"How you feeling?" Dotty asked when she saw the android's eyes flicker faintly.
The android only responded with a slight motion of his head. His body was stretched along the floor of the vehicle and the girl beside him held a portable battery that one of those strange robots had given her. A thin cable connected the battery to the nape of T1N's neck.
"You'll be better soon," Dotty whispered. She stroked his forehead. "We almost didn't make it out of there."
Through a porthole in the side of the vehicle, Dotty gazed over tops of the domes. Those strange protrusions covered the entire surface of the moon. Tubular airways connected them all, tangling them in an unending network. The double dawning of the binary sun stained the city in tones of violet. In the other direction, the enormous rings of the gas giant Edo bisected the heavens.
Dotty had only seen the city from the outside once before, just before thThe figure turned towards Dotty and lifted her hood. The first thing that struck Dotty as the hood came off was the girl's skin: it was so pale that it seemed to give off light, like Earth's moon reflecting the sun. Her fringe was cut in a straight line at the level of her piercing eyes and the rest of her smooth black hair was bundled into a ponytail on the top of her head. She was only a child. In one of her hands she held a small drum made from scavenged wood. It was painted red with balls that dangled on string to strike it.
"Did you arrive on the last ship?" the girl asked Dotty, her eyes wide. She kneeled beside her companion and stroked his forehead. He was coming-to.
Dotty nodded. "And where did you come from? You live here?"
"Well… yes." The girl chewed her lip.
"Why did you guys attack me?" She waved an arm towards the spear that lay a few metres from them.
The deformed man? Boy? On the floor started to tremble. His head really was enormous. It must have been three times normal size. His scalp looked like the skin of a pumpkin, lumpen with boils and scars, and his eyes and nose were so small that they were lost in all that skin. Below his right eye he had a swelling, darkening, where Dotty had hit him. A few scant tufts of hair sprouted in seemingly random places.
"This is Caza. He's my brother. I'm Miso. We're sorry that we hurt you. We weren't expecting to come across anyone here. Especially a new arrival."
"My name is Dorothy." She relaxed and shuffled over to sit with them. "But you can call me Dotty. Sorry for hitting you."
"Caza in pain. Caza sorry too for cut your shoulder," replied the young man with more sadness than anger. It was difficult to believe that, after a punch like that, he was already getting to his feet.
"Does it hurt?" asked Miso, nodding towards the bloodstained hand that held her shoulder. "The elder should take a look at it. You're bleeding a lot."
Dotty moved her hand away and studied the open wound. It looked bad. The blade had sunken deep into the skin, despite the fact it didn't reach the bone. For a moment, it seemed as if the floor shifted beneath her feet. She rubbed her forehead, staining it with blood.
"Forgive Caza," he said, picking up his spear. "Caza only want to hunt monsters. Show he big man already."
"Let's go back to the camp. Elder Bour, our leader, he'll know what to do for you." The girl stood up, walked over to Dotty, and offered her hand. "I'm glad it was us that found you and not the leapers."
As they were limping towards the light at the end of the tunnel, they heard that familiar ringing behind them.
Cling, cling, cling
Miso span around and pointed into the darkness behind them. "There, Caza! They followed us!"
"What?" asked Dotty.
It was one of the monsters. She could just make out its outline from the glittering metal crusted into its hide as it scrambled down that ladder she herself had descended only a short while before. But, where Dotty climbed down onto the floor, the creature scuttled onto the roof, hanging its jaws down towards them.
Dotty raised her rifle, struggling to point the barrel at that thing, but Caza stepped in front of her. He charged at it with his spear and gave it a fierce gash along the side. The point sank deep into its flesh and pinned the monster to the wall.
The monster wasted no time in responding. It unpeeled one claw from the ceiling, caught the boy through his overalls, and sent him flying into the opposite wall. A shower of plaster came down around him, and Caza slumped to the floor.
Dotty, now that her line of sight was clear, squeezed the trigger. The rifle spat out a bolt of plasma that splattered the creature across the four walls of the tunnel. Caza was covered in viscous slime.
"Woah!" cried Miso. But her smile didn't last long. "There's another," she said.
Dotty squinted her eyes trying to make it out in the darkness. Miso was right! Another was coming down the ladder. This time she was ready. She aimed for the head and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing happened.
"Shit!" shouted Dotty. She squeezed the trigger again and again, but the gun wouldn't fire. She had wasted too much time. The creature was already in front of her.
It reared up on its hind legs. Each of its four front claws rained down on her with increasing fury.
Dotty swerved from side to side, diving out of its way, head still swimming. She stumbled and scrabbled backwards on hands and feet, the creature's claws coming ever closer to their target.
It was too fast. She knew that eventually one of those claws would hit her. And then one did. It tore through her suit like a scalpel, burying into her stomach. Her pained cry echoed down the passageway.
With the claw still impaling her, the creature brought its head in close, those awful jaws spreading wide. It showed off those long, sharp, needlelike teeth and from the darkness beyond that emerged that horrible tusk— the same one that had drunk her aunt and uncle dry as firewood.
Is this really how it ends? She thought. I die here in this tunnel? Aunty! Uncle! T1N…
She screamed internally.
Ignoring the searing pain of her stomach, she seized the protruding appendage with both hands and pulled with all her strength. The suit circuits that ran along her arms flashed as she was filled with superhuman power. She kept pulling until she dragged the root of the tusk out of the creature's mouth.
It leapt backwards, tearing its claw free from her stomach, and began to pound its head against the walls of the tunnel in its agony. The removed organ still twitched in Dotty's hands.
She threw it as far away from her as she could.
That metal head still beat against the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, sending off sparks and clumps of cement with every impact, but it was finally put out of its misery as Caza stabbed it through the throat.
Dotty's whole world was spinning now. Her forehead was burning and her face was dripping with sweat. A sickening smell filled her nose and mouth. She tried to roll over so that she could vomit, but she only managed to flop onto her front before passing out completely.e Hermes marooned her on the landing platform. Running away from her first monster, she didn't have much time to take in the views.
Now she knew what those colossal metal shells held inside: absolutely nothing. Nothing more than the ruins of a cursed city. It was a glittering chest with no treasure inside to offer. Just like some people, she thought.
"Where are we going?" the android asked her in a fading voice.
"I don't know." The girl's tangled and filthy hair covered her face. "These guys haven't told me anything." She pointed to the robots who sat frozen against the wall. Their eyes were nothing more than large nuts fitted with lenses of improvised glass. Their gazes were fixed on the floor.
"Can you move, T1N?"
"I think so."
The android tried to get up but he fell onto his back.
"I need a bit more time," he said, looking at the battery in her lap. "It's lucky they had that gizmo lying around. It's almost as if they were waiting for me."
The android smiled but Dotty was concentrating on the landscape.
"Listen, Dot. Thank you for getting me out of there. If it hadn't been for you—"
"If it hadn't been for me?" she cut in. "If it hadn't been for you I wouldn't have even made it off the ship. Now I know you saved me from that first monster, and if you hadn't I couldn't have paid you back. But you know what annoys me most?"
"I don't"
"Out of all the passengers, you saved me. Out of everyone on that ship, me, probably the one who deserved it least of everybody."
"What are you saying? Don't talk like that."
But Dotty continued, "It was my fault that my aunt and uncle even came to Eidolon. I didn't want to admit it, but now I see clearly." She looked at the android and her eyes were glistening. "I didn't want to come! But I was making things too difficult for them on Earth. There wasn't a single school on the planet that would accept me, as much as my uncle tried to buy favour with every headteacher he could. T1N—" she paused and dug her thumbs into her thighs. "I'm a problem. Wherever I go, trouble follows. It's not something I can control… It's just something that happens." She sobbed. "I don't get on with people and they don't get on with me. I know there's something wrong with me, something broken, but I don't know what it is…"
A tear crawled tentatively down her cheek. She hid her face in her hands and cried with her back to the android.
T1N came to her and touched her shoulder. "Come on, Dot…"
"They took me away from Earth just so they didn't have to make excuses for me anymore!" She was still crying. She took a moment to control her breathing. "Don't you get it? They were ashamed of me and I just disappointed them over and over again!"
"Calm down," he whispered, looking her in the eyes. "You're a good girl. Anyone else in your position would have given up a long time ago."
Dotty dried her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Sorry, Tin Can." Her eyes were red and puffy. "I don't usually cry. It's been a long time since…"
"Don't worry. We're a team, right? You can count on me to always be by your side. Can I count on you?"
Dotty nodded and broke his gaze to look out of the porthole again.
The vehicle passed close to a landing platform. The platform was so covered in those creatures that she couldn't even see the floor. It seemed as if they were meeting here, as if they were waiting for something. Some were lying down, others running in circles, and there were more climbing out of the tunnels and over the surface of the domes.
"Oh god! There's hundreds!"
"They're gathering," replied T1N. "The city must be completely infested with them."
Dotty watched the android, who was once again fighting to get to his feet.
"What's your rush?"
"I need to get up, but I can't with only one hand."
T1N stared at his severed arm, lying on the floor. Dotty had picked it up in the hope they might find a way to reattach it, despite how much damage it had sustained.
"Maybe where we're going they can fix you up."
"I think we're about to find out." He managed to rock himself forward onto his knees.
Dotty lifted T1N's remaining arm over her shoulder. She felt the cold metal of his skin against the back of her neck.
"If not, no big deal." Dotty smiled at him. "We're all missing something in this world, Tin Can."
T1N nodded in silence and closed his eyes. The hypnotic beating of the rotors gave way to a moment of silence.