- Have you ever danced on the wire during the pale moonlight? -
Haunted, she began to look back again, and again, but the shadows did not move. Despite strongarming a Wylan E-TB (colloquially known as the Wylan Model E [for Extreme, but only R&D knew that] Tank Buster, for use on the battlefield and extreme personal grievances), she felt not even the slightest bit more secure.
But regardless of her fears, RUSTBUCKET still lay there, his legs and arms twitching every time a small electric charge sputtered out from his broken torso connection, exactly at the point where his upper and lower torso should have connected. Where once a bit of rust and metal hid the ugliness of modern kybernic designs.
But his time had come, just as she had feared their time being up. She could hear the loud crash somewhere in the dark. A slight flicker, then she saw Hyde's form jumping away, just a millisecond faster than his pursuer. Few had ever dared attempt fighting a BB-17 (Bluebonnet Bot Mk.17 "Exterminator") and their only hope was to be either cleverer, faster or luckier than the deadliest predator man had ever "lost" among the underclasses.
"Shit". She screamed, howled even, against the toxic rain, against the cement graves they all found themselves in. She knew, she'd die in this lonely trade dock, amidst the ruins of less successful companies, marketing endeavours and, most sad of all, in sight of children's unicorn wonder-lass plushies. She'd loved wonder-lass plushies as a little lass. Now, not so much. A painful memory. A sliver of something beyond what she could...would want to remember. Then, the scream. Hyde.
She turned round the corner, only to find her teammate locked in seemingly lethal embrace with the creature. The ...thing. As if someone had taken the form of human nightmares, given it an almost innocent, yet erringly human resemblance, but stopped after when it came to the face and then set the eyes all wrong. The weirdly smooth skin, just barely able to stretch across the terrifying body. No wonder, people on the street came to call em "Boogie Boyz", considering that they seemed to have walked out of the nightmares of yesteryear.
"MIRIAM. SHOOT!". Hyde's scream rang out across the container yard. She pulled up the E-TB. But something was lacking. Courage. Ruthlessness. Her willingness to sacrifice the last friend she had in this godsforsaken shithole.
"I can't! It'll kill you!" Fear and tears mingled. Her face, despite the electrodes barely protected from the rain were a mess, the targeting data all smudged up.
"BUT YOU'LL ALSO KILL HIM"
They say that human history is written in tiny spaces, small moments where one decides to act. A single heartbeat. Her finger reaching the trigger, her strength barely registering as she pulled up the E-TB on the both of them.
Fired.
The moment was gone. The smell of burning flesh and rotting machinery, sulphur and defeat hung in the air. The ETB fell from her fingers, who now felt all too cold amidst the rainy streams. She ran. Ran to him, caught his falling body, screamed in his faces, snot and ash mixing. For him, it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. It was also his last.
He died in her arms. She screamed. Primal. Painful. It was then, she realized, that she had not seen a similar wound on the BB. Her eyes darted around, fear, hate, her hands quickly pulling out her final defence, the small UNION pistol she kept in her boot. Not great, but a last line. But it did not prepare her for the sight up close. The sheer terror it created in her mind.
She could hear it breathe, as it came closer. Shots rang out. Until none remained. And then...there were none.
Just like that, it was all over. As Doctor Unterwecker took of the synthetic net simulation helmet, he felt the tears that had run down his face, the pain in his joints. Just as if he had died but a mere millisecond ago.
"Well, what do you say, exquisite, right?"
The yellowish grin of the salesman, long since coloured not from the abuse of endless days of glumsticks, of which even now one glittered between his teeth, but from fashion statements changing at the whim of the zeitgeist in moments, disturbed him, almost as much as, if not more so than the experience he had lived through.
"It's...unique, certainly. The emotional edge is raw, painful, and powerful." A quick flick and the tears disappeared. A Kunstlik professional did not cry on the job. And Unterwecker was THE professional. At least to his mind.
"So you'll buy?" The salesman’s tongue licked over his lips, swallowing the glumstick almost whole, the sound of crunching aluminium audible, before spitting out an abnormally small and squished metal thing. No more glumstick. Now, only trash.
"And you say, you can provide more of these...experiences? Truthfully?"
"Oh yes!" The salesman grinned wide, his mind quickly flickering back to the moment he found the Bluebonnet Chipnet that the crimers had worn. Must've worn, for beside the blood, only pieces remained of them, and the entire scene of the fight. He should know, seeing as he had watched the thing. But as luck would have it, the memory chip inserted was intact. And with a few twists, an embellishment here and there, and changing the Kunstlik Biolog assault & recovery team (Rumoured as Intervention Omega) to the lone predator, he knew that money would soon roll in....
But regardless of her fears, RUSTBUCKET still lay there, his legs and arms twitching every time a small electric charge sputtered out from his broken torso connection, exactly at the point where his upper and lower torso should have connected. Where once a bit of rust and metal hid the ugliness of modern kybernic designs.
But his time had come, just as she had feared their time being up. She could hear the loud crash somewhere in the dark. A slight flicker, then she saw Hyde's form jumping away, just a millisecond faster than his pursuer. Few had ever dared attempt fighting a BB-17 (Bluebonnet Bot Mk.17 "Exterminator") and their only hope was to be either cleverer, faster or luckier than the deadliest predator man had ever "lost" among the underclasses.
"Shit". She screamed, howled even, against the toxic rain, against the cement graves they all found themselves in. She knew, she'd die in this lonely trade dock, amidst the ruins of less successful companies, marketing endeavours and, most sad of all, in sight of children's unicorn wonder-lass plushies. She'd loved wonder-lass plushies as a little lass. Now, not so much. A painful memory. A sliver of something beyond what she could...would want to remember. Then, the scream. Hyde.
She turned round the corner, only to find her teammate locked in seemingly lethal embrace with the creature. The ...thing. As if someone had taken the form of human nightmares, given it an almost innocent, yet erringly human resemblance, but stopped after when it came to the face and then set the eyes all wrong. The weirdly smooth skin, just barely able to stretch across the terrifying body. No wonder, people on the street came to call em "Boogie Boyz", considering that they seemed to have walked out of the nightmares of yesteryear.
"MIRIAM. SHOOT!". Hyde's scream rang out across the container yard. She pulled up the E-TB. But something was lacking. Courage. Ruthlessness. Her willingness to sacrifice the last friend she had in this godsforsaken shithole.
"I can't! It'll kill you!" Fear and tears mingled. Her face, despite the electrodes barely protected from the rain were a mess, the targeting data all smudged up.
"BUT YOU'LL ALSO KILL HIM"
They say that human history is written in tiny spaces, small moments where one decides to act. A single heartbeat. Her finger reaching the trigger, her strength barely registering as she pulled up the E-TB on the both of them.
Fired.
The moment was gone. The smell of burning flesh and rotting machinery, sulphur and defeat hung in the air. The ETB fell from her fingers, who now felt all too cold amidst the rainy streams. She ran. Ran to him, caught his falling body, screamed in his faces, snot and ash mixing. For him, it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. It was also his last.
He died in her arms. She screamed. Primal. Painful. It was then, she realized, that she had not seen a similar wound on the BB. Her eyes darted around, fear, hate, her hands quickly pulling out her final defence, the small UNION pistol she kept in her boot. Not great, but a last line. But it did not prepare her for the sight up close. The sheer terror it created in her mind.
She could hear it breathe, as it came closer. Shots rang out. Until none remained. And then...there were none.
----------------------------
Just like that, it was all over. As Doctor Unterwecker took of the synthetic net simulation helmet, he felt the tears that had run down his face, the pain in his joints. Just as if he had died but a mere millisecond ago.
"Well, what do you say, exquisite, right?"
The yellowish grin of the salesman, long since coloured not from the abuse of endless days of glumsticks, of which even now one glittered between his teeth, but from fashion statements changing at the whim of the zeitgeist in moments, disturbed him, almost as much as, if not more so than the experience he had lived through.
"It's...unique, certainly. The emotional edge is raw, painful, and powerful." A quick flick and the tears disappeared. A Kunstlik professional did not cry on the job. And Unterwecker was THE professional. At least to his mind.
"So you'll buy?" The salesman’s tongue licked over his lips, swallowing the glumstick almost whole, the sound of crunching aluminium audible, before spitting out an abnormally small and squished metal thing. No more glumstick. Now, only trash.
"And you say, you can provide more of these...experiences? Truthfully?"
"Oh yes!" The salesman grinned wide, his mind quickly flickering back to the moment he found the Bluebonnet Chipnet that the crimers had worn. Must've worn, for beside the blood, only pieces remained of them, and the entire scene of the fight. He should know, seeing as he had watched the thing. But as luck would have it, the memory chip inserted was intact. And with a few twists, an embellishment here and there, and changing the Kunstlik Biolog assault & recovery team (Rumoured as Intervention Omega) to the lone predator, he knew that money would soon roll in....
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