The reinforced metal door stood defiant against the flesh of the dying city. Insignificant against the size of the fortification, Bee found herself sitting in the middle of the road as she tried to translate the many enigmatic designs and eldritch devices that littered its surface. It had already been nearly an entire day’s travel across the great slug. Despite this, she had been instructed not to rush this process. She was told what to expect; she had come with water flasks, at least enough for a few more days. Nevertheless, the beating sun made the soft skin on her hands and face, where it wasn’t silvered, pink and raw. She raised an arm, shielding her head from the glare with armoured plates.

There it was - lost in the dizzying, straight lines of yellow and black - the box that Bee had been told about. She pushed herself up onto her two rear legs. They seemed to be the most robust, least prone to hurt.

On the very tips of her toes, the child had to reach up to get a good hold on the box’s handle. Then, with a gasp and a pull, it snapped aside, hinged like a jaw. Inside, metal was woven together in a synthetic mesh. A flashing red light distracted her wide eyes for longer than it should have. Then she found the button she had been told about and thumbed it down as hard as she could until it clicked.

The box hissed at her.

“I’m here to see the Wire-Witch!” She shouted back louder, determined not to let it think it could get away with biting her hand off. She needed all of her hands.

Suddenly the ground shook – thumping harder than any heartbeat Bee had ever felt. The steel of the gateway screamed in pain. Bee took a quick step back, making way as it tore open. Strings of meat grown between the metal surfaces were stripped apart, bleeding profusely from the trauma of the opening. She looked into the armoured cave. First, there was darkness. Then it was filled with an unnatural, orange glow that reminded her of the setting sun. However, this light ticked and flickered in a way that disoriented her. Cold air rolled out to meet her. It caught in her throat and stung her nose.

Bee had to descend into the madness. It was why she came so far.

Feeling her stomach twist into nervous knots, Bee put one foot before the other and crept inside. She saw a host here to meet her - a dozen freaks standing at attention, staring at her. Yet they didn’t move, not even as the child dared to step closer. Only then did she realise their impossibly symmetrical forms had no meat. Their silverline flesh was lifeless. Once she crossed the threshold, the gateway groaned and ponderously resealed itself.

The walls buzzed and hissed, then called to Bee in her mother’s voice.

“Come in. I won’t bite.”

“Okay. I mean… I know.”

The walls didn’t answer back. Bee stepped further into the chamber, then the next and the next. She was guided by sealed and opened doorways, only presented with one path. This place was made up of sharp, angled rooms and unnatural, narrow corridors. Absent were the pulsing gullets that connected cavities in the city proper. No great organs were growing into the spaces. The walls and the ceilings were ribless and stripped of skin. That cold air seemed to have infected the nature of the place. It was sterilised of life, nauseating Bee with how removed it was from the city.

After dizzying sharp turns, just when Bee lost hope of being able to find her way back, she stepped into a quiet chamber. Opposite, the entire wall was made of panels, alight with ever-changing, scrolling, transforming alien symbols. The array snatched her eyes away with its bright lights and countless electric colours. It took too long for Bee to even notice her mother. Bee froze in the doorway. No. It wasn’t entirely her mother, sitting in a chair, at a grand table, in the centre of the room. With its mirrored teeth and distinct jaw, the eyeless skull looked the same, yet the flesh of her body was plump, lacking the skeletal silhouette that her real mother possessed from ridding herself of internal organs. What hooked this woman into this place of plastic and metal was not fleshy and grown but instead consisted of colourful wires and hardened, cabled mechanical apparatus. The table she sat at looked old; There was no bone here. It was something else, dark and stained but still soft at the edges - still organic.

“What’s your name, dear?”

“Bee,” she answered, swallowing a lump in her throat. Then, suddenly conscious of her hanging tongue, she retracted it.

“That’s a nice name.”

“Are you the Wire-Witch?”

“I am. Come sit down, Bee.”

Bee tried. She had never used a chair before. It was so much more significant for the child than for the witch. Dragging it back, Bee scuffed the chair’s wood against the floor’s wood before hopping onto it. The Wire-Witch watched her with a vested interest, back straight, posture perfect, whilst Bee leaned forward with her hands and elbows on the table. It was so strange for Bee to see that lipless, eyeless visage on someone else.

Only after the bizarre ritual and the ordeal of sitting down was completed did Bee ask, “Can you help me with something?”

“That depends on what it is, Bee,” the Wire-Witch answered. Amusement played in her voice. Bee felt out of her depth.

“I need to send a message to the Bone Monks in the Crawling City.”

“That’s very specific. Did your mother tell you to do that?”

The vat-born gave an unsure nod before throwing aside her doubt. She looked at the Wire-Witch in her empty eye sockets and answered. “I have something to tell them.”

“How is Eye?” The Wire-Witch asked, quickly changing the subject. Then, when Bee didn’t seem to understand, the master of ancient technologies elaborated. “That’s your mother’s name.”

“She’ll be dead by the time I go back,” Bee answered quietly but firmly.

The frankness of the answer made the Wire-Witch pause, broken when she bowed her head to say, “Yes. Yes, I imagine she will be. She gave herself to this city.”

After their gazes met again, Bee couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you look like her?”

“We are sisters. Or she is my mother. It depends on how you look at it. My name is Djay. Do you know what a sister is?”

Bee nodded to that. “Yes,” she said. “I have sisters.”

“Do you?” Djay laughed. “Do they look like you?”

The child shook her head, quietly mesmerised by the sight of her mother’s skull, so at ease.

“No? I didn’t think so.”

The two of them, strangers yet family, sat across from each other and shared a moment of silence. The air was filled with the soft hum of fans from the bank of screens. Bee wanted to say so much, eke out some familial bond that she couldn’t articulate. She eventually managed to speak after squirming in her seat.

“I’ll give you whatever you want.”

The skull that the Wire-Witch wore was turned down. She looked over the table’s smooth surface before dragging a hand over it and tapping her long, titanium nails steadily.

“No, you won’t,” the witch said. “And you should never make that promise to anyone.”

Bee felt her throat tighten. Her hands shook. Despite everything she knew, it felt like her own mother chastising her.

“Do you understand, Bee?” It was just like her.

“I… Yes.” The child managed to turn her eyes back up to meet the Wire-Witch, even though it made her cheeks burn and her stomach flip.

“You shouldn’t trust anyone who doesn’t earn it. Not even family has your best intentions at heart.”

“I know you’re dangerous.”

Djay laughed again. She shook her head, leaning back from the table. Her chair creaked. “I’m dangerous? Eye told you that did she?”

Bee nodded. The Wire-Witch bore down on her.

“Do you even know what she is? The Vat-Mother!” The Wire-Witch stood as far as she could, hands slamming down on the table, the cables anchoring her body to the wall stretching taught as she became enraged. “She ravaged our body and made it into a little breeding factory, whoring herself out to them, making them twisted new bodies! Living weapons, too, enslaved children created for killing on demand! Anything for biomass and a bit of their attention! Do you think your mother is alone? She was truly the worst of us. She embraced this madness, but she also took it to an extreme never before seen in the millennia that the cities have walked. Recreating herself countless times over, she haunts every city of the world, bearing countless monsters to term each and every day!”

The Wire-Witch was shouting now, incensed that a child had come into her domain and insulted her. Flinching with every word, Bee kept her head down. She knew what most of it meant, but it took a moment for her soul to fully digest it and fight back the tears of panic. But, of course, the child didn’t want to hear these things about her mother, so she frantically shook her head as if that could make it all go away.

Neither could meet the other’s gaze. Bee’s chest hurt, and she struggled to breathe. Finally, managing to look up to the Wire-Witch, she was met with a fleeting glance before the older woman averted her gaze.

“A sample of your blood,” Djay finally said quietly. There was resignation in her voice. “That is the price. It will be nothing you’ll miss, and you’ll never get so kind an offer again.”

Bee could only nod and accept that.