Mary traversed through the maze of back alleys at a brisk, steady pace. Not quite breaking into a jog yet. The soles of her bare cyberfeet clacked against the pavement. She almost sounded feather-footed compared to the jack-booted thugs trailing behind her. She had to be careful with her steps. Just loud enough that they knew that she was around, but not loud enough that they could home in on her.
It was a bizarre feeling. Normally she’d simply gun these Freaks down without a second thought, but for once she had to worry about collateral. There was no way in hell she was going to be able to fire her RPM here without dinging something important. Or without glancing a nearby resident. Optics are a strange thing, and she thought she’d never have to deal with them ever again after ditching the corpo life.
Just stay out of sight, and keep moving. That’s all she has to do for now. Either until Hotrod made her way here, or until she can get these clown bastards somewhere that was less populated. She wasn’t sure which direction was closest to being ‘less populated.’ A little bit of a problem.
Just like the Freak she bumped into while she was looking over her shoulder.
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Hotrod’s Amaya Katana roared as it kicked up gravel. Mary’s definition of ‘minor issue’ was a fair few steps further than what anyone else besides maybe Switch would consider ‘minor.’ What a milspec cyborg finds to be inconvenient might be a few multitudes more serious for anyone who wasn’t more machine than flesh.
«Sender: Mary»
«Minor issue is now a larger issue. Might have accidentally bitten off more than I can chew. ETA?»
If she wasn’t in the midst of motoring through narrow alleyways and side streets to get to where she needed to be in due time, she’d have smacked her forehead on a nearby surface in frustration. Part of her was thankful that working with drones taught her to be severely competent in the art of multitasking as she fired up both the guide system to check for any routes that could shave a few seconds off of her current one, and the messaging interface to fire off a text to her comrade. Who was now dealing with an issue that might be more than minor.
«To: Mary»
«ETA two minutes or less. Keep me posted.»
Typed up and fired off, just as she dipped past a sedan whose driver wasn’t paying attention. A reminder that she’s headed back into a more populated area of Blackwell. The area around the Night Market is easily one of the more dense areas of the Slag.
A sharp turn into a back alley. The road quickly devolved into a mostly-gravel mess pockmarked with potholes. The place might as well be a minefield for how quickly it would disassemble a wheeled vehicle driving through here. Two wheels are already pushing it, and four or more would be completely out of the picture. Anyone risking this path was either brave or extremely confident in their abilities, and Hotrod was both of those things in spades. Besides, she’d be worse than Onigiri if she let a bumpy road get her to turn tail. She expertly dodged the divots and bumps in the road, the bike almost being an extension of her physical body despite her forgoing directly rigging into it.
After what felt like an eternity of being shaken and rumbled about, the bike found purchase on a slightly more structurally-sound piece of asphalt as she jolted onto another main road. Once again, she pulled another sharp turn. The most efficient route isn’t always the most comfortable one, but at least putting her bike through the rounds was fun as hell, if a rattling experience.
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Stumbling into a Freak wasn’t part of her plan. Her current, poorly thought out plan. Neither was twisting his neck around like a soda cap. Mary really didn’t want to have to slow down. It did give her second thoughts about turning around and standing her ground, but with her luck, something would get burnt down. The Freaks did have a reputation for that, what with their infamous firebreathers amongst their ranks.
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Just have to get somewhere that is slightly less flammable. And filled with less collateral. She kicked the corpse of the gaudily-clad Freak to the side, trying to hide him in a pile of discarded cardboard boxes and garbage bags and making a poor showing of it. The cyborg hoped that they wouldn’t take it as casus belli to start burning down the neighborhood. She couldn’t complain too loud if that happened. At least she’d be able to start blasting if that was the case.
She spent far too much time lingering trying to hide this stupid clown. Those heavy footfalls were getting closer and closer, and she needed to keep trailing them along. No doubt that her being constantly on the move gave Hotrod trouble with getting a solid track on where she actually was, considering the construction of Blackwell could best be described as a spider-web. Construction built atop destruction without rhyme or reason in places left it a headache to navigate at the best of times. And being chased by a gaggle of Freak clowns hopped up on chems excluded it from being a good time, let alone the best.
The neighborhood she was in seemed more sparsely populated than the one she was in moments prior. The buildings around her didn’t seem much in the way suited for habitation, with most of them being collapsed wrecks, or little more than piles of rubble surrounded by ruined walls. It was closer to an open field with the sparse reminders of civilization. If there was any place to make a stand, this would more than likely be it.
Hopefully not a last stand.
She scrambled for a ruined building, for the dual purpose of taking cover and finally being able to take count of how many she was being followed by. One by one the Freaks filtered into view. All as equally gaudily dressed as the last, done up like some kind of twisted circus performers; each wearing worn down clothes that somehow manages to be eye searingly bright despite their aged appearance. Mary silently counted to herself with each clown that sallied out, only taking pause when she realized there were easily more than a dozen. Closer to two dozen if her count was correct this time. Their weaponry could be described as something of a menagerie, with the cyborg guessing that maybe one in four had some sort of firearm. The rest were stranded with blades and pipes.
And then their leader stepped out. Though not visibly armed, it was readily apparent that he didn’t need to be. Equally ripped as he was chromed up, forgoing a shirt as if he's featuring in some kind of cheap action movie. Unlike the bozo she had a run-in with earlier this morning, this guy actually was visibly equipped with some high-grade stuff. Big metal arms, dermal plating on his chest, and a chrome grill in the place of his lower jaw. Not high enough grade that it was inconspicuous, but she figured that there was likely some sort of intimidation factor intended.
What really kicked Mary into gear was the fact that the chrome clown simply gestured and his cronies fanned out. Surprisingly organized for Freaks. Normally they’re so burnt out on drugs and chips that they take no issue in running in a straight line at you while laughing maniacally. These ones were disturbingly quiet the moment that they were ordered.
Mary took a deep breath, before nestling her baskets of apples into the ruins behind her. She went this far for them, and paid that much. No way she’s letting them get ruined. Next step was getting herself armed now that she had a free set of arms, with her pulling out the various pieces of her RPM from her internal storage components. One of the advantages of being nearly one-hundred percent chrome is the fact that you can forgo pockets.
Assemble the body. Thread the barrel. Interface with the RPM’s electronics. All standard fare to her, she’d done this easily hundreds of times. It was her favorite gun, after all. Deep breath, and check the situation—
A quick glance over the ruined wall she was stationed behind met her with a shower of exploding plascrete as a shot embedded itself into her cover. She ducked back down as briefly as she stood. This wasn’t right. How were they even remotely this organized?
“Screw it,” she mumbled to herself as she hefted her rifle over the lip of the wall, spraying blindly and indiscriminately. If they knew where she was already, there wasn’t much she could do besides warding them off. Her blind fire was met in return with supposed blind fire from her assailants, causing more and more of her cover to erode away under fire that was just as withering as her’s.
The cacophony as it was did more than suppress Mary, given that nobody seemed to notice the rumbling of an approaching bike…