Night-Owl Trucking

Wednesday, 5:05pm

Amity chewed at her lip as she watched Luz and Shawn amble away. The brown-eyed girl's last words ran through her mind on repeat. I won't be gone long. I won't be gone long. I won't be gone long. Well, that's good, because she didn't want her to go at all. But... would she have stopped Luz from helping someone in need? No. That wouldn't be right. What would that say about her if she had tried? Besides, it's not that she didn't want Luz to help. Amity knew she was being selfish, dammit. She just— She wanted her here, and—

Min whirrred to her side, balanced upright, humming and ticking like an old tape-reel mainframe at her shoulder as she turned in a slow circle. She pointed her digitized face toward Amity and wheezed a question. The green-haired girl continued to stare after the other.

A hot, dry wind blew across the wide plains to rustle the hair gathered at the nape of her neck, and she shivered while bits of brown grass tumbled across the pavement at her feet. Amity could feel the sky above her, stretching out for miles. She felt so small beneath the yawning blue. A thought struck, just then, swift and sure: she was alone for the first time in two days. Amity nearly flinched as the realization slid through her skin like a splinter of ice. She was alone. The thought lodged itself in her spine, and a frigid, tingling numbness began to creep down her limbs. She was alone, abandoned by the only person she knew within seventeen hundred miles. Luz hadn't even reached the end of the sidewalk yet, smiling, carefree Luz, who glanced back at her with a nod and a wave. All she had to do was call out to her. Just raise her hand, and then her voice, to— to say— Move her feet— Go! Just— just go!

She couldn't.

She couldn't bring herself to move. She felt so cold. The only person she knew was walking further and further away, and now she was alone and paralyzed by the knowledge of being alone. The summer sun blazed high overhead in a cloudless sky, baking the gleaming row of trucks at her back, yet its steady heat did nothing to slow the numbing cold that snaked around her bones. Amity pressed her lips together in a frown, and a small whimper slipped through her teeth.

Min left a caster on the ground with a clack, and extended a single manipulator digit to prod Amity in the face. The tall girl jumped back a half step with wild golden eyes, hissing through bared teeth. The robot tilted to one side and waggled her hand, a rapid set of white symbols flickering across her black crystal screen. A small square lingered off to one side, showing a video closeup of Amity's jawline overlaid with flickering blotches of red light, marked a moment later by a yellow bar reading 168 bpm.

"I—" Amity licked her lips and glanced about. Her mind was abuzz, her thoughts swirling in endless circles. She tried to still her shaking hands as she watched the numbers on screen climb higher. "I'm fine."

Min made a blat of derision as she crossed a middle pair of arms.

"I was spiraling, perhaps," the pale girl huffed, earning herself a second pair of crossed arms and a green green green, "But I— I'm fine." A Blight doesn't show weakness. Take control of the situation. "L– Luz said she would find us," Amity shut her eyes and grimaced at the stutter that caught on her name. That was the wrong thing to say. She knew Luz hadn't abandoned her, intellectually, factually, but why was everything in her chest screaming it? A Blight is self-sufficie—

Min poked her in the nostril, and Amity swatted her articulating limb away with a choked, "Min, I don't need—" The purple boxy robot pressed up against her side and coiled her four upper arms around the tall girl. Amity stifled a sob, and a moment later Abe and Nate swung around her other side, working in tandem to balance on three legs while they wrapped the other seven around their maker. Amity gave a trembling sigh as she felt herself sandwiched between their warm metal plates, her arms pinned to her sides with a firm, comforting pressure. She took a deep, shuddering breath and whispered a hesitant, "Tighter?" They obliged, their servos humming as their limbs constricted, and for a handful of deliciously dizzying moments she could hardly breathe. Abe chittered a signal, and the three robots released their hold.