Expensive Pennies

A-you kept me fucking waiting.

-she’s sick, B thinks back, I couldn’t leave right away.

A-yeah, that happens doesn’t it? People just get fucking sick, ruining everything for everybody else.

B wanted to pace around after hearing these angry remarks, but she had to stay right there in the momentary circle as A thought all that, this level of the tech wasn’t exact so even moving in a way that came natural with the overflowing frustrations had to be minute.

She preferred this irritability to inconsistency. At least A was able to keep the signal strong compared to other polishers, who would think nothing but positivity into your head and then cut out for who know how long and then cheerfully apologize long after the entire mission was more or less ruined because your suit’s life support system was low on the back-brand battery you were forced to use because you used your main just to get access to this quadrant. C was promising great stuff because it’s where a few office buildings went down, and that when the shift change happened it would be easy to get B in as another guard, and because they’ve got the equipment on by that point there wouldn’t be any concern about having cover-blowing small talk on the transport that will probably break down twice anyway.

To C’s credit, it all went down perfectly for B, only having to nod and make the odd hand gesture to the other guards before being allowed to wander freely among the seemingly endless fields of rubble and trash, her equipment hovering loyally behind her.

The plastekz noodle tickled B’s throat more than others, because of breathing problems she got as a nine year old, or when she was told she was nine years old.

So nothing to say, everything to think.

Walking between the mountainous piles of ruin took time, getting caught in a half pile-half puddle took time, waving away a rusting mist that could damage the suit took time, and getting lost because everyone had different names for the makeshift streets and alleys definitely took up time. The half buildings and cobbled together now abandoned shacks made it difficult to follow the signal directly, turning this urban wasteland into something like a forest, even if the closest is a hundred something kilometres away and mostly dead.

When the wrist console beeped again B shuffled over to flickering AR ground circle on her visor to think back to A, who got the first synapse in.

A-well?

B-not there yet.

A-well fucking go then and hurry up. This is costing us a fortune.

It hadn’t yet, but it might, depending on what B’s little fleet of bots would be able to find.

The nine little searchers were something she was quite proud of, her own design of course, meaning they couldn’t be hacked via common network or deactivated by general e-pulses. Sure, they’re based on stolen codes, but you can cover those tracks up pretty easily if your polisher is game and has access to gov files somehow and A has many side gigs that he refuses to discuss.

-he’s gotta be covered, P told B a few days ago after some aggregated sex, the Heads have got to know what he’s doing and just look the other way.

-he doesn’t have anything on them, B said looking at the pink afternoon sky through a hole in the roof, they would just de-map him like that.

-i don’t mean that, P replied, I mean he does work for them on the side. Or on the front, and all this other stuff he offers to do for us is on the side.

B-no way they’d be okay with that. They want pure loyalty through and through.

But now B wasn’t so sure about her position on A.

The rest to get a short earful was actually beneficial, as the trek to the supposed spot of spots was once again prone to unwanted, plodding long cuts.

But if no one bothers because it’s too hard to get into - and get stuff out of - it’s why this area has potential.

B finally stops walking and sprays a squirt of vitamized water down her throat, careful not burp at the exact wrong time. She goes over to the crate patiently hovering on the drone pods behind her and presses an access code for it to split open section by section to let her grab the little bots one by one and place them on the dirty ground, all parties eager to get started.

Tapping the sensors gets the green lines humming, making sure the patterns are proper and then off they go, and it didn’t take long for her scurriers to start beeping with green joy.

Jackpot.

B looks up at the sun and gives it the finger, proud that all the star’s recent attempts to nip human existence in the bud had crashed and burned.

Carefully stepping over cracked concrete and residek flooring and plastic lawn ornaments and tattered disuniformed clothing and flattened aluminum cans and stretched styrofoam to approach the one she nicknamed ‘Bort’ because of its spiked treads. It’s display listed the readings from below, and B called over ‘Drill’ - named obviously - came over to help break down the concrete, and while that took time it was worth it, because within the thin bent steel drawers pinned underneath was a cracked but unopened laptop computer.

Close by was an even bigger get, a handbag with two smart phones, heavy gigs deep, and after a scan, most of it clogged up with whatever.

Good, good, good, and her bots were still finding more and more, with ‘Harvey’ lugging it towards a newer, much more valuable pile that will ultimately be droned out of here.

Even better was when some clouds drifted over, allowing B to turn down the reflection levels on her suit to save battery power.

After cracking open a busted auto dashboard for the lovely chips inside, another wrist beep from A sent her forty three metres to the southeast for the transmission circle.

A-well?

B-it’s going great!

A-good. Finally. How much?

B-I don’t know until we connect with an assessor, but if you don’t have someone lined up I know-

A-no, I mean how much does it weigh.

B-oh right now it’s about 200 kilos but there are still plenty of spots to check so I’m sure that-

A-stop at 250.

B-250?!

A-yeah without a vehicle that’s the limit.

B-you can’t pick up any more than that? What kind of extract jumper are you using?

She didn’t bother asking before they left the camp because it seemed like 250kg would be the floor, not the ceiling.

A-one that can take 250 kilos as a fucking payload and no fucking more than that. So focus on-

Without thinking B thought:

-you’re a lightweight.

And after a bitter, stinging silence, the response was:

-I am the only fucking weight in the zone right now, so right now I’m heavy, welter, feather, and fucking light all mixed into one and if you don’t hurry the fuck up and finish so I can send my fucking jumper along maybe I won’t send anything and tell the quadrant guards about some rando fuck nose that might be swimming in their piles.

B didn’t get the weight references, but kept her thoughts within respectful breathing during the brain lashing until the signal ended and she could overflow with profane words and thoughts while coordinating her bots to pick up only fifty more kilos tops.

A waste of my time time I should have asked all the goddamn questions instead of making quick assumptions I should have listened to P about something, questioned C about everything, because this is an idea bordering on bad if I can only come back with half of what I planned because how the hell am I going to pay everyone back for the gear?

So now she started to be a lot more discerning about what the bots brought back, inspecting it for any hint of current or power, and scratches in the drives and boards, knowing that C stressed looking for certain types of computers-

Then there’s a green wobble on the wrist pad screen superimposed over all the other apps open, and two seconds later A wants to open an emergency convo which probably means that-

The explosion was registered on one of A’s ancillary screens, the stuff you don’t look at until something else goes wrong. When B suddenly went offline it could maybe be explained by a network or suit error, but turning his head to just check the app that measured vibrations around that location, it was clear that something big just detonated there.

Chatter on the lorder signals didn’t sound like they knew something was afoot in this random spot, so it wasn’t necessarily an intentional missile launch, and B seemed to be someone to keep her plans close to her chest so there was probably no fancy double-cross or revenge, meaning it might just be one of those damn accidents that’s always the risk. Suddenly things go boom in the ruins of yesteryear.

A-well shit.

A didn’t particularly like B, but A would be quick to admit they didn’t care for anyone these days. Weeks. Months. Years. But B was someone C had put a lot of stock into, and the importance of that wasn’t lost on A.

And now ‘was’ is even more accurate.

B wasn’t necessarily dead, considering it was an unsolicited non-targeted explosion,. The suit might be able to absorb plenty of the impact, and who knows how well programmed those bots of hers were. Could drag an unconscious person as long as the batteries don’t conk out. Funny to think that a few years back you had to worry about hungry animals nipping at unconscious heels.

Animals.

Not on this continent, thank you very much.

A waited five more minutes and then figured it was too late for B, or it would be an incredible survival story that would become a revenge one since B would blame A for abandoning her, but that’s motherfucking life, ain’t it?

And those living are doing other jobs that need attention, so with a couple taps on his console as he cracks his neck and plans to wheel into the kitchen for a snack in a few minutes, A sends a message to someone who is still on the move, running from a ‘nado, except for right the fuck now, with a few seconds to chat.

A-well?

L-I’m like two hundred k’s away from the eye of the storm and it sucks here too.

L thinks this clearly with more playfulness than bitterness, and if she held her wristpad cam up close to her face for a selfie, there would be a thin grin there, with the dark clouds billowing just far enough behind her.

A-but you’ve got it? We’re on extraction time?

L-yeah, so to take this call we had to get off the transport-

A-then get back the fuck on and go!

And before L can retort with some profanity, A essentially hangs up, leaving L annoyed as she stomped back to the not-quite-accurate-but-what-else-do-you-want-to-call-it ATV, where G was sitting expectantly on it, signing L to hurry up with some of them own profane gestures mingled in.

She nods and puts her hand on the throttle and the machine immediately hums to life at such a speed that if this was the ruined town they had been picking through, they probably would have crashed into half a building or a steel mess of dozens of vehicles.

But it was just a wide open field, which gave them a great 360 degree view because G was in the jumpseat behind her, turning their head from time to time to act as the the missing rearview mirror, giving wind and debris updates.

The storm had been brewing for a few days, exponentializing in size graciously, scattering nomad camps in three different directions (fuck the south), and while that meant death, destruction and all that ‘i got something in my eye over the state of the world’ stuff, it was a cris-itunity for someone like L.

And while it definitely sucks here because of the radiation and the grey ponds, the ATV was chewing up acreage and staying ahead of the constantly darkening clouds that seemed to have a personal vendetta against anything with a heartbeat.

L usually didn’t work with a partner - most scavengers don’t, since it means just another split of the earnings - but when the weather radar looks like diarrhea on a map and you’re going through yellow scream estates, odds of success increase when you have someone who can shoot at something behind you while you’re shooting at what’s in front.

She’d known G for a year or two, and they were only separated by three floors in the Garrison Springs residential complex, which is practically like being in the same cell after getting caught for your first soc-hack. They got along well enough and enjoyed the same spice level on Wednesday noodles (‘3 to live, 5 to die!’), so why not try to scavenge as a duo?

This was trip three together, and L’s sixth for A, who didn’t care if one hundred people went as one big group, as long as they found the shit he needed.

Finally getting a blue on the wrist pad, L holds it up for G to see then stops the ATV beside a lone but impressive dead tree.

L yanks off the mask and the nozzle came out way too fast, burning their esophagus, meaning up came lunch and probably some breakfast, but it was all the same sludge.

At least she and her compatriot were eating well.

G-you okay?

They hadn’t taken their helmet off yet, and had to finger sign the question.

L-yeah. Pass me water.

G does, but still takes a few seconds scanning it to make sure contamination is min.

Despite her thirst, L is careful with the intentionally room temperature water, splashing it all around her mouth before swallowing and being slow and steady with that to not send it down the wrong way.

What a waste that would be, in land that’s seen enough it already.

G removes their mask much more carefully and only hocks up a generous loogie before accepting the water bottle themselves.

The talk between them is mundane, about how they’re feeling and the state of the vehicle and what kind of rations they have and whether the storm is gonna bitch and twist and make the next leg just as annoying as the last.

And it feels good, actually, a relaxing bit of complaining and observation which doesn’t get the heart going any faster than it has to.

It was even - dare to just use the word - nice…travelling without having to wear the mask, but it did remind you of the dust and dirt that naturally kicks up when you’re cutting through these fields.

Then the rad levels skyrocket freakishly quick and both L and G are worried as they swallow their mouthpieces once again to protect themselves that the meters are a few minutes or metres too late and they’d already had absorbed a fatal dose.

Regardless, taking a detour meant eventually taking them into Estate land.  About twelve hundred acres that had obviously been evacuated years ago, but was certainly patrolled in with the standard AAA-estate security.

Sirens. Gas. Bots.

In that order.

The first would be loud enough to deafen a person into unconsciousness. But the helmet has insertable ear plugs to dampen to effects. The gas was a variation on CX nerve agents and casually fatal. But that’s what the multi-use mask will prevent via its filters.

Then there’s the bots, and you just hope by the time your temp hack on them is repaired by their own internal virus resolution system, you’re on the other side of the estate boundary, and will be able to avoid any of the slicer rays not so feebly fired as this horrible property fades into ‘fuck that place’ memory.

The first two obstacles were easy-peasy to overcome, but outrunning the bots via vehicle becomes difficult because of the messy rubble of cracked pots, shattered statues and massive holes in the typical pavements and paths because of previous explosions and disruptions.

A perfect storm while escaping the other perfect storm.

The sirens went off and while not ear bleeding unconscious level it was still damn annoying and the gas sprayed out from small grates which was a bit dangerous only in the sense that a bit of makeshift fog could hide a crack or divot that could cause the ATV to spin out or flop if L didn’t notice it.

Hacking the bots so quickly made G feel useful, even if it would only be for thirty seconds before the automatic reset, meaning they would have to go through the process of accessing a nearby satellite to hide their true location to hack the bot again, but that whole process wouldn’t necessarily be worth it because you should be able to get clear in thirty second plus reset, so never the fuck mind.

Even though they were able to drive right through the main hallway from the backyard to the front foyer, the mansion was in impressive condition all conditions considered.

Enjoy the cracked high ceilings, half-spiral stairway and ragged doorways big enough for vehicles.

If they could (should?) have stopped, taking a piss in a marble bathroom would have been fun, even if the toilet was in shambles.

A is sending an update request, and looking across the area in AR and seeing that the circle is about a two minutes’ drive away, L decided he could sweat out for a bit longer.

And they were really letting the water drip out of his skin - if A’s broken, bitter body was even capable of performing such basic tasks - because L and G kept going down the lengthy cobblestone driveway as the bots finally got their shit together and started firing, thankfully far enough away for L to veer just based on the sounds of each laser blast powering up.

When back on an actual road G made a gesture meant to indicate ‘woo-hoo’, and for a few minutes it was even possible to enjoy the view of distant dead forests, but L knew that problems don’t stop they just shift.

Weather pattern is a generous term because sometimes they come as catastrophically random, where things seem to be calm climate wise for longer means they’ll be more goons and pricks in gangs stealing your own hard work or internal organs, and some estates and fields might have machines that have no fucking idea where their estate or field ends and just starts lasering you as you zip on by in the distance.

And then there’s the machinery whirring and buzzing between her legs. Any minute it might growl its last and suddenly the two of them aren’t lost, they know exactly where they are going to get fucked.

So yeah, next time A sends an angrier request for a parlay, L will veer off the road and stop for a circle and give them any details of the area that might not be picked up by drone.

But then a speck on the horizon grows and grows into something worthwhile.

A service station. And by the look of the buildings, an old one, regularly renovated to offer the latest resources.

Once it pumped oil, then electricity, then h-water.

But it would have always had food, which was enough of a reason for people to stop even if their vehicles had enough power to keep going.

It was one of those service stations in the middle of nowhere that took up too much space somehow and would shine like a second sun at night.

Which was coming soon, so best to at least take a break when one was presented so conveniently. But as L was slowing down and they got under the massive canopy, they saw something between two pumps that made her frown.

Another person. Waving.

The responsible thing to do was some basic sign language keywords but these days responsible was a good way for shit to go south fast.

G taps L on the side with a series of specific finger presses that indicates they’ll keep eyes on the perimeter so that she can focus on the impending human uncertainty in front of both of them.

L slows the ATV in the most peaceful way possible, having the engine wind down with a pretty purr. She gets off the vehicle, locks eyes with G to nod, and then removes her mask slowly as to lose sight of their new maybe-friend for as short a time as possible.

While it is once again an annoying, burning sensation feeling the nozzle get pulled out of your throat, L pushes through to not cough or gag or show any signs of weakness.

-hi! Hello!, the person beside the almost certainly defective pumpers yelled enthusiastically before adding their name.

L walks a bit closer before responding because she doesn’t want to yell, especially with a burning, dry throat.

 And because of how much H is smiling, she isn’t going to at all, but she’s also not going to do the thing she really wants to, which is to make some sort of gesture to G to be ready for anything.

L-we’ve come from the east, escaping a storm. Are you passing through as well?

H’s eyes and smile don’t change enough for L’s liking as they take in these words. In fact, their delayed response suggested it just bounced right out of their ears.

H-you know…I might be in the wrong place.

L-if you don’t know if you belong here, then you don’t.

Well H isn’t a complete drooling idiot because they could tell L’s line was just short of being an outright threat. And that was completely intentional on her part, wanting to see if H is going to look around or make a subtle signal to a possible accomplice to do something.

Sure enough, the way H flicked their wrist showed L that H knew they were slow on the draw and needed to hedge their bets by playing dumb.

Which meant that L only had to be average on the draw, and effortlessly shot H’s suddenly weapon-toting hand off at the wrist, a nasty spray of blood and flesh and bone staining the long cracked concrete.

G was off the vehicle in a flash ready to offer back-up, gesturing to L that they’ll check behind the main building. And L only had a split second to look at the signs, because she want to give this now angry person in front of her all the attention.

-you fucking bitch, H screech-moans, you fucking stupid…cunt…

It could have been a head or chest shot, L thinks, but better to do an exit interview before the firing.

She walks slowly over to H and finally getting nervous when G finally goes around the back of the building and out of sight.

L tosses a dummer down onto H’s chest, who snatches greedily and awkwardly with their quaking left hand and jams the tiny syringe into the side of their neck, a thumb press sending the painkiller from forehead to toes.

H relaxes immediately and doesn’t even flinch when the shots from behind the building go off. Meanwhile L’s heart stops for a second as she quickly yells out to her partner to make sure she still has one.

-it’s okay! G yells back which means they’ve had to remove their mask before adding, they’re dead!

-good!

Of course it isn’t good. Gunfire attracts attention, corpses attract attention, staying too long in one spot attracts attention.  And while this region is good ol’ lawlessness so there’s no bad ol’ highway patrol, it means scores are settled haphazardly, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes right and sometimes ridiculously wrong. Do you want Death From Above courtesy of a drone you can’t even see (and hopefully A will disarm or at least mention) or do you want Death From the Side courtesy of a gun-toting biker gang getting revenge three hours, three days or three weeks later for wasting two of their members at a gas station?

And to allay those concerns means to learn as much about these goons as quickly as possible.

-how long have you been here? Is there anyone else here? Who are you with if anyone?

In hindsight, asking questions first and then doping them up would have worked, but it was a tenser time thirty seconds ago.

Getting just babbling from H, L bends down to look over their gear, and it’s not too shabby. In fact, the material for the upper half of the suit is better than her own. When she recognizes some of the patches, envy gives way to confusion.

-that’s Emert tech, L said more to herself, what are you doing with that?

Images of this cunt getting lucky and getting the jump on some actual pros while they slept danced in her head. Violence. Always violence.

-I’m…, H begins with a blameless grin and not even looking at her, in contractual bondage…

Which is the party line at a time when there’s no parties to be had.

She kicks H’s side lightly trying to get their attention.

-where did you get this gear? Do you have a certification?

-exceptions to certification must be approved by a regional manager, H babbled as they listlessly stared at their new right stump in wonder.

-do you even know who you’re working for?

-‘with’, H corrects dreamily, ‘working with’.

L rolls their eyes and considers shooting other essential joints but wants to save ammo and is also feeling that pesky little growing around the nape of her neck called a conscience.

Not much conscience, of course, as the decision she was landing on was to hurry and put H out of their misery as the chance of getting any helpful information was shrinking rapidly.

So L raises their gun and points it at H’s chest and says:

-I would say you’ll be missed, but obviously I can’t back that up.

And whether that’s when the dummer began to wear off or whether H was faking its effects along, suddenly they seemed to break out of their doldrums and bring their good arm up to their chest and pounds it, clearly activating some sort of device beneath the jacket.

A yellow light on H’s belt suddenly flickers like a seizure and L instinctively lower her gun from the chest to the waist, doesn’t even remember aiming, the shot is suddenly lined up and her finger is squeezing.

Hitting the explosive with a bullet before it goes off absolutely neutralizes whatever sort of electrochemical or magnetized reaction was supposed to the set explosion off, but bullets and potential explosions still don’t mix, so instead of H suiciding and taking L with them, H just pops like a balloon, showering L with blood and flesh and bits of bone.

Good thing she had her mouth closed, and good thing the station hadn’t had oil based fuel here for years.

But the good things ended after that, after a quick glance to the store had been looted, squatted in and vandalized to the nth degree, and she can’t even use H’s good gear, since it’s scattered across the open lot, some of it covered in his leftovers.

After wiping some of the blood from the mouth part of her face, L calls out to G to tell them that everything’s more or less okay, and not getting a response started to get her stomach twisting again.

She starts to walk and then begin to jog, going around to look behind the side of the building, hoping that there’s not a flipped tableaux of G on the ground with some prick aiming a weapon at her chest, but nothing’s there.

Not wanting to go all the way around and loop the whole building, she turns around goes back toward the front of the building, and sees that G is now sitting on the ATV revving it up, mask-helmet combo back on, ready to put the pedal to metal.

And while L grins for a second, it switches to a confused frown when G peels out making no acknowledgement of L even existing, heading right for the road and beyond.

-hey, hey! L yells out but getting no response of any sort.

And off G goes, leaving L covered in someone else’s blood, suddenly wondering what role A’s fingers played in this.

Those very digits are drumming beside his keyboard, a tune he is supposed to forget, letting his anger effortlessly re-re-boil as his associates - to put it charitably - ignore his repeated requests for updates. The satellites are acting up as motherfucking satellites do, so finally hearing that familiar keyboard swell sound effect of someone stepping into the circle and thinking hard is almost relaxing.

G-I’m here.

A-you? Where the hell’s your partner?

G-I bailed on them.

A-what? The fuck did you say?

G-don’t worry, the stuff’s all here in the storage compartment. And now you only have to pay one of us, so like I thought-

And G barely got that sentence started before getting a deafening earful of A’s anger.

A-yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone fuckin’ thought, didn’t they? Didn’t do anything involving looking the fuck around, just fuckin’ thought. What do you fuckin’ think is going to happen now, eh? You think L’s gonna shrug and go oh the fuck well, that’s how this shit rolls? She’ll be coming the fuck after you, and probably thinks that I planned it or am at least fucking cool with it, which means you’re fucking me over as much as you fucked her over!

G-I-

A-so at least fucking kill them! I need the fucking hard drives, but I don’t need this fucking heat, and why the fuck did you think I would give you part of anyone’s share if you stabbed them in the back?! How hard are you huffing the grezz, or have you always been this stupid and it’s never bit you in the ass until now. Very fucking disappointing, and you bet I’m putting this on your file. You think I’m fucking around?

G wouldn’t say they had daddy issues, but they feel like A is giving them a crash course in feelings of guilt and inadequacy.

G-sorry I…well what should I do now?

A sighs and compartmentalizes. He counts in his head, the one place where everything makes sense, the one place where perfection sits, waiting to be debased and deformed as it enters the real.

A-If you want a pep talk, you’re in the wrong place. I need people who just turn on with a switch. I need people who can keep calm in volatile situations, can make tough decisions, explain to me calmly why they made it, and understand that I might have to make another tough decision right after that. And if you can’t explain to me right away why you made the decision you did, then I won’t have to explain the decision I make next.

G knew A was being a million percent serious because he wasn’t swearing this time, which they figured meant the chances that L was going to kill them in revenge or A was going to leave an anonymous tip off to the regional authorities so a drone strike will flatten them was pretty much even.

So they began to barter, offering to take a smaller and smaller payment for the the services (almost) rendered.

A effortlessly slips back into his former self.

-get the fucking hard drives to the drop off point as fucking fast as you fucking can and I’ll see what I can do. Fuck.

And he hangs up on G and wheels away from the console, ninety seven percent certain that it would have been better if roles flipped and it was L who left G behind in a cloud of dust and someone else’s blood.

A’s throat is dry and even though there’s a packet water on the desk nearby they roll out of their workroom and into the kitchen, which is barely big enough to handle their chair, even if it’s the latest compact, foldable model.

The fridge is supposed to open with a wave of his hand but the sensor’s been crap lately so A doesn’t even try and just leans forward to grab the handle and his back hurts in a way that he’s so used to that ‘hurts’ doesn’t mean anything.

But he knows it will hurt and hurt goodly if he ignores the container of water sitting pretty close to the door on the shelf and instead reaches back, back, back for the unorganic orange juice hiding behind the half full pickle jar and half full hot sauce bottle and leftover ration sushi.

A can imagine his arms straining and straining to push his whole body up off the sweaty, depressed - both senses of the word - chair cushion, and then having to lean slightly to put lots of his weight on one side so he can use one arm to kind of balance the other and use his newly so-called free second arm to try and try to get the distant sugar water.

Not fucking worth it.

A has thought that too often the last few weeks.

He knew what his boss-ssociates did with the information but he didn’t care, he had his own ever-expanding stable of problems and while the money he was being paid was steadily increasing with his ruthless reliability, it was costing more and more to keep this whole operation afloat, which meant he was again thinking-

Not fucking worth it.

And so it was just water that had to satiate his thirst for the moment, shakily filling up his almost steel bottle with a faded logo of some cratered company a friend of a someone one worked for before wheeling back to the office.

Call up the basic c-set in highrise 6, floor 63, unit 21. Scroll over to the living room shot.

B was right, C was looking shittier by the day. And while A can send a message to give the bad news about B to her (through a speaker that makes it sound like the tinny voice of god), fuck that, that’s not his job, and besides, weirder shit has happened when there’s no confirmed corpse.

Not much to do on his end (talk to her, send for a nurse, order a med delivery) because she’s not going anywhere (but then A was one to talk-think), so may as well go ahead and get the outdoor errands done.

Last time he left the apartment was four weeks ago because his usual ration runner got picked up, and now he has to head outside, having no ‘choice’ because suddenly S didn’t trust anyone over a wireless signal (or a wire, for that matter).

S had a truck with a dispenser in the back. Looked ordinary, the shit for moving or delivery, but put it on a weigh scale and you’d know something was up. S didn’t build the dispenser, and who the fuck knows how he got it out of one of the gov offices still functioning, but this wasn’t the era to argue with results.

At least the elevator doors worked, so A had wheeled into it and hoped it wouldn’t get stuck between floors and while he hates the way hope had been sold and fucked to the masses it seemed to have worked this time as the ding puked and the doors opened right where they had to be.

The lobby of the building was stupidly big because it was from a time where that was supposed to mean something to people living it, rather than having constant water, power and network connection problems. That spaciousness made it easier for A to get outside through the always reliable automatic door, and while the city air wasn’t as bad as it could have been this time of year,  A still put on his mask to roll down the street.

The occasional glances from fellow citizens bounce right off his ego, knowing that his skills made him more valuable than all these upright meat sacs going about their day, rightly terrified that any time a guard or drone can swoop in and demand identification and then find something wrong with a file that could result in immediate on the spot transfer of credits to what was left of the state.

If A was the bragging sort, he’d regale his contractual employees with stories of how guards would scan his ID with condescension and derision until the details showed up on their visors and they would suddenly become grovelling ass lickers, offering to help get A home safely or even stand in a ration line for him. And if the pre-revelation treatment was bad enough, A would say nothing and wheel away, maybe letting the prick sweat for days before sending a complaint to the regional office.

No uniforms in the vicinity at the moment, and A doesn’t care enough whether it’s due to random chance or S false-flagging a supposed protest or grey market shop to send any jackboots in that general direction and away from them.

Because their eyes eventually locked across the street, and as S approached after patiently waiting for the light to change A shuffled in his chair and adjusted his mask a bit, hoping the purifier doesn’t conk out at the worst possible time.

S nodded and smiled as a hello, and A did not respond in kind.

-this could have been a phone call and courier, A grunted.

-oh naw uh-uh not no more, S replied with dismissive hand gestures, they got new machines out there.

-I know the new machines, A said, I know what’s under the hoods.

-these are better machines than those.

-Machines built out of what?

S-The best machines make you forget they are at all.

Which sounds like an old-timey ad and said with a grin, which made A hate S all the more, so he doesn’t say anything and lurches in his seat to grab the package he was sitting on, knowing that the image from S’s perspective is that he’s just pulling this stuff out of his ass.

S takes it with the same plastered on smile and turns around and walks back towards his vehicle, not beckoning but clearly expecting A to follow, which he does.

The truck was clearly military grade, but that’s nothing special, that’s the typical sort of vehicle that could survive the last few years of (plenty of) shit.

But S goes right to the back and presses a button on wrist pad, which automatically opens the back door, revealing the dispenser that he has told A so much about that A cared so little of beside its existence and proper functioning.

Sure, it’s impressive that the thing is in the back of a truck and that S has found a way to include enough battery packs for it to work and for the truck to actually move around (although most likely not at the same time). S gets up into the cargo box and starts pressing their thumbs on certain scanners to get the whole thing humming.

There was no tailgate, so A had to take all this in lamely from the cracked pavement, not seeing too far into the back of the truck.

Not that he was interested in anything except getting this over with.

But S was slowly fiddling with the bag, as if vacuum sealed was something he’d never seen before (he had, that’s how A and everyone in his field deliver the drives).

S-was it difficult to acquire?

A-some people are too dumb to work smarter, so I just let them work harder.

In this rather dismissive, exploitative atmosphere, S couldn’t help but get romantic and look up at the sky as if there was something in it worthwhile.

S-they know what their sweat produces, and I long for a regular thirst.

This fucking guy.

But instead:

A-fancy.

Immediately S snaps out of it.

S-how much did we agree on again?

A was expecting this late minute haggle, but it doesn’t mean he likes it.

A-8,000.

S-yeah?

A holds up his phone and taps, and through the tinny speaker comes the unmistakable voices of A and S, deciding on 8,000.

S-you recorded our conversation?

A-I’d rather know exactly how much I’m getting financially fucked over, and with you I’m sure I’d have no idea if I didn’t archive.

S didn’t react as if offended and it was entirely possible they weren’t even listening to A, already ripping the drive out of the bag and placing it in the tester.

After the silence of S waving through the data flashing on the monitor to confirm its worth, he pulls it out of the tester while staring at A with pursed lips, clearly wanting to drum up the feeling of expectation. A didn’t give him that, but couldn’t help but ply on a bit of a smile because he knew that S knew it was a good haul.

S walked solemnly over to the dispenser, now holding the drive like it was a religious artifact, and placed it on the tray, its weight activating the sensor and the tray lowering into the bowels of the machine.

With a press of an old fashioned tactile-laden button:

S-Let there be dark.

And another bit of whatever happened ten years ago - or whatever data from ten years ago said about human civilization in the recent and distant past - was snuffed out forever.

A wasn’t so poetic about it, but felt much better when a ding in his earpiece meant that’s when S finally released the funds.

-I’m leaving, A called out.

-new skin for the old ceremony eh? S yelled to his back.

It was a dull wheel back to the apartment until the explosion went off.

Didn’t knock him out of his chair, which meant it had to be at least several blocks away, and it only took a few seconds to see the smoke begin to billow from the southwest which meant it’s not his building, nor from S’s van, so just keep rolling along.

But it was close enough to see the standard freak out of the populace, even a populace that should really be used to this sort of shit by now, and it can just as easily be an accidental discharge or a crumbling bit of infrastructure, not a terrorist attack or a ‘terrorist’ ‘attack’.

A still looks up with a sigh, disappointed that the billowing smoke perfectly matches the already grey sky.

It’s one thing living at a time where it feels like a dystopia is about to go haam, and it’s even worse when you can’t even get off the planet.

When nobody can.

And now A was getting maudlin - as if S has a monopoly on it when anyone else is around him - about life and death and the thread between, like that time the elevator was hacked but only barely and it took two hours to go up the one hundred and sixteen floors.

Good thing J had a popper to keep the two of them wavy and indifferent to the very real possibility of plummeting to their deaths. A swore he could feel the legs he no longer had kicking hundreds of miles away as if they were still ready and wiggling in some pile years after being forcibly removed to save his so-called life. They were laughing until they were crying and their throats went dry.

Good times.

A hopes J is faring well in prison. Out in two and half years, and in officially because they assaulted a government recognized security guard and unofficially because lockup was a good place to hide from a bounty and still get full caloric intake (as long as you get sent to the right prison, and A helped with that behind the scenes).

It was the right move, of course, because J was stressing in a way that they would refuse to eat anything cooked, would stay in bed for days at a time, and return to OCD habits that the teen psilo tabs squeezed out years ago.

Trauma-dama-rama.

A was never known for their power of positive reassurance, but trying to suggest that it’ll all be better tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow just bounced right off of J, who would respond with:

-If I knew the future, I’d put money on it.

Those words stayed with A all the way back to his apartment, then and right now, as emergency vehicles attempting to pass the broken down cars, vans and ramshackle tents that squatted upon the streets in this neighbourhood. To avoid getting run down by the non-autonomous ones, A and everyone else clustered around doorways and alleys as the trucks and vans jumped curbs to use the sidewalks, which weren’t in great shape, either.

It made getting home take twice as long and made his wanting a hitfix and the snapback overpowering.

But instead H was there in the apartment lobby and not alone, two randos standing beside them.

They are looking charitable and are smiling sincerely, and A can already feel his obstinance slipping.

After quick hellos, H explains.

-I’m just spreading some rations with these guys and can use a place to do it proper.  Especially after what just happened.

A could ask if H knows anything about that explosion, but instead:

-fine.

And the two people with H nailed sheepish and sullen perfectly, probably coming down from something and needing anything edible to stop from keeling over right beside the cheap plastic furniture in the lobby.

So all four of them headed to the elevator and H tries to make small talk with A or the two zonkers but none of it sticks and soon they’re waiting in silence.

Sometimes walking down the lengthy hallways with associates make you feel safer, but this time A is hoping no one is passing by and wonders why there are these three strangers with him, two of whom are obviously using. Officially A doesn’t give a shit what other people think about him, but unofficially knows that life is easier if they don’t think you’re a drug addict or associated with drug addicts.

He quickly thumb scans his apartment door open and gestures his three guests to hurry up and they do, quickly heading to the living room and getting down to business.

In between the grand dividing, H regularly glancing over at A is making the latter a bit perturbed, which seems to make the former act the same.

H-don’t mind us if you want to get back to work.

A-just wrapped some stuff up.

A couldn’t explain why there’s turn of tight lipped uppityness between him and H. Even one of the zonks noticed it and tried to cut the silence.

-waddaya do?

Not that A was in any mood to converse with them.

A-I make sure we’re trying to stay ahead of the dogshit equations

Which is practically an S answer filtered through A’s own psyche. But not wanting to deal with any drooling follow-ups, A wheeled into his kitchen to enjoy his own non-dividing bounty. His voyage outside got his hunger up, and the way his teeth have been hurting lately, smoothies have been the way to go. Saves time, too.

Goes to the fridge, grabs the door, a whole shelf of just plastic containers with thick straws always stuck in them.

He’s sucking down a banana-chocolate-avocado carefully because his eyes keep darting to his phone that’s held up on a nifty little device on the end of his chair’s arm when H walks in.

H-thanks for letting us do this.

A-yeah.

H gestures to the other room.

-they’re a bit slow but they’re okay, see?

A-sure.

And in the overwhelming dismissiveness of the moment, H added:

-we’re just gonna go piss then we’re gonna go piss off, cool?

A-make it quick.

And he wheels back to his office not really thinking about the usage of ‘we’ in that sentence , ready to finally to talk with three other people across the planet about what to do with G (and therefore L).

All four of them had their cams on, but all screens showed real time animated cartoons characters, gyrating esoteric symbols or twisted avs. Better to have these sorts of people (including A) know as little as they have to about you.

-Cut G loose.

-They’ve got a box.

-Someone else’ll bring it in.

-Who? L?

-Maybe.

-L’s reach out to you, A? With a text or a tec?

A-no, she knows that’ll go nowhere for now.

-Yeah. For now.

-Where are they now? You got eyes?

-Yeah…

And A begins to send that encrypted data to all attendees, and there’s really no sound to tapping a console unless you listen really hard, so instead of hearing that familiar echoing toilet trickle from one room over if they left the door open, a pounding:

HAUM-A-ZUM-ZUM-A-ZUM-ZUM-ZUM

Somehow enveloped the apartment.

At first A thought it was a machine on the floor above that was making the noise, before realizing that it was more horizontal than vertical.

His avatar’s face of shock and confusion meant even his virtual guests were immediately perturbed.

-The fuck-

-I’m out.

And the third just hung up immediately, followed by the second and first.

-shit fuck shit fuck shit, A now says to no one.

He turned off auto to wheel himself as quickly as possible out of his office and into the living room, which was void of people and with rations still on the table, but the bathroom door still shut.

The door wasn’t locked and A pushes it open and wheels inside as gracefully as possible (meaning not very), and took in the scene with annoyed disgust.

One guy is lying sprawled in the bathtub and has the right side of his head where it belongs with the left side painting the wall and ceiling, one guy has both his arms blown off right below the elbow, and H is covered in the blood of both, eyes wide in holy terror.

There’s a handful of tools and small bits of steel and a busted case that was recently holding those items strewn across the floor.

Unlicensed implant surgery in the bathroom.

His own fucking bathroom.

A didn’t have to ask why. He knew why. His employment status as an essential service meant there was no energy cap and no limiter box for his unit, there no mandatory surveillance scanners, and because of who he was there’s the legal/political shield from any poking noses of guards or gangs. It’s something you can do in five minutes.

They just had to not fuck up.

But they did.

And A told them. A told them in very specific and detailed ways of how they fucked up and how fucking stupid they are. And he didn’t care if he came off like a screaming little cripple of a person stuck in a robo-chair, and he didn’t care if they didn’t hear a single word because they were still in shock (or dead).

And A’s monologue finally wound down and as he gasped for angry air he couldn’t help but try to put the pre-disaster scenario together.

Dead guy was probably sitting on the toilet for the surgery, look-ma-no-forearms was probably the look-ma-no-recognized-medical-license holding the drill or soldering iron when something exploded, and H was the gracious master of ceremonies who probably injected the anesthetic, keeping soon-to-be-dead guy focused and calm while his skull was being cut open.

The good old fucking days from five fucking minutes ago.

A is yelling at H to do pretty much everything and getting nothing in return, so A’s trying to lean over awkwardly from his chair to open the cabinet doors below the sink to grab towels to throw to him to start doing fucking something. No help from hands-less, who seems content to bleed out all over the toilet.

Finally H seems to snap out of it and warble:

-hey…

A-this better be fucking worth it.

H-I’m… sorry.

It was not worth it.

A-I need you guys to fuck off. And fast.

A made H take one val to calm down a bit, then made him give a dose of anesthetic (at least they came prepared) to former-forearms, who seemed to still be ready to die, then told H to take another two vals, wrap up the guys new stumps in the medical cloths they brought (and take a few hand towels for good measure) and get the fuck out, that he’d take care of the body in the bathtub.

Even as he was zoning out even deeper as he walked to the door, H was still haphazardly explaining and apologizing through tears.

-He said…he said he done it hundreds of times before…

-And I’m telling you I’ve used up the three minutes I had to care about this bullshit, and now I have to move on to important matters.

A put as much energy as he had to slam the door in H’s face and then quickly called a fixer to come in and do the fixing.

Yes, it helped that the corpse was no one special - to use a technical term - but it still meant favours for favours.

Which means he owes someone one. Maybe one and half because of how much has to be cleaned up on and off site (because of course the official record says he died somewhere far from here).

Fuck.

And double-fuck having to contact the other people he was talking with before being so rudely interrupted through boringly double-secure channels to reassure that it was all good and all cool and that they can reconnect tomorrow.

And while it would have been prudent to wait for their responses to confirm that this re-meeting would happen, A was exhausted and tried to use that as the silver fucking lining as his eyelids mercifully closed.

This isn’t hell.

You can’t sleep in hell.

But maybe this is hell because a familiar buzzing came from down the hall in two short and two long bursts, waking him up after what felt like was five minutes but a quick glance at his phone showed it was five hours.

Almost every bit of communication A would ever receive will come through his phone, including a text saying a very important communique had arrive on his much safer desktop console and he better wheel/crawl/get someone to carry him over ASAP.

He took a deep shot of vitamized water and dragged himself into his chair, rubbing his dry eyes greedily and let the auto guide him out of the bedroom down the hall and into the computer room.

The monitor is shining in the otherwise darkness and after two taps on the keyboard and screen A read that (unsurprisingly) the Yoyodyne and MG-IFOS Companies have traded enough stock and staff back and forth - like a dealer shuffles cards - that a government-mandated restructuring is in order and consequently (and…surprisingly?) A’s security clearance is in momentary limbo for once.

He guzzled the rest of the bottle of water just to have a moistened throat to let loose a volley of profanity that made all the swearing he did yesterday over H’s fuck up sound like a bible quote.

When it fucking rains it goddamn pours, and it seems like it never stops.

Weeks later G is thinking the same thing, exhausted at laying low from L’s assumed wrath, the terrible weather matching their mood perfectly.

G is pretty sure that L wants them to know she’s hot on their trail, but maybe that G just being paranoid.

But it’s that fear that is keeping them alive so far…in addition to burning through way too much of their credit reserves to get gear and food off-off grid and without any questions asked.

They knew it would be hard to off-load the drive they-didn’t-exactly-steal-from-L, but didn’t think it would be impossible. Living in the greyer regions for the greyer market, resting your head on a hand-puff-pillow in a light, open canopeet, reassuring yourself that this life could be always be worse, as long as nothing terrible happens.

And then something terrible happens.

They open their eyes because there’s a noise outside the dreamworld and G reaches for their nearby pistol at the same time and it’s not there for some reason and when they turn their head to begin figuring out what’s going on there’s a different gun inches away from her face.

With L holding onto it.

It was never good mental health to keep imagining such a thing, increasing stress and poor decision making, but at the very least one could begin to develop a loose plan of what to do when placed in such a situation.

Some sort of sly physical action that would turn the tables, a silver tongued argument that would defuse the tension, or a keyword for a nearby hidden ally to rush in and defuse the threat.

Instead all G said was:

-please…

L-oh, now you have manners.

She was going to add ‘instead of brains’, because G abandoning her with that bloodbath at the service station was a dumb thing to do and being able to track them in the weeks since then was embarrassingly easy, but wanted to balance out the feeling of fulfilling revenge with cold professionalism. So instead:

L-you didn’t kill me. Why?

G blinked dumbly at this, expecting a bullet by this time and not a question, and briefly looks to the side and doesn’t see any vehicles, which explains why there was no alarm for the scanner field they’d set. It would mean L did a lot of quiet walking. Finally they give the worst possible answer:

-I don’t know.

L-well I lost a lot of respect for you when you didn’t kill me when you had the chance.

And she waits for G to say something similarly snide but they don’t, their facing growing more and more despondent and wearing a well-earned puppy dog frown for what is being a long and drawn out execution that is ravaging their guilty complex.

L-you can’t just fuck people over like that. You know that right?

G nods slowly.

L-what the fuck did you think was going to happen?

G doesn’t answer, and not just because it was mostly rhetorical. But it’s not helping L’s mood.

L-you think I would just let this go? That I would let you do this to me?

She can’t tell if G is shrugging listlessly to respond nonverbally or squirming listlessly in a feeble attempt to escape and isn’t really paying attention to her words, and now L feels like they are arguing with their conscience all of a sudden.

L-just because I’m good at something doesn’t mean I like doing it.

And G sighs so heavily at this that L thinks for a moment they are trying to asphyxiate themselves somehow.

L quickly looks around to see if there is any sort of trap or ambush coming, but just sees her much more trustworthy associate R patrolling the dilapidated schoolyard.

She didn’t think she would be susceptible to the guilt gaze, but even the most obvious retort in the world cut like a knife.

G-...sorry…

L isn’t sure if this is a play for time because it’s an elaborate trap or a bit of genuine repentant improv, so she just pulls the trigger and G’s head suddenly has a hole right below the left eye from which their life immediately begins to bleed out.

G quivers a bit as their expiring eyes locked on L’s, which unnerved her so she shot the left one out, and now the head as a (w)hole was looking quite the mess so she stepped aside.

R is watching L carefully as she goes over to rustle through G’s belongings, only taking the small plastic case that was rightfully both of theirs at one point. And the water, of course.

L holds the plastic case up to the night sky, its greyness fitting in well with the miserable clouds, before heading back to R standing there with a z-rifle at their side and chattering teeth, sick as a dog but not contagious so he was pressured into joining L’s revenge spree.

R-that’s it?

L-you want to bury them?

R-they don’t have anything else on them worth taking?

L doesn’t like three questions in a row with no answers, and immediately gets cranky, which is a terrible feeling to have after killing someone and hoping doing so would bring some sense of relief and closure.

L-well feel free to go over and vulture around.

-I just meant…, R started before realizing they didn’t mean anything,…sorry.

L-yeah, that’s what they said.

And L started the long walk back to the vehicles, so R hurried after them without another word passing between them until the sun came up.

And then they talked for about five minutes straight, coming up with a plan to follow the highway for just under two kilometres before veering onto a makeshift path through some woods that cuts through a valley and then a wide open field attached to a once-fancy, now-skeletal estate house.

Not a dangerous trek once they got their masks on, but for the first bit it’ll have to be while blasting squeals of feedback from speakers clipped onto their suits to overwhelm any sensors that are trying to pick up the sounds of living (and therefore extremely unwelcome) people travelling along the highway and through the valley.

Sometimes L was sure she could pick out basic rhythms and ur-melodies from the sound that would be nosebleed-causing if not for the suit’s built-in ear-plugs, but maybe that’s just from hearing it so often. Not to say it was comforting, or that you’ll ever tap your foot to its fat beat, but there’s what, a desire to find structure in everything?

She remembers having convos like that with G when they were in similar regions, whereas R didn’t seem to want to small talk at all, and in fact, has seemed terrified of L for most of this revenge journey.

It’s not like she was grumbling about it in the vee or anything. L would say she was very professional while being very honest about what this job was. Sure, she might have channeled a bit of A with some choice words to describe her betrayer, maybe even exaggerated slightly regarding the situation in which she was abandoned.

Even now R is a healthy distance ahead, as if wanting to wrap this thing up as soon as possible.

Can’t be upset about that, especially after the mission being a rousing success, but L can’t help but feel a little unwanted. She brought R - certainly a few rungs below her on the pecking order - in on this one, and in the future under-underground gossip and referencing it’ll only help them find more valuable work going forward.

No need to hold hands, but even walking side by side is a nice of respect and safety. A chance to enjoy the scenery of the valley, because even though only a fraction of the trees are still alive, the cliffs that surrounded the stand tall and impressive.

Only when they were almost through it does R slow in a way that L naturally catches up with them, so together they can see the remains of the big house in the distance, and the field in front of them.

Where there’s dogs.

When genetically modified dogs that could survive on grass alone became a go-to security force,

keyed up on whatever sort of electrical signal is zapping their neural synapses via implant, demanding that they chase and devour the interlopers, biting first and not asking questions later,

there were many countermeasures, and since some enterprising sorts were not the sort to be willing to put a bullet between an animal’s eyes unless it was a human, one of the countermeasures was a software patch that turned even the rageiest Doberman into the sweetest golden retriever puppy.

L had a bit of a soft spot for retro animal vids, so she let R handle the brainwashing of the barkers.

The two of them walked with the knowledge soundless alarms will go off at some point as their presence is picked up, and sure enough the exposed tops of two of the largely destroyed underground concrete bunkers had the grates swing open and the dogs were off to the races, with L and R the equal prizes.

Seeing any living creature in all this open space is a thrill at first, nothing really moves that way these days outside of carefully curated zoological experiences. But then it becomes painfully clear that they are coming painfully close to make it extremely painful for you.

L glances to R and R is casually starring and tapping at their wristpad as if ready to send a casual ‘u alive?’ text to a nearby friend, waiting for their devourers to enter the sphere of influence at which point she taps at just another proverbial switch in the wider electrical field that is the universe.

The dogs slow to an an indifferent trot in five seconds, and in five more they were looking eagerly at their new owners for belly rubs.

Texting on the wrist pads to plan the next bit out because of the masks, autocorrect working pretty well all things considered.

R-good?

L-will be. But first-

And L trails off as they walk over to the now docile, tongue-lolling pinchers, tapping on her own phone now. R walks over to them, with uncertainty as to L’s approach.

R-the puppo’s?

L- I’ll rewire the dogs, let 'em go east, back through the valley.

R- What? They can't come with us?

L- If they bark even once we're fucked.

R was indeed a dog person in the sense that there’s always buyers at some of the camps. What people might do with the canines they don’t want to think much about (some people definitely sell it as pork or beef, or hunt them for sport in stadiums).

Meanwhile L saw life finding a way as the dogs are suddenly buzzed with a new impulse to run away happily from the two humans and into the valley, spending the rest of their lives chowing down on bugs and maybe G’s corpse.

As they pass the bunker area R is tempted to text and ask L if she wants to do a little peek just in case that maybe, maybe the oodles of looters over the last ten years or so might have missed something, but the briskness of her pace is enough to scuttle the thought.

Even when the pass the liminal space where they don’t have to worry about making human-or-animal sounds there’s not much talk.

They eventually reach the decrepit service station they stashed their bikes at, and L went right to her own to get the payment for R’s assistance:

Some Polaroids from a birthday party for a bunch of strangers that took place before R was born, an unopened bottle of tequila from around the same time (based on the still intact label), and medicine for rashes and drying skin. Vacuum-packed even.

L-thanks again.

R-yeah.

L-I know it comes off looking real cold.

R-no, I know. It’s gotta be done. You can’t let that happen.

L-not out here.

R-right.

L-so if anyone asks - I mean like about hiring you for a job - I’ll definitely say good things.

R-thanks.

The seconds after that were awkward, so instead they just nodded and went back to their vehicles, and after watching L check hers for any sort of explosive or defect, R sped off without a smile, and she still felt eyes - real and technological — upon her as she zipped through the concavity on the vaguely altered Sal-Krat ATV that looked like it ran on old, old school diesel but was a fake out, an engine compartment that was empty and could be filled via secret opening with as much contraband as you can fit in it.

R remembers being twelve and a half when there were resource riots and they was in the parking lot of some big store with their older sibling waiting nervously beside a hedge that they wanted R to hide inside of, but instead R watched people running out of the smashed with front doors with the entire store’s contents, running to autos that might not even be theirs.

Stuffing as much as contraband as they could fit.

Old thoughts - even not particularly comforting ones then - comforted them now, and the further they got away from L, the more relaxed they became.

R tried to picture his very recent partner doing something, anything different. Someone who wasn’t living, breathing embodiment of revenge. But even if you’re trying to picture a person relaxing in a beach chair down south on the islands, with the wind blowing the clouds away to reveal a momentary blue sky, the best thing to do if you want to move on physically, mentally, spiritually, whatever, is not picture them at all.

And R hopes that he’s replaced in L’s mind as well.

In terms of simple self-preservation, not asking questions - especially when they no longer seem relevant - is a top five rule.

Sure, a reference to A (or uh, someone nicer than A) would be nice, but L’s own description of this job was that it was going to get messy, and last thing R wants is that L is to keep cleaning by getting rid of everyone involved, if only to keep on the good side of his employer.

R’s glad they only took their mask off once during this entire mission.

To be forgotten is sometimes the greatest gift of all.

After a night at an old motel that other scavengers have revamped to be ‘surprisingly not shitty if you were expecting shitty’, R eased back into a more normal routine.

Take a low-level, unassuming gig with no deadline off the feeds, spend a week or so in the wastes  until jackpot, hand over the chips in person, wait for the scan, then the cash would be in his account, no clearance fuss, no de-hacking-fee muss.

‘Course it meant you holding onto the stuff for the whole time into the city, meaning you were always liable to get jumped for it - especially in the belt region, and there are ‘hires’ to help you move whatever you got through it - but that’s the price to be paid for not having to live in the city, which R suspected inevitably makes you a terrible person.

A being exhibit A, who was always unappreciative and found something wrong with one decision or another.

R didn’t say anything to these orders that border on abuse because the money was good.

One of the few things good these days.

Back then everything else was speeding up so quick and so no surprise that it all crashed.

Now it’s slow.

Not quite ‘nice’ and slow…

Even if that’s the way R is working now, placing the shattered part of the motherboard into one of the plastic jars, and then just shoves that roughly into his backpack.

It was a few days after parting with L, and he’s on a huge makeshift garbage dump, probably the location of a busy intersection of a town blown to bits years ago and no one bothering to clean it up because there was no one to bother.

Still had to evade the guards, which always makes you think something valuable must be around, but it’s probably something to do with weapons testing nearby. R knows that some scavengers have lost interest in drives and chips and are trying to get their gloves on truly heinous gear.

Tox levels were rising, too, so R extended his mask’s innards to get the nozzle down his throat.

That next level of danger can’t help but make you even more certain that something special would be just a bit further, over and inside that next pile of rubble and trash.

And whatever isn’t chunks of concrete or rebar or melted plastic can catch your eye, even making some quick style judgment on tatters of cloth, and then you realize that particular pair of pants have a shoe friend exactly where a foot would usually be, and everything comes together and you realize someone’s been blown apart, and not recently.

Blood and flesh all dried and covered in dust and dirt.

Hasn’t rained much recently.

Sorry ‘bout that, fellow freak.

Cool bits of weird bots nearby in similar condition, some missing wheels or appendages.

R picks one of them up and admires how magnets were used to keep the parts together. 

Put some tender love and care into these things.

He debates bringing them back, but figure it’ll just take up space in the backpack, so R begin to consider the three best that fit together, and that’s when the drones came screaming across the sky.

Before R could even consider what would make decent but still probably futile cover, the bombs were dropped about five hundred metres past them, blowing up another section of the trash pile, sending debris and dust sky high and further out.

Even with the gear R instinctively turns around as the dust cloud and shockwave hits, almost knocking him off his feet. The crouch is something they remembered learning from that brief in-person schooling period they did from fourteen to sixteen in a heavy storm area. You would make fun of the kids who would fall over on the lowest gust setting.

They waited a few minutes for the dust to settle, ready to quickly (and awkwardly) find cover if the drones made a second flyover, but there was no sound or sign of their return.

No idea if there was something more lively to the east, or whether the fleet just made a mistake, since these days you can assume everything had broken sensors or were half-hacked and running on some bs suicide program.

R decides to check out the targeted area, as if something on the ground was going to blow up greatly because it was part of a munitions dump, it would have by now.

Not that these fresh holes and mounds look much different than anything else nearby.

The drone attack usually takes but sometimes gives, creating rubble for certain yet on occasion clears present rubble away.

It doesn’t take long for R to find a crack big enough to fit through, and if that wasn’t an invitation, what was?

Maybe a basement, maybe a sewage system, but their boot making a strong clang atop a slightly curved sheet of steel meant it was a bunker.

Makes sense.

R stepped atop it carefully, listening for any terrible creak that might suggest it’ll give way, but nearby there was a ceiling entry door that was similarly dented like the crevice that got them in here in the first place.

Like I’m led down here.

But before falling for that by falling into the bunker and not having an escape route, R made sure he had some rope to get back out, ones with the activateable magnets on the ends.

It’s a yes, so it’s a go for down the hatch.

Which was a phrase from the past about drinking booze quick, but also works right now.

Their boots bang heavy on the floor, kicking up a bit of dust, but nothing else makes a terrible breaking or grinding sound.

It was that fresh old.

If it was already gone through, it was done quick and people only took the stuff they thought was valuable years ago.

Which means it’s overdue for a good second over.

Most things looked like everything else.

The askew or broken furniture, the torn or frayed posters that repped some art or advised how to stay safe and calm, the trinkets like decayed real plants and blooming fake plants or cracked charging plates beside sliced water packets.

What caught R’s eye was a console that looked like it was from one of the docs you would have to watch in school and then remember most of it to puke back up in a quiz at the end of the day.

It had no power but a quick wire cut and jack up got it running again.

The operating system moved as fast as a rock and was trying to do too many things so it took them awhile just to figure out the programs were needed (and not needed) to open certain files, but soon R was watching life from twelve years ago.

And the roll of the dice is whether it’s something lighthearted and fun or dour and depressing.

Five seconds after tapping play, it’s clear it’s the second one.

Great video quality, back when you didn’t have to worry about bandwidth and network drops, but what surprises them is the sound, because there wasn’t any speaker ‘toothed up nearby, so it must be built into the monitor.

Three people are in this very bunker, hunched over fresh computer screens.

“Then reboot.”

“That system is dead.”

“Then find the back up.”

”Don’t you get it? it’s designed to be dead.”

And if it was a movie or something like that, music would kick in and it would cut to someone else experiencing something similar but doing something about it.

Instead it’s just the same people not doing much of anything at all except talk about a problem beyond their control for one minute, two minutes, three…

R turns it off.

Being able to see life exactly as it was through their eyes in real time.

And being bored to fucking tears.

Only when they casually looked under the console to check out the tower or shell were there did he audibly gasp.

Instead of the expect one that they would have to crack open and remove the digital guts of, their were ten. At least ten.

Just to make sure it wasn’t too good to be true, R re-wired and jacked up the power through their suit battery to make sure they were all as good as the first one.

And they were, and easy to check by watching a few minutes of all the stored files.

Only when understanding how much material was produced - whether willing documentation or surveillance footage - was it terrifying in its overwhelming banality. Ordinary people enjoying food or friends while complaining about work or weather, or important people murmuring that the most responsible thing to do is to not take any responsibility for what they were about to do.

What shocked R was not the content but the amount of content.

The file sizes were eye-popping.

This is an S-tier haul.

R begins visualizing the space they have on their vehicle, how much they can cram and whether they might have to toss those robot gizmos because while those were amusing, these were cash money.

Even with the drives draped over their shoulders in bags, climbing out was surprisingly easy, so much so that R half expected a trio of guards with guns drawn waiting for him as he emerges from the decrepit bowels of the earth, but they were still alone under the lame grey sky.

After texting the deets to A, they didn’t have to wait long before a circle appeared nearby.

A sounded more alarmed than angry, which alarmed R.

-what’s going on?

R-I’m grabbing stuff. Good stuff, actually, so-

A-that’s where you are? You’re not using some signal break and are like one hundred click north or west?

R-no…

And the question after from A is not something R has ever heard.

-you’re okay?

R-what? Yeah, no one’s on my radar and I got a bag full of really prime shit. Some of the drones were blowing shit up like crazy and-

-hold on.

And A taps a button before R can respond, sighing and swearing as they grab the bottle of vee-water beside them and accidentally chokes on its flow down his throat, coughing so much they might have bruised a rib. But he doesn’t want to wait any longer, and gets the other person he was talking to back on the line as he hacks.

E-you there?

-yeah…yeah…, A wheezed,…i just…almost fucking died… in the lamest fucking way.

-snorted green instead of yellow?

A-water…wrong fucking way.

-you need a minute?

-no…no. Actually I need you stop fucking doing what you’re doing-

-hey-

-and go find R. Give ‘em an escort because they fucked up brilliantly.

-R? They’re running with-

-with no one right now but soon they’re gonna be eaten for fucking lunch when they get out of the wastes and pass through a few sensors.

-I’m supposed to be helping N ruin this building’s shit.

-get them to help you.

-Two of us? You think we can just drop other jobs like-

-finish right fucking now and then fucking zip. I’ll cover the transport and equipment. And toss in a finder cut.

E paused with that impressive promise.

-lemme check with N and I’ll let you know in five.

-right, A says and presses to hang up with the knowledge that if it’s not a no now it’ll definitely be yes in a few.

He then goes back to R and double-check questions about locations and content barcode numbers, to the annoyance of R who clearly doesn’t know the real deep motherlode they just fell into. He makes sure they have one of those high quality containers that evades most scans and tells him to cram the drives in there ASAP.

A hangs up and wheels around all antsy, leaving his work room and going to the balcony, the smog not so bad today, meaning a few minutes of ‘fresh’ air was possible before he’d start coughing for a different reason.

If it’s the stuff from there, where B was sniffin’ and got snuffed, then it’s what S has been lightly  dangling in front of him for months. The real important information that will be real important to get to and it will be real important for opposing organizations to really stop them.

Real fucking stupid.

Stupid that they had to go in like this.

Stupid that some other organization had to try to stop them to save face.

Stupid that it’s death and destruction all the way down.

Stupid that the best idea humanity had right now was to cut that shit off at the legs and try to make sure it never happens again by convincing everyone it never happened in the first place.

All those words and images gone.

Less events, less things, less ideas, less people because we say there are.

Easier to manage the narrow future.

A rolled his eyes when S pitched it this way all those three years ago, but he couldn’t deny that from his slightly fancy wheelchair all these floors above this goddamn pit of a city he was gooder than great at overseeing an ever changing team of scavengers and mercs who just were terrible at standing in ration lines and doing menial serve and psych jobs like the other peasant citizens.

When A was finally secure enough in his position to ask some big questions, S pulled out a piece of scrap paper (shock!) and scribbled a very long code like those ancient video game power moves and told them to just listen to the voice on the other end.

At first A thought it was an automated voice, one that’s some hour long loop of good bad and bad good advice, but no, it was C, ready for the call, ready to clarify/reassure back when they didn’t look and act like a hypnotized hamlet:

-terrified of losing them and then it happens and it isn’t so bad, you realize we are always losing things every minute of every day. The only unbreakable code, the only impenetrable building, the only un-killable person, is the one you don't know exists.

And A didn’t interrupt, just listened, knowing it was supposed to be some sort of meditative propaganda, and while that might not have worked on him as well as others, what did was the understanding that if this was what the system was reduced to, then someone better be working there right below the bottom, so why the fuck not him?

When A finally met C she was already ailing from the respiratories (ain’t we fuckin’ all?), but there was definitely still a moment of game meeting game. She’d survived to have all this responsibility, and he’d climbed the ladder because he was alive and considerably less stupid than a lot of other survivors.

B was attached to her hip then, but not by choice, clearly wanting to get out past the city and work the wastes. After a bit of small talk while C was taking o-treatment, A was pretty sure B wanted out for noble reasons of creating a better world blah, blah, blah, but also that she felt like she was being treated like a lackey and nothing more and wanted to change that.

And eventually change happened because people fucking checked out with their addictions and stop answering the phone, retired because it was too much on their mind and body, or just fucking died.

A knew B couldn’t hack it even though C was doing everything in her fading power to make it happen (she clearly liked B more than was warranted), listening in on missions and giving advice that should be common sense from the get go.

It’s not enough to go there.

You have to come back.

Otherwise you just wasted everyone’s time, and you can’t crow on about recon and gathering intel because you’re fucking dead.

A wasn’t going to say I told you so to C when B was reduced to bits.

Not yet, anyway.

When he went back inside from the balcony he first got some soup from the kitchen and drank it sloppily before going back to his workstation and ringing up E again, who was clearly game or she wouldn’t be waiting.

E-the fuck? That was a hell of a lot more than five.

-I was busy. Go get R. Here’s the deets.

Pause.

-there?

A-you think I’m paying this much for something easy? Let me know when you make contact. Living, breathing, all the goods in good shape type contact.

Then he hangs quick so E has to swear into the void, before staring at N, the mask just over their mouth and nose, and E found that she hated that she could see the rest of his face.

-what?

E-we’re being fucked on the wheel.

N’s face screwed up for a second to mentally string those words together, and whether they understood it or not they gave a quick nod and didn’t question when took E took their pack off their back and started to do a quick inventory.

N wasn’t the smartest knife in the back, but could run like the wind and be as loyal as post-lobotomized dog, so it took a few more seconds before he followed suit and started taking stuff out of his own pack.

-what’s this about?

-we’re gonna head up through the delta fields to do a friendly intercept and escort near the edge.

-the north edge of the delta fields?

-we’re not going in, E said as much to themselves as their current partner, we’re going to meet them as they’re coming out.

-we sure they’re coming out?

Instead of continuing to answer the onslaught of questions, E gasped as what she’d found in their own pack.

The veg was rotten.

Shit.

It was fine when they packed it, the container was sealed properly.

What the hell?

E explained to N who stared at them blankly.

-so what, you’re hungry?

-no, it means…

E trailed off, the words not coming because the thoughts weren’t either. The theories were as dull as dirt. Maybe we didn’t seal the container properly. Maybe it was bad veg from the start and we never really paid attention. Maybe they passed through some sort of rad field that killed the fruit and has given them late stage cancer and they don’t even know it yet.

Maybe it means it doesn’t goddamn matter, and that’s what E told N, who shrugged and said they should probably get going if they want to make it to that intercept point before dark.

And E feels old yet again, a feeling that’s been coming on more and more recently, in that sort of ‘how long have I been doing this?’ rhetorical line of questioning because of course you know how long, and how much easier it was to do this or that five or seven years ago.

Well which is it, five or seven?

Both.

And all this is stewing and bubbling in her head as she go through the motions with N of starting up their testing their equipment (at least that all works proper) and zipping off on the motorbikes.

N is mentioning niceties about the weather and the battery life of these dual-liths and E is letting it bounce off them like a rubber ball on a brick wall, when N finally changes the subject.

-hey look at that, he said with his stubby finger pointing the way.

So E does and it’s the same old story. One person beside an ATV being shaken down by two people beside a re-vamped pick up, weapons drawn, the one person yelling at the two that might be a mix of threats and pleading, with everyone knowing at the end of the day it’s a numbers game because that’s all it’s ever been since the Lascaux Caves.

-we’re not getting involved, we-

And then E realized that the solo person yelling is R.

-shit!

-what, something else rotten?

-that’s him!

-who? Oh!

And gotta hand it to N in this situation. Immediately gunning it and pulling hard left on the handlebars to turn over 180 degrees in lightning flashes and buzzing towards the standoff.

E was right behind him, knowing that unexpected arrivals like this might result in triggering the trigger fingers of everyone, which is why they’re going a little bit slower to drive with one hand and aim their calitex rifle at the two accosters with the other.

With their bikes coming in to hopefully save the day and not turn it into a bloodbath (or at least let it be a bloodbath on their terms), the first thing that told E that things were amiss was that only R turned and gave any indication that they heard the arrival of company.

By the time N’s bike comes to a complete stop they also have their weapon out and pointed loosely at the three of them, but he still waits for E to arrive seconds later to say something, the most average sort of thing when your interrupting something and ready to choose violence.

-the fuck is going on here?

But she is still ignored by the two yelling something at R, one of the holding a device unrecognizable to E but is almost certainly a homemade weapon, and maybe one that will send homing darts into each of their necks without having to aim, or one that just won’t work at all.

If the weapon was the first hint that this wasn’t ordinary, the words the weapon-holder was saying to R sent off some really sketchy alarm bells.

-you…you…what does my face look like?

-I told you, R replied more frustrated than scared at this point, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

And that’s when R looked to E for any sort of connection like ‘are you hearing this?’, and not from any sort of recognition or understanding as to why two people have arrived other than the apparent goodness of their hearts.

E-hey. Hey.

E really used the bottom of their throat to get this warble down and it worked, both of the two others turning their heads in unison. The one with the weapon - actually the other one had a weapon, too, but just a lame ass short blade, and did not look like any sort of martialist - slowly pointed it at E, and in the corner of her right eye she could see R relax slightly and in the corner of her left N tensing up slightly with his own gun.

E-just put it down.

35-tell me who the fuck I am?

It was a question, not a demand.

E-you’re on something.

35-if I wasn’t I’d already be dead.

Which was a pretty clever answer for an asshole supposedly wired up, and even N guffawed at that.

E-no one’s gonna help you if you keep aiming that thing at people.

35-just give me a name. A real name. Not some letter or number.

E-Not gonna do that, not gonna lie to you. You need water?

-i got water. I want answers.

-how about your buddy there?

Shakes head.

-it’s just me.

And then 35 bursts out laughing.

One of those fucking type of guys in one of those type of fucking moods.

No one likes a firefight, and those that say they do stop saying anything ever again real quick, but that only applies if you have some sense of self-preservation and self-awareness. Which this guy needs to be reminded the value of.

-you fuck around with that thing, E said, it’ll be loud for a bit but then it’ll be very quiet.

35-yeah. I bet. I bet a lot of things. I bet along things can be different. Now tell me. Please.

And it’s an earnest ‘please’, and the eyes don’t lie, this guy is really on some sort of hallucinogen or mental state that puts him on the ground and ready to go in some ways and completely above the clouds in others.

E glances over to R and tries to do more than just make eye contact and instead try to communicate a sense of familiarity and comradeship to start hoping that it would lead to some sort of unified counteraction to the current situation.

35-what’d you say?

And the drugs have made this guy more perceptive to things like that.

E-I said you look all right. You look like you just need to sit down for a sec. Face is good. No cover model but you don’t need any knife work.

35 looks stupidly at her after saying this, and E doesn’t know if she made it better or worse.

N casually looks directly at the second one who hasn’t said anything at all.

-you don’t want to add anything?

The explosion was weird, a chain of four or five (who’s counting) of them that got bigger as they went on, which means E still couldn’t tell how the weapon worked or failed to work properly. Or if a trigger or switch was ever used or whether it just happened to break at that very moment and it broke in a really shitty way.

But because the guy turned away from E to face N, she received the least of it, which was still a hell of a lot pushing her up off her feet and flying through the air, which - like the few other times it’s happened - really does have that slow motion feel to it. Not that it matters much, since you are correspondingly thinking slower as well.

And E found themselves thinking:

Damn that’s a big hunk of steel whatever just missing my left arm.

Meanwhile, R found themselves thinking:

What would you do with one more minute? Where in your life would you slip in that amount of time to make a big difference?

And A would think it’s a real fucking shame that those shit fridge magnet thoughts were the last ones before some jagged piece of shrapnel cut through your suit and heart and lungs like an ugly, mutant bullet, which is exactly what happened to R.

When E landed on their side - always the best place to land, all things considered - they stayed down, pretending to be dead, which was easy, because they kinda felt like it. Probably the arm they landed on was broken, and the shoulder is all screwed up, but there is no fucked up feeling of a hot open wound where blood is vomiting out of your body uncontrollably.

E waited motionlessly like this for a bit just in case the two numbnuts survived and were keen to finish everybody off, loot and run, but for a long time nothing happened. E didn’t even want to risk showing movement and crane their head to see if N was alive.

She thought about watching her brother shooting their father once in the chest and as he says while bleeding out ‘I love you I love you I’m sorry I love you’ bro shoots pop twice in the head and then turns to you and says it’s the best for everyone because the gov’s about to knock down the door and what they would do to us if we’re alive would be so-

And that’s when the gov knock down the door and shoot E’s brother extremely effectively.

And they don’t do anything to E, letting her go after checking some CCTV footage and injecting a tracker into her neck that would end up being worthless two years later when that gov goes as dead as her family.

Horrible memories, but at least you had memories of your own.

But now it was time to get to your feet.

E wiggled her toes and it’s a moment of de-stress that it didn’t hurt at all.

Getting up did.

Bad right knee, bad left arm, bad left shoulder, bad ribs, and a headache and a half.

It was a bittersweet moment to look around - neck hurts a bit, too - and see that no one else was or would be getting back up. She could recognize three of the four bodies, and the fourth - probably dumbass with the dumb shit thing - was bits and pieces all over the pavement.

But in this inspection of the damage E spied the one thing that couldn’t afford to be damaged.

She limped over to the suitcase-like box and bent down very slowly and with gritted teeth to pick it up.

It was good.

A good container.

R used a good container.

R would have been good.

Now it’s time for water. A warning on her wrist pad flashes that the liquid pack might have been contaminated due to recent events, but she’s willing to take that risk. Still, she doesn’t drink much because she doesn’t know how easy it’ll be to get out of here. All the vehicles within the blast range would have sustained some level of damage, and fixing shit that’s been roasted like that is not her strong suit.

But then she doesn’t have to worry about that right now, because the circle appears on the ground and at first E just stares at it with several sighs reaching the depths of their diaphragm.

You can always not answer it, you can always walk away, this is a world were obligations are in ruins like everything else.

She limps over.

Had nice strong thought to summarize the situation in a way A would certainly understand.

-it’s all fucked you fuck, but i got the fucking shit.

-hello, E.

It was C.

Who wasn’t dead, which was shocking.

E-ah, hi…it’s an honour to meet…to talk to you…

-thank you. You are doing us all a great honour. Risking your life for a better future.

Sounded almost dead, though. And thinking the sort of things you read off a cue card. And what came next didn’t shake that feeling at all.

C-I know you’ve been through a lot. I’ve been able to follow along with A and while we don’t know the details, it’s clear there has been a true tragedy this evening.

If you get to this point in your career, you’ve become very good at withholding your kneejerk explosive thoughts when you hear typical condolences bullshit like that.

-it’s unfortunate, E thinks mechanically.

-we have lost many good people in our attempt to locate this information. I talked to B for a long time before she left on the journey that led to her sad passing, C thought feebly and wistfully, she was very patient with me. She was someone I think would have stepped into very important roles very easily.

E was vaguely aware of this protege, word going round campfires and smoking circles that she was the next bag of fancy chips. It didn’t mean much to E at the time, and now that she finds out B’s dead, it matters even less.

But C continues about the whole point of all this, and on the whole E would rather be dealing with A right now, who would be telling her to hurry up and get to a particular point on the map, there’s probably a vehicle you can rev up a lot fucking quicker than learning how to fix one of these busted, blown apart axles on the fly.

E-I understand, C.

-that’s good to hear. That’s…

And the pause is so long that E thinks for a moment that C died right then and there, but it’s actually because she was put on hold because when C talks again it’s summarizing where A indeed wants her to go.

-and please hurry E.

Which means A told C to tell E to hurry the fuck up.

After hanging up E has a volley of violent angry thoughts for the past and present, for all the sins of the fathers and mothers and friends and neighbours and businessmen and washerwomen and everyone who drove this fucking world off a cliff with a thoughtless smile.

Then she begins to loot, and it feels particularly gross because of course the pricks don’t have anything good, and taking necessities from R and N - goddamn, sorry for getting you to come with me on this, N - really felt like stealing. Better water, some food packets, R didn’t have much battery left, showing how much he had been travelling.

And now the harder part.

Moving.

E still checks the vehicles in case by some miracle they work, but it’s almost like the explosions had some pulse quality to them - or maybe the instability of the pulse set it off - because they were all dead, even if they didn’t look that bad.

So yeah, moving the oldest fashion way.

One foot in front of the other.

Her left arm hurts a bit less now. Maybe it’s not broken.

That counts as good news.

When night fell full on she kept to the roads, ready to lay low in a ditch or behind some rubble if a vehicle or gangs of stragglers passed by, but it was quiet. During the day it was through woods or fields if nothing on the scanners picked up bots, drones, dogs or anything else.

To conserve battery life she only turned the cooling system of suit on when the sun was being a particular bitch, but it was mostly a coward, hiding behind thick, sickly grey-purple clouds.

Sleep was a luxury, and the best way to never wake up again, so when E had no choice because she was going to collapse from exhaustion, they used their camo blanket and curled up in a ball underneath a burned out truck.

Waking up to voices is never fun, and having to slowly grab your weapon and hold onto it with your bad left arm because you have to sleep on your good right side is even less.

Hearing a bunch of local goons talk about who they’d like to fuck and/or kill from the neighbouring settlement gets old quick, but at least you can tell by the pitch and volume whether they’re just passing through or kicking over every rock and rubble to find something to loot and/or kill as an appetizer.

The voices fading in the distance was soothing enough to put E back to sleep, but instead she got up and packed up and kept moving, knowing that the there are two fields coming up that are cinch to get through if you walk in a very careful line right between them and not set off any sensors.

She knows that before there were tightrope walkers, doing this sort of thing high up above the ground sometimes without a net, done for the amusement of people watching. E had to turn on a field analyzer with AR to get the same effect of knowing where exactly to step. While a bad knee makes it annoying, having anyone see her and decide they would very much to like to take whatever she has on her would make it impossible.

To combat that, you wear the camo blanket and sometimes walk, sometimes crawl.

E hums bits of songs she remembers from her childhood. Stuff on playlists her Dad or brother would play over and over. Some were real ear-worms, which at the time she whined about but was appreciating very much now as just enough of a diversion. Even if she didn’t know the words, she’d make them up to the beat.

-I was always new, baw, baw, baw, you and your show, baw, baw, baw, easy come hardly go, baw, baw, baw…

Crazy that people were paid millions of bucks to come up with that stuff.

Now along this upcoming road there will be a checkpoint to deal with, and you do that by not dealing with it at all, by staying out of their scanner range by going the very long away around them, and since she used to do this trek into the city outskirts before, it shouldn’t be that much of-

Sirens. Loud ones. Familiar loud ones.

Apparently they moved the checkpoint up by about three click since the last time she was here.

E is in no condition to run, and thanks to her busted left side, was barely in condition to get both hands up.

In fact, the waiting for the soldiers to show up in their vehicle was the annoying part, since they assumed it was a faulty sensor, and took their time, only starting to act all soldiery when they saw it was an actual person.

At least they don’t shoot unless you’re holding a weapon, and she made sure both of hers were holstered or slung over their back, away from their hands.

When told to put down the container and put both hands up slowly, all she could do was make it seem like what she had in the container was the dullest shit in the world.

At least E could sit down on an actual bench and lean against the wall in the back of the vehicle. Her stuff was taken and separated from her immediately, but the soldiers were more interested in following bland regulations and meeting quotas than anything else.

Didn’t even talk to her as they opened the doors at the detention office, assuming correctly that E knows the drill by now. She didn’t let on as she watched them take the container to what was probably a secure storage room, letting them lead her to a cell that was small but not cold and with a plush bench that was long enough to double as a cot.

-thanks, she mumbled.

And E didn’t say anything else for the next thirty eight hours because no one said anything to her. No reading of charges, no skeezy interrogation, no firm but emotionless questioning about possible explosions days ago, no pervert soldiers. In fact, she slept through most of it, and pretty well, all things considered.

When the cell door finally did open it was with a wordless gesture to have her follow much better dressed looking guards, and E wondered if part of the upgrades around the checkpoint and detention area was adding in a courtroom.

But no, she was taken to an interrogation room with no windows, no mirrors, no cameras, one table, one chair, and one A, sitting in his own special chair expectantly. Before sitting down himself, E started carefully:

-It’s complicated.

A-I’ve got time.

And so E sits down, looking around the room to see if there was indeed some way for the wider world to listen in on this conversation, but it looks like it might just be the two of them, which is both crazy and a testament to whatever the hell A really does.

E-so I don’t know how much C told you…

-C’s dead.

And E took that with a blink. And then another several blinks. She wasn’t a power player, a political player, or any of the words that mattered one way then a kind of a different way now. But with C gone it meant that…well…

As if reading E’s mind - no tech required - A stated:

-and that fucking sucks. She kept this shit working when by any fucking right it should have stayed as broken as everything fucking else.

-right.

-she was wrong about a fuck-ton of things and how to get some fucking things done, but I can’t fucking do what she did, probably no one fucking can.

-yeah, E breathed out and feeling momentarily relieved that A made it clear what the boundaries of opinion were on the matter at hand.

-so C didn’t tell me shit because after she talked with you she told me was going to lay down and that’s apparently the last thing she ever did, we should all be so fucking lucky to go that way instead of what, being blown to bits?

And that’s when E told them of the confrontation that went south when they intercepted R, about the unexpected explosion that was probably accidental, how she talked to C, how she stumbled slowly to almost the meeting point…

A leaned up in his chair to make sure that when he spat in disgust it would land on the floor, not on his chin.

-fucking freaks, A said while grabbing a water bottle, I got no problem with drugs, but I got a big problem with shitbags with weapons who can’t handle their fucking drugs.

-yeah, bad luck.

-fuck luck. Good and bad.

-well I know you wanted us to find R and we did…, E started and trailed off with the hope that A would fill in the rest.

A-to get the container and you did. Good job. A big fucking party for the rest of us left.

-right. Good. So you…

-have it right now? Yeah. S is on their way to verify and full delete.

-oh great, ‘cause at first i was thinking that with me getting caught that-

-those fucks don’t know their weapons from their dicks, let alone what was in the fucking case.

And reading E’s suddenly surprised face of him insulting the many hostiles just outside the door, A added:

-you don’t gotta worry about talking careful here. I wouldn’t fucking come all this way if they were bugging this room. Say whatever the fuck you want.

And E reflectively looked around the room again, finally acknowledging its neutered plainness.

E-I’ll think up a snappy retort…

Every time she’d ever been in a room like this in the past it always had some sort of person or device to observe or order. And now it’s never been more apparent that it’s just four walls, a ceiling and a floor.

-but what we do gotta talk about is what C probably talked to you about before hanging up to fucking die.

E-she was talking about how she like B, how she would have been real important going forward. I mean it was that mingled in with the usual lines about keep on keepin’ on and all that positive stuff.

A -right. Exactly. A corpse propping up a fucking corpse. Thanks a fucking lot, C.

And E didn’t respond because she didn’t know how to respond, but she could tell by the look on A’s face that she was expected to respond, which was making her feel like a real idiot.

-I feel like a real idiot right now…

-when there’s talk of replacements no one wants to hear about pointless blathering like that. It doesn’t matter who you thought should’ve been next if that person is already dead.

E hopes her confirmation will make things clear.

-so… it didn’t happen.

-not yet anyway, A sniffed, once someone is chosen who has a working brain then we can open up about C’s romantic last words.

-okay. Right. Got it.

E figured that should be easy. She doesn’t spend much time in the city, let alone time in the city around higher-ups who seek out interviews regarding hierarchy and institutional gossip. If no one asks her about it, the less she has to worry about saying the wrong thing accidentally.

-then we’re done here, A said beginning to wheel away, which is fucking good because these fucking camps are a real fucking drag morally, physically, spiritually, you name it.

E stands up automatically as a sign of respect.

E-okay…how long until I get cleared?

A stops wheeling and turn the whole chair around to face E.

-the fuck should I know? You were trespassing, you got fucking caught, the judge’ll decide how long to keep your snatch in a vice.

And E just stares at A, realizing that he wasn’t here to spring her out.

A-No snappy retort?

And E thinks quick about how to handle this, how she can curse out A for doing all his dirty work and getting nothing in return… or how this is actually the best place for E right about now considering the shitstorm that might be hitting the city in trying to replace C.

So instead she breaks into a grin.

E-I’ve got time, right?

A-fucking exactly. Maybe I know someone who can lean on the fucking judge to spring you at the right fucking time.

And A bangs on the door, which is duly opened, and wheels out of the room and into the hallway, where a soldier is ready to close the door and walk alongside him in silence.

Which is a long walk because it’s a long hallway, which gives A a long time to be pissed at almost everything that happened so far, except for the retrieval of the container.

A didn’t have to sell it too hard to the base captain that he was pissed that he had to come all the way out here to talk to a trespassing scavenger who may or may not have been involved with a scrambled conversation with A some point. He didn’t even have to sell it too hard to say he really wanted to make that fucker pay and wanted everything she had on her, suit, weapons, batteries, water, and anything fucking else. The base captain mentioned a container that - according to the military scan - was just spare vehicle parts, and A said he’d take that, too, just to show ‘em.

And that pleased the base captain, because apparently putting the screws on those lower on the totem pole was a turn on.

So now A’s about to exit the main detention building with a soldier pushing a cart with all of E’s meagre belongings, and he’s frowning because he knows exactly what’s waiting for him beyond these doors.

They open, and S is there, smiling, hands clasped together at chest level, the body language screaming ‘pleased as punch’.

He seems oblivious to the fact that he is in a dreary military outpost. The soldier grunt has wheeled the cart with E’s stuff right beside S and S’s unmistakable truck and after a nod from A, shuffles off to do something less embarrassing.

S watches the man go and then turns his attention to his half man associate.

-It is good to see you again.

A-Yeah, sure.

-My condolences for C.

The smile did not fade as he casually grabs the container like it might actually contain spare vehicle parts.

-More fucking problems, A says.

Holding up the container briefly, S says:

-At least a few less after this. Think on that.

-don’t tell me what to think, A retorts although while watching S open the back door of his truck he realizes in horror that S is going to do this right here, right now, in the belly of the beast (a dying inept beast but a beast nonetheless). Frying and fissioning a hard drive isn’t exactly the most innocuous procedure, but A figures he could tell any inquiring meatheads that he’s just powering up the air purifier.

Sure enough, the familiar taps and whirs of the compactor get going, and A can’t help but wheel over to actually watch it happen, even if it’s the same thing he’s seen many times before.

Normally he hates - fucking hates, that is - any sort of symbolism, but with this find and with S confirming the contents with a triumphant nod, a tattered, ugly chapter of the past is being closed forever.

So yes, watch it rev up one last time, watch S tap buttons and pull a lever or two like the mad scientist he actually is, and imagine what might have been on those drives because that’s all you can do about it now.

Now.

What the fuck do you know about now?

At least this is finished.

Even if it ultimately leads to something horrible.

People will fight tooth and nail and subatomic particle to be in charge soon enough, and then everything will actually start to change.

But at least for now this is finished.

S is beaming and doing some sort of sign language to A meant to indicate success, and of course that’s when something mechanical burps loudly and smokes begins to puke out of a pipe from the front of the truck.

A-the fuck is that?

S is calmly getting out the back and walking to the front, as a few military men walk over with low level concern.

-well darn. Fried the engine.

A-so what, does that mean it didn’t fucking work?

-oh no, the procedure went swimmingly, we’ll just have to wait for it to cool down and then swap in a new piston.

-good thing that guy had parts on him, right? A military grunt remarked with dumbass smile that A wanted to punch.

-yes yes, S said while somehow both playing along and not paying attention, everything is lining up perfectly.

And S stares up at the sky, enjoying the brief break while sun tries to escape from the clouds, while A is sitting in his wheelchair beside the truck, waiting.

Just being kept fucking waiting.

END