Stray: Entry 10 - Antvillage

Before us stretched a vast circular chamber, like the interior of a colossal tank. A towering pipe rose through its center, extending upward beyond what we could clearly see. Water spilled from openings high along the walls, cascading down in waterfalls that echoed softly as they struck the floor below. The base of the chamber was littered with debris and shallow pools, but above it…

A village.

Built around the central pipe were tiered platforms, bridges, and walkways wrapped in greenery. Vines clung to metal beams. Moss and plants flourished wherever water touched. Soft light filtered through the mist, giving the entire place a calm, almost sacred stillness.

It was beautiful.

Peaceful in a way I hadn’t felt since the surface.

B-12 hovered close. The Companion, standing at the entrance to a long bridge that extended over the drop, introduced himself as Baladin.

“A traveler from the sewers. We haven’t seen one of you in a very long time. Are you the one who contacted us earlier? The little Outsider? Zbaltazar, the Outsider, has been expecting you. You’ll find him at the top. He’s… meditating.”

As we crossed the bridge into the village, that was when I saw it. A robot body capsule standing near the path. It’s shape unmistakably familiar. It was identical to the one in The Flat, where I had first met B-12.

B-12 froze.

“This machine. The scientist I assisted used one of these. He was sick. This was his last hope. He walked into the machine. But I wasn’t with him. He was alone.”

His light flickered.

“What was he doing? He uploaded himself into the computer and then everything was different. But the upload… something went wrong. He was stuck for hundreds of years.”

The village around us seemed to fade. There was only the capsule… and the weight of time pressing down on B-12’s voice.

“Until… a little cat appeared.”

I stopped.

B-12's recollection continued. “Was it? It was. Me.”

The words hung there, heavy and impossible.

“I was the scientist. I was human. I… I need a moment.”

B-12 went dark.

For the first time since we had met, the voice that guided me, the voice that translated the world, remembered the past and went silent. He was no longer a tool, no longer a helper. He was something more, broken open by truth.

I continued into the village.

I climbed through huts and ladders, past Companions who watched me with glowing eyes. They lived in bodies built to last, but none of them carried the burden B-12 did now: a human mind trapped in a machine. Normally, the Companions here might have greeted me, but with B-12 silent, I couldn’t communicate with them.

I hopped onto a low table between two Companions, sending board game pieces clattering across the floor. They recoiled in surprise, clearly displeased, but I kept moving.

Eventually, B-12 spoke again.

“I’m sorry for shutting down earlier. I’m human—probably the last in the world. Now look what’s left of me.”

His light steadied, dim but present.

“So much has come back to me. How much have I forgotten?”

I looked at him then, not as a drone, not as a device, but as something fragile. A mind that once belonged to a dying body. A memory that survived when everything else had failed.

Just then, we reached a small platform near the top of the village. A single Companion sat cross-legged at its center, slumped forward in stillness, cables running from his body into a stack of flickering monitors behind him. Decorative rugs covered the floor, and warm lantern hung overhead. The air here felt calm, almost sacred.

This had to be Zbaltazar, lost deep in meditation.

B-12 addressed him.

“Hey! Don’t you know not to interrupt a fellow during his transcendental meditation? Oh, it’s you. You were with Momo when we received that call earlier. I’m glad to meet you at last, little Outsider. You know Momo and Doc, so you’re already familiar with us Outsiders. I miss them. Their memory brings me peace. Momo stayed in the Slums. I heard you helped find Doc. And Clementine… she’s in Midtown now. If you still want to see the Outside, she’s the one who can get you there. Apparently she had some kind of plan to leave the city. Here—take this. I wrote her address on the back of this picture. To reach Midtown, climb up our little village. It should be easy for a dexterous one like you. If you manage to reach the Outside, you will be the very first. I’d wish you good luck, but you don’t need it. I believe in you.”

However, before continuing on to Midtown, we decided to climb back down through the village and spend some time among the Companions.

Life here felt different from anywhere else I had been. The village wasn’t just surviving, it was becoming. The Companions expressed themselves in small, earnest ways: one carefully experimenting with pigments, trying to invent a color that felt like their own; another softly reciting lines of poetry to no one in particular; and one proudly running a tiny noodle restaurant.

On one of the walls, a series of hand-drawn symbols caught my eye. As I studied them, a memory surfaced for B-12.

“This language. The Companion robots made it up from scratch. How impressive. I remember it happening, when I was in the network. I don’t know when exactly, but at one time all the communication started to switch to these symbols. I was stuck in a computer and alone for a long time. So I translated every symbol and word one by one until I was able to understand everything. Now that I’m out and I know their language, I am curious to hear all they have to say.”

As we moved through the village, Clementine’s name came up again and again. The Companions spoke of her with warmth, many affectionately calling her aunt, as though she had helped raise not just minds, but spirits. At the very top of the village, we found a small open space arranged like a meeting area or a classroom.

That was where we met Malo.

She explained that Clementine had taught her how to grow plants, something rare and precious here. Malo proudly showed us her collection, then shyly asked for our help. She was searching for three specific plants: one red, one yellow, and one purple. All the remaining colors needed to complete her collection.

With no urgency pressing us forward, we agreed.

The red plant grew within a trash heap beneath the village, its vivid color defiant against rust and refuse. The purple flower bloomed high in the branches of a large tree beside the village, nourished by dripping water and stubborn roots. The yellow flower grew along warm metal pipes just past the noodle restaurant, thriving where heat and neglect met.

We brought the plants back to Malo, who accepted them with genuine joy. In thanks, she presented me with a small plant-shaped badge, which I added to my vest. It was a quiet symbol of growth in a broken world.

With that, and a final look back at the peaceful village, I turned my attention upward. It was time to continue toward Midtown.

I began climbing the pipes above the village, higher and higher, until one led me across a narrow vent shaft cut into the wall. It was an opening that marked the end of sanctuary and the beginning of whatever waited next.