hen the train tracks finally came into view, shimmering beneath rust-red mesas on the horizon, Phoebe and Micah felt no victory. A ravenous hole had yawned open within them, a profound emptiness worse than hunger or thirst. They kept to the brass thickets that sprouted alongside the rails, remaining out of sight in case a train came rumbling past. The three of them had not exchanged a word since the oasis. As they walked in unison, their feet scuffing rhythmically in the brush, Phoebe grimly recalled their marching song.

“Meridian cast off all her bonds

When Creighton Albright forged the bronze

With ball of lead and sword of steel

We’ll crush our foes beneath our heel…”

Their childhood rhyme was a cruel joke. Creighton Albright’s face gazed down from lofty statues throughout Meridian and graced every single coin. He was idolized as the greatest inventor of all time, father of the modern age.

But the Trinka told the real truth.

Those nuts and seeds in the Chokarai didn’t just look like hardware. It was no coincidence that the rust slug she had sniped Micah with resembled an electrical plug. And of course the chraida had been so eerily familiar. Their wheeled clamp hands and the lithe grace with which they swooped on their zip lines were the very essence of Cable Bikes.

Their dying screams still clawed at her memories.

The vetchels and the trelligs, every mehkan that Dollop had shown them and every one they had yet to meet, from the kite birds overhead to the brass reeds underfoot—these were Albright’s true discovery. He was no inventor. Every gadget she had ever desired, every thrilling new convenience, the flashy vehicles and the magnificent buildings, they all belonged to Mehk.

Phoebe’s city, her country, her very life stood on a metal foundation built from the bones of a murdered world.

Everything is a lie.

“It’s not fair,” muttered Phoebe.

They looked at her.

“It’s not fair,” she repeated.

“Yeah,” Micah said to Dollop. “Why don’t you guys try and stop them?”

“Th-they have CHAR,” he whispered helplessly.

“Say what?” asked Micah.

“Un-undying d-d-death. It’s a t-terrible weapon that dissolves metal forever. Where CHAR has been, th-there’s no life, only bli-i-ights that no mehkan can ever, ever approach. Ever.”

“But I mean, there’s gotta be millions more of you than them,” Micah argued. “Why is nobody fighting back?”

“W-w-we are. The Covenant is sworn to defend Mehk.”

“Come on, Dollop. I’m bein’ serious.”

“I—I—I am too. Very serious. I never jest about th-the Children of Ore. Their sacred mission is to, um, return us to the W-W-Way.”

“Then where are they?” Phoebe asked.

“Th-they are, it’s just that…Well, they are a secret army, s-s-so they have to be…secret,” he tried to explain. Micah just rolled his eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Phoebe said. “How did the Foundry take over like this?”

Dollop sighed wearily. “The axials t-teach that many phases ago, the Way united M-M-Mehk. W-we were at peace. Uh, but we strayed from Makina’s p-plan. The Ona, may her golden ember blaze, tried to w-warn us. She—er, the Ona, that is—was the Great Engineer’s most faithful m-m-messenger. She told us not to, um, f-forsake the Way. But we did.”

His voice quavered. “We t-t-turned our back on Makina. That is why the b-bleeders came. Why the CHAR came. The bleeders k-killed the Ona, and when w-we needed Makina most of all, She was gone.”

He was on the verge of tears but maintained his composure.

“It-it-it’s our fault. W-we broke the heart of our dearest M-M-Mother of Ore. If we hadn’t shun-n-ned Her, She would have protected us. But Sh-She left, and the Great Decay began. The interlocking harmony She sh-showed to us rusted away. N-now mehkans fight mehkans. Hate an-and fear drive us apart. We have all, um, forgotten our f-f-function. Now Her s-sacred machine is being taken away from us piece by piece!”

Dollop ran off ahead, unable to take it anymore. Phoebe considered going after him, but she hadn’t the faintest idea what she could say.

“I wanna know what really happened,” Micah mused as soon as Dollop was out of earshot.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Dollop’s great and all, but does he really expect us to believe all that Way mumbo-jumbo? Makina and Oona? And the Covenant? Gimme a break! He’s nuttier than an outhouse rat. Nuh-uh, I wanna know what the Doc’s got to say about all this.”

“My dad’s not a part of it.”

“You kiddin’? He’s a big shot at the Foundry. They’re all in it together!”

“But they kidnapped him. He did something to make Goodwin mad.”

“So?”

“So that means that he’s against them. I’m telling you, he’s not a part of it. I know him better than anyone. He wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.”

Her face hardened with certainty, and he backed down.

“Maybe,” Micah said with a shrug.

Despite how sure Phoebe sounded, a sliver of doubt remained. All she could think of were her father’s long absences. And every time he returned, the smell of smoky grit and iron—the breath of Mehk—clung to him like a shadow, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

The expanding halo of suns sank toward the horizon as the end of the day neared, turning the liquid blue sky raw and enflamed. The amber hills of the brasslands grew piebald and sparse as the travelers neared the mesas. Clustered white formations like crystallized cauliflower forced their way up through the cracked, clay-red ore, dotting the landscape like a fungus.

Because they no longer had much cover, they had to hike on the other side of a ridge to remain out of sight. And that’s when they saw it—a split in the train tracks up ahead. Two separate paths led off into sweltering haze.

“Ain’t that perfect!” Micah huffed as they came to a halt.

Phoebe tried to shake the weariness from her head.

“And it ain’t like the stinkin’ sun’s any help neither. If it would just rise in the east and set in the west like a normal sun, we could at least figure out some kinda direction to head in. But no! In Mehk, it’s gotta set everywhere!”

“B-beautiful, isn’t it?” Dollop gushed. “Sunfall is my fav-v-vorite part of the cycle.”

“Yeah, yippie! It’s just dandy-rific!” Micah hollered.

“Come on,” Phoebe rasped disapprovingly.

“WHAT?” His eyes flashed.

It sure doesn’t take much to set him off, Phoebe thought. She swallowed the dryness choking her throat and struck an even tone.

“Look, I get it. I’m starving too. But we can’t start losing it now. We just have to figure this out.” She saw the heat in his eyes begin to cool. “Preferably soon, before night. I’d rather not be stuck out in the open once it gets dark.”

Micah grumbled and exhaled sharply like a snorting bull.

“Deal?”

He nodded.

Together they assessed their surroundings, but there was nothing to suggest which way to go. Phoebe thought about asking Dollop’s advice, but they couldn’t afford to waste time on another wrong path.

Which left her with a simple choice: right or left.

“What’s that?” Micah said, pointing off in the distance.

Smack-dab between the two sets of train tracks, perched on a far-off ridge, was some sort of structure. It stood alone, huddled in the multiple shadows of the setting suns.

“Whaddya think?” he asked.

She looked to see if there were any better options, but there were none.

“Let’s move fast. There’s nowhere to hide down there if a train comes.”

Micah agreed. They made their way down the slope and glanced along the rails to make sure the coast was clear. The three of them hopped the first beam and crossed the twelve-foot span of track. Phoebe wondered how many had been killed to create this expanse of steel. What mehkan was butchered, its carcass used to construct those massive trains?

As they hurried across the open plain and toward the structure, a gaggle of little iron balls with shifting segments rolled across their path, squeaking like frightened field mice. They zipped around the kids’ feet and vanished into tiny holes in the ground. Dollop slowed his gait and gazed at the bubbly white formations, which were growing in tall stands like piles of giant soapsuds. Many were broken and shattered on the hard, cracked ground.

“Oh, aren’t they l-lovely!” Dollop sang. “They’re called…uh…whatsit…er…Hold on, it’ll c-c-come to me.…”

The companions mounted the ridge, their aching thighs screaming as they climbed. The thought of a place to rest drove Phoebe on, but she held out the fleeting hope for a drop of water or a bite to eat. She thought about her last meal back at home, that mountain of food she had barely even touched—Parmesan quiches, blackberry pancakes, pork hash, and cinnamon toast. She swallowed her tasteless, rubbery Honeygum at long last, trying to convince herself that it was a bite of gooey pancake dripping with warm maple syrup.

They crested the rise, and the building came into view. It was in serious disrepair, layered with haphazard shingles.

“Weird place to build a house,” Phoebe thought aloud.

“Chusk! Th-that’s it,” Dollop cried, poking at one of the white nodules on the ground. “It’s, uh, called chusk. W-wonderful stuff, so many uses.”

“Ain’t a house,” Micah said as they approached the structure. “It’s a gambrel-roof barn. Dontcha know the difference?”

“You’re such a hick,” she said with a little grin.

Micah was about to shoot back, but Dollop interrupted with a chuckle. “Oh-oh! You know who, uh, loves to eat ch-chusk?”

The barn moved.

With a ponderous groan, the giant pile of grating metal sheets picked itself up and turned. A horrifying clutter of saw-toothed appendages emerged from a gap underneath, hacking away at a hunk of chusk while its slobbering mouth devoured the pieces that flew off. The monster’s extremities splayed open to reveal black eyes glittering from the inside knuckles.

Phoebe was the first to scream. Micah was the first to run. Dollop nearly fell apart as he scampered away at top speed.

The mehkan charged after them, extending eyeball-laden legs and dragging along its sheet metal shell in an earsplitting screech. Every frantic step made Phoebe’s injured foot blaze with pain. She could barely keep up as her friends raced around looming chusk growths. The rampaging creature smashed through the barriers like toothpicks, almost on top of them.

They hurled themselves down a slope, sliding and skidding to the bottom. The beast slowed at the crest, eyeing the decline cautiously, but it did not attempt to clamber down after them. Instead, it retracted its legs and began the laborious process of turning its massive body around. The trio wheezed and caught their breaths, watching the horrendous mehkan above them lift its rear end and let fly a splattering explosion of grayish feces. The rancid stench hit them full blast.

“Yeah, right back at ya, pal!” Micah burst into laughter.

“Ugh! Disgusting!” Phoebe said, covering her mouth. Between the overpowering smell and her throbbing wound, she felt close to collapsing.

“Y-y-yup, that’s a grundrull all right,” Dollop said as the giant mehkan finished its business and shambled away. “They’re a little t-t-territorial.”

“Ya think!?” Micah shouted.

“W-wait. This is g-great news! Grundrulls are tended by langyls, who—who harvest chusk from their stinky. L-l-langyls are a, um, lovely people.” Dollop clasped his hands together in excitement. “I b-bet they’ll be happy to help us!”

“Happy to help humans?” Phoebe asked skeptically.

“W-w-well…”

“Wait, are you tellin’ me these langyls are crap farmers? You mean, like, picking up poop is their duty?” Micah snickered at his own pun.

“Sounds like your kind of people, Toiletboy.”

“Th-this way,” Dollop chimed. “L-looks like a lang town up ahead!”

“Hey!” Micah called after Phoebe, who giggled as she limped off. “You said you wouldn’t call me that! What happened to rule number two?”

They followed Dollop toward a settlement nestled deep in the sunken basin. The setting suns lined the horizon like a row of fiery bullet wounds, bleeding out dusky swirls of maroon and magenta. As the lip of the valley rose around them, the vanishing light made it hard to see. At least none of the buildings looked like they might get up and attack, which was a start.

But with every approaching step, it became more and more clear that something was wrong. Chusk grew abundant and unmanaged, forming tumorous reefs that they had to clamber over. Signs of destruction began to mar the terrain. There were craters gouged into the ore and lumps of scorched shrapnel scattered like refuse. The streets ahead looked more like a pile of rubble than a settlement.

Dollop was trembling so violently that bits of him began to shake loose and clatter to the ground.

“Come on,” said Micah. “Don’t go all to pieces on us.”

He shook his head. “N-n-n-n-no. H-h-h-h-haunted.”

“Aw, gimme a break,” Micah scoffed. “Are these more of your psychic brain blower-upper Covenant thingies?”

“What is it?” Phoebe asked.

“U-u-u-u-u-uaxtu. Em-em-em-em-ember-reapers. E-v-v-v-v-vil spirits dr-drawn to dead places, um, hungry to m-make more!” He gathered his parts and started to flee, but Phoebe held him back.

“We don’t have a choice. We need shelter,” she said.

“N-n-n-n-n-not here! An-n-n-n-nywhere but here!”

“Get it together. Ain’t no ghosts gonna hurt you. Not with us here to protect ya. Right, Plumm?”

“That’s right.”

“So just stay behind me, and we’ll hightail outta here at the first sign of any ghosts or ghoulies or whatever.”

“P-p-p-p-promise?”

“You betcha,” Micah assured him.

“And everybody keep an eye out,” Phoebe added, looking at the ominous ruins. “For anything.”

They made their careful way into the devastated town, Dollop’s loose pieces chattering like frightened teeth. It was eerily quiet. The broken bones of a surrounding wall and mournful fragments of buildings rose around them like a mausoleum.

Something wide wobbled under their feet, and Phoebe kicked aside debris to inspect it. For a fleeting instant, she wished she hadn’t given up her Trinka, whose light had been invaluable. But emerging stars crept across the sky, stretching their shimmering webs like cracking ice, and in the pallid glow, they could just make out a sign.

“‘Fuselage,’” Micah read aloud.

“Foundry,” she whispered, as if the mere name might stir up the phantoms that filled Dollop with such fear.

“How do you know that?”

“If it was mehkan, we wouldn’t be able to read it.”

“Whoa! Check it!” Micah shouted as he ran down a ruined avenue. It was a graveyard—blasted hulls of Foundry machines locked in the grips of decomposing grundrull carcasses. The air was rancid, buzzing with clinking mehkan insects that hovered over corpses, their struggle immortalized in rust.

“We need to get out of sight,” Phoebe said.

“Why?” Micah asked, kicking aside a blackened chunk of ore. “Ain’t nothin’ here. This place is a ghost town.”

Dollop began to quiver fiercely at the sound of the word.

“Empty,” Micah quickly corrected. “I mean, it’s empty.”

They proceeded down the dark narrow lane, wending around toppled smokestacks and the shattered frames of factory equipment. Bullet holes peppered every surface. Micah prodded one with a finger and discovered the perforations were filled with some kind of hardened white cement.

There was a sound like the warping of paper-thin metal. They spun around but only saw a couple of crumpled-up sheets of corrugated tin. Phoebe leaned forward. The metal wads were lined with wires that trembled as she neared. They unfolded in the blink of an eye, and she staggered back. Two more crinkled sheets opened up, then zipped off, transforming into a blur of shapes. They bent and folded to fit under low passes and flattened to slip through gaps, moving across the ground like newspaper scattered by the wind.

“L-langyls!” Dollop cried. “Wait, ex-ex-excuse me! We need your h-help! P-pardon me!” He took off running after them, calling out in Rattletrap.

Phoebe tried to follow him but stumbled over something, knocking it away with a clatter. It was a Watchman head, severed and partially crushed. Micah plucked the mechanical skull from the ground, and they both stared into the empty shell. Though they couldn’t see well in the dark, they could make out broken circuit boards and some sort of a fat bundle of cables that must have been its fried Computator brain.

He let go of the Watchman head and gave it a swift dropkick. The skull bounced and tumbled into a nearby pile. Melted faces, severed limbs, and fractured torsos cluttered the ground, knee-deep in some places. There was even one skewered on a pole, its robotic entrails dangling in a nest of wires.

Phoebe knew the Watchmen were not alive, not like mehkans, but she was still unnerved. The sight of the mutilated humanlike figures was visceral, and it made her sick. Micah, on the other hand, was indifferent. He rooted through the mess of bodies, searching for something.

“What are you doing?” she asked anxiously.

“Figures,” he huffed, picking up a melted hunk of metal and tossing it aside. “All these bots and not a single working Dervish rifle between ’em. Not even a freakin’ hand-cannon. I mean, gimme a—Oh, hold on a sec.…”

He pulled something from the dead soldier’s grasp.

“Guess you won’t be needing this anymore,” he muttered. It was a worn clublike weapon with a handgrip covered in unintelligible knobs and a business end that flared out into a ridged coil. He fiddled with the scorched gadget, trying to turn it on, but it appeared to be busted.

“Better than nothin’.” He shrugged.

And then the looted corpse twitched.

It bucked as if seized by an external force.

The kids backed away. Something was emerging from the Watchman’s torso.

It was the size of a warthog, with five stout piston limbs, dripping with grease from the Watchman’s innards. Its entire front half was taken up by a horrifying mouth, a sparking crevice of circular grinders and rotating blades. Knotted along the outside of its whirling maw was a nauseating array of spiny protuberances and paddles. It began to pump up and down on its cylindrical legs, faster and faster, as a fiery light flared through vents in its side.

CRACK! It sounded like a gunshot. The abomination was gone in a blast of light. The kids spun in a panic, jolted from their momentary paralysis.

There was a thud as the creature landed behind them, its hydraulic legs recoiling from the leap. Micah brandished his new club as a pile of debris next to them shuddered and parted. Another creature appeared, its dreadful mouth gnashing. They leaped like monstrous fleas—crack, crack!

Dozens of them pressed in.

Hungry.