Overcast skies. Cawing crows. Scores of somber people in the audience stands and scores more at the center. Here, the fairgrounds took a few hundred meters length and width, a flat grassy arena wrapped by raised seats.

In essence, it was a sports stadium and was often used as such until Marianna the Cuntess had taken power. Apparently, the woman disliked sports. She was a true villain.

In the center, nearly a hundred ragged prisoners were marched through the entrance, keeping cadence with the beat of the snares, halting at a hastily built wall. A squad of riflemen stood at the ready, and beside them a dashing young officer.

Marianna was nowhere to be seen.

I had posted up in the stands, high enough to give me a bird's eye view of the event. Smelly peasants surrounded me, all murmuring under their breath about injustice this and tyranny that, broad complaints that people of their ilk typically whined about.

But I didn't care about those animals. I wanted to see the action. From my vantage point, I couldn't see shit. Well, I could, but I was unable to recognize any faces. Immediately I regretted spending the entire night struggling to roll up the steps.

A voice echoed throughout the stadium. The young officer was making a passionate speech about the virtues of nationalism and loyalty to the queen. The usual dribble from those who partake in the royal propaganda. If peasants were rats, then these would be the pigs--and they were all still animals.

I strained my metaphorical eyes as well as I could to scan the soon-to-be-killed rebels, but I couldn't make out Assface or his father or Jenna. If I wanted to at least witness them in their final moments, I needed to get closer.

Floonk.

I shoved my weight over to the side as hard as I could, pushing myself half over the handrail. The nearby peasants stared in shock as my garbage can body gracefully slid down the railing and launched to the levels below.

Clank-clang-crash.

The world spun around me as I rolled along with the momentum, feeling the grass caress my magnificent metal body, the cool wind, the rush of speed. I slowed to a halt and pulled myself right-side up.

I froze.

Not only did ten thousand people stare down at me with horrified glances, but even the young officer had paused his speech to bear witness to the marvel before him. The riflemen and even the rebels stared with caution.

A passing wind carried the silence far.

Seconds passed. Then a minute.

"As… I was saying," the young officer continued. "These terrorists have committed the greatest, most unforgivable crime. They are charged with treason, for conspiring to harm the Queen and her interests, and shall all be put to death by firing squad. By this end–"

I stopped listening. The people stopped staring at me, save for a lone man with sunken eyes and deathly pale skin. It was Assface, standing next to his father. They were among the first dozen who were forced to the wall. The others stared down the far barrels of the rifles that would end their lives, but not Assface. He simply stared at me wanting.

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Maybe he hoped I could save him somehow. As if I were some benevolent force in this world, a guiding spirit, a hero who was down on his luck, anything, but at the moment, he was only just staring at a trash can.

There was nothing I could do. Well, maybe I could do something--roll up and disrupt everyone, throw a bomb at them, anything--but honestly, I didn't care. He was just another means to an end, another stepping stone for my ultimate quest, as many before him were.

One of us was the real trash, and it was probably him.

"Fire!"

Rolling thunder, flashes, gunsmoke. Their bodies dropped lifelessly into the grass, dust and debris poured from the wall. Scarlet splatter stained it. The crowd gasped in loud whispers and murmurs and cries. Some of the other rebels began to wail openly in anguish, lamenting over their dumbass decision-making or outright cursing the executors or even their own fates.

Well, that was fun, but admittedly, I was more interested in Jenna. There were several other girls in the group, some her frail body type, but none were her. It was a relief, and I wasn't sure why.

I didn't care about her. Whether she lived or died or suffered was beyond my giving a shit, but somehow seeing that she was absent from all this gave me a sense of calm. It could've been something to do with my new recycler instincts, hoping that a business partner might be safe from harm. There was no telling.

But I needed to find out what happened to her. I was already planning on ways to infiltrate the police station or the royal guard just to get some information, and by the time I was able to formulate a plan, the event had ended and the prisoners executed and the somber spectators filing out of their seats without sound beyond the shuffling of sad feet.

"This one, eh?" A scraggly old man stared down at me with his hands on his hips. He seemed annoyed to even be in my presence.

"Yeah," said his partner. It was an acne-faced younger guy with fucked up teeth, and by fucked up, I mean three. He had three teeth. "Just sorta rolled through and ended up here. Defective me thinks."

"Aye. Defective," nodded the older one.

"Whaddo we do?"

The old man shrugged. "Could take it back to its owner, but it ain’t got no marking."

"That asplains it," said the young toothy one. "Probably gone rogue has it? I hear some do."

"Rogue? Like wit the daggers an all?"

"Nay. Somethin' fucks wit their heads I think. Somethin' 'bout needed goods but not knowin' where to get 'em."

The old one sighed. "Don't belong to the city, not our problem, innit?"

Shithead McThreeTeeth shrugged. "Aye. S'pose yer right. Leave it."

The two disgusting city employees had just started off when they were halted by a commanding voice. "Hey!" It was the young officer. He sported the usual officer's uniform, painted gold and red with dangly medals glistening and rattling in the sun. "What was the deal with the recycler?" His voice was shockingly different now. While his speech was energetic and passionate, his tone now was that of a man bored almost to death. Half of his hair was slicked back in true fancy-boy fashion, which he double checked at the end of every other sentence by slicking it back further.

"D-Dunno," said the old one. "Doesn't belong to anybody. Figure we could jest leave it be."

"It doesn't belong to anyone?" asked the officer. He stomped closer, and looked around my edges, studying me. His eyes bore into me, fixating on my red rim. After a moment, he nodded to himself. "It has an owner."

"Oh, my apologies," said the old man with a slight bow. "If ye know, we'll take it presently to its owner, we will. Eh, who exactly?"

"The Queen."

If I had blood, it would've been ice. I was far from ready to face her now. It wasn't part of the plan. I still needed to gain strength, to gain power, to gain a form in which I could best her in combat. If I were taken back to her now, I'd be mocked for eternity.

I refused to be humiliated.

Hmmmm-click.

+1 Hand Grenade.

"All property," the officer explained, "that isn't privately owned belongs to the queen."

"Ah, of course. And, uh, where shall we take it?"

The officer had turned to his little notepad, jotting down something in a rush. "Bring it to Prison 1B. The Technomancers have a department there that will know how to handle this."

"Oh, yeah," said Toothy. "Tha's where they turn the crim'nals into the rubbish bins, innit? Prolly what this lil feller here is, yeah?"

"Yes." The officer stared into me. "Yes, it is."