“Fuck, fuck!” Lucia yelled as she slammed her palms on the wheel.

“I’m sorry!”

“Did you keep your camera on at least?”

“I... I think so?”

“Play the footage. Rhys, what do you see?”

From what Rhys could see on the screen face of Shoa, the Mech was happily scanning before getting socked in the back of the head by something The recording only captured the voices of the people and the sound of metal pipes hitting Shoa’s back. With the shakiness of the robot’s head and the voices of the others threatening over his words, it was hard to get a clear idea of who was involved but with that said., it was clear that one of them was trying to take off his arm before -

Shinkt.

It was quick. It was silent. And whatever reaction the man once had in the second before was wiped out by his jaw stuck upwards by the sharp metal through his neck. The man couldn’t physically bring himself to scream, like a human. Instead, the hole that pierced through his throat clean through left him gurgling and gasping for air. The retraction of the blade was equally as quick as Shoa scrambled to get away with the last view of the man holding his neck flat on his back while his posse did their best to keep the blood loss from killing him.

“Well?”

“Shoa got jumped. His arms sent out some stabby thing and then that big dude got hit.”

“Shittt.” The word hissed out of Lucia’s lips like a deflating tire.

“Shoa’s fine and we have cause, right,” Rhys said hopefully. “Only thing is getting the coppers on em, right?”

“Not that simple. If it were you who got hit, they’ve turned them over in a second. But with Shoa fighting back, it's just a pile of shit.”

“Ohh no.”

Rhys slapped the dented back of her Mech companion. “Well, guess you’re fucked buddy. Least you killed a racist before you died.”

“You are not helping!”

“Both of you need to shut up! Just upload the stuff to the Notary and we’ll deal with it later. You were assaulted first, so we have that going for you. Christ, I’m gonna have to get Frida on this. Fucking… ”

A strange rumble seemed to go through the car as Lucia mumbled under her breath.

“Yeah, buddy. Of course, you gotta do it now.” Lucia ran her head through her hair, rolled her shoulders, and focused on what she was supposed to do. “Look, I need to do some work on the car. In a better time, we would be in a bigger city by now but the only close enough is…”

“Hickshaw.” Even the digital voice of Shoa still captured the reluctance of an organic voice. Rhys could only try and push back the flash of gore and the urge to vomit.

“It's all we got. I’ll radio in.”

The dusty trail into town was as quiet as ever. The wind blew through the windows and the doors. Didn’t matter if it was closed or empty, there was not a soul here who would permanently reside in this place. From the abandoned houses downwind to the mineshaft blown up and blocked off up the mountain.

The only resident Salaman Brocktree was in charge of the most boring job in existence. The badger let out a tough breath as he looked out over the empty throughway. Looking over a dead town after the massacres of its inhabitants. The entire place smelled empty. Horrid. Usually, a buddy system would be in place but with something like this, he couldn’t blame anyone for trying to keep a wide berth of this place. With how Lucia was calling in, however, it would be an issue coming to him now.

The sounds of rumbling in the distance had gotten his attention from the abode he had co-opted. He grabbed his axe and stepped outside to see Lucia and some autumn-skinned woman dragging one of those Metal Men out of Lucia’s vehicle.

“Why are you here?”

“Some stuff happened.” Rhys nodded to the limp metal she was dragging. “ Shoa here may have killed a guy.”

“No, no,” he adamantly refused.” I did nothing of the sort… I couldn’t have!”

The woman dropped him on his back and shrugged. “You stuck a knife through his neck dude. Even if he doesn’t die immediately, that wound is gonna kill him.”

“Still not helping!”

Salam redirected his attention from the greenhorns to Lucia. “Who was it that assaulted the Metallic?”

“Chatillion followers, the more Vegas minded members.”

From that statement, a wide smile graced the badger’s face as he lifted Shoa with one hand. The metal thing couldn’t even reach his stomach in height as his shadow eclipsed the thing. “Hah! Be proud, boy!”

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“What? For what?!”

“Your first kill and it was one of them. Be happy for that!”

“See, that’s what I’ve been saying! ”

“I just wanted to scan and keep track of things. Be useful. Being a secretary would’ve been nice before I went off. But no. Now I’m going to get picked clean like a common scrap heap.”

Lucia kept her hand in her hair, visibility frustrated. “ Usually they’re satisfied with Mech union matters 'cause I’m there. Why the hell are they attacking openly now?”

“How long have we been telling you that they’ve been getting more aggressive? The turtle hasn’t gotten the voice across. As usual.”

“Not the time, Brocktree!” Lucia took a deep breath. “This is going to be annoying, but we can handle this. Shoa, calm down. You got assaulted first so legally, you’re in the clear. Union has your back.”

“So what do we do now? If they’re going to hunt us down, we need to call it in or blow up their shit?“

“You're not getting hunted down and you’re not getting scrapped. More than likely, they’re going get all blustery and talk a lot of their garbage. but all that needs to happen is that you keep calm. I am going to need to call this in and handle it with Diamo. I’ll be back.”

As Lucia went back to her car, the badger led the two greenhorns towards his makeshift home and put down some cups and mugs for the two of them. The home itself was one of the more recent buildings in Hickshaw, unoccupied for a more pure reason than the others and the smell was one of the odd teas and soup broth instead of the persisting emptiness of dust and memories. Each of the cups was soon filled with some kind of reddish-brown soup concoction. While the chunks of meat and vegetables were unidentifiable under the broth, the smell didn't stop the biological mouths from watering.

“I apologize, I don’t know if your kind eat things manually. You tend to be inconsistent.”

Shoa seemed unresponsive to the question as his scarlet eyes looked deep into the soup. Rhys crossed her legs next to her companion and put an arm around his shoulder, in the same way a father would before telling his son about the realities of deer hunting.

“Look, everyone kills someone sometimes, it sucks but the shock won’t last forever. You were faced with an assault and you handled it the best you could.”

“Why are you saying that like it's normal?

“Cause it's not important who you kill as long as they weren’t all that meaningful. Sides. Focusing on it only makes it worse. ”

If his screen was capable of being appalled, the expression would be plastered on his face. “If taking a life isn’t important, then what is for you?”

A small smile answered Shoa as Rhys nodded towards his extremities. “When’d you get the arm blades?”

As much as he didn’t like the ease with which his co-worker accepted the possible death of a man, he did admit that having something else to think about was better than sulking about it. “According to what the man who installed them said, it was better than simply getting a gun. Said it was too much trouble and that it got people antsy..”

“Fair.” Rhys sipped from the mug of soup of both hers and Shoa’s Quality meat. She’d have to ask Brocktree for his butcher. “So what, every time you flex you shoot out those things.”

“They’re supposed to be a deterrent if anything!

Even with the idea of facing off with a mob weighing on the minds of them, for a brief moment, it seemed like they could handle it.

The smell of rain was in the air. The clouds were coming through over the town. By the feel of it and the darkness of the clouds, it was going to be a hard one. As Lucia entered the car, she looked out in the distance. She then proceeded to beat the wheel with her fist. Beep after beep from the wheel came out as she punched the leather before laying her head on the wheel. It really wasn’t supposed to go like this. A simple. Simple, interview, and then of course Harris and his band of jolly asses screwed it all up.

“Diamo, you on? Over.”

“Here Lucia. What’s up.”

“Newbie got attacked.”

A resounding thunder came from the clouds as the call continued.

“Of course he did. Your contact lead you anywhere?”

“Got an interview with Harris.”

“...”

“He didn’t do it.”

“Bullshit, he didn’t do it. Who the hell else?”

“Look, it was a risky bet that he did it.”

“Who else then, Lucia?”

“Hell if I know. Just know that when the assault went down, the newbie ended up stabbing one.”

“And?”

“More than likely he’ll be put down.”

“I’ll enter a report. Do you need backup?”

“We’re with Salam. Should be ok for now.”

Crack! Another round of Thunder rolled in with consistency. As though footsteps were overlaid on top of each other. Heavy as though the ground was shaking. Yet as the clouds became closer and the sound followed, the rumbling Lucia could feel between her and the wheel was becoming too… real.

“Shit!”

Salam could feel it as well even over the conversation by the two greenhorns. The thud of its hoofbeats. Even when the world was black and white, the story of the ancestors made him familiar with the rumblings. One of the greatest accomplishments of Humankind to the Animalia is via one Mark Aboto. The black coat of the musculature horse things that Harris rode on was no different from the stories. A Draft Horse breed mixed with Eternal Trampler. Some breed of persistence hunters that plagued the Animalia before their Crash. On their back, a combination of Stamina, Strength, and Speed, the men rode in on a Mash-Al Draft Beast.

In the distance, a blond man with an ivory smile rode his horse past the horizon. And as he came over the head, another group of men soon came with him. As the Neighs and gurgling whinnies traveled through the air, the sight of what they rode in on became all the more clear.

As the horde of asshats rapidly approached, Lucia went over the options in her head.

1. She could make a break for it, rev up the engine, and get them all in the car.

1. Counterpoint: Salam was a big motherfucker and those things were not something you outrun like that.

2. Fight them off.

1. Counterpoint: Too many people for one person to take on, and ramming them with the car would at best break the thing and lead to her dying from a horse torso to the brain.

3. Talk it out. Radio Salam and try not to get killed.

1. Horrible, Horrible plan.

Yet even as her brain was screaming out that idea and all other options seemed to be less and less usable, she could only do what she could.

“Salam, about 10 of them. Talking it out, Chat village. Get others.”