The instant the countdown hit zero, Rita appeared just outside an oasis town with Nivalis perched on her left shoulder and B8017913 on her right.
It was a completely open settlement. There were no walls or gates, only a stone stele beneath a tree with the town's serial number carved into it. Beneath every tree a cube headed robot had set up a stall. Each metal cube was silver all over, with faint colored light glowing in the seams. Every face of each little cube was engraved with a different pattern. From time to time the silver cube head rotated on its own so that identical motifs lined up on one face, only to shuffle again a moment later.
Unlike the look they wore in the Diamond Miner game, this was the mechanical race's real day to day form rather than a worker skin. Whenever B8017913 used Plush Collar to turn into a plush doll, this was what it truly was beneath the surface.
