Thump. Thump. Thump.
Someone shouted at Mary. Maybe multiple people. She couldn't tell, she was too busy trying to figure out where she was. The cyborg blew her dark bangs out of her eyes, glancing around as she realized her back was pressed up against a concrete barricade.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A dingy side street, with husked out buildings surrounding her. A laundromat with it's front completely blown out to one side, the only indicator of what it used to be being the rusted out remains of the machines housed inside. To the other side of her? She honestly couldn't tell. It was a mess of concrete, rebar, and splinters of synthwood. It felt like she's been in this place before. Something was off about this.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The barrier behind her began to crumble.
It took the sound of a round whizzing past her head to make her realize that she was being shot at. Were her augs glitching out? Her threat detectors should've been blaring off in her skull by now. It didn't matter. She had to get moving.
Wait.
She couldn't find her gun. How'd she get here and caught unprepared like this? The cyborg exhaled sharply, ducking low and skittering on her centipede-like lower half and zooming into the laundromat at a breakneck scuttle. Quick enough that she'd barely be a blur to the unaugmented eye. For the augmented eye, it'd be pretty disconcerting to see an eight foot long half-centipede woman scurry at a pace. At the very least, her improved reflexes were working fine, given that she was able to weave in and between the industrial-sized washers like an insect desperately trying to avoid getting squashed. The gunfire from outside soon ceased, her aggressors realizing that she bolted from her cover.
She knew how this game was played. One or two of them would step forwards to look past the barricade, blurt out something like ‘she's gone,’ and stand in the open. Which was the exact moment in which she'd bolt back out, grab one, and hope that their gun wasn't ID locked. Who can afford to lock their gun? It's the Slag. Besides, there was some kind of slight ecstasy to stealing someone's gun and using it to kill their cohorts.
A figure stepped forwards to look behind the barricade. They were saying something, but she couldn't understand it. Must be foreigners. Time to count down and—
She paused when she noticed something a tad disturbing. The figure had no discernable features. They might as well have been a big blurry mannequin holding an assault rifle. That must be it. Her augs must've been compromised.
She didn't have time for a full reboot here and now to undo whatever they did. The best she could do was putting herself into dummy mode to purge any unauthorized connections. This was definitely putting a crimp on her day. Or night? What time was it anyways?
The blurry figure started to step back from whence they came. She didn't have time to let this slip. She bolted out into the open street. Scurrying up and over the barricade, each one of her centipede feet clattering and thudding loudly against pocked asphalt and pavement as she maneuvered her way towards her prey. A quick glance to the right. Six more blurry figures stood cleanly in the open. Usual Slag scum formation of staggered positions ranging from one to two meters from one another.
They didn't have a chance to raise their rifles before she had her target in her grip. Step one: disable. She looped her arm around the figure's neck, flexing her synthmuscles and constricting until her actuators overwhelmed what she assumed to be flesh. The meaty squelch followed by a crunch was a good indicator that she crushed his windpipe and snapped his neck. It also indicated that it was good to move onto step two: dismantling. Her free arm moved to grip the now deceased figure's wrist. In a blink of an eye, she casually tugged his arm clean from its socket, the only things leaving it vaguely connected to the corpse being a scant trace of some connective tissue and muscle. Flesh wasn't much in the way of an obstacle for military grade chrome.
She could've just taken the rifle from the body instead of desecrating a corpse, but something clicked in her head and she wasn't stopping now. It was over in less than a second.
She disengaged her improved reflexes module, if only to preemptively avoid the thing blaring safety alerts into her skull about imminent overheating. She plucked a rifle from a nearby disembodied arm. Step three: discard.
The corpse dropped to the pavement with a wet thump. Her threat assessment aug still wasn't picking up these bozos, and they hadn't opened fire yet. She didn't blame them, considering she just dropped one of their numbers in less than an eyeblink. This was why people think she's a cryptid, and she reveled in it. Perhaps a little too much, considering the grin spreading across her face as she fought back a nefarious cackle; her glowing orange cybereyes lighting like headlights piercing through a dark street.
She could've said something funny or witty, but she knew if she opened her mouth it'd all be laughter. Mary lifted her assault rifle with one arm and squeezed the trigger—
----------------------------------------
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
[https://i.imgur.com/KyMKmEP.png]
Mary jolted awake, her eyes darting around to take in her surroundings. Stupid nightmares, and even stupider scheduled diagnostics waking her up. It took her a moment to remember she was in Hotrod's guest room, given that her augmented nose picked up the smell of engine oil a few rooms over first and foremost, for whatever reason. The furnishings were rather spartan, a cabinet to one side, a mirror to the other, and a comfy bed right in the middle.
She would've been reflective over all what she just dreamt if it wasn't for the combination of the agitation of being woken up, but the amazement of actually sleeping in a bed for once instead of a dingy airduct somewhere. She went to roll out of the bed, only to faceplant onto the beige carpet as she failed to account for her lower half being set to bipedal mode instead of her preferred centipede form. She rolled around, grumbling as she tried to untangle herself from the mess of her own discarded bra.
The noise attracted some attention in the form of Sylvain, who gently hovered into the room; emitting a series of chirps. Either in greeting, or inquisition. Mary really couldn't tell, she didn't speak drone despite being near ninety-five percent mechanical herself. Cue a pause as a thought crosses her mind.
"- AUGH, CRAP! I'M NOT DRESSED!", she shrieked at the top of her lungs, reaching up to tug the bedding onto the floor to cover herself in a scrambled hurry.
Sylvain, of course, was startled by either one, two, or all of these factors, and hurriedly flew out of the room with a high pitched whining; narrowly avoiding clipping the door frame on the way out.
"... I'unno how she lives with those things floating around.", she mumbled into the floor, as if the thing would be a better conversational partner than Sylvain.
----------------------------------------
Some time later, after she managed to win the wrestling match with her clothes, Mary stumbled out of the guest room. She was under some sort of compulsion to find Sylvain to apologize for whatever reason.
"Hey, uuh- I didn't mean to yell at you!", she shouted, stopping to clear her throat. "- Er. Earlier. Not that exact moment right there!"
For a stone cold chrome killing machine, she didn't know how to not be awkward. She leaned back and forth, deciding that maybe she should go and find Hotrod instead of continuing her cavalcade of social stupidity. Mary strolled across the living area, making a quick clip for her host's bedroom and stopped short of the doorway.
Rap-tap-tap.
Her synthskin-covered chrome knuckles tapped on the wall. No response.
Rap-tap-tap.
She tried again. Again, no response. Mary poked her head in to glance around, keeping herself from traipsing into the threshold of the bedroom. She glanced for long enough to see that Hotrod's bed was made up and she was most definitely not in there. Some part of her was contemplating stepping into the room to investigate further, but the saner part of her mind prevailed. The woman was probably talking to Switch or Onigiri in person, or simply out for business matters.
Mary walked her way back to the couch to flop down on her side, opting to stare at the ceiling until either Hotrod returned or she was prompted by NeuroLink to get her arse in gear. Unfortunately, this gave her a few seconds to reflect.
The situation overall was something both comfortable and uncomfortable for her at the same time. Generally nobody is nice enough to give up a bed for her to borrow. Or ends up being nice to her in general. It's the nature of the Slag in the first place to keep your cards close to your chest, but doubly so when you're dealing with a full body replacer. No one wants to be a bedfellow to someone who could accidentally break your bones, or snap limbs clean off if they were so inclined.
Shiftcrank's girls were a little different when it came to interacting with her, given that they were all nearly chromed up enough to rival Mary; so they weren't as easily perturbed by a crawling mass of synthskin and reinforced titano-alloy. But she still had difficulties getting along with them. They were cut from a rougher sheet than she was. She was still a corp kid at heart. She paused mid-thought, literally slapping herself.
The one thing she hated was being reflective on these sorts of things. Another thing she hated was when people walked right in to witness her being stupid and slapping herself. Which would be to say, Hotrod walked in at that very moment.
Mary tried to play it cool by making it look like she was rubbing her forehead, but it was vividly apparent that she slapped herself, what with the audible clap of her palm against synthskin. Despite being a walking slab of chrome, she was really good at this awkward thing.
Hotrod plopped herself down on her side of the leather couch, directly facing the large screen. “You good?”
“I’m good,” Mary rapid-fired back. She wasn’t, but was she really going to vomit out her internal dialogue to someone she just met? “Uh. What were you up to, anyways?”
“Just working on the drone. The usual.” Hotrod reached for her pack of Lucky Thirteens and lit up a cigarette. “Slept okay? Is the bed fine?”
“Totes slept good,” she blurted back with the same hurried tone in response, betraying the fact that she was most definitely lying. “Have you heard back from, uh, the other girls at all?”
“Mine or yours? Oh, right. That reminds me. Oni should've already given you access to our sub-forum on Bansheenet. Give it a peek.”
“Including the job board? I’d, uh, prefer to earn my keep instead of, y’know, loitering around.” Mary kept her clipped speech even as she flicked her wrist up to maneuver through the Banshee.Net interface.
[https://i.imgur.com/oG6VXOQ.png]
“It looks like Oni—is it Oni, or Onigiri, or... She posted a job for someone in the Night Market. I, uh, might look into that.”
“So she did. Looks like you get to earn your keep sooner than later.” Hotrod kicked her feet up onto the glass coffee table. “I'd join you, but… I gotta keep an eye on things while Switch is still out on business. Good luck with the job, though. Not that you need it.”
“Uuh, still. Thank you and stuff,” Mary pushed herself to her feet, offering up a quick two fingered salute as she sallied off for the door and out into the night.