Mr. Tirren tightened his grip on the hammer and stepped in front of Erica. His ears still rang from the sonorous assault, and his nose was still filled with the metallic scent of his own blood. He turned his head slightly towards her but kept an eye fixed on as many of the trapdoors in front of them as he could. As he did, he caught a glimpse of yet more in his periphery. He was about to suggest they run, as much as that pained him, but it quickly became abundantly clear that they were surrounded. The beeps and clicks and chirps and buzzes continued between trapdoors. One would beep, buzz and click, while the others would repeat the pattern and add something of their own to the end.

The air grew still and silent, and then they saw why. The glowing lights in the centre-most tunnel were moving closer – they were coming towards them, coming towards the daylight. As it reached the very edge of the obsidian darkness, a slender grey arm extended beyond its shadowy confines - it shimmered dully in the early afternoon sun. The arm terminated in three clawed fingers that grasped at the forest floor for purchase, and up the arm itself ran a peculiar set of ridges and indentations. The creature dragged itself out of the tunnel, its burning yellow eyes not diminished even slightly by the light of day. The fiery orbs sat inside a cylindrical head, patches of rust and abrasions scarring its metallic skin. From the head itself hung a jaw filled with rusted metallic teeth that seemed more for show than anything else. The creature emerged from the tunnel and stood upright. Its feet were widely similar to its hands, its clawed toes somewhat resembled that of a bird's. It jerkily moved towards them, its limbs giving an audible clunk with each small movement, and stopped when it was within five or so feet of them. Steam hissed out between the joints of its skin. Its eyes fluoresced through varying shades of yellow and onto other colours, until it settled on a vibrant blue. It squeaked and whistled and hooted in a way that reminded them both of an owl. One by one, each creature in each tunnel copied the message and repeated it, the air filled with a wall of noise. One by one, each set of, as they now came to understand it, eyes, cycled through every shade of every colour imaginable, again settling upon the same blue as the first.

A second set of clawed hands emerged from the next tunnel along and another similar such creature hauled its body out into the light. This one wasn't completely the same. Parts of its smooth metallic skin had peeled away to expose gears and springs and all sorts of mechanisms that Erica hadn't seen before. Crudely carved sections of wood had been placed over some of them to act as makeshift plasters and served to make it look more horrifying than the one before. Over the course of the next few minutes, it was joined by another six, each in its own unique state of disrepair and decay.

Mr. Tirren jostled in place, not quite sure whether or not he should strike out at the closest one or grab Erica and make a run for it. It was just a machine, he reasoned, a thing. Whatever he chose to do, he wouldn't have to hold back, they weren't that scary at all, in fact. Almost sensing his dilemma, Erica stepped in front of him and slowly pressed down on his arm. Begrudgingly, he lowered the hammer and returned it to his belt. Erica nervously addressed the closest mechanical man, robot she supposed she should call it. “Hello. Can you understand me?” The top and bottom half of the robot's head rotated independently to the centre section, its eyes remaining in place. It tweeted and squeaked affirmatively, then it beeped in a low tone, like a slide whistle. Slide whistles were just generally very disappointing things, so Erica understood quite clearly.

“They can understand us?”

“Yes, but I don't think they can talk. Or at least not to us.” In response, the lead robot gave a high-pitched beep and nodded enthusiastically. “Okay,” she said. Erica's fear subsided, replaced by a sense of interest that she hadn't experienced in a long time, and though she was still unbelievably confused, she no longer wanted to crawl out of her skin.

“One beep for yes,” Mr. Tirren said. “Two for no. Like a guessing game.” The robot beeped once and rotated all of its head this time.

“Are you here to hurt us?” Erica asked nervously. The robot beeped twice and cycled its eyes through various shades of blue.

“Are you our friends?” The robot beeped twice, the second being the same low, dejected whistle from before.

“But will you be our friends?” Erica immediately added. The robot beeped once and the tension in the air dropped a little further, going from being thick enough to cut with a knife down to more of a fine soup. “Of course, this doesn't even begin to explain anything. They're mechanical, certainly, and more advanced than anything I ever thought possible. Yes or no doesn't really cut it, I'm afraid, Mr. Tirren. We know my father had to be involved, but we don't know how or why, or even if-” Mr. Tirren wrapped a large, powerful arm around Erica and pulled her closer. She noticed his arms weren't shaking, in stark contrast to her own, which she was having to hold down by her side to keep steady. She felt like a broomstick.

“Is Sebastian still alive?” he asked. The robot bent its knees slightly and looked at the ground as if caught in a deep wave of thought. Its eyes cycled through multiple colours and, as before, ended up at light blue. It beeped once. Well, that's something, thought Erica. What would the people at home think when she told them? They'd probably be happier with the lights. She considered not telling them anything at all. “Oh, we just got lost,” or, “We stopped for a quick nap and, oh would you look at the time,” she'd say. She was very sure no-one would believe that, even Harry, and he always seemed so keen to believe anything.

“Hello!” shouted Isla. She replaced the E with an A and forgot exactly how many Os were required. When in doubt, add more, was her motto. She also forgot that you can't really fly and wave at the same time. She clipped a tree and tumbled through it, making a whistle-stop tour of all the branches on the way down, and found herself upside-down in a bush. This was one of her better landings. In unison, the glowing blue eyes cycled to red and the metal men raised their arms. Each of their hands spun out in front of them, their taloned fingers thrown wide by centrifugal force, creating a swirling fan of metal as they turned their attention towards the bush and slowly began their approach.

“No! Wait!” Erica cried as she stepped forward. Mr. Tirren drew his hammer and weighed up his options. The lead robot turned its head towards them and stared. Much more slowly than before, it cycled its eyes through the spectrum and this time settled on a piercing green. It whistled and beeped and slowly lowered its arms. To their relief, the others followed suit.

“So's I was sent to find you two,” Isla said, awkwardly trying to untangle her dress from the branches of the bush. “Everyone said you might be in troub-” She looked at the phalanx of metal men. “-Oh would you look at that? I'll just be going, then.” She didn't actually go anywhere, she just climbed back into the bush, curled into a ball and pulled the branches around her. It was a very effective tactic when employed by hedgehogs or pill bugs, or reasonably anything smaller than a six-foot wading bird in a pink, green, blue, orange, tie-dyed patchwork dress that she was very proud of but now immensely regretted making.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“It's all right, Isla. Come out and meet our new friends. They especially like it when you move slowly and don't do anything that looks threatening,” Erica said. She looked at Mr. Tirren as she said this and kept her tone low and neutral. He shrugged because that was all he had the emotional energy for right now and put the hammer back into his belt for the second time. Isla stepped out of the bush as elegantly as she could, but the effect was ruined when she had to stop to remove twigs and leaves and one very angry caterpillar from her feathers. She looked down at her dress and lamented the new hole she’d torn in it. She patched and replaced so many parts of it over the years, she wondered if it was even her dress any more.

“Isla, can you still fly?”

“I s'pose so,” she said. She tried not to think of her dress. She thought so hard about trying not to think about her dress that she thought about her dress, which annoyed her more than a little.

“Good. Well, could you please tell everyone we're okay and we'll be home soon. Tell them we've brought a friend, but leave the explaining to us.” Mr. Tirren shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

“What are we going to do about these things?” He pointed without raising his arm. “That very much depends on them, I'd say, Mr. Tirren.” She addressed the lead robot. “I'd like to find out more. Would you be willing to come back with us? Just you. We don't have room for all of you, and after that little stunt you just pulled with our friend Isla, Ms. Kessler to you, it would be dangerous for us to have you there. I hope you understand.” The metal men burst into a chorus of beeps and whistles, their eyes flashed in various colours and intensities as they, Erica assumed but not incorrectly, put it to a vote. The metal men briefly organised themselves into two rows. The robots in the row on the left adjusted their eyes to red, the robots on the right adjusted their eyes to blue. The lead robot stood in the middle, its eyes an emerald green. It turned to the row on the left and gave a series of three whistles, then turned to the robots on the right and gave a series of four whistles.

“That's a yes, then,” Mr. Tirren mumbled. Erica couldn't sense the disappointment in his voice quite as much as she was outright crushed into the ground by it.

“Of course, we have rules. Two, in fact.” The metal man beeped a solitary beep. “One: you stay in our house and the only time you leave is if you want to come back here. No roaming the village and scaring people. And two: if you try to hurt anyone, Mr. Tirren here will be the last of you worries.” Erica knew that Mr. Tirren would, in fact, be the very first of their worries and subsequently the last of them. If there were somehow to be worries in between them, they would probably be shaped like Mr. Tirren as well. However, she felt it wouldn't hurt to make them think there was something worse in store if they tried anything. “There will be no violence,” she continued. “Except our violence, I suppose, but that would only come in response to your violence, and would be all your own fault for being violent in the first place.” She’d lost her thread a little, but she was glad that someone was still following it. The metal man inclined its head slightly and beeped.

Isla flapped her wings and shook the final few twigs from her plumage. After an ungainly run up and a couple of test hops and flaps, Isla Kessler was essentially flying. When Isla flew, she did so without a care in the world or a thought in her head, not even a thought about flying. So it wasn't exactly flying as much as it was an exercise in remembering periodically to not hit the ground at a terminal velocity. She soared shakily above the trees. Erica followed with her gaze and half an expectation that she'd hit one, or more of them, and they'd need to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get her down. “I suppose you'll have a lot of questions of your own,” she said. “But I've no idea how you'd begin to ask them.” They beeped. “I'm sorry for all of this, Mr. Tirren. If we want answers, I think this is what we need to do.”

“I agree,” he sighed. He’s resigned himself to this being the only way forward that didn't involve his hammer. “We should go, Erica. But that thing is in front of us.” The creature neither beeped nor whistled, and as casually as it possibly could, which wasn't particularly casual considering what it was, started towards Mayflight.

***

They’d taken it upon themselves to sacrifice the lantern and wagon for the sake of speed. They weren't going to need it now at any rate. This was a fact that didn't escape Erica, and she shuddered at the thought of having to have done this in the diminishing electric glow of the lantern. Any time they may have saved was squandered easily as the robot shakily picked and stumbled its way up embankments and over tree roots, its arms flailing from side-to-side in an attempt to maintain its balance. Mr. Tirren’s trepidation faded as he watched what had just half-an-hour ago been, in his mind, a significant threat, react to its surroundings like an unsteady child; vulnerable, naïve, he didn't know what to make of it any more. As they walked, its head pivoted widely and without coordination as it followed the chirps and tweets of birds high up in the canopy. It filled the silence between the chatter with its own chirps and whistles and, as far as they could both gather, seemed quite content in being there with them.

The journey had taken far longer than they anticipated, but Mayflight was in sight. As with Erica's previous trip to the woods, a crowd had gathered at the entrance.

“Is that it?” Tobias asked.

“I thought it would be taller,” said Mrs. Tirren. “Isla said it was taller.”

“It’s just a baby,” Harry replied. “Do they have babies? I bet they have babies.” Rasmus stepped forward, followed closely by Sarah. Harry sat excitedly upon Tobias' shoulders and tried to pilot him towards the excitement. He was having very little success but it was certainly very fun.

“Isla got around to talking,” Erica said as Rasmus approached. It wasn't a question.

“She did have some interesting things to say.”

“I bet she did,” Mr. Tirren chuffed. He patted Rasmus on the shoulder and walked off towards his family.

“Do they get any taller?” Rasmus asked.

“No.”

“And that's also a no to breathing fire?”

“That's a no to probably everything Isla told you. Where is she now?”

“After we got her off the roof and inside in front of the fire, she had some stories to tell. After that, she retreated to Bridget's sowing room to tend to her gravely wounded dress. And that is where I imagine she still is.” The robot turned towards Rasmus and took a few shaky steps forward, then slowly and deliberately extended its arm out in front of it and held it there. Rasmus regarded the creature for a moment, then put his hand out and carefully shook the robot by one of its deceptively sharp fingers,to which it beeped and chirruped ecstatically. The villagers collectively let out a sigh and inched a little closer to sate their curiosity, Sarah at the forefront, her pencil a manic whirl as she feverishly scribbled notes and diagrams onto every patch of blank paper; a perfectly passable likeness of the creature alongside her estimates of height, weight and what it may possibly be made of.

Tobias did his best at humouring the young canine as he compelled him towards Sarah, and hopped very slowly from foot-to-foot at his instruction. The little one seemed very excited, but Tobias didn't get it, and certainly wasn't going to expend the energy to think about why he should get it, though by time he had expended the energy to think of all the reasons why he shouldn't expend the energy by thinking about it, everyone had gone home and Tobias stood alone.

“Bugger,” he said.