Typhon was just a machine.

 

Cassandra Strohm had told herself that at least twice, staring down the barrel of its…snout? The thing loomed ominously, cast a wide shadow over the room, felt like it would swallow her whole if she stared at it long enough. Its claws - malformed from the extreme heat applied to them and repeated, near-concussive blows against steelplate - still carried remnants of the viscera it had bathed in whilst ripping through the market district. Its hull was pockmarked - bulletholes, shrapnel, frag-wounds - but never fully penetrated, save for its shoulder. The biggest issue was the machine’s engine, a custom-built diesel-fueled thing that generated enough energy to power a rig three times Typhon’s size - now spitting out caustic fumes and sputtering angrily each time it turned over.

 

It was the one essential component missing from the rig, save for its pilot - Scylla, Cassie recalled, or something like it.

 

The flitting, strange little thing that operated Typhon had been nigh-invisible in the week since the raid; Cassie hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her while she’d been, presumably, recovering. The only reason she knew that the girl was alive at all was that she’d been present when she was ripped out of Typhon; eyes wide and near-catatonic, still breathing. The medics had worked her over for but a moment before her Handler had returned - collected Scylla in her arms, and said, “She’ll be fine.”

 

And thus, they were gone - and not a word was said.

 

Strohm had given the field engineers close to a week to drag Typhon back, to clean it up, to try and ascertain exactly how much damage had been done to its engine. Getting the parts to build a new one all the way out here, in Fuck-Off, Veriglas, was a damn near logistical nightmare - but they could jury rig something, assuming that the whole block wasn’t cooked.

 

She exhaled, and dug her fingers into Typhon’s carapace - opening the housing where the beast’s mechanical heart was stored, eyes immediately focusing over the gnarly sight therein. Every head gasket on it was blown clean out; melted, in some parts, and simply shattered in others. The engine’s body had no cracks, but the cylinders were largely warped - each time they’d turned it over, they’d probably done more damage ramrodding bits into different places and spaces where they absolutely should not have been.

 

If the body was still intact - which it seemed to be - this was still going to be a hell of a job, and one that would take days in a best case scenario; a difficult timeline in optimal conditions, further worsened by the need to handle it in some occupied building that may have once been grain storage. She grumbled a curse as she took a few straps, trying to haul the heart out without further damaging Typhon itself - any scrape or scratch would come out of her pocket, if not her flesh. She’d seen how Scylla got when anyone who wasn’t her or her Handler simply touched the rig; if it was damaged?

 

There’d be Hell to pay, she was sure.

 

Slowly, but surely, Cassie worked the engine out with the straps, barely missing the hull walls as it cleared the carapace. She placed it down on a tarp, and crouched to meet it; hands searching its exotic frame for proper odds and ends to pry off, unscrew, set aside. She wanted to get to know it before breaking it apart - it was simply common courtesy to introduce yourself to a girl before fucking her, after all. She wanted to know what made it tick, what allowed it to send rigs like Typhon and the other wolves forth to do what they did best, what machinations had persisted in the mind of the individual who had sanctioned its creation and the inordinate violence it propelled.

 

Really, she wanted to meet them for other reasons; for a born machinist like Strohm, working on a rig like this was a dream come true. The Wolfhounds were exotic, and they were foreign, and they were strange, and they were a league above the tractors she’d worked on back home, or the tanks she’d worked on briefly on the Aphys Front, or even the walkers she’d helped service after they cracked Volkov. They made sense, and they didn’t all the same - design philosophies that had no practice being applied outside of theory, ideas that should have been snuffed in the crib - along with the rest of the ephemeral Project that both Scylla and her Handler were part of.

 

And Cassie too, she guessed.

 

Mechanical support for the Project had increased marginally in the nine months after Volkov - a clear indication of a shift of the Commonwealth’s priorities away from the cumbersome tank-walkers and toward something new and exciting, an ailment shared by much of the leadership table in the Congressional House. Volkov had been successful, of course; a single one of those things had broken a line that had been held for months prior, that cost them countless volumes of capital - human and otherwise. That single proving ground had allowed the frothing industrialists more of a seat at the table, a larger plate to eat from, a louder voice in proceedings.

 

If one of those rigs could’ve handled all that Volkov threw at it - the tanks, the artillery, the troops - why deploy five-at-a time? Why not ten? Why not twenty? Why even bother with common infantry and tank-walkers at all, when you could ship out a railcar filled with ravenous wolves and their pilots and spit them unto the world, uncaring for the damage they caused? Everyone had seen photography from after Volkov, but few had paid it much mind - they’d brushed it off, made comments that artillery ‘did worse’ or that the gas used in Aphys ‘was less humane’ - but Cassie had seen the same footage as the rest, and knew there was no real justification.

 

They weren’t deploying weapons - at least not in a fair sense.

 

They were deploying walking blenders; gore-generators of wrathful carnage, beasts that tore through flesh like it was tissue. The bodies in Volkov wouldn’t receive a proper burial, nor a mass grave - their remnants would be left to salt the Earth and stain the soil, to give life to whatever followed as afterbirth, or human compost.

 

That wasn’t the only horror associated with the Project, because why should it be so simple?

 

Rumors traveled down pipelines about things like ‘pilot selection’ and ‘grooming behaviors’, about the Handlers and their presences. Scylla was one thing - she’d seemed to be a lone rider in Volkov, save for the academic that followed her around - but the others scattered throughout Veriglas were different; utilizing rigs of unique designs with pilots that nipped at their heels like guard animals. Most were unhinged, or damaged, or otherwise addled - Cassie wouldn’t ever venture near the barracks established for them on the edges of camps, or dawdle around their rigs after dark.

 

She would, however, consider the payday that came along with being part of a thing.

 

Signing up to work mechanical support for the Project was a tier of special assignment that she wouldn’t have reached otherwise, an opportunity that she’d have worked her whole career to even remotely qualify for without a guarantee of even a modicum of success. It wasn’t necessarily just about the money, but it was hard to pretend like such a thing wasn’t a large motivator in her continual action to bury herself further and further into all of it.

To ignore what she’d seen with her own two eyes, and contribute to the horrors at large.

 

Cassie had been able to bury it down for some time, but now - working on Typhon in the cold of a Veriglan barn - it suddenly felt incredibly real. As her hands worked over the complex, wondrous machinery before her, she felt some sort of guilt crawling up the back of her spine - the knowledge that she was going to settle this heart back into a rig that would inevitably turn fathers, brothers, sisters, children into paste in a building somewhere not so far from here. She wondered, absently, if they were aware - but then, she scoffed.

 

Everyone knew about the Wolfhounds now, she imagined - haunting beasts that signaled their arrivals with immense heat and the clashing of steel-on-steel, blades-on-blades weren’t so inconspicuous as to remain urban legends forever. They probably prayed for safety against them, or adorned themselves with ornaments of good luck to ward off evil in their forms, or whispered farewells to children and wives when they made their way out for the last time, heading to a space like the Market District, setting up in a house made of light timber and tissue-thin walls, where they’d-

 

 

Strohm realized she was hyperventilating, and somehow, managed to catch herself. Launching deep into a panic attack was probably the worst direction to step in at this point in time; she didn’t need to end up gasping for air on the floor next to Typhon, lest they drag her away and try to figure out if she was an optimal candidate to pilot one of the rigs. She didn’t need that weight on her mind - and she knew too much about how they operated to be so easily let go if she ever lost interest, or if her morals outweighed the measurable sum that fell into her hands at the end of every month.

 

In a way, it was a set of golden handcuffs from which she felt she couldn’t so easily slip.

 

She also felt something sort of sticking to her from her proximity to the Project, the Wolfhounds, and all involved with it. The closer one drew to the rigs themselves - and the more time they spent with them, as Cassie had since her arrival - the more intimately familiar with them they became; with their vicious claws and the viscera that dripped from them, the heavy metal shells that adorned them, the carapaces that hid their beating diesel hearts. Cassie found a sort of allure in the rig that she hadn’t seen in any other machine or weapon she’d worked on before - they truly were one of a kind.

 

She’d lost herself, for a moment, in the thought of it all. When she cast her eyes downward, Typhon’s engine remained disassembled. Her tools had somehow worked their way into her hands, like some form of automata. Bits and pieces of machinery were gathered about - less neatly assembled than she’d usually undertake, as if she wanted to get to the core of it as quickly as she could.

 

There, before her, it sat; the centralized hub, into which all the pistons and grommets and other metal rods plugged. It was unharmed, mercifully; the hardest portion of the potential repair to undertake written off.

 

Now she just had to put the goddamned thing back together with proper pieces-

 

“Ahem.”

 

Cassie sat bolt upright, nearly smashing her tailbone on concrete as she shifted herself. Her eyes met Captain Damos - the infantryman. He was there when they’d broken Volkov - coincidentally, he’d also been the one to request Cassie to the front, wanting a sort-of all purpose mechanic to replace their recent loss of Lettie Muir.

 

Now, though, his eyes narrowed with something like suspicion; curiosity bubbling up, wondering if she was going to crack the same way that Lettie had. They all knew of it, of course; gossip had ripped through the mechanics that she’d gone dogfucker on them; shacked up with Scylla. Cassie hadn’t really known Lettie, but had run in the same circles as her - seeing the woman who fancied herself this campaign’s Handler was like seeing an entirely new person.

 

Something she wouldn’t fall into the trap of becoming.

 

“Lads an’ I are drinking.” Damos mused. “Wanted t’see if you wanted in, but you look quite busy. Don’t want to pull you away from…” He huffed, gently. “Important work, an’ all.”

 

“Nah.” Strohm shook her head. “I can take a break.”

 

She stood, and walked with Damos.

 

-

 

The ‘camp’ bar wasn’t anything special; rather, it was a simple set-up, a little confined space in a Captain’s tent, loaded with a stolen keg and whatever grain alcohol they could smuggle or pull from the houses in the market district.

It got them through.

 

Tonight, there were only a few - the quartermaster, Shrew, and Damos, and some loose infantrymen whom Cassie didn’t recognize. She pushed through the curtain-door with Damos, who was received with laughs - pausing only when they saw Cassie walking in behind him. Gentle whispers spread about the table, and Shrew slammed her hand down.

 

“C’mon. We’re all fuckin’ greencoats here - no reason t’push anyone out, right?” Shrew gave Cassie a yellowtooth sneer, and pulled a tub of snuff out of her jacket pocket, setting it down on the table. She worked it open with two fingers, prying the lid and setting it upside-down - an open invitation to take, while Damos dealt out a pack of cards. Bottles of liquor were passed around in full - each individual received one - and Strohm looked down at hers.

 

“Rations hit well, then?”

 

“Quite the opposite.” One of the infantry - a patch on his jacket read Flagg - mused. “Half-rations means we fill up on alcohol, so we stop carin’ too much ‘bout havin’ an empty belly. S’just what it is, anymore. Not like we’re winnin’ the fuckin’ war, or anythin’.”

 

“The dog eats better than we do, at this point.” The other infantry - Barrows - mused. “But that might be ‘cause she stomachs whatever the fuckin’ ghoul puts in front of her. Don’t need t’worry about rations when you’ll eat shit like it’s fuckin’ tartare an’ smile your whole way through.”

 

“The dog? The ghoul?” Strohm asked, eyebrows raised. The group looked amongst themselves, and Damos let a sigh loose as he put two cards on the table in front of Cassie - a simple game, blackjack. Strohm checked hers - ten and a nine.

 

Shit luck.

 

“Lettie an’...what’s her name?” Flagg snapped his fingers.

 

“‘Dusa.” Shrew mumbled with a laugh.

 

“Scylla.” Damos concluded, checking the table. Flagg hit, and went bust. Shrew hit, and stayed in. Barrows stayed. Cassie stayed. Damos drew, and hit twenty-one. He collected nothing - not like they had anything to trade or play for, unless they were pushing hardtack across the table. He dealt again, and Strohm considered a swig from her bottle - before instead keeping it settled between her legs. “Lots of rumors spread ‘bout people around here, you know, Cassie. No reason t’believe all of ‘em.”

 

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it.” She murmured.

 

“What? Y’think it’s too outlandish that somethin’ that acts like a fuckin’ animal in a rig like that eats whatever the fuck y’put in front of it? I mean, she’s a wiry thing but she’s definitely put on weight. An’ don’t get me started with the fuckin’ Handler - girl must be eatin’ steak au poivre an’ stout pie with the way she’s thickened up since they got here. Makes y’wonder what they’ve got that we don’t, y’know? Makes y’curious about what they’re hidin’ in that little fuckoff officer house they’ve got goin’.” Flagg turned his attention toward Damos. “I mean, you lived that life for a bit, Damie. Didn’t y’?”

 

“Nope.” Damos sighed, and dealt cards out again. Cassie stayed at twenty, but she was a bit distracted by the conversation at hand.

 

“What d’you mean, nope? Thought you were commissioned?”

 

“I am, but that’s a different level of prestige and need. It’s not the same.” Damos hummed, gently. “You’re thinkin’ about upper class livin’ - not good officer’s livin’. Type of shit that we’d never see, type of shit that they live daily in fuckin’ Avers. I don’t think I’d aspire t’have t’bring it all out here, feels like a lot of work t’play out pulp livin’ while the rest of your fuckin’ soldiers starve. Nothin’ I’d know about.” He shuffled the cards back in - busted - and went to deal once again. He palmed a fingerful of snuff and shoved it into his gum as he continued. “I don’t want to speak ill of Lettie, I trusted ‘er an’ I got her hooked on workin’ on that thing anyway - but somethin’ about the proximity changes people.”

 

“Wait.” Cassie glanced sideways to Damos, who stopped dealing for a moment, turning his attention fully toward her. “Lettie worked on Typhon? I thought that she’d just…neglected t’leave notes.”

 

“No. Lettie worked on the one before Typhon. Never got the name of it. Didn’t even know Typhon’s, ‘til now. Not like it matters.” He shuffled the cards once again. “But she got pulled ‘cause I trusted her. Got up close an’ personal with that rig, with its pilot - got too close, I think.” Damos looked at Cassie. “You talked to ‘er, right? Heard that you were chattin’ while the mechanics looked on. Said y’all looked cute.”

 

“She’s an asset.” Cassie mused. “Ain’t my type, really. She’s too useful. Too utilitarian. Not tryin’ to fuck a piece of hardware.”

 

“She ain’t hardware.” Flagg laughed. “She’s cute. Small an’ dainty, even if y’believe the rumors - that she’s got a little secret between ‘er legs.”

 

“Flagg.” Damos growled.

 

“C’mon, Cap’n.” Barrows clapped his hand on the table. “We can talk ‘bout it. S’not like it’s a secret - that’s all that fuckin’ pilot corps is. Trannies an’ ninnies an’ junkies. Don’t matter if they broke Volkov or if they’ve hit every fuckin’ target they’ve seen afterward, once we’re done this little war I doubt they’ll just let ‘em go. Probably dump ‘em out on the streets or put ‘em back in the madhouses,” He paused, and added, “If we’re lucky.”

 

Something defensive curled in Strohm’s chest, although she kept her mouth shut - and Damos shook his head. “I wouldn’t want t’get on that thing’s bad side, regardless of what she is, or what she used t’be. You weren’t at Volkov, you didn’t see it.”

 

“What? See that thing go turn troops into fuckin’ mince? I’ve seen fuckin’ footage. It ain’t that bad.” Flagg took a swig from his bottle. “An’ even if she wasn’t a goddamned tranny, I’d still have no interest. I ain’t about to go an’ fuck a dog, no matter how much of a hero she is.”

 

“She’s no dog.” Cassie spoke up, finally, and the table went quiet - Damos didn’t glare at her, but the other three did. A tense silence fell over the table, before it was broken by Shrew.

 

“Maybe not. But she’s fuckin’ cursed, some bad hex or omen. Y’didn’t know Lettie the way I did, but I ain’t ever seen someone change like that. She an’ I grew up similar, in Ciora, you know. Got that accent an’ the taste for shithouse Frontier Reds, an’ now she won’t even look at ‘em. I swung by t’say hi an’ she talks like she was raised in a fuckin’ manor, all pish an’ posh an’ good heavens, gods almighty. S’fuckin’ annoyin’.” Shrew spat to the ground below. “I’ve lost plenty of friends from fuckin’ artillery an’ ammo-fire, but never to that. Never to this sort of rehumanizin’ an’ rebuildin’ bullshit.” She laughed, a harsh noise. “Lettie wasn’t like that. Lettie shouldn’t’ve been like that. But she is, now. Can’t even get her to look at nobody but that fuckin’ dog.”

 

Cassie soaked in the silence for a minute, before mumbling, “She looked at me.”

 

Eyes on the table went back to her, once again. Shrew piped up. “Good on fuckin’ you. I wonder why that is, s’not like you’re diggin’ around in the guts of that oversized fuckin’ entrenchin’ tool tryin’ to make somethin’ happen for her! Tryin’ to bring it back to life so that it can go killin’ an’ killin’ an’ killin’ again. Gods, it ain’t like I’m a fuckin’ pacifist, an’ i’m glad it’s them rather’n us, but y’can’t tell me that thing’s good on the soul for you or the dog or Lettie or anyone involved with it. S’a one way ride t’hell, havin’ proliferated an’ restored an’ brought it back, time an’ time again.” Shrew crossed her arms. “Tell me, they brought y’here because you’d worked on ‘em before, right? An’ this is that big push? Y’ever feel bad ‘bout what you did?”

 

“No worse than I’ve felt about loadin’ up any piece of artillery, or workin’ on any other tank I’ve worked on. S’just machinery.” Cassie lied. Machinery didn’t turn people into viscera the way a Wolfhound did, but she could keep her cool. “S’just another weapon.”

 

“S’just another weapon. Sure as shit is, Cassie.” Shrew took a step up from the table. “But a weapon like that don’t need to exist. We’re fightin’ ants with fuckin’ hammers, an’ we don’t need to. We’re cuttin’ through a city tryin’ to pretend we have honor, like this is some fuckin’ noble conquest - but those fuckin’ things have turned us into butchers. Cleave an’ cleave an’ cleave until there’s not a goddamn fuckin’ thing left, an’ for what? For victory? So we can topple Veriglas? What’s the fuckin’ point? They’ve already salted the goddamned Earth, so nothin’ we ever try to build here’ll ever grow. Bet they’re cursin’ us when they die, too, so that we end up with goatheaded fuckin’ babies an’ plagues for years an’ fuckin’ years.”

 

“Shrew,” Damos growled. “Relax.”

 

“I’m tired of bein’ told to fuckin’ relax. That machine ate that girl, an’ it ate my friend, an’ it’s taken so many in the most horrific way. I bet the goddamn thing’s haunted, all of ‘em, ‘cause of the carnage they’ve danced within. Fuckin’ awful. Fuckin’ terrible.” She spat and frothed. “S’fuckin’ inhumane, the way they operate. The way we operate. We made a fuckin’ deal with the devil, lettin’ ‘em in, an’ if you had a moral fuckin’ bone in your body you’d do anythin’ in your power to make sure they don’t keep operatin’.”

 

“Shrew!” Damos growled, again, but Shrew kept her glare focused dead center on Cassie. Strohm stood her ground.

 

“Are you tellin’ me to wreck a machine that I was entrusted t’repair?”

 

“I’m not tellin’ you to do fuckin’ shit. I’m tellin’ you that you should listen to that pullin’ in your heart screamin’ at you that what you’re doin’ is fuckin’ wrong.” The last few words left her mouth with vitriol. “They ain’t gonna let you stay a dirty ol’ blackthumb like us for the rest of time - they’ll do to you what they did t’that girl, an’ what they did t’Lettie, an’ they’ll mold you into somethin’ different. Although you ain’t a dog, an’ you ain’t got the face for high class, so they’ll make you into a fuckin’ tool. ‘Yes sir, no sir, here’s your walkin’ war crime sir’.” Shrew ignored the growing irritation on Damos’ face in favor of playing more into the two other infantrymen at the table. “So you have a fuckin’ choice t’make. You let that rig walk onto the battlefield again, your soul’s gonna burn eternal in the Hell of fuckin’ Hells. An’ you know that as well as I, an’ you’ll have fuckin’ earned it.” Her voice clicked irritably in her throat. “I ain’t gonna shed no tear for you when y’go t’judgment an’ they pitch you right the fuck down t’cinders, Cassie Strohm. I highly doubt anybody else will, either.”

 

A silence fell over the table; full and blanketing and all-encompassing. It was uncomfortable, and Damos, completely lost in fury and tension, locked his jaw firmly while the infantry whispered like gossipping hoodlums.

 

A palpable frustration built up in Cassie’s heart, and she moved to stand, collecting the bottle of grain liquor without another word as she departed, making her way out of the command tent and scattering the long-since-forgotten cards as she walked.

 

 

She tossed and turned in her sleep, for some time; she’d hoped to try and catch some shuteye, to sleep off her irritation, but her mind kept traveling back to it - that engine, the magnetism of the mechanism, the way it ripped through her thoughts.

 

The way Typhon had settled firmly in her mind.

 

She stared at the bunk above hers - quiet and empty, per her request and a few firm boots into whatever poor fucker decided to take it, time in and time out, through the mattress - and eventually, decided that sleep was a fool’s errand. She collected her toolkit, the bottle of grain alcohol she’d stolen from the bar, and her longcoat, and she made her way back to the barn, back across the compound.

 

A cloud of pervasive shame seemed to follow her as she walked, trailing behind her and keeping pace with her as she moved. She wanted to avoid the glares of soldiers that passed by, the night’s watch and the patrols, anyone who might see her slinking out to Typhon’s hold once again - a place that she knew, truly, in her heart was wrong. She knew that Shrew was right - she shouldn’t continue working on the machine, should call it a lost cause and try to figure out something else - but she also knew that was no answer, and it’d be putting her neck in the noose to delay the inevitability of more of those things being let loose in Hulske.

 

There were other rigs on base, she knew; not rigs that Scylla herself would pilot, but rigs all the same. Rigs that could do what Typhon did perfectly well, if not a little slower and less efficiently. Even if the rumored capabilities of the Tsar’s countermeasure, which had landed Typhon in this downed state, were true - it couldn’t hold up against three or four Wolfhounds, could it?

 

 

She mulled over the thought, rotating it in her mind as she entered the barn -

 

- and found Scylla standing in the center, shirtless with bandages around her chest, staring down Typhon’s snout in almost the same exact way Cassie had, earlier - save for the fact that she was entranced, entirely in meditation.

Cassie approached, slowly, raising a hand gently toward Scylla’s back, not trying to spook her - before the girl turned when she was mere inches away, eyes wide.

 

“Oh.” Scylla said, much of her earlier hostility gone from her voice. “It’s you.”

 

“Yeah.” Cassie responded, quietly. “Are you, uh…okay?”

 

“Never better.” Scylla murmured. “Just trying to talk to her.”

 

”Her?” Cassie took a step closer, curious. She looked down the barrels of Typhon’s snout the same as Scylla, and felt…nothing, really, minus a certain sense of unease.

 

“Her. Typhon.” Scylla took a few steps closer to her. “Something strange happened in the Market District. I thought she was…mad at me, for giving up. For almost tapping in the fight with that thing. The Bear.” She glanced sideways to Cassie. “Did you hear about it?”

 

“No.” Cassie murmured, and moved a bit closer to Scylla. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Scylla paused, and looked down at her boots. “Handler says I shouldn’t. She says I shouldn’t say more than I need to to the rank and file.”

 

“I’m not rank and file.” Cassie mused, quietly. “I’m your mechanic, ain’t I?”

 

She gave Scylla a disarming smile, and Scylla considered it - briefly - before she nodded, slowly. “You are. You want to take care of her, right?”

 

“I do.” Cassie confirmed, a slow nod. Scylla nodded again, but Cassie doubted she was listening to her.

 

“What do you see? When you look at Typhon, I mean - what do you see?” She turned to face Cassie. “Deep inside of her. Do you see a tank? A tool? Or do you see what the others do - that she’s somehow alive? That she’s a horror? A curse? That I bear her curse each time I settle inside of her?”

 

“I don’t think she’s a curse.” Cassie chewed on her jaw, slowly approaching the rig. “I don’t think you’re a curse, either. I think she’s…fascinating technology, s’all. I think that she’s one of a kind, just like you. Just like all the others.” She paused, and pocketed some air, letting a sigh escape her lips. “I think she’s the best chance we got at winnin’ this war, too.”

 

Scylla didn’t nod, nor respond. She turned her attention toward Typhon, again, and hummed. Then, she said, “I miss Charybdis.”

 

“Charybdis?”

 

“My last rig. The one that stormed Volkov. She’s in storage, somewhere, and I miss her.” She looked down at her boots again, something sad in her eyes. “Handler and Director Blackwell wanted me in Typhon because no one else could handle her. They said that she’d rip through whatever I threw her against, but all of the other pilots were too weak - they burnt out too quickly. Everyone except for me.” She looked back up at the rig that settled before them. “I don’t feel like I’m going to burn out inside of her, but something happened in the Market District that I…can’t make odds or ends of.”

 

“What happened?” Cassie’s voice was quiet, and again, Scylla seemed hesitant to share. She looked dead at Typhon, again, before she spoke.

 

”It bit me - the bear, or whatever it was - punched straight through her armor, right into my shoulder. It completely broke my trance - probably by accident, since I don’t think they were that smart to know. I doubt they know much about us - about me - at all.” Scylla took a few steps closer. “I’ve had my trance broken before - I’ve gotten knocked out of focus outside of these rigs, but never in them. It was scary, for a moment, like I was aware of everything that was punching into me and happening all at once - and then I got ripped away.”

 

Cassie blinked. “What does being tranced mean, Scylla? Like…hypnosis?”

 

She didn’t bother to elaborate. “Something came up from the water and…pulled me down. Like drowning inside of drowning, except…I was already drowning. I was already under. This wrapped a hand around my…mind? My soul? And then…I don’t remember what happened next.”

 

A silence fell over them, and Cassie blinked, then. “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”

 

“I mean, I came back to, and everything hurt again, and the fight was over. Typhon had burnt out. The engine, I think, right?”

 

“Right - but you don’t remember piloting the rig?”

 

“No.” Scylla replied, quietly. “This one…it’s different. Charybdis never hurt me like this. Never made me keep fighting when I was done. Director Blackwell didn’t, either - but something’s changed. Something feels worse - and I’m not sure if it’s coming from this rig, or…inside of me.” She took a few steps closer to it, pressing her forehead against its snout. “So I came here to talk to it, to see if I could listen. To see if we could find common ground.”

 

Cassie watched Scylla for a moment longer, seemingly considering her words. She set her toolbox down, and approached with the bottle of alcohol. She wondered, truthfully, if Scylla was seeing something she wasn’t - if her relationship to these machines meant that she had some innate connection that simply couldn’t be perceived otherwise.

 

She wasn’t so sure, but she had to ask.

 

“What is it saying?”

 

Scylla was quiet for a moment longer, before she took a step back, blinking; her dazed state ended. She turned to face Cassie, and a gentle laugh slipped her throat.

 

”Nothing.” She whispered. “S’just metal, right?” She looked down to the alcohol at Cassie’s side, and narrowed her eyes. “Did you, uh…steal that?”

 

“No.” Cassie lied. “Bought it from the bar, for some salt beef.” She paused. “Do you, uh…want a drink?”

 

Scylla looked nervous - like a child, really, staring at a jar of sweets - and nodded. “I’ll take one, sure. Never had one before, but…now’s as good a time as any, isn’t it?”

 

“It is.” Cassie let her shoulders fall. “Maybe we should sit, though. No use in trying to get drunk on our feet.”

 

“R-right.” Scylla laughed, a tittering and nervous little thing. “People don’t do that, like, ever.”

 

“They don’t.” Cassie smiled, and settled against Typhon’s immense, laying torso. She popped the lid on the bottle, and took a whiff - a critical mistake, given that the drink was evidently strong enough to torch the hair in her nostrils. Still, it was what she had, and she wasn’t about to let it go to waste as she took a heavy swig, letting the ‘shine burn her throat the whole way down. She grimaced, and Scylla watched her suffer - watched her endure.

 

”That doesn’t look pleasant.” Scylla hummed, taking the bottle in her hand. She took a swig of her own - small, insignificant compared to Cassie’s - and winced as it washed down her throat and over her senses. She coughed into the crook of her elbow, and muttered, “That wasn’t pleasant at all.”

 

“S’part of drinking. You hate it, especially out here.” Cassie sighed. “We had gin, back home. Y’ever had it?”

 

“No.” Scylla sighed. “I never drank. Was too young before I deployed, and beyond a quick stop back to Heather that I spent at home, I…haven’t really had the chance to. Handler likes wine, sometimes; I picked her out a bottle as a gift when we were in Avers, but I don’t know if she actually liked it. Something about not wanting to accept a present from a pet.”

 

That curled strangely in Cassie’s stomach, along with the rest of it; something about Shrew’s words calling Scylla a curse, and a hex, combined with Lettie seemingly treating her as a pet - gave the girl an aura of needing protection. Of needing for safety. Cassie bit back the desire to put an arm around her and pull her in, instead taking the bottle back.

 

“I’m sure it was nice, comin’ from Avers.”

 

”It was. I think.” Scylla shrugged. “I don’t know any better, but I was assured that it was. It’s still sitting on our counter, back home.” She looked up to Typhon again, once again seemingly conflicted, eyes drifting in and out of focus. Something was brewing in Scylla’s head, but Cassie couldn’t even begin to think of how to punch through and reach it - how to wrap fingers around her brain or her mind and pull the thoughts out into a more legible fashion.

 

She dwelled on the finer details of her rant from earlier - being broken from a ‘trance’ and pulled back down to ‘drowning’ again, trying to put two and two together without prying too deeply. It felt - and sounded - like pulp bullshit, although she was sure it was real, in some sense; the way that it felt, the way that she’d suffered inside of Typhon. The girl could’ve been genuinely insane - more likely than not, she had some sort of ailment, based on Shrew’s raving - but what she was feeling was absolutely real and true.

 

So Cassie slipped a hand into Scylla’s, surprising her, and said, “Hey.”

 

“Hey?” Scylla looked back at her, voice quiet.

 

”Whatever’s happening here, we’re going to get through it - together, okay? I got called in t’fix up Typhon, but you’re just as much a part of her as that busted engine. That means I gotta make sure you’re all fixed up too, okay?”

 

“I…mm…” Scylla looked away. “Handler said-“

 

”I’m no rank and file, Scylla. We talked ‘bout this, already.” She rubbed Scylla’s shoulder. “S’okay. You can take it slow, with trustin’ me, but…I’m here for you. Can’t just rely on a woman who calls you a pet all the time, now can y’?”

 

At that, Scylla bristled - but she pulled it back together. She looked sheepish, for a moment, before she nodded. “I g-guess not.”

 

“Glad we’re on the same page.” She huffed, and she leaned back against Typhon. “Now, we’ve got a full bottle of this t’get through, an’ plenty of time t’do it. Why don’t y’tell me a little about yourself?”

 

“I…uh…don’t have much to say. Not much history.” Scylla shrugged, laughing, nervous as she took the bottle, taking a swig. She grimaced, but less so - she was learning. “Why don’t you tell me about you? Handler doesn’t talk much about her mechanic days, anymore - it might be nice to hear you talk about yours.”

 

Cassie looked down at her boots, and considered her next words carefully. She could tell Scylla the truth - that it was all bullshit, that this was the best gig she’d ever worked; funneling time into the machine that was eating her alive. Or, she could lie - she could spin a weave. She could tell a story.

 

She leaned toward the latter.

 

“Well, y’ever hear much about those ol’ tankwalkers? The Kingfisher?”

 

“Not really.” Scylla giggled, gentle and quiet. “Tell me about it?”

 

“Surely…”

 

-

 

Tens of minutes passed, maybe, or maybe it was hours - she wasn’t sure, but before long, Scylla had fallen asleep. She was half-drunk, curled up on Cassie’s shoulder, while she nursed the last dregs of alcohol from the bottle they’d both depleted.

Cassie looked down at her - woozy, drunk - and pushed some of the hair out of her face, stroking her temple gently. The girl blinked wet eyes, looking up at Cassie again, seemingly realizing that she wasn’t home - before Cassie put a hand on her shoulder, and she relaxed.

 

”Get some sleep, honey.” Cassie whispered. “I’ll look out for y’. Take the heat from the big bad Handler, too, if I need to.”

 

“Y’won’t.” Scylla slurred, gently. “You’ll be too scared - everyone is…no one crosses Handler Muir…”

 

“I won’t be crossin’ nobody. Just explainin’.” She whispered. “Now, back to bed. Okay?”

 

“Mm…okay.” Scylla closed her eyes, and nestled back into Cassie - soft and sweet - and Cassie put a hand down on her ribcage, rubbed knuckles on the ridged bones, worked fingers against her. She prayed for a restful sleep for the girl, and a bit of guidance to her path forward - through the ranting, raving, and revelations Scylla had offered her.

 

They intermingled with Shrew’s words - tones of warning, of concern - and she wondered, really, if she was as large a part of the problem as the others pulling Scylla’s strings, or just another cog in the machine - unable to effect change as much as continue it.

 

She let those thoughts drift absently into nothing as she put an arm firmly around Scylla, and went, herself, to sleep.