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J soared. The wind pushed her hair back. She adjusted her wings. Settling into a controlled glide.
The sky ran pink, orange, black—a gradient bleeding over the dead city below. Beautiful. Past anything copper-9 had to offer with its dead trees, its hills of snow, its monotone grey. The only thing out here that wasn’t broken or dead.
It reminded her of Earth. The summer mornings. The cool breeze. A ribbon, black, tied in someone’s hair. The way it caught the light.
She stopped mid-air. Her chest tightened. An oily taste in her throat. She didn’t want to think about it. What was done was done. There wasn’t any Earth left anyway. Only pieces of rock that used to be.
Below her the city sprawled. Or what was left of it. It had been a city once. Now rubble, concrete, and shattered glass under hills of snow. Rusted car roofs sticking out, the only sign a road ran beneath. Only the tall monoliths still stood.
There, a glint of light caught her eyes. Somewhere in between the buildings. She couldn't tell exactly where. She was a moment too slow to see its position, too lost in her thoughts. Her wings started to move. She banked to the side of the city where the shadows were cast from the growing light in the sky. Eyes scanning the ground for any movement, anything. If the drone started again. Only the wind was heard. There wasn't anything else left that made noise, only things that moved. So she listened. Watching for the crunch of snow, the scrape of metal on metal. She waited for the glint again, as the sky became brighter, the moon vanishing ever so slightly into the back of the sky. It was a long trek back to the spire from here.
So few came out here, to this mega-city. The ones that did were scavenging for something, anything. J had seen the damage they'd done. Places torn apart, picked clean. She called them bottom feeders. Feeding the corpse of this planet. They came in many shapes—from drones with minor structural damage to drones welded together, mismatched in parts, colours and lengths. They wandered building to building, yanking any piece of scrap they could manage to hold in their small arms. In hopes of finding the thing they needed. Untouched. Pristine. New.
It was a naive way of thinking. But you’d have to be desperate to do such things. And desperate they were. Each had their own reasons. A component to repair themselves. A companion to fill the vacancy at their side, the way their eyes would look at her as if considering such a possibility. The thought of fixing yourself to continue in a world that no longer needed you, a world that was already over. Why they’d choose such a place, J had no clue. Most of the time they never saw her coming, blissfully unaware. When she confronted them, some took little effort, accepting their end silently, while others ran and thrashed, screamed and begged like wild animals finding themselves trapped. Some tried to negotiate, acting civilized like they were bartering wares, hoping to trade their junk for their life. None of it was of value. It didn’t matter. J never listened. Not one bit of it—not their speech, not their cries. She only processed her next move. That’s why she was out here. To find the thing she needed. Their oil. That’s what she told herself, had told herself. The oil, the hunt, the trek before the light. Reasons to keep moving so she didn’t have to sit still.
Her current target was a worker drone. It had left tracks in the snow. The pattern suggested a broken leg servo. The prints showed a specific rhythm. A mismatch from the left foot to the right, unable to lift that leg, only dragging it. The trail stopped often, as if the drone was checking behind itself. The start of the trail told a different story—two other workers dead, both cobbled together like salvage hulls, ugly and misshapen, oil spilled everywhere. Drones like this were rare. When J did find one, it was a nuisance. Most of the time they weren't worth chasing into the labyrinths they holed up in. Though a question nagged at J. Why was it leaving tracks? Why come to a place like this at all? None of it mattered. She had a job. The drone was the target.
The wind's whistle faded. Her gaze locked. Dropped to the city below. There, near a cafe, the glint appeared again.
J dropped.
The buildings rushed up. She spread her arms, claws open, lining up the fall. The drone stood still, unaware. She picked her landing spot.
Then it moved.
Her claws raked cloth.
Missed.
The ground came up hard. She hit, tumbled, snow spraying, and skidded to a stop.
She grunted, trying to find her footing. One knee down, the other leg planted in the snow.
She glanced up. The drone had dropped. Flat against the snow. It was frozen, unmoving, one hand rooted, holding itself. While the other covered its chest.
It had brown hair. A parka, scattered and torn. Its visor showed a deep and wide gap, a crevice running across from the side, to the middle, to the top.
Her eyes. Green.
J shook her head and got both legs under her. She took a few steps forward, wanting it done.
“Please.”
J stopped.
A sharp pain in her head. She knew this. She’d seen this before. She was here. Dress and all, the very night J last saw her. Both hands over her chest—covering the hole where the ribcage was torn through.
Her legs felt hollow. Fragile, as if one wrong step would crumble them. Her feet shifted, as if she was going to fall.
She wanted to forget. Wanted to… to…
J registered the noise as a sequence of data without meaning. The worker drone kept talking. Its mouth formed shapes. A useless plea. A desperate attempt at negotiation. All J needed to do was one swift puncture. How her claw would tear the soft metallic casing, sinking deeper, tearing through to the other end, and how the drone would fall silent. How her teeth would breach the synthetic skin, as the dark viscous liquid would flow into her mouth. How easy it would be. But she didn’t. Couldn’t.
She didn’t need any.
J didn’t look back. Her wings unfurled, catching the biting wind as she ascended. Back toward the spire.
Don’t look back. Don’t think about it. Keep flying. Just fly.
She didn’t look back. Her head was filled with static, her body felt heavy. The sky grew brighter. The moon barely held against the sun. The horizon blended into a lighter blue since she first arrived. The ambient temperature rose. Soothing against her skin. What if she wanted to see it? God, she wanted to see it, to take the warmth of the light on her skin again. To relive the memory of the manor. To tell her that all would be fine. She wanted to believe that it was that simple.
In the distance rose the spire. Tall, pointy, angled—a mausoleum in the form of a twisted spike. The tip catching the sun’s light. The light was working its way down. Lowering herself closer to the ground, avoiding the light. Nearly clipping the crumbled mess of buildings on her approach. Her wings angled inwards for the final dive. Between buildings. In time.
Her feet touched the ground, wings folding behind her. The landing echoed. J looked around the spire. Junk layered the floor. Giant tubes roped along the sides, running down to the pod. The stagnant air. Dim lighting. The spire. Made of dead worker drones. Built to block, shade, protect.
Her body groaned, arms heavy as she stood at the entrance of the pod. It was the last place she wanted to be. Where else would she have gone? Same state she’d left it. Had been for a while. Papers scattered. Screens broken. The console at the center. Dust thick on every surface. Her eyes avoided the item on the left side of the console.
The helmet watched her. The black reflection, the ribbon attached, tiny stickers layering the visor. She made her way to the furthest chair to the right. The floor whined underneath each step, peg legs clinking against the floor. She threw herself on the chair, body relaxing as if exhaling. Her arms hung at her sides. Her eyes didn't fix on anything, not the broken screens, not the scattered papers. They drifted. Her head tilted up, toward the gaps in the ceiling, toward anything that wasn't the console.
Because the helmet was on the console. And the helmet watched her.
She kept her eyes up. The black visor. The ribbon. The tiny stickers layering the glass. She knew them without looking, every one, where each had been pressed and by whose hands. She didn’t look. She looked at the ceiling, at the shadows, at the cracks. Anywhere it wasn’t.
A single ray of light made its way through the cracks of this monument. Striking the dust-choked floor. It was a hazard, one she promised herself to fix, only to leave it. She tracked the movement throughout the day. She thought of it many times, considered it, too many times. She told herself it was the only way. Out of here. Out of this old, broken, sharp pod. She finally glanced at the helmet. The same ritual. The same thoughts appeared. And she arrived at the same conclusion. Not now, not yet.
Her body powered down.
J stood outside, the giant stone manor looming behind her. Wind moving through the trees, hissing. Green. And the sky, blue. That's how it had been all that second summer, every evening since she started working here. She made her way down the stone path. Grey, cracked, mossed. Past the trimmed grass and stone fixtures that lay in the back garden. 8:00 PM, every evening, the same place. A ritual, a date of sorts, not that J complained. The manor shrank behind her, the sun’s heat hitting her visor. Then a trail through the forest, one she became more familiar with, the roots, the rocks, the tripping hazards. It was 8:02 PM. She was two minutes late. The trail opened onto a small hill with a clear view of the horizon.
There, side-sitting on a picnic blanket, was the shape of green and brown and black. A girl. Always wearing the same clothes, same ribbon—not that she had a say in it. J always wondered what she’d look like in something different. J knelt beside her, the blanket shifting under her weight, her hands rested on her own thighs. She wondered if this time it was going to be quiet, if she had to explain the nature of this ritual. If this time the girl would let the sun set without saying it. If she could just sit.
“You’re late.”
“Two minutes.”
“Late.”
J didn’t answer. Only watching the sun set. The light bent along the horizon line. That’s all it was, an effect of the atmosphere, a medium the light passed through, refracting something that wasn’t really there anymore. It wasn’t anything special. That’s what J always told her. Every time. Out here. But today was different, today was new, today was warm.
She leaned into J, her eyes on the horizon. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking about the horizon. I can see you making the same face.”
“I’m not doing any face.”
“You’re doing the I’m-about-to-explain-refraction face.”
“Well there’s not anything special about light bending.”
“There it is.”
“Why do we come out here? You can get the same view from up the manor,” J said, understanding full well the reason.
“To see the sunset, J. What else?”
She threaded her arm through J’s. “I think you’re looking into it too much. Stop watching how it works.”
The tree leaves brushed against each other. J let her body rest. Her shoulders lowering. Weight against the warmth near her.
“And just look at the results.”
She turned back to the horizon. She saw a gradient. A bleeding of blue into pink and gold. Feeling the warmth on her. The warmth of her. She looked back. The abstract patchwork of green and brown and black ceased to be mere data labeled 'boss’.
It was a girl.
A girl named Tessa.
She woke from the chair, her body whirling. The low groaning of the spire against the wind. The little whistling of wind pushing through tiny gaps of heads. It was all J heard. Her shoulder and arm registering the cold. And she stared. Stared at nothing and everything. Her eyes focused. The screens. The console. The helmet.
The harsh light had gone soft. It was evening. She looked at her oil level.
The flight back. The only reason oil level moved at all.
She sat there in silence, weighing her options. She looked at the helmet. She made her choice. It was the only choice. Once again. Doing the same as she always did. Either complete her old goal or leave. Her body chose the latter.
The light dragged across the spire’s entry. The sun was setting. Dipping below the horizon. She waited a few minutes before taking her chance, better safe than sorry.
Her body hesitantly took a single step, not yet in the sun’s light. Then the second. Finally a third. There it was, a brief glimpse of the refraction. The last of the sunlight. She didn’t care about the burn. Only that it was warm across her visor. So warm. She stood there and watched the gradients, the same as before. Watching the last bit of the result. Until there wasn’t any.
She stood there. The cold of copper-9 once again. The cold replaced the warmth on her visor, filling the ambience around her. Her hands formed fists. Shaking.
Then she soared.
The wind pushing against her hair, the surroundings falling away below. Above, the sky bleeding from pink to orange, spreading dark blue—the same colours she’d run from at dawn.
The colours she’d come back to.
She wanted the colours to stay.
Just this once.