It’s quickly heading toward night by the time I find a place I can finally rest. Whoever’s reading this, here’s a heads up for you: when you’re travelling through the Barrens, do not bring a talking cat with you no matter what. They just don’t stop talking, and they do not get tired. The little white fuzzball hasn’t shut up ever since he found out how expensive things have gotten, which I’m starting to understand means that he hasn’t been in this Realm for the better half of a century, probably ever since the war came to an end. In short, Mortimer is very, very, very old. And I don’t like the elderly. Or the young. Most people if I’m being honest, but I guess he made the painful miles shorter.

  Between me and you, though, he doesn’t need to know that, even if my shoulder aches from carrying him all day long and my feet are killing me. Luckily, I came upon a settlement on the side of the road. It looks like some kind of scrap yard. Rotting chain link fence. A large, rusted ferris wheel just behind a fallen yellow sign that says, Ricky’s Yard, and mounds of junk that cast long shadows across the still-warm dirt. Guess it’s better than nothing. My legs are killing me. I’m red and sunburnt. Barely any food or water in my gut. Can’t keep complaining, though. Shit’s tough sometimes but at least I’m not getting eaten alive tonight, so hey, gotta stay positive sometimes, right?

  “Don’t tell me we’re staying the night here,” Mortimer mutters as I walk through the canyon of scrap metal, old Aviation Vehicles (AVs, I guess), stripped naked of their parts. The occasional arm of a Droid reaches through the hills of rusted metal, grasping for the dying orange-purple sunlight. The sky is a mix of hues. The air is already starting to get a little chilly. It looks like the kind of place that died decades ago. Left to the desert to rot into an eventual sandy grave. There’s gotta be a shack somewhere around here. Groundskeepers had to live somewhere.

  “Unless you’ve got a better idea,” I say to him, “then yeah, we’re staying here for the night.”

  “I personally think the Knight Blessing should sleep in places befitting her status.”

  “I’m flattered, Mort, but this is the best I can do.” And…jackpot.

  It’s a tiny building made out of spray painted sheet metal with two rickety glass windows and a wooden door that’s got half a dozen bullet holes going through it. I approach it slowly, ears straining to listen to the piles of junk surrounding me. Can’t see any footprints or depressions in the dirt. No weird smells in the air. Maybe a little bitter, sure, but nothing too out of the regular for a junkyard. Mortimer is about to start talking again when I hiss at him to be quiet. I reach the door. Take the gun out of its holster, its butt is warm from the sun and the weight almost makes me feel at home as I press my shoulder to the metal and peer through the filthy glass. I squint, then rub it.

  Can’t make out anything at all in there, and the dust alone is a good indicator that it’s empty.

  At least, I’m hoping so. Can’t always be too sure with some of these Monsters.

  The door opens when my hand grazes against it, like it weighs nothing at all. Hinges squeal and now I’m inside, smelling nothing but dusty air and old paint, forgotten leftovers and…right, the body hanging from the rafters on a chain and a meat hook. I don’t stop and gape through. I use the dwindling sunlight behind me to search the shack, but it’s small and a singular room. Nothing can hide in here that I wouldn’t find in a heartbeat. A tall shelf full of all kinds of parts. Droid heads. A jar of oil. A vase of flowers and some moth-eaten books. Nothing special, except for the skeleton slumped against it with the cracked open skull, a gun in its hand covered in an old film of rust-red dust, and most of the shelf behind him a mess covered in very faint brown hues. In the clear then.

  Just in case, though, I kick the skeleton, and its foot comes clean off its body. Good.

  Better safe than sorry. Last thing I want to fight is a Skeleton. These guys are impossibly hard to put down. I swear, and the nerve they’ve got when they keep taunting you like popping their head clean off is just a fun game.

  Instead, gun still in hand, I turn to look at the mutilated Droid carcass hanging from the ceiling. Its legs are missing and one of his arms is on the floor, bent and busted and vomiting old wires. I slowly walk around him, my mouth a little open, because the child inside me (yes, I still have one of those) is kind of losing her mind right now.

  Because, despite the dust on him, despite the rust chewing up his entire body, he’s got a symbol on him. Right there on his back are the wings of the Angel Killer Battalion. An arrow attached to a pair of gorgeous white wings. Well, they’d be white if the Droid wasn’t so ancient. I mean, look at the guy. His head is a rounded rectangle and his mouth is just a slit and so are his eyes—no moving parts to shoot out or break apart. A speaker and cameras wedged inside a chrome dome that was humanity’s first attempt at making a metal man look just like his makers.

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  “What the hell have you been doing here all this time?” I quietly mutter, fingers grazing over his body. Dents in his exterior plates. Looks like the skeleton tried to take him out before he turned the gun around on himself. Bullet holes in the door, too, and unless someone chased them both inside this shack, then…I pinch the bridge of my nose, then shrug. Whatever. It’s a dead man’s mystery and I guess some stories die when nobody else is around to tell them anymore. Sad state, tell you what. Droids like these get put in museums and hooked up to car batteries so they’ve got just enough power to tell their stories to passing groups of school kids…I think. That’s what happens on TV, and I heard from Aster it happens in real life, too. This guy shouldn’t be here, strung up like meat.

  But I guess that’s life, isn’t it? You’re crafted to become a tool of war, you help win that war, you win medals and praise and then before you know it, you’re hanging by a nook in the back of your neck, dead and silent and stiff. I pat his arm, making him sway, before I shut the door, watching for a brief moment as the sun dips below the horizon. Nighttime. The piles of junk are only going to make it more treacherous. I’ve been lucky so far, though, and all I can do is keep hoping for some more luck. I dump my backpack on a rickety workbench and sit on a stool.

  I remove my shoes and almost recoil from the smell. I tug off my socks one by one and hang them off the table so they can air out a little. I put my feet up and wiggle my toes, massaging my calf and cursing as I do. Gods, this is a lot better than walking around. I could probably read the manuals Judy gave me, or ask Mortimer a few questions, but the exhaustion lands on my shoulders first, dragging my head down onto my forearms as I rest them on the bench. I yawn, flick off my baseball hat, and rest half my face on my arms and stare at the dead Droid.

  All I can see from this angle are the wings painted onto his back, large and white and proud.

  Mortimer leaps onto the table beside me, sitting close to my head. “I always hated ‘em.”

  “I always wanted one,” I mutter. It’s getting colder. I shiver a little and try to stay still. “You know, I grew up watching really old shows and movies. Anything I could get my hands on from the dumpster outside this old place I loved going to, and these guys were so…awesome. There was this one robot, the first one they made—”

  “Caspian,” he says quietly, nodding. “Yep, I remember him. ‘The First Metal Knight.’”

  “Yeah, him.” Then I sneeze, snivel, and keep looking at him, getting drowsier by the second. “He was in all kinds of movies back in the day. My sister said it wasn’t for my age, but fuck that—there was this one movie where he grabbed a Fallen Angel by their horns, put his machine gun down their throats, and turned their guts into stew.”

  “You are…something, kid,” he says, curling into a ball beside me on the bench. Man, he’s warm. Even just his fur alone brushing against my skin feels like heaven. I don’t pull him closer, but I don’t move him away either.

  I chuckle quietly. “Yeah, I guess I am.” I yawn, then look at the cat. “Were you in the war?”

  His eyes are shut. His ear flicks. You glow a little, you know that? “It’s getting pretty late, kid.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I say, chin now on my forearm. “My great grandma was in the same battalion as the metal man over there. Fifth female pilot to ever take to the skies for the US before the Old States fell, too, you know. She got drafted when the Fractures started appearing, at least, that’s what my dad says. First draft pick for the Angel Killer Battalion too. Called her Bite-Wing, ‘cause her bullets would snag Angel wings and take them out the sky.”

  Mortimer is silent for a long moment, then says, “What was her name?”

  “Elanor,” I say quietly. I can hear the wind outside, howling and hushing against the sands. Everything in this wasteland is probably irradiated with Old Magic, and if you want to know what that’s gonna do to my body, then you’re better off reading a book and not my diary. All I know is that there’s a windmill somewhere outside, and it’s making a slow, repetitive sound turning over, and over, and over again. “Elanor Jackie Summers, KIA, late 50s.”

  “Hm,” is all he says. “Sounds like one hell of a pilot.”

  “I guess so,” I whisper, getting comfortable and shutting my eyes. “Would’ve loved to meet her.”

  “You’re a dead ringer for her, anyway.”

  That makes me open one eye. “What?”

  But Mortimer is already asleep, his fat belly rising and falling, his mouth open as he snores. I stare at him for a while, then shake my head and rest. It’s been a long day. A very long day. I’m hurting in places I thought I’d never hurt, and I’m deep down pretty angry about my situation, about my empty pockets, about…a lot of things. Many, many things, I think, staring at the dove on my wrist. But sleep, for now, is more important than my feelings.

  So I shut my eyes, and dream about the dead metal man and his large white wings.