Alex used the rest of her money to get bone implants for her left arm. While she would have preferred to have upgraded her leg, her arm is a mess, and no amount of healing will set it right. Might as well get an upgrade.
“What happened to your arm?” Anya asks worriedly as she recovers.
“I got hammered,” Alex says.
“Alex! We’re too young to be drinking.”
“Firstly, fuck that noise. Secondly, I meant I literally got hit by a hammer”
Anya makes a face, “how many times did you get hit?”
“Only once, it was a very big hammer.”
She was a little worried their mysterious handler would show up while she was recovering, but come the week’s end, they’re still a no show. But Alex’s got a fully functional, if slightly sore, left arm. They had to cut into it like the hospital did with her leg rather than the injections, which was fucking expensive. Alex seems to be making it a habit of getting her limbs shattered.
She missed christmas, and new years, which is a shame ‘cause those are the only days where Lost Hope actually does something to celebrate. Then again, with everyone over the age of ten participating in the war in some shape or form, she doesn’t know if Clarice would have still held the annual festivities. Speaking of Clarice.
“Stop,” Alex says
The class in front of her complies and lowers their bokkens.
“You’re all swinging too wide. You’re telegraphing all your moves, anyone with eyes could deal with those strikes.”
One of the new kids raises their arm. Alex nods at him.
“Missus Alex, what does tel-i-graph mean?” the boy asks.
Alex sighs, realizing she’s dealing with children, “well Rorick…”
Alex, Sasha, and Aki have taken over classes for as long as their staying, or until the instructors came back. Clarice actually seemed grateful for their presence. Which was new, guess all the paperwork and dealing with a bunch of brats was getting to her. Alex has to do double duty now, considering Sasha covered for her while she was in the clinic. It isn’t so bad, she just has to make sure no one gets injured.
How hard could it be? They’re just kids after all.
“And why, exactly, did you hit Roan?” she interrogates a child with fury in her eyes.
“He’s mean!” the boy says “he never talks to anyone, just making those weird hand things.”
“And you realize that he can’t talk, right?”
The kid looks confused and Alex holds back the urge to sigh.
So yeah, just peachy.
-
“Damn Aki, you really splurged out didn’t you?” Sasha asks.
Aki puffs out his chest, not even trying to hold back a smile as his new eye glimmers with delight. “It was totally worth it.”
“I’d imagine” Alex says “Lilac’s are fucking ridiculous”
“You can say that again.” Sasha adds, “Doesn’t it have its own inbuilt programming software?”
Aki nods enthusiastically, not containing his joy at all, “yes! I just need to plug in a keyboard and I'm all set for netrunning. I can finally test some of the theories I’ve been working on”
-
Aki and Sasha are staring at each other, neither moving an inch.
Then Sasha blinks and waves around her arms.
“I can’t see! Holy shit that's cool” she giggles while flailing blindly, accidently hitting Alex in the face.
“Who was that?” She says.
“A morgue patron” Alex growls before pouncing on the girl, killing her with tickles. Aki laments the loss of one so young with a somber nod and a cross on his heart. Sasha’s howling can be heard by all the residents of Lost Hope, a death knell that echoes-
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Stop!” Sasha says between bouts of laughter. “Please.” More laughter. “Stop.”
Alex decides to be merciful and lets her go.
Sasha sits back up while panting from the attack, giving Alex a sharp look.
Alex tilts her head, “you can see again”
“I could halfway through you’re attempted murder” she pouts
“That’s…really short. Didn’t it take a few seconds for it to work? How’re we supposed to use that in combat?”
Aki shrugs, “It's beginner shit, too much clutter I’d guess. That and sub-par scripts. Just need to spend some time updating it and it’ll be useful, maybe an indefinite loop? No, those are too easy to break, could do a multi-package but that would take more space than its worth” He starts mumbling to himself.
Sasha and Alex look at him, look at each other, then look back at him.
“Fucking nerd”
-
“April first” Sasha mumbles. They’re sitting on the roof of Lost Hope, listening to the distant gunfire and explosions.
“Six months,” Aki says. They look into the at the horizon and find a few plumes of smoke hiding behind the concrete Jungle of Arthas. It’s beautiful in a way, the chaotic uniformity. The original designers clearly didn’t intend for this city to hold hundreds of millions, and it shows in the patchwork design of the districts, although they’re kind of irrelevant, each part of the city is named by the gang that controls it after all.
“And probably a few more” Alex echoes.
The Crossroads sits on the borders between Sasei, the Graveyard, and the Hunting Grounds (or Hunting for short). It’s a curious place, peace maintained by all the gangs working in unison. Even during times of war, the Crossroads is never attacked or used for leverage. Its status as a neutral is so coveted that even the Bastion of Truth built an orphanage here to raise their young.
“We’re so fucked” Sasha concludes.
-
Alex is staring at a pencil.
She…doesn’t know if this is a good idea, but she has to know.
She nudges the pencil.
She doesn’t get a headache, no, instead her soul screams. She is in too much pain to match it, laying on the floor, clutching at her chest. After some time, minutes or hours she does not know, she feels well enough to stand.
Well, I guess it’s just predictions for now.
-
Pumping iron is a familiar comfort to how weird everything feels. The halls of Lost Hope are mostly empty. Entire floors left to the dust. She can’t gamble or really play any games with the kids without being the moderator. She’s tried teaching them poker but they suck ass at both schooling their features and don’t recognize when they’ve got a good hand. Or a shit one. So mostly they’ve been playing blackjack and hide-and-seek.
With the orphanage being as empty as it is, it’s the perfect staging ground for some good old hiding and seeking. She’s always the seeker unfortunately, but that’s fine, she’s starting to branch out on the possibilities of her mark. She can push on it intentionally now, doing so hurts a bit, but she suspects if her soul wasn’t currently in pieces it wouldn’t feel like anything at all. So she pushes her mark to find the kids, and it worked, to an extent. She gets the sense of their general location, but trying to narrow it down doesn’t work no matter how hard she pushes.
But still, it’s progress, and implicates her gift as something more than just predictions, even if only slightly. She remembers the depth it had, it felt realer than her own heartbeat, denser than granite, and filled to the brim with knowledge that she can’t even begin to understand. But maybe the more applications she finds, the better the idea she’ll get of what exactly it is she’s dealing with.
-
“Surprise attack!” yells a voice as they bring their bokken down on Alex’s head. Alex doesn’t move fast enough to dodge, and it bonks and breaks off her skull. Ai looks at her bokken, then looks at Alex, then back at her bokken. “That’s not fair” Ai pouts.
Alex gives her a dangerous smile, “neither is life kid,” and so began the second death by tickle in as many weeks.
-
{Too many signs} Roan does something like a grumble as he signs.
Clarice shrugs {Too many words} which gets a chuckle out of Roan.
{Want to play with friends} He signs.
{No, you must learn. You will not be able to speak for a long time. Must learn to communicate}
Roan pouts, {can write}
Clarice actually snorts {not well}
{What’s point?} he signs exasperated {No one signs.}
{your friends do} Clarice points out.
Roan looks downcast at that {Barely.}
{They do not need it to speak, you do}
-
Takeshi wakes up to the sound of a heart monitor. His vision is not blurry, and doesn’t hurt from the light after being in disuse for so long, advantages of cybernetics. He looks around and finds no one in his room.
He tries to raise his arm and-
He has no arms.
He looks down at where his arms should be and finds them gone, his right missing everything beneath the elbow and his left entirely gone.
He starts hyperventilating and his heartbeat spikes, lighting up his door with yellow. In no time at all a nurse is beside him trying to coach his breathing but he doesn’t listen, he can barely hear her over the sight of his missing arms.
He screams into his rebreather.
-
The giant smiles “skeleton man,” he says “it’s been a while.”
“It has” Jason nods “honestly I would have preferred not to meet during a war, but sometimes life’s a bitch”
The giant’s smile turns a little sad “indeed, you’re better company than most of my fellows. But we both have our duties, and loyalty is the only real currency here, in this hell.”
Jason sighs “so, inside or outside?”
“Outside” the giant says “you have my word my men won’t interfere, and they will respect the outcome. Can I get the same assurance?”
Jason nods.