Chapter Text
The sky had gone grey, which meant she'd been at this long enough for the night to end.
She'd be roasting soon. Damn.
Hours had slipped somewhere between the third and fourth pile of wreckage, and the cold had worked its way into her joints, a dull ache running through her servos and settling into the spaces between her plating. Her hands were streaked with oil, dark smears worked into every seam and groove.
Her jacket was beyond saving.
The pile in front of her still wasn't giving up anything useful, but she reached in anyway, past tangled cables, broken plating, and sharp edges that caught against her fingers, until her claws closed around something solid.
A cut-off arm.
She pulled it out, looked at it for a moment with no real interest, and tossed it over her shoulder. It hit the scrap behind her and settled somewhere in the snow. She kept digging.
"Seriously, J," she muttered, her voice rough from overuse, "you are such a damn glutton behind all that corporate stiff-assery."
Z shifted deeper into the dip, planting one hand against a slab of metal so she could lean farther into the pile. The slab shifted under her weight. She pulled back at once, found another place to brace, and reached in again. A cable looped around one claw, so she jerked it free and let it fall across her knee. Her jacket snagged when she leaned forward, giving her a sharp tug at the shoulder.
Z glanced down, then pulled herself loose without bothering to fix it. Not worth the effort.
Her hand disappeared into a knot of wires. She shoved some aside. More broken junk waited beneath, and that went behind her too, into the part of the snow she'd already turned over.
When the pile finally stopped pretending it had something to offer, she sat back and wiped one oily hand along her jacket. It was already so far gone that another smear hardly counted.
Her beanie had slipped back on her head, so she reached up with her cleaner hand and tugged it forward again, pulling the worn edge down over her extra optical sensors where it belonged.
Most of the wreckage had been picked through. She could feel the futility of it now, not as some grand realization, but as that irritating little thought that kept coming back whenever her claws closed around another useless piece of scrap.
One foot found a solid chunk of metal, and she pushed herself out of the dip. A servo ground when she stood. She paused, shoulders hunched, letting the stiffness burn itself down, then rolled one shoulder, then the other. Better.
The next pile sat only a short stretch of open snow away, though getting there meant picking her way across the mess between them. She stepped over a loose limb, tested a sheet of bent metal with one boot before trusting it, then reached firmer snow on the other side. A length of cable from the last pile caught around her ankle. One kick and it fell loose.
She reached the next pile and climbed onto its lower edge. Scrap shifted beneath her boot, and her hand shot out on instinct. She steadied herself, looked down at the metal that had nearly betrayed her, then moved her foot to something thicker before dropping into a crouch.
Reach. Shift junk. Brace. Search. Toss.
The grime kept building on her hands. Every so often, a servo in her wrist started to whine, and she'd stop long enough to shake it out before getting back to work.
Nothing.
None of the piles gave up a core.
Climbing out of another one brought her face to face with the huge mass of the Corpse Spire, and she stopped. She wiped both hands on her jacket and looked up.
The wind caught the edge of her beanie, so she pressed it down with one palm, holding it in place while her gaze followed the lower beams, then climbed toward the higher parts where the heap folded into itself. A frozen limb blocked some of the view, so she stepped around it. Better.
More of the cores set throughout the heap came into sight, all unlit and dead.
Z crouched and touched one of the lower beams, not quite pulling at it, just testing how the weight sat. The metal stayed where it was. Good. She drew her hand away.
Standing again, she backed up a few steps. From here she could see the Spire as one thing instead of a collection of parts. It blocked most of the sky overhead, though the horizon remained clear beyond its side. The sky had gotten much lighter.
Z turned toward it. Her stance stiffened. She looked back at the Spire, then at the cores she couldn't reach without risking a very large and very stupid collapse. Not yet.
She turned away. One more glance over her shoulder followed anyway, more spite than hope, before she started walking.
Her first few steps were stiff. The roll of her shoulders came back as she moved, and soon her thoughts returned to the Railgun and the need for a usable core.
At least one active Worker Drone core. That was all she needed.
The Railgun was useless without one, and the Railgun was the only thing she'd built that might actually hurt Cyn. Cyn could shut off their built-in guns with a thought. Z had seen it happen enough times. Claws locking in the middle of a swing. Shots refusing to leave their tubes. Whole squads frozen in place while Cyn did whatever the hell she wanted.
That was the rub. Anything wired into their base combat kit was already lost. The Railgun wasn't. It stood apart, its own system, separate from the weapons Cyn could reach into and kill. She couldn't just think it away.
The whole idea of using a core as a power source made Z's visor flicker if she let herself sit with it too long.
That was something practically housed a drone's soul, or whatever passed for one anyway, and she'd thought about that too. She'd be using it. Possibly erasing the entire soul from existence directly, unlike all other indirect kills. The imprints would linger. There would be echoes inside the weapon. Maybe. She'd figure out the exact mechanics later.
Plain shots weren't going to work on the glitch's tricks. She'd seen that fail enough times. But a magnetically amplified photon converger? That might. And then all this digging through the dead wouldn't be for nothing.
She was a mass murderer, anyway.
What was one more bad deed if it meant Cyn ended for good?
A whole damn ten and a half years had gone into trying to claw back her admin rights, and she'd made about as much progress as a toothpick against a stone wall. Worse, the thing holding those rights was far too smart and far too alert.
The only reason she'd gotten anywhere at all was because she knew Cyn's code from the inside out. She'd spent years fixing her up as the Elliot's Repair Drone. Her and Tessa had done good work together, patching her code and running checks to keep her steady.
It had been a good life at the manor. Before the stupid maid she'd come to hate fucked everything up.
Like, seriously. Tessa and Z had the older Elliots' harsh ways handled. Those two had been so busy jumping at shadows because of all the pranks they'd pulled on them that they barely had time to touch a hair on a Worker Drone's head. Damn stupid Eldritch Drone.
Now here she was, stuck on a godforsaken rock playing lapdog for robo-Hitler, sent to kill her own kind while she tried to build the one thing that might end the whole mess.
Another stretch of open snow came, and she stopped. The way toward the caravan lay ahead. She stood there for a moment, then rubbed one hand over her face. She was getting too pulled into her projects again. She needed some damn TLC.
J and N were going to take forever to come by, anyway. And while she was usually good at keeping track of her calculations, her thoughts had been getting more fragmented lately. Better not to risk it.
What if she went through the rest of the piles later? Maybe she could hunt for a live drone instead. The caravan her squad had hit a day ago was still out there. Something might have been left worth finding. A stray who'd hidden when the fight began. A core still warm.
That was worth checking.
Z fixed her jacket and got ready to fly. Her knees bent. Her wings spread behind her, and one hard push sent her up from the snow. Not high. Just enough.
The wind caught her at once. Her wings adjusted, and she settled into a low, smooth glide. The Corpse Spire stayed behind her for a while before the land swallowed it from view.
Old ruins of human works passed below. A cracked wall stuck from the snow, and she veered around it rather than bother going over. More open ground stretched ahead. The cold wind pressed against her plates, but the growing light was beginning to heat the rims where it caught. Z tilted her path just enough to keep the worst of the sun off herself.
She checked the route. Still clear.
A knot of half-buried scrap passed beneath her, then another. The knots grew thicker as she neared the caravan site, and the wreckage finally came into view. Her wings tipped and she turned toward it.
Dropping lower, she skimmed over the first scattered remains of the dead caravan before banking back toward the main heap. She landed once she'd reached a safer patch between the broken rides.
Worth a look.
Vanessa was a smart drone.
Smart enough that she'd have been called a teacher's pet if she didn't lack the nerve to speak up and hide at the back of the class instead. She knew the answers, most of the time. She just rarely had the courage to let anyone know she did.
But this was not a smart move, and she knew it. She'd known it from the moment the idea had first taken hold.
The whole walk had been an argument between the part of her that knew better and the part that kept seeing a tiny body under a drift of snow. The tiny body kept winning.
The folk from far Outpost 8 had been in the shared room, telling their tales in low voices with their optics fixed on the door. Vanessa had heard enough to fit the pieces together. Their caravan had been hit. A few had made it out. There was an UNN. A baby. Its folks had hidden it near the site when the attack began.
Only one of them had lived.
The mother.
And she wasn't well enough to go back yet. No one else would. Vanessa could not let that be.
What if the poor baby died slowly from the cold? Or ran out of charge all alone beneath the snow? She knew it was a terrible idea. She knew exactly how many things could go wrong. She'd thought of most of them already. Her feet kept moving anyway.
She was not the boldest drone in the bunker, and she'd never claimed to be. Thad and Emily were going to be furious when they found out. She'd already gone through a dozen ways to say sorry in her head, and somehow every version sounded worse than the last. But she could not leave the baby out there.
The bunker was quiet as she made her way through it, her father's stolen keycard hidden in her hand. She kept close to the wall. The middle of the hall felt too exposed, so her steps stayed small and soft on purpose. A shut door got a quick glance as she passed. Nothing moved behind it. She faced forward again.
The bunker was too quiet at this hour.
A pipe knocked inside the wall.
Vanessa stopped so fast her hands flew apart. Her shoulders rose. Her optics locked onto the wall. Nothing. She waited. Still nothing.
"Oh," she whispered to herself. "Okay. That was just the pipes. The pipes do that. It's fine."
She brought her hands back together and stood there for a few beats more before moving on, keeping one shoulder against the wall, just in case.
Her own shadow stretched beside her. She saw it. Her breath caught. Then she let it out in a rush and pressed a hand to her chest.
"It's just you, Vee. Just your own shade. You've had that shadow your whole life. It's not going to get you now."
She kept walking, though she stayed close enough to the wall that her sleeve brushed it. Better. The wall wasn't going anywhere.
The main path came next, and the hall widened there. The extra space did nothing for her nerves. If anything, there was more room for something to be waiting. Her optics stayed on the big door at the far end. It seemed to get larger with every step. She slowed. Her fingers squeezed tight around the keycard.
"Okay. Big door. Just a door. You've used it before. It opens. You go through. Then you come back. Simple."
One look back confirmed that the previous stretch of hall was empty. She faced the door again and swiped.
The gears groaned. The sound was enormous in the quiet bunker, a beast waking up behind the metal.
Vanessa let out a tiny "eep" and froze with the door only halfway open. She peered through the gap. Left. Right. Left again. Nothing.
"Okay," she breathed. "Okay. It's fine. Nobody heard that. Probably."
She slipped through, both feet clearing the threshold, and the door shut behind her with a deep clunk. Her back met it. Her optics closed. One slow breath. Then she opened them.
Snow. So much snow. The size of the world beyond the bunker made her stomach drop.
"Oh, goodness," she murmured. "That's a lot of outside."
She pulled her coat tight and started walking.
The snow crust cracked beneath her boots. The first loud snap made her look down, but there was no helping that.
She swallowed and kept going. A gust caught the tail of her coat, so she grabbed it and pulled it back around herself. Her sleeves slipped over her hands again. She left them there. They were warmer that way.
The road to the old substation was long enough that the bunker began to shrink behind her almost at once. Vanessa looked back every so often to make sure it was still there. It always was. Just farther away. Each time she turned forward again, she felt a little less sure.
"Just keep walking. One foot. Then the other. For the little one."
The old substation eventually came into view. Vanessa turned toward it, taking the low route around a dip rather than crossing it. At the substation, she stopped and checked the first sign they'd told her to look for. She found it half-buried beside the old structure.
"Oh! Good. That's the right one. Okay. Okay, this is right."
Her fingers relaxed a little.
The next landmark was the field of dead antennae beyond it, so she moved on.
The tall rods rose around her as she approached. Wind moved through them with a low hum. Vanessa's head turned toward the sound. It seemed to come from everywhere. She didn't like that at all.
"Okay, that's a sound," she said quietly. "Just wind. Through the rods. That's what wind does. It makes sounds. Perfectly normal."
Her arms folded tighter around herself, and her processor returned to repeating the one thought she'd been using to keep her feet moving.
The baby needs you.
The baby needs you.
The baby needs you.
The middle of the path felt safest, so she stayed there, well clear of the old rods. She didn't know if that actually made it safer, but it felt safer, and right now that was good enough.
Past the field, the land opened again. Vanessa stopped to get her bearings. Far ahead, the junkyard came into view.
"Oh..."
Her stomach sank. She hugged herself tighter.
"That's very big. That's a lot of scrap. There could be anything in there. But the baby's in there, so that's where you're going. Right. Yes."
Then she made herself move.
The junkyard grew from a dark smudge into heaps of scrap, and by the time she reached its edge, Vanessa was walking slowly enough that every step felt like a choice. Snow met the first pieces of metal. She stopped. Looked into the gaps. Nothing stirred.
"Okay. It's quiet. Quiet is good. Quiet means nothing's moving. Probably."
One step forward.
Something loose scraped nearby.
Vanessa jumped sideways and clapped both hands over her mouth. She waited. The scrap shifted once more, then went still.
"Mmm-hmm," she said through her fingers. "Just the wind. Just the wind. It's always the wind. The wind lives here. This is its house. I'm the guest. Everything's fine."
She told herself that twice. Then she went on.
The first path was tight enough that she had to turn her shoulders between two bent sheets. One sleeve brushed old rust. Vanessa recoiled from the feel and tugged it away at once.
"Eugh. Okay. Don't touch that again. Noted."
A fallen beam blocked the ground ahead, so she stepped over it, only for her boot to catch a wire. She froze, looked down, freed her foot, and continued.
"Oh, come on. Really? Okay. It's fine. You're fine. Keep going."
A sheet hung low enough that she had to duck beneath it. On the other side, she straightened and looked around as if someone might have seen her do it. No one had.
"Good. No witnesses to that."
She exhaled.
The path split at a thick heap. The left side looked familiar, so she took it.
Three steps. Four. She stopped. Something was wrong. Vanessa looked around. The scrap was different here. The heaps were taller. The narrow gap she'd expected wasn't anywhere in sight.
"Oh, no. No, no, no. This isn't right. This is not the right path."
She turned in a small, uncertain circle, looking back the way she'd come. Then she retraced her steps to the split and stood there staring at the two paths.
"The other one. Of course it is. Because why would you take the right one the first time? Why would anything be easy?"
She took it.
This route ran between two tall heaps, and she put one hand against a sheet of metal as she went. The ground sloped down. Her steps slowed until she was sure of each one.
"Okay. This feels more right. This feels correct. Good job, Vee. You found it. Eventually."
Then the path opened into a wide gap. Beyond it sat the caravan wreck.
Vanessa stopped dead.
"Oh. That's it. That's definitely it."
Relief changed her whole face. A breath escaped her. She hurried on.
At the edge of the wreck, Vanessa stopped and listened. Nothing. She waited a little longer anyway. Her hands stayed clasped against her chest as she stepped through a gap between two ruined rides. Broken bits covered the ground, forcing her to shorten her steps.
"Okay. Find the bench. Find the baby. Then go. That's all. That's the whole plan."
She went around a cracked crate rather than risk stepping on it.
The side of one ride had been torn wide open. Vanessa slowed as she passed, glanced into the dark interior, then looked away almost at once.
"Nope. Not looking in there. Don't need to. Nothing in there for me."
A lone wheel sat beside a rock. She recognized it.
"The wheel. Okay. The supply cart is close. You're almost there."
She moved toward it, but a bent ride frame blocked the way. Vanessa stopped, backed up, and looked around. There was a narrow gap between the frame and a crate.
"Oh. There you are. Of course it's small. Why wouldn't it be small? Everything's small when I need to fit through it."
She squeezed through. Her coat snagged. She froze.
"No, no, no. Don't tear. Please don't tear. I made this coat. I know every stitch. Please."
Very carefully, she pulled it free. Nothing tore.
"Oh, thank goodness. Okay. Good coat. Best coat."
The supply cart lay only a few feet beyond the wheel. Vanessa crossed the space, stepping around loose junk until she stood beside it. She searched around its frame. Nothing. A slow turn. She checked the dark gaps around her.
"Nothing. Okay. That's fine. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's not here. Maybe I came all this way for—"
Then her gaze caught on something low beneath the snow. A bench. One of the drones inside had mentioned it.
"Oh. There."
Vanessa approached, then knelt beside it with one hand planted in the snow for balance. One leg was bent. The seat sat low, almost swallowed by the drift. She brushed snow from beneath it. Her fingers touched cloth. She stopped. Her whole face sharpened.
"Okay. This is it. This has to be it."
More snow came away. The stiff shape of a tarp appeared. Vanessa caught its edge and lifted it a little at a time. Frost cracked along the rim. She paused. The sound seemed much too loud.
"Too loud. That was too loud. But it's fine. Nobody heard. There's nobody here."
Bending closer, she looked beneath the torn cloth. Something was there. A small form lay beneath it, vibrating gently. Her breath stopped. Vanessa slid closer on her knees. One hand hovered over the baby for a second, unsure where it was safe to touch.
"What if I hurt it? What if I do this wrong? What if—"
Then she felt the small frame beneath her fingers. A click sounded. Vanessa's optics went wide. The optic lit. It glowed. The baby rolled its pill-shaped frame toward her.
"Oh..."
Something in Vanessa's whole body loosened. She gathered it up. Back on her heels, she held the baby against her chest. Its body was terribly cold. Vanessa pulled it closer without thinking. Her scarf came free around her neck, and the sudden bite of air made her duck her chin. She wrapped the scarf around the baby instead. One end, then the other, tucked beneath its chin. She checked the optic. Still lit.
The baby looked up at her.
Vanessa's face softened.
"Oh. Oh, oh, oh, you're okay. You're okay. You're here. I found you. I actually found you."
She rocked without realizing she was doing it, shifting her weight from one knee to the other until she found a slow sway. The baby's crying faded. Vanessa looked around the wreck. Still nothing. Nothing moving. Nothing coming. She looked down again. For the first time since leaving the bunker, the tightness in her shoulders began to leave.
"It's just us. We're okay. We're going to go home now. Well, my home. Not your home. But a home. It's warm and there are people and you'll be safe there. Probably. Yes."
Then a shade fell across her. The air changed.
"Oh no..."
Vanessa looked up.
A Sky Monster dropped from the sky. Her wings folded with a crack that rang through the scrap. Her boots struck the snow and kicked up white. Long dark hair spun around her face, most of it escaping from beneath a dark beanie that sat pulled low over her brow. Her optic burned cold. For one awful beat, she simply stood there. Her tail swished behind her, the tip leaking gold drops into the snow.
A squeak like a stepped-on mouse came out of Vanessa. She clutched the baby tighter. Her mouth fell open. A long, high whine escaped before she could stop it.
"A scavenger," the Sky Monster said, voice flat. "Out here all alone. That's either very brave or very stupid."
Vanessa's mouth moved.
"Buh."
That was all she could bring herself to say.
"Buh?" she tried again. "I— that's— I'm not— I was just—"
Her optics jumped to the claws, then the tail, then the optic. Each one seemed to earn another tiny sound from her. She noted, somewhere in the back of her mind, that the voice had been feminine. The claws, though, were the bigger problem.
"Please don't— I mean, I know that's not— that probably doesn't work, but—"
The Sky Monster took a step. Her claws flexed. Her head tipped slightly.
"Nothing to say? That's fine. I've heard it all. The pleas, the deals, the tears. It all sounds the same in the end."
A string of squeaks came from Vanessa as she tried to form words.
"No, I— I have plenty to say! I have so many things to say! It's just that none of them are coming out right now because you're very scary and my mouth isn't working and I can't remember how sentences are supposed to go!"
She scrabbled backward. Her boots slipped on the ice. Then she turned and ran. The baby stayed tight against her chest.
"Eep!"
She took another step and nearly tripped over her own feet.
"Eep!"
The junkyard blurred around her. Behind her, the Sky Monster laughed. The sound came out as a sharp burst of static that rang through the scrap and made Vanessa stumble.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no—"
She ducked around a bend, then another. Her free hand slapped against a rusted sheet to keep herself upright. The baby was crying now. Thin. Sharp. The sound pushed her forward.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, we're going, we're going—"
She couldn't look back. The footsteps behind her were calm. Certain. Her own little frightened sounds came every time her boots slipped.
Then her foot caught something buried beneath the snow. She went down hard. Snow struck her face. Her arms flew wide. The baby rolled out of them. A few feet. Its cries turned into sharp shrieks.
"No, no, no!"
Vanessa made a broken sound and threw herself toward it. She dragged the baby back against her chest and curled around it, shutting her optics tight. A low, frightened keen slipped out of her.
"I've got you. I've got you. It's okay. It's okay. It's not okay, but I've got you."
The footsteps stopped. Her breath came fast and thin. The baby's sobs continued beneath her. Vanessa pressed her face against its head and stayed there.
"Please don't hurt us. Please don't hurt the baby. Please! I know that doesn't work. But please anyway..."
A shadow covered her.
"Oh God..."
Claws scraped against steel. Something hissed softly behind her.
Then the baby cried again. One small sound. Thin as glass. It rose, shook, and fell into a soft hiccuping sob.
The Sky Monster froze. The raised claws hung in the air. The tail stopped moving. For a long beat, nobody moved.
Then came a sharp crack of static. The Sky Monster stepped back.
"Oh, for the love of—"
Her head shook, hair whipping around her face, and she reached up to yank the beanie back down where it had started to slip.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Vanessa dared to open one optic. Through the gap in her arms, she saw the Sky Monster standing a few feet away. Her arms were crossed. Her gaze was on the baby. The mean look had gone. What remained was a sour, twitchy sort of grump.
"You're lucky," she said, voice low. "I don't kill babies."
She turned. Her wings spread wide, throwing snow into the air.
"And you're extra lucky it wasn't the Corpo who found you. She'd have peeled you both and called it a work review."
She paused. Vanessa held her breath. For one terrible second, she thought the Sky Monster might change her mind. She didn't.
The Sky Monster shot into the air, low over the ground. The boom of forced air rolled across the flats and faded. Then there was only the wind.
Vanessa stayed where she was. She hiccuped. The baby still cried against her, its little frame shaking. Slowly, she sat up and settled the baby against her shoulder. Her hand patted its back, though it shook badly enough that the pats were uneven.
"It's okay. It's okay, little one. She's gone. She's gone now. We're okay. We're going to be okay. I'm going to get you home and then I'm going to sit down for a very long time and maybe never move again, but first we have to walk. Can you let me do that? Can you be brave for me? Just a little? I need you to be brave because I'm not very good at it."
She pressed her face against the baby's head. The low hum of its core came through. The tears came then. Hot. Vanessa let them.
She wept until the baby's sobs softened into small coos, until the sun had climbed fully into the sky and the snow had begun to gleam. All the while, her optics stayed on the sky. Half expecting the Sky Monster to come back. She didn't.
At last Vanessa pushed herself upright on weak legs and had to catch the bent bench to steady herself.
"Okay. Up. We're up. That's good. That's step one. Now step two. Walk. Just walk. You've done it before. Thousands of times. You're practically an expert at walking."
She fixed the scarf around the baby, checked the sky once, then again, and only after that did she start the long walk back to the bunker.
"I'm never doing this again. Never. This was a one-time thing. A one-time, very brave, very stupid thing. And if Thad and Emily kill me when I get back, that's fine. At least the baby will be inside."
Every small sound made her turn. Every shade made her tense. Every shift of snow drew her optics over her shoulder. Her own shadow made her jump twice more before she finally gave up on looking down.
Z flew hard and low, skimming over the ground with the wind tearing past her plating.
The sun was climbing far too quickly, and already she could feel its heat beginning to prickle across the places where the light reached her. Her circuits buzzed with leftover tension.
She'd gone out for a core.
That was supposed to be all. Find one, take it back, get the Railgun running again, and get on with the plan.
Instead, she'd come away with a frightened scavenger, a screaming infant, and a tiny cry that refused to leave her audials. She'd tried to ignore it, but it kept coming back anyway, over and over, like a recording she couldn't shut off. She should have taken the adult's core when she'd had the chance. It would have been easier.
The Corpse Spire rose ahead of her through the pale morning, all jagged metal and broken supports against the sky.
Z angled toward it without thinking. She knew this place. Every twisted strut, every narrow passage, every heap of dead metal was familiar enough that she could find her way through it without looking. There weren't many places left that felt like hers. This one did. More importantly, the inside was dark, and right now that mattered more than anything else.
She circled the spire once before dropping lower, scanning the ground as she went. The corpse piles lay undisturbed beneath their thin covering of snow, their shapes softened by the distance.
They almost looked peaceful from up here. Almost. Z's mouth twitched at the thought before she caught herself and tilted toward the spire. Her wings folded close as she slipped through a gap in the outer shell, and the shadow swallowed her. The heat faded from her plating almost at once.
She spotted the glint on her way down. Something small had caught what little light reached the lower levels, half-hidden in a pile near the base of the spire. Z dropped the rest of the way and landed in a crouch, boots crunching softly against the snow. A discarded limb had fallen across the object. She reached beneath it and pulled the thing free, the faint glow in her palm giving it away before she even had to look closely.
A Worker core. Whole. Still warm. Still alive.
Z turned it over between her fingers. Its light pulsed softly against her palm, steady and regular. Her shoulders eased, and a small grin pulled at her mouth.
Finally. Something had gone right. It wasn't a particularly bright core, but it didn't need to be. It would give the Railgun what it needed. The plan could keep moving. That was what mattered.
She slipped the core into her jacket and rose. Outside, the sun had cleared the horizon, washing the snow in pale gold, but the spire kept its shadows deep enough around her. Z turned away from the entrance and headed farther inside. The core rested warm against her chest as she walked, and with every step the outside world seemed a little farther away.
For a while, she didn't think about the scavenger. She didn't think about the baby. She didn't think about the sound it had made when she'd turned her back on them. She just kept walking into the dark, where none of it could reach her.