Nox

... Marin making breakfast, her hair all tousled...
... zig-zags of bright orange moving lazily upward before subsiding to a thin orange line at the edge of my vision...
... the smell of eggs cooking...
... lines of glowing orange text in the dark behind my eyelids:

Left lower leg detached.
Hull integrity: eighty-two percent.
Fuel level: ninety-percent.
Arterial energy distribution system operational.
Metabolic system operational.
Respiratory system operational.
Motor system operational.
Stabilization system operational.
Hydraulic system operational.
Temperature control system operational.
Sensory system operational.

Weapons system permanently damaged. Bypass fifteen percent effective.

Fuel level: ninety-three percent.
Overall operational capability seventy-six percent.

I wasn't dead. That was what that list meant. I had been found and respelled.

Fuel level: ninety-six percent.

Something about that last line wasn't making sense. I did a quick secondary systems check, but I wasn't imagining things. I wasn't connected to the interface, but someone had obviously repaired my hydraulics, poured saline into my energy distributor, and was currently in the act of refilling my metabolic system.

Why would they refuel me without hooking me up first?

I frowned.

I wasn't alone.

I went perfectly still and slowed my breathing, concentrating instead on my surroundings – a trick I had once used to fool the interface into thinking I was sleeping. Now, hopefully, it would fool whoever might be looking at me into thinking the same thing.

After a moment I found my self-defense protocol and that golden grid popped up even though my eyelids were still closed.

Huh. SD didn't get fried. Handy thing...

I was lying face-up on something flat. Not a tilt-table. A cot, perhaps. It was too narrow to be a bed. There was a small table to my left with something on it. A box? No. The series of holes and indentations along one edge was unmistakable. It was the docking end of a fuel canister.

A tube of some sort trailed from a modified output valve on the fuel canister down to my left arm. Ingenious, really, but certainly not military grade.

There didn't seem to be anyone with a pulse nearby, so I moved my head, looking around. The building I was in seemed to be quite large, and I could make out the faint lines of a piece of heavy machinery at the far end. There was a wall in front of me, though, five yards away, with a door in it facing the foot of the cot. I could hear muffled voices beyond it. Two of them. A boy on the verge of becoming a man, and a young woman with a scratchy alto.

"— don't even know what it is," the boy's voice was saying, his tone clipped and angry.

The girl's reply was measured and even. "It's a machine. Machines don't kill people, people kill people —"

"Those weren't daisies sticking out of its arm, Cress!"

"I know that."

"Why are you trying to wake up something that has cannons in its arms!"

There was a short lull.

The young man sighed. "I'm just saying, we don't know what we're dealing with. It came out of the train tunnels. Those tunnels run for miles through the mountains, and no one knows where they go. Old Bartleman told me once that his friend went in there, exploring. They found him days later, a hole burned right through his skull... Seems a bit too big a coincidence that the thing that comes out of the train tunnels has weird weapons all over inside it. And then you say those men coming after it had knives that could cut through a solid metal door? Yeah. This whole thing reeks. What if the rumors are true, and there's something going on up on Mt. Malfi? That thing in there could be proof!"

Another pause. Then the girl said, quietly, "Well, it's too late now. I've already got it running again. And you know what? I'm gonna see if it can be useful. We're never gonna get that south field in before the weather changes. Mechs can't just do whatever they want, there has to be some sort of control panel or relay board. If I can find it, I can rework it so he—"

"It."

"...It... does what I tell it to... That thing's hydraulics are like nothing I've ever seen. Even if I can only get it to walk forward while I steer, I can hook it up to the combine. I won't have to cannibalize the gopher to fix the propulsion unit, or dig up the money to rent a machine."

"And if we die 'cause you woke up a secret-weapon war machine?"

"Then we won't have to worry about anything anymore."

That earned a snort and a muttered reply, but the girl didn't stay to argue. Footsteps approached the door, quick and sure. The door opened, and a tall, slender person came in, followed closely by a second, taller, slender person, with slightly broader shoulders.

The first person – the girl, judging from the more feminine face outlined in the grid – came straight over to check on the canister.

I kept holding still, but I could have run. There were only the two of them. I could take them both, easy, even with my weapons protocols down, but instead I lay there, acting like a big lump of metal on a slab. Not too difficult, given the fact that I was a bit of a lump to begin with. Ten years spent locked in my own head had taught the value of waiting and listening.

Her companion followed close on her heels. "We should take it to North Star."

The girl didn't respond. She made sure the siphon tube was still attached at both ends, then pulled a tool from what must have been a belt at her waist. The movements of her hands blurred yellow, bright golden lines tracking along behind her wrists as she bent over me and began tinkering with something on my chest.

"What about Paffner? I bet he'd give us a trove for it," the boy said.

The girl's frown of concentration was visible even in the lines of the grid. "Paff wouldn't risk his neck on something this big. We start poking around looking for a buyer, we're gonna get ourselves a whole lot more attention than we want. We're not taking it to North Star."

"Well, for the record, I don't think it's worth fixing. We could just drain the 'rator fluid back out of it and bury the flaighan thing... Cress...Ahhh... Cress?"

The boy was looking at my face, and his pulse set off at a gallop.

The girl didn't glance up even though the boy's voice had cracked and gone reedy.

"Cress, I think you should — flaigha the eyes just moved! It's not — "

I gave up pretending, opened my eyes, grabbed the siphon line, ripped it out of my arm, shoved the girl out of the way, and rolled off the cot.

But the girl didn't stay down. As I made a one-legged lunge for the open door, she lashed out with her foot, her heel connecting with the back of my good knee.

I went sprawling headfirst into the wall, splintering slats and bringing a dusting of hay down from over my head. With a muffled curse I pushed myself out of the planking and whipped around to face the two of them.

The boy's mouth was hanging open and his face had gone pale.

The girl was already up and barring the exit, a very determined tilt to her jaw.

"Cress! It's —"

"I can see that, Jamesh, be quiet and stay still!" the girl hissed.

I glanced from one to the other. She was obviously in charge, but she definitely wasn't military. She would have been written up fifty ways. Her clothes were in rough shape ­ a pair of grease-stained men's denims heavily patched over at the knees, and a man's shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her hair was a wild tangle of gold curls chopped short, not scraped back into a regulation cap.

I took a rapid look around, colors and textures filling in the grid. The walls were made of rough-hewn slats, with daylight in the gaps between them. There were harness traces, bridles, and plowing collars hanging on pegs beside the door. The large equipment turned out to be some sort of harvester.

It was a barn. So, chances were, I wasn't in a town. A farming station on the outskirts of one, most likely, and judging from the conversation I had overheard, there weren't many settlers left. Still, they would have supplies. Fuel. A map of the mountains.

I focused on the girl again. "Cress?"

The boy swore, took a step back, bumped into the cot and sat down hard.

The girl's eyes were wide. But she didn't waver. In fact, she looked even more ready to fight than before. She grabbed the framing of the doorjamb, her knuckles showing white.

I eased my hands up, palms out. "My name is Nox. Alright? I'm not going to hurt you, but I need to get out of here."

"Flaigha, it's talking," Jamesh whispered.

The girl swallowed. She blinked. Her gaze slid a little to the right and beyond my shoulder. Then she started shaking her head. "No. You're not," she said, turning to give me a blunt glare. "You're not going anywhere. Not on that leg. And your bilateral pump is hanging on by a string." She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, staring at my remaining foot. Then she glanced back up at me intently. "I'll make you a deal."

I lifted an eyebrow and leaned a shoulder on the wall I had just ruined. "Alright," I said slowly. "I'm listening."

She put her hands on her hips. "I'll fix you up, if you'll help me bring in the south field."

For a moment I just studied her. She had a spine, that was clear. A spark of guilt tugged at me. She probably wasn't the sort to ask for help easily, judging from that stubborn lift to her chin, but I couldn't stay. Wherever this farm was, Havier wasn't going to stop looking. Eventually they'd find me. Still, she didn't have to know that yet. If she could fix me up... "Fine."

"It's a deal?"

I couldn't quite hold her eyes, but I made myself nod. "It's a deal."

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