The Exorcist

She secretly commended her past self for designing her suit with so many pouches. Here, a ticking neon-pink button disappeared into a pouch; there, a fake rose that could expand into a thin dagger was tucked into her belt. Deeper and deeper she went, weaving through the endless tunnels of, well, stuff, nicking whatever she so pleased. As she dug through a pile with two of her arms, the other two were already making space in her rapidly filling pockets to fit her newest acquisition. Her eyes, meanwhile, scouted out her next destination; she was so focused on collecting as much as she could that she even ignored the occasional flash of a control bridge or . Soon, The Exorcist realized she’d have to transfer everything into more of the sacks she’d brought with her from her ship, much like that one bag she’d left on the outer layer (which was still there, according to the eye on her lower leg).

But that wasn’t an issue for right now. Right now, she was unearthing a nice-smelling bottle from a heap of delicate earthenware; next to her, a pile of terracotta shards was growing rapidly. What she pulled out was an unassuming bottle (definitely not worth the effort), with a lavender-silver liquid sloshing around; nonetheless, not willing to let her hard work go to waste, she emptied a quarter of it into her mouth and the rest into her hip flask.

The Exorcist could have happily spent the rest of her life surrounded by all these exciting new objects—for a hot minute, she was genuinely considering abandoning her ship—if not for a tinny voice interrupting her peaceful utopia. “Please step off of my head,” it complained, followed by a hot steam that caused the eyes dotting her lower left arm to squint in protest.

She glared at this voice, which was apparently emitting from a squat, bright red furnace-esque apparatus. It looked similar to the devils she had seen at home in the Circles of Hell, except instead of being a creature it was a machine. Presently, this machine was spitting out toy vehicles, cars and bikes and trucks and boats, at an admirable speed, until-

“I said, off my head!” The devil-machine hissed, this time throwing The Exorcist briefly off-balance with a stronger burst of steam.

She whipped around, eyes narrowed, pistol already drawn. “Start making useful stuff first, and then we can talk.”

The devil-machine made a clunking noise, something reminiscent of a snort of laughter if you really thought about it abstractly. “Sorry seraph, but that’s out of my control. Talk to the chef if you want to know where to get your goods. Us robots just know how to go on and on, on and on.” And, as if it were taunting her, the devil-machine coughed out a slab of quartz before returning back to its normal fare.

The Exorcist stalked away, grumbling unpleasantries about how she’d personally see that blasted devil-machine turned into scrap metal; hell, she’d do it herself, as soon as she was satisfied with her looting. At the moment, though, an eye on her elbow caught a flash of green in a nearby hallway. She hoped it was another one of those scrumptious radioactive capsules she found earlier, as she had already snacked her way through her current stash.

But upon arrival to wherever her eye had seen, she instead found someone standing there. They seemed to be some sort of canine-human hybrid, if canine-human hybrids also had green wires and glowing patches.

“Have you seen any small neon pieces around?” The Exorcist called out, pinching her fingers into the approximate size she remembered.

They shook their head. “None that I remember. I can assist you, though.” The Exorcist shrugged. He seemed to be harmless enough, and she could use him to carry her extra trinkets if she needed to.

This, however, turned out to be a folly on her end. Sure, the canine-human hybrid (whose name, she learned, was Mason) helped her root for more souvenirs to take back to her ship, but their help was not without a continuous stream of “hm”s and “oh!”s every time she put away a new item. With every one of his judgements (as The Exorcist mentally dubbed them), she always felt the need to justify her choices, how this shiny coin would make a good addition to her collection of cool-looking coins or how the three abnormally large books she picked up would look perfect on her command table back in her ship. But as she answered more of his questions, it became more talkative:

“That’s quite the scintillating apparatus,” Mason would say as she flicked on a shimmery silver lighter. The Exorcist resisted the urge to throw the blue-green flame in their face.

“This chandelier would go splendidly with that duo of vases,” he commented, lifting up a weighty glass chandelier. She rolled her eyes, dismissing its suggestion without a second thought (the chandelier did look good, but she’d be damned if she admitted it).