Chapter 3: Do Androids Fish for Electric Fish?

I think I have Omicron.

I spent half an hour on that rooftop.

At first things had been smooth sailing. At first.

It had only been a few minutes before Yuya began breathing down my neck about the way I was hammering the tripods. I wasn't 'aligning them', she told me. All I really needed was a minute to acclimate myself to the task, but Yuya insisted that I wasn't paying attention and how it would be so much better if I just let her show me how to do it properly.

I admittedly hadn't taken so well to the criticism so the conversation devolved into bickering about my approach to new technical tasks.

There was a brief grousing interlude—Yuya had complained at length about how difficult I made analysis of those robots by tearing them to shreds—but she very quickly pivoted back into complaints about my disregard for detail in general.

All in all, it hadn't been the most enjoyable half hour of my day, and today was my first time being shot out of atmosphere.

After a few more minutes of pestering me about which way the batteries were supposed to face, Yuya notified me that the sensory suite on the Orbiter was back up. Being able to see for herself now, there was no way in the world, she informed me, that the cavern was large enough to justify a perimeter guard of eight hundred and fifty seven MOAs.

Still feeling a little heated about the earlier criticism, I told her quite truthfully that that had been patently obvious to me from the start, and I had assumed she would show a little initiative and send them to scout the tunnels, which seemed to shut her up.

I would take my victories where I could.

"All right, sensors are installed and functional," I confirmed.

"Good. With these up, I'll know the instant a Grineer ship is incoming."

I felt my shoulders sag a fraction in relief. Truly, I didn't fancy being caught in another ambush.

"Could you scan the area for resources too?"

As previously established, my Orbiter wasn't in the best of shape. Between the gaping hole in the side, and the damaged internal components, there was a lot to be repaired. After all the labour I had put in to get these sensors up and running, I was hoping for a little more return on my investment. Locating some repair materials would have been a nice start.

Unfortunately, Yuya's response dashed those hopes in an instant.

"If there's any Rubedo in our immediate surroundings, I'll be able to spot the ambient radiation. Any reasonable distance though, and I won't see a thing."

That got a grumble out of me.

"Well how immediate is immediate?" I demanded.

"A few hundred metres. These sensors are running passively," she said flatly. "They're basically just eyes pointed at the sky. I won't be staring through walls for Neural Sensors any time soon. Not unless you want to make us a target for any Grineer who might be in the area."

I grimaced. I really didn't. Although, at least these sensors would tell me they were coming now. It was better than nothing, I told myself, but it was hard to be happy about it. Especially after all the manual labour.

I was a little smaller than some of my brethren. I could be honest; my physicality wasn't much to write home about. During our first meeting in… the flesh, as it were, Mara had marvelled that her kavat was taller than me. While that wasn't strictly true—unless you counted the ears, which I obviously didn't—it wasn't a poor way of communicating my relative size. I had been informed that, having left the cryopod, I could probably expect to start growing again, but I hadn't had all that much time to do so before the events of today.

It didn't usually bother me. With our Warframes as the equaliser, my superior intellect and skill would find me well ahead of the curve. Right now, however, I was somewhat lacking in the Warframe department.

All this to say that I was sore, and I wish that I were a little more physically imposing.

"…Yuya, my back hurts."

She had the gall to laugh at me.

"It should fade soon, Operator."

Ugh, these worthless muscles...

"Yuya, my arms hurt."

I could feel my face heating up as the heartless sniggering continued.

"Maybe you should've let me help with the sensors, and then you wouldn't have had to redo so much of the work."

I shut my mouth.

"If we come across anything else that needs carrying, I'll send up an Osprey or two," she said appeasingly. "Or I could get started on building a ramp system, and then you'll have both MOAs and your Warframe."

"I don't see how either of those could have made it up to this rooftop," I muttered sarcastically.

Even if we had gone with the ladder plan, it wasn't as though my Nyx could have bullet jumped up here in its current state. And climbing? We were a hundred metres up.

This building had to have been inhabited by ordinary humans once, but by now the elevators must have...

…Did this building have a staircase? I hadn't checked.

I unconsciously raised myself onto my tip-toes and peered towards the far side of the rooftop.

…

Yuya's little shoulder camera hadn't moved.

Better not to say anything, I decided. The Void had gotten me up here just fine.

Instead, I considered my situation. With the sensor arrays installed on the rooftop and allegedly operational, we were unlikely to be caught off guard by a Grineer team flying in on a dropship. The sensors would also give us an idea of our location once they were adjusted enough to locate the stars. It was too bright out for my naked eyes to spot them, but before long the glare of the daylight wouldn't be an issue for the sensors. The stellar radiation was still there, after all. The sensors just needed to acclimate. That was the first two problems solved. Remaining were the challenges of getting my Orbiter airworthy again, finding out why my Warframe's power wasn't replenishing, and establishing communications with other Tenno.

While I was contemplating my next step, the sound of Yuya's voice roused me from my thoughts.

"Huh."

"What is it?" I asked.

"These robots are sporting a lot more power than I expected," replied Yuya, sounding a little baffled.

A lot more power?

"I suppose it was a little optimistic to assume that I'd seen everything on offer," I admitted. Those robots had been unusually feeble, even for possible prototypes. "Do they boast something more dangerous than the axes?"

"Not... exactly. At least I don't see anything like that," she clarified. "But some of them still have functional power systems, and the readings I'm getting from them are incredible."

That was suspicious. Nobody in their right mind built high yield power sources just for the fun of it. There was surely more to these robots, even if it wasn't obvious yet.

I walked over to the edge of the building, mindful of staying veiled behind the foliage.

"How incredible is incredible?" I asked as I took in the ruins. Considering there was an AA gun capable of downing my ship nearby, there was a lot less obvious Grineer activity than I expected. I had anticipated Dargyns at least, so the empty skies were a surprise.

"Even these littlest robots have an Orokin Cell's worth of power each."

I paused to consider that. An Orokin Cell's worth of power, apparently not sourced from the Void, and compact enough to fit into the smallest of the robots I had fought.

"Do you suppose that these robots and the Void nullification are related?"

Encountering revolutionary nullification technology and these queer robots on the same day? That was suspicious. As an elite, even amongst the Tenno, I had no shortage of enemies across the system. They must have known that they could never stop me fair and square, so they devised this base trick to weaken me. O-Or perhaps it was another of that accursed Captain's schemes to further humiliate me. A nullifier to disable my Warframe, and then high-powered robots to bring to life her nefarious designs…

"It would make sense," Yuya said. "Some new form of technology to starve an area of Void energy, and new robotics platforms operational within it. It seems like the perfect match."

But it felt out of place. If these robots were so extraordinary, why were they so feeble? They certainly hadn't been much of a direct threat. Not with their underwhelming weapons and lack of decent armour or shielding.

I forced myself to calm down and think the situation through. Considering the energy invested in each of the machines, it was looking more and more likely that these robotics were the lynchpin of some great scheme.

Was their weakness a trap, perhaps? I mused on the possibility. Unless bringing their ruins onto my Orbiter was part of some convoluted bombing scheme, I couldn't see how that could be the case.

Unfinished prototypes as we first suspected, then? They certainly hadn't appeared too polished. Perhaps they were designed to eventually field a powerful weapon, or some other energy intensive contraption, and I had stumbled across them in their testing phase.

Could there truly be such a coincidence? The other option was my Trojan Bomb idea though, and that was contingent on grounding us. If they were so sure they could hit us with anti-air guns, they could have just destroyed us directly.

In other words, perhaps I hadn't been targeted at all, and this was indeed some very unpleasant cosmic accident. An accident that had cost the universe one of the greatest thinkers among fish-kind. I was going to need a new pet.

At any rate, if this were the case, then my personal safety was at less risk. After all, somebody out to get me would have been ready and prepared. But Grineer forces that got a lucky shot in whilst following protocol? Much less likely to come looking for me in force.

My greatest concern was, therefore, the implications of these technologies. If the creator of these robots was Grineer aligned as we suspected, it could potentially represent yet another step forward for the Grineer war machine. The ability to shut down all Void-powered technology before sending in a task force of killer robots was something we only had to worry about from the Corpus, previously. And never on this scale. That spelled danger. After all, nobody relied on Void energy quite so heavily as my fellow Tenno.

So was I being targeted, or was this simply circumstance? How willing was I to risk my safety on one possibility over another?

I crossed my arms and turned away from the ancient cityscape.

"I think we need to reach the bottom of this," I finally said.

"I agree," Yuya said simply. "But for now, laying low until we can get some help is what we need to prioritise."

I considered arguing for a moment, but in the end I thought better of it. As important as the answers might be, I had little doubt that the work itself would be a chore. Another standard espionage mission: an infiltration and then extraction of the data. If the prototypes were just roaming about underground, I couldn't imagine how harsh the security measures could possibly be. It wouldn't necessitate my talents. I was happy enough to leave that to somebody else, so long as the job got done.

Besides, I knew Yuya was right. We would be unable to relay this news to any of our allies if we were forced away from the Orbiter. What was the likelihood that we could get a message out while on the run? My best bet was to stay safe for the moment, and wait until either Yuya restored communications, or something needed to be obtained to make that happen.

Whenever that was.

"How likely is it that the communications array can be repaired with what we have on hand?" I asked quietly.

Yuya's tone was reassuring, at least.

"Transmissions can be restored, Operator. The repairs to that segment have what they need. It's just going to take time."

I nodded approvingly, feeling a hint of relief. At least one thing was working out in our favour.

"That's acceptable. Do you have an estimate?"

"Could be faster, could be slower. I think it'll be somewhere between half a day and a full day."

"Then let us hope the Grineer don't stumble upon us first," I sighed.

With nothing else to do for the moment, my attention turned to my physical comfort.

It was getting warm. I was still wet, so a little sun was welcome, but this was a tad too hot for my tastes. I crossed my arms and tapped my elbow in thought. Was it possible that my body had grown maladjusted to the outdoors from all my time inside? After all, my slumber under the ice had been substantial, and after my awakening all my time was spent in the conditioned atmosphere of my Orbiter. Maybe my body had become more sensitive to non-neutral environments.

Could I be in need of more exercise? ...No. No, it wasn't me that was at fault. It was the situation that was wrong. The sun was surely too bright today.

"Is there anything else you need, Yuya?" I asked. If there was anything I could do to expedite the process, I was happy enough to oblige.

"Just time, Operator."

That, unfortunately, was not something I could provide her with. Only our enemies could grant her that now. It looked like it was to be more waiting.

Fine then. I glanced about for a place to cool off. The leafy titan that snaked its way through this building shaded most of the rooftop like a brown and green sunflower, but during my pacing I had inadvertently wandered towards the unsheltered 'pistil'. I could have headed back to the side I had come from, but after a moment of thought I decided to settle for somewhere closer.

There was a nice concrete recess just to my left. The foliage had curved in such a way that I could enjoy the shade without getting leaves in my face. I decided that was to be the spot. When I reached it, I wasted no time in sliding into a seated position. The concrete was surprisingly warm against my back, considering the cover, but it was still a pleasant enough choice.

"How progresses the exploration?" I asked once I was comfortable.

"Of the caverns? The MOAs haven't met anything of note yet. No extra robots," Yuya joked.

I huffed. "No resources either, though."

"These tunnels run pretty deep, Operator. Might still find some," said Yuya.

That was as good as I was going to get, I supposed.

"Let me know if anything changes," I conceded.

Entrusting my bodyweight to the tepid concrete, I leaned back all the way. It was a little dusty, but that didn't bother me.

I pulled at my fingers and massaged my aching palms. Briefly, I toyed with the idea of testing my connection to the Void. Just a little twist and Void energy would coat my hands. The connection to that plane felt strong—normal. Whatever the mechanism of this wide area nullification, it didn't seem to have impacted my own connection. The nullifiers of the Corpus had never managed that either. That this technology still bore that limitation was heartening in a way. At least that one weakness was shared.

In the end, I decided against it. Whatever I did was sure to risk attention, and I didn't want that for now. Not until I was sure we could bear the consequences.

That didn't leave a lot for me to do then. I could explore the surface on my own, so long as I paced myself and took care to stay hidden. I could return to the Orbiter where it was arguably safer. Or I could stay here for a little while and dry off in the shade.

I couldn't help but be struck with how odd this place was. My gaze idly trailed from one mammoth crawler vine to another. The air was surprisingly clean. The readout for my rebreather was lacking any of the usual toxins that I expected from Earth, and I could probably take it off if I so desired.

I decided that I did. Reaching behind my head, I pulled at the fasteners beneath my hair. Gingerly, I pulled away the lower half of my mask and took a small breath. No horrible burning sensations yet.

The breathable atmosphere around the Plains of Eidolon had been maintained by some sort of atmospheric control. That kind of technology had been common in the old empire, but not so much anymore. Against all odds, somehow one of the Orokin Towers had survived the tests of war and time, and like many of the remnant wonders of the Orokin Era, a settlement and uniquely dependent way of life had emerged around it. It was a small miracle.

This was not the Plains of Eidolon. The presence of the super plants that had taken over most of the Earth was a good indicator of that. It wasn't even nearby if Yuya's initial estimate of Asia had been accurate. Granted, we had been falling through the troposphere at the time, but ship Cephalons were usually pretty good about these things.

Had the lab that built those robots been constructed here because it was habitable? Or had this place been made habitable when the lab had been constructed here? It wouldn't be the first time the Grineer had attempted to conquer the forests of the Earth. Either way, it ought to represent a precious resource to them. Perhaps not on the same scale as their undersea facilities on Uranus, but large scale atmospheric conditioning didn't come cheap or common. This place should have been swarming with Grineer, but I was yet to find even a trace of their presence in the skies.

Was it not a Grineer project after all? Did they not know about this place? While the Grineer nominally controlled the Earth, I knew of a number of places held by other factions. Was this ruined city perhaps one more?

It was quiet. I could faintly hear the sound of water beneath the whistle of the wind.

For a place that could turn into a hostile bloodbath at the drop of the hat, it was rather peaceful here. Beautiful, even. In my experience, this was true of many places in the universe. Many a mission, some of the most jaw-dropping sights I had ever seen would serve as backdrop to a bloody massacre or a brutal point defence.

Over the last few minutes, my posture had shifted as I sought something more comfortable. With the various sensors set up, Yuya was no longer reliant on the camera mounted on my shoulder, so it had come off me and onto the concrete floor of the rooftop. My rebreather and Oculus had been similarly discarded nearby. Although I had begun sitting upright against the wall, at some point I found myself lying prone on my side, using my right arm as a pillow. It was starting to tingle numbly, but that sensation was a pleasant enough change from the ache of my muscles. From my warm spot on the ground, I stared beyond the edge of the roof and into the ancient city.

Yes. It was beautiful here, and for once I was able to give that the attention it deserved. Perhaps travelling the Origin System in a more peaceful role would have allowed me to appreciate more of those natural wonders. Then again, it hadn't all been the missions; being drunk on Somnus' sweet liquor had a way of getting in the way of true appreciation. Much of what I experienced in the cryopod had felt like a waking dream.

My fingertips ran idly across the rugged surface of the concrete. If there was one thing I had gained from this whole debacle, it was that I had never quite felt so alive before. No, perhaps I had, but certainly not since the Zariman.

I giggled at the thought. Not since the other Void jump accident, in other words.

Even after leaving Lua, awake and alert in my Transference chamber, there had been nothing like today.

I lay there lazily, lost in my thoughts until Yuya's modulated voice sounded quietly from my nearby Oculus.

"Operator. Can you hear me?"

I wondered what she would do if I stayed silent. I rolled onto my back. Without turning my head, I groped in the general direction of the Oculus until my fingers found it, and then brought it over my eyes.

"I can, Yuya. What might be the problem?"

"Sensors found something, but they aren't resources," said Yuya. "Looks like more of those robots in… pretty much every direction."

What?

"What?" I asked, alarmed.

"Ah, well, they're not really doing anything, so calm down a little," she clarified. "They're kind of just… milling about."

I slapped on my rebreather and leapt to my feet. Ugh! Tried to leap to my feet, actually, but in the end I had to roll onto my knees first to get up.

"They're on the surface?" I asked to be sure.

"And in force," she confirmed. "No signs of the Grineer, or any possible handlers. They're just… around."

That was a lot of pauses over the last sixty seconds. Not that I could blame her. Today was quite a day.

Where exactly were we? And what on Earth could these mysterious engineers be gaining by letting their prototypes rove about outside? Was this some sort of data collection experiment?

However I considered the problem, I simply could not wrap my head around it.

I decided I needed to see for myself.

"Can you send me the feed?"

Yuya agreed and soon I was watching a number of silhouettes identical to the earlier robots, simply milling about as Yuya described. There really was no better way of putting it. They meandered in slow circles without truly going anywhere, and were otherwise idling away.

"I think I might have a look," I eventually said.

"Operator…"

Sensing the imminent nagging, I injected as much finality into my voice as I could and pre-empted her.

"It doesn't sit well with me, all these unknowns—" And oh, how many there were. "—We'll be safer once we have at least a clue about what's going on."

"I really don't think―"

"Oh, lighten up," I grumbled. "I'm just going to dip into the Void a little and have a look around. Nobody will even know I'm here."

Before Yuya could say anything else, I was already sprinting to my left and making for the edge. Without the impediment posed by the darkness of the cavern, I had less need to be as careful with my movement. Unlike the controlled launches from one rock in the darkness to another, this time I was letting gravity do as it pleased with me. It was only when I was fast approaching my destination that I sank into the Void to bleed off velocity.

The ruin that I had chosen for the sensors had once been the tallest building around. I wasn't sure what its purpose had been in life, but the architects had decided to make one half of it two thirds as tall as the other. That lower rooftop was what I was stepping out of the Void onto now.

From that lower launch point, I needed to make my way northwards across the rooftops of a dozen more buildings. In fact, I was making better time than one might expect sans Warframe in unknown territory. It was only thanks to those sensors that I was confident the rooftop route was clear.

Aside from one mishap with a crumbling rooftop garden, my journey was fairly uneventful. After a minute or so, I found myself looking down at a clearing between city blocks that expanded east and west into the distance. In the middle was what used to be an elevated automobile highway that had probably once stretched along the entire length of the clearing.

Now, the ancient motorway found itself abruptly truncated by a tree that was massive even by the standards of this neighbourhood, beyond which the overpass itself was crumbling ruins. Only the support pillars that would have once held the road aloft remained, rising at even intervals out of a small stream that extended east into the distance. I thought it might have ended in a lake.

I turned my focus back to my immediate surroundings. Squinting, down in front of me, I could just make out small figures waddling around in the stream that continued beneath the overpass. I dropped onto my stomach, reducing my visible profile. Only once I was confident I wouldn't be spotted did I enlarge the visuals on my Oculus.

What I was seeing didn't make things any clearer. From the earlier feed they hadn't seemed to be doing anything. Now that I was seeing them in person, I determined… that they weren't doing anything in particular.

"They're really just idling…" I muttered under my breath.

Yuya's response came equally quietly. "Perhaps it's water testing."

Water testing? The water was barely knee deep. It was clear, too, from what I could see of the parts where the sunlight reached, not muddied or visibly polluted. Would this really suffice for water testing?

"Or perhaps they're on stand by," Yuya continued. Stand by…

"The… 'eye pieces' are glowing yellow," I realised.

"Were they not before?"

"They were red," I confirmed. The red was different enough to the yellow of Grineer face plates that I remembered.

"It's a common enough UX element. Red for active, yellow for stand by," said Yuya. That made as much sense as anything, I supposed. I wanted to get closer, but the chance that I would be seen was too high for comfort. Not my comfort, specifically, but Yuya's.

"I'm going to watch them for a while longer," I explained in a low voice. "We'll see if anything changes."

A sigh. "Just stay out of sight."

I got the distinct impression that although she didn't think much of the plan she couldn't find a reason to reject it outright. With Yuya's tacit consent in hand, I settled down for the long haul. It was a little ironic that I was pushing for more idling - usually I was trying to get out of it. But somehow the circumstances of today, and the environment around me were putting me in a contemplative mood.

Scratching my head without presenting too large of a profile, I lay there and continued to observe the robots. No patterns, as far as I could tell. Within a few minutes it was clear that they weren't wandering about following any discernible route. It wasn't a routine then.

About thirty minutes in a moose of all things approached them and was ignored entirely. It was around then that I picked up some rubble and threw it at them, which earned me a vicious scolding. I had dipped into the Void the moment it left my hand, so they wouldn't have seen me anyway. Honestly, I wasn't stupid. In the end it was a moot point, however, as the robots didn't so much as look up.

"Alright, are you satisfied? Come back."

I was tempted to make my way down and observe them more closely. Perhaps something would only become more obvious from up close. In the end, reason triumphed over fancy. Although their behaviour was interesting, it wasn't worth the risk. For now, at least. Their secrets would be revealed to my eyes soon enough, whether by my Warframe or another's.

Until then, I would leave them well enough alone. Or at least poke at them from a respectable distance.

"I wouldn't mind watching them for a while longer," I responded.

There was a beat where there was nothing but the sound of the rooftop winds.

"I really want you to come back," she said with some impatience. That had me concerned.

"Why the urgency?" I asked. "I'm still safe here, aren't I? Is something going on?"

The silence lasted longer this time. My concern had begun to grow when she responded.

"Operator, there's something you should know, and I think you'd better be somewhere safe when you hear it. And maybe sitting down," she added.

That didn't sound good.

"What?"

"Just come back for now."

"All right, all right."

I briskly made my way back the way I came, from rooftop to rooftop—not forgetting to avoid the crumbling one—before making my way back to where the sensors were.

"All right, look, it's safe enough here, right?" I pressed. "What's going on?"

"I've been scanning what I can of the celestial bodies from low atmosphere, and I've found something weird..."

"And?"

What was with all the evasion? It was starting to drive me mad.

"I need you to stay calm when you hear what I'm going to say next, okay?"

"Out with it already," I snapped, although I hadn't meant to.

"Lua is in one piece. No signs of habitation at all. I don't think we're in our universe. If we are, then it's not our time."

I stood still and ruminated over what Yuya was trying to tell me.

"Lua is whole?"

"It's whole, Operator. No golden rings. No fragmentation. And not just whole—like I said, the place is almost untouched. Uninhabited. No signs of construction, and no ivory forests. At least from what I've been able to observe."

When I said nothing, Yuya continued more softly.

"I think it was the Void-jump accident."

"That… I-it…"

Don't let the stuttering fool you. I wasn't so easily frightened. I had simply, and wisely, diverted the bulk of my focus and comprehension towards the puzzle. I swallowed thickly, and took a deep breath—the oxygen would help my thinking. Maybe a few more deep breaths, just to really get the oxygen in.

An untouched Lua? Entirely untouched? T-that did rather sound like another universe.

The theory was sound, of course! It had been proven mathematically centuries ago. In fact, it was only under the assumption that other realities existed did any of our Void calculations align with the results observed in experiments.

More breaths. More oxygen.

I was a little fuzzy on the specifics, of course—I had the cryosleep to blame for that—but I was still passingly familiar with Void physics. Other universes explained Entrati's Law of Untime, and plenty of other observed phenomena, but none of those observed phenomena had ever included tripping into another dimension.

…At least as far as I knew.

It was plausible. It was very plausible.

"Operator? Operator! Hari!"

Right. Yuya.

"Yes, well," I managed, oddly out of breath despite all the breathing, "perhaps the others were onto something with those dedicated Tenno rails."

"Well then, I suppose that means we've got more exploring to do," I said with a little pep in my voice.

Yuya was silent again, although I couldn't guess why.

"Just like that?" Oh, she sounded dumbfounded. "You're handling this a lot better than I expected."

I snorted.

"I've always been a woman of action first and foremost."

"You're barely a metre tall."

"And already I possess mental strength, clarity of thought, and physical beauty surpassing those who are twice my size," I replied archly.

The scoff I was expecting never came.

"Whatever you say, Operator… I'm just really glad you're okay."

My cheeks grew a little warm at the sentimentality, but I didn't comment on it. Instead, I changed the topic.

"After these revelations, I suppose we have a little more to learn about than just our immediate surroundings," I said. It wasn't just this mysterious patch of land anymore. In fact, it wasn't even so mysterious now. Our Earth had been polluted and toxic, but surely there were possibilities where that wasn't the case.

Perhaps all this megaflora was quite natural here. Honestly, with evolution, who could say?

"There was a lake of some kind, east north-east of here. I'm going to take a look."

"What? No, being in a new universe makes this less safe," she argued.

"Does it really?" I challenged. "No Lua means no Orokin. No Grineer, or Corpus, or Sentients."

"There might be something worse."

"Maybe," I allowed. That was the thing about the absolute unknown. You never knew what exactly you didn't know about. "But all I've seen so far are underwhelming robots with paper thin armour. I think, on average, that already makes the observed universe much safer than home."

"And all the ruined buildings?" she shot.

I honestly didn't have an answer to that. Perhaps this city was simply abandoned and left for nature to reclaim. Or perhaps there had once been some great war here, and nobody wanted to move into the wreckage after it was over. The concrete was scoured too cleanly by the elements to hint at what might have happened.

"I'll cloak myself in front of those robots. The ones with the yellow eyes. If they don't react, we can be fairly confident that the Void is a functioning safety net for me."

"And if it isn't, and they hurt you?"

That one I did have an answer to. "The samples that I brought back. They weren't powered on Void energy, right?"

"No. Where are you going with this?" she said.

"It could be that whatever civilization is flourishing here hasn't harnessed it yet. The Wall of Lohk might be 'thicker' here, and they never found their way beyond it."

Yuya grunted. "And if so, it would explain why your Warframe is running dry too."

"Exactly." I beamed. "Let me try it."

Although it took a little persuasion, after a few minutes she finally folded. Yuya was fine company, but I could do without her nattering. Honestly, such a worrier. It was why I kept up a positive front, even if my true feelings on our situation were… complex. But for now, I tried to focus on the part of me that was giddy.

With that, I began darting my way back to the overpass.

"Oh, and Yuya?" I asked between jumps.

"Yes, Operator?"

"Build me a way to the surface. I want to be able to bring my Warframe out."

"Sure. I'll get right on that." I thought I heard a smile in her tone, which brought a little warmth to my chest.

When I arrived, the robots were still doing the same thing they had been doing the last time. I dashed down behind a large slab of concrete. Once certain that I was out of their sight, I surfaced the Void to allow my reserves to refill. When I had control over the butterflies in my belly, and I felt absolutely ready, I dashed again in front of the robots.

I had been ready to dart away the moment anything happened, but the robots remained impassive as always. Of course, this hardly proved that the Void was effective in cloaking me. I was very certain that it did, considering that it had worked on everything in my universe, nothing had given me reason to believe mastery of the Void in this universe, and the fact that the earlier robots had been hostile.

But perhaps these robots would have remained passive even if I wasn't cloaked. Heh. Fat chance of that though, right?

Satisfied that my safety was assured, I returned to the rooftop.

"You see?" I smiled, both from the satisfaction of being right, and the rush of adrenaline from the risk I had just taken.

"I see," Yuya sighed. "I suppose I'm convinced. Well? What now?"

I looked to my right, far off into the distance. There was that lake, far away. Where there was water, there was life, right? That was true for pretty much everything that had evolved on the Earth. Even if some sort of bipedal lizard folk had evolved to be the dominant species here, that much would still hold true.

"I'm going to follow this stream. I do believe that's a lake in the east. Where there's water, there's people, right?"

Yuya hummed. "Well, no, but I suppose that's as valid a direction as any. I'm going to fabricate some more sensors."

"Oh, do you need help setting them up?" It made sense. The one sensor had been enough when we still had a sense of where and what to expect, but that had been thrown out the window. I wanted some more sensors up too.

Imagine my disbelief when she scoffed at me!

"I think I'll use an Osprey instead," she said wryly.

"Fine," I calmly said. "Use an Osprey if you don't want someone to do the job properly."

Yuya laughed, but I ignored her and followed the stream from the rooftops. It was enticingly clear. If I had been more confident in its safety, I would have loved to wash up in it. There was still dirt and dust in my hair, and my prided twin-tails must have been a sorry sight.

It would have taken the edge off of the heat too, which had become overbearing enough that I swapped from the rooftops to the top floor corridors. Yuya hadn't been pleased. Because of the visual clutter of tight spaces, it made it more difficult to perform Void manoeuvres on the fly. To placate her I slowed down my pace, making sure my footholds were stable before setting my weight on them physically.

Instead of feeling stuffy, the openness of the ruins allowed the wind to blow mostly unimpeded. It was shaded in the buildings, but never dark. I had Yuya, the flora, and the sparkling stream to accompany me. Perhaps it was also because of the leisurely tempo, but the journey started to feel almost pleasant. We chattered about nothing in particular as I continued onwards from building to building.

That might have continued until we reached the lake if I hadn't spotted movement behind one of the concrete pillars. Slowly dropping to the floor to conceal myself, and zooming in my sights, I spotted a surprise.

"A human…?"

In the shade of one of the support pillars that would have once held aloft the rest of the highway, there was a girl just sitting there and… fishing. A rod held in both hands, a line that fed into the water, and a familiar look of drowsy boredom on her face. She was definitely fishing!

"She's not human," Yuya said suddenly. What? "Scan her."

I did as she suggested. As described, that wasn't a human. At least not a baseline human. The heat distribution was all wrong, and if I wasn't mistaken, it was very, very heavy.

"Do you think it's a cyborg?" I asked, eyes still glued to the fisher.

"Incredible. Even the skin is synthetic. Large scale augmentation without sacrificing the appearance of a normal person."

I hummed. "So we know that humans probably exist in this universe, else she wouldn't look like that. We also have an example of divergent technological development."

"Looks like," Yuya agreed. "Now what to do about it?"

I gave the cyborg another once over. She didn't look like she'd be hostile. Honestly, she looked more like a farmer from some backwater settlement more than anything. I didn't spot a weapon either. It was a little odd that she was still fishing here after our crash, but…

"I'll go say hello."

"What?!"

"All right, all right," I placatingly said. "Honestly, you're such a worrier, Yuya."

"Your safety is my mandate, Operator."

"I'll observe her from the Void first. All right?"

A sigh. "Alright. Just be careful."

"I will, I will." I waved her off.

"And leave your camera up here, okay? I want eyes up top."

Crossing planes again, I shot off the ruined corridor. Down across the clearing until I was a two dozen metres away, hidden from view by a large stone.

"No signs of movement," Yuya whispered through my Oculus. I nodded and prepared to move again.

This time I dashed until I was just out of range of a hypothetical spear thrust before I slowly walked towards her, my body still beyond the Wall of Lohk.

She looked entirely human, down to her little mannerisms while fishing. Even after watching long enough that I needed to replenish my energy, I still hadn't felt anything unusual about her. Whatever these augmentations were, they were very good.

I continued looking her over. Still fishing. Still no weapon. Still looking half asleep. I made a trip back to grab Yuya's camera now that I was confident, but seeing her from up close hadn't granted Yuya any revelations either.

Back to my rock to re-energise myself, not really making any progress. Honestly, it was probably time to reveal myself. Surely Yuya would be satisfied that I had been careful already.

The earlier robots had been hostile, but I doubted their creators had expected someone to come crashing down through the earth. There was nothing to suggest yet that they were hostile to me in general. And the fisher could be unaffiliated with them anyhow.

It was a new world. Without being able to get back into orbit, my ability to gather information on my own was severely limited. My Warframe wasn't working properly either.

Why not just ask her for the information instead? She looked so ordinary and harmless. And it could very well be my best shot at finding out what was going on. I just had to do a little smooth talking.

I'd seen this done on Venus by 'Rail Agents' dozens of times. How hard could it be?

Besides, she was fishing. If there was anything interacting with my fellow Tenno had taught me, it was that if you liked to fish, you were probably an old fogey at heart. That spoke well of my chances of a peaceful first meeting with her.

I gave a mental shrug and stepped out into the open.

"Operator?!" Yuya cried in alarm, but I ignored her for the moment.

I approached the lone woman by the pond. After a moment of thought, I adopted the cultured lilt so common amongst the smugglers of Belisama Vallis. Assuming that this was a universe that diverged in the past, the older vernacular could improve my odds of communication.

"How fare thee, milady? Might my humble self impose upon you for an update on the Origin System?"

"Oohatawp, guehrlllll? Kan a plaeyehrrrr geht dhuhh lawdown awn dhuhh awrihgihn seestehm?"

Mertensia paused for a moment to consider what she was seeing and hearing.

In front of her was a twin-tailed android, standing a full head shorter than her. Already, that was notable because Mertensia's model was short.

She was the shortest android around back when she still led an understrength Resistance cell. She was the shortest android around when those new YoRHa types had started wandering outside her camp. She was the shortest android around even when YoRHa started fielding those tiny infowar models—Scanners, she thought they were called.

It was a consequence of being descended from a 7th millenium design, back when the Army of Humanity had lost control of their primary rhenium mines. The original had seen enough success that it spawned a lineage of iterations persisting to the modern day. Mertensia's specific model dated back to the 8th Machine War.

It was a strange and rare day when she met an android she had a few centimetres on, let alone a full head like this one. There were odd details beyond the height, too.

For one thing, the girl was wearing a distinctive horned visor that hid her eyes from view. It was wholly out of line with any of the equipment that Mertensia had ever seen over the centuries. For another thing, it was unusual to meet an android with such... vivid hair. Unless Mertensia's eyes were fooling her, the girl's otherwise black hair was glowing blue.

Finally, of course, was the language.

From appearances alone, it would seem that she had been built either very recently, or a long time ago. It wasn't unheard of to reestablish contact with survivors from previous wars. Factoring in the odd language though, and Mertensia was almost certain this was a case of the latter. Wherever this girl had popped out from, she was positively ancient.

"I can't understand you," Mertensia replied slowly.

"Oohat?"

"I don't—I can't understand you."

"Awww."

The little android made a hum of understanding, before holding out an open hand with an oddly unpleasant look of confidence. It was almost smug, somehow. On her palm sat a few pieces of metal, ten odd or so. Little golden rings whose circumferences supported unknown three-pronged emblems of some sort.

"Faw yoo, baebeh. Ayent naw thaeng. Dhawnt bee shahy nahw."

She gestured with her open hand, insistent, still looking some irksome combination of brashly confident and self-satisfied.

"Is this… Is this for me?"

Mertensia thought it over. Was this girl trying to bribe her? Mertensia had no idea what these little metallic emblems were supposed to be, but judging from the girl's queer behaviour, she seemed positively certain of their value.

That said, they didn't seem to have any immediately apparent practical use. Nor did they match the aesthetics of the Army of Humanity.

A relic from the Age of Restoration, perhaps? From back when androids still constructed reproductions of human legacies, like the buildings that stood in ruin around them. It would certainly explain why the strange android seemed so assured of their worth. Perhaps the girl herself was a survivor from the time of the Human Heritage Restoration movement. Stranger things had been known to happen.

Come to think of it, hadn't she noticed the ground rumbling during her nap earlier? Perhaps the girl had been assigned to some underground installation, underneath one of these ruins. The Age of Restoration had been rather keen on secret bunkers, thanks to their popularity with Humanity. A number of them were only unearthed ages later after damage during the alien invasion rendered their entrances dysfunctional. She herself had settled in one for years.

Mertensia plucked a single emblem from the girl's hand. Bringing it up to eye level, bright in the sunlight, she realised how smooth the surface of the metal was. If this really was some ancient relic, then either the alloy was very high on the Mohs scale, or these tokens had been meticulously cared for. That, or it had been safe from the elements, in a bunker.

Of course, there was also the possibility that Mertensia's ancient android idea was entirely mistaken, but if these tokens were newly fabricated, what on earth were they supposed to be? They weren't responding to her IF probes.

"Odd," she murmured.

The girl was still waiting there. Expectantly. A sigh escaped her. Mertensia supposed she could figure out what these were later. She swiped the rest of the emblems off the girl's upturned palm with one hand and took the now empty palm in the other.

Forestalling any further attempts to speak her odd language, Mertensia tugged the girl down the ruined street.

"Look, I can't—I can't actually understand you, Miss. It's not any of the languages I've been installed with, and I can't even begin to guess what era you're from."

The girl gave her a questioning look, but seemed happy enough to be pulled along. Taking that a sign of encouragement, Mertensia continued speaking, maybe more to herself than the girl.

"We do have specialists for that sort of thing, though. Archeologists. Communications specialists brought in for the few times contact with, err, with surviving androids from previous landings are reestablished. They'll know what to do with you."

Mertensia nodded with more confidence now.

"They'll definitely know what to do with you."

The girl nodded too.

Mertensia had doubts on how much she even really understood, but a nod was a nod. It had been for millenia. And at least this little android seemed agreeable enough, even if her choice in clothing was strange. And everything else about her too.

That was how she found herself guiding a strange android by the hand towards the nearby Resistance camp on her fishing day. They made good progress, in reasonably companionable silence, while Mertensia looked wistfully at the stream, thinking of all the fish she wouldn't be catching.

The girl tensed for a moment, breaking her out of her reverie. Ah, machine lifeforms.

"Don't worry about these ones," she said reassuringly. "They're docile."

The girl muttered something in her own language, looking suspiciously at Mertensia, but when the machine lifeforms proved unaggressive she settled down.

After that it was only a kilometre or so until they reached the lake.

Once upon a time… or rather, a little over two years ago, Mertensia had been the leader of her own Resistance cell.

Her cell had been understrength. The whole camp had totalled only fifteen androids; that was less than half of the usual cell size of thirty.

Still, it was enough for her outpost. A tiny camp, hidden in an underground bunker, whose entrance was in the middle of nowhere. Her group had been neglected and mostly ignored, by friend and foe alike, but she found that she didn't hate that.

Being stationed at that Resistance camp had amounted to firing warning shots at Machine Lifeforms once a fortnight or so. Her cell spent the other thirteen days playing slap kabaddi in their make-shift arena, or heading up surface-side to fish in the ocean.

It was a good life. Better than being 'productive', like her days slogging through one of the earlier Machine Wars. During the rare thunderstorm when everybody felt like staying inside, they had just enough people for a game of standar kabaddi instead. It was idyllic.

There had been murmurs of concern when Anemone had moved in. The leader of the neighbouring cell had apparently come straight from some brutal mission out in Hawaii. Anemone was quickly assigned as leader of a newly formed camp, just a day's walk away. Everybody had been concerned that she was here to gather strength for another push, but thankfully nothing had changed and—

"Ooft!"

Oh. Mertensia helped the little android over a particularly steep crest before returning to her thoughts.

But yes. Safe in their underground base, everyone had been hoping they would go forgotten forever. They had been for decades, after all. If it meant that High Command would also forget to include her group on some high risk operation, it was well worth it.

But then not even two years later, YoRHa appeared. A group of gung-ho elite androids who were supposedly sent here by the leaders of humanity themselves. Mertensia hadn't known any humans were still around. The newcomers in their fancy monochrome uniform had wasted no time in linking up with all the local Resistance elements, spearheading all sorts of new initiatives.

Suddenly Mertensia's superiors remembered that there were fifteen perfectly functional androids nearby. They had been ordered to evacuate their home and report to Anemone for a briefing. Poor Lilium had cried. The fifteen of them had turned up grim-faced, resigned to their fates, but instead they were met with a miracle, although they hadn't known it at the time.

Somehow, through some miscommunication or other, High Command was under the impression that Mertenasia's cell was some kind of elite, autonomous scout and saboteur team, suited for deep, long-term infiltration behind enemy lines. As for Anemone, she'd never even heard of them before.

As Anemone relayed, humanity had taken refuge on the moon at some point, and they were in need of more resources. Thus, YoRHa were shipping containers of resources to the moon, which necessitated a secure logistical line.

That was where Mertensia's cell came in. They were being assigned to monitor the old road between Anemone's camp and the entrance to the forested region up north. The first was now the base of operations for groundside YoRHa in the Pacific theatre, while the second was where all moonbound supplies in the region were eventually launched from.

The kicker was that Mertensia's unit wasn't even in charge of protecting the supplies themselves. That was left to YoRHa, and her superiors didn't want her crew anywhere near the shipments. Apparently YoRHa were the much more powerful fighters, and her superiors wanted her cell away from combat where necessary.

Instead, their specific mission was to utilise their 'talents' as hidden, long term 'bushmen', entrenched deep in the wilderness permanently. The only explanation as to what exactly they were supposed to be doing had been something along the lines of 'We defer it to your expert judgement. Do what you think is best'.

While initially distraught, the fifteen of them had quickly learnt that their orders were a blank cheque to do nothing. Few machine lifeforms actually wandered that way, and those that did tended to be docile. The odd aggressive ones could be picked off from afar, up on the many vantage points the ruins afforded.

Very quickly they were returning to their lifestyle of fishing and kabaddi. While the catches in the stream were different from the ocean, the changes were novel and fresh. The loss of their old home had been a blow, but it had been small and underground. Now they had their pick of city ruins to choose from, and it hadn't taken long to build new houses on the top floors of the northern block.

While Mertensia and her team were nominally reporting to Anemone now, their 'autonomous' role meant that Mertensia only checked in with Anemone once a month. Coincidentally, that day was supposed to be tomorrow.

While it was rare that Mertensia reported to Anemone in person, it had happened a few times. She could only hope that Anemone wouldn't be too peeved at her for dumping this stranger on her. Mertensia really didn't need anybody looking too closely into what it was she did around here.