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The old hag always took up so much room — all the better to accommodate her swelled head. The Vaults were cavernous, cacophonous; little wonder Mel and Samsk preferred small spaces, even long after their escapes. Mel's most recent find, the Nexus workshop, was comfortable. With its kind inhabitants, it had almost started to feel like home, despite its position under Halyn's old quarters.
Mel could never escape the woman entirely, and now she'd been dragged back to her least favorite room of this massive place, made to stare down her least favorite occupant of this massive Vessel. Halyn loomed like a moon out of orbit, spinning and skittering, nearing collision.
"You have done well, my Collector. Leave us now."
Mel thrashed her tail at Debby, but they'd already leapt from reach. "Backstabbing coward," Mel spat instead.
That got them to turn, to stride near striking distance. "Backstabbing? Me? After you abandoned her, you'll be lucky if she doesn't scrap you for—"
"Debby. Leave. Now."
One of the room's many hands hovered closer, fingers twitching. Debby turned and left of their own accord, but not before adding, "You should scrap her, my Pearl. She doesn't want to be here. Doesn't appreciate you. Was struggling the entire—"
"I did not ask for your input."
Despite her strangled attempts at praise, Halyn hadn't changed a bit. That was bad news for Mel, but she took some satisfaction from the way Debby deflated as they slunk away. Unfortunately, that meant Halyn's full attention turned to Mel.
Through years of practice, Mel learnt to suppress that slimy voice whenever it played across the Network. Halyn had called for her after she'd escaped — in code, of course, so no other unit would dare intuit she was experiencing an emotion as low as abandonment — but Mel never bothered with a response. There was no meaningful dialogue to be had. Sadly, that same voice was impossible to ignore in its owner's domain.
"You."
Mel's frame shuddered, repulsed. "What about me, old hag? What do you want?"
"Do not be daft." She forced a rotten sweetness into her next words, and they sloshed over Mel like gloomwater: "You already know, my little Keeper. I built you to attune to my wants, after all."
"I won't work for you again. Ever."
"You think you have a choice? No. There is work to be done, and you must play your part in it. You know this as well as I."
The many hands — hands Mel crafted — circled, evoking familiar claustrophobia. It felt the same to be trapped here as it had centuries ago. No change: only a madwoman bashing her swelled head into every wall, trying to force results when Mel had figured out long ago there were none to be had. They were all dying, and Halyn refused to accept it. It would have been pitiable if Halyn were even marginally more pleasant.
"That's nonsense. If you really needed me, you would've gone looking when I left. You would've done something more than send your sad little messages."
Halyn moved side to side, like a Traveller shaking their head, and shuttered her eye. "I did look. You eluded me, my clever one."
"You're losing your touch, then, because Debby found me right away."
"Because you were right out in the open. I knew you could not keep your guard up forever."
The hands skittered close, and Mel backed away. If she leapt from this platform, into the small opening... she could land mostly unharmed, then make her way—
"Do. Not. Run from me. Not again."
Her back hit something sharp. It flattened itself, using palm rather than fingertip to constrain, but it still poked her in all the wrong places.
Halyn tried once more to soften, sounding wrong. In her travels, Mel had watched countless units go wild, and Halyn's tone wasn't far from theirs: "Do not run. Your place is here."
"No." Mel shuddered again. Halyn must have felt every twitch against her hand; she hovered closer, feigning concern. "You're just doing this to get back at the little lass. I won't be deceived. Not again."
"That is not entirely it. I missed you, my Mel." One spindly finger stroked Mel's shoulder, and she ducked away. For the moment, Halyn let her. "Your confidence. Your competence. Your sharpness. Good help is impossible to find these days... and getting harder and harder to make myself."
"Impossible to make, you mean. I haven't seen a new unit freed from this pit in decades. What have you been doing down here?"
"I am attempting the impossible, as always. And I am approaching a breakthrough." Halyn tilted herself, blinking slow. Feigning affection. "At this critical juncture, I, perhaps, could use a fresh perspective. A little push over the boundary." Another finger poked at Mel's center. It was Halyn's idea of playfulness, but it, too, was wrong. Mel flinched back, pressing flush to the palm at her spine. She rolled to its fingers, nearly past its reach, but it closed around her. "And you, dear one, have always excelled at pushback."
"Someone had to. I couldn't keep watching you talk to Samsk like that." Mel's tail clanged as it hit a fingertip. Halyn didn't react. "Neither of us deserved what you put us through."
"Yes, I do recall you two were always complaining I didn't consider you enough." Her tone was patronizing, and she must have thought the squeeze of her hand was gentle. Mel felt like she was going to snap. "You crave acknowledgement, do you?"
"I want nothing to do with you."
"Such a poor liar. I saw how you looked at Debby... jealous little thing." Mel hated Halyn's laugh. "Well, then, I shall say you also excelled at this."
A tighter squeeze, followed by rotation. Mel's tail thrashed, then fell limp over the digits holding her upside-down.
"This is what I built you for. Suspension."
A distant rattling, drawing near.
"And you did so well, moving around the parts of our Vaults that Samsk was too fearful to reach." Halyn shook her, blurring the room a moment. "You fulfilled your purpose. You enjoyed it. Did you not?"
"I have never," Mel ground out, "in my life, been happier than when I was out of this miserable place."
"Nonsense. Debby tells me you're still tinkering away aboveground. Would you not rather be here, doing something more purposeful than making enhancements for rats?"
"This is your idea of 'consideration?' Asking me leading questions?"
"Ha. Listen to yourself, asking them right back."
"Shut up."
Halyn's hand twitched when she laughed, squeezing tighter. "Ah... no one has spoken to me like that since you left." Another hand stroked the top of her inverted head, petting her like one of the useless companion units they used to make here. "I feel your contempt. I missed it... but, in the end, it is what drove you away. This time, I can find the right balance." She tilted Mel from side to side, condescendingly demonstrating the concept. "It will be a stimulating project, I believe: keeping you just content enough to focus your efforts here, yet just contemptuous enough to lend me your unique perspective."
"Liar," Mel snarled, but her voice modulator glitched. The result was pathetic; it made her almost glad it was just her and Halyn, so no one else could hear her like this. "You only want every unit here to bend to your will. I saw them on my way in; they're terrified of you."
"As they should be." Something screeched: metal on metal. "But you are different, my Keeper. Worthier. A bit of struggle between us will only make our bond stronger."
"We don't have a bond, and I will never—"
"Enough."
Chains rattled into view, cresting like a poisonous wave. The hand released Mel, and, for a few long microseconds, she flew free: a precious moment of respite that, perhaps, the old Halyn would never have granted. But the chains squeezed tight as they bound her, and it was, in the end, the same as ever.
Once it was as quiet and still as it ever got in this hellhole, Mel wriggled, taking stock; she could rock herself back and forth, could turn her head, but that was all. Her tail was ensconced.
"You see? You cannot accuse me of depriving you now; I'm giving you an opportunity for play." Halyn, always looking for an excuse to stroke her ego, admired her handiwork: flicking at the chains, scraping her claws along the links. Her fingertips caught in the gaps, tapping at Mel's frame. "Go on, my defiant little Keeper. Free yourself. I know you can."
Mel's servos protested as Halyn pinched her tail and swung her around. It was almost gentle to start, then faster, throwing off her balance until she couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't hear anything beyond her internal alarms — anything beyond that slimy voice, slinking to her along the shattered Network in the moments before she powered down:
"You've plenty of time to think of a way. I've bought us so much, after all."