The fox had always hated long walks. Not because the distance bothered her, her mechanical limbs could carry her farther and faster than most scavenger bikes, but because long stretches of quiet made her thoughts louder. Today was no exception.
The world beyond Sector 6 sprawled out like an old wound. Charred plains, abandoned prefab cities, skeletal roads warped by heat. Her eight limbs clicked softly as she walked, their shadows spiderlike against the cracked concrete. Overhead, the clouds rolled heavy and wet, promising another acid-tinged downpour before nightfall.
She adjusted her mask, not to hide, she almost never took it off, but to keep the grit from blowing into her eyes.
A faint hum stirred in her pack.
A voice followed a moment later.
[M.A.R.S.]
"You're walking too slow"
[Fox] "You're welcome to grow legs and do it yourself."
[M.A.R.S.]
"I had legs once. Metaphorically. They were far more efficient than yours."
[Fox] "Yet here you are. Hitching a ride on a girl who can't walk fast enough for you."
Static crackled, a little huff of digital annoyance. She smiled beneath her mask. Irritating him made the miles pass easier.
The path sloped downward as she approached the outskirts of the Arcwater Ribbon. Once, centuries ago, a meteor had gutted the land and left behind a wound so deep the first megacity architects thought it poetic to build inside it. Later, after the floods swallowed everything, people just called it a crater with delusions.
Now, water filled more than half of the height, a vast flooded basin ringed by broken towers, their windows shimmering like drowned stars. The air carried the faint smell of rust, algae, and something faintly electric.
Strange shapes swam below: long eel-like forms with coral-metal scales; fish with jinged jaws and luminous seams running down their sides. Beautiful to look at. Deadly to eat. The metals dissolved in the water had changed them, and not for the better.
The Fox paused over a ledge overlooking the drowned city.
[Fox] "...Haven't been here in years."
[M.A.R.S.]
"Remind me why humans build a city in a crater filled with unstable minerals and an active groundwater vein?"
[Fox] "Optimism I guess."
[M.A.R.S.]
"That sounds like a bug in your species' code."
[Fox] "You say that like it's news."
She continued walking along the cracked skybridge that arced over the waters. Small rainfalls dripped from gaps above, creating ripples that danced in spirals. The buildings around her leaned like they were tired, retreating steadily into the depths year by year.
Her boots splashed through thin puddles. The turrets she had left behind made her feel strangely light. Exposed, but freer.
[M.A.R.S.]
"That was a foolish decision."
[Fox] "What?"
[M.A.R.S.]
"Leaving your turrets behind."
[Fox] "Well I don't want to look threatening to Entropy. She was human at one point wasn't she?"
[M.A.R.S.]
"...What?
I-I don't understand, even if your strange explanation had thought behind it, why would you not just remove them before first contact? What made you think you would be able to survive out here without the one thing you made strong enough to protect you?"
[Fox] "AI stutters?"
She simply shrugged.
[Fox] "Its just that—"
[M.A.R.S.]
"Leave it."
They fell into a rhythm, her steps, his faint hum, the quiet churn of the mutated water below.
A rusted walkway curled ahead, leading her deeper into the Ribbon. She passed the ruins of a sky mall whose sign had long since falled into the depths. She saw old holographic projectors, now home to barnacle-like fungi. A billboard flickered weakly, cycling between a static and a woman advertising "PURE WORLD WATER" with a smile that felt like an archaeological artifact.
The Fox slowed her pace, picking her way past a collapsed slab of concrete.
[M.A.R.S.]
"You are quiet."
[Fox] "...Thinking."
[M.A.R.S.]
"Dangerous."
[Fox] "It's one of my many charms."
She brushed her hand along a metal railing, letting her fingers leave streaks in the dust.
[Fox] "Jorell would have laughed at this place. Said it was too poetic to survive."
[M.A.R.S.]
"The engineer. You trust him."
[Fox] "I trust that he won't het me killed. Which is more than I can say for you."
[M.A.R.S.]
"If I wanted you dead, I would not need effort."
[Fox] "Comforting."
[M.A.R.S.]
"I am not responsible for how you interpret facts."
She snorted.
Walking. Water. Silence. The slow hum of machine intelligence who seemed incapable of talking like a normal... anything.
Hours passed in this drifting rhythm. The sun dipped low, turning the water into molten bronze. Mist rose from the depths, curling around the buildings like ghostly fingers.
The Fox paused when she reached a narrow stretch of walkway between two leaning towers. Something about the air here felt wrong. A faint vibration beneath her boots, barely perceptible.
[M.A.R.S.]
"Stop."
Her muscles tensed.
[Fox] "You feel that too?"
[M.A.R.S.]
"Yes."
The mist parted ahead.
Something moved in it.
At first, it was only a silhouette, tall, slender, almost human in shape. Then wings unfolded. Not one pair. Not two.
Six.
Each wing was made of overlapping plates of dull chrome, feather-like segments that caught the dying light and refracted it into cold halos. The figure's body was smooth, elegant, sculpted with unnerving symmetry, a machine built with reverence rather than pragmatism. Its face was porcelain metal with no mouth, only a vertical slit of light burning where eyes should have been.
A Seraphim.
One of humanity's beautiful mistakes.
It hovered inches above the walkway, silent, watching her. Its six wings clicked softly as they shifted, adjusting balance like an angel tasting the air for sin.
The Fox didn't move. Her hand hovered near one of her concealed tools. Her breath caught behind her mask. Her heart thudded once, hard.
M.A.R.S. spoke in a voice lower than she'd ever heard.
[M.A.R.S.]
"Do not panic."
[Fox] "Little late for that."
[M.A.R.S.]
"It has locked onto you. Its targetting systems are primitive but persistent.
Buy me time."
[Fox] "...To do what?"
[M.A.R.S.]
"To keep you alive."
His hum deepened, circuits spinning into a higher frequency.
The Seraphim raised its head slightly, an angel studying a trespasser.
Its wings spread, eclipsing the fractured skyline.
The Fox swallowed, her mechanical limbs unfurling from muscle memory as if they had forgotten they were unarmed.
Beneath the mask, she muttered:
"Of course. Knew the walk was going too smoothly."