Metal, Steam, Glass

Costa Mariposa smelled like rich soil. Little wildflowers and leafy bushes haphazardly dotted the landscape, breaching into a path made of both dirt and stone, and grew intertwined with broken chips and circuit boards. Nitya slowed down the bike as the sun began creeping up from the horizon, her hand reaching out to glide against the bramble. A small butterfly landed on her finger.

Fitting.

The coastline stretched out as far as she could see. Maybe the water had been blue once, but now it was only a drab sea-gray obscured by fog. Nitya breathed in the salt-tinged breeze. She stopped the motorcycle, gently draping the sleeping Kanami over it as she stood, picking a bunch from a myrtle tree. A gift to someone she'd hadn't seen in a long time. Yes, her adoptive mother had always loved these flowers.

She zipped them in her pocket as she returned to the bike, hesitant as Kanami held onto her. Nitya bit into her lip and rolled the throttle.

Even a place like Costa Mariposa couldn't remain pure for long. Still built around the train tracks that cut through the middle, it had grown up surrounded by Hemera-branded machinery. The roads were still cracking.

She whispered Kanami’s name before pulling into a new donut shop’s drive through, waving to an employee flipping over a sign. Costa Mariposa’s residents always were early risers, though it never rubbed off on her. Maybe she'd be better off if it had.

Donuts in hand, Nitya parked the bike behind a gleaming control tower. About two stories high, its weary blue glow cast over the relatively empty freight yard and barely encroached onto the small passenger dock beside it. A metal plaque tacked next to the doors displayed a small hologram. In a clean, inoffensive font read Proudly Secured by Hemera Technologies, matching the embossed plaque below.

Funny. Nitya guessed that the only thing that gave this city its freedom couldn't hold out forever.

She shook Kanami’s shoulder. The other woman yawned, stretching as she did, and blinked when Nitya unceremoniously handed her a donut. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” Kanami whispered, biting into the donut. “I haven’t slept much the last few days, so thanks.”

“Ah. You’re welcome.”

The air suddenly felt thick. Nitya stretched and grabbed the door handle. She couldn’t look Kanami in the eyes as she tugged at it. It wouldn’t budge. Nitya cursed and looked into the freightyard.

Kanami held onto her when they began walking through the yard. The wind swept around the dust and Nitya coughed, burying the lower half of her face in her sleeve. It hurt, in a way, wearing the jacket of someone whose death she’d learned of while in this very same yard. Though, back then, she'd been at someone else's side.

They stopped at a freight house that looked somewhere between a nuclear bunker and a train station. Metal pipes laid against intricate lattice brasswork. Nitya traced the holes within it with her finger, knocking twice on the door as courtesy before opening and holding it open for Kanami. She couldn’t look the other woman in the eye as she shut the door behind herself.

“Hey, Louie, guess who’s back!” She cleared her throat with a shout and knocked on thick copper pipes. Her own voice, though it bounced back, was almost overshadowed by the sound of steam.

Nitya followed the wide path to a metal staircase that echoed their movements with each step. She shouted again. The stairs deposited them in a cramped hallway illuminated by the light streaming out from the ajar door in front of them. She knocked on it, poking her head through, and bringing her body with her.

A control panel wrapped around most of the walls of the room. Screens and buttons were placed within it and larger, wall-length screens sat above it. A tube bubbled behind the door. A projector in the center of the room displayed a holovid of a philharmonic orchestra, focused on a Japanese opera singer donned in a shimmering, dream-like dress. She smiled up at the camera before returning to her performance.

Nitya looked away and leaned against the wall with a small wave. “Hey, Louie.”

Louie was a tall, thin man in his mid-fifties. He wore elbow-length rubber gloves and a pair of overalls, some of the blueberry-topped smoothie he sipped on caught on his mustache. His hair was graying.

He looked at her. “Nitya. It’s been a long while. City treated you well, didn’t it?”

“Neo-Athens’s is much less glamorous than everyone makes it out to be.”

“Hmph. I suppose you contributed to its lackluster nature.”

“It must be nice not having to hold back insults because I’m not a child anymore.”

“No, I never wanted to then. Despite the reservations I had about my neighbors, I tried to never think badly of you…But there was always something off about you. It was evident as soon as you went to the city.”

“What?”

“Maybe it was your past, or maybe it was them, but something didn't seem right with you. You got good grades, stayed out of trouble, but despite that, you always seemed like a ticking time bomb. Even after your brother's death, you were too serene. I wondered when it would happen, when you would finally snap. Seems like it happened when you went to Neo-Athens. The city was never a good place, don't get me wrong, but it only got worse after you arrived. It seemed coincidental at first. More horror stories about Hemera and what it did to get what it wanted. Higher costs of living. Little towns were swallowed up into Neo-Athens’s ecosystem. Just a coincidence, but then…”

“Then what?”

“That one district burned down. What was it called? Nara? Nahara?”

“Naranja.” Answered Kanami.

“Naranja District burned down two years after you left, exactly two years after you left. It was you, wasn’t it? It was you.” Louie rested his chin on his knuckles and pointed at Nitya with a scowl.

Nitya’s flat expression didn’t falter. “It was.”

“I knew it. All these years. Everyone told me I was just looking for a reason to hate you, to despise you. I couldn’t hate you for what you did to my child. No, that wasn’t good enough. But I knew it: all along, you were just as bad as I suspected you to be. Does your little friend here know who you really are?” He looked at her, shook, and slammed his fists against the control panel, not flinching as the smoothie jar fell and broke. “ANSWER ME!”

“I know what she’s done. I know.” Kanami’s voice shook.

Louie buried his face in his hands. Nitya stepped closer, until her boots rested against a piece of glass, and chewed a stick of watermelon gum. “Louie. I’m sorry, not just to you. To everyone.”

He didn’t reply. Glass crunched under her foot as she stepped a bit forward. “As much as I missed town, it wasn’t the main reason I came. No, I came because I need your help, some friends of ours need your help, more than anyone else. Do you know why?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Because your trains run all over the territory and you can take them along the southern route. I know you’ve done it before, with your wife-”

“-Why should I?”

“They’re a kid and his uncle. He just wants a better life for his nephew. Please. They’re all they have.”

Louie sighed. “You need to be more mindful of who you talk to.”

“What?”

“There’s a lot of money in catching escapees, a lot more than helping them, and even more for catching you. Don’t be surprised. On the run from Hemera…but you never thought to think that maybe they’d put a notice out for you. From what I hear, you’re precious to them, Nitya.”

“What, are you going to rat me out? Whatever, I don’t care about me, but you need to help these people.”

“Need to? I don't need to do anything, child, but alright. One chance to prove to me why I should help.”

“Because it's the right thing to do! Because of all the people you've helped before!” Nitya’s throat burned. She pressed her palms into her skull and bent over. “Because of Ms. Yui. Because of Yuudzuki-”

“-Shut up. Don’t bring them up. Did you think bringing up my child would help you? After what you did to them?”

Nitya stepped away as Louie leaned down and slowly brought a glass shard up, setting it on the control panel but never lifting his fingers from it. “I should hand you over to Hemera. It's as simple as pushing a button.”

“I wouldn't do that if I were you.”

“I'm not afraid of you.”

“You should be: Think about what happens if you contact Hemera and I'm not there. You're only their ‘ally’ because they want your railroads and they want this land. They'll kill you and take your business, and then use it as an excuse to finally take Costa Mariposa. Where will that leave your in-laws? Yuu?” Whispered Nitya. She eyed the small, gold button in the corner with a white logo logo painted on it, just barely out of Louie’s reach.

“It doesn't matter. My family will be well provided for.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to believe that if I were you.”

“I’ve already made the necessary steps to ensure that their future does not concern me.”

“Fair, but I can take that future away in just a few minutes.”

Louie pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. Blood pooled beneath his hand as he held the glass shard against his palm. “Don’t.”

“Let's say nothing happens. You push that button, and everything turns out fine,” Nitya held her wrist up and a bouquet of holoscreens floated above her palm. “I can drain your accounts and sell your company, so there's no chance in hell you can afford your in-laws’ meds, and so there's no chance you will be able to ever again.

“Don't.”

“That's bad enough, but you wouldn't mind losing your home, too, right? Ms. Yui would be pretty disappointed, right? Would she be okay with knowing you led to her family’s suffering-”

“DON’T BRING HER UP!” Screeched Louie. He bolted up, glass in hand, and charged at Nitya.

She ducked out of the way. Louie hunched over before trying again, narrowly missing Kanami as the glass clattered to the ground and he breathed out in heavy pants.

Nitya pulled Kanami close and shoved her gun against Louie’s head. “I’ll do a lot more than just ruin your life if you do that again.”

“I’m not-I’m not-”

“-Stop. Don’t drag this out any longer. Are you going to help?”

Louie held his stomach, his shirt soaking in the blood from his hand, and he looked at the floor. “Bring them to my home tonight at midnight. I’m sure you still remember where it is.”

“Thank you,” She looked around the room before walking past Louie and holding the hallway door open. She gestured at Kanami. “Come on.”

Neither said anything for a while. Metal echoed and steam went puff-puff-puff. The sun sat higher in the sky now, its lofty throne made of wispy clouds. Nitya hopped on the motorcycle.

Kanami sat behind her with a loose hold and looked at the early morning sky as they drove. “Were you really…going to do all that?”

“Do what? What I said to Louie? No, of course not. I only wanted to scare him into helping.”

“It was unnecessary.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Couldn’t you have-”

“-Whatever you’re suggesting, no, I couldn’t have,” Nitya stopped the motorcycle at the edge between two streets, stepping off to reach towards the myrtle trees. She looked at Kanami and sighed. She needed something to get away from her. An excuse, a lie. “I’m going to go see what’s changed around here. Feel free to look around. Whenever you want to find me again, ask someone where Eclipse Lake is. You’ll find me there, or I’ll find you. See ya.”

“Wait, Nitya-!”

She breathed in the salty breeze. The flowers that bloomed on the side of the road seemed to wilt as she came near.

***

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Nitya stood straight, a wildflower stuck between her fingers as she did. The first dark bands of nightfall were in the sky and leaves and petals alike floated in the lake. She turned around with a smile. “I can say the same, Yuu.”