Iris didn't go home. Didn't even stop for food. She left Kwan puzzled on the steps of the hospital and walked out into the drizzle with Wulong perched on her shoulder, setting her way towards impound, closest to the crash site. The kitten's claws dug into her jacket against every lurch of her stride, his weight heavier than it should have been. Growing again. Always growing.
The Westbound viaducts cradled the lot like an afterthought of city planning. Trucks roared past overhead, spraying sheets of dirty water down through cracks in the concrete. The yard beneath was a corral of chain-link and dented poles, every fence hung with signs screaming INSURANCE REQUIRED in three languages and a row of corporate logos no one trusted. Lights buzzed against the rain, flickering whenever a truck overhead rattled the supports.
The clerk sat in a plex booth, screen glow reflected in his glasses. He didn't look up when she rapped the counter with her knuckles. Just pushed a slip under the slot and said, "Row C. If it leaks, not our problem. Sign here."
She scrawled nonsense across the pad with the stylus, not bothering to read. Wulong hissed through his teeth at the man, fur bristling. The clerk didn't notice. He'd long ago stopped caring what came in or out of the lot.
Row C stretched under the dripping concrete. Cars with their faces caved in, scooters stripped down to bones, drones missing propellers stacked like chicken cages. Iris walked slow, her ribs still tugging stitches of pain with each breath despite fantom sutures, eyes scanning for the shape she knew.
And then there it was.
Her bike leaned against the fence as if it had staggered there itself and died standing. Forks twisted at a sick angle, fairing cracked in two, one mirror dangling by a wire. Paint scrubbed off in great white patches, steel beneath scarred and gouged. The belly was slick with black, oil dripping into a puddle that shimmered neon even in daylight.
She stopped in front of it, breath catching in her throat. The city noise blurred out, the rain blurred out, even Wulong's muttering dimmed. For a second it was just her and the wreck.
She set her palm against the tank.
The vibration was faint, barely more than a tremor. But it was there. A heartbeat. A tick under the metal skin, too stubborn to quit.
Her grin came raw and crooked. "Still with me."
Wulong padded down her arm and onto the tank, tail curling. His skull-voice pressed into her mind, deeper than it had ever been before. Not the shrill thunder of a child demanding fish, but something heavier:
I CAN HEAR IT BREATHING. NOTHING HERE DOES IT ANYMORE.
She swallowed hard, nodded. "Yeah, he's coming with me."
He crouched on the bent fairing, eyes bright with reflected neon, fur puffing against the drizzle.
Getting it out was another matter. The weight alone mocked her—two hundred kilos at least, soaked, bent, leaking. She tried anyway. Set her shoulder to the seat, ribs stabbing, arms shaking, and heaved. The frame shifted a centimeter, groaned, then sagged back against the fence. Her legs wobbled out from under her.
Wulong blinked at her, unimpressed.
The clerk's voice carried from his booth, tinny through the rain. "Rent a dolly if you're serious. Two hundred a block, three hundred an hour. No refunds!"
Iris raised her hand without turning, middle finger high. Her breath hissed through clenched teeth as her ribs complained.
She lit a cigarette instead, shielding the ember from the rain, and crouched in front of the wreck. The smoke curled into her nose, cutting the stink of oil and damp iron. The bike looked dead. But her hand still felt the tick under the tank, and that was enough.
"You're ugly," she whispered to it. "Ugly, but mine."
The bike ticked once more.
She stood, bones groaning, and shouldered past a stack of broken scooters toward the bay where the dolly machines waited. They hunched in their charging docks like half-dead dogs, legs folded under them, chassis scarred. Their serial stamps had half-rusted away, one marked only with a stenciled "HKD-27" in flaking white paint.
The clerk waved his stylus from the plex booth. "Pick one. Scan. Don't hit pedestrians."
Iris limped forward, cigarette wet at the tip, Wulong hunched on her shoulder, surprisingly weightless. She held her card against the reader. The machine chirped once, thought about it, then barked a mechanical DENIED. She slapped it's visor. The light flicked grudgingly to green.
HKD-27 twitched to life. Its eyes blinked red, then white, then settled on the color of a dying lightbulb. Joints unfolded with a squeal like a rusty hinge. The whole frame shuddered as it stood, legs scraping the concrete.
"Elegant," Iris muttered.
The robodog turned its head toward her, lens focusing. It beeped three times in an off-key scale, then crouched low. A hook-arm snapped from its back, extending like a fishing rod.
"Great," she said. "Show me your party tricks."
It yanked the wreck upright with a groan, magnetic clamps locking onto the mangled forks. The bike hung there like a corpse on a leash, dripping oil across the dolly's shoulders. HKD-27 chirped as if pleased with itself, then lurched forward.
The first step landed in a puddle. Water sprayed across Iris's legs. The second step locked stiff, the dog freezing mid-stride. Its speakers squealed ERROR—CALIBRATING.
"Of course you are." Iris shoved at the tank, ribs screaming. The machine staggered, straightened, then walked again.
Down the street they went, courier and wreck and robodog, drawing stares from vendors rolling up awnings for the day. Two kids pointed, laughing, until Wulong hissed at them, tail puffing. His voice pushed low into Iris's skull:
THIS CREATURE HAS NO HONOR.
She barked a laugh, choking on smoke. "Neither do I. Look at us."
HKD-27 veered without warning, skidding sideways into a crate of oranges stacked under a tarp. Fruit scattered across the pavement, rolling under shoes and into gutters. The vendor exploded in curses, shaking his fist. Iris bowed, teeth clenched in something like a grin.
"Sorry. House-trained, I swear."
The dog chirped merrily and kept walking, dragging the bike like a stubborn toddler with a broken toy.
Every two hundred meters it froze again. SERVICE TOKEN REQUIRED, the screen across its back demanded in block letters. Iris slapped her card against the reader until it beeped and lurched back into motion.
By the second block her ribs were molten fire, her shoulder slick with Wulong's claws holding balance. By the third, she was ready to drop the machine in the tramlines and let it burn.
At the intersection of Des Voeux Road, HKD-27 locked solid in the middle of the tracks. Tram bells clanged. The dog bleated its error tone like a goat being strangled. The wrecked bike swung on its clamps, oil streaking the rails. Iris shoved with both arms, pain blinding white. Pedestrians jeered. Drivers honked. A tram driver leaned out his window, hollering curses.
"Move, you bastard," she growled, ribs stabbing. She slapped the reader until her wrist stung, but the machine only blinked red. LOW BATTERY. RETURN TO DEPOT.
The tram bell clanged again, closer now, steel wheels hissing as it slowed to avoid flattening her entire life.
Iris laughed. Just once, sharp, the kind of laugh that comes after the punchline caves in your teeth. She let go of the frame and collapsed onto the curb, cigarette dead between her fingers. Rain trickled down her collar, cold and honest.
The dog stood stiff in the street, wrecked bike dangling like a crucifix.
Wulong crawled onto her lap, wet fur plastered to his sides. His voice filled her skull, steadier than hers, resonant:
ENOUGH. CALL HIM.
She sighed. The comm's cracked screen lit her face in pale blue. She scrolled to Wei's number, thumb hovering. For once, not begging. Collecting.
Behind her the robodog squealed again, error tone echoing through the rain.