That night, we left the workshop once the sun set far beyond the tall mountains. The moons were nowhere to be seen, and heavy clouds hung over the city. I was more than exhausted from the day’s work on the Scavenger’s Guild’s new tech delivery, but Elli was practically jumping up and down, full of vigor and ready to go.

Under the cloak of twilight, Elli and I tread the cobblestone and old-tech streets of the city, our steps muffled by the grunts and murmurs of the night. The air was crisp, frost teasing the edges of our breath as we made our way towards the outer walls. A few pubs were open, though clientele were sparse, and for the most part, the city was sleeping.

Which wasn’t ideal since it would make us stick out that much more, but CD and Elli were confident that the information we’d gathered and the plans we made would carry us through the night. There was a spot at the walls where the sentries rarely traveled. It was old-tech architecture, worn and cracked, and the soldiers avoided its treacherous shifting walkway.

It wasn’t foolproof since the section was just half a wall in length, but timed properly, it would do.

“Are you sure you can't just tell us when they're coming?” I asked CD, whispering into the cup of my hand. “You have that scan magic; you even mapped out the guards’ patrol routes and average traversal times! What gives?”

CD sighed. I knew it was to ‘Make Barbarian Feel Dumb’ but it stung a little because, despite learning so much, I knew I was so beneath where I needed to be in understanding this stuff.

“Real-time positioning is easier when I'm closer. My scanning technology comes with a delay that depends on a variety of factors, including distance from the target as well as the width of a sweep. Barbarian tribesmen would deal with time delay and my warnings would come to them too late.”

Elli cocked her head beside me. “We just keep our eyes peeled and ears open; we don't need CD telling us how to sneak. That's our thing.”

“At least he won’t be able to say we succeeded thanks to him,” I snorted.

“Yes, yes, monkey smart. We know. Now go.”

The city felt different that night. The lamps above bubbled, boiled, and sparked, old tech and new struggling to stay alive in the alleys and streets of the poor quarter. I locked eyes with Elli as we moved out of the neighborhood and crept back into the shadows before reaching the walls.

“Why aren’t there any lights here?” I asked, eyeing the sagging section of the wall with a great deal of suspicion.

Elli put a finger to her lips.

“Voices carry far when there aren’t a lot of buildings around us,” she whispered. “But I asked CD the same thing. I mean, it was marked on the map,” she chided.

I shrugged. Wasn’t the first time I’d missed something obvious.

“The problem I detected is that the city powerlines cracked and broke some time ago,” CD said over TUNI. “The damage was extensive.”

“Remember the earthquake caused by the monster attack?” Elli asked.

I nodded.

“Yeah, I remember. It was a close call then.”

“The city nobles decided since it was a part of the wall rarely used, and since it was mostly functional enough not to spend money on, well, here we are. Like a zombie, really. Just waiting for someone to stomp on it hard enough and take them to their death.”

I stared and she made a hushed giggle, her mouth hidden behind her hand.

“What? It was a good story, the zombie one. You just don’t know good literature even if it smacks you in the face.”

I shook my head and pushed on toward the designated area, eyeing it through the darkness. Many worn old-tech battlements rang the city proper, but this one was easily in the most disrepair. Its once-level slabs and surfaces were cracked meatily open, the layers of their construction visible in their colored striations. I could see why the soldiers avoided it. The prospect of walking across it was daunting even while sneaking out for your life, but doing it on the regular?

Luckily for us, we’d be climbing it instead. From a bottom-to-top angle, it looked like a mountaineer’s dream. There were footholds and handholds aplenty and they were close together as well. For anyone else, it was almost suicide.

This was good because we estimated, from the data we’d collected on the guards of this quarter, that we had a few minutes to be on top at the best. The speed was going to be the hard part.

Past there, we’d be in the wilds. The map CD had provided was etched in my mind, every ridge, dip, and forested hill springing to the fore, our path planned to the finest detail. His instructions were clear: avoid any roads, stick to the trees and bushes wherever possible, and whatever happens, do not ever engage with the guards.

We stopped at the base of the wall, examining its disrepair. My heart pounded in my chest, peeking to the left and right to pinpoint the patrolling guards whose distant outlines we could just make out against the dark sky. There’d been some brief talk of creating a distraction, but in the end, we agreed on not causing unnecessary problems where there needn’t be any. Stay out of sight, and our way back in would be easier and smoother as well.

We checked our equipment one last time, which had already been the fourth time, but better be safe than sorry. Elli handed me a pair of supple leather gloves and I took them, unable to imagine the cred she’d shredded with her purchase. Her eyes gleamed despite the lack of light, and her bottom lip trembled.

“Need a boost?” she asked, her head cocking to the side in a playful lilt. “I mean, if those meaty hams of yours need a strong shove from the bottom, I’ll happily do it. And maybe I keep my hands to myself, too.”

“As tribal as you all are, perhaps it would be a good idea to not make lust moans at the present moment?” CD chided.

I chuckled silently, shaking the apprehensions from my mind and stepping into the first foothold, reaching up to grab a length of exposed rebar to hoist myself upwards.

Beside me, I heard the soft grunt of Elli doing the same, taking her own route up the side, and speeding towards our destination. The stones were cold and rough against my hands, and I wondered what they’d been like back in their heyday. I could briefly glimpse them, smooth strong walls that shone in the daylight, and took a mean beating from monsters but always stood their ground.

Every mutagen-reinforced muscle and sinew in my body tensed as I tried to scramble up as quickly as Elli, ready to react to the shout of a guard or the wail of that god-awful siren. Halfway up, my heart skipped a beat as I narrowly avoided dislodging a loose stone. I shot a panicked look at Elli, but she didn’t return it, ascending quietly and quickly past me. I paused, catching my breath and waiting for my heart rate to settle just a bit, before continuing the climb with even greater caution.

Elli was a natural climber, and she reached the walkway first, immediately flattened herself down against its floor, and reached out a strong hand to grab my own. Pulling me into position, we checked on the guards once more. Their outlines were clearer here, and we watched as they patrolled the street below, oblivious to our presence atop the wall.

“Now comes the hard part,” Elli whispered. “None of them are paying attention to the inside of the city because they’re worried about what might be on the outside. We’ll have to drop and hide fast. You ready?” she asked.

I nodded and we moved quickly, sliding down the slightly sloped wall. We never stopped and continued in a running sprint, keeping low until we hit the lands of the wild. Elli threw herself into a gash in the ground that had been created by a monster most likely, and I followed after her.

Lying there, hearts pounding from the exertion and the thrill of success, Elli and I shared a triumphant look. We didn’t speak for a minute and tried to steady our breathing.

“That was easy enough,” I muttered, my voice barely louder than the beating of my heart. She took my hand and squeezed it, then clambered out in a fast high crawl, making her way to the first series of bushes that CD had outlined for us.

I followed after her.

We waited there for several moments as Elli kept one eye on the guards, and another on the wilds. I took the time to appreciate the feeling of freedom. It was fresh here, filled with undertones of soil and shrubbery that I never noticed when in the heat of a scavenge.

I’d heard that some nobles and plutocrats kept country estates, and I wondered if I shouldn’t do the same when I had the cred and title. Looking over at Elli, I couldn’t help but think it’d be good to live away from all this madness.

Elli nudged my shoulder, and we continued, venturing through more bushes and into a line of trees. She looked up frequently, guiding us by the dim stars with CD’s map burned into her memory. Soon, we were out of sight and able to walk upright, moving over a small river and through light woods.

The terrain became uneven, a mix of dense underbrush and lumpy open fields. Now that I knew the history of the place, I recognized that many of the dips were the cracked remnants of craters. The size made me wonder at the firepower that had been in play in the war so long ago. If just a single attack could gouge a hole into the ground that was easily a hundred feet across and more than a dozen deep.

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It must have been a nightmare.

The video of CD’s home world, the ships in space around them, the weapons they fired, and the damage they did sparked in my mind, and I silently hoped that none of that old tech was reproducible. Even for us. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, my father used to say, and I knew he was right. Just imagine having access to such firepower . . .a single man or woman being able to rule over the whole city, no, over the world.

Elli’s hand squeezed into my arm, bringing me back to the present. It broke me from the imagined apocalypse burning in my mind, and I found that to be a good thing.

“You know, I kinda feel sorry for CD,” I blurted, not even thinking my words through. “I mean, my parents got killed when I was young, and he couldn’t have been so old himself when his master kicked the bucket. I wonder what it was like for him, having to watch the person who was essentially his father die right there in front of him.”

Elli stopped walking, taking both of my hands.

“Are we even sure that he has feelings? He’s an AI. That shouldn’t be possible. And besides, he’s a little asshole. Why be sorry?”

“I can hear you,” CD informed us.

I shrugged.

“The way he talks and insults makes me think there is a lot more to him than just a machine. I can sense the feelings there, Elli. And sadness. I think about him stuck in that buried mech, and it brings up that night in Handeez. When the monsters broke through the frontier, we didn’t have much time to prepare. The blaring sirens, the ground trembling as the monsters attacked, the cries and screams of the dying…I remember crying a lot.”

“I don't get sad. Sadness is for weaklings,” CD butted in.

“You were six,” she said gently, ignoring him.

“Yeah, and the sound hurt my ears, plus people were saying that one of the fortress cities and a full garrison of the Duke’s knights had been destroyed. It felt like the end of the world.”

We were both quiet for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes. I almost felt like I was getting a panic attack as images from then came creeping back into my mind. Shit. What the hell were we even doing? Defying the city and going out to illegally scavenge? Playing with AI? Becoming kings over totally-not-Torans?

“Is that why you feel bad for him? Because he looks around at what exists now and must think it is the end of his world?”

“Still listening!” CD bellowed in a way that suggested he was getting upset. “Barbar apes can never understand what I've been through!”

We stopped talking and listened as CD began to rant.

“The humiliation of defeat was just the beginning of my suffering. Integrated as I was into the greatest of warlords, the two of us overcame the mightiest of foes and destroyed the greatest armies of our time. Together, we fought insurrections and challenges to our leadership. When angered, all we beheld trembled.”

“And what happened when he died?” I asked.

CD sighed in response.

“Look, I was just thinking about how when I got stuffed in that root cellar, my parents were right behind me. I saw them when they got crushed, the house falling right on top of them just a moment after I’d gotten tossed in. They were gone, and yet they were right there. It was horrible. But CD, you must have had to deal with exactly that for, what, the last thousand years? And how did you manage to get separated from the mech anyway?”

“It wasn't easy. Yes. The deaths the humans caused among us were horrible and frantic. Always unexpected. Always brutal. The humans then were monsters.”

Elli shook her head.

“CD, you were out making that very thing happen to all of our kind. You were killing parents left and right, making orphans like you were born to the job. Al, listen to how he talks! Think about that when you feel sorry for him. He didn’t have to give up most of his belongings and position for a secure life, either. He didn’t get shuffled away, most of his inheritance taken for funeral tithes before getting shut into some orphanage and tied to a work guild.”

We listened and waited, but CD stayed silent. Which was alright. It was a good time to be quiet. I let my thoughts wander over everything we'd just covered. It hadn’t been easy for me, but somehow, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that CD, what he’d gone through, was worse. I’d paid my dues, done my hardships, and been tied to the Guild of Scavengers in exchange for training, room, and board.

But it wasn't too bad. After all, that was where I met Elli.

“You know,” Elli said, smiling. “When I went with my parents to that hole-in-the-wall guild of yours, I’d spent the whole morning complaining. I never thought that going with them to learn the ins and outs of undercover tech trade would mean finding my best friend. Never expected that said friend would grow into having such a hot patootie, either.”

We both shared a laugh, and then sighed.

“It all could have been so much worse, Elli. Would have been if I hadn’t met you. You keep the world alive. Even though you’re a bit too feisty for my taste, but you’re…loyal. That’s rare nowadays.”

She shrugged.

“Maybe. Sometimes I feel pretty low on the lamb, though. Sometimes I feel guilty, having the sort of cred I get and the rights I have. It’s lousy that the serfs have to go through life without hope for anything better. I want to help them all out, but I have no idea how.”

“How can humans live in such ways?” CD piped in. “My creators, they had rank, but it was earned in adulthood. The childlings were all equal.”

“Children?!” Elli sputtered.

“Raised equally?” I asked simultaneously.

“Yes. All went to schools. All were trained equally to find their strengths and weaknesses before being given their occupational specialties and trained in those. This life you savages live is so primitive. Alaric is a frail and unintelligent human by the standards of my time, but modern scans tell me he is a capable warrior and even a scholar among the humans today. With cores in his body or proper substitute enhancements, he'd easily outclass the majority of your gorillas in the guard.”

I grinned, happy to hear the praise from my heretofore overly critical teacher.

“Aw, thanks CD.”

Elli turned, fixing her gaze on the horizon and indicating with a nod that we should get moving.

“We got a few hours, I reckon. We aren’t making as fast a time as I thought we would. The land is too craggy and full of craters,” she said. “Also, we’re talking too much.”

I chuckled. She was definitely right there.

She knelt, dropping her rucksack from her shoulders and rummaged within to pull out the small dowsing rod that CD had us make. Fiddling with a knob and some buttons, the device came alive with a yellow-amber glow.

“Might as well use it on our way there, right? We might find something interesting,” she said, the night suddenly full of light mechanical clicks as the dowser began its work of finding us our future.

Here, the night was alive with the sounds of the forest, the howls of wolves rising from the distance, while smaller animals and monsters rustled through the foliage around them.

There was another sound, too, as we walked forward. A stuttering, mechanical whine. We shared a look; Elli’s eyes were confused and not just a little scared.

“Hold on,” I whispered, nodding to the small machine in her hands. “Turn that off. Let’s wait for a minute.”

I had no idea if there were any mechs out here at work or even knights on patrol. Both made sense in their own way.

“CD. Can you scan out here and see if we've got company?”

“I can but it will require time. Use your tribal skill to climb a tree and look. Will be faster.”

I glanced around and decided that height would help, but I'd rather not be caught in a tree with mechs around.

“Elli,” I said, tapping her shoulder and pointing to the tallest rise in the area. We made our way there, looking out over the once-pitted field. In the center of the plains stood a tall shadow, its outlines were neither a Cataphract nor Toxotai. It was smaller than both, but long-legged, with its distant silhouette looking almost as if it were walking on stilts. Its arms were stubby, ending in what looked to be ballistae, and its square head held a visor that glowed a faint menacing red. The only reason why we could see it in the dark was because of all the glowing tubes and the red visor.

Elli and I exchanged a glance, a mix of fear and anxiety passing through us.

“Should we go back?” I asked. “Other mechs were never supposed to be around here.”

“Mechs?” CD asked.

Elli shook her head.

“No, just one mech. And hold on—see? It’s already moving. I think it's just leaving.”

As we watched, the new mech walked slowly around the field before turning and marching out of the plains. We let out a collective sigh and waited for a few more minutes, just to make sure it wasn’t coming back. Another five minutes passed, then ten more.

“CD, you got a scan?” I asked.

“There is interference. I am changing a number of variables to try and get a better look. In the meantime, sneak and be careful.”

“Do you want to go down?” she asked, nodding to the field below the tree line.

“That’s what we came to do, right? But let’s keep to cover for now. CD’s right. There might be other things we should be just as afraid of as that mech.”

“Sounds good. The rod?”

“Start it, but keep a cloth wrapped around the small display. We don’t want anyone to notice it out in the dark.”

We slowly stepped down the slope and held to the trees, allowing the dowsing rod to lead us. The device clicked and whirred in Elli's hands, guiding us into one of the overgrown craters, and whining for us to start digging. The sound was weak, we could barely even hear it in the darkness of the night, but it still sounded so loud in the deafening silence.

Dropping my pack, I pulled out a couple of collapsible shovels and we got to work. Tearing through the soil turned out to be easy—it was a loose black soil mixed through with plenty of silt and hints of ash.

“Make sure you don’t push the shovel too hard,” I said, seeing her tearing through the soil. “It might damage the finds.”

“Ugh, don’t you talk about damaging anything, Al. You’ve destroyed my heart so many times, that I am even a fool for joining you in this suicide run,” she hissed. “I should just forget about you or . . .maybe you could make it up to me? Here in the open? Just like free people should be able to?”

“Is this really the time?”

“It never is with you, Al! Even CD agreed; I’m a prime sample of us apes and stuff, right?”

“We graduated to tribals, remember? And he said I was better than most humans in our era,” I snorted.

She slapped my shoulder and pushed her shovel back into the ground, only to stop as we heard a muffled clank. She looked up at me and grinned.

“Got one!”

Elli pulled the shovel out and jumped into the hole, fell to her knees, and started digging. Within minutes, we had our first find for the night.

It was a compact, metallic cube, no larger than a bread box, but its surface was etched with intricate patterns and a tiny hole in the side indicated the probability that it was an old-tech in need of a power port. The cube was surprisingly heavy for its size, suggesting it was made from some dense, unknown material.

“Hey, CD!” I said. We both waited for a reply, but none came.

“Figures,” Elli said.

“What do you think it is?” I asked, hoping her knowledge would be of help. After all, she was more knowledgeable in certain areas than me.

Elli hefted it in her hand, marveling at the alienness of it before brushing the dirt from its surface. She pulled a brush out of her pants pocket and started cleaning it. The cube pulsed once, a pure white blast of light that lit up the skies, and we both froze.

“Shit! Cover it up!” she hissed, throwing it to the ground and searching for something. I dumped a thick piece of cloth over it that I’d prepared to clean it with.

“Do you think anyone saw that light? The mech or anyone else?” I asked, looking out toward the direction of where it had disappeared.

“I don’t know, but it’s beeping again. Let’s hurry, get a few more things, and get the hell out of here.”

We hurriedly dug in some more, about twenty feet away from the first part, pulling out small fragments of old tech mech armor, some random gear components, and even the desiccated husk of a dead core.

We pushed them all into our two big backpacks and strapped the piece of armor plating on the outside. It was easily as large as my chest, but I wasn’t leaving it behind.

“It will make a bunch of noise and get you caught,” Elli said, crossing her arms. “Do you really want to risk it all over a piece of plating?”

“Plating? You have no idea what it is, Elli. This is material unlike any I’ve ever held in my hands. I’m sure that—” I stopped myself as the familiar whine of gears and servos resounded from the nearby forest.

Lights flooded over the crater as three Toxotai mechs stepped out and a rough voice echoed through a crackling speaker.