G B♭ G

<<F#-F# D F#>>

“I don’t understand.” Kenneth spun from the keyboard to his notebook as the little robot looked at him as expectantly as an expressionless robot could. “One more time?”

<<F#-F# D F#>>

His left hand feathered through the unsorted glossary he’d been haphazardly adding to while his right hesitantly played the four notes on the piano. It didn’t match anything he’d written down so far. Kenneth sighed and wrote down “Who went with him? F#-F# D F#.” Maybe eventually he’d find out what it meant.

Kenneth peered out the window– while the explosions and destruction seemed to have missed this town, the shockwaves had broken a lot of the glass. It had been the lack of any populace, however, that had thrown him off the most when he’d first gotten back from his camping trip. At first he’d assumed there’d been some kind of round-up after the initial attack, but when he’d investigated some of his neighbors houses, it was harder to believe that whoever had enforced it had made sure to round-up every single goldfish and snail in Mr. Johnston’s fish tank. Charles would have made some joke about there being a fish rapture.

The lack of people had come in handy, though, as he and the little robot searched for his family. In the towns further away from his own, the water still ran and the streets weren’t as dangerous to walk on. <<C-E-C-C#-C>>-- ‘caution’, or perhaps ‘look out’-- was the first non-name word that Kenneth had understood from the little robot, who seemed to be able to sense instinctively which bits of road and sidewalk were unstable before Kenneth could. Now that they were farther away from the epicenter of the damage, the houses were intact enough to shower, to eat, to wash his clothes. Finding the piano had been a god-send too– enough so that Kenneth had stayed in this house longer than he had any of the others. Still though. It had been four days and their missing hosts were almost out of Cheerios. It might be time to move on.

“What do you think, little buddy? Should we stay with the piano so I can figure you out more or should we keep moving and find Charles?”

The little robot beeped at him musically, a pattern Kenneth hadn’t heard before, and Kenneth sighed. When Charles had first shown him the little robot, Kenneth had told him that it was an impractical system, to make it capable of understanding speech but incapable of responding with it.

Charles had rolled his eyes, and hummed a few notes to the robot, who immediately rolled over to Charles’ tablet and brought it to him.

“You could have just as easily said ‘Bring me my tablet’ or signed it or something.”

<<Robot speaks my language>> Charles had tapped out.

“Nobody speaks the robot’s language, though.”

The robot, in seeming response to Kenneth, beeped at them both, and Charles laughed. Kenneth rocked from foot to foot. He was always a little uneasy in Charles’ room. They’d shared when they were kids– just easier to check on twin toddlers at the same time– but when they’d gotten older and bigger, their parents had given them their own space. Now, the space was covered with wires and blueprints and books that Charles never put away, and the clutter seemed to edge Kenneth out. Charles had hummed three notes at the robot, followed by two sharper, shorter notes. The little robot had turned towards Kenneth and repeated the three notes in its uncanny, mechanical voice– <<G B♭ G>>

<<Your name>> Charles had tapped.

“Mine?”

<<Kenneth>>

“No, I know my own name. I just still don’t get why you couldn’t have it just say my name normally. It’s just a recording anyway.”

Charles had huffed, which had been Kenneth’s cue to leave him alone. He’d left for his camping trip two days later without knowing anything more about the little robot.

It was almost like it had been waiting for him, when he returned to his devastated and scorched house. He’d initially raced from room to room, drowning in both relief and dread at not finding any sign of his parents or his brother. Once Kenneth had found no sign of his family, however, he was a little more cautious, investigatory. When he fully walked into what was left of his brother’s room, he was met with the three tones of his name and the little robot’s unblinking eyes.

It’d been them ever since, from house to house and then from town to town. Kenneth didn’t have perfect pitch like his brother. Neither did he have access to what all the tones and notes the little robot could make meant. To the little robot’s credit, it would answer any question Kenneth asked, although he only really understood the answer when it was a yes or a no. Charles was alive, Kenneth knew, and the little robot knew where he went. The little robot had less knowledge about his parents, although when Kenneth had asked if they were alive, it hadn’t said no.

Kenneth flipped back through his notebook and paused at Charles’ name– <<B♭G B♭>>, the inverse of his own. He’d only figured that out once they’d found a house with an intact piano. It felt significant somehow although, like every communication now, he wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.

<<G B♭ G>> hummed the robot, tearing Kenneth out of his reverie. The little robot did that sometimes, if he was quiet and still for too long.

“Yeah, sorry.” Kenneth stuffed the notebook in his backpack– he couldn’t focus on it right now. He should’ve asked Charles if the language had a grammatical structure or if it was just a collection of encoded vocabulary words. He should’ve asked Charles all it could understand of human language, whether it could generate responses based on new data. He should’ve asked how he could have helped Charles with the little robot instead of rolling his eyes and leaving without saying goodbye.

Kenneth pursed his lips. It wouldn’t help to dwell on all the things he should have done better.

“And Charles is out there? Charles is alive?”

<<A C>> beeped the little robot, and Kenneth didn’t have to check the piano or his notes to know that it was a yes. The little robot trilled after that, a complicated run of notes and rests that Kenneth was nowhere close to understanding, and the silence that followed seemed to frustrate them both.

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out together.”

<<A C>> agreed the little robot, followed by <<C-E-C-C#-C>> as Kenneth swung his backpack onto his back, tucked the little robot under his arm, and stepped through the broken window back onto his journey.