The girl was climbing the pile of scrap metal. Her forehead was sweating and dripping down her black-skinned face. A hot wind blew through her thick curls. She removed the glove from her right hand. There were small burn marks forming a constellation of scars. She straightened her hair and tucked the unruly strands behind her ear.
He looked up. The freighters from the metropolis had dumped the garbage in the morning. There could be parts of some value up there. Processors, circuit boards, obsolete mechanical prostheses and faulty electronics. With luck, she'd find something nice and generate some money.
Other scrap dealers greeted her. One of them, a man wearing a gas mask, said to the young woman:
"Make sure you don't cause an avalanche of garbage today, young lady."
"Fuck you, old man!"
"You are very hot-headed."
They went their separate ways. Suddenly, the young woman saw something shining. Something metallic, with a golden sheen. She walked towards the thing near the top of the mountain of scrap metal. The closer she got, the more her doubts diminished.
She knelt down next to the object. It was a metal arm. She thought it was a cybernetic prosthesis. She put on her worn gloves and dug carefully. She removed the accumulated garbage. To his surprise, it was more than a gauntlet. An entire arm was revealed. Astonished, she increased the speed of her digging.
When she finished, there was a boy who looked about her age, around sixteen. The girl put her ear to his chest. He was unconscious but alive. His hair was shaved on the sides, and at the top of his head there were small dreadlocks falling to the left. He wore glasses with square lenses and dark metal frames.
He was wearing a light brown jacket with purple details. All four buttons were open, with only a thin white shirt covering his chest. Dark pants went down to the middle of his shins. He wore raw leather slippers with braided buckles.
After rescuing the boy from the pile of garbage, she tried to wake him up.
"Hey, kid, are you okay?"
"FATHER!"
The young man stood up quickly and banged his head on his savior's forehead.
A huge bump emerged from her forehead. Her veins popped out on her neck. She was furious. She grabbed the young man by the collar of his jacket and shook him hard from side to side.
"Are you crazy, you want to scare me to death?"
"Okay, sorry!"
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The boy's eyes rolled back in dizziness. His irises had a ring around them that emitted a faint greenish, fluorescent glow.
"How did you end up here? Did you come from Ilu Nla?"
"I don't know. I don't really remember how I ended up here. I was with my father and… from then on, I can't remember anything else."
"I think you fell off a freighter that dumps garbage here. You have amnesia. You must have hit your head when you fell."
"Could be."
The boy climbed out of the pile of garbage and looked around. Hundreds of piles of garbage were arranged around the site. Several people, including old people and children, were rummaging through the piles and collecting what they thought was valuable. A sour smell wafted through the air. His eyes watered. He coughed as he inhaled the smell of the slurry.
In the distance, he noticed what looked like a city growing in disorder on a hillside. The environment beyond the mountains of scrap metal was arid, almost desert-like.
"Where am I?"
"At the dump, right, obviously. This is the place where Ilu Nla throws away everything she believes to be worthless… including people. Come with me, it won't be safe to walk around with these implants. You'll attract the attention of someone you shouldn't."
"What's your name?"
"They call me Spin Bomb. And you?"
"I'm Akachi. It's one of the few things I remember now. Thanks for saving me."
"Relax, come here."
Spin Bomb held out his hands and helped the boy to his feet. Akachi observed his interlocutor. She was wearing a skirt-short and a dark sleeveless top. She wore thick, worn leather gloves. She wore square-toed dark leather boots.
Around her waist, in bands on her shoulders and bracelets on her forearms, were bamboo tubes of various sizes. They were wrapped in strings, each one a different color. Akachi didn't dare ask, and followed Spin Bomb to the base of the pile of junk.
Suddenly, a metallic sound echoed through the air. The sound began to repeat with greater speed and volume.
"What's that?"
Spin Bomb turned to Akachi with bulging eyes and snarled between his teeth:
"Run boy, run!"
All the scrap collectors around started running towards the gate. The pair followed the flow of people. High-pitched barking and running sounds became audible. The predators were running through the piles of garbage at speed.
Akachi looked back, he needed to understand the danger that was upon them. To his surprise, they were deformed hyenas. They all had deformities and purulent tumors all over their bodies. Many of the animals had very little fur. There were hyenas with two heads, several pairs of eyes and three or four rows of teeth.
"What kind of monsters are those, Spin Bomb?"
"They're mutant hyenas. They got that way after they ate the chemicals in the garbage."
Before they got through the gate, Akachi was elbowed in the face and fell to the ground.
Spin Bomb rolled his eyes, stopped running and, making his way through the crowd of fugitives, headed in Akachi's direction.
Damn it! Why am I risking my life for a stranger?
He helped Akachi to his feet. However, the mutant hyenas formed a semi-circle around them. They growled and bit the air. The leader of the pack slammed his forepaws on the ground, urging the members to attack their prey.
"You puppies want a piece of me? Then come and get it, you sons of bitches!"
Spin Bomb reached for one of the tubes on his belt. He took out a portable torch, barely bigger than a lighter. He lit the tube's wick and threw it on top of a nearby pile of scrap metal. The artifact caused a huge explosion. The mountain of garbage shook and collapsed, but in the direction of the pair.
"Ah! I miscalculated the detonation. I screwed up!"