote.

"Hey." She said easing back into the conversation.

"Feel better?" He probed not looking up from the terminal.

"Blood sugar was definitely low."

"Is that all it was?"

Heather stopped to think about whether or not she wanted to get into this right now, and decided: Yeah, why not?

"I want you to imagine something," Heather said, gearing up to express her feelings.

Greg turned away from the computer to face her, "Ooo-kay, I'm ready."

"Imagine in front of you there were three buckets of water." Heather said, pointing to where the three imaginary buckets would be sitting.

Greg furrowed his robot brow. He didn't know where this was going.

"The bucket to your left is filled with ice water. The bucket to your right, hot water. Not scalding hot, but hot enough. And the bucket in the center has room temperature water."

Greg nodded and followed along. His AI raced through various definitions and memories. He was starting to understand.

Heather continued, "You stick your left hand in the ice water, your right hand in the hot water, and hold it in there for a minute. After the minute is up, you stick both into the bucket in the center."

"And the water feels both hot and cold at the same time, even though it's neither," Greg said feeling confident he now understood this little thought experiment of hers.

"That's how I feel about this place," Heather said getting to the heart of the matter, "If I never lived anywhere else, I don't think this place would bother me as much as it does. I remember what it was like to live in a city with people around and stuff to do, and to have the choice to go out and do that stuff, or to stay inside and ignore it. But then I look outside and see the wasteland this place is saving me from, and I can't help but appreciate being here. We'd all be dead otherwise."

The we all to which Heather referred was a couple thousand people in pods. Each of them asleep in suspended animation. A stasis, keeping them preserved for when the world will be habitable again.

"You could always visit some of the workers in other parts of the facility?" Greg offered.

Heather dismissed this suggestion with a wave of her hand.

Greg gathered his thoughts and tried again, "We've been here for five years, what sparked this?" he asked, genuinely wanting to know.

"I've felt this way the entire time. Maybe five years is my breaking point," she said with a shrug. "In the back of my mind, I had hoped that before I die the planet would somehow become fit to live in again. And I think part of me has given that up. It would be nice to at least go back and stand in what was once my home. I try to picture it. Place myself in my bedroom. Look around it. Smell my candles. See my cat." She finished the rest of her soda and balanced the empty can on the back of her hand.

"I didn't always live here," Greg said in response.

"What are you talking about? You're a robot. You were made to service this part of the facility."

"I'm an autobiography program, based on a real person."

Heather was shocked, "You never told me that."

"We're not supposed to share that part of our programming. But, yeah, I have all of Greg's memories. I can also picture where I ... Where he once lived."

"Not to get off topic, but where's actual Greg?"

"In a pod."

"Well, good for him," Heather said tossing the can toward the waste bin, barely making it in.

"Dinner is ready!" Roger called out from a loudspeaker embedded in the ceiling right above the sign with the blocky letters.

"What about Roger?" Heather asked.

"Him? No, he's only a set series of instructions, recipes, and hospitality catchphrases." Greg said, trying to make Heather laugh.

He got her to smile.

Heather stood up to walk to the kitchen, "It has been so long I don't even remember what H.O.M.E. stands for anymore," she joked.

"Habitable, something, something, Environment," Greg joked back.

Another smile.

"I wanted to read the quote -the exact quote- because it felt like if I could see someone else's words, someone else's thoughts and conclusions, about how there isn't really a home to go back to, it would make me feel better." Heather finally admitted.

Greg put his robot hand on Heather's shoulder, "Go eat. I have something I need to take care of."

*****************************

Heather was almost done with her dinner when the feeling of something brushing up against her leg scared her right out of her seat.

Stumbling backwards out of her chair, she looked to the ground to see what the hell that could have been.

A confused looking kitten stared back up at her.