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“Well then, I believe they call me just ‘the robot’ here.” He waved a hand at the welders, each looking away lest the strange half-mechanical half-human amalgam perceive them more than he already had. “If I’d known you were going to be at the tower I would have brought your gift!”

“Gift?” Fenrir repeated. “Should I be scared?”

“Oh, not at all. Not at all. But alas, it must remain a surprise until we return to the palace—look!”

The antenna was above them now, cutting a long line of shadow over Fenrir and the welders. Fenrir jumped into action at the same time they did, reaching up to take the base and guide it towards the platform.

“Right there is fine!” Bastion produced his own set of tools from a utility belt at his hips, reaching for the wires and beginning to fit them together, one by one. Against the gusting wind they held the antenna steady, and for the first time since he’d climbed to the top of the tower, he realized the kind of view it afforded.

He’d been this high up once before—when he’d flown that plane across the Wasteland towards a fate he should not have walked away from, defying the impossible for what he thought would be the last time in his life.

Far below, pine trees swayed, deep green gone hazy in the distance, mountain dropping off into steep slopes where rock jutted out before getting swallowed once again by more pines. And far beyond that, he could almost see where the Earth evened flat, where the fields turned from green to golden to gray at the edge of the Rim, and beyond that, a place he’d never seen before. Never knew existed. A place where Orpheus waited for rescue. Waited for him.

What the hell am I doing up here? he thought. Why in all hells am I not out there?

“Ah, there we are!”

Fenrir jerked back around, blinking down at the tangle of connected wires, the antenna finally moving again, this time lowering to cap off the support plate.

“Shields on!” a welder yelled and a face shield was pushed into Fenrir’s hand. He tugged it on despite being forced to let go of the antenna, relying on his safety clip to hold him in place.

Bolts were hammered, then secured, sparks flying while the welders applied their torches and then, just like that, the antenna was in place.

“Spectacular, isn’t it!” Bastion shouted into the wind.

Fenrir thought it looked rather like an enormous spear than anything mechanical, and by the time his boots hit the ground that impression had only grown.

Like it’s the sky we’re going to tear open next, rather than the ground.

“Now it’s time for the fun part,” Bastion said with a conspiratorial whisper. Fenrir followed him to the small control room they’d set up off the side of the tower, Red’s laptop already inside, a pile of small black screens beside it. “Let’s see if she got the programming right, shall we?”

Bastion plugged the laptop into a box Fenrir hadn’t paid much attention to these last few weeks, cables running to the stack of computers lining the wall, all lit with varying tiny lights of green and gold.

“Just a few commands should do it…” Bastion typed something into a terminal window, then rose from his seat to poke his head out the door, squinting up at the sky while the…the antenna moved?

It went slow, groaning on its elbow while it spun up to point at a spot in the sky that looked no different than any other.

“Fantastic! Now to pray the one we choose remains operational.”

“One?” Fenrir repeated. “One what?”

“A satellite, of course!”

Fenrir blinked and Bastion laughed.

“Why, for the internet, my dashing liege. Red is restoring the internet!” Then Red’s laptop erupted into a tinny little chirrup, and Bastion squealed with delight. “Take this, let’s see if we can’t connect a call.”

The flat, black screen Bastion handed him was as unassuming as it was small. Fenrir had seen these before at the Lab, small computers like Red’s laptop and those workstations at the Stacks. But like a window into another world, this one came to life, lights forging a picture from the darkness. A picture that moved like the films Fenrir’s father liked to restore. Except this wasn’t a film.

It was Red.

And she was under attack.

Chapter XXX

The Call

“Fenrir?” Red shrieked, dark eyes rimmed white. “How the fuck is your timing this good?”