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"Someone needs to talk to that girl," says Helga, exchanging a glance with Rourke.
(Mole bounces excitedly around. "I will do it!")
"Someone with good people skills," puts in Vinnie.
("I will do it!")
"Someone who won't scare her away." Sweet nods.
("I will do it!")
"Audrey. Thank you for volunteering."
A heavy hand lands on her shoulder, and Audrey turns with the intention of giving Rourke a look of pure venom. Especially when she had been about to 'volunteer' Milo to go and talk to the strange Princess instead. She looks at Rourke acidicly enough for him to remove his hand from her shoulder, then turns to the others with a wag of her finger.
"This is some sort of girl thing, isn't it?" Everyone studiously avoids her gaze, and with a dramatic sigh Audrey throws her hands up into the air. "Fine, fine. I'll go speak to the Princess."
As it was, the Princess finds her. A hand almost clamps over Audrey's mouth before she ducks out and away (having a boxer sister could do that for you), whirling around with her fists raised.
The white-haired woman regards her curiously. Audrey settles back into a more neutral stance again, hooking her thumbs round the edge of her overalls and tilting her head. "Changed your mind about fighting?"
"I was hoping that your scholar might walk abroad tonight."
"Yeah, you're right, he would be better to kidnap."
The curious look continues, then the woman steps closer, reaching out to take hold of one of Audrey's arms. Audrey allows her to do so, feeling her hand turned over, then her glove slid off to be regarded in turn.
"There is grease here... you work with the machines of your people, yes?"
Audrey nods. Warm fingers slide over the back of her hand, brushing between her knuckles. "Yeah, I'm the mechanic. Whenever one of those pendejos breaks something, guess who ends up fixing it?"
"I know that feeling."
For a moment their fingers almost interlock, as their eyes meet in a moment of amused understanding. Then the princess's hand closes around Audrey's wrist and tugs, away from the city and the lights around it. "Come on! I have something you should see."
It turns out her name is Kida. At least, that's long enough for Audrey to tangle with. Kida, it seems, is even more prone to climbing over things and around things than Audrey is, and they end up climbing quite a bit before Kida sets up a couple of small glowing lights by touching them with the necklace at her throat, then started to pull aside tangled lianas and leaves.
"I found this some time ago. I think it dates from when my people were strong."
Audrey helps her to pull the leaves aside, exposing a great metal fish perhaps some twelve feet long, faceted and carved. It appears to have a saddle on its back, and there are clearly hinges at the fins.
"It's some sort of machine, right?" The right fin squeaks slightly as she pushes it, making it shift and the whole fish shudder like a dying thing.
"And you are a mechanic."
Audrey pulls a face. "This is not what I am used to."
But she tries anyway.
Apparently there's some new thing from Europe which uses radiation for power. Every machine needs a power source; this is the only one that she can see.
When the fish lifts off the floor and waves into life, Kida gives a surprised, triumphant cry. Unfortunate, perhaps, that it promptly crashes into a nearby rock like an out-of-control motorbike and falls to the ground with a fizzle. But it's a start.
Kida tries to explain things about her people that Audrey does not quite understand, but which sound fascinating all the same and which Audrey is more than happy to listen to. It slowly dawns on her that Kida is ancient, old as hills and rivers it seems, and older than the use of metal. Perhaps that is why the machines here are so strange. In return, Audrey tries to explain the machines that her people use, starting from the oldest stories of the barbarians in Europe that she can barely remember Milo blathering about, using stone and then metal, and then there were Romans or something, Europe is weird, and then steam and gasoline and this new radiation thing in Europe. They try to find some shape of words that they can both understand, but even in the meantime it is fascinating.
The glow from the sky - it has always been there, Kida says, the very rocks glow - dims, and it becomes something that might actually be called night.
"Come on," Kida says, all excitement, her blue eyes lighting up as she grabs Audrey's wrist again. It's not a way that Audrey is used to allowing herself to be moved around. "I must show you the city. Come to the top, you can see the whole of what is our world now."
It's even more of a climb, but it is worth it. The view from the top is breathtaking. Even if their world is small, each inch of it seems to be full of something. Little bugs like fireflies - literally fireflies, perhaps, considering Kida tells her not to touch or she will burn her fingers - flit around them.
"Welcome to Atlantis," says Kida softly.
Audrey grins, looking down at a whole civilisation before her, and goes to punch Kida on the arm in loose companionship. Kida darts away, looking confused.
"Two for flinching," she says automatically, and taps the princess on the shoulder with both the jab and the cross, barely more than a touch.
Kida tilts her head and clenches her own fists. "Two for flinching?"
"It's a kinda... greeting, or celebration. Friendly punch on the arm, you know. Showing that you know someone's tough enough to take it, and you trust them enough to hit you."
"Your mole will not think I was saying hello, was he?"
Audrey thinks back to Mole, thrown sideways by Kida's fist after a comment that was bound to be inappropriate, and starts laughing. "Nah, I think he'll understand the difference."
A smile crosses Kida's face, and she lightly punches Audrey on the arm in reply, right then left. "Two for flinching," she says, as if committing it to memory.
Rourke is angry. When she says the only power seems to be the crystals around their necks, he starts demanding that they take them all and leave. Audrey spits out that she is not sure, and she does not understand them anyway, and they do not seem that powerful. In truth, she suspects that they could be immensely powerful, but something in her is protective.
He tries to hit her. She kicks him on the shin and then punches him, with the full weight of her body behind it, in the solar plexus. When he doubles over, eyes bulging, she grabs hold of his hair.
"Two for flinching, cabrón."
Punching him in the face feels good. Doing it twice is better, and then she turns and runs before the rest of the group can say anything, because she'll be damned if she's going to let him fuck this place over.
And to think, she signed up for the money.
There doesn't even have to be a fight. Kida and her men posture, and most of the group - other than Helga - are so shocked at Rourke's behaviour that they refuse to help him, and take his guns. Rourke and Helga end up in handcuffs and gags, and the rest of them prepare to leave.
"You don't have to go," says Kida softly. It's right in her ear, and Audrey jumps because she hadn't expected the princess to be that close.
Audrey shrugs. "I've got family to go back to. My Pappi wouldn't be too happy if I went and vanished in an underground city. And hey, at least you know those crystals are the key now."
Kida toys with the crystal at her throat for a moment. It's almost exactly the same blue as her eyes. "True."
She looks up, something in her gaze that Audrey doesn't quite recognise, and then leans towards her. Audrey leans back, and that gets a wicked grin.
"Two for flinching."
The first kiss lands on the corner of her mouth. The second is full on her lips, and then it deepens, and Audrey can hardly breathe but she manages to, just to make this kiss go on forever and to let Kida's hands wrap around her arms.
Finally they break for air, and Audrey glances over to the rest of the crew, who are looking at her with a range of faces from shock to smirks to drooling (Mole needs another slap, it seems).
"Tell my Pappi that I'm happy here, you got that? You upset him, I'll kill you from under the ground."
None of them doubt her.
The favourite part of her city is still the very top, where she and Kida can see the world but it can't see them. A good thing two, when she learns to trace the princess's body with her hand, and lips explore her skin in return.
Every so often, one of them will whisper, "Two for flinching," and it reminds them of what they long ago promised each other: to never fear what may happen. Slowly they will work out how Kida's world works once again, and resurrect it, but until they it is not worth fear or faltering.