[AN: Hooray. More reading list. I’m still ploughing through Allomancy on a paragraph-a-day basis]
(#00281)
Sarah thought she was done for, this time. The Criptid creature had been inches away from having her head for a snack. But then, something invisible turned the tables in a more permanent eye-for-an-eye fashion by literally bashing its head off with a big stick.
Sarah recovered her weapon and dealt with the last few stragglers.
The invisible thing faded into view.
“All bad guys dead?”
The figure had aqua skin and a really horrible olive-khaki swimsuit and matching utility belt and shoes. The short brown hair could have belonged to any gender, but this being somehow still read as feminine.
“Yeah…?” Sarah kept her weapon ready. “What are you?”
“Mostly harmless, I swear,” the aqua girl did something to her metal staff that reduced it to the size of a can of soda. “Sara Louise Adrien. Unfortunately feeling the chill. In a minute or two I’ll go into survival mode and my higher capacities will shut down completely. I apologise in advance for the singing.”
“Singing,” Sarah repeated. If things couldn’t get weirder, then she was a wasp in the body of a human and fighting members of her own kind to stop them eating humanity. Oh wait.
“One of my directives. When in doubt. Sing. My compatriots can track me down by my, and I quote, ‘weirdo dinosaur music’.” A deep breath. A stretch. A sigh. “Okay. Objective, eliminate bad guys. Done. Orientation. Uhm…” The sky was overcast. The trees were covered in goo, not moss, and everywhere looked like everywhere else.
“Downhill and downstream?” suggested Sarah.
“I have an app for this!”
Hooray. She had an iPhone.
{dodoonk!}
“Siri. Show me the way to go home.”
It took them three hills before she started singing the rest of the song. By then, Sarah had found out about the third O (orders: don’t die) which contained an essence of useless utility.
“Time for a different song?” Sarah begged. The cold was getting to her. “One written this century?”
“Who am I? Who am I? But a sound. Of. Tomorrow!”
Technically correct. Pity Sarah had no real love of steampunk. Soon, the allies would find them.
Please, merciful Universe, let it be soon.
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