by J D Astra
I breathed deep and enjoyed the biting chill of the air in my lungs. It was as if I could breathe for the first time in two weeks. I wasn’t keeping an eye on Ko-nah or withholding any of Mae’s comments or worrying about whether the source of the signal was going to move. We were going to do something about it—tonight, if everything went as planned.
I worked well into the afternoon, Hana at my side with support en for welding or cooling so I could conserve my energy for ma munje. Mae guided me through all of the modifications to increase Tuko’s ability to receive my commands. While some of them looked quite ridiculous—like a long slender neck that could retract into his shell-like torso—she promised they would be worth it.
These changes would not at all make him a better fighter, but they would give us exactly what we needed to sneak into the signal source, do some data collection, and still have enough munje to get all the way back to Bastion. Mun-de-Jayu, he looked so stupid now. Aside from the long, flexible, and retractable neck, I had to make his body almost twice as thick to support a larger reservoir.
I had been adamant about saving the panel with my father’s and my initials on it, though Mae said it was getting weak from all the welding. I didn’t love my father anymore, not for how much he’d put us through with his absence, but I couldn’t bring myself to rip out one of the only pieces of him I had left. Mae understood and let it slide.
There was another empty space near where the trap door had been on Tuko’s belly that Mae lay claim to as “hers.” I wasn’t sure what she was implying by that, but I didn’t like the idea of trying to fuse Mae with Tuko. I didn’t even know how to get her out of me, so how could I get her into Tuko? Mae was decidedly silent as I worried over these details, which made me even more anxious. What was she planning?
“Hey, Jiyong!” Ryni waved as she passed my workshop, then stopped and leaned against the doorframe. “Got time for a quick—What happened to Tuko?” She rushed forward. Her gaze raked over the modified bot in a panic.
“What have you done to him?” she asked with an accusing glare at me, then Hana.
“I need these modifications for a school thing. But don’t worry, I’m sure he could still win a scrape against Amsalja,” I said with a cocky grin.
Amsalja was her fighting bot, and a decent Dancer style at that. It was slender, quick, and had endurance. The downside of that endurance was the size of the primary reservoir. Ryni had me install several small reservoirs that could help make the difference, but if her primary were punctured, she’d have less than sixty seconds to end the battle before she was out of the fight.
Ryni scoffed and rolled her eyes. “This turtle is going to win against my Amsalja?” Then, her face went serious as she asked, “How much you wanna put on it?”
I laughed. “I don’t have time to test the legitimacy of my claim tonight. We need to be getting back soon, or they’ll lock us out.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms in a taunting manner. “Uh huh.”
I conceded. “Fine, I don’t think Turtle Tuko could win any scrap, that’s not what these mods are for, anyway.”
Ryni gave it another appraising glance as she dropped her playfully taunting demeanor. She circled and hummed thoughtfully. “Extended range, both in signal and reservoir. Taking a trip?”
Hana didn’t look pleased that we were sharing some of our business with Woong-ji’s workers. I knew full well that at any moment they could do the creepy, eye glimmery communication thing, and Woong-ji would know everything. She probably already knew everything.
“Something like that,” Hana said.
Ryni quirked an eyebrow and sighed. “I’d tell you not to get into any trouble, but I have a feeling that’s exactly counter to your goals.”
We shared a laugh that broke the tension. Ryni was great, like what I assumed having a cool aunt was like. Hana had described her aunt, Yenni Jun—whom I’d met once, very briefly over the summer—on many occasions. She was a formal and stoic woman but had a strong moral compass and enough empathy for the entire world. That was amazing, but not cool, like Ryni.
I nodded. “We’ll do our best.”
“Mhmm,” Ryni said as she waved a hand on her way out. “You kids let me know if you need something.”
I sat back with a grin and looked at Hana. Her face was glowing, and her eyes sparkled with joy. Burning desire suddenly rushed through my chest and urged me toward her. I slipped my hand behind her neck, and her eyes widened, but she didn’t resist as I pulled her in. I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against hers.
My heart pounded, and my hand shook with nerves. What if I was doing it wrong? What if I was hurting her? I pulled back and dropped my hand to the desk. My cheeks flushed with equal parts desire and embarrassment. Why had I done that?
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I picked up the pliers and started correcting a tiny bend in one of the panels.
Hana’s warm, en-infused hand slid across my cheek and turned my face. My heart thudded as she twisted on the bench until her knees nudged mine. I dropped the tools and pulled Hana closer. We kissed again, this time much longer.
The clock chimed on the wall, and we pulled away from each other with a start.
Hana practically leapt off the bench. “We’ll be late,” she said, her cheeks burning with color.
“Yeah. Uh, yeah. We should go,” I stammered like an idiot and fumbled for the tools on the worktable.
Without another word, we put everything back in its proper place. Hana nudged my hand once as we both went for the same spanner, and we pulled back with embarrassment. I didn’t know why, but every time I got near her, I felt the hairs on my arm stand on end. It was like something in me was trying to pull her closer.
We were back on the road to Bastion in record time and held a steady jog the whole way. It was better to run not because we’d be on time, but because I couldn’t stand the desire of walking next to her without having my arms around her. All I wanted to do was hold her close. Why couldn’t I stop thinking about that kiss?
The gate guard stopped me as I approached, pointing to my Tuko rucksack. “What’s this?” the woman asked, poking the satchel.
I set it down and untied the knots holding to together to reveal Tuko and said, “I need to work on the bot for Ma Design and Repair practice.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Working on Tuko was always good practice.
The guard scrunched up her face as she scrutinized me. I could feel the cold, gnawing tingle of a forceful ry intrusion, so I let down my guard. I had nothing to hide that wasn’t well buried under half-truths. She sighed and stepped back, then waved me in.
I had just enough time to stash Tuko in Woong-ji’s workshop—where he’d be safe for the night—before heading down to dinner. Phase one of the plan complete. Hopefully, Phase two would go as smoothly.
Chapter 22
“ARE YOU READY?” I ASKED Mae.
“As I’ll ever be. I hope this works,” she said with less confidence than I wanted to hear.
I had trained for a whole week increasing my range with Tuko, and I was confident that we would make it there and back.
I blew all the air from my lungs, then sucked down a cold breath that invigorated my tired mind. Training all week meant I’d been up in the early hours to escape Ko-nah’s watchful gaze and still make it on time to meditation. Today was no different, except I had tied myself to the highest branch of a pine tree that would hold my weight. I checked the binds one more time and, when I was certain they were tight enough to support me if I jumped or moved—as I sometimes did when direct piloting Tuko—closed my eyes.
I exhaled and sought out Tuko lying in wait in Woong-ji’s office. My vision returned, but I was sitting on the metal workbench next to Woong-ji’s massive project. I stretched out Tuko’s many limbs and gained my footing. The adjustments to the length of his legs and body shell had thrown my equilibrium out of balance, but after a week of training I was almost comfortable with it.
I reached for the
window latch and clicked it open, then lodged Tuko’s grappling hook into the worn wood of the awning. I descended quietly. The only noises I could “hear” were the vibrations that shook Tuko’s metal casing. I hadn’t discovered a way to install sound receivers on Tuko’s body, so Mae had learned to convert the vibrations in his body to an audible sound in my head, similar to the way she spoke in my mind.
I landed like a graceful spider and retracted the grappling hook.
Mae assisted my vision by giving distance measurements to the hole in the wall and another much farther in the distance to the signal location. I followed her direction and made it to the cutout section in the wall Yuri and Cho had made the week before. Tuko’s hooked-claw forelimbs squeezed into the edges of the brick and pulled it loose, then set it aside. I tucked all the limbs but the front two under his belly, making my profile as compact as possible.
We squeezed through the meter-thick wall, dragging ourselves along with the front limbs, until we reached the next blocking brick. It pushed out easily, and I extended the long neck out the hole to check the surroundings. The city around the school was eerily motionless. Some vibrations rattled nearby, but they were generators of some kind we’d identified days ago.
I crawled out and put the blocking brick back into the hole to obscure it. I skittered along the shadowed streets, stopping at every crossing to check for activity. After a few kilometers, I noticed a few drunkards stumbling around, and some escorts on their way home from a night’s work. I’d have to stick more closely to the shadows to avoid detection. Didn’t need anyone calling the sungchal.
The road was slick with ice from the moisture of the bay, but Tuko’s upgraded claws gave him the necessary grip to keep moving unabated. We got to the intersection Mae had marked as the signal location and turned in a circle. All the buildings were closed up, not a single window left ajar.
‘Ideas?’ I asked Mae with my mind and held Tuko still, conserving munje.
“Roof?”
I angled Tuko’s neck to look up and saw the building was at least four stories tall. It was much too far to grapple our way up, but perhaps I wouldn’t need to. I found a window on the second floor that was shuttered with only two planks of wood and aligned my bulky body with it.
I tilted Tuko’s backside toward with window and let the grapple hook fly. It landed with a thunk I could hear reverberate through the grappling line into Tuko’s body. I reeled it in slowly and walked toward the building to prevent Tuko from swinging around, and it worked. When we reached the window, I clamped the claws into the wood to anchor him and released the hook.
It took a few minutes of struggling, but I managed to slide his front leg through the gap and unblock the board that had held it in place. The window planks swung inward and us with them.
There was a desk at the far wall and a door on the wall next to it. The other two walls were lined with shelves loaded down by boxes. I climbed the window plank to get a better look at the insignia on the side of one box.
There was a waxing crescent moon in silver, with a sword pointed down that connected at the tip of each end of the moon. The handle of the weapon had five different colored ribbons—one for each munje—and then a sixth ribbon trailed out of the top like it was fluttering on the wind. The sixth ribbon was a silvery-blue.
“I’ve captured this image and stored it in my database,” Mae remarked, and I nodded Tuko’s head absently.
I climbed down the window board and plinked onto the ground with a spring. The tink-tink-tink of my legs across the stone made me worry there was too much noise, but Mae assured me it would barely be audible to any human in the area not augmenting their hearing with ry.
I skittered over to the door and rotated the handle with my front arms. ‘Where to now?’
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
While I didn’t like the idea of getting stuck on the top floor of the building, I guessed it would be a prime spot for sending and receiving the signal. I had noticed over the week of controlling Tuko’s range that the higher I was, the better chances I had of reaching him—hence being in the tree.
We found the stairs and climbed our way up to the third floor. I did a cursory glance around to make sure there wasn’t something of great importance—just more boxes—and then made my way up to the fourth. There were a few more things here, boxes of different sizes, some of which had been opened. Hay stuffing lay about the floor here, dampening the sounds of my feet as I investigated.
Mae hummed. “The indentations in the hay look like it held broadcast equipment for sure. They probably shipped it in waves to avoid suspicion. You don’t have any information on border customs, so neither do I. Not sure how they’re getting this stuff in, or if it’s just as simple as pulling up to the docks and unloading.”
I grimaced. ‘I hope not.’
I left the room behind after Mae captured a few more images. The stairs to the roof were blocked at the top by a thick metal door. I pressed on it with all the strength Tuko had, but it wasn’t enough to lift even one panel.
We returned to the room on the fourth floor and found another window. The overhang of the awning was too far back to see it or aim at it, and so I did the next best thing. I spooled out the grappling hook and brought it to my forelimbs. Mae helped me with the math as I swirled the hook around and around in my right arm.
I released it, and the hook sailed up and out. When it reached peak tautness, it curved back in and landed on something with a clank. I tugged on it a few times to ensure we weren’t about to clatter to an untimely death, then slowly reeled it back in while stabilizing with my many legs.
The palms of my hands tingled and clammed up as I saw the ground, what looked like a million kilometers away. My vision fuzzed, and I felt my control of Tuko slipping. I cut off the vision portion and focused only on reeling in the grappling hook.
I heard the vibrations of his carapace scraping against stone and reached toward the wall with all his limbs as I reengaged the visual connection. We’d made it to the roof, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Half the munje reserves used,” Mae reported, and I retracted my sigh of relief.
I turned us around to see a two-meter spire at the center of the roof.
“That is definitely for broadcasting and receiving radio signals,” Mae affirmed and began capturing images.
The top of the spire had a thick ball that shined unlike any other metal I’d seen. Down the shaft there were little loops with hooks for metal wires that ran between the construct and the edges of the building.
“Bad news, Jiyong. This is only a routing station. The signal origin is not from here, but from another location. Get Tuko over there and touch the spire.”
I walked across the roof with unease. ‘It won’t hurt us or anything, right?’
“Shouldn’t. Touching the spire will allow me to transfer some of your munje into it. I’ll be able to trace the signal origin—I hope.”
It was our only way forward, so there was nothing that could be done. If Tuko was going to get fried up here, at least we’d be one step closer to figuring out who was behind all this. I put a forelimb out and touched the metal rod, watching as a tiny trickle of my ma swirled down the claw and into the spire.
“Tracing... give me a minute.”
The wind shook the spire and wires, sending vibrations all up my arm. There was a single, loud slam that shook Tuko’s legs, and my heart skipped a beat. I swiveled Tuko’s head to look around us, and I kept my breathing steady through my nose. The visuals shuddered—due to my anxiety no doubt—and I redoubled my effort to keep my focus on Tuko’s body instead of getting lost in the feelings of mine.
Another slam as the wires around me trembled, and I jumped, my head smacking against the tree trunk behind me.
‘Has it been a minute?’ I asked as I turned my attention from the metal doors on the ground to the edge of the building.
“I have it localized to a thirty-meter radius, but I’
ll need to see a detailed city map to narrow it down.”
‘Good enough,’ I thought as I walked to the edge of the building. I looked over the ledge to see the window on the fourth floor had been shut and barred. ‘Tungpah!’
I clamped my claws on one of the many thick wires running to the spire and scrambled over the edge. I pointed the grappling hook at the window, then fired. There was a closer bang, and the metal door on the rooftop burst open. Two figures appeared walking up the steps, and I let go of the wire with a quick prayer.
Chapter 23
TUKO SWUNG DOWN FROM the ledge, and my stomach turned with the artificial sense of gravity leaving my body. My hands clamped down on my legs, and Tuko-vision blotted out as I lost control.
“Shipuh!” I shouted, then bit my tongue. I breathed deep through my nose and closed my eyes, reaching out for Tuko. Mae was quiet as I followed my trail of used, faded munje through the streets. I accelerated until the buildings, barely a shadow in my mind-vision, blurred by.
There he was, dangling by his butt from the awning of the fourth floor. I connected and took stock of the damage. One of his legs was jammed, but he was still mostly functional.
“Forty percent ma remaining,” Mae alerted me.
I bumped against the wall of the building as I descended at breakneck speeds down the grappling line. There was a tug on my guts as we hit the end of the line, still two stories off the ground. The awnings around the windows were half a meter thick, and my claws were too short to reach.
“Wiggle,” Mae ordered.
I felt Mae’s influence and I moved my limbs from side to side, swinging us closer to the window. I snapped his claws around the wood and released the grappling hook, then reeled in the line.
I felt the vibrations of footsteps descending inside the building, and my heart hammered with adrenaline. The grappling hook snapped into place, but I couldn’t orient myself properly to fire it into the window ledge.
