Pulling rags to cover her mouth, Bee watched the crowds of freaks and carriages that filled the ramparts. Then, there was a scream in the distance, the specks of monsters tearing into each other. The violence finished as quickly as it started. When the screams stopped, a beast’s head popped from a hatch, sniffing the air and the thick smell of gore. It bared its teeth at Bee and then disappeared.

Bee could feel the rage of the mobs, desperate to ascend. Yet the elevator could take no more - even she could see that. So she crept outside, lance in hand, using her stump to hold the rags to her face, ensuring she captured no one’s attention. Keeping her distance, she avoided the sight of the inhuman crowds, shadowy backs focused elsewhere.

Once she was sure none were looking her way, she scurried to where a hole left in the elevator wall gave way to its mechanical frame. She awkwardly stepped between iron beams, once scavenged and now wrought to the titan’s leg, trying not to slip and fall. Making her way onto a ferrous gangway, intersected with narrow platforms and ladders, Bee looked for a way to reach higher. With only one hand, needing to use her damaged arm and its elbow to clutch the lance, the climb up each ladder was challenging. Two of her legs hung uselessly, not aligned for this. Nevertheless, she made her way higher and higher until she came face to face with someone.

“Where are you going?” A squat and winged millipede spoke to her, goggled eyes flicking between lenses as he confronted the child.

“I was... Trying to get into the city,” Bee said, caught mid-climb, elbows resting on the platform’s edge.

Distracted, he looked past her, out and away from the leg they had both scaled. Unchallenged, Bee climbed up the rest of the way and stood next to him fretfully. She looked out at the passing stars. The moon was coming, crowding the sky with its bloody light. The fire began to streak down from the heavens as sky wreckage came tumbling down in the distance.

“Look.” He pointed a sharp tarsus out, indicating the leg ahead of their own. It subtly flexed and bulged. The night was dark; it was illuminated by countless electrical lights, the soft outline of bioluminescent growths, and the dim sanguine glow of the sky.

Then in an instant, it raised, kicking up and forward, casting countless specks of nothing from its unstoppable mass. Then, it cracked the earth with cacophonous might, sending out a surge of dust and dirt. The distant screams reached them last, seconds after the sight of its motion, of hundreds of freaks thrown to their deaths, them too trapped on the leg.

“How long do we have?” Bee asked.

“Minutes, maybe an hour,” he said.

“Can we get up this way?”

“No. It’s been welded shut.”

Bee looked up the climb, then to the other freak’s tiny wings, too small for flight. Unconsciously, her weakest legs flexed. She let loose a sigh before looking down over the surge of monsters below. She could still see fights breaking out here and there, the freaks turning on each other and those that kept them at bay. In the distance, she could make out fires and the cries of those wounded or dying.

“How high can we climb?”

The freak looked at her, surprised by the question.

“What?”

“How high can we climb?”

“Another ten metres or so,” he said. The millipede’s goggled eyes watched Bee warily, cocked head staring at her, suddenly taking an interest in her rag covered face. Bee took a step past him, hefting the lance against her shoulder.

“Wait!” He called out.

“I’m just checking out the view,” Bee said unconvincingly. She kept walking, then taking to the next ladder, forcing the freak to chase after her.

Bee climbed higher. At first, it was fine. Soon, it made her dizzy to look down, involuntarily clinging to the rails and leaning against the walls for support. She seemed to be in the elevator’s substructure, a space for repairs just below the first joint in the city’s leg, where bony spurs growing from the limb were used to reinforce the machinery used to drag material up into the city.

“Come back,” the freak called out from below. “I’m not a bad guy. We need to get off this leg, soon.”

“I don’t care either way,” Bee called back, her voice thin and echoing down the sides of the giant. She made her way higher and higher, the last outcropping of iron yielding to the city’s illuminations above. As the child walked along the final stretch, Bee came to an iron gate, sealed shut with globs of metal in its frame and lock. Trying to move around the side, over the ledge, she came face to face with one of the countless eyes stretched across the limb. It was wide and lidless, staring out over the horde below, doing its part as simply another mindless observer. Bee reached across, then extended her lance out, trying to get some purchase to the platform around the gate, but failed. The edge around the gate was bladed and barbed, preventing her from getting too close.

The eye turned to the child, fixed upon her. Taken aback, Bee scrambled away from the edge with a gasp, pulling the rags back over her head. They had fallen. Had the city seen her face? The shriek from the city’s underside did nothing to relieve her fears, but it lacked any comprehensible expression. Still, she backed away from the gate as it shrieked again. Its orb scanned her again before returning its gaze to the bedlam below.

“Can you climb around?” The freak asked, finally approaching as she stared over the edge. “I can’t.”

“No,” Bee said, head bowed. Now she was certain coming up this way was a mistake, that she was trapped.

“If we hurry, maybe we can get down before it’s too late,” he offered, before chittering its mandibles, a dozen limbs rubbing together in nervous habit.

Steeling herself with a breath, Bee then looked up and around, determined to find something. The buzzing of a patcher filled the air. It landed on the leg, just over their heads, clutching onto the vertical structure. It turned weightily - much larger than the child - wings flicking, then began to clean its forelegs by spitting gel over them and sucking it back up.

“What does it want?” Bee asked, eyes narrowing at the creature, finding it familiar despite its shape being subtly different from the ones created upon Sestchek.

The freak beside her did a double-take, baffled by the question as it was answered. “It’s a Patcher. It repairs the city... Are you just shed?”

Bee didn’t answer him, extending her hand up towards the drone. Rolling clouds of dirt and the metallic, cloying scent of blood filled the air. The destruction was carried from the city’s adjacent leg by the wind, catching them high and exposed on the platform. The Patcher stood overhead, just out of reach, its narrow segmented legs clinging to the hard shell of the city’s own.

“I won’t hurt you,” Bee reassured it, reaching up towards it. She stepped forward but couldn’t get it to come down.

“It’s a Patcher,” the freak behind her repeated, bewildered by the attention that she gave it.

“I can see that,” Bee said, mostly to herself.

Although it was as large as Bee, there was no great musculature to the Patcher’s form. Its red compound eyes followed the freaks below, the bio gel sacks hanging empty from its thorax, transparent wings tucked back. Arterial hoses pumped and bulged in its abdomen, visible beneath the inky surface of its chitin exoskeleton.

“Something’s not right,” she said, rubbing her head, then adjusting the rags that shielded her mouth from the dust hanging in the air. “Can it talk?”

“It can’t talk,” the freak shouted as the wind began to roar, causing Bee to look back. “It’s-... They just can’t talk!”

The freak yelled, warning Bee of something sliding down behind her. Startled, she turned, staring directly into the face of a beast. This one was much more powerful in its frame, with eight legs and brutal, armoured weapons.

Bee gasped, staring at it in wonder. She felt no instinct to raise the lance.

Above, the Patcher’s cry echoed through the air like a clarion call, building into a dull boom as it crossed into the expanse and issued back from the city’s underbelly, high above them. Then they began to flood down, a swarm on the move, the dark of the night seeming to crawl all around them.

“We should go!” The freak shouted, scuttling on its dozens of legs towards the ladder. Bee looked back in time to see it try to flee, only to be grabbed by half a dozen of the buzzing drones, legs clutching on as best as it could. They pulled and wrestled him into the air anyway. He screamed for help as it was plucked from the framework and let drop over the edge.

Bee slowly turned back to the armoured host as the swarm closed around her. They filled the air with buzzing wings and shook the iron platform with their weight. The night went from cool to hot as their body heat, their wings and legs and organs surging, saturated the air.

The child quivered, dizzy, a feather tickling the back of her mind. There was a familiar pheromone taste. Then, she dropped the lance and felt her limbs twitch and shake, though they were now so distant and unimportant. Suddenly, she was salivating, disgorging her long and sharp tongue by some autonomic reflex.

The largest of them took a big step closer on its bladed legs. It took hold of Bee’s tongue with the prehensile underside of one of its weaponised limbs. Fear, embarrassment, confusion, they touched at her thoughts but dissipated before she could focus. Then, ahead, the monster opened its armoured face, mandibles parting as it plugged the hardened tip of her tongue into it.

[AU sync confirmed - 31,541,361,121,227.]

[Pre-refereed security clearance granted - Ref. Acetyn TonDer Axiamat.]

[Signal Sequence log unlocked, re-enabled.]

["TextTrans" Record Event function enabled.]

Signal Sequence:

[Lace Adapted Interface, Handshake Complete - Confirmation signed T31 @ L121,229.]

{trans.: chemosensory basic}, relay, Tracked Copy, received @L121,230, check to read:

[x].

Being read @L121,230 in Ambulation Extension 187., Exterior Maintenance & Repair Section Sublevel 3. via “Small Arms Defender 367,201”. on Acetyn TonDer Axiamat by:

“Text-Trans” (recognised archaic non-sentient. Note Well: “TextTrans” Record Event function will remain enabled to document End-Read-point).

(so cleared)

&

“Small Arms Defender 367,201” (recognised archaic non-sentient.)

(so cleared)

&

Plan B (invited party)

(so cleared).

&

Acetyn TonDer Axiamat (authorised holder)

(so cleared).

Sentient perception of the following document will be recorded.

Each check to proceed:

[x]

[x]

[x]

[x]

[Thank you. Proceeding:]

Note Well: Attention: The following is a text-only dynamically scrolled document which may not be vocalised, rerecorded, copied, stored or media-transferred in any conventionally accessible form. Any attempt to do so will be noted.

Please adjust reading speed:

[human].

Begin-Read point of Tracked Copy document:

From: Acetyn TonDer Axiamat

To: Plan B

& strictly as cleared:

Deliverance notice:

Constitutes formal Warning Level 0.

CARETAKER LOCATED.

Confirmed precedent-breach. Type K2^. True class diminished. Its status: Active. Aware. Contactiphile. Noninvasive. Locally Static with reference to: (-1.757537, 44.920110).

FirstCommunicationAttempt: radiocommunication in BE1 & UL-II by tight beam. PTA & Handshake burst @L-1,693,171. No other signals registered.

My subsequent actions: maintained course and speed. Primary scanner to approach, began directed full passive scan, sent buffered ‘as a matter of form’ message confirmation signal to contact location. Dedicated track scanner @ 19% power and 200% beam spread to contact.

Daughter & Genekeeper Systems notified. @ 25% primary scanner roll-off point, course adjusted & report forwarded to Sestchek TonDer Axiamat. Slow-to-adjust line manoeuvre synchronised to execute slow swing-around then retraced course to direct approach point and stop.

Ground team issued with support of Daughter & Genekeeper Systems, “Hope for Humanity”. Unable to gain access after terrestrial level encounter with haptic interface, sentient. Contact with ground team lost after encounter.

Caretaker physical characteristics: subterranean sphere rad. 4.24km, mass 1.25371594E+16t. Layered fractal matter-type-intricate structure, self-supporting. kHz-range leakage.

Associated anomalous materials presence: several highly dispersed detritus and wreckage clusters within 100km, consistent with the remains of Axiamat TonDer Desherik, former equivalent entity. Time of death estimated @ L-3,000,000,000.

No other presences apparent.

Further: All contact with Sestchek TonDer Axiamat, following the successful coordinated change of course, has been lost.

My status: On Direct Approach, unTouched. Autolysis & Total Destruct Protocol Suites engaged. Coded Remote-Triggered Total Destruct Protocol Suites engaged.

In summary:

CARETAKER LOCATED.

YOUR GENETIC MATERIAL IS REQUIRED.

I AWAIT DELIVERANCE.

(Document binary choice menu, [1 = Yes or 0 = No]:)

Repeat? [.]

Inspect Reading history? [.]

Read previous comments? [.]

Attach comments? [.]

Read appendices? [.]

All the above (0 = leave doc): [.]

All the above (0 = leave doc):[0]

End-Read point Tracked Copy Document

[override]

[Post-document warning read-out aborted.]

Bee wretched. Collapsing to her knees, the world flooded back to her with startling clarity as her tongue disconnected from the beast’s armoured face. With the lashing of the wind, the hot buzzing of the insects that swarmed her, she felt pressed upon and held down to the iron platform. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to focus on the light, the image of alien glyphs still hanging in her mind.

Her tongue trailed over the cold iron platform, disengaged from the Small Arms Defender towering over her - one of the city’s combat drones, she now understood on some intuitive level.

The child gasped for air as her tongue retracted back into her throat, heaving to fill her lungs. An organic call, thunderous, issued from the unfathomable city above. Bee felt it in her bones and eyes as in her ears, with her teeth and chest plates rattling.

“Okay,” she screamed out, pulled and pushed and pressed upon from all sides by the Patchers. “Okay! Please, take me, I’ll go! I’ll go! Please... Stop, I’ll go!”

No matter how much she sobbed and begged, the swarming did not stop.