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I think the pony she befriended became her closest friend, as she talked to it more than she did to me, on our day-long treks, feeding it treats. Our course was zigzag as I steered us from one farmhouse to the next. These were the former cornfields of Ohio, once so rich to America, now useless, but still interesting to travel through, especially for our horses. The houses and towns we stopped in overnight were merely a curiosity for all of us.

This slow-paced travel, this abundance of pure, empty nature, led me to think and discourse on the topic quite a bit. I led her on one long detour to acquire us fishing rods and all the gear associated. In the same Sport shop, I picked out two archery bows, compound sets, one her size and one mine, with quivers full of steel-tipped arrows and we practiced and finally hunted with ever more happiness in our growing success, shooting quail and a few rabbits for dinner.

It rarely happens in life that you enjoy an uninterrupted bond with another human being, where your knowledge is exactly suited to their improvement. In this case, with an intelligent twelve-year-old girl and my fund of knowledge this was it. Every lesson given was reciprocated with heartfelt thanks, a teacher's best reward. The underlying goal of all my lessons, which she saw, was that I was teaching her all the skills to become a competent adult in this strange world of ours, a survivor of an environment in which few other humans existed.

I'm guessing she grew a few inches taller in our long trek to the West coast. She certainly matured as we slowly traversed the Tetons and Rockies, loosely following the Missouri river. We were hunting deer by then and the bighorn mountain goats, climbing those steep hillsides, often successful, always improved in our stamina. I never mentioned 'pride' before, in all this long narrative, but one afternoon, when I saw her take an incredibly long shot that felled the wild goat, I couldn't help expressing my admiration. I guessed that in a few years and with more strength and practice, she might even become my better, which cheered my heart.

We spent the whole Spring in the Tetons and Rockies, most of our hours spent hunting. By evening it was a large campfire and dinner and after that I would tell her stories, of life before the deluge, of history and civilization at its finest, the rare characters that made it great. and she greatly appreciated these lessons. At least she listened attentively and asked questions, sometimes enticing me with them to continue my discourses late into the night. But the pleasure was as much mine as it was hers. Her personality matured with this influx of knowledge, of how good people treated each other in better times, when civility and generosity were the norms. I told her we still had all the material riches of past decades and with the right attitude and high-mindedness we could easily re-adopt such golden standards. It wasn't our surroundings that made some people feral, it was a sense of defeat and giving up. But there was no reason for this. The fact of our own survival made us the winners of this terrible war and designated us the founders of a new civilization.    

When we crossed the mountains and began our descent along the Columbia in eastern Washington, she knew we were getting close to our destination and her curiosity about our colony grew tenfold. As we ate our feast one night the inevitable question burst out:

"Sam," when we arrive in Oregon, are you going to forget me for all your friends back there?"

"No, of course not. I'll always keep you right by my side, whatever happens. I've had a few wives there and babies too, but you're the one daughter in my mind. If I really missed them, we would have driven back in a truck months ago. They're the people I chanced to find and collect. But most of them I would never befriend in the former world. We have little in common. I suppose Ted is the only one whom I consider a true friend, besides you. We'll be going off together soon again, after I show you the place, just you and me. We'll stay a few weeks, but I'll get bored. We can think of a new mission and with you along I'll be happy. Nothing else matters."

With that she gave me a hug, an act of unconditional affection. Life doesn't get any better. And I wondered at my own, strange confession. I couldn't think of her as anything less than a daughter, my protégé, the dearest thing to my heart. Whatever happened in the world from now on, even in a confrontation with Dora, I'd hold this young, innocent Kim right in front of me and say, "this is my child, the one we never had. Love her for me and accept her because that's the closest you'll get to my heart, a love we could share." I know that statement would make Dora's circuits spin, perhaps overload, the way I'd done so many times before with past statements, the crux of our strange relationship.

Back at the 'ranch' as I termed it, our fledging community, our arrival was met with hysterical joy. I'd been gone so long everyone thought I was dead. Sarah had returned with her cohort of troops and vehicles six months earlier. In that span she was able to traverse most of the interstates and cities South and East, wiping out every campus, every vestige of AI.

The surprise attack in Gainesville had transpired, just as we expected it would, with near total victory and six of Dora's robotic partners killed and the droid array eliminated. It was with conflicting emotions that I heard Sarah relate how Dora herself had somehow escaped, with one arm shattered, on a motorcycle, driving into swamplands to the south where they couldn't follow.

The rest of the continent was all our own, AI free.

Kim reveled in our farmland community, like a child invited to a huge birthday party. She joined in the simple chores of others her age and the frequent swimming breaks and games. She impressed the adults with her precocious talk and charms. She fully explained my long-delayed return to our valley host. All heads nodded at the wisdom of my choice of educating her in the wilds. But I kept her under my wing. I insisted that Kim join us in the after-dinner talks with Sarah and Ted and Hanah and a few others about our future course of action. I had a sort of untitled authority over our village, as the creator and founder of our clan, and my whims were never questioned, nor her presence by my side.

We stayed six months in the community. She was so happy I delayed my own yearnings to depart. But I did present her the choice finally, to leave with me on an unknown journey or stay behind. She instantly chose me, almost making me blush with pride, as if the education I had imparted had some effect, the one, heartfelt delight of a teacher.

I told her I had to finally discover the fate of Dora, to go in search of her with the help of Ted, in a truck full of electronic equipment, until the riddle was solved. It might be a quick trip, over in two weeks, or it might take years, but we had to know if the continent was free of the curse that had killed almost all of humanity. Deeper down, Kim knew I had to settle the matter of my love for Dora and her love for me. A girl at that age can easily perceive the deep pangs of a man's heart. And she was dying to know the outcome of this strange romance.    

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