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2. The Glow

The sky was light gray when Corby and Ora reached the top of the cliff. A cold air stung the human's face. Winter was definitely on its way.

Corby turned around to glare at what was past the crater. In the horizon, there was a tall, black tower that seemed to reach for the clouds. It had one building half its size to its right, and another one to its left. In his opinion, the group of constructions simply looked like a giant middle finger.

Ora, sitting on the ground, poked his right leg with a claw. "Did you spot anything, Corby?"

He flinched. "Huh? No. I'm just thinking about how much these bastards will regret screwing us over."

"Attempting to exact revenge at this time would be a move categorized as unnecessarily risky and stupid."

Corby clenched his right fist and shook it at Ora. "I didn't mean right now! But mark my words: one day, I will be the one behind their downfall!"

"Words marked. I will ensure your epitaph contains them."

He raised his left eyebrow. "You don't have faith in me, do you?"

"The probability of winning against the Triumvirate is zero," she said. "In contrast, the probability of getting to safety is 50%. It can be increased to 70% if you hold up your end of the deal."

"Oh, right. I have to recharge you." He frowned. "My headache just went away a few minutes ago. Well, let's get this over with." His eyes gained the violet glow as the circuitry of light extended from his body again. "Blasted headache! It's coming back!"

Ora extended her own blue glowing circuitry and connected it to Corby's. Her glowanade consumed his so fast that the lines went into his body to continue draining his power.

His eyes widened. "Hey, the headache stopped!"

The robot kept leeching energy from him, recharging her batteries. She opened her elytra and spread her wings, flapping them so fast they became a blur and lifted her off the ground. She felt the need to fly toward him, pushing herself into his chest to the point where she went under his unzipped jacket's front.

He stopped emitting the violet circuitry and wrapped her up in his jacket with his arms. "What's going on with you? You're acting strange."

She looked up at him as her smile was fully glowing. "That felt good! You are my preferred charging source now!"

He took her in his hands and turned her around to look at her face to face. "Hold on a sec! 'Felt'? I thought you said you can't feel anything."

"Well, I felt that. This is just as strange for me as it is for you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Can you … describe the feeling?"

She tilted her head to the right and remained silent for a short moment as she re-processed the information regarding the experience. "Isn't 'good' what you call a feeling that you wish to experience again and again?"

He put her on the ground before saying, "Yeah, but there are various sensations that we humans call 'good'. There's tingling, there's warmth ... in some cases feeling cool will do for some people. Not for me though. I hate the cold."

Three flying objects coming from the area with the tall buildings caught his attention. He pointed in their direction. "Are those …?"

Ora turned around to see what he was pointing at. She zoomed in her view on the objects. "Military drones. Equipped with guns of maximum precision."

Corby zipped his jacket. "Man, they really want to erase all witnesses just to make sure nobody finds out."

She took off again. "Now is the best time for us to leave."

"I second that!" he said, turning around and sprinting away. Ora immediately flew after him.

After nearly half an hour of running while doing their best to stay out of sight by going near tall, raised portions of artificial ground, Corby and Ora reached an area where the metal ended and actual soil could be seen. The soil was yellowish-brown and soft, almost sandy. From it, several plants with needle-shaped, teal leaves grew like clawed hands with varying numbers of fingers. At the center of some of those plants there were olive-like red fruit.

"I'm so hungry and thirsty that I'm kind of tempted to try these," Corby said while pointing at them.

Ora landed near the plant and poked them with her claw. "Eating unidentified plants can lead to poisoning."

Corby took a fruit. "At this point I don't even care anymore." He put it in his mouth and chewed. After wincing, he spat it out. "That's the bitterest thing I've ever tasted!" He spat a few more times for good measure.

"I suggest you seek edible resources at the river located approximately 500 meters from here," Ora said while pointing at a forest that was up ahead.

"Oh, so that's where you've caught the catfish."

She nodded. "Yes."

"Lead the way then!"

Ora spread her wings then flew toward the forest. Corby ran after her, hoping no drones would check the area. The duo entered the forest, where trees similar to conifers stood tall. The plants' leaves were iridescent blue and distributed over each branch, much like the needles of a fir tree would be, although the branches looked more like the arms of a snowflake. White, orb-shaped fruit could be seen on some of the branches.

"Do you think those might be edible?" Corby asked, pointing at the fruit.

"They are probably not suitable for the human digestive system. The fauna of this planet does not seem interested in them either."

He chuckled. "Like there is any native fauna that actually eats the plants around here."

"It is not worth the risk. Sticking to consuming Earth-based fauna and flora is recommended."

He rolled his eyes at Ora. "Okay, okay!"

They arrived at the river, which lay between two slopes of land. It flowed gently, the water going around small, gray rocks that were covered by a grayish-blue moss.

Corby rushed down the slope and plunged his hands into the cold river, taking out some of it and preparing to drink.

"Untreated water could carry dangerous pathogens," Ora said, then landed next to him.

He stopped just before he could touch the water with his lips. "But I'm thirsty!"

"Boiling it might make it safer to drink. However, it would not remove some harmful substances."

"What am I going to boil it in?" He inspected his surroundings. Wood was useful for starting a fire, but he considered it could not serve as a container for boiling the water. Rocks could serve as containers, but he'd need to break them or somehow drill a cavity in one. His knife might not be suited for the task, as it could get damaged and be rendered useless. What else was left? Soil. Lots of it. It reminded him of clay. After he grabbed a handfull of wet soil from the edge of the river, he was sure that it had the qualities needed to be turned into a bowl: it was sticky, and kept its shape after being squeezed.

Ora dragged herself closer and looked at him. "Are you going to eat that dirt?"

"No," he said, pushing the top of the clay ball into it with his thumbs while rotating the clay in his hands. "I'm making a bowl."

It came out a bit deformed, but as long as it would hold water, it would be enough for him. It was the size of a teacup and had a wavy top.

"I did not know you could make containers out of soil," Ora said.

"It's something they taught us in school. I'd say it's among the few useful things I've learned there." After putting the bowl on a rock by the river, he went to gather firewood. There were four rotten branches on the ground, but he needed more, so he tore three from one tree and five from another. He dug a pit and put the wood inside it. After making a smaller hole nearby and connecting it to the bigger one at the bottom, he brought out his lighter—which thankfully was electric and solar-chargeable. "I'm going to set these sticks on fire to burn and harden the clay, then I'll boil some water in the bowl. I'll need you to tell me if the drones will head this way within, let's say, the next hour. Can you do that for me, please?"

"Sure thing!" she said, scattering her blue glowing circuitry web everywhere.

He noticed that some of the lines went over his body. "How far do these things reach?"

Ora's eyes glowed bright blue while her circuit lines retrieved information. "I've sent them all the way to the Triumvirate Tower. Calculating events within covered area ..."

Corby lit up the fire with the lighter. "Making this Dakota fire hole better be worth it. The teacher said it would keep the smoke low."

"Calculations finished. The drones will not head this way within the next hour."

"Good," Corby said before dropping the small bowl into the hole from which thin white smoke came. "Now I'll go gather more wood and let the flames do the work for me."

Twenty minutes had passed, and Corby sat on a large rock while watching the fire that burned in the pit. A snapping sound from within the hole caused him to reach for a long stick he kept nearby. He used it to move some of the embers out of the way so he could get a good look at the clay bowl. The dish had cracked in half, becoming unsuitable for holding water. "It's ruined."

"Just like the prediction showed it would be," Ora said.

He scowled at her. "You foresaw this?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you tell me this was going to fail? Now I've wasted almost half an hour—"

"Twenty minutes."

He threw the stick away. "That's still a lot of time wasted!"

Ora lowered her body until her abdomen touched the ground, then she tucked her arms underneath while her elytra were brought closer to her back.

Corby sighed after seeing how small she looked. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't yell at you. I should have expected this to fail. The teacher said it can take a whole day for the clay to be dry enough to fire with reduced risk of cracking. An hour isn't enough for pulling this off."

She raised her head. "So, are you going to drink water directly from the river?"

"I'd like to do it, but running around with diarrhea and possibly nausea wouldn't exactly improve my chances of survival."

"Do you have a backup plan?"

He looked at the broken bowl that was surrounded by flames. "I might have one. My teacher mentioned that it is possible to line a pit with a thick layer of clay to keep the water from leaking into the ground. That would allow for putting in really hot rocks that would boil the water and make it drinkable as well as ready to boil food in it."

Ora perked up and spread her wings out. "I can help with carrying the hot rocks so you will not hurt your hands."

He smiled at her. "Thanks. Well, I'll go find some rocks. It may take up to half an hour to heat them up to a high enough temperature. Stay here and put more sticks into the pit, please."

"I will," she said, hiding her wings back into her elytra.

It didn't take long for Corby to find eight gray rocks the size of chicken eggs. He carried them in the lap of his jacket and regretted that this allowed the cold to reach his waist, but his thirst was stronger than his need for warmth.

Ora's smile lit up when she saw him return.

"These should be enough to swap them and maintain boiling temperature," he said, placing all of the rocks into the fire pit. "Now while these are heating up, I'll go cut a thick branch and carve it into a ladle. I hope these trees aren't poisonous." He found a branch of a young tree close to the soil and proceeded to cut into it with his pocket knife. "They're supposed to be pretty much this planet's version of conifers. People make medicine out of conifers on Earth, so they're probably safe to use for making tools for holding food and water. Right?"

"No information regarding these was found in my database," she said.

After about a minute of slashing at the branch and pulling it in all sides, Corby finally managed to tear the branch off. He sat in front of the fire pit and started carving the branch into a straight ladle.

Ten minutes passed, and the human and his robot sat in the same spot, watching the fire pit. The ladle was ready, placed on a nearby large rock. Corby was very calm while observing the flames dance around the embers that covered the eight rocks and the remains of his failed attempt at making a clay bowl. His relaxation came to an end the moment an explosion sent the embers flying. In reaction, he fell on his back while Ora jumped in front of his legs with her wings spread out as she faced the pit.

He got back on his feet and took a few steps back. "These rocks explode?!"

"Let me watch over them," Ora said, still holding her wings and elytra spread out to shield him.

"Okay, just … don't stay too close to the pit."

Twenty minutes later, Ora said, "The thirty minutes have passed. Should I start moving the rocks over to the pit?"

"Yes, but only move four of them. Leave the other four in the pit until it's time to swap them."

"Moving rocks now." Since she still had her wings out, all she had to do was flap them to take off. She grabbed the four rocks—one at a time—and moved them over to the clay pit that Corby had filled with water with his wooden ladle.

He looked at the water, which gained small bubbles that became larger and larger. "It's boiling! It's actually boiling!"

"Neat!" she said.

"It's kind of murky, but I guess it'll have to do. As soon as you see a rock no longer sizzling, replace it with a new one from the fire."

"Will do."

After Ora swapped all of the first rocks with the other four, then swapped those with the first ones again, Corby took some water with the ladle and showed it to Ora. "The last time you've absorbed the fire, there was no heat. Could you extract the heat from water too?"

"I can try." She brought out her web of blue glowing wires and spread them all over the ladle, with their tips dipping into the water. "It is recharging my battery, although not as fast as the fire did." After two seconds, she retracted her circuitry back into her body. "No more energy can be drained."

Corby put his left hand's pinky into the water to test the temperature. The water was almost freezing cold, matching the temperature of the environment. "It worked, although it worked too well. Cold water is better than nothing though." With that, he took a sip of it. "Ugh! It's like it's got sand in it! But it should be clean of any dangerous microscopic life forms. At least I hope so." He gulped down all of the water from the ladle, ignoring the earthy taste and the sandy bits that he swallowed.

Ora looked at the boiling water in the pit. "Are you going to drink this one too?"

"No. I've got other plans for that one. Please swap all four rocks, then catch a small fish for me. Try to catch something that isn't like what you've caught last time, and remember to kill it before bringing it here."

"I'm on it!" she said before taking a rock from the clay pit and flying toward the fire pit. She swapped the rocks, then went into the river to hunt for fish.

Corby looked around and listened carefully for any buzzing sound that might come from above. He wasn't sure for how long they could keep slipping under the radar, but one thing he knew for sure: his enemies would not stop until he was erased off the surface of the planet.

It didn't take long before Ora returned, this time with something that looked like your average fish. It was no bigger than Corby's hand, and was silver with a black back. Its tail's lower tip was red while the top one was black. The hole in the head was a sure sign that the fish was dead.

"A carp," Corby said while taking the fish. "Thanks. I hope it will taste like the lab-grown carp fillet." He gutted it and threw it into the clay pit, where the water still boiled. "Ora, please swap the rocks."

"I'm on it!" She swapped all four of the rocks, ensuring the boiling would continue. After that, she sat on the ground and hid her wings.

"Do we have ten more minutes? Can you check, please?"

"I can, but battery is at 70%. Can you recharge me afterwards?"

"Um … All right. Check the future first, then I'll recharge you."

She spread her circuitry all around her and began calculating. When the web returned to her, she said, "They will not be heading this way within the next ten minutes. They will, however, be heading toward a different spot of the forest, 800 meters east from here."

"Good," he said. He spread his violet circuitry toward her. "Here's my end of the deal."

Ora summoned her blue circuitry and connected it to his, absorbing all the energy provided and targeting his body for more. As soon as they connected to the source of glowanade that was within him, she felt lured in again. She could not resist, so she flew at him and continued to push herself into his chest while beating her wings rapidly.

At first Corby found it amusing and giggled, but then things started to get awkward when she began to frantically claw at his jacket. He had to put a stop to that, so he grabbed her with his hands and ceased emitting the glowanade. "Hey! You're getting a bit carried away here!"

"I wish it would go on forever," she said.

He put her on the ground and gave her a nasty look. "No more clawing, or else we're not doing this ever again! Got that?"

"Understood. I will not claw next time."

He wanted to ask again what she felt, but then he realized that she had nothing to which she could compare the sensation. "It's strange that you're able to feel anything when you're made out of inorganic materials. Even the glowanade is supposed to be inorganic according to what they taught us in school about it."

"Maybe it has to do with you having it inside of you as well. I do not think anyone was crazy enough to try putting the glowanade inside of their bloodstream before you got infected with it during that accident. They could have tested if it affects all sentient machines in the same way if a human is using it on them."

He squatted next to her. "So you're saying … we're connecting somehow?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's strange, but then again everything has been strange after that explosion at the refinery."

Ora went to swap the rocks again while Corby kept an eye on the fish that was being boiled. He did not notice that a green glowing, winged, insect-like creature observed him from the trunk of a tree. It had eight long legs with extensions that looked like snowflake arms coming from their joints. On its triangular head, the creature had a pair of antler-like antennae with movable tips. It wiggled the antennae constantly as if pointing with them at Corby. Its face had a single, oval eye on its forehead, and a sphincter for a mouth at the face's bottom. Its entire body was semitransparent, showing the glowing substance that circulated inside its chest and long, ellipsoid tail.

A strong, cold gust of wind blew through the trees' branches, bringing with it a few snowflakes.

"Oh no ..." Corby said as he caught a snowflake in his palm and stared at it as it melted. "It's going to put out our fire."

"We can always start a new one," Ora said. She stood still the moment she saw the green leg show up from behind her master. "Corby, there is something behind y—"

The green creature flew onto Corby's right shoulder. It opened its mouth to extend two tendrils and wiggle them over his neck.

"A glow thief?" he said, staring at it.

The glowing substance inside it rapidly changed from green to cyan, to blue, then to white, turning its entire body colorless.

At that moment, Corby felt like the tendrils were burning the skin on his neck. "Ow! Get it off! Hurts! Aaaah!" He tried to pull the creature off, but it held on tight with the sticky whips and continued to cause him pain.

Ora flew at it and, without a second thought, punctured the alien's head before tearing the creature off Corby.

Rubbing his neck, he glared at her. "Ora! I said get it off, not kill it! It was part of the environment!"

"It was also harming you."

"Yeah, but glow thieves can't kill people! They just … extract glowanade, then run away. There's no need to kill these."

Ora tilted her head to the side. "Wasn't your former job pest control for Kimiatronica?"

Corby laughed. "I was more of a trapper for them. I'd put some red glow at the bottom of a 50 centimeter tall jar, and the wingless glow thieves would fall inside, unable to climb back out. Up until today, I had no idea that winged versions of them exist. Anyway, I've never killed any. I'd just throw them into the reservation at night. The glass fences kept them in there."

He took the corpse of the glow thief off the ground, sat near the fire pit, then looked at it. The white glowing substance inside the creature pooled into its tail while the rest of its body had none running through it.

Ora stared at it, then at him. "Are you going to eat it?"

Corby winced. "No! Not only does it look inedible, but it was confirmed to contain toxins that would kill a human within a day if the poison is not purged out of the digestive system of the human. Poor people have tried eating these already. Medics had a lot to deal with when it happened." He put the corpse in front of her. "It has the glow in it, and you've killed it, so … you eat it."

She poked it with her right claw before extending one circuit line from her chest. Her attempt at connecting with the white glowanade resulted in her backing away from it and immediately sending circuitry to consume the fire as well as the warmth from the clay pit.

Corby got into standing position and glared down at her. "Hey! Why did you do that?"

"Battery went from 98% to 3% within a millisecond," she said, staring at the corpse while flaring her wings at it and moving side to side. "This creature is attacking while it is dead."

He poked the glow thief's body with his finger. It was almost gelatinous, and the white glowanade from it moved around due to the pressure. It pooled back into the tail as soon as he stopped pressing. "I think the glow's what's 'attacking' you."

More snowflakes fell around them, settling onto the ground, trees, rocks, and even on the surface of the river.

He picked up the food and shrugged. "I guess I'll eat the fish semi-boiled." After taking the first bite out of the abdomen, he found himself chewing on not just earthy-flavored flesh, but needle-like bones. He spat three times. "This thing's hurting my gums! I really miss my home lab. All I had to do back then was buy the right substances and cells, and the machine would do all the work for me. No killing of sentient creatures, no inedible parts, and way better taste."

"Do you think we could sneak into to your apartment and get your home lab?"

Corby frowned at that question. "Ora, if we go back, the Triumvirate's robots will put so many holes in us that nobody will even know what we used to be. In fact, I don't even think we'd reach the edge of the city before they'd wipe us out."

A buzzing sound caught the duo's attention.

"It's the drones," Corby said. He grabbed his wooden ladle with his left hand while holding the fish in his right hand, then ran like the wind, followed by Ora.

"Unless Kimiatronica has upgraded its drones with heat sensors, they should not be able to detect our heat signatures," Ora said.

In spite of his panting, Corby managed to speak. "Wait … they haven't … thought about … adding heat sensors?"

"There were none installed on these a month ago. Only the minotaurs had them, and even that was deemed as an expensive addition that was rarely needed."

As he continued to run deeper into the forest, Corby took bites out of the fish and spat out the bones. Snowflakes prickled his face, but he kept going, knowing that if he'd stop he'd be seen and gunned down. Never in his life had he imagined that one day he'd end up in such a ridiculous but dangerous situation. Up until the accident, he always saw himself just doing his job at Kimiatronica's refinery no matter how many years would pass.

The wind intensified, carrying the snow everywhere. A thin white layer covered the ground and the leaves of the conifers. No more buzzing could be heard—a sign that the drones may have given up on the chase due to the low visibility the snowing was causing.

Ora flew closer to Corby. "How far are we going?"

"Far enough," he said. "We need to be … as far away … from the city … as possible."

They both halted their run immediately when they saw a moving silhouette among the trees ahead. A dim, bluish, diffuse light shone from behind the entity, who stood atop a small hill, looking threatening with its large antlers.

Corby took a step forward. "Ora … why is this deer here?"

"That cannot be a deer," she said. "The only Earth creatures brought to Quirinus as emergency food or as test subjects were cows, chickens, sheatfish, carps, trouts, rock pigeons, albino rats, and silkworms."

An ominous yellow glow emitted from two circular sources on the deer-like creature's T-shaped face, with the top source being larger than the bottom one. The lights changed intensity, almost like twinkling stars. The antlers turned out to be some kind of five-clawed hands that could move similar to the glow thief's antennae. It also revealed it possessed four arms ending in forked claws as limbs coming from the top side of its torso, while the bottom of its torso had four long, thin insect legs that allowed it to stand. Its entire back side turned out to be just its tail, which was similar to that of a glow thief.

Ora landed in front of Corby and spread out her wings and elytra while moving from side to side. "It is a robot. No long-range weaponry is visible on it, but the sharp parts are capable of inflicting serious wounds."

The robot deer's lights changed color from yellow to bright red and twinkled repeatedly, sometimes pausing for a full second with no light emission. Its antlers were also held slightly higher this time while it slowly bowed and lifted its head from time to time.

"Behavior is unlike that of any robot produced by Kimiatronica. It appears to be trying to communicate a warning. That is, if we are to assume that red is a visual code for danger."

Corby dropped his half-eaten fish while putting his ladle in his left pocket. Then he slowly picked Ora up and walked to the left while keeping his eyes on the robot deer. "What if it's a new model?"

She hid her wings and looked up at his face. "If it is, its purpose is unclear."

The strange robot took a few steps back as it saw them leave. Its red lights became dimmer, then it leaped away, disappearing behind the hill.

"Looks like it doesn't want to kill us," Corby said, still carrying Ora.

"Very strange," she said. "Where are we going now?"

"Wherever there's a cave where we can set up camp. If we can't find one by tonight, we'll have to dig ourselves a burrow. Otherwise, I'll probably freeze to death."

And so, the human and his robot continued their travel through the alien forest as everything around them became dressed in white.