Chapter 10: From Up So High
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It smells a little strange inside of the cabin. The mixture of dried blood and filth from her own stained body that is cooking in the hot air of the cramped compartment. Pen was thankful that she had sensitive ears and not a sensitive nose, but it was still noticeable. Still. Despite that, it was so warm in here. She had never been anywhere that was so warm. Even if it smelled a little, even if there wasn’t room to stretch, it was so warm. She leaned back against the hot seat and looked up to the black eye above her.

“Hey,” she asks in a half-daze, a mixture of the heat and a strange weightlessness caused by her accepting of the futility of it all. “-So are you really alive? I thought bots weren’t really alive like animals or people were.”

  The large man is quiet for a minute as they keep walking. Pen doesn’t pursue the topic further, the heat simply making her too drowsy. Just sitting in this enclosed space with the air being so warm made her body feel heavy, made her eyes feel heavy. The sharpness of her cold tongue melted dull by the effect of just sitting there. Just resting, even if in a filthy seat, it was still rest in a warm nest. In a place that didn’t have bars or a musty blanket draped over it, one that never even touched her skin.

 

The man answers with a question, “So you never told me your name?”

  Pen turns her head and looks to the side, her eyes feeling heavy. But she doesn’t answer either, opting instead to listen to the whir of the mechatronic components hidden in the walls around her. They keep walking in silence and she yawns deeply. A buzz coming from the black eye above her catches her attention and she looks at it sleepily. “What?” she asks, feeling its peering gaze on her.

 

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“Are you human?” asks the voice curiously.

“What?” says the girl, her eyes going wide.

“I’ve never seen ears like that before is all,” expands the man. “I must have been gone for longer than I thought. Mutants huh?”

Pen is quiet for a moment and closes her eyes before anything escapes them, turning away again. “You’ve got some nerve asking me that of all people.”

“Sorry,” says the voice. The cabin lurches as they turn to the left.

“You can call me Tango,” rings out around her.

“Huh?”

“My name. You can call me Tango. If we’re going to be working together then we should at least know each other’s names.”

“That’s a stupid name,” she laughs. “Isn’t that a fruit?”

  The man laughs now, causing her to jump a bit at the unexpected reaction. “Ah… no. Well, maybe it is these days. But I’ll just say no. It’s not my real name,” explains the man. “Fake names are allowed to be stupid. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. So we can be whoever we want. Anything we were before that doesn’t exist here, because neither of us know about it. You’re free to be whoever you want to be. So you can just call me Tango.”

  She opens an eye and stares at the ball above her, the man’s words going through her groggy mind. He adds on. “If you don’t want to tell me your name, that’s fine. But I’ll need something to call you eventually if you want to work together.”

 

“Forget it.” She says, leaning back and closing her eyes again.

“Hmm?” he asks.

  “There’s nothing here. There’s no point. So there’s no reason for us to work together. Besides. There’s no reason for you to do it anyways.” She closes her eyes. “I’ll have to get out eventually and then you can just leave, there’s nothing stopping you. I can’t force you to stay if you don’t want to,” she says rubbing her wrists. “I don’t want to be that kind of person, I forget that sometimes.”

  The cabin lurches as they begin to ascend upwards in some fashion, judging the rhythm Pen assumes that they’re climbing up some sort of staircase. Machines continue buzzing and whirring around her, their hum is oddly soothing. The white-noise gives her something to focus on in the awkward silence.

“I’ll die,” says the man like before, breaking the silence.

 

Pen opens her eyes again.

“The crystal you gave me won’t last forever, it’s more than half gone. A month if I take it slow. A few days at best if I go fast. You can think of it like its food for me. I’ll burn through it.”

“Huh?” Her eyes go wide at the revelation.

  “So I need someone to help me find more, to replace the old ones. I need someone to take care of anything that breaks inside of me where I can’t reach. A lot of stuff is already janked up, it’s a wonder I am this functional with all the dead wires and circuits. There’s somewhere I need to go and I won’t make it on my own.”

  Pen leans forward, her right ear twitches as the laze that was borne of a loss of hope dissipates almost all at once. She senses an opportunity, the spark of greed growing in her eyes. “So you’re saying you need someone to take care of you?” The gears in her mind were turning quickly now.

The man speaks. “I was thinking. Maybe we can work toge-“

“One medium crystal a month.”

“…Huh?” asks the voice dumb-founded.

“You have to find me one medium sized crystal a month, on top of the six large ones you owe me,” says the girl shrugging with a smug smile growing on her bloodied face.

“Uh… I was thinking more along the lines of a cooperation. It’s obvious there could be a mutual benef-“

“Take it or leave it. One medium a month, plus I’m in charge,” she says leaning back, crossing her arms.

“You’re cold-blooded,” says the man, somewhat disbelieving. “Weren’t you just saying a minute ago that you don’t want to be like that?”

“I’m just offering you a choice. I don’t want to be someone who forces people to do things. I won’t force you or anyone else to do anything. But, this is just business,” she says with a smirk. “Business can be rough,” she adds on, parroting something she had heard once.

“But if I don’t accept your conditions, I’ll die, making it less of a choice, really?” asks the man somewhat worried.

“Says who?” says Pen, leaning back and kicking her bloody feet up against the console. She winces as she lifts her legs, but does her best to hide it. “You just need to find somebody else to take care of you. Obviously, I still expect you to repay your debt though, Tango.”

  Pen lifts her hand and inspects her dirty nails while speaking. She didn’t know why, but she had seen a merchant do it once. It had a purpose, some secret of the trade; she wasn’t a merchant yet. But she would be one day and she had always done her best to learn what she could from the shadows.

“It might be hard though… People are probably going to be scared of a bot up there. But I’m sure if you look hard enough…” She turns her hand around, looking at the same nails now with her fingers outstretched.

“How old are you exactly…? You’re actually kind of scary,” asks Tango.

“Do we have a deal?” asks Pen, yawning, already knowing the answer. The sale was in the bag, as they would have said.

“What’s a medium crystal?” asks Tango, still somewhat unsure.

  “The crystal, which I generously donated to you, is a large crystal. Just one is worth a lot. Enough to live for a month like royalty. They’re rare, obviously. You’re welcome. One about a quarter of this one’s size is a medium. So all in all I think I’m being very generous. It’s a good deal.” She prepares herself for the killer sentence, the one she had learned so long ago. “Anyways, you can’t put a price on life, right?” The space is silent as they walk forward, bobbing up and down as they climb the staircase. Pen lets out a deep yawn and wiggles back against the seat, smug and triumphant.

“Why do you want all of these rad-frags anyways?” asks Tango.

Pen doesn’t open her eyes anymore, feeling a heavy drowsiness coming over her, slowly now having become too strong to fight.
“There’s also a place I want to go to,” she says as the exhaustion finally overcomes her.

 

  The deep wiring in Pen’s brain had never quite achieved a sleep so powerful before. Even in the strange, cramped metal environment. Even in the insanity of it all. The combination of the incredible warmth radiating from the shard around inside of the tightly enclosed space, together with the gentle hum and the sway of the bot moving up and down in a steady rhythm, killed every last inkling of awareness and consciousness she possessed. The feeling that she had survived her excursion somehow exuded out from her subconscious and simply shut her body down entirely. The one semblance of life from her battered body is the twitching and spasming of muscles in her ears and cheeks as her mind and body conduct a deep scrub and a physical healing deeper than they had ever worked on before.

There are no dreams. No visions or memories. No awareness of the world around her or the state she is in. There is nothing but a darkness that she isn’t even a part of. The girl isn't sure how long she is out for. But comes slowly to wakefulness once the bobbing stops.

  Slowly her eyes open and she sees nothing. Her heart stops at the awareness of the pitch black lightlessness present inside of the cage. She jumps up grabbing for the bars. They had put her in the box again. They knew she hated that. They knew she hated the dark. Why? She did what she was told! Her chest heaved as her breath became frantic and quick. She was good! Why?! They caught her. They must have caught her. Her hand hits the metal plate of the wall before her and a dull thud echoes out as she scrambles, reaching around for anything to grab. For anything to hold on to, for anything to escape the darkness that had swallowed her whole. Her head smashes against the low lid of the box and she falls back down onto the seat clutching it, feeling a new sticky trickle of red beneath her fingers.

  “Woah! Woah. Steady,” says a voice ringing out around her. There is a hiss and a scratching sound and the faint yellow glow comes up from below again, the tube that the crystal was in, unsealing itself. One by one the lights switch back on with the familiar heavy ‘thook’ sound that she was slowly becoming accustomed to. The frantic beat of her heart doesn’t slow however, her lizard brain perhaps now more confused than ever and she turns and grabs hold of the hatch behind her, tearing it open as fast as she can and hangs herself out of the back of the bot, heaving and wheezing as she clambers onto anything. As she clambers out of the tight, dark space with the front half of her body.

  A rush of frigid, cool air hits her face and blows the strands of greasy, disgusting, blood-caked hair out of her eyes as she looks out at the long tunnel behind them, the shock of the winter chill returning her to her senses. They’re still underground.
“Are you good?” asks Tango.

  Pen doesn’t respond, still catching her breath and processing. She hangs there for a second, looking down at the stones below and steadies herself further. A moment later she turns back, strategically wiping the wet from her eyes before he could see. Rule one of being a merchant was to keep the upper hand at all times. Taking a final deep breath, she grabs the hatch and turns back around, closing it behind herself as she sits back down. Her freshly healed head now throbbing again.

“I’m fine, I just had a bad dream,” she says. “Why was it so dark in here? I thought you died to skimp out on me.” She crosses her arms.

 

“I just shut off the lights since you were sleeping,” says Tango.

 

“Don’t do that,” she snaps, pointing to the glass bauble.

“Uh, sure. Okay. Sorry. Just trying to be nice,” says the disembodied voice from around her.

“Why aren’t we moving?” asks the girl.

  “Oh, well, I thought you’d want to see this so I was waiting for you to wake up,” says Tango. A beeping sound rings out and the blank wall in front of her shines up again, the window from before, that had let her see through, shining out. She leans forward and looks at the sight. The tunnel grows narrow further out ahead, but there is an archway in the distance. She isn’t sure, but she feels like she can see the sky through it.

 

“Is that the surface?!” she asks, pressing her face against the window, now with some excitement and a strong sense of relief coming to her.

 

“Sure is,” responds Tango and begins walking forward again.

  Pen stays pressed against the sleek metal and looks at the sight before her. A night sky carrying a dark and mystical blue tone, dotted with many bright stars and flush with radiating moonlight. Even the darkness out there was so much brighter than the underground. It seemed endless. It looked like there was just a wall of water before them. Just a wall of blue, filled with glowing specs of sparkling dust; the construct growing larger and larger as they approach.

“Where is this?” asks Pen. “This isn’t the way I came in.”

“This is the auxiliary exit. It looks like it collapsed at one point, but it’s fixed now,” says the bot and points to the brick walls, where there is a clearly visible difference in the masonry at some points.

“Wait, where does this come out? Where are we?” she asks.

“We’ve been moving for a few hours now while you were asleep. Mostly upwards, but from there it was a straight line to up here. The tunnel was kept in good shape,” responds the man as they move forward closer to the opening.

  As they inch closer to the outside world and the endless canvas of the painted night sky grows wider and wider, Pen looks around trying to see anything she recognizes from here. Not that there would be much, she had never really been outside of that town for almost as long as she could remember. But there is nothing here to recognize.

  She leans closer, smushing her face against the window as they reach the precipice and then it comes into sight. Everything. The entire world spanning from below them, to as far off in the horizon as she can see in the dead of night; there where it seems to stretch on for further still. Endlessly. From here, everything looks so small down there, from this precipice, from this ledge so high up. Was this the top of the world? She had never been so high up before, she thinks as her breath leaves her.

  The sight from up high on the mountain seems boundless. Moonlight cloaked forests and valleys expand out in all directions. Sparse dots of warm yellow light are scattered around. Houses. Towns. All of them seem so small, so far away and so very insignificant from this vantage point.
“Where are we?” she repeats the question again.

“We’re on the mountain above Facility Nine,” explains Tango.

“Facility Nine?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Uh… the underground ruins,” he explains.

Pen doesn’t respond, she just stares out over the wide world opening up before her. Her vision not deterred by the thick flakes of snow slowly beginning to fall from above.

  A few minutes pass and they just stand there, soon she leans back into the seat but never stops staring out into the darkness before them. Even after the clouds have come to obscure the starlight and the moon, she still stares out and the little glowing dots that manage to persevere in the distance. She wondered which one was the city. But then she thinks to herself, no. None of them. They’re all too small. All too insignificant. They’re all just towns. Just towns like the one she had run from.

She rubs her head, the stinging sensation bringing her back to reality.

  “So where to now?” asks Tango, turning to the left and following a trail, that leads ever so slightly downward from the opening. Pen thinks for a second. It’s a good question actually. She knew that from the town that she had been in, that the city was to the north. She had heard a merchant say that once, that he had come from the north, from the city. But where was that from here? Was going north from here the same as going north from the town?

  The town… her eyes scan the window and the small reflection in the corner for a light. An orange light that seems to glow somehow different from the others. She isn’t sure why it would honestly, but something in her wants to look for it. Not to orient herself, but just to know that it was behind her. That she was really gone and out of it now. But the few orange glimmers in the distance all look the same. From here, one town looks like the other. Were they all so horrible? Or was it just the one she came from? Pen didn’t know and closes her eyes to think, listening to the hum of the crystal.

Instead of answering, she asks “Hey, if you can close the crystal off to make it dark, why didn’t you do that before when I took it back?”
The man once again doesn’t answer and they keep walking in silence along the mountain way.

A minute passes and Pen speaks “I want to go to the city.”

“The city?” asks Tango.

“Yeah.”

“Which city?” he asks.

“Huh?” inquires the girl.

  “Well, there’s more than one city, isn’t there?” asks Tango before mumbling to himself. “Or have things really gotten that bad…”
Pen repeats the words under her breath, not sure she quite understands. There’s more than one city? Is there? Could there be? No. No, surely not. There could only be one city, why would there be more? What would be the point of having more than one city? If that’s where everything was better, why would people bother to make more than one, instead of just going to the one that was already perfect? It wasn’t what people did. She was certain.

“The city,” she says self-confidently. “To the north.”

“Oh. Uh. Okay. I can do north but what’s it called?” asks the man.

Her eye twitches. “What?”

“The city? It has a name, doesn’t it?” inquires the man.

She thinks for a moment, feeling some agitation boil up in her chest. “Just go north, okay?” she snaps, crossing her arms again. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

The man sighs. “If you say so.”

“So?” she asks.

“So what?” responds Tango.

“So where do you want to go?” she says looking at the black bauble above her that she can feel staring down at her. Her arms still folded, her expression sly. “The city,” says the voice.

“Which city?” asks Pen sarcastically with a smug grin, her trap having been sprung and turns her head to the side for emphasis.

“Sarajevo,” says the voice as they walk through the now heavily falling snow.

 

 


Extra long chapter today. This is the end of the introduction! There will be a short few day pause now before chapters while I get things ready again and we move on to a new upload schedule! =)

 

*~+---SPECIAL THANKS---+~*

Henry Morgan,  Shadowsmage, The Grey Mage, Spencer Seidel, Slime girl chapters 4 lyfes, chp2001, Shaoraka, James_is_Playing, Collin Love

 

Edit from the future - I have a Twitch channel now too!

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