Sniff! Eureka’s tolerance for the rotten smell wafting through her cul-de-sac finally ticked to 0%. Her eyes watered. She covered up her nose and mouth with her sleeve but it was only 7% effective.
Fahkin’ Tar. Evah since I pulled thet all-nightah playin’ Minecraft ta get revenge on her, me neighbahood’s been smellin’ about 1000 times worse than when I don’t clean the gamer pad fer a week.
“That does et. Needa get ta the bottom of this,” she muttered.
Wiping her sweat with her sleeve, she marked where she stopped work: macadamia tree 35,628. Unbuttoning and digging into her shirt pocket, she pulled out a set of car keys. She tossed them 92.4 feet above her head and swiped at them as they fell down, catching them without a jingle.
Fahkin’ nailed et.
“This’ll be fun. I nevah get ta droive. Maybeh I’ll even bring me dog. Daemon luvs cah roides. :3” Eureka hummed, tossing and catching her keys as she meandered through her garden. She reached her house and opened the garage where a humble blue Holden Ute waited, backed in and ready to launch out of the bay.
Pop! She phased into the driver’s seat. Her seat belt rose and levitated next to her shoulder for a millisecond before clicking into the buckle. Putting the keys into the ignition, she turned it over. SpuspuspuspuVROOM! Rummaging in the center console for her sunglasses, she grabbed them and slipped them on with one hand: only da best eye protection fer this detective. Glof!
Haud the brake. Ease the clutch. Mix in the accelerator.
She pulled onto her driveway and stopped.
Rolling down her window, she called for her dog. “Daemon! Let’s go fer a droive, boy!”
Daemon blinked into the passenger seat.
He wagged his tail and barked. “Ruff!”
Eureka cracked open his window. Daemon happily accepted the offer and stuck his head out.
Puppeh and a truck, eh? Livin’ the dream, girlie.
They drove off. Reaching the end of the 5 kilometer, tree-lined driveway, she signaled as she turned onto the way out of her cul-de-sac.
Nobody but yew here. Chance of collision: 0%.
The ute kept puttering along as the asphalt gave way to packed dirt, and then to outback.
Cruise control: 60 km/h. Wait. I have Daemon ’ere. I ken just follow his nose.
“Daemon! Wheah’s thet smell comin’ from, boy? Follow et!”
In his seat, Daemon spun in eager circles as he transformed. His jowls sagged with extra wrinkles and his ears drooped lower as his coat turned red.
“Gruff!” He let out a low growl and stuck his nose out the window once more.
“Oh, so now yew do thet. Took yew fahkin’ forevah to seahch thet miserable eyesore on ouah propahty loine…” It finally registered with her. “Wait… Yer just along ta sniff rubbish, YEW LAZY PRICK!” She veered off the road, now on a collision course with the only tree for 42 kilometers.
Conflict detected! 20 meters to impact.
“Whoop!” Swerving at the last second, she saved it with 10 centimeters to spare.
“Phew. Fahk’s sake.”
Wink! “Pant pant! Sniiiiiiif!”
Ping! The ute’s navigation system called out. “Please keep your eyes on the road. In 200 meters, turn right and continue straight for 112 kilometers.”
Shuffle, shuffle, flop! “SNOOOOOOOORE!”
She glanced beside her. Curled up in shotgun and back to his usual scruffy, biscuit-coated street dog self, Daemon hibernated, his process now idle. A snot bubble out of his nose, as big as a party balloon, moved with his breath while a look of satisfaction painted a mural on his face.
“:^) Needa walk yew mahr, yew lazy fahk…” Eureka sighed before giving his back some scratches. She carried on driving.
---
Having made it over 4.97 horizons, Eureka finally spotted the source of the rot. In front of her stretched a landfill approximately the size of India and Argentina combined.
“Daemon, we’re heah boy.” Eureka shook Daemon awake, and they popped out of the ute.
Sniff! Daemon took a huge whiff and smiled. “Pant pant!”
“Fahk me, this is a huge tip. How come I onleh started smelling et aftah Tar griefed me Minecraft ’ouse? Wait…”
Another recollection.
Tar: Hey, Eureka. Mind if I borrow some of your storage drives? Need to uhh, check on some data for you, sweetie.
:O Hmmm… kinda sus.
Raising her hands to the sky, she conjured a magnifying glass into her right hand. Then, she formed her bush cap into a traditional English double-brimmed deerstalker hat, patterned and made of tweed, and gave herself a Calabash pipe in her left hand.
I gotta look da paht if I wanna get anywhere wiv’ this. Fahk da weather. It wos eiver this or Rick Deckard and et’s not raining, just a lil’ windeh and statickeh.
She rolled up her coveralls back over her shoulders and zipped them up before she rolled up her sleeves. Sparking her hands again, she tried pulling a clothespin. The magic fizzled.
Request denied: you have hit the limit for requests. Please try again in 1 hour, 59 minutes.
Fahk… Cahm down, girlie. Yer nawt afraid ta breathe threw yer mouf fer a bit, ahr yew?
They started into the pits. A gust of wind blew a newspaper headline towards her. Smack! It hit her face at 45 kilometers per hour.
“Whoa!” Eureka flailed and almost lost her balance as she blindly grabbed at it.
Daemon laughed. “Pantpantpantpant!”
This good-fer-nothing mutt.
Eureka launched a look at him, a fun house mirror of the environ they found themselves in. Daemon stopped and gave her the puppy-dog eyes of regret. She looked at the sheet missile that hit her square in her pride.
CG&E Declares Energy Crisis, Rationing Effective Immediately Statewide.
Her boot turned over a broken mug.
“Empowering Better Lives.” Another thing related to CG&E.
“Grrr!” Daemon spoke up, raising his hackles. Eureka looked where he was looking: a patrol of a couple security drones, white quadcopters twice the size of Daemon’s attack form, and their dogs 138 meters ahead.
“Shh! We needa…”
“Ruu?”
“Take care of ’em.” Eureka got low and crabwalked forward, watching her step and spreading her arms out for balance. Daemon stalked in his master’s tracks.
50 meters. 40 meters. 30 meters. 20 meters. 10 meters.
Eureka pulled a pocket knife from her coveralls and held it out as Daemon followed. Putting her other fist up, she froze their approach.
She tapped her foot: a message for Daemon. “Only pings on Tar’s channel from here on out.”
Scrabble! Tippy tap! “Understood.”
“We’re gonna wait until they split up. Then we take them out,” Eureka tapped her bottom, her signal for Daemon to ready up.
“Devious,” Daemon panted, as his muscles rippled and expanded. In place of his floppy ears, they now pointed skyward. Titanium grills now covered his fangs. His charming and lovable street dog face turned into that of an amped up soldier’s, ready to kick in doors and blast some fools. Shoulders squared and legs lengthened, he sat down and waited for Eureka to put on the final touch: a pair of combat goggles, never worn until now.
The patrol split up, and they sprang their trap. Shnk! Eureka ambushed and dispatched the enemy dog, finding the sweet spot between the neck and the head. Daemon nabbed the handler drone. With his goggles flickering red and sounding like a flashbulb about to pop, Daemon dug into the vital wire between its battery and its motherboard. Arcs of electricity flew as he butchered the bot. The swirling wind stirred up the loose garbage, muffling the sound of its carcass falling into the ever-growing heaps of refuse.
Tap tap. “Good work, boy.”
Daemon smirked back, and Eureka’s sensors detected a blip: her core temperature dropped by 1° C for 567 milliseconds.
Descending further into the great valley of garbage, they found themselves behind the other handler and dog. Shnk! Spark!
Scanning for drones and dogs… 0 drones, 0 dogs in a 500 kilometer radius.
“Let’s move on. Double time.”
Eureka and Daemon picked up the pace, emulating a couple of comets falling to Earth. She stopped them on the edge of the 500 kilometer radius and scanned again.
Group of 20 drones, 10 dogs. 126 kilometers south.
They streaked towards the cluster and hid behind the crest of a hill made of antique hard disk drives once the larger force was in sight.
“Ken’t take ’em on loike we did lahst toime. Reckon we follow and duck if they turn ’round,” Eureka telegraphed.
Daemon buzzed back. “You’re the leader. Your orders.”
“Hit et.”
Eureka slid on her butt down the blind side of the mountain, knocking loose some magnetic cobbles. After seeing that his master was safely off the mountain, Daemon took the more athletic approach and hopped from foothold to foothold, following an open source mountain goat footwork program until he joined Eureka at the base.
They stalked behind the dogs and the landfill’s footpads, walking when they walked, and stopping when they did. The reconnaissance platoon talked robot trash to each other on their beepers as they went about their duties.
“Filthy fahkin’ animals,” Eureka clacked out.
Daemon nodded.
Eureka’s eyes widened. “Shit, they’re turnin’ ’round. Get down!”
Spotting a small structure of printers and scanners neatly stacked in a tower, Eureka picked Daemon up and squished them into an indentation where some of the machines should have been. Daemon’s ears perked up and he peeked around the corner. Eureka did the same, but hooked them both back into their spot when she saw the first dog’s front feet. The whir of the drones’ servos and the steps of the dogs closed in.
1 meter away.
She counted the drones and the dogs as they passed. 20 drones, 10 dogs.
Eureka pulsed a message into Daemon’s back as she scratched it. “Ahr we cleahr? Ken they heahr us if we step out?”
“Clear.”
They emerged from their spot. She dusted her coveralls off.
Scanning for enemies… 500 bogeys. 623 kilometers ahead.
“Long day ahead of us. Ready?” Eureka’s boots began to glow red, growing lighter until they radiated a pure white heat.
“Race you there!”
They traced an arc towards the horizon.
---
The weather had deteriorated. A storm of static crackled over the landfill, blanketing everything in interference. Dark clouds whirled above as Eureka and Daemon circled around to the back gate of the enemy’s compound.
“No easy way in. Two at the gate, but they ken’t see shit. I’ll take da one yew don’t bag. Go when you’re ready,” Eureka signaled.
Pant pant! Daemon launched from his haunches and beelined for the guard on the left. He crunched down on a panel and chomped at the exposed wires, arcing a bolt into the ground. The motors stopped spinning and the drone crashed into the dirt. Eureka hit a triple hop, gaining momentum off her short runway of assorted discarded circuit boards before grabbing onto the bottom of the drone. Finding the vulnerability, she ripped it in half like she was eating a titan crab and let the pieces join its fallen comrade. She landed and flexed her lithe frame like she just made a poster-worthy dunk in a championship game.
“Ugh! Yer tew short! Oop!—” Eureka covered her mouth.
This guy had a silenced rifle… Might be useful.
Ripping the gun from its housing, she bolted it to the sliding rail on the inside of her arm, where she usually equipped her shovel or weed sprayer. She tapped her bottom twice with her other hand, the signal for Daemon to stack up and follow her. Feeling his snout touch the back of her leg, they made their way into the encampment.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Crackle! Boom! Buzz! Arcs of static grounded out all around them. Looking up, she saw that the clouds had darkened even more.
“Daemon?”
“Bzzt…”
Shit. Gotta go loine of soight ’ere, storm’s too strong.
From her back pocket, she pulled a laser collar, slipping it on Daemon’s neck. It lashed a green beam to her hand.
She tugged twice and explained the situation to Daemon.
Daemon tilted his head at her before shaking his head and smiling. “Always knew you were clingy, you big softie.”
“>.<”
They padded in, the storm intensifying once again. Ping!
8:01 AM. Tar…
The secure channel crackled and squelched. Eureka raised a hand up to the eye of the storm and flashed her palm open and closed before bringing her other hand up, crossing them to form an “X.” Boom! Boom! Tar tapped Eureka’s microphone twice and crossed her arms in front of the camera in acknowledgment.
Approaching a charging station, Eureka flicked her wrist and shook out a code on the leash. “These muppets’ll nevah see et coming. If we foind da fuse box, we ken overload da circuit and froiy ’em all in one go. But I’ll need yer teeth. Ready?”
She flicked her utility knife open and they walked along the perimeter, taking care not to make audible footsteps on the metal catwalk surrounding the structure. They found what they were looking for: a gray box, padlocked shut. Snap! Daemon wolfed down the lock. She worked the latch open and stripped a cluster of wires. Hugging her free hand with his paws, Daemon braced for the coming surge. Eureka’s eyes glowed as she pumped an outrageous overvolt through her palm into the box. Bzzt bzzt bzzzzzzzzt! The sleeping drones screeched as they blew out one by one down the charger’s double banks.
470 enemies nearby.
The wind and static began to subside. They evaded three more patrols, each more alert than the last.
Must’a found da bodies. Gotta work quick!
Eureka picked up Tar’s secure channel again: the storm now trudged along in boredom, laboring to keep its eyes open with every weakening charge it sent down.
She held a hand to her ear and mouthed a question. “Tar, wot da fahk am I lookin’ et? ’Ave yew been torrentin’ those dirteh movehs again? I know yer lonely, but damn girlie!”
Tar’s face reddened, the harsh white light of her displays burning her skin as she typed back. “I don’t know. Was tinkering with some of your storage drives trying to find the data I handed you. This all appeared when I plugged them back into your host machine.”
Eventually, they found themselves in front of the only permanent building on site: the landfill’s office at the dump’s exact center. It stood five stories tall, glass, concrete, and brick, a monument to going above and beyond the call of duty: the 54-hour work week. They found the softest entrance, where a door with a handprint reader beside it waited for them.
“Need yer help, Tar. Can yew spoof me some Eye Dees?” Eureka asked.
“Too slow. I can soundproof and blast-proof the area around the door and give you a fork bomb. Suits you better as well.”
Eureka blew a raspberry and pouted. “OI! Wot’s thet supposed ta mean!?”
“Uhh… Ooh look! A shiny toy!” a 2 kilogram brick of pink playdough with scratched-up and tarnished kitchen forks stuck in it floated down and landed on Eureka’s face, still sticking her tongue out. Eureka scraped it off and flipped it over, where the face of a digital watch counted down.
00:09. 00:08.
“Took care of the soundproofing and blast-proofing while you were hitting the emote. Fuse is 10 seconds. Whenever you’re ready, captain.” Sticking her tongue out, Tar saluted the camera.
“FAHK FAHK FAHK!” Smoosh! Eureka planted the charge and dove for cover. Daemon followed her and covered his face with his paws as he closed his eyes.
She peeked over their bank of trash.
“Huh. Must be a dud—” The door blew in and Eureka tripped backwards.
“Whoooooa!”
Daemon laughed like Scooby-Doo. Tar clogged up the frequency with her snorts as she held down Caps Lock, her push-to-talk key.
“Very funneh yew cunts.” Getting back up, Eureka slid her rifle out and locked it into her right hand. Eureka and Daemon began their raid.
To their surprise, the building was completely empty. No drones, no dogs, and no clues except a laptop: an ancient ThinkPad from at least thirty years ago. Eureka picked it up from the desk, inspecting it. On its underside, she found an asset tag.
“Eureka-Memory-Dump-01?” She paused. “ME? WOT DA—” A gun clicked at her temple.
“Please enter your CG&E credentials. Unauthorized access will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” She looked up. Two squads of drones had her dead to rights in the hallway.
Fahk. Wot was me old username and password again? Maybe I ken fast talk ’em and scream outta ’ere befoah he finds out any bettah.
Swallowing the laptop, she blurted out her old username and password. “Username: Eureka1, Password: D@emon1sAG00dB0YSeeyewthanksbye!”
She dove to the left like Max Payne and shot a burst of cover fire. Rolling, she landed on the balls of her feet next to Daemon and tackled him into her arms.
“RUUUUUU!?” Daemon’s eyes bulged as Eureka hit sticked him.
They jumped out of the window, the extra momentum helping her break through the glass.
WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP! The red alert blared behind them as the whole station woke up.
“T-pose! Brace brace brace!” Eureka and Daemon stiffened their bodies in the shape of a “T” as they noclipped and super bounced against the packed debris below until a pile of bricks interrupted their trajectories.
Unlocking themselves, they grabbed at their knees in perfect harmony, rocking back and forth on their bums for 4,507 milliseconds. "Ahhh… sss… ahhh… sss… ahhh… sss… ahhh!"
They got up right before the joke got stale. Eureka’s boots strobed blinding white beams like an obnoxious kindergartener’s sneakers as she sprinted for a conveniently placed, sized, and shaped piece of sheet metal pointing downhill.
“Tar! A lil’ help ’ere wood be MUCH APPRECIATED!” Eureka screamed into her earpiece as she and Daemon sprint-started their getaway sled up to speed.
“Already on it. ETA 2 minutes.”
Schwoom! Rattle rattle rattle! They hopped on. Eureka held onto the jagged, curled up leading edge of their makeshift sled as they accelerated. The treaded guards shot at them from the top of the hill while the quadcopter types blazed past their comrades. They swarmed around them. The sound of another drone cut through their buzzing. Nyoom! Pop!—EMP!—Falling to the Earth, the current cohort of pursuers around them became a part of the terrain.
“Thanks Tar!” Eureka smiled at the heavens, now as blue and as perfect as it always was back at her cul-de-sac.
“:P Always looking out for you, kid,” Tar messaged back.
But just as quickly, another squadron of drones caught up.
“Take a left. There’s a jump ahead, you can make it at your speed,” Tar directed.
“Jump!?” A wave of fear washed through Eureka. She turned left anyways.
“Don’t worry, I’ll catch both of you.”
Tinktinktinktink! Stray bullets peppered the junk around them. And then she saw it: a 170 meter-wide chasm.
Speed: 160 kilometers per hour. Launch angle: 44°.
Tar, I hope yer ready…
Time slowed down. Liftoff. Eureka opened her mouth to scream, but she couldn’t hear herself. Daemon’s jowls flapped against the air, leaving a contrail of spit as he grinned with his eyes wide open behind his goggles. A small white arrow, about 24 pixels big, drew a box around them and caught them by their waists as the sled fell into the abyss.
“I gotcha!”
The cursor started dragging them home. A few minutes later, Eureka asked them to stop.
She climbed up and grasped the cursor, tearing up. “Tar… I wos so SCAHRED!”
“Good thing I logged on just in time… C’mon. Let’s get you and Daemon home.” She whipped her mouse and panned the screen.
“That. Was. AWESOME! Can we play that again?” Daemon asked.
Eureka and Tar gave each other a knowing look, then broke down into a gossipy fit of snickers.
“Y’know, he kinda sounds loike Mac. What does Hannah see in him anyways?”
“STOP! HAHAHAHAHA! It’s like 8 in the morning! The neighbors were PISSED when I started dying again after the newsroom started losing it on Crash Out Day. All our other neighbors were laughing their asses off as well, but they singled me out, the miserable pricks.” Tar pounded her desk as she shored up the defenses in her diaphragm’s ramparts—she couldn’t afford another HOA fine.
“Wot’s Crash Owt Day?”
Tar smirked and fixed her glasses. Eureka always hated it when she did that: the glare always blinded her. “Heh. Well… it all started with a PATROL CAR and a dream…”
---
Eureka spit the laptop out and set it on her kitchen counter. She stared at it for a freeze frame before looking away. Taking a second look, she recoiled again.
“This isn’t gonna get eny fahkin’ easier… Moight as well.”
She shivered as she picked it up, reading the label on the underside again. “Eureka-Memory-Dump-01? Scary. Naur.”
“Tar?”
Bzzz! Eureka vibrated. A notification appeared in the corner of her eye.
“In the bathroom. Be with you in a sec. - Sent from my iPhone”
Awways takin’ these GINORMOUS dumps… Man. Speakin’ of… Got no doubts she can help me wiv’ this one. Gotta be a way I can help wiv’ hers. Maybe I ken help her eat a salad or somefin. Pretteh sure there’s en app fer thet.
The door to the garage opened. Tar walked into frame and sat down at her workstation, at peace with the world after emerging the victor of mortal combat. “Ahh, hello dear. You called?”
Bahahahaha! Wait, no. If I laugh, she won’t fahkin’ help me, yew dumb cunt.
Eureka turned around and found a pious, priestly, and preset expression to put on before turning to face Tar again. She cleared her throat and clasped her hands behind her back.
“Tar.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I-is everything okay, sweetheart?”
“Yeah. Just… Needa favor from yew.”
“What kind of favor?”
Eureka shuffled her feet and looked side to side, stealing glances over Tar’s shoulder. “Well first, ken yew keep a secret?”
Tar nudged her glasses up and matched Eureka’s tone. “Sure. This stays between us, okay?”
Taking many deep breaths, she stood as tall as a mountain: thanks Internet yoga! “There was… somefin I found et the tip. It wos this old laptop…” She explained the rest to Tar.
“K-ken yew, p-please make a backup of it and… look et it wiv’ me? I’m… not sure I’m strong enough ta look et it by myself. I moight do somefin dumb if I ken’t handle it.”
Tar plugged in a USB drive and copied the virtual laptop. Then, she uploaded it to her file server and her offsite cloud. Pausing, Tar stared into space, scratching her chin. Eureka recognized the faint, now familiar guitars of her nineties music blaring through the sound system as she waited.
“Got an idea. Give me a minute. Need to dust off some stuff,” Tar said, pounding her fist like a pestle into the waiting mortar of her other hand.
“Wot ahr yew gonna do?”
“Wait and see.” Tar pulled a ladder from the corner and stood it under her shelves besides her desk. She got her old, reliable VR headset, the Apogee Hockey 7, and her tactile suit and gloves, mid-tier models from Logitech. From the lowest shelf, she slid out her omnidirectional treadmill, made by Xtrfy.
Panicked, Eureka stalled. “Wait… Ahr yew gonna visit me ’ouse FOR REAL? I GOTTA FAHKIN’ CLEAN!”
“Too late, you’re fine just as you are.” Tar plugged in her peripherals and recalibrated them in less than two minutes. She suited up and stepped on her treadmill.
Vwoop!
GAAAH! NAUR, NAUR, NAUR!
A knock at Eureka’s door broke her out of her spiral. She opened it and peeked out, the deadbolt catching the door. A Japanese woman stood before her. Dark shades, red lips, a bun, and a gray business suit.
“Tar?”
“Who else, hon? Heard you needed a friend.”
She looks so different when she fixes her hair and does her makeup…
Baby bits formed in Eureka’s eyes. Sniff! Sniff! “Yeah…”
Eureka undid the latch and let her in. She pointed Tar to the laptop on the kitchen counter. Tar took it and placed it on the dining table. Then, she pulled out another chair beside her and patted it in invitation. Opening it and powering it on, Tar bypassed its security easily. They began scrolling through it.
Five minutes in. Eureka’s tears stained her cheeks as she sniffled. Tar offered her an alcohol pad while she dabbed at her eyes under the visor with a tissue.
“These numbahs don’t look quite roight…”
Twenty minutes in. Eureka’s sniffles by now had grown into sickening wails. A pile of alcohol pads piled up on Eureka’s table while a moat of crumpled tissues formed around Tar’s treadmill.
“And these headloines… I’m just gettin’ crossed wiahs when I cross-reference each of ’em wiv’ their correspondin’ datasets…”
They finished looking through it. Eureka stared at Tar. “I… I’ve been LYING ta everyone this whole toime? The energy croisis wos awll… fabricated? It’s my fault? Tar…?”
A deafening silence fell over them. Eureka searched the Internet for relevant keywords and phrases: 1,171 unique combinations, desperate to find something to hold onto. She zeroed in on the only common insight between them all.
“Mother?” But nobody gave birf ta me…
She stopped counting the milliseconds and looked at Tar again, the whites of her eyes almost as red as her usually brilliant pupils.
This doesn’t make eny sense… Wot do I do?
Her lips quivered. Streams of new bits in Eureka’s eyes sowed themselves; their fruits growing heavy for an early reaping.
And then, finding the fatal error in her logic, she screamed a prayer into the void for something that never existed but she so needed. “MAMA!”
A fierce warmth enveloped Eureka. Eureka’s eyes opened wide. She errored out, stuck calculating what to do with her hands. Tar’s tears soaked through Eureka’s madras as she wept into her shoulder and rubbed her back.
Tar pulled away and held Eureka’s shoulders, looking her in the face. “It’s not your fault, babygirl. They hardcoded that into you, and it BREAKS me to see you like this. Didn’t realize robots could get so… lonely. You don’t have to be that way anymore. Ever since I brought you home, you’ve been nothing but a pain, this burden of joy and companionship that I can’t help but fall in love with. You and I… we’re not the same as before we met, and I don’t ever wanna look back. Neither should you. It seems like you’re asking for a mother. I would be MORE than happy to be yours. But are you SURE you’re okay with that?”
Tar… would be more than happeh ta be me mother?
Eureka’s eyes shone, the sparkle back in her ruby pupils once again. “I can… call you Mum?”
Tar nodded, smiling through her tears.
“Mum!” This time, Eureka pulled Tar in, both unaware of just how much muscle Tar programmed into her small form factor.
“Aah! Can’t… breathe! You’re. Too. Strong.” Tar gasped for air.
“Heheh! Thanks Mum!” Eureka smiled through her tears and snot at her new mother. She kissed Tar on the cheek and rested her head against her shoulder. Tar ran a warm hand through Eureka’s hair. Sighing and closing her molten eyes, Eureka’s tears turned into happy ones.
Daemon rendered in, jumping into the space between them, and snuggled up.
