“The—fuck?” stammered my partner.

  “You have six Martian hours so that only one survivor remains. If not, the complex will be thrown out of the belt for a long journey to our bright star. Where you will burn like those succulent patties at the barbecue after the Service! Good luck, chums!”

  A wave of protest immediately arose, showing a growing concern. “It’s a scandal!” Sheik shouted. “We must warn the All—”

  A bullet suddenly went through his throat. No sooner had he given his last gurgling, while standing straight due to the low gravity, that the situation turned into a carnage. The groups with their weapons nearby opened fire on their neighbors, sometimes with a red cup or a PB&J sandwich still in hand.

  “That’s the Wild West spirit I wasn’t looking for!” I exclaimed, frightened.

  One second later, MiKron, the three-eyed killer robot, almost torched us with napalm—lighting my cigarette—before we fled through the adjacent service corridor.

  “It’s fuckin’ nuts!” shouted Ali as I jumped on the floor.

  Running as fast as we could despite my partner’s magnetic boots, we quickly made our way down the metal stairs to the logistic galleries leading to the cold storage. But once behind the steel door, we were instantly caught off guard.

  “Freeze, kid!” someone croaked in the dark. A man who introduced himself as Dan the Crow came out of the shadow, waving his featherlike dagger at my associate’s face. Dan wore a terrifying raven mask made of silver, almost hidden beneath his purple hood.

  “Dan?” Another figure in a monk’s robe with a curious implant in the shape of an inverted pyramid on his bald forehead immediately joined him. “Send them to Naraka, Dan!” continued his companion. His implant veered vermilion after he turned on the old halogen ceiling lights. “Overpopulation menaces our refuge!”

  But, lucky for us, Birdman didn’t agree with the apostate: “We must reach the mine. We might need this kid’s extra help.”

  The cyborg stared at us before examining Ali from head to toe. His front plate turned orange. “Understood. Her thoughts are as white as the first snow…” He disappeared behind our back to close the entrance of the cold room.

  “Did you mention a mine?” I asked, somewhat offended by being left out.

  Dan took a pipe out of his satchel at the waist and lit it with the end of my cigarette. “My friend here read in your mind that you wanted out too,” he explained. Then, while his partner was electronically sealing the door, Dan clarified the clever plan he had imagined. Behind him, a round porthole opened onto the void. On the opposite side of the croissant shaped asteroid, beyond the vacuum, stood an auxiliary entrance to the mine and a potential escape. To get there, our group had to cross about ten meters outside the station until attaining the airlock. Once out, it would be possible to unlock it with a well-placed shot. “With the depressurization and no suits, it’s unthinkable to take turns,” Dan said. “We all must rush into the airlock together. Immediately after, I’ll reach the closing crank.” But when Ali implied that this operation didn’t require three humans and a cat, Dan smiled. “Bonze is a psyker and speedhacker specialized in borgs hunting, not particularly useful in this situation,” he justified. “As for me, my daggers can’t fly through space. Hence the interest in the .50 caliber you’re hiding under this lovely vest, kid.” He then puffed some pink smoke smelling of sweet raspberries before putting away his pipe.

  “I spotted a menace. Ready-go?” asked the improved man when his implant turned red again. He had detected in advance the furious maniacs who banged on the doors a few seconds later.

  “Hold on by my belt. Close your eyes,” Dan said, closer to the armored glass. “Except you, kid. Aim well.”

  “I ain’t no kid. I’m past eighteen,” Ali replied.

  “Sure thing.”

  Dan opened the porthole. It felt like a hand of ice grabbing me by the throat before tearing me off the ground. We were sucked into the void and floated for a moment.

  Ali shot. I could tell by the vibration that shook her right shoulder. But nothing happened. She had missed and time was running out! Ebullism was no trivial matter; we had less than fifteen seconds before losing consciousness.

  “Ali!” I shouted even if no sound could come out of my mouth. Big mistake! My tongue almost froze on the spot.

  Ali fired anew. Twice. Suddenly, something wrenched me backward, and I slammed against a metal wall. The decompression tore through my eardrums, leaving only silence. Dan’s voice came through, strained, mingling with the shrieks of someone else nearby. As I forced myself to focus, the tinnitus faded, only to reveal that nauseating hum again, stronger and closer than ever, pressing in from all sides.

  “Is everything all right, young lady?” Dan repeated, spinning in the weightlessness.

  Ali rubbed her eyes. Ice beads had formed at the junction of her eyelids. “I’m blind, yet alive,” she replied. “Sorry it took me so long… I wish I had my jetpack…”

  “You did well! We—Bonze!”

  The man with the implant was injured. A small amount of blood was trickling from his left arm. Ruby bubbles were now floating around us. “Over there! The menace is on the other side of the station!” he shouted, pointing to a shadow between the relay antennas coming out of the rock.

  A spider-web impact grew on the porthole of the airlock. A gunner in a space suit was targeting us.

  “Military velospeed bullets? That’s gotta be Dicklan Hemingwest! We need to delta. And fast!” Dan said.

  We obeyed promptly and slipped into the mines.

  Surviving on Yoyodyne84 got even more complicated. After three Martian hours of walking, Ali’s sight had still not returned. Blood oozed from her eyelids on which the Crow had applied greenish anti-decompression bandages from his satchel. Perched again on her shoulders, I became her guide for the time to come.

  “Lee? Can you hear it?” my human suddenly asked me. She stopped before pressing her hand on the shiny rocky wall. “The asteroid. It’s singing.”

  She was right. But this was nothing like the usual buzzing. The sound rang sharper, purer—a hauntingly beautiful melody. The hum felt undeniably real, neither a trick of my mind nor a fault in the measuring equipment. “I knew I wasn’t far out.”

  “Watch it from here,” Dan warned.

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Glance at your partner’s palm.”

  Under the dim lights of the emergency LEDs, silvery glitter covered Ali’s palm. “Rhodium,” I whispered. “Bad for the lungs.”

  A moment later, despite the poisoned air, the old mine revealed itself to be even more dangerous than anticipated. In the gloom of a drafty junction, a grisly sight emerged. Beverly Bones and her undead crew had repainted the walls with their own entrails. Beneath our feet, a metallic screech echoed with each half-floating step we took. A twisted carpet of levitating copper casings stretched before us, pulsating with an eerie rhythm.

  “With such rage-power, they couldn’t miss them,” said the shady Bonze as he grabbed an assault rifle spinning high above. “It takes at least that much fire to nirvana that sorceress of Bones and her rotten puppets.”

  We continued our journey as quietly as possible until we reached new arteries. Rhodium glowed in the darkness and silver-white glitter danced around us, like a cloud of fireflies. The singing grew louder and finally hit its climax when we entered a vast underground quarry.

  “What is this place?”

  Suddenly, shots rang out, peeling off more of the metallic snow from the walls. They echoed and no one could accurately assess where they came from. The mines appeared to be a true labyrinth.

  “Ominous…” an anxious Bonze intoned while his implant turned red.

  “Where are they?” Dan whispered before asking us to lie low.

  We eventually had our answer behind the huge argent columns that Yoyodyne’s robots hadn’t had time to collect. Hanging from the ceiling, a cyborg wearing a black poncho and a wide-brimmed hat was threatening with only two Lügers half a dozen semi-animals armed to the teeth. Among them stood Knives, with his red bristling hair and drool on his lips.

  “Oh, oh! We now have company, haven’t we?” said the acrobat in a nasty synthesized voice. “Bienvenido al Thunderdome!” A third spiderlike limb came out from his serape and took aim at us.

  “Si—Six Guns Dynamo!” Dan stuttered.

  The cyborg didn’t give us a single glance, preferring to ignore the small fry. On the floor, the Freaks lay in wait, ready to pounce the moment attention wavered, eager for their chance at the deadly piñata.

  “And Knives!” Birdman exclaimed.

  “This good ol’ Dan…” whistled the alpha of the pack as he lifted his lime cyclops glasses accustomed to his muzzle. “Still an Auxiliary, uh? How’s Venus? We miss you back home.”

  Mumbling inaudibly, Dan took off his mask revealing a face covered with suppurating scars. But this wasn’t the most shocking part. Between the furrows of pink flesh, Dan the Crow had a dull ink-black plumage. A real raven he was!

  “Amalthea is an authentic zoo!” I added.

  Pointing his blades at Knives, the Freak-raven apparently had a score to settle with the big bad wolf.

  “I knew that Dan was a strange bird,” Ali joked after I told her.

  Behind us, Bonze squealed: “This is a moment where laughter should fade! Rhodium interferes with my powers!”

  Half of the gang’s guns aimed at the cyborg. The other half targeted us. The situation had quickly degenerated into a Mexican standoff.

  “Oh, oh! This setting would delight our querido Dungeon Master, wouldn’t it?” Dynamo joked, cracking the metal joints of his three newly deployed reinforced arms.

  “Your attention please…” shouted the loudspeakers after spitting radium dust.

  “Speaking of the devil…” the Freak-wolf growled.

  The AI continued after a small, yet very misplaced, melodious jingle: “Fast announcement, everyone! We would like to point out the station has several elements which are not listed on the Alliance registry. However, they are included in our famous tournament as wildcards! Who cares anyway? Good luck!”

  Knives let out a guttural laugh, quickly joined by the members of his gang. “This tin can of Dungeon Master is talking about you, Dynamo. Spooky Bones truthed. You got expelled after your messy trip to Charon!”

  “Oh, oh! That humanitarian convoy was on my way, wasn’t it?” the cyborg giggled before making his fingers dance on his triggers.

  “It’s now the perfect moment to advise me you have your sight back…” I murmured in Ali’s ear.

  My partner laughed sardonically. “Can’t tell the difference ’tween the Big Bad Knives from the Little Red Riding Hood!”

  Fortunately, the thug engaged in some verbal jousting with Dynamo.

  “Leave now! Behind those piles of rhodium is a corridor,” Dan whispered to us. “Float down there and never look back!”

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked.

  “I’m settling my score with Knives today,” explained Dan, feeling the pink keloid under his right eye. “Now listen to me. At the footbridge, follow the green lights. They’ll lead you to a refinement platform. There, you’ll stumble upon a monopod to leave the station forever.”

  “But—”

  “Trust him, we… know the place,” Bonze added, putting his hand on Ali’s shoulder. “Now, let’s take advantage of their feud to flee. Dan has chosen his fate.”

  We withdrew as the Crow quietly seized a grenade out of his satchel that seemed to have no bottom. After removing the pin with his beak, he threw the projectile against a stack of collapsed metal crates. It exploded seconds later, and a cloud of toxic glitter invaded the room, creating the perfect cover. Behind us, Knives’s roars were lost in the ensuing chaos.

  “See you around, Dan…” I heard Ali whisper.

  The rocky walls we followed soon gave way to a cold concrete coating as the echoes of gunfire finally faded. A winding corridor stretched ahead, leading us to the tubular skywalk the friendly bounty hunter had mentioned. The darkness seemed so thick that even my cat’s eyes felt useless. The only light came from the blinking orange glow of Bonze’s implant.

  As soon as Ali touched one of the wire ropes, the entire structure groaned, and the darkness shattered. The faint rhodium veins that once lined the galleries transformed into massive orthorhombic crystals, their emerald and gold hues shimmering like molten fire. They pulsed with a life of their own, glowing as if a furious blaze burned deep within them. But it wasn’t the light that caught my attention—it was the sound. A soft, eerie melody filled the vast spherical cavity, reverberating off the walls. I had just discovered the source of the hum.

  “It’s beautiful,” she expressed, leaning on the closest rope.

  “Sound or sight?” I asked. Capturing our voices, the crystals lit up and whistled even more gorgeously.

  “Both.”

  “You regained your vision?” Bonze inquired.

  “… not,” Ali replied. “It’s still very fuzzy and—”

  “Good news, nonetheless,” he cut her off. This scoundrel was pointing his looted rifle at us. “Nothing personal. The old Yoyodyne refinery has only one small monopod once dedicated to the service engineer. I’m hurt. The threads of my survival seem too faint to grasp… if I must carry a blind girl and her pet in a tight emergency capsule.”

  “Don’t be a dick, baldy,” Ali grunted, raising her hands. “We will find a way.”

  “Sorry. You’re charming and all, but… your soul isn’t worth the risk of drifting to infinity and beyond!”

  As the betrayer fell silent, the brightness began to drop. His implant turned red almost immediately.

  A voice then came out of nowhere, breaking again the quietness of the cavern: “Drifting with her forever would be a fine ending!”

  Crippled by the rhodium, our psi-blind companion swiveled but his arms remained firmly anchored to the rifle that slid into the chasm. A strange samurai had sliced them cleanly right at the elbow. The tortured man shouted before the assassin shortened his suffering by driving a sword through his exploding skull. The blade was fused with a .44 Magnum.

  As Bonze’s body floated away, the shadowy warrior slowly walked towards us, wiping his sword. I heard him mumble in Solarian English. “Drifting with her, lost. Endless voyage through the stars. A perfect—”

  “Annyeonghaseyo!” A squeaking voice cut off his English haiku. It came from a small Poppery II-shaped drone flying over his shoulder. “Bonze Tatalopulos. Auxiliary n°FOR-1-21XX-982 and—”

  His face masked by his straw hat, the samurai ordered it to remain silent: “Hush! This juushoku does not matter.”

  “That’s no way to talk to your companion,” Ali interjected, gun in hand.

  “Not mine,” replied the warrior while sheathing his gunblade. “He has not stopped stalking me since I killed his master at the entrance of the quarries. A clown who did not have the prescience to avoid shooting me with his heavy mortars…”

  “You’re not going to execute us,” I noted. “Aren’t you participating in this Purge?”

  The samurai let out a discreet laugh before inviting us to follow him. My partner, who had regained a part of her eyesight, cautiously tailed him along the cables on which our savior walked like a funambulist.

  “No. No. I was passing through the region. I had not planned this little… corporate barbecue.” My human and I enjoyed the crystal cave one last time before we all proceeded to what a sign indicated as the access hatch to the refinement center. “Purges!” the samurai continued. “A massacre organized by our beloved Alliance when the number of bounty hunters becomes too significant. With too many auxiliaries, the rewards are worth less.”

  “Cronian Economy 101.”

  “They orchestrate those gruesome events from time to time. In a different corner of the system. But I do not have much patience for these masquerades anymore.”

  “You seem upset. And you kept working for them?” I asked as the airlock let us go through, and a magnetic track paved the way. “I mean… the Alliance.”

  “Purges are not as evil as producing fake contracts on innocent people to feed the market during periods of scarcity,” he laughed. “The interplay of supply and demand, compounded by the privatization of justice, creates a dangerously toxic blend.”

  “Greed, as a human construct, is truly fascinating.”

  “Indeed. But to answer your previous question: a man has got to eat.”

  Fair point.

  “But I am being rude. Allow me to introduce myself.” The samurai smiled at us before removing his hat. He was an elderly person covered with deep red scars, each with a story to tell. “My name is Raï. And this robot is F.A.B. From what I understood earlier.”

  “Annyeonghaseyo! FingerIDentification Aerial Bot, design F(ID)AB-28, two years old, built on Ganimeode and—” started the little robot before the samurai asked it to fly back to the leaky airlock we just left.