Hall of the Mountain Queen
The Lost Kids' leader has a major secret
A familiar melody drifted to Randy’s ears. A soft voice sang Moonchild, Alda’s favorite song. Still half-asleep, he yanked the grimy, stinking sleeping bag from over his head and turned toward the sound.
The voice felt like it could make flowers bloom through ice. Randy’s eyelids rose slowly, sticky with sleep, letting in a soft golden glow and a dark blur that gradually took shape: a small woman bundled in layers, tying leather plates together with a cord. It was Naoko.
They were near the end of an underground tunnel, hidden behind a tarp and lit by two tin cans of whale oil. And in that moment, the memories returned—vivid and brutal: Mirny was lost. Rakhmanov was unable to assist. He was a captive, a mere slave, held by a pack of feral outlaws.
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His wrists and ankles were still bound. His body ached from sleeping that way.
“You’ve got a sweet voice,” he rasped.
“Oh, really?”
“How do you know that song?”
“They play it at Neptune Station in Railtown. We’ve got a receiver. Fox listens to it every day. By the way… they caught you because Fox heard something weird through the signal. Got spooked, grabbed her best fighters, and went out scouting.”
“Guess I’m not who she expected,” Randy muttered. “A nobody. So… What are they planning to do with me?”
“They’re still deciding,” Naoko said. “Might throw you in with the other slaves to crack rocks. Or save you for other jobs. Fox has big plans—she needs people and weapons. Kitty says you’re not much of a fighter. Not a coward, though. Just… too kind.”
“Am I?” He snorted. “You mentioned other slaves—how many?”
“I have no right to say this. But let me warn you: it’s a maze down here. You get lost or fall, you’re dead. The bridge to the Mainline was blown up before Fox even became the boss.”
“So everyone’s trapped. Great,” Randy muttered. “Do they ever go outside?”
“When Arce was in charge, this was out of the question. But Fox lets them out sometimes—supervised, of course. Says, there’s no value in dead workers.”
“Who’s Arce? The gang’s former head?”
“Yes. ‘Older Brother.’ That’s the title. Fox is ‘Older Sister.’ I got captured right after she took over. They say, it was big luck.”
“Huh…”
Naoko’s voice dipped slightly. “My old man tried to sell me at the New Beijing marriage market. Like a damn chicken. Lost Kids ambushed us in broad daylight. My “loving parent” got robbed but was allowed to flee. The caravan guards ended up in the mine. I’ve been here nearly two years.”
Randy turned his face away, thinking of his parents waiting for his return. His voice trembled. “And I’m lucky the old fart Henry didn’t smash my skull.”
“Henry?” Naoko’s smile faded. “He’s not angry any more. He just went crazy from loss of booze. It’s easier to find gold down here than alcohol — the anesthetic, the antiseptic.” She wrinkled her nose. “You need to freshen up. Come on.”
Randy stumbled after the girl, legs still bound, keeping an eye on her slight frame. Despite his modest height, he felt like a giant beside her.
She seems kind, he thought. But does she know the way out? Would she even help me if she did?
Naoko led him into a larger room, where a metal tank stood with a faucet. A plastic pipe ran along the damp wall, feeding into it. Plumbing—here, in this hole? He hadn’t expected that. And the warmth in the mine was almost cozy.
“Golden-age workers installed the pipes. Henry fixed this up. He’s our jack-of-all-trades,” Naoko said proudly, like he was a brother—or something more. The possessive tone in our made Randy flinch. A former raid victim, she now saw herself as a gang member.
She tugged a shiny brass lever—probably repurposed from some old machine. Randy placed his bound hands under the pipe. Hot water gushed out. He flinched, surprised.
“It’s geothermal,” she explained, catching his look. “You’ve noticed the heat, right?”
He nodded. He knew Antarctica was a land of buried volcanoes. Erebus was the most famous—so unstable the Mainline curved wide around it. Still, it was madness to dig a mine at the base of an active volcano—and even more madness to live in it. But maybe not entirely without logic. The Lost Kids were literally sitting on silver. Maybe gold (which sometimes occurs together with silver in the earth's crust). And for them, survival wasn’t about long-term safety. Disease, snowstorms, rockslides, skirmishes—any of it could kill them first.
And hot water? Habitable rooms? No enemy raids, no patrols? Luxury!
Randy, raised on strict hygiene, was eager to clean up. He wanted to wash down to his waist, but Naoko wouldn’t cut the ropes. Instead, she helped scrub his hair. He managed the rest—face and hands—on his own.
The latrine was easy to find—just follow the smell. A pit covered by a grate. Mushrooms flourished in the corners, somehow thriving.
Randy took it all in—the turns, rooms, rails, the stairs to the lower levels. He asked questions constantly. Naoko didn’t always answer—but he still learned.
Eventually, they arrived at a fenced platform. A rusted cage waited, ready to lower people into the mine’s depths. Randy peered down. Oil lamps flickered far below. Shadows moved—picking, striking, grunting. The smell of metal and sweat hung in the air.
“What the hell took so long?”
Randy turned and saw Henry —scruffy, unwashed and in foul mood.
“Just getting him cleaned up. Didn’t want lice,” Naoko said, unbothered.
“Shave him bald if you care that much,” Henry growled. “That’s enough cleaning!”
“Trim your own rat-tail first,” she shot back.
He bristled. “If I were Fox, I’d have cut out that smart little tongue. You eat anything yet?” he asked Randy.
Randy shook his head.
“Don’t trust these hags with anything…”
“Including Fox?” Randy muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Henry froze. His voice dropped low, dangerous. “Fox ain’t no hag. Every one of us is alive because of her. You understand?”
“Couldn’t be clearer.”
“Follow me. So you’re a blacksmith, huh? How long?”
“I’ve been swinging a hammer since thirteen. Learned from Masako in McMurdo.”
“Masako?” Henry frowned. His brows furrowed so deep they nearly merged. “Heard that name from a Railtown merchant. Got one of her blades.”
“Killed many with it?”
“No. I’m more the technical type. Without me, guns don’t fire. Pumps don’t run. I’m second only to Fox in this goddamn cave.”
Randy raised an eyebrow. “What about Kitty?”
Henry dismissively waved his hand, saying nothing. Then he made an inviting gesture.
“Where are we going?” Randy asked.
“To the torture chamber, kid, to the torture chamber!” Henry clapped him on the shoulder and hoarsely laughed at his own joke. “Don’t worry, we’re moving to the workshop. Pretty much the same thing.”
He led Randy down another corridor. “The old bosses were clever… Built a repair station right here, so they didn’t have to haul stuff far. Left behind some top-grade tools too. ‘Course, most of the refugees stripped it clean on their way out… dragged what they could to Railtown. And now they sell the rest at wicked prices.”
Randy’s breath caught when they entered the workshop.
Looming along the stone walls were massive metal figures, each nearly three meters tall—some standing, others half-disassembled and leaning or crumpled like broken toys. They had the rough shape of men: broad torsos, thick arms—but their hands were pincers, drills, or strange, claw-like tools. Some didn’t even have legs or wheels—just a pair of caterpillar treads.
Faded crimson stars were still visible on their rusting hulls. White stenciling labeled them:
ХОPC — GPD-500
ХОPC — GPD-700
“Mining robots,” Henry said, his tone softening—almost reverent now. “Monsters, aren’t they? Can you imagine the haul, if we could get even one of these beasts running again? Silver, gold, all right beneath our feet...”
He sighed. “We can rip ‘em apart a dozen ways, no problem. Bringing one back to life? That’s the real trick. And no one here’s managed it. Not even Arce, though he came from some smart place.”
“What if I knew someone who could?” Randy asked carefully. He had no doubt Rakhmanov and his team from Winged Sun could bring them back to work.
Henry eyed him, skeptical.
“Probably Fox said I was an idiot, getting caught so easily,” Randy continued. “But if I’m useful, I’ll prove it. If not—”
“If not,” Henry cut in, “Kitty’ll sell you to New Beijing. Use the payout to hire someone who is useful. Fox wants fighters. I want someone who knows metal and tech.”
As if summoned by name, Kitty strode into the workshop, grinning wide enough to show all thirty-two teeth.
“No one teach you manners, mouse?” he sneered, giving Randy a once-over. Then his eyes narrowed. “Huh. His arms are all burns and scars. Bet he’s garbage in the forge.”
Henry didn’t miss a beat. He flipped a heavy wrench in one hand and growled, “Take a look at my arms, and then say that to my face.”
“Pfft! You’ve got a couple decades on him,” Kitty snorted, crossing his arms.
Anger surged in Randy’s chest. This oversized clown couldn’t possibly understand what it was like. Spending entire days in a forge, shoulders hunched over molten metal, scorched by sparks flying in all directions, sweating through thick clothes while the heat clawed at your lungs—and even basic protection was a constant hassle.
A minute later, they stepped into a new chamber, hollowed out by machines. Randy took in a deep breath, the familiar scent hitting him like an embrace. Smoke, metal, oil—it was home, almost.
Three metal cans burned with whale oil, their flames casting a warm golden glow that danced across the rock walls. It was a richer, livelier light than the pale flicker of fungus or mold.
On a battered workbench sat a smooth white cube with rounded corners. Three soft blue dots glowed on its surface. Against the grime and chaos of the workshop, it looked absurdly out of place—like a penguin perched in a tree.
Barrels, crates, and jumbled piles of scrap metal lined the walls: all the salvage the Lost Kids had managed to scavenge from dead settlements. Mallets, sickles, rust-flecked armor, tangled wires, machine parts, spools of cable, radio tubes, ammo belts… It was dizzying. Like stumbling into Ali Baba’s cave, Randy felt his anxiety flicker and fade—replaced, just for a moment, by awe.
So caught up was he in the treasure trove that he didn’t immediately notice he wasn’t alone.
It started with a pair of legs—incredibly long, casually crossed atop a large plastic storage case. The boots were tall, worn smooth at the creases, and the dark-gray pants clung like second skin, merging seamlessly into fitted armor plates. Then he saw the curve of hips, unmistakably feminine.
Randy’s eyes shot upward.
A face stared back at him—narrow, high-cheekboned, with pale skin and eyes the color of bright moss, ringed with long, black lashes. Her eyebrows arched like thunderbird’s wings. Her black hair was swept back and pinned behind her head, with loose strands falling around her face. Even under the workshop's meager light, she looked far less weathered than anyone else Randy had seen here. She rarely left the shelter, he guessed. Or maybe she just belonged to the night.
But her beauty didn’t soften her. There was no warmth in that face—no gentleness. Her expression was hard. Her stare held the same weight Randy had seen in old sailors, and the tight set of her mouth gave her a roughness that outlasted prettiness.
He knew instantly: this woman wasn’t a captive. She lounged like she owned the place—relaxed, confident. The knife strapped to her thigh wasn’t for show. She wasn’t prey. She was a predator. And then she spoke.
“Was the axe we took from you your own work?” she asked, voice steady, calm.
Randy’s throat tightened. He recognized the voice. The same one that had hissed threats in the dark. The same one that had ordered his capture. He would’ve preferred a hideous, scar-faced monster. But no. It was her, the leader of the Lost Kids.
The one he had pictured as an ugly hag. Not someone sharp and stunning and brutal all at once. It would’ve been easier—cleaner—if she’d been grotesque. Randy had always believed beauty and cruelty couldn’t coexist. He’d been wrong.
“How did you know?” he whispered.
“There’s a mark on the blade. An ‘R’ inside a winged sun. Not just anyone could’ve stamped that. You don’t just know someone from Winged Sun—you strive to join them.”
“That’s not relevant,” Randy snapped, anger flaring again.
Kitty slammed a fist into his ribs.
“Don’t break the tool!” Fox snapped, the bark in her voice cutting through the room like a whip. It was the first time her tone had cracked—laced with raw anger, sudden and sharp. “Henry, take command.”
Henry nodded slowly. For the first time, his gaze flicked toward Randy with something almost like sympathy.
Henry scratched his head, sighed—clearly displeased with being assigned examiner duty—then pulled a bag labeled RaddEodItals from one of many cluttered drawers and dumped its contents onto the workbench. Nothing in the heap resembled radio parts.
"You could just give him the cutter. Be faster," Fox said lazily from her perch.
Henry frowned but didn’t argue. With a shrug, he handed Randy a pair of thick gloves and a pair of heavy, dark goggles that swallowed half his face. Then, from the holster on his belt, he pulled a translucent, smoke-colored cylinder with finger grooves molded into its surface.
The top of the tool was deep black, ringed with a notched dial. A single button sat beneath the thumb rest.
“You press here—light comes out and cuts through metal. Let go, it stops,” Henry explained, clicking the button. A white-hot beam lanced from the cutter with a shriek. Even behind goggles, it stung Randy’s eyes like staring into the January sun. “And Night help you if you nick a finger with it. That shit doesn’t grow back.”
The glowing blue dots on the strange white cube pulsed merrily.
Randy spotted a name etched faintly on one side: Lindon Power. His breath hitched. That’s what Rakhmanov was looking for… back at the Dump.
It had to be a power source for the beam knife. But there wasn’t a single wire in sight.
“That’s it,” Henry said, gesturing toward the table. “Dig through the junk. Make something that’ll impress me.”
Randy glanced at Fox, stunned by the command’s bluntness. But she just reclined further in her seat, fingers laced behind her head, her expression one of idle amusement.
His palms broke out in sweat. His heart thundered.
Still, he pushed past the wave of panic and began organizing the scrap—hoping, praying, something in the mess would spark an idea.
“You can root through that pile too,” Henry added, jerking his chin toward a heap of rusting components. “Mostly useless junk, but who knows. If you need to fill gaps, seal something, or glue metal—there’s live plastic in the bucket. Just don’t get greedy. Cut off a quarter, tops.”
Randy knew about live plastic: a gray, bubbling paste that hissed in water and hardened like stone in dry air.
Among the scrap, he found a thermos, a broken pressure cooker, and a handful of heat-resistant tubes. Fox strolled out, promising to return in an hour. Kitty took her place—arms folded over his barrel chest, glowering from a makeshift bench like a carved gargoyle. Under that shark-eyed stare, it was nearly impossible not to fumble.
But as Dr. Osokin used to say, the eyes are afraid, but the hands do the work.
To calm his nerves, Randy began to hum softly. He drilled holes in the pot lid, threaded the tubes, and attached them to the thermos. The light cutter felt natural in his grip—precise and effortless, slicing through metal like it was butter.
The lid needed sealing. No gaps. He reached for the bucket of live plastic, sliced off a small lump, and set to work. The substance was tougher than it looked. Within two minutes, it hardened into something harder than stone.
Once, I would’ve been thrilled to use something like this, Randy thought, grimacing. Now it just feels like another tool in someone else’s chains.
The result—a clunky tangle of seemingly mismatched parts—looked absurd, but not to Henry. He circled the bench, squinting at the creation. Then his eyes widened, and a bark of laughter erupted from his chest.
“Son of a bitch built a moonshine still!” he roared.
Yeah? And funny you didn’t think of it yourself, old man, Randy thought but kept quiet. Let’s see you keep your guns and morale running without booze.
Henry leaned in, tapping the welds and seals. “Tight. Airtight. Not bad. Nothing’s leaking. Where’d you learn this?”
“At home,” Randy said. “McMurdo. My dad and brother are doctors. They need to use alcohol every day.”
Henry grunted, impressed.
“We haven’t tested it yet,” Kitty interrupted, still skeptical. “No mash on hand. I’m not tossing rats into that thing.”
He thudded a bundle wrapped in dark blue cloth onto the workbench. Inside lay a sleek, disassembled blued revolver—the kind Randy had never even touched before.
His brain seized. The polished metal gleamed under the lantern light. His thoughts scattered like startled birds.
I’m screwed, he thought. Totally, completely screwed.
"Smith & Wesson, Model Ten. Built in 2063," Kitty said, like that was supposed to mean something. "Put it together, figure out what's wrong, and fix it."
Randy stood frozen over the weapon, not about to argue. To his surprise, Henry handed over his canteen—gruff, but unexpectedly generous. The water had a faint taste and smell of alcohol.
Moving slowly and deliberately, more drained from nerves than from effort, Randy got to work.
He smiled—if only to spite Kitty. Pretending he’d spent his whole life assembling revolvers, he rolled back his shoulders and tried to look calm.
“When you’re feeling like crap,” Alda used to say, “square your shoulders, lift your chin, and smile—even if it’s fake. Sooner or later, your mind will follow your body.”
Time to test that theory.
It kind of worked. The pounding in his temples faded, his breath steadied, his palms dried up. The fog in his head began to lift. Clamping down on every twitch to rush, every flicker of panic, Randy began piecing the weapon together, step by step. He had no real sense of time passing—being this deep underground, he couldn’t even see the sky.
To his relief, the issue was obvious: the trigger jammed. On the road, that kind of delay could mean a dead man. He disassembled it again, found the bent trigger guard, and carefully realigned it.
Kitty snatched the revolver from the bench, spun the cylinder, cocked it, pulled the trigger a few times.
Then he dug into the pocket of his camo pants, pulled out a worn leather pouch, and loaded a single round.
“Out of the workshop, with that damn thing—” Henry started, but too late. Kitty pulled the trigger.
For a second, nothing. Then the sharp crack of a gunshot echoed off the stone walls. The bullet flew six meters and struck the sun-bleached skull of a musk ox placed high on one of the shelves.
“You asshole!” Henry barked, recoiling. “What if it’d ricocheted and hit me?”
“It wouldn’t have ricocheted,” Kitty said coolly. “I know exactly where I’m shooting.”
He spun the revolver again and gave Randy a long, unreadable look. “As I thought—kid’s no killer. Looks the part, maybe. I’ll talk it over with Fox. We’ll figure out what to do with him. Henry, you can work him. Let him earn his food.”
With that, he strode out, the revolver swinging from his hand, leaving Randy standing at the bench—heart pounding, nerves stretched thin.
Randy exhaled deeply and turned to Henry, eyes drifting from the moonshine still to the mechanic.
“You hungry?” Henry asked, almost kindly. “Don’t look at me like that—I’m serious. And we still need to finish that gun. Each of them’s worth its weight in gold down here.”
Their meal was simple: dried cheese hard as stone, cloves of garlic, and strips of jerky so rubbery they had to be chewed like old gum. But even this made Henry more talkative.
“Where’d you find the live plastic?” Randy asked, genuinely curious.
“Mirny, may rust take it.” Henry said moodily. “I heard you went there, looking for medicine. Not much chance, was there? Locals blocked the road same as we did. Nearly everyone died before help could reach ‘em... because they didn’t have any.”
"People were already slipping out quietly," Henry said. "Arce and most of the original gang were locals from there. Only Ezra made it out. Arce got what he deserved—tried to loot his old house, ended up a pile of ash. Some things, you just don’t do..."
He paused, jaw tight. “I never liked Mirny. That place makes you feel like nothing. Like a ghost. Everything there screams of what was lost. Giant machines that look like monsters. Iron towers topped with dishes, dead and rusting. And right in the middle of it all—dried-up gardens, and a real graveyard down in a bunker. Everywhere you look, withered bodies.”
He shifted, quieter now. “Fox said barely any of the little kids died from the plague.”
“Then why…?” Randy began.
“Hunger, kid. They couldn’t find the key to the food stash. Fox was furious we got there too late. That damn door didn’t mean anything to us—behind it was plenty of untouched food.”
“And what would she have done with the kids if she’d made it in time? Put them to work breaking rocks?” Randy asked, the words sharp, bitter.
Henry looked away. “I don’t know. We nearly died ourselves. I’ll never forget it, not if I live to a hundred. The heat, the coughing—felt like my lungs were tearing apart. Then the fever dreams… like you’re tripping the strongest high. Then comes the suffocation. All you want is to smash your skull in, just to make it stop.”
“But you’re still here. You. Ezra. Fox. How come?”
“Ezra stayed in the back, kept his distance. That’s how he avoided it. Fox…”
“Henry, less talk,” came Fox’s voice from behind—sharp, clipped, and laced with tension. “And you—kid—I need you to take us to your parachute. If you weren’t lying, it’s still lying in that ravine. We’ll need it for what’s coming.”
Randy bit his lip, thinking of the wreck. The vehicle had been Masako’s failed wedding dress, stitched into the balloon. Now it was most likely ashes scattered by the wind.
He could barely remember how he got there. After the crash, he'd moved by instinct—climbing, crawling, falling—navigating mostly by sun and stars until he hit the Dead Lakes. And though he wasn’t in charge here, he figured he’d at least try to flip the moment to his advantage.
“What’s in it for me?” he asked, bracing for a smack. But Fox surprised him—she didn’t hit him. Kitty would’ve. Fox just tilted her head, annoyed.
“You’re staying with Henry, not rotting in the dungeons. We leave the day after tomorrow.”
Randy knew full well that beyond the Silver Palace, his chances of escape were slim to none. Still, there’d be no better moment. The Lost Kids had enemies—and Fox, he’d noticed, was watching the skies nervously. The flying machines scared her.
But he still had no idea how to turn this into a win.
Just a short time ago, he’d been sure he was going to die here, in this sunless hole. And now, suddenly, the Elder Sister needed his parachute. Was Fortune—who they all worshipped—finally smiling his way?
He turned to Henry, hoping for a crack in the old brute’s armor. “What does she want with a giant piece of fabric?”
“If you dropped with it, you could drop explosives too,” Henry said bluntly. “Fox has a score to settle with the boss of Seven Winds. Wants to make a name for herself—bigger than Arce ever did. That bastard only died last year, and if this gang’s gonna grow, we need a big win. A raid that makes people talk. Big loot, big impact. Fox wants it all.”
He grinned bitterly. “And hell, when’s the last time we had a real fight? Robbing traders and shaking down farmers—doesn’t take brains. Show a harpoon gun, and they’ll hand over their pants. Last real clash we had? Arce again. He planned to raid your hometown, but he screwed it up.”
“I remember,” Randy muttered. “Alejandro rallied a militia but said I was too young to join. We didn’t know that bastard’s name was Arce.”
“After that, Fortune turned her back on him. You want the funny part? Your Prince was once buddies with Arce and fled Mirny together with a bunch of people. They took over your town together—then fell out. One stayed to burn coal, the other hit the roads, collecting freaks like us for revenge.”
“Why’d Arce leave Mirny, though?” Randy asked.
“He rebelled against the local boss,” Henry said. “And something went south.”
“Boss… You mean... Colonel Zorin?” Randy frowned, startled.
“I suck with names,” Henry grunted. “He fled with other plotters and his teenage son. But once they went rogue, it was the kid’s turn to rebel. Didn’t want to live like a raider. Nearly killed Arce, ran off and got lost.”
Henry laughed once, low and dry. “Funny, huh?”
Randy shrugged, heavy with thought. “Just… sad. You’ve been there?”
“Hell, no. It happened quite a few years ago. You might’ve been in a cradle. But stop slacking off. You must be making buckles like this one,”
Henry showed Randy a solid metal buckle—likely for armor straps.
“I need twelve of these,” he said. “So no lazing around, no matter what Fox has planned for you. I’ll handle the gun. You—get to work.”
“Where are the blanks?” Randy asked, doing his best not to sound too disappointed.
“What a clown,” Henry snorted. “We haven’t even made them yet. Barrel of silver nuggets is over there, on the right. And if you swipe even one, I’ll wring your neck.”
“Silver?”
“Funny to live on top of it and not put it to use. Besides, takes way less coal than refining iron.”
“And where does all the smoke go, when you're forging or melting stuff?”
“You stupid? It vents outside, obviously. See the chimney?”
Alright, Randy thought. So the surface must be close. And the exit, too. Comforted by the thought, he got to work.
While Randy lit the forge, Henry sliced larger silver nuggets with a beam knife to help them melt faster. It turned out that the tool could weld metal too. Randy couldn’t help but imagine the joy on Masako’s face if her apprentice had ever shown her such a wonder of technology.
The Elder Sister’s plans stalled when winter returned—fierce winds, heavy snow, a brutal blizzard. Setting out was a real risk for both people and dogs. Randy felt like he was slowly sinking, like the blizzard was burying him in place. Back home, you could go an entire winter without a single snowflake—but here, it felt like the whole planet was howling. The chances of finding his parachute in all that were melting away like jellyfish on a sunlit beach.
At the same time, food in the Silver Palace was running low. The gang couldn’t resupply in Railtown either. Grumbling grew louder. Some Lost Kids even suggested shooting a few slaves to feed the dogs who ate a ton, swearing Arce would’ve done it without blinking. But Fox shut that down immediately.
Randy ate twice a day—whatever Henry shared. Still, most of the gang gave him nothing but dirty looks. To them, he was just another “extra mouth,” no matter how much work he did. They didn’t see it, so it didn’t count. Their minds were childish like that: out of sight, out of mind.
He never got a moment alone. Henry, it turned out, only pretended to be lazy and friendly. The man kept Randy working nonstop—buckles one day, sleigh runners the next, then repairing a crossbow that had tumbled off a cliff.
At night, Henry tied Randy’s leg to the bench. A humiliating, sickening ritual. The young man lay for hours in the dark on a ragged yak skin, listening to Henry snore, to distant dogs growling, to the muffled voices of his captors.
Sleep, when it came at all, was fragile and full of nightmares—plunging into bottomless chasms, skies blackened by mechanical wings, three burning bodies tied to a post screaming his name. If he knew he could stop the coming disaster, he’d rip out the throat of Henry, Fox—even Naoko, if she got in the way. But he was only human. Not the smartest, not the strongest, not valiant. He had nothing left—not even an axe or a knife to end it all.
Only five days had passed—he figured—but each one dragged like five weeks. Every new morning felt like a proof of his worthlessness; he was still unable to elaborate a viable escape plan. Finally, Henry’s words hit him like a splash of cold water:
“The snow’s stopped falling. Come on, we’ve got a task outside.”
Randy stiffened. His shoulders straightened without him even thinking. Hope flickered for the first time in days.
“Your rag’s hanging on the hook,” Henry said, pointing to Randy’s felt coat. “You’re not built for this cold. If you’d been out in that blizzard, you’d’ve lost your skin along with that fancy thing.”
Randy wasted no time. He tied his scarf while walking. Five minutes later, when he saw that long-awaited patch of light, he nearly broke into song.
They passed the sandbag barricade, moved past two bored guards, and stepped out onto the platform where silver was being loaded into carts for transport across the continent. On the right lay a snow-covered ghost settlement. To the left, a tall cliff loomed, topped by a strange tower with crooked radars. The sky overhead was a crisp, bright blue, and the sun shone down with surprising warmth.
A few snow dogs were wandering the platform, their thick coats dusted with frost. Randy realized they didn’t scare him the way they had before. One of them—a smaller, silver-coated dog—trotted up to Henry and bumped him in the hip with a friendly bark, low and cheerful.
“Hey there, Luna,” Henry said with a grin, pulling a puck of dried curd from his coat pocket. The dog accepted the treat gently, tail wagging in thanks. Unlike the tightly curled tails of most husky or spitz breeds, hers arched in a relaxed upward swoop.
“Who does she belong to?” Randy asked.
“She’s all of ours,” Henry replied, patting her flank. “All the dogs are shared, ‘cept for Midnight. Fox won’t let anyone near that handsome devil. Might be the last of his kind on the whole damn continent.”
He watched Luna finish her treat, then added, “Shame they don’t have pups often. Almost like people, the way they are. And they take their sweet time growing up. You can’t ride a yearling—they’ll break under you. Bones are too soft. So yeah, breeding ‘em? Not exactly a booming business.”
Randy glanced toward the snow-covered ghost settlement. It hit him like breath after drowning.
“We heading there?” he asked.
“Nope. Tower.”
“What for?”
“Skywatch. Our shift today.”
“Skywatch?”
“Every boss in this gang’s got their own little obsession. Arce? He’d shoot you just for frowning. Fox? She’s always expecting a drone attack.”
“Someone from Winged Sun or the Seven Winds? Look like she got enemies everywhere.”
“Wish I knew,” Henry muttered.
He knows a lot, and I must know this, too, Randy thought.
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