I woke up to Robeep grinding poison needle fragments to a pulp. Apparently Ruza was already up and had let me sleep in. She was fixing up Robeep’s lame arm while he kept most of his mechanical body entirely still, with success. We exchanged pleasantries, and then had breakfast. Yesterday’s scavenging left me a little sore and I wasn’t quite so eager to repeat the experience.

  Instead I decided to do some organizing. My military backpack was starting to get a bit full. I rolled up our leather skins in a bundle and crammed them into the netting on one side, and then did the same with the unworked sheet of chainmail on the other. It barely fit, the links weren’t particularly fine but their thickness made up for it. The clean, whole clothes took their place. We also sacrificed another plastic water bottle for the poison.

  “What does this stuff do anyway?” I asked.

  “It is poison, Susawa. It poisons,” Robeep said.

  Ruza shook her head. “It causes heavy nausea and works quickly through a cut. Using it to coat weapons isn’t unheard of, but most don’t consider it worth the effort.”

  “Their laziness is their folly,” Robeep said, “Only the truly diligent may hope to complete the deterioration of the wasteland.” He nodded to himself, as if speaking profound wisdom.

  “Good enough. We’re going to need more water containers though. We only have four left now. They’re not going to keep us going for long.”

  “I thought you realized already,” Ruza said, “The inner lining of the chest has been treated with Skineater wax. I’m going to strip it. Once we find a tanner they’ll be able to fashion a few water skins from it.”

  “Oh, neat. Well, all good then.” I don’t even want to know what those are.

  Ruza didn’t let up. “Susawa, how by Cor’Athaz’s glowing tentacles have you survived for so long without knowing anything?”

  I knew this was coming at some point, but already had a story prepared. Robeep interjected before I could answer though, “Quite simple, Ruza. Susawa has mastered competence underflow. He is so inept that his survival prognosis has looped back into the positive. It is one of the Murder King’s great secrets.”

  We ignored him. “Truth is… I was raised in an underground facility. A machine god ruled there as well, it was some kind of strange experiment. I was the only one. It taught me things but they aren’t useful here. Eventually, I escaped and was almost immediately enslaved by the Principality.”

  I saw something flicker in Ruza’s catlike eyes. “That actually explains a lot. Your hatred of the machine god, the familiarity with the facility… It all makes sense now.” I know, it’s what inspired me.

  “I see,” Robeep said, “Not only is your crusade holy, but it is even justified. Truly a great cause. We shall relentlessly seek out machine gods and guide them on their journey towards unlife.”

  “So justice elevates a cause, but is not a requirement? Explain that to me, would you Robeep?” Ruza said.

  She did the same thing last night, debating wasteland philosophy with Robeep, trying to instill a sense of morality into the murderbot. He seemed to enjoy it, “I will enlighten you, Ruza. It is a matter of sophistication. Direct murder is effective, but a worthy cause allows the gathering of support and allies. This not only adds a force multiplier to our efforts, but brings the next set of enemies closer and weakens them preemptively. Once our lackeys have exhausted themselves fighting our foes, we can then brutalize them with ease.”

  I joined in, “But what about the next set of enemies? Wouldn’t we want to reuse those allies again? Where’s the line?”

  “Your logic is flawed as always, Susawa. Their purpose will have been exhausted, thus they are no longer useful.”

  “Purpose can be granted again, it’s just a matter of framing. Pretty much all society is exactly that. First people band together for survival, and then they find another reason, and another, and another. Before you know it, they’re waging wars for farmland or developing varying cultures, all born from reasons lost to time.”

  “It’s true,” Ruza said, “The machine god taught you well, and you were right. It is useless knowledge.”

  Robeep sparked a few times, however. “Once again, things are not quite as they seem. I must contemplate the correct ratio of alliance to betrayal before we can continue this topic.”

  Ruza and I exchanged smiles, and then it was back to work. She busied herself extracting the inner lining. Lying to her felt bad but there was no malicious intent, so I chalked it up to necessity. It was a relaxed morning, cozy even. There was plenty for me to do as well.

  Most of our old clothes were ripped into rags. A few long strips became hand wraps for me. Plank was so heavy that swinging it eroded the calluses off my hands, further worsened by the coarse leather on the handle. While it helped me keep a good grip, time had turned a once presumably smooth surface into damn sandpaper.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ruza also extracted some jutting pieces off Robeep and repurposed them as lockpicks. She told me to save two in particular, and to bend them into a loop on one end. The task-mastering didn’t end there, as she also had me carefully disassemble a piece of former lab coat into thread.

  Our supply of survival necessities slowly grew to something respectable. It still wasn’t much, but we were making progress. After finishing up and having lunch, she and Robeep decided to join in on the scavenging. My descriptions of our surroundings had her label it a treasure trove. It was supposedly exceedingly rare to come across safe places which hadn’t been picked clean yet. But first, we needed more water.

  The three of us walked to the nearby lake, taking in the scorching sunshine while soft mud and fresh grass caressed our sand-worn feet. We joked, we laughed, and we enjoyed ourselves. It was almost idyllic. My perception ticked up upon noticing an oddity.

  “What are those?” Ruza asked.

  “I haven’t the faintest clue, but they weren’t there yesterday.”

  Light-pink fleshy sacks bobbed gently in the distance on the waters still surface. They were the size of extra-large inflatable beach balls, like giant red caviar and just as densely packed. I licked my lips.

  I spoke while refilling our plastic bottles, “Wonder if those are edible. They look tasty.”

  “What? Are you mad?” Ruza said, wading into the water and shading her eyes to get a better look. “Regardless, I don’t think so. There’s something inside them, moving…”

  “So it is roe. Looks like we’re a bit late though, a shame. I know the stuff as a delicacy.”

  The black bars typically present on Robeep’s screen-eyes faded into the upper and lower edges, as if widening into full-screen awe. “My respect for you grows, Susawa. I would never have expected your favorite dish to be unborn children. The Murder King’s legacy deepens, the world must know.”

  “Please don’t go around tell-”

  I was interrupted by what occurred next. The pieces of mega caviar didn’t just deflate; they violently ejected a surprising volume of smoke in long streams. I clearly heard the hissing all the way from the shoreline. Moistness covered my skin in tiny droplets as the cloud front reached us in seconds. A deep mist surrounded us before we could do anything. It reminded me of arriving in this world.

  Ruza’s voice nearly broke, “Oh no. I know why this place is empty now.”

  “Fascinating,” Robeep said, “I must master this technique.”

  She ignored him, “We need to run, now. Where the fog goes, the mistmen follow. This must be how they breed.”

  “Aw crap, I think I’ve met one before. No need to be worried, they’re not so tough. I’m pretty sure we can fight them off. ”

  Ruza looked right and left, but there was nothing to see besides the dense fog. “You don’t understand. There will be hundreds, thousands, maybe more. The ghouls and horrors will come soon after. No one survives the mist for long! Armies have tried and died.”

  Distant shrieks sounded, paired with closer ones. Those had a bubbly tone to them. Oh shit, they’re already here. A fish stick monster reached the shoreline, quickly crushed by a panicked swing of Plank. “Where do we go? I can’t see shit.”

  “Anywhere, go!”

  Clarity shone through. “Fuck, we need to get the backpack or we’ll die out there, it's sand in every direction.”

  Ruza agreed and traced our steps while cradling our water supply. The infant monsters swarmed us all the while. As expected, they weren’t difficult to fight off. Robeep killed them with single stabs of either Brainseeker. His accuracy proved a major boon as batons broke through skulls with ease, splashing cranial matter around and drawing wet streaks across the sand as they retracted with hydraulic force. My wide swipes killed three or four at a time, crumpling their bodies like wet tissue paper and ragdolling the remains away.

  “Yes! Yes!” Robeep yelled, “Generations fall to our might. Even the future can die. Brainseeker feeds. It hungers for your final thoughts! Saaaate it!”

  Sickening crunches overpowered Robeep’s reveling while the air stank increasingly of fish and metal. I could almost taste the blood and feel the bones breaking, dozens at a time. It took far too long, as the intensifying onrush pushed us away from the tracks. We finally found our shed and things, just as the true shrieking began, echoing throughout the city. My face froze as the sand we’d dragged in bounced on the floor.

  “Away from the shouting!” Ruza screamed with surprising loudness, yet still barely comprehensible over the cacophony.

  “Way ahead of you!” I replied, but it was lost in the din.

  At first it looked like we were getting away, easily outrunning the newly born. But we couldn’t keep going at full sprint forever and had to slow down to catch our breath. The howls decreased but closed nonetheless, and then the vanguard hit us.

  Mist parted as if announcing challengers, one after another appeared out of the shifting fog. The adults carried sharpened bones, spears and attacked with reckless abandon. Robeep parried them with ease and countered with brutal eye socket stabs, occasionally smashing fingers when one of them tried to aim for Ruza. She stood between us, fighting defensively, exploiting openings with precise slashes aimed at tendons.

  First they came from one side, but they forced us into a triangle with our backs to each other before long. Only a few meters of visibility gave us time to react. Spears shattered into shrapnel against my hasty blocks while counter swings killed two at a time in sprays of gore. One jumped me from the side and tried to take a bite out of my chest, breaking teeth against the metal plate. I palmed its head like a basketball, pulled it back from me and headbutted the bastard. My broken horn crashed through its forehead and took a chunk of viscera with it on the way out.

  The battle raged amidst puffs of grey as the assaulters dragged stripes of mist along with their charges. There were twenty or more of them and our new clothes were soon stained with blood and covered in tears. The fight took some breath out of us, but the remaining screeches were further away. We resumed our flight at a jog, until a new sound stopped us.

  It was like nails on chalkboard, amplified a hundred times over. Ruza reflexively covered her ears and mine rang. Robeep turned just as the mist exploded. Only a crack like suddenly torn metal accompanied a blur dashing past us. Something splattered the side of my face. An instinctive pursing of my lips spread a rotten, bitter taste through my mouth.

  “Ghoul!” Ruza said, “We can’t run from it!”

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, we were already on the back foot. Robeep punctuated the fact by snatching a spinning Brainseeker out of the air with his only remaining arm. The ghoul had taken the other.