“My mother cares for me.”
“How?”
“In her own way.”
“How?”
Words bubble up, unbidden, clogging my throat. My mother loves me by keeping me close to her chest, like an heirloom piece of jewelry.
My mother loves me by welding my feet to the floor. My mother loves me by ensuring that no one, least of all a dayfolk commoner, toys with the monarch’s daughter’s heart, even with platonic affection. My mother loves me by teaching me to love her back.
“Enough with the damn questions!” My own volume rattles me, quivering against my ribs. I smash my fist on the control panel, grateful that autopilot already disengaged the manual buttons. “She cares. She does.”
Aspect holds my gaze with their visual receptors for a long moment. Then they spin the copilot’s chair away from me. “Affirmative,” they say to the wall. Their voice is always an inescapable monotone, but I swear it sounds more drained of feeling than ever.
I let out a long breath, shaking the sting out of my fisted hand. “I’m sorry.”
The words feel utterly ridiculous as soon as they leave my mouth. This is what my life has come to, apparently. I’ve built a mech, originally meant for mining minerals or delivering packages, that instead wants to know about feelings and families and birthday cake recipes. And now I’m apologizing to it.
“What is—sorry?”
“Depends on who you ask.” My mother, it would seem, believes thatsorryis the salve that heals all wounds, no matter how many times the scab is torn back open. “I’d say it means I won’t do it again.”
“Raise—the volume—of vocalizations?”
“Yes.”
“At Aspect?”
“Yes.”
“For no—fault—of Aspect.”
Now it’s my turn to spin my chair away from the mech. “Rub it in, why don’t you.”
“Affirmative.”
“When did I install a sarcastic memory into your mainframe?”
Aspect attempts a mechanical laugh. “Ha. Ha. Ha.” They spin their chair back around, leaning forward to force eye contact. “Aspect learned—that—from Kori.”
“Lovely.”
“Affirmative.”
A bright blue text message scrolls acrossCharon’s viewport.NOW APPROACHING DESTINATION.
I’ve missed my chance to lose myself in the ruins below, wondering what everyone’s old lives were like. But it’s probably for the best. I switchCharonback to manual control.
In the distance, beyond the deserted expanse we’ve just traveled, loom the stark black mountains and towers of the Shadowlands, their edges gleaming an eerie azure. Here, the radiation that drove the dayfolk underground thrives, unchecked. There, what my people call the kiss of death has imparted an unnatural, new sort of life.
But directly below us, well concealed by the ever-shifting sands, visible only to the well-trained eye, is the entrance to the Morpheus Market.
Easing onto the landing pedal, I simultaneously tap out the code for a dispersal signal and pull the release lever down from above my head. The dispersal signal is a sonic wave, beyond the pitch of human hearing, enough to at least briefly repel any nearby mutated predators of the Passage.
The ground rumbles as nearby sand serpents scatter, their bodies even longer thanCharon’s wingspan. I hear howls, snarls, and snuffling as various misshapen beasts flee, their heads like Earthside dogs, their bodies mostly limbs like overgrown insects. The viewport briefly darkens as winged creatures also take flight, their guttural cries rumbling through the ship. Their open beaks are packed with teeth, and though they lack seeing eyes, I swear their milky-white pupils lock with mine before they vanish along the horizon.
Charonsettles soundlessly, set to autopilot a simple orbit as soon as we disembark. I cut the engines and nod to Aspect, who knows the drill.
