Green Plumed Orbital Line A; viridis metamorphos A

Common sighting; Flies along the forty-fifth latitude every 12 minutes

Traveler’s addendum: Last functional line along a northern latitude; southern latitudes TBD

My crawler runs out of energy as I reach the platform summit. I’m two minutes early. The A Line shrieks overhead. Its right wing is damaged, its primary engine blooming outward in a blossom of warped metal. Either a bird strike or a human tried to down it, but I’m not close enough to be sure. If I could get it to land, if I had the right tools—

I pause. Repairing isn’t my job anymore. I watch the A Line arc through the sky. There’s no one left to tell it to stop. It flies along its path until time or a desperate person forces it to crash. This far north, I’m the only one around to witness it. I wave to it, knowing it will not do anything.

I think you would’ve enjoyed the sight, the A trying its best to simply function despite the collapse of everything we ever knew. But then in the end I didn’t know you well at all, did I?

• • • •

It costs a premium to grow new bodies, so I opt for digital download into a customized mechanical body instead. Some wires poke out at the joints, one eye panel flickers from time to time, and there’s a few spots of rust that need removing. I’m worn, achy in new and unexpected ways, but I smile at my design and the rightness of it. The added debt increases the ever-present pressure of existing, but you insist it’s worth it. In the end, you’re right; I feel happier. I smile, even if my reaction time lags by 1.75 seconds.

You pay for a body with an undeniable grin, full lips, strong thighs. I recognize you underneath the predatory layers, hungry and beautiful. Over the next few months many of your new friends wonder why you keep me. As if I’m debris caught in your gravity well. Maybe I am.

To get comfortable with our new selves and stake out potential targets to steal from, you decide to take the orbital line. Expensive, restricted, but now we might be able to pass for affluent travelers.

It’s simple for you to distract an elevator guard with your pale flesh and captivating voice. It’s simple for me to brush past unnoticed to hack in and add us to the passenger list. Afterward, you’re all smiles and giggles and adrenaline as the elevator door hisses shut behind us. We take it up, up, up—you mock the line of dented and overcrowded crawlers scrambling up the sheer cliffside for the few free seats in the last car—and arrive just in time to catch the A. The smaller car that is its neck is empty. Not many make it in time, and will be turned away to try again at the next A’s arrival.

The giant iridescent green train turns to watch us board. I wave, knowing it isn’t programmed to react. You roll your eyes and tug me inside.

• • • •

Upper Atmosphere Connecting Silver Eagle; argentum aquila stratos

Uncommon; descends once a week

Traveler’s addendum: erratic after the last upper atmo platform collapsed; one of three left in the region

I leave my crawler to recharge and track back to me in a few days and follow the A’s path to the S on foot. The giant silver raptor descends, from where I can’t quite tell. The debris of its upper atmospheric nest float in the clear blue sky, slowly returning to the ground in a final facsimile of the S’s once daily performance. Now it only arrives on whim, though always at the proper connecting time.

Its wings flap hard as it lands on the plateau not long after the A departs again. It looks in better shape than the A. Its primary feathers are showing signs of moss growth, which is odd. When I wave to it, it turns to me and tilts its head.

> Passenger departure time: 09:15am

> Please mind your luggage as you enter, and secure all items in the properly designated storage container.

Satisfied, the silver eagle turns away and waits. And waits and waits. The appointed departure time arrives, but the S doesn’t move, doesn’t try to ascend again. It stares and stares down into the skeletal ribs of the city’s broken skyscrapers below, partially shrouded by low lying clouds.

I lean against a nearby rock, watching the S until my internal clock reads 11:55am.

“No one’s coming,” I say.

It doesn’t react. Maybe it’s the isolation or the fact that it acknowledged me earlier, but I ascribe sentience to this one that I haven’t in a while.

So I add, “Are you waiting for someone specific? If you are, it’ll be a while. Might be better to move on.”

The S turns to me and tilts its head again. The same motion, but the timing is slightly different. This I know is programmed variability. There’s a timer on reaction movement, blink animations, every minuscule detail of realness. It’s designed to simulate cognition. But I smile at it all the same. At some point in the last several decades cognitive technicalities stopped mattering to me. I wonder when that happened?

It chirps, the sound echoing into the midday emptiness.

> Passenger departure time: 02:25pm

> Please mind your luggage as you enter, and secure all items in the properly designated storage container.

• • • •

Our life collapses into a dull, aching rhythm, with tiny variations that mimic a real relationship. It’s expensive to maintain your new skin; it’s designed to degrade quickly if you fall behind on mandated updates. Since I custom-made mine from hacked parts, its stolen proprietary software doesn’t care what I do. There’s a small mercy to that, but none to you anymore. And so we spend our days finding people to con into paying your bills and preserving you.

Each target you pick is wealthier than the last. They’re all the same: a man who mistakes me for a servicebot, a woman who appraises you as if you’re a glittering new toy to be used and discarded, and so on. You make me break into glamorous hotel rooms to create an illusion of riches to fool your marks. More and more, you leave me behind when you go out. Through all this, I never think to question you.

We wait in the S’s upper atmospheric nest. It’s hexagonal, with a circular inner ring that lets out into viewing nooks at its six angles. The massive silver eagle is nestled in the middle, waiting for departure. It’s too soon to begin boarding. You arrive early every time to admire the view.

“It’s all so beautiful from above. Not complicated, like everything down there,” you remark, craning your freckled neck to peer as far out as possible.

I grunt. My voicebox crackles. You don’t give me much to spend on repairs anymore.

You glance back at me with eyes as blue as the ocean and just as cold and cruel. “If you could leave, would you?”

“Sure,” I answer, not knowing if you mean the planet or us.

• • • •

Passenger transport jay; terra ultramarina B

Common; many still travel their old city routes if they’re still functional

Traveler’s addendum: This particular group always travels together, which is uncommon

Traveler’s secondary addendum: What is the correct name for a group of transport jays? There is nothing in my databases

I abandon the S to follow a flock of transport jays down into the mausoleum of a city below. It takes me the better part of the evening. One in particular is a vibrant blue with white striations on its feathers. Someone customized it long, long ago. I don’t know who, their information isn’t in the jay’s logs. But I follow it nonetheless. It’s been a while, and I don’t know why this flock is heading towards the city. It might put them in danger, if other people are around.

In the past I picked through the metropolitan remains carefully, wary someone would kill me for parts. After a while I realized I was sturdier and deadlier.

I am powerful. This metal body suits me and the older I get, the more I revel in my choice. It’s a shame it took over two decades of abandonment and decay to recognize my own strength. Now when humans see me, they mumble greetings—if they greet me at all. I did nothing to them, but legends of the Traveler grow each season. I’m grateful for the independence my now mythic status brings. There aren’t many people left in this city; they moved to warmer climates, and I never cared to follow.

Thankfully, it’s a quiet, calm night and I run into no one. There is a loneliness to that, but also it’s simpler. It’s nicer to trace the birds and trains and chronicle their behaviors and patterns.

The flock of jays screeches in a massive field, once a landing pad. Maybe they return because their protocols demand it, some vestigial bit of code that compels them to return to this decay. I wonder if I’m the same, if I could find that bit of programming and scrub it clean.

The brighter blue jay is cleaner than the rest, though all are well kept. Its paint is vibrant, unmarked and fresh. Someone else upkeeps this one. Regret coils in my circuits. Before you, I was good at repairing all kinds of creatures. After you, I stopped trying. It hurt too much, prodded at the bitter memories of our time together. I look up at the clear blue sky. I’ll never see you again, but your control over my emotions has remained for far too long.

I ping the jay.

It turns to me.

“Can you tell me who repairs you?” I ask. My crafted authentication codes give me access to most planetary systems, and I’m proud of them.

The jay accepts my authorization and lets out a metallic, scraping screech in greeting.

> last updated approximately 2 hours ago by user 1986471-A, designation: UNKNOWN

“Interesting,” I say.

I look around. With the heatmap filter on, I spot fresh boot prints in the damp early morning dew. I smile. Whoever they are, they use these jays and still upkeep them.

Upon further examination of the flock, I gently break into their routing software. Surprisingly, they’re all tethered to the primary vibrant jay—likely to make it easier for a single person to track and maintenance the whole.

“Smart,” I murmur to myself.

The primary jay chirps, and I take it as agreement.

> enter return trip?

I stare at the query as it hovers in my vision. The jay’s logs set the previous destination at a high altitude. I haven’t been to those kinds of elevations since before the fall of everything.

“Yes,” I say.

The jay’s door opens as its docking ramp hisses out of its chest. I amble inside, curious.

• • • •

Nothing lasts, especially when it’s being mined beyond its capacity and stripped bare of resources. This planet is no exception.

A plan is devised by the upper elite of society. You are privy to it and offer me up as tribute. I become a mechanic on the project. I create back doors for you to utilize. I give you access to everything—everything. When the creature is built and finalized, I don’t leak it to the news. I should’ve.

Someone with greater morals and rage leaks the plan instead. By then the news had been owned by the wealthy for so long no one listens. I console myself with this lie for years.

When the appointed day arrives, you don’t tell me. A distressed worker runs down the hallway, banging a wrench against the rusting walls of our enclosure. “Wake up, you assholes, wake up—the monsters are taking off without us!”

The scared man repeats the refrain over and over and over, until he’s a distant echo. Now other noises and motion supersede.

I don’t sleep. On the brief rest breaks, I sit in the corner reading catalogues of offworld transport creature specs and designs. Now I’m a metal obstacle to shove around. I become a baffled rock in the middle of a scrambling river of disheveled people surging past me, desperate not to be left behind after they’d been promised escape.

The serpent we bled for rises into the dark void of space beyond the bunks. I watch you leave on it from the hallway, eyesight at twelve times magnification. Well, I don’t see you, but I know you’re on it. The window is so scratched with bored notes and unrepaired damage I can barely make out any details beyond the creature’s massive coiling frame. It’s a god I brought to life for you.

It shudders and roars. A broadcast with your face blips onto every open monitor and over every broadcast through the codes I gave you.

“We’re leaving. There’s nothing left for humanity here. Follow us if you can. If you’re smart enough to survive and reach us, we’ll welcome you with open arms.”

You embrace the camera and the communication terminates as you ascend. If you ever spare a thought for me, I never find out.

• • • •

The Quetzalcoatl; Quetzalcoatl abyssus

Rare; only one known created

Traveler’s addendum: even gods are discarded eventually by these people

It takes a bit to reach the jay’s destination, and we travel higher and higher into the nearby mountain range. I gasp as the Quetzalcoatl comes into view. It’s inert, snow covers its head and buries entire segments. It unspools around the jagged snowcapped toothy peak like royal diamonds on display in an abandoned museum. How long has it been here?

The jay lands near its snout, the serpent’s fangs carved into the metal plating still gleaming white. The snow hasn’t smothered it entirely yet, either. It hasn’t been here for years, that much is certain at a glance. It must have crashed when I was following the Twenty-Two Train south all winter.

I run out and am stunned my old clearances work. A ramp opens by the metal feathers circling its head like a crown.

The halls are empty, though not as damaged as I fear. I don’t know why they abandoned it. I assume you survived; you always were resourceful. Plus, there are no remains, no sign of struggle. Odds are good you and your wealthy cohort found a new planet and left this one to drift. Maybe you found it poetic, to return it and crash it here. That feels mean enough to be true.

I pick my way through once familiar corridors until I reach the main bridge at the center of the winding serpentine body. Throughout the entire trek, there’s simply the creaking of metal not meant for atmosphere groaning under the weight of gravity and ice. The serpent god dies fitfully alone. No one else is here.

I sit at the dusty engineering comms station, and it’s impressive how quickly old habits seep back into my equivalent muscle memory. I initiate an assessment scan and transmit the results to my retinas, so I can wander around the bridge as it works. Surprisingly, it’s not as ruined as I expected. It won’t handle an atmosphere exit again, but it might be able to slither and burrow along with the smaller snake drills. At the end of the results, it takes me to the log of recent assessments. There’s one query from yesterday, not long before the jays traveled past the S.

Whoever maintains the jays is trying to repair and modify the Quetzalcoatl to function on land.

I poke around at their files and find an elaborate, chaotic, but detailed to-do list. It takes some time to parse what their plans are from the list, but eventually I see it.

“This is smart,” I say, my voice reverberating through the empty bridge. “I wonder . . .”

I spend the rest of the day tinkering with sections off limits to this unknown user. I give their profile my clearances and add a log of requisite materials and adjustments necessary to fulfill their designs.

The jay takes off at some point in my engineering reverie. In the end, I let time decide for me and continue my patch on a section of inner hull. If the unknown user shows up midway through my work, so be it. I’m happy. It feels good to repair and change and shift into something new. That old life is still dead and gone, but maybe it’s time I let myself enjoy what remains as myself. We all deserved better, but that doesn’t mean I can’t exist here, now.

The jay returns. Someone emerges, but the Quetzalcoatl’s external cameras in that region are too damaged and I’m not about to break from my task. I’ll meet them soon. I don’t think of you at any point in the process.