afraid to feel sorry, and pinpricks of panic start to gather in her fingers, making them shake. Her vision tunnels, but she shakes herself out of it and with a grunt, turns back around. She doesn’t stop.
Her eyes are firmly on the path ahead, and she nearly slips into a pool of water, almost invisible in the shadows of the trees. She thinks it might be one of the landmarks Lynne had drawn on the utiphone. Nothing in her is sure about her path; she only knows that she has to keep moving.
Eventually, the clacking of teeth rises above the sccchick and she does a quick assessment of the situation behind her. Four more figures, gleaming milky white in the moonlight, follow behind Bartin. She thinks she can see Gradie, Karry and there’s another guest she never really got the chance to talk to. The Bounty Hunter is the last one.
Something sick and rotten hits her stomach. He had saved them. She didn’t even know his name.
Too busy looking behind her she slams head-first into a tall hard surface. She rocks back, falls, and stares at the structure that towers over her. Her utiphone flickers, once, and if this fucking thing runs out of power….
Ignoring the blinking power bar, she checks Lynne’s map. Yes. She had definitely drawn a huge rock structure. Myrha stumbles to her feet once again, grabs Lynne and walks around one of the last markers. She’s almost there, she can feel it. Taste it.
She tries to memorize the little trail Lynne had sketched and the upside-down tree and what is that? Some kind of lump sits near the tree. Lynne may be an android, but she’s clearly no artist. Myrha will have to help her learn that skill if, when, they get to safety just in case they ever find themselves in a situation like this again where Myrha’s life depends on Lynne’s artistic ability.
Her utiphone goes dead.
She’s so shocked that she actually stops. Stops and stares at the space where the map had been projected. It really shouldn’t surprise her so much. If Lynne could lose charge, then her utiphone surely could as well. It just wasn’t supposed to. It was her last means of survival, it wasn’t supposed to.
Without her progress, the shuffling and clacking is louder than ever. She looks behind her and there are now ten of them. Ten. A guttural sound, a sound she had never thought she would make, bubbles up in her throat. Her body shakes and she wants to collapse onto the ground, huddle and cry and wait and hope fervently for something to save her.
But it’s just her, a dead utiphone, and a dead android.
Tears burn at the corners of her eyes. Helplessness claws at her throat, and the sound of helplessness sounds a lot like her screaming.
She has a distinct urge to just drop Lynne’s ankles and take a bat and start bashing their heads in. If this is going to be her starry resting place, she’d make it theirs as well.
She channels her anger and fear into her walk and suddenly she’s practically leaping and flying over the uneven ground. She doesn’t care if she rips Lynne’s arm off in the process, doesn’t care that she might miss a landmark, because she doesn’t even know which way to go anymore. She just has to get away.
“Catch me if you can, fuckers,” she hisses under her breath.
She’d make them work for it.
The street girl, the tough girl, the cursing, getting-in-trouble-with-authorities girl takes over, and she’d never thought she’d have such a use for that part of herself, but it’s what fuels her legs, gives her the power to carry Lynne with her and curse her enemies. Or maybe she’s just reached a precipice and fallen over it, returning to the guttural animalistic humanity of old, and it takes over and makes her little better than a wild, desperate animal.
She’s sure Lynne would have choice words on that topic.
Surging through the alien undergrowth, she fleetingly looks behind her. Twelve figures follow her. With a growl, she presses forward and glances up as something to her right curls into the sky. They’re the dark limbs of a gnarled tree. She slows enough to take a second look. The tree is lopsided, sinking into soft ground, and those aren’t limbs that stretch up into the dark sky…those are roots.
In the next breath, she’s approaching it and studying it for a clue, anything that could tell her where to go or what to do. Of course, it’s just a tree, but it’s supposed to lead to something. What had been on the map next? Myrha’s mind goes blank with adrenaline, panic, and white noise. She can’t recall the path. She can’t recall what was supposed to come next.
Clack, clack, clack.
Myrha wheezes and freezes; terror, hot and stinging, flares in her limbs. They’ve caught up to her. She throws a fist against the tree and doesn’t dare look, can’t stand to look at them as they come out from the shadows. Picking up Lynne’s heels, she drags her around the other side of the tree as if that can hide them.
Behind the tree…nothing but darkness.
Myrha blinks rapidly, nerves tingling as she takes in this unwelcome surprise. What happened? She reaches her hands out, breath harsh, and encounters something solid. She withdraws her trembling fingers quickly, and her heart is about to burst because what the fuck is this, and holy shit she can hear the footsteps so close to her.
And then…breath against her ear. She screams and brings her fist up and she can feel the soggy flesh and the teeth so close to her hand. Bartin topples backwards into Gerdie who’s almost falling to pieces but still moving. Myrha collapses against the solid surface in shock they’re so close and then bright light blinds her eyes.
Suddenly the solid surface gives way and she’s too surprised to even catch herself; she lands on something that feels suspiciously like floor. She sits up quickly and more lights come on and holymotherfuckingshit.
She just found a starshuttle.
With startling speed, she reaches out and grabs one of Lynne’s limbs, just as more infected guests come around the upside down tree. Their teeth rattle and Bartin’s getting to his feet and reaching out for her—
and a door shuts in their faces.
She can’t even believe it. She can’t believe it so much that she has to laugh and scramble backwards and land on Lynne and sort of curl up around her.
The light on the back of her neck, where the homing device is, glows with a single pinprick of blue light. The control panel next to the door glows as well, one little flashing blue light.
The door locks.
“Welcome home Mase Turobeck,” a silky computer voice greets them.
Myrha gapes and can’t close her mouth. It should be impossible, it is impossible. Then she hears the snick of nails screeching against metal, the infected still trying to come after Myrha, and thinks that really, the impossible shouldn’t surprise her anymore.
The shuttle is gunmetal grey and soft cream. There’s flight panels and a closed view screen, a small vends machine, and then a bed built into the wall. It’s tiny, and a bit archaic, because Myrha has only seen those types of vends in her history textbooks. Still, it’s comfy, with cream walls covered with sheets of…something.
She’s too tired to investigate. Suddenly she’s too exhausted to do anything but lie against Lynne and bask in this new feeling of safety and comfort. The clawing coming from the door is the only thing that reminds her that she is trapped, possibly only living on borrowed time. As the adrenaline seeps from her system, and a bout of sleepiness tugs her eyes closed, she catches a blurry glimpse of something that kind of looks familiar.
She bolts upright and scrambles to the bed, where nearby is something that looks like it could charge her utiphone, or rather, something like her utiphone but only significantly larger.
“This is the last time I’m dragging your heavy ass anywhere,” Myrha grunts as she pulls Lynne to the charger.
Thankfully it’s a wireless charger, something Myrha is very familiar with. She turns the charger on and places Lynne against the surface. Sweet relief begins to flood her body, something that makes her patiently brush Lynne’s hair and she’s sort of intoxicated by hope, so she presses a kiss against Lynne’s slack lips.
Lynne’s fa
ce is scratched, and in places her synthetic skin is torn off in little patches. She doesn’t bleed, and beneath the loose flaps of skin is just her shiny robotic shell. Myrha is stupidly thankful Lynne doesn’t bleed, that she doesn’t have to see it trickle out of her. She kisses the wounds. Kisses can never heal wounds, of course, but it feels good to do it just the same.
And finally, she’s no longer alone.
Myrha’s never heard anything she loved more than the resuscitation of Lynne’s little robotic noises, never seen as anything as beautiful as Lynne opening her eyes, and before Lynne can even speak, can even process her surroundings, Myrha’s wrapped around her, as if trying to melt into her and merge with her and never, ever let her go.
“You’re back,” Myrha croaks.
It feels like a miracle.
Lynne places her hand on the top of Myrha’s head and Myrha’s tears are hot on her skin and she can’t really breathe properly but that may be because her face is buried in Lynne’s soiled uniform.
“Yes,” Lynne answers, a little uncertain.
Myrha wants her to talk forever, and her voice drowns out the sound of the zombies, drowns out the furious beating of Myrha’s heart and the soft sound of her tears.
Myrha thinks that things may actually be all right.
“Told you I wouldn’t leave you,” Myrha says and concentrates on not sniffling like a pathetic little girl.
Lynne doesn’t respond for a moment, just