Kyso sifted slowly through the pile of artifacts left on the table– mostly tech, mostly broken, all useless. The day’s search hadn’t brought much from the halls beneath the central towers, the former core of the city.

“Is this it?” he wanted to know. “Is this all that they left?”

Traejan shrugged.

“These are the best pieces that we found. The machinery, the power plants, the support systems – it’s all gone.”

The others were gone as well, back to their own tents, Althea having calmed their grousing and grumbling. Only he and Kyso remained on the lifter.

“Did you look outside?” the old man asked unhappily. “Did you see what the things did? It’s brutal – unconscionable!”

Traejan nodded. It was the same as always. The mechs didn’t care, they just destroyed.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

Kyso looked weary, weak.

“Can you can handle your watch,” Traejan hoped the man was only reacting the ruin around them, “for at least a few hours?”

Fearing the mechs, they had made a sensible arrangement of vigils throughout the night. Kyso nodded his head, crumpled a micronic plate in his hand, looked back to him with longing in his unsteady gaze.

“When you’re looking tomorrow,” he started. Kyso wasn’t one of the searchers; Althea had him stay, watching over the camp. “Could you please find something of the culture? A recording, a sculpture, a painting – I don’t care which. I cannot believe everything was destroyed. Please Trae?”

“I’ll see what I can find,” he reluctantly agreed. He didn’t want to be loaded down with pointless artifacts, but he couldn’t turn his friend down. “I’m sure I can find something.”

Kyso turned away, staring out through the transparency in the lifter’s cover, out at the dark night.

“This place was filled with light,” he reminisced, “Day night, filled with revelry, music, and lust.” He turned back, fire back in his eyes.

“It was!” he insisted.

“I know,” Traejan told him. “I know.”

The next day they moved away from the central towers, to check out secondary nodes of fabrication, communications and power generation. Again, he found himself wandering through dark corridors, and empty chambers looking for any useful technology, rather than galleries looking through remains of Makani artworks.

He and Goa searched through the stripped remains of a material fabrication facility, finding plenty of shells, even some raw materials, but little in the way of micronics, mechanisms, networks systems, just more mold and mildew covered walls and piles of shattered debris.

Traejan found it disturbing how little human remains they found, even in the levels beneath the surface. Had they fled, died elsewhere? Or did the things take them?

People disappeared in the south. After the disaster three years past, he’d returned alone – shuddered again to think what happened to the others. What would the things have done with the people, with their bodies?

“I found this,” Goa told him, presenting a small piece of smooth abstract sculpture, tossed it over to Traejan. “Think the old sleeper will like it?”

“We’ve got names,” Traejan told him, tired of the stupid title. “You might want to start using them.”

“Sorry Trae-jan. Wondered when you’d find the nerve,” he smiled, waggled the object. “Well…?”

He looked over the piece. It wasn’t impressively large, or even pretty. He didn’t have a clue what it was supposed to be or represent, but it was something. Too bad they weren’t finding anything important.

“He’ll probably like it,” Traejan replied. “This won’t make Althea happy though”

The man shrugged, looked back around the gutted facility.

“What did she expect?… That this ruin would be filled with all the wonders of the old world? I could have told her we wouldn’t find much.”

“Yet you agreed to come,” Traejan pointed out.

“Hey,” Goa protested with a smile. “Twelve grams of trilium goes a long way buddy.”