After several hours of effort, the team of two Minotaurs and an English peer succeeded in uncovering what they had been searching for. The map which showed the last route Emmet had taken before deciding to permanently hang up his hat. The trail documented was one which would take them straight into the heart of the Badlands and through a chasm Rory called the Valley of No Bones. Appropriate considering the circumstances, but not particularly reassuring for three prospective travelers.
Once they had put Emmett to bed, the trio spent the rest of the evening trying to get comfortable in the drawing room. No small feat, especially deeper into the night with Emmett waking periodically, eyes lit with terror and face cold with sweat. Each time, Rory and Bobby-Jo would go to his side. Eventually they succeeded in calming him and the night would be still for a few hours.
Though Ada remained in her place beside the hearth throughout the evening, sleep continued to elude her. Too many unknowns still plagued her mind. Marbles's fate and her own ever-growing guilty conscience. If she had been better, Hacker would still be on their side. Motherboard wouldn't be in the weakened state she was now. And whatever was happening could be taken care of without her intervention.
Once the first rays of dawn peeked through the cottage window, Ada allowed herself to rise from her makeshift bed. A dull ache addled her head. Her body felt like an anchor, weighing her down even as she tried to fight it. She leaned against the sofa for support as her legs shook and threatened buckle beneath her.
All the strain she had put herself through the day before had caught up. But she still had more to do. She had to find Marbles.
Rory was still absent from the armchair he'd spent in the night in. Ada had heard him stir some hours ago, but was surprised to find he'd not returned. When she finally felt her body was equal to the task, she got up again, leaving Bobby-Jo still snoring away on the couch.
Outside, she found a trail of hoof-prints in the sand leading back down the hill. She proceeded carefully, sliding herself forwards on her hands and rear in the places where the descent was steepest. She found the Minotaur chief at the bottom, loading stacks of crates onto a wagon with ease. Unbothered by her presence, he continued on until he had made a row resembling a bench against the opposite walls of the cart.
"I seem to recall meeting some of your kind a while back," said Ada, finally making herself known after a long breadth of silence. "R-Fair City, I think it was. You would rate rather well in the rodeo tourney, though I myself have always preferred to watch the derbies."
The Minotaur chief eyed her in silence. To Ada it appeared he was attempting to size her up. "You're just full of surprises, ain't cha? I don't think you need me to tell you those events are highly illegal."
"You don't. And they are."
Rory eyed her thoughtfully before tapping his hoof against the crates he'd packed. "I think this is enough supplies to last us a few days. I hope you like baked beans."
Ada scrunched up her nose to indicate that she did not. "I think provisions, beans or otherwise, will be quite unnecessary. Not if we intend to meet our Phantom."
"This another one of your Control Central secrets?"
Ada smiled in the affirmative. This time at least, there was a snippet of informations she felt she could share. "In order for a successful encounter to take place, we must recreate the scenario Emmett experienced. This will involve not only returning to the location of his encounter, but emulating the state he was in at the time."
"Makes sense, I suppose. Though I don't think you should be putting yourself through that. Starvation ain't too much fun."
"Regardless, I have a duty to Cyberspace and to its chief technician. This corruption has been allowed to brew for at least a decade. It's high time it was dealt with. As a human, I'll have a better chance at surviving an encounter than you will."
"And how's that?"
"Let's just say not everything that affects your metal affects the flesh."
It was something she'd theorized for a long time and which Motherboard's Cybersquad had all but proven through their adventures. Humans, not being natural beings of Cyberspace, were exempt from many of its natural perils. Viruses and magnetite being prime examples. In its current state, the algorithm usually failed to take human inference into account which meant that whatever glitch was causing this manifestation, there was a very good chance Ada would be immune to its negative effects.
"What's going on?" Bobby-Jo mumbled, still rubbing sleep from her eyes as she clambered down the hill. "Where are we going?"
"To hunt down the Phantom."
The cow's eyes widened, all of a sudden alert and fully awake. "Oh, crepes! Chief, you're not leaving me here to babysit, are you? I mean—" She stammered awkwardly, trying to catch her fumble under Rory's deadpan stare. "Everyone loves Emmett, but— Chief, you gotta take me with you."
"Not to worry, little sister. There's room for two on the wagon. I've already called Duke up to take our place." The bull allowed a slight smirk to spill from the corners of his mouth before turning to Ada. "I think it's best we bring the food along anyways. In case our train doesn't show, there'll be no point in going hungry."
"I shall be guided by you," the Countess agreed, dipping her head.
The bull grabbed the two wooden rods which protruded out the front of the wagon. They were the bits designed to be coupled with the harness of a horse. But instead of fetching such an animal, the Minotaur took one grip into each hoof and began pulling them out into the road like a Chinaman's buggy, although Ada was quite sure no human would last long pulling the weight of the two of them and all their supplies, alone.
"Do you intend to show off for us?" Ada teased. "Or did the horses from yesterday take an early retirement?"
"No, but they should." The chief pridefully declared. "Complete lightweights. Likewise goes for those derby horses 'o yours. Couldn't pull a basket of string beans."
"No self-respecting Minotaur would let themselves get pulled by horse," Bobby-Jo grunted before quickly becoming flustered as she remembered the events of the previous day. "Well, what I mean is, Chief's got the bullpower to back it up. He'll get you anywhere, so consider yourself lucky to have his help."
"Indubitably. And yours as well." As misguided as she was, Ada found the little cow… sweet. She clearly had Rory's interests at heart at least.
"Yeah, well. The Chief needs someone lookin' out for him. That's the only reason I'm here." She climbed up onto the back of the cart and sat with her arms crossed over her chest. Ada followed more slowly and placed herself on the row of crates opposite.
"Perhaps you wouldn't mind showing me the lay of the land as we traveled." She pulled Emmett's map out of the tube like container Rory had dug up. "I couldn't make heads or tails of these last night."
"Yeah, I could do that."
As Ada and her new companions rolled down the hill, the Countess saw Rory was not the only one who made a habit of being an early riser. Like any good country hamlet with an abundant population of farm workers, the inhabitants of the Minotaur village took advantage of every daylight hour. Even young calves had come out to see their parents off for the fields. When they spotted Rory passing by, they raised their hooves and hollered in greeting.
"Chief, let me off for a second." Without waiting for a response, Bobby-Jo hopped off the still moving wagon. "Don't you dare take off without me though."
"Just get." Rory rolled his eyes as the young cow vanished into a cave hole which to Ada looked indistinguishable from all the rest.
"Chief!" Came a cry from the opposite direction. Peering out from the hood of the wagon, Ada met eyes with a tall and willowy Minotaur who restrained a look of disapproval upon spotting her. "Good morning to ya, Chief. Where you headed?"
"I'll be out scouting for a few days."
With a closer look, Ada could see the slender bull was quite a bit older than his chief. As such, she found there was a slightly paternal quality to how he addressed him. "Hope you let your wife know you'll be going off."
"I gave Mimi word last night."
"Last night? We ain't in any trouble are we, Chief?"
"Not you at least," Rory chuckled. "Nothing for you to worry yourself about, Templeton."
The slender bull squinted his eyes at the Countess before adding quietly, "Need me to squish that busybody borg for ya?"
"NO. Thank you, Templeton."
Ada let a snort of indignation escape her nostrils. The sorts of rumors that spread around here were really quite absurd. Was she to be antagonized by everyone in the village for trying to stop a robbery?
As if on queue, the one she deemed the source of her persecution reemerged. Bobby-Jo was accompanied by an older and slightly taller cow who briefly fussed over her until former was able to wrangle herself away.
"Ready to go, Chief," she said, climbing back into the wagon with a fresh bundle of delicious smells stuffed into the pocket of her suspenders.
"I'll dig out my scrap compressor," Templeton continued as the wagon started to roll again. "Get it nice and warmed up for ya."
"Don't trouble yourself."
The trio passed through the gates, taking a side road that quickly saw them leaving the rolling fields behind. Soon they found themselves surrounded by mounds of sand, the village a mere smudge of color in the far distance.
"This is the road we're on now," said Bobby-Jo, indicating the position with her hoof. She went out to point out village, and their final destination in the heart of the Badlands.
"It looks like stopped recording here," she trialed off and flipped the map over. "This one starts in the middle of nowhere and goes back to the village. I guess that's when he got lost." She made a face. "But why didn't he just retrace his steps?"
"Perhaps something forced him to stop mapping his route for a time. Or he became separated from the path by way of an accident."
"By way of an accident."
"Yes?" Ada couldn't tell if she was confused by her statement or if she simply felt the need to restate the facts. Not wanting to be presumptuous, she waited to hear more.
"Nothing. You just got pretty fancy way of talking is all. All the Earthlies like that?"
"Not at all."
"Just you then, huh?"
Ada chuckled. "Are those the only two possibilities?"
Even as the noon sun rose and blasted a tortuous heat, Rory carried on with only wet rag and a few sips of cryoxide to maintain himself. Perhaps the Minotaur's stamina shouldn't have surprised her as much as it did considering his size, but there was something remarkably disciplined in the rhythm of his march. Ada herself was unable to keep such endurance, the headache she woke up with making her increasingly weary despite being under the wagon's shady alcove.
After several hours of travel, Ada's exhaustion overcame her and she managed to doze off. When she woke, the inside of the wagon was even more sweltering than it had been before. Bobby-Jo was sitting off the rear with the straps of her suspenders down and her hooves dangling over the edge.
The Countess inched over to her, catching the slight breeze that passed over the schooner as it cut through the desert. In the cow's hooves was a can of cryoxide which had maintained its coolness inside the crates it had been held in. Exposed to the warm air, large droplets of water vapor had formed all along the outside. They dripped along the side of the cow's hoof and onto the sand as they passed, creating a trail of wet dots that lead back the way they'd come.
Ada licked her parched lips, her already dehydrated body nudging her towards a drink. Though she knew the cryoxide would be of no good to her, she could at least hold the chilled can to her face for a while. But she knew that would only slow them down in the long run. Best to dive straight off deep end from the start.
The vegetation around them had grown more abundant since the last time Ada peered out. Aside from a few prickly shrubs, they now passed the occasional stubby cactus. It reminded her of Marbles's last letter. Unlike the ones she'd seen the day before, these grew close to the ground and there were hints of pink within the slits of their dormant buds.
"If there's one thing you and the borgs of Sensible Flats share, it's a fear of this place," Ada mused out loud. "If Emmett and McCavity were the last ones here, I suspect much of this territory remains unexplored."
"I suppose."
"I can't help but wonder what secrets might lie in wait here."
Bobby-Jo pivoted towards her. "Like what?"
"Undiscovered flora and fauna. Minerals with properties unique to this site."
The cow pressed her lips together in thought. "Now that you mention it, Emmett used to do something like that. Though he wasn't any expert on floora or fawna or what. He just made maps and drew pictures. But he would send things off to a friend of his."
There was an extended silence between the two while Bobby-Jo stared off into the distance and chewed at the tip of her hoof. She seemed to be in deep contemplation, but before Ada could inquire, the cow had clambered over to the driver's end of the wagon.
"Hey, Chief!" she cried before a rocky patch of terrain made her fall flat on her face.
"For goodness sakes, little sister."
Bobby-Jo ignored him. "You remember who it was ol' Emmett liked to report to?"
"Eh?"
"Some borg off site he used to send pictures of cactuses and stuff to."
"Oh. Jim, or Jones, I think. Some Poddle." He shot a side glance at Ada. "You ever heard of him?"
The Countess frowned and shook her head. It was a shame he didn't have a clearer recollection. Part of her itched to harvest a bushel of cacti, but she knew any chance there was to discover a cure for Motherboard would be a long shot without Marbles's notes. They had to press onward.
Presently, they arrived at where their trail ended. The wagon grinded to a halt at the edge of a cliff looking out onto jagged, sun touched peeks. Down beneath, where the light didn't reach, a labyrinth of valleys snaked through the rock like the tunnels of ant colony.
"The Valley of No Bones. A name that conjures a most unpleasant image."
"But one it's got for a good reason." Rory wedged a rock under each of the wheels of the wagon before stepping away from it for the first time since they'd set out. "You said you wanted to know our history?"
Ada nodded.
"All this land used to be coal mines. Back when Sensible Flats first came online, borgs and Minotaurs and anyone else who could make the trip would prospect these hills for their fortune. The borgs needed our help to get cross the Badlands on account of coyotes. Things were peaceful, if exactly not friendly."
"And what caused the discourse between you to begin?"
"The Judge, what else?" Bobby-Jo answered, discarding her empty cryoxide can over the edge. Though it fell out of sight almost immediately, they continued to hear its metallic echoes all the way until it hit the ground.
"At least there is a bottom," Bobby-Jo shuddered.
Rory looked from side to side along the ledge. There was a narrow path that stretched on in both directions, but was barely wide enough for their wagon to travel.
"There should be an elevator down here."
"I think it would be prudent to consult our map at this juncture."
"No need, the Chief's got the ol' Minotaur sense of direction," the cow said, tapping the side of her head. "Got the hard drive of a high precision laser blow torch when it comes to this stuff."
Ada moved herself to the opposite side of the cart, saying nothing, but on the inside pleading that the rock not crumble and take them to their deaths. After a short distance, she saw they'd come to where a crane like mechanism had been built into the cliff. Attached to the crane was a wheel and pulley system that held a wooden platform at level with the cliff side.
"The two of you first and I'll come after," Rory indicated as he slowly angled the wagon onto the precarious slab of wood.
He coupled each of the wagon's corners to the rope that held the platform in suspension, then started lowering the contraption with a crank. Each roll of the wheel came with a short but sudden drop that made Ada's heart skip a beat before the rope caught their weight again.
"Boy, this place sure got a way of giving ya the creeps, doesn't it?" Bobby-Job shuddered as they descended into the shadows of the valley and the space around them went dark.
"Are you frightened?"
She firmly shook her head. "I just think we should use reasonable caution. In a place like this there might be cyberghosts."
"Really?" Ada said, giving her a sidelong wiry smile.
Bobby-Jo nodded, though her expression had gone completely serious. "Like the Chief was telling ya. The Judge turned everything screwy when she showed up."
When they hit the bottom of the canyon, Bobby-Jo quickly hopped off and started uncoupling the corners of the cart. "Quick. Help me move this thing."
Her sudden demanding tone caught Ada off guard though she nevertheless got off and attempted to assist. "Cyberghosts aren't all that scary, are they?"
"I don't plan on finding out. The sooner the Chief gets down here the better."
Ada chuckled slightly as she removed a hook. As she proceeded around the back for the second one, she heard a baleful howl echo from somewhere not far off.
The noise snapped her to alertness, towards the sound. Perched on a ledge directly above them was a wild dog with its hackles raised and teeth bared into a menacing snarl.
"Chief!" Bobby-Jo mooed, diving at the wheel like the dog would at… well, them. She cranked with all her might, trying to get the elevator back up to the top.
"There isn't time for that," Ada cried, pulling her away from the mechanism. They'd taken a good ten minutes to reach the bottom. Besides which, they had yet to unload their wagon.
"Then what?" the cow shouted back as more growls filled the floor of the valley. Ada's eyes darted up again. A second dog had appeared beside the first. Then a third and more. Whichever direction she turned there was a member of the pack, ready to pounce.
"Unless you have some dog treats in your pouch, we run." Ada grabbed her by the hoof and charged through the rocky corridor. They had hardly gone twenty feet before one of the dogs leapt down in front of them, blocking their way forward.
"Any chance you could get us a portal 'bout now?"