When Luna woke up – Woke up? That was an unusual experience. It shouldn't have been something that was necessary for her to do.

When Luna woke up everything was dark. It took her eyes only an instant to adjust to the low level of light, but it was proof that she was far away from any part of Rhizome Nine. As she stood up from where she was lying she found herself in an expansive but dusky chamber, the ceiling many times higher than she could reach and light breezes twirling through the air as gusts built up along the length.

And with the movement of air came the echoes. Clangs and whirring and metallic whines filled Luna's ears, like she'd been swallowed by some great machine. Luna spun her head one way then the other, trying to see where the sounds were coming from.

There, up by the ceiling. A pair of metal rails ran over Luna's head and off into the distance in both directions. The faint shadows they cast on the wall flexed and warped to an unknown, inexorable rhythm. And then, by the sparks of welding stations spaced out along the lines of rails, Luna was able to see what they carried.

Gaulem bodies. Body after body dangled from the rails, just as they hung in the Gaulem bay but on an industrial scale. They were dragged along by the mechanism, swaying and twisting as they reached each station and came to a halt. Then the welding would start again, a scream of hot metal against Gaulem.

But even half-built, the Gaulems' minds were alive in there. Luna could tell. Their eyes glowed bright red with vitality.

This place was wrong. It was cruel to its core.

Luna ran. It wasn't even a conscious choice. Just every part of her rebelling against what she was witnessing. She ran, but she had no idea where to go. There was no way out through the sides of the chamber so she just ended up running along it, following the path of the rails.

The welding section ended, and after that the Gaulems hanging above Luna's head were subjected to a sequence of hammer blows. Luna flinched as each impact rang out, and ran on.

Fumes filled the space in front of Luna. She found herself grateful that she wasn't human, or she'd have choked as she ran any further along the assembly line. She took only one more glance upwards, where more lines of Gaulems emerged to join the steel rails she'd been following. Then she averted her gaze and plunged deeper.

Then, at the end, the lines of Gaulems converged. One final component was twisted roughly into place in the Gaulems' chests. The breastplate slammed into place over it; a spidery implement flitted over the joins to weld them into place. Luna got to observe what happened as the Gaulems reached the end of the assembly line. The completed Gaulems were carried to the end of the rails, tipped over the edge… and then dropped.

Luna couldn't see where to. Just streams of falling, blinking, red pairs of eyes disappearing hopelessly into a chasm in the metal floor, the bottom of which even Luna's sight couldn't see.

Luna had to help. She had to find some way to halt this machine that was throwing Gaulem lives into this pit with such disregard. She scrambled one way then the other, trying to find some sort of safety switch or entrance to a control room. But there was nothing to be found, anywhere in the gloomy murk of the chamber.

Then, just as Luna was becoming convinced the entire tunnel was hermetically sealed, she stepped back. Her foot landed on a metal grate tucked in the corner between the floor and the wall. The grate gave way, and Luna fell.

o-0-o

Luna slid down the narrow pipe she'd dropped into, unable to do anything to slow her descent. In the slight space she had free she'd tried to move her arms and brace herself against the sides. But they just slid away, and Luna's speed continued to accelerate as the tube twisted one way then the other. Part of her feared that she'd be falling forever. But then the pipe levelled out, friction finally began to slow her, and she was deposited with a sharp and painful but non-damaging drop at the other end.

Where was she now? It was still too dark to tell for certain. But the tunnel she'd landed in sloped one way. Luna would have to ascend to get to anywhere, so she turned the right way and began to climb.

As she took one step after another up the musty tunnel, something began to dawn on Luna. Wherever she was, she'd never been here before. There wasn't anything like this dark tunnel, or that nightmarish production line, anywhere in the facility Luna had spent her entire life. And if Luna wasn't inside that Moonbase, how was she active? How were the signals getting from the mainframe to her body?

Luna had no answer to that. She continued on up, anyway.

Then, as her feet were worn down by the monotony of climbing footsteps, a waft of air tickled her face. A breeze? It was, and of fresh clean air as well. And just beyond it, creeping down from the top end of the tunnel, the barest hints of a glimmer of light. Luna was nearly out! She doubled her pace, reaching out with a hopeful hand. There, in front of her, a door stood slightly ajar. With a cry of relief Luna pushed it open and stepped outside.

And found herself standing in the middle of a long plaza. The gleaming chrome that covered every wall and surface made the light that glared from all directions even brighter, making it impossible to get her bearings. Impossibly tall skyscrapers jutted out of the ground and towered over the streets, displaying fluorescent billboards in English and Japanese and French and a dozen other languages Luna didn't know. Between those needle-like pillars flitted chaotic swarms of drones and hovering light aircraft, slipping past each other without collision. And all around Luna people were walking at their own single-minded paces, a ceaseless stream passing by with complete disregard for anything happening around them or in the open skies above.

Open skies? Luna looked up, through the aperture made by the rows of skyscrapers. The familiar image of the Earth hung there above the city, still marred by its red-stained air. But Luna was viewing it through a blue sky, a sky like she'd never seen it before. And under that blue sky the human beings walking by did so without protective suits or helmets. There was an atmosphere. Outside.

Nothing about where Luna had found herself added up. Nothing made any sense. But just as the confusion mounted inside her, an answer came to Luna's question. With a silky-smooth and silent motion, a monorail train swooped down its rail and came to a halt inside one of the buildings over to Luna's left. Though Luna couldn't see what was inside that building, which she now knew to be a station, the doors of the train must have opened to disgorge the passengers onto the platform. Luna overheard the announcement that greeted those passengers, a female voice broadcast from tannoys all around.

"Welcome, travellers, to the city of tomorrow! Welcome to a land where those with the determination and drive can make themselves more than they were. More than human. Will you make the most of the opportunities in front of you?

"Welcome, new citizens, to Rhizome Nine."