Slowly we draw closer to the molten eye of the stationary Pagonian sun. It’s difficult to tell when the Passage becomes the Daylands proper, save for the ever-increasing heat and light, as well as increased sandstone formations where the wind is less brutal. I wait until, without squinting, I can see my home settlement’s entrance along the horizon, jutting out just barely aboveground.
To a passing predator, like a sun serpent that wandered too far from its traditional feeding grounds, it’s nothing noticeable—just an oddly distinct, nearly cubic sand dune, very faintly shimmering from the metallic surface underneath. But I know it to be the first sign of my real home.
The entrance is still a few miles out. Close enough for us to travel the remainder on foot, avoiding any unnecessary attention on us. The lost princess arriving in a husk of a ship with a too-talkative robot would draw far too much notice, and I need to begin my investigation decidedly under the radar. The settlement’s outermost shell of Pagonian plate emits a high frequency audio cue that deters predators this close, too, so we won’t have any sun serpents to worry about. Just a lot of sun-forsaken sand.
Nevertheless, it isn’t lost on me that if Chloe were even remotely anticipating either my return or a nightfolk emissary, there would be increased security in the airspace. And there just … isn’t. It’s the same as it ever was—mostly heavy transport vessels for mining mechs to do their aboveground work, occasionally broken up by a dayfolk starship looking to either get some real sunlight or visit the Morpheus Market. My mother isn’t expecting me home.
Quite possibly, she never wanted me to come home at all.
I force my stomach to stop churning, square my shoulders, and bringCharoninto a rattling shudder of a landing.
Without functioning landing gear,Charon’s underbelly must bear the brunt of impact. Which means a rough, painful, especially sandy landing in the sun-dappled dunes. I swear I feel my teeth jerk back into my skull when the ship strikes land. Instead of screaming, Aspect mutters the word “brave” to themself over and over at increasing volume, apparently determined to demonstrate their personhood with new, but no less irritating, habits.
WithoutCharon’s enclosed shell to protect us, sand cascades into the ship as it slides to a stop in the open desert. Aspect is lucky—they have most of the pros of being alive without the obvious con of requiring oxygen. Once the motion stops, they simply shoot upright, whirl all their limbs like Russ shaking his canine fur, and announce, “ASPECT—CLEAN!”
I, meanwhile, have discovered the taste of sand. For a long, miserable moment, I’m spitting it and tasting it and generally thinking thatanyone who had the misfortune of living on a sand-centric planet would probably hold a lifelong grudge against the stuff. Thankfully, my suit can recognize an invasive substance after an instant, so it temporarily closed the air filtration vents to the worst of it. I’ll probably need to manually clean it later anyway.Less badis still pretty bad when it comes to desert in the lungs.
Once I’ve cleared my throat (and my head) enough to clamber out ofCharon, I heave myself up and over the side. Aspect enthusiastically follows.
Mechs are meant to travel the Passage primarily, but Aspect has spent an overwhelming majority of their life inside the metallic dayfolk settlement. In my enthusiasm to install extra functions, I may have neglected the essentials. Aspect’s feet slip and slide on the uneven dunes. They extend both arms like a starship to stabilize themself, but it doesn’t do much. Eventually I take their hand in mine. They don’t protest, just grip back. It reminds me of how they used to hold me in the Morpheus Market, when the future’s countless possibilities still felt comprehensible. Now everything is different, gaps in my knowledge ever pressing.
All I know is that whatever happens next, I want Aspect and Adria to be there, too. (And because I’m already certain Aspect will beg … yes, also the dog.)
Despite their general lack of experience with the Passage, Aspect is equipped with the same universal parts as all dayfolk mechs. Same basic piston-based skeletal and muscular structure. Same expressionless head, even if I insisted on adding awkward eyes and a crooked smile. And blessedly, the same access chip in their left palm that lets them enter and exit the settlement without having to speak to anyone.
Most mechs run on an independent programmed schedule specifically to remove that burden from their owners, so the ability to enter and exit the settlement at will is essential to harvesting runs. Now, though, it’s my ticket back home without having to show my face or raise my voice at all. By the time anyone notices Aspect’s designation reappearing in the arrival log, I’ll be back on the run, hopefully with newfound answers.
Aspect’s technical name, 45P3C7, flashes across the scanner. It blinks green. Below and just in front of us, the massive metal maw of the settlement’s main gate grumbles, groans, and lugs itself slowly open. If my mother were fully against me, surely she would’ve disabled Aspect’s access to the settlement? Azarii’s rebellion took responsibility for the serpent attack; maybe Chloe was never involved. Maybe she doesn’t know anything about how my body interacts with Pagonian radiation. Maybe what’s happening to me will be as shocking to her as it was to me, and we can face the impossible together.
I want to hope so very badly, but I feel rigid from the nape of my neck to my toes with persistent fear.
Aspect and I descend the ramp as the doors screech shut behind us, catapulting our descent into darkness before artificial lighting kicks back on. I take deep breaths—in through the nose, out through the mouth—trying to force my rising panic out with every puff. My armor is entirely standardized, and it’s not wildly uncommon for dayfolk, in a rush, to still be wearing their armor inside the settlement. Most people don’t have starships, so they store the armor at home, and they might not want to be running around publicly in whatever clothing they were wearing underneath. Remaining armored isn’t a perfect way to avoid drawing attention to myself, but it’s better than the alternative of showing my face and immediately summoning my mother’s minions. Not collapsing my helmet indoors will still look a little odd, but it’s unfortunately my best available course of action.
The only people who would recognize me like this are Chloe or Ednit, and if I play my return right, neither of them will know I’m here until I’ve pinned them down to answer my questions. If it comes to that, anyway.
First stop, the decontamination chamber.
Briefly, I worry that the gemfruit in my utility belt will either trigger a full-blown alarm or sputter out from the decontamination process, but it seems that much like the radiation that powers mechs, the radiationwithin a gemfruit is so securely contained, it doesn’t trip the sensors. And it stays entirely intact. I squeeze it tight in one fist despite its jagged edges biting at me through my glove. The pain keeps me grounded, present.
Now is not the time to lose myself in my anxiety. Next stop: the Lexicon.
The Lexicon is the Daylands’ equivalent of Adria’s archives, the sum total of our knowledge and preserved—albeit fragmented—history in digitized form. The critical difference is that many of our records are in Morpheus chip format rather than simply text.
I’ve easily been in and out of the Lexicon hundreds of times, retrieving assigned curriculum and records as my mother dictated, occasionally copying permitted material to my own (now destroyed inCharon’s crash) comms tablet. But importantly, the Lexicon has levels. Three, to be exact. Level One is for laymen. Level Two is for the privileged. Level Three … I never found out. If my continued Morpheus Market visits had proven ineffective in awakening Aspect, I’d contemplated eventually hacking my way in here to find out.
I never imagined that I’d be breaking this law not to research for Aspect, but to learn something more about myself.
I navigate my old home’s halls with automatic precision. It’s like every other return from Morpheus Market smuggling to my daily studies, except that my heart hammers violently against my ribs. I squeeze the gemfruit in my pocket in time with my racing pulse, brushing wordlessly past countless civilians. None of them look at me, even though I feel like theyknowI shouldn’t be here. Theydolook at Aspect, but that’s less because Aspect is being overtly suspicious and more because their peg leg replacement is still incredibly squeaky, adding a little rubber-bath-toy backup chorus to our speed walk to the Lexicon.
Two lefts, a right, a ramp, an elevator, a circle, third door, then up. Further up. Further in.
I’m actually traveling lighter than I did when I left this place—no more Morpheus sphere on my person, and no comms tablet either—but mysteps feel heavier, my limbs moving as if through molasses. I know more thananydayfolk is supposed to know, now. About the Shadowlands. About the nightfolk. About what I’m truly capable of, not just with the radiation but as an independent person.
I set out into the forbidden shadows, alone. And I returned with a robot brought to proper life.I did that.Not my mother. Not my doctor. Not even Adria, ultimately. More than anyone else, I fought for everything Aspect and I have achieved so far, straining against every chain my mother had ever latched on to me, clawing inch by stubborn inch toward my own vision of my future—even when it broke my nails to the point of bleeding, even when I wondered how I could possibly pull myself a single hand’s length farther away from the home I’d always known.
Maybe it isn’t so strange that the surrounding dayfolk citizens don’t recognize me. I’m not the same girl who left this place, just barely beginning to test the limits of possibility; I’ve evolved into somethingmore.
Most of the settlement uses elevators or ramps, but the one leading to the Lexicon requires a formally documented disability to use, via an access-code comms tablet app that’s not publicly available. Old records indicate early architects of the settlement wanted the Lexicon to feel like an Earthside library—traditional, rather than technical, and needlessly ostentatious, with a spiral staircase looping in on itself at least eight times before reaching the first floor.
