Point of Origin, Chapter One - The End

We are the Way makers

We are the Path finders

We are the Brave connection that defies the Void

We fear not Death,

We fear not Separation

For we are the Bridges

and we have been called to greater things than Fear.

-Excerpt from the Creed of the First Farers, the foremothers and forefathers of space travel.

What does a sunset, a burning transport, and a large, raging Astrostorm all have in common?

Usually, an expert would say 'nothing'– and all the beautifully deceiving evidence in the large and expansive Kosmoverse would support that claim.

But one day– one beautifully cruel day– there was one, small and seemingly unimportant factor that connected all these occurrences together.

Me.

The girl that lay limp in the waist high grass.

With thick ugly burns over her arm and neck, and a stupidly blank expression over her surprisingly dirty face, she stared up at the sunset colours, transfixed and fading.

I think it’s needless to say, but I don’t actually remember a lot from that day.

And no matter how hard I try to remember, all I can do is string together things that don’t make a lot of sense.

For instance, I remember the very specific, very dark orange that the sunset was.

Beautiful, and moody, and so, so wrong. I remember thinking about the orange, and how it matched the flames of the burning, crumbling, creaking transport around me– but I couldn't remember why the ship was on fire in the first place.

I remember the eerie, mournful ringing in my ears– but I couldn’t remember when it started. Or how, or why, or even when it went away.

And of course, I remember the feeling of coarse, calloused hands as they pulled me from the wreckage, and the calm but gentle voice that kept on repeating, over and over again, ‘You’re okay now, you’re okay now, you’re gonna be okay.’

Although I knew at the time, it would take me weeks to remember why the words were so important.

I remember how the weave of the cloth that was wrapped around my bloody, burnt, and limp arm, was rough and painful– but I couldn't remember the face of the man who saved me.

I remember the voice of a woman, and the sounds of an argument– but I couldn’t remember what it was about.

Then, I remember the rough and heavy gallop of a horse's hooves as it sped across a plain of sun-soaked grass– but I couldn’t remember why we had to run– why we had to leave so fast.

There is one, solitary moment that I can remember, that I have strained to piece together over the years, and that is one of confusion: that when the voice of the woman asked me my name, I could give her no real answer.

For I don’t remember the moment I realised my memories were gone, but I do remember feeling like a tide had gone out, and with it, some integral part of me had been carried away. And I knew, in the pit of my being, that I was never going to get it back.

And then, strangely enough, I remember feeling relieved.

But I can’t remember why.

Cold, icey water splashed over my face, jerking me out of a deep and untroubled sleep.

Most of the water I inhaled as I flailed around wildly, coughing and spitting in the early morning air. As I blinked away the frigid liquid, I tried to decide if it was the water that had started the deep throb inside my head, or something else entirely.

I put a hand to my head, groaning as I leant over my legs and shivered.

“So, you are alive,” a woman said above me, holding a few notes of amusement in her voice. “Thought you up and carked it after I put those bandages on your arm.”

Slowly, I strained my neck to look upwards, finding a pair of faded green eyes. Their owner was dressed in shabby folds of several different kinds of material, the most prominent one being her sleeveless coat that was fraying badly at the edges.

She put a hand on her hip, sighing deeply as the early morning sun illuminated the wisps of hair that had escaped her long braid.

“So, can you remember your name now, or are you still a vegetable?"

Her accent was different, but not hard to understand. I got the impression that she didn’t like this language, and subtle traces of another tongue echoed through her words as she spoke.

This didn’t make her accent unintelligible, yet for a moment, her words meant absolutely nothing to me.

“Can I–?” I tried to croak out the sounds, surprising myself at my raspy, unintelligible noise.

The woman raised her eyebrows, turning away with an empty tin cup. “I guess that’s a 'yes'.”

I watched the tall woman walk across a campsite, realising that the reason I felt so cold was because we were on a huge, expansive plain filled with nothing but grass and wind.

“'Can I remember my name?'” I repeated slowly, still looking over at the woman in a squint as she knelt down next to a fire, stirring a pot of something as it bubbled.

“Yeah–” the woman said, spooning hot liquid into the tin cup. “Last night you couldn’t remember your name, or why your ship crashed, or why the Eth it was up in one of Covien’s biggest Astrostorms.” She looked up at me momentarily. “Any of this ringing a bell, kid?”

I hugged myself with one arm, rocking back and forth as I thought. After a long moment, I finally used my raspy voice to speak.

“I was in a Shipwreck?” I croaked.

The annoyed sigh that came from the woman was almost instantaneous. She got off her knees, struggling a little from the movement.

“Good gods in Eth,” she muttered. “Do you even know what you are?”

I looked at my feet.

My shoes had been removed and were sitting next to the blanket I was laying on. They were black and bent. One of them had dried blood down the side. I reached out and picked it up, turning it over with one hand.

Why was there blood on my shoe?

I looked back over to the woman.

I didn’t know what I was, no.

“Am I… a vegetable?” I asked seriously. I knew what that word meant, but the meaning seemed so far away. Was it a kind of person?

The woman looked down at me, handing me the tin cup.

I put down the boot.

“No, girl,” she said, “you’re a Geodian.” She kicked the dirt a few times next to me, casually. “You know, the people of Terra? Dirt and light and whatever else?” She turned away. “Servants and labourers?” she added at length, taking another tin cup from a bag by the fire.

After casting a quick glance at my uncomprehending eyes, she sighed again. In a moment, she produced a shiny silver plate from her pack and threw it in the dirt next to me.

“Here,” she said. “Take a look at yourself.”

Hesitantly, instead of picking up the plate, I leaned over it, looking at the shiny reflection.

The creature that stared at me from the mirror-like surface was a complete and utter gremlin. Her brown hair was tangled and matted, and her dark eyes were lost and shadowed. Her skin looked tan, but it was hard to tell, as she was so covered in dust and grime.

I really could've been any colour under all that dirt.

The thing that stood out the most, I had to admit, were the two geometric markings that ran from my temples, changing directions as they passed under my eyes and continued halfway down my cheeks. I touched a finger to them, feeling the slightly more rigid skin of the darkened markings.

Huh.

As I touched my face and leaned over further, two thin braids on either side of my face swung down, separate from my other hair. They spooled neatly onto the plate, and I straightened back up, rubbing a tied-off braid in between my dirty fingers.

I could hear the woman speak across the campfire, her voice more sombre, and less disdainful.

“You… really don’t remember anything… do you?” she asked, and I looked up. Her eyes were wide with a shocked kind of realisation.

“Did you–” she stopped herself, running a hand over her hair, the wisps around her face pulled back momentarily as she stared at the fire with wide eyes. “Oh Voidmother– Family? Do you remember your family? Why, you can't be over fifteen, yet…” The woman looked back over to me. “Can’t you– you have to remember why you were on that ship in the first place, don't you?”

As she looked over at me urgently, I thought back as far as I could.

In all fairness, I did try, but of course I had to stop trying.

I gripped my head, the pain becoming worse there. I shut my eyes.

“I don’t remember anything,” I admitted. “Just the crash.”

The woman bit her lip, looking at me thoughtfully. She took a sip from her cup. “Alright,” she said, looking over the Hollow Waste. “I’ll take you to the Post,” she said. “From there you can find your way to Lisk.”

“Lisk,” I repeated slowly. “What is a Lisk?”

She stood, dusting off her pants and finishing her cup. “It's the crummiest, oldest settlement we have on this planet. But it’s the biggest, and that's where our only Interplanetary Port is.”

I looked around, as if I could find the answer to my next question between the long grass stalks, or in the unnaturally pale sky.

"What… is this planet? Where am I?"

As she started to pack away the little campsite and stow away utensils, her reply came easily.

"Covien," she answered. "It's at the edge of the Y-sector." She busied herself with rolling up a bedroll next to her. "But to be more specific, you've crash landed in Mayhem– Coviens largest region."

“Your ship,” she continued, tying up a blanket neatly, "if it was anywhere near Covien, it’ll have to be in the System Travel Records at the Port, Tri-Dock 61.” She attached the blanket to the back of a saddle that was resting on the ground. “My brother went to a smaller settlement called Nofuel to report the crash, but ships have to declare where they’re coming from and where they’ve been, at least in the Vien system.” She sighed, tapping liquid out of her cup and shoving it in a bag . “Call us paranoid or something,” she said, “but today that works in your favour.”

Still holding the cup in my hand, I looked at the contents. It was a foggy kind of green. I blinked, making sure I was seeing right.

“Go ahead,” she said as she lifted her saddle off the ground. “It’s good.”

Despite my better judgement, I took a sip.

It made me cough, and I might have spat most of it onto my shirt by accident.

“Why is it so salty?” I rasped.

The woman whistled loudly, calling something out of view. “Salt is the only thing Covien has, now. I guess we like to put it in things,” she said over her shoulder, and turned back to the plains.

“Twitch! For Eth’s sake– get your hide over here!”

Promptly, a horse trotted up to the woman’s side, and nickered unapologetically. Muttering at it darkly, she hefted the saddle onto the horse, readjusting the straps as she talked.

“If you were wondering, my name is Web. Web Anang’Ikwe. Scavenger by trade, and one of Covien’s native folk.”

I looked at the soup-like substance still in my cup, discreetly stretching and pouring the rest onto the ground. “It's nice to meet you,” I said croakily at length. I went to go and tap my cup too, to shake the contents from the mug, but I couldn’t move my right arm.

Frowning, I looked down, realising I actually hadn’t moved it before now.

It was in a sling, bandaged from wrist to shoulder. I felt my shoulder and neck with my other hand. No, even the base of my neck had been bandaged, too. I tried wiggling my fingers, but all that happened was that a shooting pain shot from my fingers and up into my arm.

I winced, looking over to where the woman was in the process of tucking things into her saddle bag.

“Why can’t I move my arm?” I asked, slightly more than panicked.

The woman shrugged, stepping over to the fire and kicking dirt over it. She barely looked at me when she replied.

“Nerve damage would be my guess, kid.” She took the lead to her horse and gestured for me to stand.

I remained sitting, transfixed by the bandages. Using my other hand, I undid the wrappings on my wrist. The action was awkward because it was still in a sling, but shakily and surefully, I revealed thick, ugly, root-like burns that reached from my pinky finger all the way down my wrists. The burns disappeared under the bandages up the rest of my arm.

Maybe it would have been okay if they were just randomised, bizarre root shapes, but they weren’t. In some places, it looked like the burns were following a pattern, like they were tracing imminent Geodian markings that hadn’t grown in yet.

I blinked, looking up at Web. “What happened to me?”

She shrugged, leaning down and wrapping my arm back up. “Well, it appears something burnt you. Quite badly.” She tucked the bandages back around my wrist, straightening.

“Will I ever be able to use it again?”

The Scavenger hesitated for a few moments. “I don’t know,” she admitted honestly. “Now, get off the blanket, I need to pack it away."

Obliging the command, I tried my best to roll to my knees, cradling my dead limb in my other arm.

Moving was no good. And I meant no good. I didn’t feel right.

Maybe it was salty stuff? No, it felt more like I had been run over– oh goodness. Maybe I had?

After many breaths and much effort, I finally got to my feet, stumbling forward a little bit. I shut my eyes, swaying in the early morning air.

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

The woman walked behind me, rolling up the blanket. “It’s probably your leg,” she said, and I opened my eyes, looking down.

“My leg?” I repeated.

I got a good look at what I was wearing. Simple pants and a dark tank top that had a healthy amount of dust and grime on them. I pulled up a pant leg, realising that my calf had been partially bandaged as well.

“Nasty gash. Not fatal, though. Give it a few weeks and it’ll come right,” said the woman, walking towards her horse.

I followed her unsteadily, picking up my boots and hobbling through the grass. Something about the Scavenger's appearance had been bothering me, and as I walked behind her, I realised what it was.

This woman was tall.

Not tall as in a-few-inches-above-oneself-tall, but tall as in towering-above-the-world-like-no-other-living-being-should tall.

I forced myself to look back at the landscape, wondering if I was just short.

As I looked absently around the plains, I was stuck with how empty they felt– hollow, and blank, and almost sad. The cool morning air pushed and pulled at the long grass, making the waist high vegetation sway and mutter as the dry stalks rubbed against each other coarsely.

The dry sound was like a whisper, like a thousand voices that wished to speak but were unable to– forced to resort to an eerie, tuneless murmur.

Something about the noise instilled in me a deep and uncomfortable desire to cry for some strange reason.

Again, I tried to shiver the feeling away, just as we got to a place in the grass where the vegetation died away into more compact earth. I looked down the thin strip of hardened ground, watching it snake off into the distance like a silver thread.

The entire world seemed to consist of nothing but unnaturally pale sky, a pink-tinged morning horizon, and grass. So much grass it was like an endless ocean that stretched for as long, and far, and wide as the eye could perceive. I realised how far the plains went in every direction, and I was taken aback by the sheer emptiness of the world before me.

Web saw where I was looking and sighed, looking out across the plain, also.

“It never used to be like this,” she said, as I continued to gaze out towards the horizon. “But the Scelirian Order couldn’t just leave when they lost the Silent War.”

She clicked her tongue, and I could feel her beside me as she furrowed her brows in some inherited regret. “If they couldn't have Covien, no one could.”

We both looked on as the wind moaned sadly through the grass, refusing to be warmed in the rising sun.

“Now, it’s a waste. The Hollow Wastes.”

I never thought it possible to fall asleep on the back of a horse, especially not when pain pounded inside your head and your arm felt like it was about to come off.

But I was proved wrong– exactly seven times– before we reached our destination, as Web had to keep shaking me awake so I wouldn’t fall off and brain myself on the passing ground.

“Hey, kid,” she said. “We’re here.”

Blearily, I blinked myself back into the land of the living, realising the sun had passed its zenith and was already on its way to the ground again.

I looked around, seeing only the road we had been travelling on, splitting into a fork in front of us, and, in the distance, a long range of mountains tinged a hazy blue.

I slid off the horse, falling to the ground like a loose and half-empty cargo sack. I steadied myself against Web’s horse as she dismounted on the other side.

Before us, right at the place where the two roads forked off, stood a thick and heavy post, embedded into the ground like a hilariously uniform tree, with no leaves and no branches. If it was a sign post, it was lacking in that fundamental thing that made all signs posts functional–

Signs.

I looked over to the ranges I'd noticed previously, frowning.

“What is that?” I asked, looking up at the sky. There was a smudge mark on the horizon, about as big as my palm. It was hard to discern what colour it was, but if I had to guess, maybe a kind of orange or blue, rippling into each other strangely.

Web looked over to the horizon, making a sound of distaste. “Astrostorm cloud. Covien gets them all the time at this time of year…” She pulled something out of the saddle bag. “Probably what downed your ship... They’re nasty things when it comes to sharing electricity,” she mused as she powered on a thin, palm-sized device.

I came to stand next to her, still transfixed to the smudge on the sky. It looked like it was moving.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Web busied herself with activating a glitchy, holographic display. “They are the ancient and inexplainable storms of the Kosmoverse. They pull power out of things, like passing ships and even out of towns… Eh– I don’t know how to explain it. But if they stay up in the upper atmosphere, and we stay down here, everything will be fine.”

I tore my eyes away from the smudge as Web handed me the device. It displayed a thin line of symbols on its screen.

“I’m giving you this so you can find your ship at the Port,” she explained, handing me the device. “It was a Lumin Class, Iris Light Transport. It's written here.”

I frowned, taking the device slowly. It was the size of my palm, and looked to be about a hundred years old. One face was taken up with a glowing screen and it turned off as I took it, trying my best to slide it into one of my pants pockets. “So, I just… find the Port?” I asked.

Web looked down at me, words rippling across her expression, but she remained silent.

She took a moment to respond before patting me on the shoulder and turning back to her horse. “Yeah,” she muttered, like she was afraid someone else might hear.

“As I said, you're in Mayhem– but Lisk is a day’s walk towards those ranges,” she said, pulling more things from her bag. In the corner of my eye, I saw her tuck something back in that had fallen out. It was small, so I wasn't able to catch what it was.

I looked back towards the far, distant ranges.

“A day?” I asked, still unsure. Of what, I didn’t know. I was just unsure. What was the opposite of sureness? Anti-sureness.

I was anti-sureful.

Web threw something at me, and it landed on my shoulder in a ball. “Here, that’s your shirt.”

I unballed the piece of fabric, revealing a muddy red shirt. It had a collar, and two short sleeves, but the right shoulder was missing.

“Why is there a hole in this?” I asked.

Web shrugged. “I had to cut it because it was literally burnt into your shoulder.” She had one other thing in her hand, another piece of fabric that she unrolled.

“This is a Covienian poncho. It’s made out of wool. The nights get pretty cold here.”

She handed it to me, and I pulled it over my head awkwardly, still holding my shirt in one hand.

“What’s gonna happen to you?” I asked as I shifted the poncho onto my shoulders, readjusting the hood.

She swung back up onto her horse. “I’m gonna go find my brother. I was helping him out in the Hollow Wastes when we found you.” She looked out across the terrain, eyes growing distan., “Just…” She frowned, looking back to me. “Make sure you get to Lisk before nightfall.”

“What happens at nightfall?” I asked.

Web hesitated again as she turned her horse around back the way we had come. “Nothing. Just get to Lisk before then.”

My anti-surefullness doubled, and I swallowed, looking up at the woman.

“Thank you for helping me,” I said, my voice still a raspy croak.

Her face was an interesting mix of hesitancy and a little bit of guilt. She nodded wordlessly.

“Good luck,” I said to her.

“Don’t fool yourself, kid,” she said, her eyes taking in my appearance for a second. "Luck doesn’t exist out in the Blue Fringe.”

“Oh...” I mumbled, “well, then. Fortunate… coincidences.”

The Scavenger appeared for a moment like she found the comment mildly amusing, and then she clicked her tongue, and she and her horse took off back down the path we had come.

I watched as she disappeared into the grassy road, and the sound of her horses' hooves slowly faded away, leaving me alone next to the deranged, oddly uniform tree.

I breathed in the cool air of the planet, turning a weary eye towards the heavens. The world was still, and quiet, but not in a way that seemed pleasant, or even marginally normal. Thin, semi-transparent clouds covered sections of the sky in sheets, yet the sky was so abnormally pale and white, it was hard to tell where they ended and the sky began.

But it wasn’t completely devoid of life. Far above me, a kind of bird cried, urging me forward.

“Alright, luckless idiot,” I said, turning to the ranges far across the plain. “Let's go find out what we are.”

Two days Later, Tri-Dock 61 –Lisk.

Tri-Dock 61 clung to the side of the Liskina cliffs like a terrified creature unwilling to meet its fate of falling to the bottom, where an endless sea of brown grass grew restless in its waiting to consume it.

It was said that it was a miracle and nothing else that the unstable dock hadn’t fallen off the cliffside already, but its survival throughout the long, dusty years, was probably due to the hundreds of sturdy hangars and warehouses that nestled into the mountain beneath it.

What was referred to as Lower Lisk curled into and around the mountain, in a bay-like fashion– like some ancient celestial creature had taken a bite out of the mountain range, but had departed in disgust, leaving a half-moon bite in the Liskina Ranges.

Inside the bay-like shape were the sad remnants of a long gone era, and one might assume that the refineries, warehouses, and hangars would have fallen into the depressing reality of rust and disuse.

But wrong one would be, for lights were installed to illuminate the dark places, as the stubborn and relentless people of Covien refused to be cast aside into a nonexistent future. Street vendors sold an assortment of fried foods in the Tunnel-streets, and sellers and buyers bartered and argued in typical Covienian style in their many markets; passing transports gravitated to their many hangars and shops, and mechanics shared old stripped out refineries as workshops.

Even the little beetles used the empty fuel-holding vats as nest spaces.

It appeared that everything on the planet was more than ready to adapt.

And so it was, that nestled around and under the noisy Port, within old abandoned refineries and factories long since silenced, was the town of Lisk. And much like everything else on the dust ridden planet, the town quietly echoed an air of complete and utter dismay about being there in the first place.

The people, like their planet, were inhospitable to those who did not belong.

One might argue that it was Covien’s long and unfair history that made the tall and lean natives this way, and that the centuries of watching helplessly while your planet was stripped of every available resource was enough to crush any sort of people…

…but you simply couldn’t argue that, because you were already too busy arguing with a Covienian about their criminal-like fuel prices.

Yet, among the dust and wear of Lisk and all her problems, there were a few things that never moved forward, which refused to be reused, recycled, or repurposed; things that were left instead to become the last remains of a past era.

Machines low in the plains, their use long forgotten, as grass and pale, frail flowers grew up through their metal skeletons.

Warning signs high above workshop rafters, written in a language no one understood anymore.

Abandoned mining tunnels closed off from within the Tunnel-streets, their roads leading down a path that none were curious enough to follow.

There were other oddities and curios, maybe even something of value if you had the foresight to look around the abandoned places, but maybe there was something that stood out just a little more than the rest.

Something that absolutely, without a doubt, did not belong– but was very good at hiding it.

It appeared that everything on this planet was not just merely ready to adapt, but was unfortunately, required to.

“Nope, not that one– the one to the left. No, the other side. I said the left, the left!”

The tall Port Bot crossed his arms, his blue glowing vision sensors contracted in what could be likened to a frown. The frustrated expression was directed through a dusty window at a small and squat Janitorial Bot, who was busy haphazardly wiping a cloth back and forth like their very short lifespan depended on it.

“That's already clean,” the Port Bot reprimanded, using a long metal finger to point at a window panel that was actually dirty. “Move over to this one.”

The Janitorial Bot made no move to clean another part of the window, instead continuing to fruitlessly wipe the same piece of glass over and over and over again.

“Oh, for Eth's sake,” the Bot exclaimed, turning away from the window and facing Tri-Dock 61, Lisk’s one and only Interplanetary Port. “I’ve got better things to do than babysit triple-programmed idiots,” he muttered.

The Port was quiet, and at this time of day, one would hope it would be. The sun had set only minutes previously, and the golden glow that the world had previously been immersed in was slowly fading away. The large settlement of Lisk would have at least shown some level of attractiveness in the sunset colours, if not for the town’s quiet air of misery, and the thick layer of dust that coated every inch of every exposed surface.

In the Port, dust particles hovered in the air like little spirits gathered beneath the high rusty ceiling, mixing with the flickering Port lights and giving the illusion of peace and tranquillity.

But peaceful and tranquil, this Port Bot was not.

Standing in front of a large display, mounted on one of the many pillars that claimed to be holding up the Port ceiling, he moved his long arms in a petulant gesture, resting his hands on his hips. His blue glowing eyes watched as the signal buffered and flickered, distorting sound and picture.

His frown deepened and he reached up to a knob beside the thick screen mounted on the pillar. He readjusted it, switching stations.

"A large transport crashed into the Railtube, hindering all underground travel. All local travel now must be carried out via shuttle–”

The Port Bot flicked to the next signal, and it came with a pixelated image of a person being interviewed. “-well, what we hope to do is solve the mystery around Astrogates. To take away that fear, that ‘unknowingness’ around these anomalies—”

The Bot scoffed, switching the channel violently. “Damn Koreworlder scientists,” he muttered. “‘Unknowingness’ isn’t a real word.”

“Offworld travel opportunity ceases as Tri-Dock 61 closes its doors and grounds all ships.”

Rolling his eyes, the Bot flicked to another station, and hearing the words, the Bot instantly grew even more aggravated. The image switched again, this time to an official insignia of a grey bird.

“This is a planetary announcement from Covien’s Department of Astroportralis,” an automated voice played. “Any and all interplanetary travel is prohibited due to an influx of debris from the Astrostorm. This is a repeating message...”

The Bot desperately tried to switch it back, but the news-screen refused to change stations. “Everybody knows!” the Bot shouted at the screen and over the voice. “Shut up! It's been weeks, everybody knows!”

It continued.

“Covien’s Department of Astroportralis would like to remind citizens to report any and all Astrogate debris–”

The Bot made the simulated sound for a long and drawn-out groan, still trying to twist the knob back to where it was.

“-those who fail to report, or withhold debris from Gray Raven officials, will be charged with–”

The Bot twisted the knob as hard as his thin metal arm could, and the dial snapped off.

The screen glitched, and the Bot looked down at his fingers in shock. The knob still had wires attached to it, and they hung limply from his hand.

The screen glitched again, and the voice resumed. “This is a repeating message...”

The Bot simulated the sound for a sigh, and turned away.

He eyed the benches and units in the Port with a dry look, all covered with a thick layer of dust.

“Am I going defective?” the Bot asked, putting his hands on the sides of his head. “I think my programming is fading away into an obsolete void of redundancy,” he told the empty, dusty Port.

He walked to a pail of steaming water on the ground and picked up a nearby mop.

“Three weeks, and no one comes to the Port.” He sploshed the mop into the bucke.

“That's good,” he told himself. “People are bothersome– always complaining. Always wanting something. Never satisfied.”

He mopped for a little while before he paused, shutting his eyes and trying to tune out the sound of the repeating message playing on the news-screen behind him.

“Maybe this existence would be more tolerable if they stopped playing that infernal message,” the Bot muttered, “and played something important instead.”

The Port Bot was interrupted by a few low and unintelligible beeps.

He turned to see the Janitorial Bot putter across the floor, leaving two identical trails in the dust from its rollers. Its three thin arms all held a different tool for cleaning windows, and they all were held the wrong way.

The Port Bot made an exasperated noise in reply to the little machine.

“Oh no, it isn't! It’s not even remotely important.” He slapped the mop onto the ground and pushed it back and forth angrily, the dust turning into mud before revealing the shiny metal surface of the Port floor.

The Port Bot didn’t bother to look at the small Bot behind him. “And you're one to talk, Zero. How do you know what's important? I go to the local registry for twenty minutes, and in that time, you don’t think it's important to shut the bloody Port doors while there's a dust storm.” The mop went back and forth on the poor floor, and then sploshed violently back into the bucket.

The Janitorial Bot was a very simple machine, with very little problem solving skills, and zero capability to gauge for emotion. On top of all that, it had no vocal simulators to speak with. Instead, its extremely basic level of communication came from a short range relay built into its processors. The squat, hexagonal Bot made the signals for query: subject unrest– requesting explanation.

“Requesting explana–” The Bot turned around and shook the mud-filled mop at the small machine. “Why do you think I’m upset?”

Zero's singular eye contracted for a moment as it thought.

It made another string of communicative signals.

Subject unrest confirmed: unable to fulfil base protocols.

The Port Bot frowned. “What?” he asked. “You’re not making any sense. Now go wash the windows before I feed you to the vacuum.”

Zero hesitated, its visual processor contracting in and out at the tall Port Bot. It sent out one more signal as an explanation for his behaviour.

Optimal performance inhibited. Cause: Astrostorm.

“No, you were suboptimal long before the Astrostorm began. Now, go,” the Port Bot said, pointing to a long row of windows, caked with dust on the inside and the outside.

An observer might say the small hexagonal Bot motored away sadly, but not the Port Bot. The tall, lanky Port Bot shook his head, turning back to mopping.

Things went on much like that for a little while; the Port Bot mopped the dust and grime off the floor, and Zero scrubbed the same window over and over and over again.

Then something strange happened.

Something the Port Bot knew was nearly impossible.

The news-screen flickered off, silencing the auditory torment.

The Bot stopped his mopping, half-way across the Port. “Zero?” he called, “Did you turn off the–”

Something stopped him.

His eyes were glued to the floor, where a singular pair of dusty footprints desecrated his clean floor. He stared at the pair of dusty footprints, and if he had a mouth, surely it would have opened in shock. “Gods in Eth! Is nothing sacred?” he asked the universe.

Unlike his usual griping about life to the universe– which usually remained unanswered and largely ignored– a reply echoed out across the Port. It didn’t sound like the voice he imagined the universe to have, but it came in the form of a low, drawn-out, and tired snore.

His eyes drifted across the port to the source of the sound. It was a pile of dusty clothes that looked to have been pushed slightly underneath a seat to the waiting area.

The creature seemed to have been spawned by the dust storm itself, if the thick layer of caked-on dust was anything to go by. Her eyes were closed, and she was rolled awkwardly on her side– seeming to cradle an arm that was wrapped from wrist to shoulder in dirty bandages.

The Bot inched closer, finding himself sorting through a hundred different self-protection protocols for some reason. Arriving at the waiting area, he searched around the Port, mentally floundering about what he should do.

Finally deciding, he leant down carefully, poking the creature with the handle of his mop.

It didn’t stir from its place on the ground– reacting much like a corpse would, he noticed.

The Bot contemplated his options for a few nanoseconds.

He could call the authorities, and report the dead body, or drag it outside the Port and let someone else deal with it. The second option seemed like it would involve less paperwork, but the first one was technically standard protocol– and yet, both of them seemed very time consuming.

And he did in fact, have a lot to do.

Port-Bot programming itched at his brain to clean the Port and to get it back in running order again, while another stream of programming crowded out his mind and yelled soundlessly for him to help this obviously deranged Organic.

The Bot inched closer still, leaning over the corpse. His mop reached out, and the bristles tapped against her face a few times, creating a squishy sort of noise.

Results were instantaneous.

Her eyes shot open, and she batted away the mop head like it was some creature that had threatened to take her soul, all the while producing a very loud and startled yell that echoed into the Port.

Withdrawing his mop quickly and stepping away, the Bot watched in shock as the corpse rubbed her face violently, pushing herself into a sitting position.

She looked around wildly, finding the Port Bot’s startled glowing eyes, and just as the yell was dying away, a new one started, bleeding into slurred words.

“AHHH–who are you?”

The Bot looked at the previous corpse, streams of old programing coursing through his overwhelmed processors. The most evident programming forced its way into his holographic display.

Organic distressed. Initiate Servant Bot Protocols? the prompt flickered. The Bot shook the prompt away, addressing the girl and trying to get over his startlement.

“I am the Port Bot for Tri-Dock 61,” he introduced himself, still leaning over the girl. “I am here to inform you that loitering in the Port is a punishable offence.”

The girl rubbed her eyes. “The Port?” she asked, looking around with jerky, uncoordinated movements. “... I made it up to the Port?”

The Bot put his mop back down, scrubbing away the trail of dirt the stranger had made.

“Yes, but I must ask you to leave. As I said…” He stopped a few inches from her feet, aghast. It seemed like she had carried the entire storm with her.

Absently, he finished his sentence.

“... loitering… is a punishable offence against… Tri-Dock 61.”

With her right arm cradled to her chest, she seemed to will herself to her feet. She groaned, clutching her head as her bandaged arm fell into its sling. Her voice took on a haunted, slightly terrified tone as she spoke, breathless.

“I didn’t think I was gonna make it when the dust storm blew in. Or when it got dark, and those things came out.”

The Bot eyed the dust trail over the ground, visual sensors picking up every minuscule particle of grime that had fallen off the stranger when she stood. “I see,” he said, distracted. “Yes, well, that’s very interesting. But if you wouldn’t mind, I need to mop now– the door is just over there.”

The girl looked around her, suddenly noticing that the dust on the ground had come from her clothes. Curious, she raised an arm, and more dust fell from her poncho at the action, creating a long pile on the ground.

She squinted. “Huh.” She glanced up at the Port Bot, who was practically twitching with dis-ease.

She made a noise of understanding. “Oh, I'm sorry, it must have– and you want to– I see. Okay.” She shuffled out of the pile of dust, and the Bot mopped it up hurriedly, and yet as the girl moved, even more dust fell from her clothes.

It was a horrible, hellish cycle that just wouldn’t end, thought the Bot.

“Well, I am supposed to be here,” said the girl with as much resoluteness as she could muster, which didn’t seem like a lot.

“I have walked for I think… days… to get up here, but come to think of it… ” she trailed off, eyes going someplace else as she stared at the Port Bot’s mop going back and forth.

“... I can’t really… remember… why I’m up here,” she finished.

The Port Bot sighed inwardly. Why must the universe treat him like this? He pointed to the door. “You were on your way out?”

“Right,” the girl said, turning. She shuffled forward, her left leg dragging slightly.

The Port Bot watched for a moment, and then forced himself to look back at the floor, and the dust, and the mop.

The shuffling stopped, and the girl spoke, still turned away from him.

“But… I really, really feel like there’s a reason I’m here.” She turned around, looking around at the pillars that held up the Port, the bench that lined one side, and the consoles and information Units. Her lips moved for a little while, but no sound came out as she observed the building with a wide-eyed, slightly dumbfounded intensity.

“It was a good reason… important… and kinda urgent, too.”

The Bot didn’t look up. “Oh really?” he said, mopping up the dust she had littered on the ground in her awkward shuffling.

“Yeah,” the girl said, still turning in place as she surveyed the Port. Her dark eyes contracted in a frown, and she squinted up at the news-screen on the pillar. It decided to flicker, and then went dead again.

“Well, perhaps you will remember on your way out,” the Bot said, looking up to watch the girl stare into space.

Organic distressed. Please initiate Servant Bot Protocols.

The Bot shook himself, a little more angry now.

Stupid programming. Wouldn’t let him think.

He dismissed the virtual pop-up in his display and took a step closer to the girl, gently turning her toward the door. “Look, I am very sorry that you cannot remember right now, but I am a Port Bot, so I have a lot of work to do. I’m sure there are some people out there that are very worried, and are looking for you.”

He pushed the girl toward the door.

“Wait, but I–” she took a breath, trying to find the right words as she was being pushed along. None came– at least, not in time, for the two had arrived at the large Port door that overlooked a mildly busy street.

The wooden terrace outside the Port creaked as he pushed the girl out.

“You can go home now.”

The girl didn’t move. Instead, she looked at the street opposite the Port, the row of general stores and their false fronts, shuttle bays and passing people, and an odd look passed over her face. “I can?” she murmured. “No, I don’t think I belong in this place.”

Her hand went into her pocket. “Then… where do I belong?” She asked as she pulled out a palm sized Data Tab that was as equally dusty as her.

Her eyes narrowed as she frowned seriously at the device. “Not here,” she whispered in answer.

The Bot’s vision sensor contracted in something like a squint.

“What do you mean? Are you telling me you are unable to go home?”

The girl turned, nearly losing her balance in the action. The Bot watched her sway as she talked, appearing in his mind as the perfect homeless lunatic he didn’t want to deal with.

“I can’t go home, because… I don’t have one!” Strangely enough, she seemed excited by the news. “That's why I’m here. The ship– OH–” Her eyes went wide as she stared up at the Bot breathlessly. “Oh. Right– the ship! The Scavenger! I need to know where the ship was coming from so I can go home because I don’t remember!”

Without moving his head, the Bot’s eye glanced from side to side as he deliberated what to do with this new creature. He found himself trying to remember if the hospital's mental ward had put out any missing persons notices that morning.

“You are looking for a ship?” he asked slowly.

The girl nodded once, still off-balance.

“Right, well. This is an easy answer, then.” The Port Bot was almost relieved. “The place where ships are registered,” he explained, “the Interplanetary Travel Registry Unit? It's offline for the Astrostorm.”

The girl assumed an emotion of someone who had just watched their favourite pet being dismembered.

“What?” she mouthed, stepping closer to the entrance of the Port. “I don’t understand.”

The Port Bot blinked, vision sensors contracting a few times in his form of bafflement.

“My apologies,” he said, side-stepping into the Port and to a panel on the wall next to the door. “Let me be more concise…” The Port Bot put his hands on a heavy looking lever at the wall, and pulled it down with a little effort.

“...The Port is closed.”

The door dropped down from the ceiling and slammed into the ground with a decisive, resounding thud.

Five hours after that…

The girl still hadn’t gone away yet.

After he had pushed her out of the Port, the Bot had hurriedly shut all the other doors so that she couldn’t find another way in.

But on later inspection, she had just sat down below the Port window, very slowly becoming stiller, and stiller, and stiller.

The Port Bot was sure that this time, she had actually died.

Or was about to, anyway.

As he worked and mopped and organised, he kept on looking out the windows that faced the street, waiting for someone that was passing by to find her and give her the obvious help she needed.

But no. Not a Covienian soul paid her any attention at all in the late evening crowds outside.

Well that wasn’t true, actually. About three hours in, the Port Bot watched as a group of people stole her shoes while she was sleeping, but other than that, no one.

The people died away and left the upper street empty, and then evening finally died away into late night.

He tapped his fingers together thoughtfully. Weighing his options.

Wait– and the girl dies.

Or, try to help her– and she might die anyway.

Either way, her dying would be his fault.

“No,” he said angrily. “No, it wouldn't. Because it’s not my problem. It’s hers.”

He disappeared into the back of the Port, leaving the now shoeless girl alone outside the window.

Despite what he told himself was his better judgement, he stomped up to a glowing vending Unit that held only two kinds of products: bottled water-like liquid, and protein crackers.

Muttering darkly, the Port Bot powered off the vending Unit, and then unscrewed the hinges. The door swung out from its lock, and the Bot took one of each item, angrily putting the door back where it belonged.

Next he stormed up to the window by the girl, opened it marginally, threw the bottle of water and food next to her, slammed the window shut, and turned away.

After the firm resolution to forget about the stressful creature, he did his very best to ignore his old programming. For several hours, he mopped the Port of its dust. And then, (much to Zero’s silent agitation) he washed all the windows, too. Of course, not the one with the girl outside, though. He asked himself why, but he deleted that question before he had time to answer it.

After, he decided that the consoles that collected the paper tickets for the local shuttles were looking dusty, and he washed them all with a damp cloth until they resembled something like clean.

Then, he reorganised the shelves that had a plethora of packages to be shipped out on the next Imperial Mail Ship the moment the Astrostorm ended. They, too, were covered in dust, and needed to be cleaned.

Carefully, he reordered them alphabetically based on what planet they were headed for. And then when that was all done, he decided to undo all of that, and reorder them based on their urgency to be sent out. And then he combined those two methods and constructed a grid like file to remember all of them by, keeping it safely in his databank where he could pull it up and look at it later.

The shelves that he worked at lined the very end of the Port, close to a window that overlooked the mountainous town. It was, as a matter of fact, the farthest away from the window with the girl outside, but that was unimportant, the Bot had told himself.

He squinted at the shelves. Maybe if he organised them based on who sent them… That way they’d be easier to find if someone wanted to lodge a complaint, or change the address, or…

He rolled his eyes– or tried to, anyway. What really happened was that his lens flicked up for a moment, and then back down again. Less dramatic, he knew, but at least it made him feel better.

He spent a long, drawn out moment doing absolutely nothing. His old programming got the better of him in that strange moment of silence, and carefully– finally– he went to the window, peering out cautiously.

She was gone. And so was the water.

He had stared in disbelief for a few moments. His luck was never this good.

Ever.

People loved staying around and bothering him; no one ever just left when they had something good to complain about.

That's just not what Organics did.

“Good,” he said to himself at last. “Good, good, good. Better that she went and found help from someone who knew how to help her.”

He straightened at the window. Unless, no one else would help her, and he'd just condemned an Organic to die on the cold, dusty, heartless, lonely streets of Lisk. Covienians were not known for their welcoming attitudes for Offworlders, and certainly not for their hospitality.

A virus of doubt spread through the Bot’s circuits.

He stopped himself, and turned away from the window incredulously. “I’m a Port Bot,” he reminded himself, using his hand to gesture around the Port. “And Bots don’t get rewards for doing the right thing. They get rewarded for doing their jobs.” He paused for a moment, rubbing his faceplate thoughtfully. “Actually, I don't get rewarded for anything.”

It was something like a solid minute that he mentally debated the social and moral problem most people would view Bot's situations as, when he became aware of a small sound.

Almost like a clicking of some sort.

The Bot paused. Maybe a beetle had got into a Unit again, and was trying to fight its way out, or another stray dog had got one of its six legs stuck in a door somewhere, and was scratching at the wall helplessly. Or maybe it was a deep space horror, come to drain him of all electricity and leave him a dry, empty husk of a Bot.

With all these positive things in mind, he followed the noise as stealthily as a seven-foot Port Bot could. Slowly, the noise became recognisable as someone pressing keys on an interface from one of the consoles.

The line of miscellaneous Units in the Port were nestled into the very back wall, and most of them were hidden by a large stall, that, on a normal day, would exchange currencies from a handful of neighbouring planets.

The Bot skirted around that stall now, growing more anxious as he drew closer to the source of the sound. He could hear someone muttering.

“... it kinda looks like that one… no, maybe it's that one. This one has a funny little swoop here– nope that's the wrong one…”

The feeling of anxiousness was replaced by shock as he rounded the corner of the stall and saw the girl, perched atop one of the console seats and hunching over a dim screen– reminding the Bot of a bird, caught right in the middle of stealing something shiny.

She looked up, just as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

Needless to say, it was a confusing moment for them both.

The Port Bot never thought himself speechless, but his vocal simulators struggled to keep up with his thoughts. He pointed a long, metal finger in her direction. “What–” His vocal simulator glitched out for a moment. “What–what are you doing?”

She looked down at the panel, and then to him, quickly. She looked back at the console screen, moving her head slowly. “I am…” she said, testing the words, “... finding out… how bad I am at reading.”

The Bot stomped over to her in front of the information console. “How did you get in here?”

The girl looked across the small Port to one of the windows he had washed earlier in the day. “Well, you left one of the windows open.”

The words were spoken like her presence in the Port was the Bot's fault.

That's just not fair, the Bot thought. But when was anything?

The Bot studied the window in question from across the Port. It was not, in any way, shape or form, close to the ground. “How did you– but you were–”

The Bot righted himself, organising his thoughts like one of his three-times-organised shelves, and taking just as long to do it. He turned back to the girl.

“Look, I only gave you some water, because you dying would not be" –he floundered a little bit– “beneficial for the Port. But you cannot be in here. It is closed. If my superiors find out that I have let someone into the Port, and let them use the Units that are supposed to be offline– you and I would be in serious trouble. So please–”

The girl interrupted him. “I don’t think you understand. I just want to look up a number. One ship number.” She shrugged as best she could. “And then I’ll go.”

“You don’t even know how to work this console,” the Bot said, pointedly. “You know that you don’t know and yet you’re trying anyway.” Annoyance laced every single one of the Bot's words.

The girl shot him a thoughtful look. “I admit, it would be easier to understand if I could read.”

Up close like this, the Bot got to study the creature in detail.

The details he noticed in passing, before, seemed worse. Like the dark circles under her eyes, the tremor in her only working arm, the red that soaked through the dust-crusted bandages. Yet all of these details seem minute and meaningless next to her eyes.

As they looked up at the Bot, he tried to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that passed through his cold, metal soul.

Instead of thinking about the creature and her eyes, for some strange reason he found himself thinking about the colour black, and how even though it was classed as a colour, it was actually the absence of every single colour on the spectrum. It was the ghost of every single hue while simultaneously being none of them.

The Bot placed his hands onto his hips, shaking himself of his thoughts.

“What do you mean ‘you can’t read?’” It wasn’t that uncommon, especially on Covien, but she didn’t really fit the criteria for the stereotypical Covienian illiterate.

“Well, I feel like I can, but…” She trailed off, looking at the signs in the Port, and the flickering screen behind the Bot. “Nothing looks right. Some sounds look familiar, but I haven’t been able to piece together a single word.” She looked back to the Bot, frowning at a handful of symbols that made up the operating numbers on his chestplate.

Her finger shot up, pointing to the numbers happily. “Correction!” she cried. “One word, so far. Your name– it’s Lewis.”

She patted herself on the shoulder gently, like someone congratulating themself on a great and noble task. “One word: down. Good job,” she told herself. “I was beginning to worry.”

The Bot hesitated, finally giving in to the question he had wanted to ask since the moment he saw her.

“Little Geo,” the Port Bot said, “are you quite alright?”

“Not even a little bit,” she said with an anxious laugh that lasted, in the Bot’s opinion, a little too long.

The Bot studied the creature for a moment, once again trying to decide if he should contact the mental hospital. He deflated marginally, dropping his shoulders.

“I really am getting tired of saying this,” the Bot started, “but the Port is closed. I’m sure that when the Port reopens, you can come back and use these Units, then.”

The girl looked up at him, assuming the expression of someone who was not about to leave. She waved the Data Tab around. “This ship was flying in the Vien system when it crashed, and I am here to find where it was going and where it came from.” She put the Data Tab back down on the console, pointing a finger at the Bot, who assumed passively that the action would have looked more threatening if her hand weren’t shaking so badly. “Either you let me work this out in my own way, or you help me to make it go faster. Because I’m not leaving.”

She drew a breath, leaning on the console like the forceful words had taken too much of her strength. She shut her eyes, talking through gritted teeth. “I promise to leave when I've found what I’m looking for.”

When the girl stared back up at him intently, the Bot blinked a few times as he contemplated his choices. After half a minute of silence, the Bot finally spoke.

“So… if I help you find where this random ship was coming from…” His vision sensors narrowed. “Then you’ll leave me alone?”

“I promise,” the girl said, outstretching her hand towards the Bot. “You have my semi-coherent word.”

The Bot hesitated, and even took a small step back.

She frowned, suddenly unsure. “What is it?”

The Bot put his hands behind his back, trying to be discreet about it and failing dismally under the small creature's dark and curious eyes.

“Port Protocol states I am not permitted to touch Organics,” he said, his words sounding like it was the most obvious statement in the universe. “Unless there is an emergency or disaster."

A grin crept onto her face. She pushed herself off the console, pulling out one of the Bot's arms from behind him and shaking it lightly.

“I have no idea where I am, I haven’t slept in days, and I can’t remember my own name,” she said, releasing his hand and gesturing to herself.

“Consider my entire existence a disaster, Port Bot.”

The Port Bot nodded, very slowly. “When you put it like that…”

He hesitated, looking down at her with two narrowed vision sensors. His hand reached out and straightened one side of her shirt collar that she hadn’t realised had been twisted around the hem of her poncho hood.

He looked to her, then his hand, then back to her again.

His next words were spoken so matter of factly, it was like this Bot had been programmed solely to correct the poor fashion choices of street urchins.

“That has been bothering me for the last three hours.” he stated.

She craned her neck down to look at her collar. “Well, thanks,” she said at length. “I hadn’t even noticed.”

Back to business, the Port Bot picked up the Data Tab on the console.

“So,” he said, looking back at her,.“Your ship specifications are on this Data Tab, Organic?”

“Yes,” she said, making a defeated gesture in the air. “But it wont turn on-”

It only took the Bot one press of a literal button, and the Data Tab powered up to a neon green loading screen.

Her mouth opened to an ‘O’.

It was ridiculous, but she wore an expression on her face that almost looked betrayed.

“How did you…” She let out an exasperated breath. “I’ve been trying to get that to turn on for hours– you know what? Never mind.”

The Bot started typing symbols into the console, bringing up a small empty box as he glanced over the numbers on the screen of the Tab. Very quickly, he pressed the corresponding symbols on the console interface, and a huge list appeared on the screen.

“These are all the ships that came into the Vien system last week. I will search for yours, now.”

The Bot went to the bottom of the list, and the girl leaned in close enough that her two, long, thin braids from the sides of her head brushed the Bot's arm. He tried to shift his arm away, but she leaned closer to the screen, dark eyes focusing on the list like squinting at them would single-handedly teach her to read.

“It's not a very big list, is it?” she said, completely and utterly absorbed.

“Because of the Astrostorm travel ban,” he said, looking sidelong at the girl. “You know, the great hurling mass of haunted particles above the atmosphere that’s trying to suck all ships– and the entire planet– of power?”

The girl snapped her fingers. “Right, yeah. I forgot… I forgot about that.”

The console beeped, alerting the Bot that it was finished searching.

“What’s it say?” the girl asked eagerly, leaning forward even more.

Very carefully, the Bot nudged her out of the way.

“How about you let me look at it?”

Evren.

After a moment of letting himself read the words, the Bot straightened.

“There,” he announced. “It says that this ship is logged in the Covien's Department of Astroportralis as Astrogate debris from the Vien system’s most recent storm: Astrostorm Evren.”

The Bot thrust the Data Tab back into my hands . “A deal’s a deal,” he said, pointing to the door. “I found the ship. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of mopping to do.”

Following his finger, my gaze fell to the door, and then drifted back to the Bot.

“What’s… Astrogate debris?” All of a sudden, my brain switched off.

No! a voice screamed in my now very empty head. Tell him he’s wrong. Tell him that's not right, that it can’t be right.

It can’t be right. It can’t be right. It can’t be right.

The Bot hesitated, arm falling.

“Astrogate debris?” he echoed, his words fading to a faint whisper in my head. “That’s anything that’s been confirmed to have come in contact with, or come out of, an Astrogate.” He frowned– as much as he could, as he had no facial features except for the two round vision sensors that contract from time to time when he talked.

“This wasn’t… your ship, was it?”

I nodded, trying to shiver away the feeling that had been crawling up my spine.

I thought back to the crash, where the Scavenger found me. I thought back to when the ship was falling– why it fell.

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to think about something else, to drag my mind out of a memory I knew was coming.

I had wanted to think about the grass, but I ended up thinking of scorched earth. I made myself think about the poncho I was wearing, and how rough it felt, but then I remembered why it was given to me.

“No–” I said forcefully, fighting the urge to hyperventilate, and failing more than just a little. “My ship came down because of an Astrogate– because of an Astrogate! Not because it came from an Astrogate. That's not right! They’ve got it wrong–”

The Bot started talking above me. “Well, quite the opposite. Our Department of Astroportalis specialises in containing debris, as all debris emits a unique signature. There can be no mistaking it."

No matter how hard I tried to block out the Bot's words, or shove away the memory that fought to come into my head, it pushed its way back into my mind. I pressed my hands into my eyes painfully.

Slowly, the memory knitted itself back together into my head.

The ship sirens wailed, screaming for me to run.

But I couldn’t– I couldn’t move.

From the floor of a transport bridge, I watched as something like a huge mouth opened in a turbulent space storm, its throat the colour of blackened pitch as it stretched open wider, and wider, and wider past the viewing window, and the entire world became a cold, lifeless black.

I remembered something like the sound of wind hurtling around the ship, threatening to tear it all apart as the world around me groaned and twisted and contorted under the pressure of an invisible hand.

I remembered sparks as they poured out from broken connections– equipment coming loose from the ceiling and walls– and as I looked up, a console tearing itself from the wall opposite me.

I remember throwing my right hand up in a pitiful attempt to stop it, and then–

Nothing.

“Oh, well I guess that complicates things a little,” I heard the Bot say distantly.

“Yeah,” I gasped, “a little.”

The world went white, my bones started to ache.

I passed out.

The morning sun warmed my face, chasing away the chill that the cool hours of night had instilled into my bones.

I stirred as a small breeze shook me from my sleep, coming back to the world in a series of lazy blinks.

Above me, I saw a tall, rusty building reach up and share part of a midmorning sky, and I felt hard pavement beneath me.

I shifted uncomfortably.

Where was I?

I craned my neck up, looking down at my feet sprawled out before me, and the bustling street of people beyond them.

There was a place opposite the doors to the Port, where the street seemed to disappear down into the ground. It was a let-out to the town built into the mountain, and it was marked in a dirty, neon, badly flickering sign that probably said something like Lisk, or Stairway.

The rest of the street was dusty and casually busy, filled with very tall people who milled about outside, opening storefronts, checking hovering Haulers, and signing to one another. It was a fast and elegant language– sentences spoken through not their mouths, but the tips of their callused fingers.

Beautiful as it was, it was too fast for my brain to make any good sense of. I clutched my head, trying to dispel some of the ache there.

I remembered the night before, and rested my head back onto the concrete with a thud. I didn’t remember coming out here. The Port Bot, Lewis, must have dragged me here once I passed out.

I sighed. What a kind gesture.

I rubbed my eyes tiredly. “Oh Eth… Right.” I blew out a breath. “The Astrogate.”

As I listened to the sound of people chattering, and somewhere further down the street, a very heated argument, I tried to breathe, putting all of my mental focus into that one action so I wouldn’t have to think about anything else.

Like a squeaky wheel hesitantly turning, there was the sound of a window opening above my head. Very slowly.

“... Are you… still alive?” the Bot called tentatively.

Without taking my hands from my eyes, I swallowed in an attempt to dispel the dry feeling in my throat. It didn’t really work.

“Let me think about it...” I hesitated, looking blearily back at my bare feet for a second. “If I’m dead… then the Evering is sorely lacking a few key features that constitutes a paradise,” I laughed weakly.

The Bot didn’t miss a moment to speak again. “Do you want to know the statistics of surviving an Astrostorm?” the Bot asked curiously.

I shook my head absently. “No. Not really.”

“Well, it is very low.” He continued anyway, and I looked up to see Lewis’s hand resting on the window sill. That was all I could see of him.

“I read the Entrillian Empiriums official Informational on Astrostorms, and there's only a one in three hundredth chance of escaping an Astrostorm with your life. And most survivors die within the first forty eight hours– so I guess either you’re going to very die soon, or you are a special case.” He paused for a moment, like he was stopping to take a breath. “And there is even less information on the actual Astrogates. Mere contact with an Astrostorm can alter physical makeup for life.”

I looked up at the sky, where the Astrostorm was lazily drifting across the pale blue.

“Why does it move?” I asked, still lying down.

Lewis took a moment to respond. “What– the Astrostorm? It’s not moving. Covien is.”

I sighed, still looking at the smudge. That was my smudge. My patron smudge. And I was just its smudgling.

I pushed myself to a sitting position awkwardly with one hand, trying not to move my burnt one. I rested my left hand on my knee tiredly.

“Oh Evering,” I sighed, shutting my eyes and resting the back of my head against the Port. “I really am lost, aren’t I?”

I could hear Lewis’s hand shift above me as he readjusted his weight. The action was coupled by several mechanical sounds. “Well, no. Not really,” he said, almost distracted.

I frowned, staring out across the street. “What do you mean ‘no’?” I asked, a little perturbed. “I’m at the bottom of the damn universe, Bot. With no name, no family, and nowhere to go home.” I gestured through the air a few times in annoyance. “Does 'lost' mean something different on this planet?”

The Bot was quick to speak again. “No, I only meant to say that you are not completely correct.”

As I watched the Astrostorm ripple marginally, I listened to Lewis’s words.

“For something to truly be classed as lost, it must be first classed as found.”

I watched as a bird shot off from the roof of the Port and down past the mountain face, absently hearing the Bot speak.

“In light of the fact that you have come from an Astrostorm– and have no point of origin, you simply cannot be lost. You exist in a way other Organics seldom can experience; untethered to the possibility of displacement. And now– you simply… exist.”

I thought about it, my brows knitting together briefly as I directed my attention back to the smudge. It had moved slightly, but the movement was barely noticeable.

I looked down at my arm, poking it absently and feeling nothing. “Thanks, Lewis,” I said quietly. “That's… actually weirdly comforting.”

His tone was slightly alarmed when he spoke. “I did not mean it to be.”

I shook my head, smiling slightly. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

After a moment, the Bot spoke again.

“You can’t sleep out there,” he said matter of factly.

I patted the ground a few times affectionately, sighing. “I know, it’s a little uncomfortable–”

“It's against Port regulations,” the Bot interrupted.

I sighed.

“Of course it is.”

Wearily, I arched my head up to look at the partially open window. All I could see still was Lewis's hand clutched tightly to the latch there.

"Tell me, am I allowed to breathe out here? Or is that not allowed, either?” I shook my head, stretching my legs in front of me on the pavement, my eyes trying to focus on my shoeless feet and failing. Lewis ignored my question, which was very un-Bot-like.

“Go to Market street,” he instructed helpfully. “There's lots of places in Lower Lisk where you can sleep and you won’t be bothering anyone.”

The sound of the window opening a little more followed his words.

“Here,” he said, and before I could look up, something heavy fell on my head.

“Hey– I’ll leave in a moment, buddy–” I had a whole barrage of complaints to hurl at the Bot, but I forced myself to stop. A moment after, something lighter crinkled as it fell into my lap. The thing that had rudely collided with my head was a bottle of water, labelled in a language I hardly could piece together. And the crinkly thing that had fallen into my lap appeared to be some kind of package, shaped like a bar. It was what he gave me yesterday night. That one was still in my pocket, only because I didn’t exactly know what it was. I had drunk the water, but I hadn’t open the package.

“What is this?” I asked, inspecting the package with wide eyes.

“Food,” replied the Bot tonelessly. “It’s what Organics need to survive. And it’s from the vending Units,” he added. “I will not be doing this again, as stealing from them is illegal and I do not like the way it makes me feel.”

I examined the package, frowning over the images on the label. They seemed to depict a plant with small red fruits on it. I ran a finger over the picture of the leaves.

“I am not doing this because I feel sympathy for your predicament,” the Bot continued through his window above me. “Only that the paperwork I would be required to fill out if you died is too numerous and labour intensive to be worth the trouble of ignoring you.”

“Right, I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, barely listening to him as I grasped the bottle of water excitedly. “Thank you, Lewis.”

As I struggled to get the bottle open, the sound of morning start-ups up and down the street accompanied the stiff silence between me and the Bot.

“What will you…” the Port Bot hesitated. “What will you call yourself?” he asked at last, sounding unsure.

I shrugged, finally twisting the bottle lid off. “I don’t know. I could say that my family died, or that they left me here. Maybe I’m an immigrant?” I took a sip of water, letting the murky liquid quench my dusty mouth. I swallowed. “Does anybody actually immigrate here?”

Lewis seemed annoyed and amused. “No,” he responded tonelessly. “I meant what will you do about your absence of name? What will you get… people… to call you?”

“A name?” I asked, a hollow look overcoming my face. I hadn’t thought about that.

“Right. I should get myself a name. But I don’t really know… how I should do that…”

“Usually, your parents will give you one. Or a guardian,” the Bot explained. “One name will be a personal name, one will be a family name, and one will be their house name– if they have a house.” He hesitated. “But that's more of a Mid-rim thing, so two names will be adequately unsuspicious– while one name would suggest you or your parents were slaves of some kind.” He paused, and the window creaked a little as he probably shifted his weight, “Do you remember… anything about your past? The place which you came from? Maybe you could call yourself that?”

I let myself close my eyes, willing my mind to inhabit the space where memory was held. Like a ransacked pantry, it was as bare as my feet. Maybe if I concentrated, I could feel the warmth of a different kind of sun on my face, or the feeling of raw, bare earth beneath my toes. An echo of a sound went through my brain, like a curtain billowing in the breeze, scratching against a windowsill…

…but it quickly vanished, leaving me feeling empty and hollow again, and kinda sweaty.

“Nope,” I said with a sigh. “I remember coming out of an Astrogate; that’s about it.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to think of something,” the Bot said, his voice drawing away like he had looked in another direction.

What an odd thing the Bot was.

It was like it really couldn’t make up its mind if it wanted to help me or not. Were other Bots like this? Or was it just this one that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be nice or not?

I took a drink of water, and for some reason, swallowing the cloudy liquid was difficult. I found myself looking up at the clear morning sky, my eyes drifting up to the deceivingly un-turbulent heavens yet again. The Astrostorm was a faint outline, nothing more than a dark, palm-sized blemish in the sky.

“Hey, Lewis?” I asked as casually as I could.

The Bot made a noise of acknowledgement, one that sounded much too human.

My eyebrows knitted together in thought as I squinted up at the small mark in the heavens, a smile tugging across my lips. Lewis’s words echoed through my head faintly.

That which I have come from…

“What was the name of the Astrostorm, again?”

There was a moment of hesitation for the Bot.

“Astrostorm Evren,” he said, sounding confused. Something must have clicked in his metal brain, because he added hurriedly, “But… you can’t be serious.”

“Evren,” I repeated, struggling to my feet painfully. My head throbbed, and my feet felt uncertain on the pavement. Nevertheless, I turned to look at my frazzled reflection in the Port window.

The creature opposite me seemed lost. Her frazzled Geodian braids seemed frizzled and tired, and the dark shadows under her eyes made me look more like something that had crawled out of a black hole than a simple peasant girl.

Looking past my reflection, I found the Port Bot through the window, looking at me with two unimpressed, blue eyes that clearly said you have got to be scriking kidding me.

I looked down at the package of food in my hand. There were words on there. I smacked the wrapper against the window, startling the Bot with the sudden action.

“What’s it say?”

“What?” he asked, obviously confused this time.

I wiggled the wrapper against the window. “Life-giving entity found,” I explained. “Food.” I nodded to the wrapper again. “So what’s it say?”

The Bot didn’t look like he enjoyed being pestered by me, but despite this, his eyes narrowed, and he barely had to glance at the food package to read the words there.

“It says ‘crisp’a’snac protein crackers. Kerrel Flavoured. Made by Cereis'.” He folded his arms. “Hmm. Evren Crackers…” the Bot mused. “On second thought, maybe it is quite fitting.”

“What?” I asked defensively. “Evren is a good enough name.”

Shrugging easily, a smile tugged at my dry, parched lips. “And it's a little bit funny.” I paused. “But… maybe I’ll try to find a better last name.”

“Well, what are you gonna do now, Evren?” Lewis asked, emphasising the name he obviously didn’t think was very amusing.

I shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess… I'll wait for the storm to end. And then I'll go and try to find where I belong...” I looked at the Astrostorm, turning as I muttered

“Cause it’s not here.”

The Bot nodded, suddenly back to business like he was never annoyed in the first place. He pointed to the let-out that led down into the mountain. “Mechanics always need someone to clean parts for them– you could get money that way, while you wait out the storm?”

I nodded thoughtfully, turning back to the Bot. “Nice– I can see it now–” I waved my good hand through the air once for effect. “Evren the mech-part cleaner, fastest scrubber in the Fringe.”

The Bot leaned in to close the window, his metal hand chiming again the metal latch

“Fantastic. Now go and find somewhere else to be because–”

“-loitering is against Tri-Docks 61’s regulations, I know, I know,” I said, stooping to awkwardly pick up my water with one hand.

“You’ll thank me later,” I could hear the Port Bot say. “If you want to make it to the end of the storm, you’ll do well to stay out of trouble.”

The window closed decidedly after his words, and I watched as he strode

across the Port and out of view.

I pushed the package of food into my pants pocket, nodding absently. “Please,” I said, turning to face Lisk.

“Scrub a few parts, stay out of a few troubles– anyone can do that.”