From atop the catwalks, I got a proper view of the cooling tower's true scale. It was like I'd fallen into a hollowed out volcano. The crows' baleful eyes watching me as I explored the walkways wasn't helping the ominous atmosphere. I wasn't welcome here, but none of the residents seemed eager to stop me.

  Of course none of the little buggers had made their nests on the walkways themselves, instead choosing the much more precarious network of pipes as ideal nesting spots.

  “Nim,” I murmured, my rasping whisper still echoing in the hollow space. “What's with this place anyways? Will those pipes hold my weight?”

  Hmm, the main steam bus should. The steam nozzles, perhaps not.

  “Uhm, what are those?”

  You see the smaller pipes with all the little holes? Those are steam nozzles. While a plant like this is in operation, those would be disbursing thousands of gallons of steam into the air every minute, so that it can be condensed back into liquid water. They are all connected to those main buses, which are the larger pipes.

  “I thought the whole point of nuclear power was to make steam.”

  It is. However the steam is only useful at high pressure, so it can expand inside the turbine, releasing that pressure on the turbine's blades. Once it has fully expanded, it needs to be condensed back into liquid form so it can be reused. The tower does this with its shape. As the steam rises, it is compressed as the structure narrows, and creates negative pressure at the bottom, which draws in cool air from the tower's open base, further cooling the steam until it falls out of its gaseous state and rains down to the collection basin below.

  “Forget I asked,” I grunted, annoyed at being lectured.

  You were once taught all of this, Yeva. I must learn things from the same ears as you, remember? Perhaps if you had paid more attention in Professor Bachmann's lecture on the logistics of nuclear and Hellion thermal power production, you would not be so confused by these simple and ingenious feats of engineering.

  “That was like eight years ago!” I said, offended.

  Two thousand seven hundred and thirty five days, four hours, and one thousand twenty seven seconds.

  It was unfair, he was a robot. And I know he was making those numbers obtuse on purpose.

  “Ah, but was that how long until the start, or the end of the lecture?” I said pedantically. “Ooh, look, a bird nest just off a main steam bus.”

  I hopped the railing before he could go on about some lecture I barely remembered attending, and landed in a crouch on the largest of the pipes, which did a full circuit of the tower just below the walkways. It fed hundreds of smaller and medium pipes that branched from it, filling the flat plane like grooves in a microchip. The cold metal vibrated with a hollow boom. It was slippery from a thin layer of green algae that grew on its surface. A few of the nearest crows that had been on the pipe took flight and circled overhead, cawing in annoyance at my intrusion. They would be even less happy when they realized I was here to eat their babies… maybe don't think about it too much.

  I took a single step and slipped, Richard's tattered boot shooting right out from under me. I toppled, falling perilously towards the abyss below. My claws dug in, the thin metal making a horrible screeching as it tore. I came to a halt, half way over the edge, and looked down. There was 20 meters of open air followed by a concrete floor. I swallowed. Instinctually, I'd pushed up Aiden's sweater to use my single secondary and two tertiary claws for extra grip. Thanks instincts, but if anything other than birds had been watching, I'd be screwed.

  “Hey Nim,” I said breathlessly, “my nails and fingertips, they're black and kinda shiny. That wouldn't happen to be because they've got a tungsten carbide coating, would it?”

  That is correct, why do you ask?

  “Oh, you know, I was just thinking about what you said about effort and well, if this works, it'll be really cool.”

  My fingers had bitten deep gashes in the steel and were wedged in the grooves, meaning I had a good grip with each hand. I dislodged my primary right hand one claw at a time, and coated my tongue in acid before licking the freed talons, slathering each nail in a thin layer of the corrosive yellow saliva. Oddly, I didn't taste anything. The acid must have dissolved any residue I had on my fingers before it could ever reach my tastebuds.

  Reaching further up the pipe, I pushed the nanite covered claws into the steel. They sank in like hot claws through margarine. Once I'd fully punched through, I was able to grip the steel with the part of my hand and fingers that weren't coated in the vibrant acid. I repeated this process with the other hands and crawled my way back up the side of the main bus. Safely atop it once more, I much more carefully crawled along the pipe until my prize came into clear view. The small crows nest was a few meters away, nestled on a junction between a dozen nozzle pipes and one medium bus pipe. The occupants were out but resting inside were three absolutely tiny blue speckled eggs.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “So forget this whole fertilized or unfertilized thing, those eggs are not a meal. How am I ever going to find enough of these things to live off of?”

  Oh dear. It appears my calculations may have been slightly off. I had based my estimate with the standard caloric density of an egg listed in your culinary history textbook. But these eggs appear to be much smaller than the eggs of a chicken.

  “Well no shit, so you know how much bigger chickens are than crows?”

  Their wingspan-

  “Is not everything. Chickens are chonky as hell, crows aren't.”

  It was your idea to eat the eggs instead of the birds in the first place. If you are regretting your decision, we can always go back to hunting the adult specimen.

  I bit down on my rebuttal. He was right. Even if he'd known how small they were, I'd probably have still chosen this over killing a crow.

  The medium sized pipe I'd have to cross was 3 meters long and only about 40 centimeters wide. The nest was at the end of it, beyond a meter wide gap of open air, of course, being supported by a network of smaller pipes that wouldn't hold my weight, which meant this was going to be tricky. I lowered myself backwards down the side of the main bus, making hand holds as I went, until my legs straddled the smaller pipe. Carefully, I slid myself down its length backwards, occasionally having to awkwardly kick my legs over branching nozzle pipes, which were covered in hundreds of little holes.

  The crows' incessant cawing grew agitated as I neared the nest, but I tuned them out, inching ever closer. The nest was to my left, in reach. I made a handhold with my right hand and leaned out over the void and tangle of nozzles. With my body fully extended, I plucked one of the eggs with the acid free pads of my pointer finger and thumb. It can't have weighed more than a dozen grams. I held the egg to my ear, listening for any sign of a little heart beat. I couldn’t be sure that I would hear anything one way or the other, but hearing nothing helped ease my conscience anyway.

  I took a deep breath - down the hatch - and popped the egg into my mouth. The shell crunched between my teeth, bursting with slimy liquid. Despite the off putting texture, it was actually pretty good, which was an odd thought, considering it didn't really taste like anything. I reached for another, stretching my body out across the expanse, but something hit me in the back of the head, causing me to lose my grip on the handhold to slip. I heard the crows cackle as I started to slide around the pipe. My nanite coated claw rent the metal open like a tin can as I desperately tried to stop my slipping. I came to a rest hanging upside down with the pipe clutched firmly between my legs, one claw still lodged in its side.

  I was starting to regret not eating the damn bird.

  The metal groaned above me. I'd nearly cut the damn thing in half with my nano-claws. The gashes covered at least a third of its circumference, nanite residue still eating away. The metal didn't appreciate the impact this had on its structural integrity. With my extra weight on the end, it seemed to think we weren't worth the effort of holding onto, as it started to bend. The metal screamed as the ribbons of steel left holding the pipe together snapped one by one.

  I bent at the waist and grabbed for the still intact part of the pipe, fingers scrabbling at the jagged edge, but the angle was awkward from below. The movement caused the steel to lurch, breaking free of whatever was keeping it in place. It swung like a pendulum. It was now or never. I pushed off it at its apex, and grabbed the only handhold I could think of. The nozzle pipe was only about three centimeters around and fit my hand perfectly. As I hung from it, I watched the end of the medium bus and the network of nozzles that grew from it tear free. Its size made it seem to tumble through the air in slow motion. It hit the ground with an unholy screeching boom that shook the air.

  “Caw?”

  I looked up. The crow had landed on the nozzle just above my hand and was looking at me balefully.

  “No you don't you little-”

  It pecked my hand, the beak biting deep into flesh. I knew my instinct would be to let go from the pain, so I clenched my fist in anticipation. The effect was the same. I crushed the little pipe, my nanite coated nails digging in deep. It had already been at its limit, holding up my weight. It snapped. I fell.

  The crow cackled as the ground came up to meet me.

  ***

  “Richard, what took you so long? I'm starving.”

  “Sorry Melony, I had to take care of something important.”

  “Busy rangling choas gremlins?”

  “That's rich coming from a thundered.”

  “Aiden, I will end you.”

  “Hey, that was a compliment.”

  “God, you're so weird.”

  “You stole my soap.”

  “You weren't using it.”

  “Yes I was, do you have any idea how much effort I put into these dreads?”

  “You mean your hair doesn't just do that naturally?”

  “No!”

  “Guys! Lunch?”

  ***

  My legs hit first, but the pain didn't reach my brain before my head reached the floor.

  Crack!

  ***

  “... “

  Oh, hello. What’s your name?

  ***