She was too far off to reach. I crouched beside Indigo and looked around at the Dreamer-bots, humming busily between the fires and twining around the glinting metal sculptures. Lantern-Eyes was crawling in their direction, still searching for her club. Dreamer-bots swarmed lazily over her face.

I groped around for something to throw. It did not take me long to find a fingernail-sized bit of metal—an old washer, or something. I picked it up and tossed it at her. My aim was perfect: it landed precisely on the curve of her shoulder and bounced off.

Tamara went very still.

I reached for another washer, but Indigo put his hand on my arm. The Dreamer-bots swirling over Tamara’s face had been unsettled by the motion, but as I watched, they calmed back down, spreading sickly over Tamara’s face, crawling through her long dark hair.

I took careful aim, and threw the second washer.

It struck Tamara in precisely the same place and this time she turned her head around as if to look. The motion nauseated me, because she, of course, could not see—the thick layer of Dreamer-bots climbing over her skin rendered her features unrecognizable; there was no seeing through them. But she turned her face in our direction, broken arm tucked up against her chest, and trembled.

Then she started to shuffle towards us, an awkward, slow, one-handed crawl, as quiet as possible. Even without seeing, she knew she was in enemy territory.

Her aim was slightly off—she would end up not quite at the right spot between the shelves, but a little to the right. When she was near enough I whispered, “Lantern-Eyes!”

She stilled again, though the Dreamer-bots on her face buzzed angrily, a few surfacing from the thick, swarming layer to drift around her skull.

Indigo was very tense beside me. I glanced past Tamara at the other swarms of humming Dreamer-bots. The way the statues stood, firelight glinting, it was very hard not to imagine they were watching us.

“Over here,” I whispered again, as quietly as I could make it, and Tamara changed direction slightly, shuffling towards us.

When she was near enough I put a hand on her shoulder, stilling her. She was all bones and muscles so taut they felt like stone beneath the worn fabric of her oversized uniform jacket. She said nothing—could say nothing, beneath the nanomachines covering her mouth—and up close, the sight of the creatures climbing over her skin like tiny insects, obscuring her features, made me sick.

Indigo reached out one hand and laid it over her face. As soon as his skin came near the Dreamer-bots, they reacted—flying off of Tamara’s skin to swarm over his, humming excitedly, landing on his hand until they coated his skin as closely as they’d coated hers.

I shrugged my jacket off as quickly and as quietly as I was able, preparing to get rid of the bugs the way we’d done before. Tamara knelt very still, her eyes and mouth tightly shut, even though the Dreamer-bots had left her skin. There were a hundred tiny cuts over her face.