In the blink of an eye we made it to the underground city. I paused at the ledge when I noticed bobbing lights along one of the buildings. Assuming the worst, even though I was not sure what the worst actually entailed, I high tailed it down the slope. I left Marvin with the girls and told them to hurry as much as they could. I felt the muscles in my legs swell and I picked up speed inhumanly fast.

I realized almost too late that I would not be able to slow enough to turn from the slope, otherwise I would hit the huge cavern’s side, so I leapt. I was ten feet off the ground and skidded another ten before my armored boots were able to get enough grip to change direction. I pumped my legs to a speed I felt was manageable, pushing off B1 into the main street we had been using in the city.

In my haste to reach the others, I had not noticed them approaching out direction and almost crashed straight into Beta. Picking up on my surface thoughts, Koma pulled the youth out of the way and I did a short power slide to stop my forward momentum. When I turned around, I noticed that the part of our group that had remain in the city were the ones responsible for the lights we had seen.

There were rough-looking torches for each of the Digits present. As I got to my feet, and the others recovered from the shock of my flying around the corner, I took note of the torches. They were made from the longer wooden sticks we had collected and something on the top was causing fire and drifting ash to move with the underground’s breeze.

“How are you guys doing?” I tried to play off the encounter, but I could see a smirk on Koma’s face. I realized I should have used our Calforn connection to check up on the group, but had instead rushed in blindly.

The others were equally unimpressed, and so they all laughed. Beta joined in a second after, once his panting turned to normal breaths. I retracted my helmet and took the jeering as I greeted everyone. About a minute later Marvin and the girls turned the corner and almost repeated my comical entrance. Thankfully, we had all been standing just inside the threshold of B1 and they just ran on by.

I smiled, the silliness of our return lifting my spirits. “So, now that we have all had a laugh, what’s the deal with the torches?” I asked as our group gathered in the first floor, now much better illuminated thanks to their torches.

“Delta and Epsilon made them! Well, with Koma’s help, but they had the idea for them!” Replied Beta excitedly, his torch waving in front of him leaving scatterings of ash.

“Yeah, somebody wanted us to go through a bunch of dark buildings and they took the only light source!” Delta quipped.

I winced slightly as I realized who that somebody was. Delta continued after a new hearty round of laughter. “It’s alright, I figured there was something we could do about our light situation. I was sick and tired of relying on poor Marvin’s screen, so I pulled our tinkerer Epsilon over there and we came up with these.”

As he finished speaking, Delta pulled another torch, unlit, from behind his back. The long piece of wood had a hole about three inches deep carved into the top.

“I knew that while all that wood rot would be no good as a weapon, it would still catch fire. Epsilon had out new mutant friend here carve the holes with his handy dandy claws and we stuffed them with the rot. A bit of spark from our armor plates and bam! Portable fire sticks.” The man looked immensely content with his explanation and I patted him on the back, but I was more curious about what this could mean for us in the future.

I was not sure how hot or long the rot torches could burn, but there was at least plenty of rot to burn. As I questioned Epsilon about the different properties, the others offloaded our supplies.

The clearly ingenious man had studied wood and plant-based fuels as a hobby, amongst other things, when working for the transmission relay stations of New Dust. I was surprised about his origin, but I did not interrupt him as he explained that depending on the wood rot, it would burn almost as hot as the original wood but would produce a significantly stronger smell and more ash byproduct.

I nodded at Epsilon’s explanation, the gears turning in my head. I turned to Zeta once she returned, “Can you and Gamma go fill our empty rations crate with as much rot as you can? I will leave Marvin with you all as extra protection. Delta, can you give the ladies your torch.”

The Digit complied, coming closer once the girls were making their way up the stairs to collect the rot already within B1. “What’s the plan?” he asked, clearly unhappy I had him get rid of his main torch.

“I think we can save power on our suits by heating the upper floor. We can use the rot as fuel and the roof exit to vent the fumes. Sure it will be smelly, but it will put us in a good position. It will also be the warmest we’ve been since the Pendett.” I explained.

The realization on the others, and the surprise on Koma’s face, were perfect. “We just need to collect bigger rocks to use for the fire pit.They should also help with diverting the smoke up.”

I didn’t have to say anything else, the entire group rushing off to collect the stones. I chuckled as I jogged after the others, easily catching up. As we moved around the alleys I shot looks at the congealed pools around the experiment Calforn, my mood souring.

● ●

It took less than an hour for us to collect some smooth stones and enough rot to fill the ration box. Zeta and Gamma had actually done two trips and cleared the second tier of B1 of rot, piling it up on the top floor. Everyone gathered nervously around as Beta and Delta set the stones in a small semicircle around the chute to the roof.

Koma had also shredded some of the longer lengths of wood with his claws to use a kindling after the rot lit up. The tension in the room was almost palpable as Delta used Gamma’s broken armor piece to spark over his forearm armor. The orany sparks flew through the air before dying when they touched the rot. No one said a word as the sparks stuck and a tiny ember formed. Delta let it be, holding his breath for a second as the rot caught fire. He quickly placed kindling on top and the small fire started to grow.

Everyone cheered. I smiled, not wanting to spoil the good mood with a comment about using the lit torches to light the campfire, and cheered along with them. After only a few minutes of feeding the fire it had taken the full space of the stones we had gathered and it was releasing enough heat for all of us to deactivate our heating system.

The natural heating as oppose to the recycled one was oddly comforting. We had been using the recycled heating for almost a week now, the sweat filtered out only when we opened the suits to relieve ourselves. For the first time in several days, we peeled back the suits to our underlying clothes.

The suits retracted to a series of overlapping plates along our thighs, shoulders and waist. The helmet and upper chest remained as an awkward collar, but none of us seemed to mind, I certainly didn’t. I had forgotten with all that had happened about my synthetic collar shirt and work jeans. There was a positively hellish scent coming off all our clothes, but everyone smelled so we just took a moment to feel the air on our own skin.

I gathered everyone together after the smell dissipated a bit. I explained my plan for preparing before we left to find the survivors. The long crate we had gotten from Starden had six replacement batteries for our suits, meaning we had enough to replace everyone’s whenever they emptied again. I told them that I was planning on trying to install the batteries inside Marvin to potentially charge them while simultaneously giving the ATC more storage.

As I spoke about some of the theory behind the electrical wiring that might be inside the ATC, I noticed everyone’s eyes start to glaze over. I coughed into my hand to draw everyone’s attention again, and explain that I wanted them to gather more metal chairs. With the enhanced strength of Koma and I we might be able to fashion some rough shields for fighting. At the mention of possible defenses Delta perked up immediately.

I told them that figuring out the electrical stuff might take a day, and that they should continue looting for resources. With the appearance of the experiments, I made sure to emphasize that they should always be in range of either Koma or me until we had some better weapons. There were no arguments there, even the gruff Delta nodded.

The others broke off to gather some rocks to carry with them as well as eat a meal before they headed out with Koma. It was more efficient to have people eat their rations on the go if they could, so everyone grabbed their half serving for the afternoon and went down to the first floor. Koma lingered behind, eyeing me from the door as I grabbed the empty batteries.

They sure trust you. Almost blindly.

I could almost feel the question in the man’s mind. I could tell that one of the Calforn’s had been the one to ask it but I paid it no mind.

I think they know I mean them well. I would give my life for them.

I spoke the next part of my thoughts to emphasize it for the Calforn. “There is little camaraderie amongst humans today. What we have here should be cherished.”

I felt the man’s mental pressure as he probed for my surface thoughts. The slight frown on his face told me he had failed in sensing them and he bowed slightly before he headed downstairs. I stared after them for a second before turning back to Marvin.