DogForge by Casey Calouette Page A

nipped at it with her front teeth and burst out the side. Her heart burst with fear and she scrambled away.
    Krunk grinned back at her and Kalus was chuckling in his deep bass growl.
    “You!” Denali growled back and chased after Krunk.
    “C’mon!” Kalus said.
    “Thanks!” Denali called back to Krunk and followed after Kalus.
    The passage narrowed and they skirted past an oval door that was jammed open. Inside a wide open space was lost to the darkness. Large metallic bat-like things hung from the ceilings in clusters of three.
    Beneath the shackled fliers were great caricatures of large metal men evenly spaced across the floor. The arms were tucked close near the center of the chest while the head was bowed, as if in prayer. On the shoulders perched dust shrouded boxes. Great armor plates covered them, plates unmarked by nanite teeth.
    She kept close to Kalus and watched the great forms pass by. They reminded her of the skelebots but unmoving, watching, knowing.
    Kalus spoke in a whisper. “Dimim he da chewed through some spicy wires and poof, upsee goes a door.” He stopped and rested against the side of the passage. “Chewy bits inside, easy pickings, yes? Some crunchy bits, too, man things, soowee! Good to pick ’em up!”
    “Like, never been in?” Denali asked.
    “Nope!” Kalus said with a click of his teeth. “Karoc be pacing like a bride.”
    Denali liked the sound of it, at least for salvage. Most of the times she crawled, it was a dead end. If this really went somewhere new, well, that was going to be different. “How do I get in?”
    “You already are,” Kalus said, and grinned.
    Behind Denali a fresh piece of electrical conduit was pinched tightly with a ragged pigtail of wires draped beneath. “But where?”
    “They be workin’ on da big door. Big big big. But for you—” his eyes lit up and he leaned down close to Denali, “—I founds a little spot.”
    Denali followed close to Kalus and took in the smells of the place. It was an old smell, the air was still with a cloistered taste to it all. The dust seemed a bit thicker on the edges. She had expected more, something grander, something well, not quite so boring.
    Kalus stopped and peered around a corner. Denali scooted between his front legs and peeked as well.
    Another wide space sprawled open. Row after row of pillars stood with an unknown purpose. At the end of the hall, a ringed alloy door spun slowly.
    A patchwork of gears, golden and bright, made patterns that mesmerized Denali. Words caught in her throat: “What, what is it?”
    Kalus shrugged and walked into the shadows towards the corner of the room.
    Denali could hardly take her eyes off the door. It was a thing of beauty to her. She grew up in a world filled with machine things, dead machine things, and now to see one that still functioned...
    Kalus stalked back and grasped her by the scruff with his jaws like a pup.
    Denali stifled a yelp and scrambled into the shadows. She didn’t even notice Samus watching over the rest of the pack as they gnawed and chewed.
    They came to a wall with a panel peeled back. Tooth marks and claws had shredded it open. Inside, a passage drifted into total darkness. It was like the others Denali had scrambled into, too small for any but herself.
    She sniffed but only smelled the stillness. A part of her was afraid, the fear of the dark places was instinct, but another part was exhilarated. Somewhere truly new. “Will you be waiting?”
    “I’ll be waiting for you girly whirl, now be you safe!”
    A hissing sound came from behind and Krunk trudged away. “I go!”
    “And here I go,” Denali said in a whisper and pushed herself inside.
    The passage was narrow and bland. The smells were almost totally gone, like it was stripped clean. She worked her paws one at a time feeling the metal beneath them. Cool metal. Her eyes were open as wide as she could get them and she saw nothing.
    A sound, a mechanical humming, grew louder before finally