Den after den, sin after sin—and no human.
"Maybe I did imagine him, Fill," Rowan said. "Or maybe he was a hologram." She paused from crawling, lay on her side, and blew out her breath, fluttering back a lock of hair. "But he seemed so real."
Fillister landed on her chest. He nuzzled her. "Maybe you imagined him. And that's okay. You're lonely. You're sixteen now. You crave human companionship."
"I have you," she said.
"Me? I'm just a robot, I am. You need mates of your own species. It ain't right for a girl your age to live in HVAC ducts, exposed to the sins of the galaxy. I've watched the old movies. You deserve to live like humans used to. To go to school. To have friends and family."
"I have family," she said. "I have Jade. She's still alive somewhere. I know it."
Fillister fluttered up and gently bopped her nose—his way of kissing her.
"Let's go back to the living room," the dragonfly said. "We'll watch Big Trouble in Little China again. That always cheers us up."
Rowan nodded. She did not smile. It felt like Paradise Lost, the entire space station, weighed down on her. Yes, that movie had always cheered her up. But now she found herself clenching her fists. Now tears burned in her eyes. Now she howled and pounded the duct wall.
"Row!" Fillister said.
Hot tears flowed to her lips. "I hate this. I mucking hate this, Fillister! I hate living like this. Like some damn rat. I want to feel grass beneath my feet. I want to feel sunlight warming my hair. I want somebody to hug me. I want to get off this damn space station, but I can't. Not if I steal scryls for a thousand years will I have enough money to buy transportation. And even if I did, where would I go? Humans are hunted everywhere. I'm going to grow old here. I'm going to be an old woman, still crawling through the ducts, until someday I die and rot here, and they'll find my bones in some furnace."
Fillister lowered his tiny head; it was no larger than a thimble. "I wish I could hug you." Mechanical chirps rose from him, his algorithms deep in thought. "I often feel like I failed you. Your father told me to protect you."
Rowan wiped her tears away. "You did protect, Fill. You kept me safe. Throughout all these years. And you kept me sane. Maybe you can't hug me. But I like hugging you." She cradled the dragonfly in her arms. "Come on. Let's go home."
She had taken a circuitous route here, passing through ducts she rarely crawled through. The HVAC network was not a simple grid. Paradise Lost had grown over centuries, new additions patched on with no central planning. The ducts twisted in a coiling labyrinth. But Rowan knew every bend. She took the shortest route home—insofar as her little area with blankets and monitor was a home.
The way took her through the administrative area of Paradise Lost. Rowan did not come here often. Below these ducts lived those who operated the space station: mechanics, janitors, clerks, accountants, a lawyer, a few security guards (who were thankfully too fat to squeeze into the ducts), and a host of dreary aliens in uniforms and suits. Their offices hummed with fans and computers. Most of these workers spent their time playing computer games and napping under their desks.
Rowan was almost past the admin sector when she heard the voice booming below.
"Another human! Another damn human!" Creaks and clatters echoed. "Do you hear me? You failed to kill the first one, and now they're breeding in the damn walls."
Rowan froze. Frowning, she inched back and peered through a vent.
She saw an office below, larger than most. An intricate model starship stood on a table, half-assembled. A tube of glue lay open beside a hundred plastic pieces still awaiting assembly. Instead of a chair, a bathtub full of mud stood beside the table. Inside sat a marshcrab, shouting into a communicator.
Rowan was surprised a giant crab could assemble model starships. Their legs ended with claws, not very useful for manipulating tools. The marshcrab had probably used the barbels around his mouth. Delicate and nimble, they often acted like fingers. Then again, this marshcrab didn't seem particularly good at modeling. Several completed model ships stood on shelves, shoddily assembled, the pieces crooked and caked with clumps of dry glue and mud.
Rowan recognized the marshcrab in the tub. Here was Belowgen, Chief Administrator of Paradise Lost. He didn't own the space station. A conglomerate from deep space owned Paradise Lost. Belowgen merely lorded over the space station in return for a humble, steady paycheck. He spent his time berating his underlings, grumbling about humans in the vents, and toadying to his bosses whenever they visited.
"I'm telling you!" Belowgen rumbled into his communicator. He splashed around in his tub, spraying mud onto his models. "I am overrun with humans. You assured me you caught them all."
A voice was arguing through the comm. Grumbling, Belowgen reached into the mud, fished out a small creature that looked like a mermaid, and bit off her upper half. He tossed the tail aside.
"No, you listen to me!" Belowgen said. "I'm not interested in your excuses. Can you remove my humans or not?"
Marshcrabs were the most common alien in Paradise Lost. After all, their homeworld—a swampy planet called Akraba—was right next door. The creatures reminded Rowan of crabs from Earth, but much larger and somewhat smarter. Their shells were red and lumpy, their legs thin and long like stilts. One time Rowan had descended into a dogfighting pit to tend to a wounded mutt. A marshcrab security guard had chased her, and she never forgot how coarse their shell was, like steel wool against her skin.
Belowgen was still clutching his comm, continuing his tirade.
"I hired you three times to remove the pest from my ducts, and three times you assured me she's gone. What the muck am I paying you for? Do you realize visitors to Paradise Lost have fallen by fifty percent because of my infestation?"
Rowan doubted visitors were falling due to her presence. More likely, the nearby Hierarchy held more blame. Rumors spoke of impending war. Who wanted to be so close to the scorpions? And yet, the marshcrab kept blaming Rowan. It was easier, she supposed, to blame a single human than an empire of bloodthirsty scorpions.
Rowan remembered a string of exterminators. Some were small gremlins who clanked and clattered through the ducts. One had been a slithering serpent. One exterminator had been a living plant, sending vines into the ductwork. Rowan had escaped them all. These ducts were her domain. She knew how to lose pursuit, how to open and close air flaps, even how to detach some ducts and reattach them, forming new paths. They never caught her. They never would. Unless Belowgen evacuated the whole damn space station and sprayed it with pesticide—and his losses would be astronomical—Rowan would continue to live here.
They can't catch me, she thought. Ain't no one gonna catch me. I'm fast and small and smart. This is my labyrinth, and I'm the goddamn minotaur.
Through the comm emerged the muffled voice of the exterminator.
"She's breeding in the walls," said the marshcrab. "Do you hear me? That's right! Another human popped up. Spent an hour in the brothel. He's grogging in Drunken Truckers right now. Do you have any idea, you idiot, what it does to an establishment's reputation to have humans? Are you going to come over here and remove them, you imbecile, or—" The marshcrab fell silent, then howled. "You quit? You quit? You can't quit, because I fire you!"
Belowgen hurled his communicator across the room. It hit a model ship on a shelf, cracking it. In a fit of fury, Belowgen rose from his mud pit, lifted what remained of the model, and tossed it at the wall. He bellowed, spraying saliva. He lashed his long, red legs, knocking more models off shelves.
Rowan watched through the vent with morbid fascination.