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Yaakov

Jack watched as his men scooped Saura up off the floor, and shook his head. She's always got to make me mad, he thought, last time she told me I had a little dick. Fucking bitch, he lit a cigarette, and let out a puff. What the fuck does she know about dick? That made him laugh. She's quite a woman, he thought. 

"Can we rape this one sir?" Croakus was a grade A fuck up and 100% psychopath, but even lunatics can come in handy in some situations. Sane people think with their fucking heads, psychos think with their other instincts. Sometimes, that's just what you need, those other instincts. Croakus had nearly run out of uses, but Jack had grown attached to him. 

"No," he said, fingering his revolver, "in fact if you so much as think of touching her at all, imma give you six new assholes, so you shit fucking spaghetti," Croakus gave him a look, and then shuffled away. This girl was his, and he aimed to show his men that was the case. Croakus would have to go soon; he'd take care of it before sundown, when the camp was gathered for dinner. It was all a show; to prove to his men he was still in charge. 

He would use a blade, a big one; phallic and unmistakable. Right through the neck, deep and quick and clean. He'd hold it there for a moment, let the sweat and blood and viscera wash over him, and then release it all in one bloody mosaic too beautiful for words to ever describe. The other men, they'd see that and they'd remember who was in charge. They'd see that and they'd stop their wretched campfire ramblings over their cups of rice wine and stale bread. They'd see that and fall back in line. They'd see that and know that the 86th street west clan was still the most powerful gang in the city. But most importantly they'd see that he was still without a doubt the strongest of them all. 

They had come a long way since the days when it was just him and Francis and the Chinese bitch. Xie. Fucking bitch, he lit up a cigarette and puffed, fucking two time... He thought about her a lot these days; they could really use her gun. She may have been a chink and a slut and a liar, but that gun? Damn could she shoot. But she was dead, took one in the belly in Texarkana during some idiotic spice wars (hint: "spice" is another word for synthetic heroin) between one overweight Mexican cartel boss and another, who she happened to work for. He hadn't been a part of that either, even though Francis and Jean, and shit just about everyone in the world seemed to think he did. He lived for her. He loved her. She was a fucking bitch and she deserved to get the shit kicked out of her for sure, but he never wanted to see her killed. Others couldn't seem to understand that, but he didn't really give a shit. They were only soldiers, not capable of such higher thought. 

Saura was loaded into one of his personal trucks and he rode in the back with her all the way to 86th west. She was older than when they had been together, roughhewn now from war and dust and age, but still beautiful. He sat opposite from her on a bench, smoking cigarettes and staring out the window of the truck at the dark night whizzing by in a haze of blurry bits and pieces. He wasn't going to do it, he wasn't going to ask her, he wasn't going to make her go through that again, but. He felt this strange murmur in his stomach, this electric, combustible feeling like energy and excitement were flowing through him and bouncing off the insides of his body, aching to escape. Shit. He knew this was bad. He was falling for her again. And she didn't want anything to do with him. He banged on the divider to the front seat of the truck. 

"We almost there man," he called out to Francis, "I gotta fucking piss."

"Yea we here," Francis yelled back at him, "cool it mother fucker." Francis liked to talk tough, act like he was big shot from some fucking seventies movie, but he was a sensitive fag underneath it all, and the bravado worn like tattered cloth. 

"I gotta fucking piss man, what are you a eunuch?" Jack laughed. 

"Idiot," Francis called back, "eunuch's don't have fucking balls, they still have to piss you moron," he heaved the wheel and the truck spun left violently. He threw out his arms and tried to catch Saura as she was lifted from the bench and into the air. It was like when they first met, well just before it, speeding through the streets with those horrible ducking hunters on their tail. With Toshi. Shit, he almost forgot about Toshi. Time had apparently stopped for this moment, and as Saura hovered in the air as if it was some invisible sheet of water, he very clearly began to hallucinate. The doors to the back of the van opened and Toshi stepped in, but he could see him clearly at first, he just knew it was Toshi. He climbed onto the bench and sat, his cybernetic husk showing from out of his burned and destroyed Exo-skin, a jumble of wires and metal and circuits. This was how he looked the last time they had seen each other, after the battle with the hunters, when Toshi was pulled from the crash wreckage and Jack and his comrades were alerted to Toshi's very heavy cybernetics. He had been a plant, a mole, sent by some squid secret police agency or other rival to spy on them. Toshi wasn't aware of this himself, he had to be told, but then, right after that, he also had to die so it wasn't much of a consolation. Jack shot him in the forehead, trying to make it quick, but it took four more bolts to put him down. Suddenly he was back, there on that dingy street corner in the pouring rain and covered in white goopy android blood. 

"Asshole!" Toshi was drenched, sprawling on the concrete like some shattered heap on bones and sinew and electronics. Half his face had been burned off in the crash and his left eye exposed gleamed a light green and blue like the color of ice and ocean. The other half still looked like a regular human male. 

"Shut the fuck up and die," Francis pulled his pistol and fired. Toshi's screams filled the night. Xie joined in as well, howling with laughter as they painted the night sky with Toshi android blood. Jack turned away; he stumbled forward, and fell to his knees, vomiting on himself. Then he saw the blood, seeping from above his eyes, and then the world and everything in it turned red, red, deeper and deeper and deeper, until there was no more light and he was blind. He felt rough hands grasping him, and then releasing as he vomited once more. They dragged him to a sitting position and began shouting, but all he could hear was a high pitched tone, a riiiiiinnnngg, so loud, so utterly deafening, he thought for a moment it might drive him mad. Then he fell through the earth and was no more. Nothing. Nothingness. Emptiness. Fearlessness. Then he knew everything and was everything. The earth and the skies and the underworld trembled before his sight and did his bidding a. For a moment he was god. Then he woke up, in a hospital bed, machines beeping and humming and monitoring. And he was a man. But he was alive. That was ten years ago. 

"Asshole!" Toshi hollered. 

"Hey man," Toshi pushed him and he could feel it. 

"Fuck you!" Toshi reared back punched him in the chin and he toppled over in pain. 

"What the fuck man," he spit out a tooth, "you fucking dick! Look at all this blood!"

"You shot me! YOU KILLED ME!" Toshi stood over him. He rolled over and spit out some more blood, but reached for his trusty bolt pistol which could put a hole in a man from thirty paces and was designed specially to be used in close combat and also...wasn't there in its holster. 

"It wasn't my fault man," he scanned the room and prepared for the next punch, which literally cracked his jaw, sending two more teeth out with another jet of blood. His vision blurred and he slumped over on his side, but his hand found the handle of his pistol and, in his blindness, he turned and fired randomly in the direction of his foe. Then there was silence. They say silence is golden, but honestly, it's damn frightening when you are completely blind. 

He rolled over and began to crawl from the wreckage of the accident and he realized he was back where he started. Toshi lay in the front seat, his face cracked open, blood everywhere. 

"What the fuck is going on here?"

He raced to the car, again, and pulled Toshi from the wreckage. Why, he thought, why do I feel so compelled to do this? When I know where it will end. 

"Hey man wake up, we're here."

He pointed the gun at Toshi and asked him:

"Who sent you after me?"

And Toshi sat there in the rain and wept like a beaten child. 

"Wake up man."

He pointed the gun and Toshi, who wept like a little bitch, and he fired. 

"You sold us out," he was holding the gun at Toshi's head, "you were working for the squids, just tell us."

"I don't know what you are talking about," he was just a kid. 

He was firing his bolt pistol at Toshi and he wasn't sure it was right. 

"Wake the fuck up," he was shaken. He was looking around. His brain began to work. He was in the truck. He had fallen asleep. Francis was standing in front of him, Saura was gone. 

"Wake up nigga," Francis was saying, "I ain't your fucking nanny." 

"Where's Saura?" He managed, grabbing out and clutching Francis sleeve. 

"She's inside man," he tugged away, "damn you okay man?"

"Yea," he sat forward rubbed his eyes, "where is she Francis." It was an order. 

"She's inside man," he repeated, "fuck man, you sure you're alright?"

He stood up and walked out of the back of the truck. Croakus. He was looking for Croakus. He scanned the crowd of marauders before him and didn't see that odd shaped bald head. He was nowhere in sight. Jack pulled out his bolt pistol and checked the cartridge. He prayed. Please lord, don't let that scummy piece of horseshit get his little pecker anywhere near her. He headed for the cells where they kept prisoners. 

Croakus was there, and so was Slag and Muncher, two perverts who apparently had decided to die along with Crokus today. She was tied up, he breasts were out and her legs open, but the worst had not happened yet. He was clothed. That was a good sign. Jack turned the corner and fired straight into Muncher's forehead, killing him outright. The other two spun around, but they were too slow to respond and too stupid to remember to bring their weapons to this little party of theirs. Jack blew off Slag's ear, and then took him down with a second shot to the lower neck, piercing his trachea. Then he turned the gun on Croakus and with the last four shots unloaded into him. Croakus fell into the dust like a rock and suddenly the night air grew very quiet, save for the calls of dire wolves out in the distance. All this happened in mere seconds, and all three were dead before the first had hit the ground. He untied her, and covered her with a cloth. 

"What the fuck Yaakov," she looked up at him, "this is your idea of a good time?"

"I'm sorry," he said, "I fucked up," he picked her up and helped he walk to his bunker. He gave her clothes to wear and showed her how to work the shower. 

"So what," she looked at him with sad cold eyes, "now it's your turn?"

"I thought you knew me better than that," he said and handed her a key, "I'll be sitting outside, you can lock the door and decide when you want to let me back in. Your effects are on the bench there." He ducked out of the bunker. 

"Fuck," she laughed, "what do you intend to do with me?"

"Show you we are on the same side," Jack said. 

"That's fucking hilarious Yaakov," she turned, "I'm locking the door now."

The shower definitely helped, but Saura couldn't shake the thought of those disgusting hands touching her all over. She hadn't even really been raped; Jack had arrived at just the right time though. She saw the end of her attacker’s tiny, shriveled penis welling up like a goiter before Jack put four bolts in him. She shuttered. That bastard, she was really falling for him again? But what about Gaius? Men were all alike, grubby, overgrown children who liked to say they really truly would do any goddamn thing for you one minute, then sneaking off to fight wars all by themselves, leaving you alone to pick up the pieces. But Jack made her feel...she needed to get out of the shower and put her clothes on. And go shoot something. 

Gaius on the other hand? He was the hero type, while Jack would dump you at the least of hesitation to remain honest to his ideals, Gaius would keep you in the dark so not to frighten. Of course this meant he would go out all by himself and get gut shot and say "I love you" as he's about to presumably die or be captured. The whole thing was a goddamn mess, and what really pissed her off was the fact it meant so damn much to her when there was a real war to fight with real consequences and real...but she was a human after all. She slammed a fist against the wall of the bunker; the whole damn world seemed to remind her of both of these assholes. Why couldn't she just escape? Why did either of them mean anything to her? She dressed and reloaded her pistols. Nothing really makes sense anymore, she thought, so I guess I'll have to follow the path that's been laid before me. Gaius would say it was a new lease on life, and it would have pissed her off. Nostalgia is dangerous, she thought, it only weighs you down, and she shook the memory off. There was a lot of bullshit to take care of, starting with Jack and his band of merry misfits. She looked in his cloudy mirror, and sighed. This is going to be another long ass day. 

Jack was where he said he'd be, sitting vigil in front of the door with his shotgun over his knees like some idiotic bouncer. He really goes to historic lengths to show me how much he cares, she thought, I wonder what he's planning. After all it’s Jack, so I know it must involve bedding me in some manner. He turned and smiled. 

"Feeling better?"

"That's really overkill you know," she said, pointing at the shotgun, "and yeah I feel fucking fantastic. Thanks."

"No problem," he smiled and she wanted to punch him. 

"Thanks for the other thing too, you know, stopping them," her face was getting red. 

"I know," he stood up and nodded, "it was my fault, I-" he started to quiver. 

"No it's cool," she walked down the steps and looked around his urban encampment. 

"No it's not," he was getting too close. 

"Dude," she turned and pulled out her bolt pistol, "I already shot you once, back off."

"I'm sorry, it just," he was weak around her; it reminded her why she left in the first place, "it drives me crazy, I should have been there for you."

"Listen Yaakov," she spoke sternly, "you're falling apart right now, and you might wanna save it."

"I love you Miranda," he said. Shit, she thought, he remembers all that? 

"That's not my name," she said. 

"That's rich," he said, "don’t you...? Of course you remember, because that is your real name. Miranda." How could he remember that? They hadn't even met then. 

"How do you know that name?" She stammered. 

"I've done research," his smile was colder now, powerful and menacing, "Miranda Vincentii Alegara." She stumbled backward, how did he find her? When did she fuck up? When did it slip?

"I am a wizard, Miranda," he laughed, "you look surprised, and what you thought it was a challenge for me? You left far too many clues. I found your contact from overseas. Charles was his name, agent for the Chine-Europeans? He told me all about you, and your mutual friend from the Black Mountain test labs, Dr. Kagome. I visited them both personally in fact. Kagome? She was ripe for the plucking, eh? I emptied her of blood Miranda. I let her empty out upon the floor. Drip by drip. It took literally hours, and the whole while with her screaming bloody murder mind you. But she told me, in the end, she told me everything." Saura had begun to back away from him, there was this look in his eyes now that engulfed her in deep, soul wrenching fear. 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He smiled, and it was sick and wrought with envy and hatred. He had lost his soul along the way back to her. 

"Charles was a miss," he snarled, "I only got Kagome's name from him, and he lasted much too short for my liking. Plus you know...I'm not into males."

"You are fucked in the head Yaakov," she put a hand on her weapon, "they had nothing to do with it," they were my friends. 

"They had EVERYTHING to do with it," he was standing tall now, chest puffed and cocksure like some foolish looking bird, bobbing his head, "they KNEW you. I just wanted to know you." His men were starting to gather to watch the spectacle, hairy, filthy with dirt and blood and...Other things, they were a truly horrid sight to behold. She gazed at them and saw only their hallow, sunken features and their bleak, defeated nature, and she knew that the clan was dying. Their leader had become weak and so they had followed. He would not last much longer, before they began to abandon him. After all their will was their wallet, and there was always spice to smuggle and whores to fuck and other armies to die for. 

"You're making a mistake," she said, but he was enraged. He couldn't turn back now. The end had come. 

"Fuck you WHORE!" He lunged at her shotgun first, but she was lying in wait from the first moment his eyes had turned that strange color and easily outmaneuvered him, sending him to the ground. He took a hard land, and crumpled over in a heap. She sidestepped and pulled out her pistols. 

"Fucking eh Yaakov," she found herself back against a stone wall, the eyes of Jack and his men all around her, all upon her, "I thought we were supposed to be on the same side?"

"If I can't even have you then what am I?" he was crawling on his hands and knees and making quite a show. She actually pitied him, this man who had once been so very strong. 

"You are out of your fucking mind man," Saura said, trying to gleam a method of escape, "you sound like a child." His eyes burned inside her own. 

"You left me," he pleaded. 

"You didn't want me anymore," she laughed, it had been like ten years since then. She was kind of surprised he felt this way, or that he had even remembered. 

"I needed you then," he looked like an awful mess, "but I need you more now." Nice, she thought, this is just what I fucking need.

"Yea well," she wanted to just say it, that he was an asshole and a pompous load of shit and a liar, but she couldn't. And that was rare for her. 

"Please," he sniffled. She was growing more disgusted by the second. 

"Okay," she pulled away and pointed the pistols at him, "that's enough of this shit man. You know, when I first saw you again yesterday, I wondered to myself if you had changed at all. You're a disgrace to men, "Jack." We have a fucking war to fight with a bunch of murderous and super intelligent squid creatures if you hadn't forgotten, and it's a bit more important than cocks and cunts, eh?" He move closer, rising to his feet. 

"You gonna shoot me or what?" He said through clenched teeth. 

"I'd really rather not if you don't mind," she laughed, then put a bolt in his knee with such precision that he was forced back down to the ground. "You made me do it, to show all these cunts out here," she waved her pistol at the growing audience of clan’s people, "I'll fuck you up."

"You...are fucking..." Jack grabbed at his bloody leg with shaky hands. He bit his lip. He screamed and swore and cried in pain. She knelt down beside him. 

"You wanna be a sneaky fucking bastard," she whispered, "two can play at that. You're dead man walking I see you again, right?"

"Fucking bitch, fucking cunt, slut, whore, cocksucking..." He spit at her ferociously. She put the barrel of her bolt pistol in his mouth. 

"Right?" She asked again. His eyes were nearly bursting with rage, sweat and blood dropped from his face and for the first time she saw how ugly he was, and always had been, under that handsome exterior. 

"I'll...kill..." He tried to say, but he couldn't quite get it out. She understood. 

"Add you to the goddamn list," she said and with a swift motion pulled the pistol out of his mouth, taking a tooth with it. Then without a seconds waste, she smashed Jack on the top of his head with the butt of the weapon. He fell like a rock to the ground. She looked up at the clan, they were in awe of her, starring wide eyes and open mouthed at the shocking defeat of their leader. It was as if he had forgotten they were even there, as if she and Jack's scene had played out for no audience but they two. And now the curtain had been pulled back and the house lights lit and the veneer completely gone. We were mere actors once again, she thought, no more protected by our makeup and costumes and happy endings. We were now awake in the world. 

"I'm going to leave now," she announced to the crowd, and taking her final bow, "and if any of you has anything they want to say to me, you better fucking do it now," she picked up the shotgun, "any takers?" There weren't any who weren't coward, not a single one in the clan seemed to so much as flinch. She took that as a sign of good luck, and began to walk down the road back toward the city center. This whole bullshit game Jack had been playing had thrown her completely off track, now she'd have to go all the way back to the hotel, and she wasn't even sure there'd be anything left in the way of clues when she got there. The squids would be gone by now at least, and business would probably be up and running, meaning who knew what kind of fucked up shit was going on there. That lead was dead and dried up, she decided, and dialing up the home office on her receiver, she found that it had been jammed up and smashed at some point during her nighttime journey and no longer functioned properly. She tossed the receiver on the ground and stomped off to find a gang box, little receivers that she and the others had planted all over the city in case of emergency. She checked her map, a folded square of waterproofed paper that held a detailed drawing of the downtown as it was in the old days. Ares had found it in a shelled out tank by the red river, said it was an old military artifact used in the last Great War. Now it was hewn with age and over marked with locations and notations and figures, but it still showed where she had stashed each of the receivers, in bold red ink blots. The closest one was about six miles away, following the promenade towards the circus, which was a very, very dangerous place, but more so at night. It was still early, she might get by without vein noticed, but the so called "people" who lived in or frequented that area of town were known to hunt early in the morning. The other option was up the river, literally, following the coast of the red river North West about ten miles or so to the old business district. Safer, for sure, but quite out of the way, and that area, that last she had heard, was overrun with abominations too horrifying to even be named. Those were the worst things the squid magic had created, the mutations in humans and animals that turned them from normal creatures into great hulking monstrosities of dripping flesh and black bones and green blood. It was known only as "the Pox" and it affected about 75% of creatures, give or take. That group would suffer these horrible consequences when confronted with even the sight of one of the squids. The squids also have a liquid that expedites that process, though they have stopped using it having discovered that the resolution mutants are uncontrollable and unstoppable without great military casualty, and that after a time, it begins to affect the squids as well. Though they were strong and vicious and powerful, they had very short life spans, and in a few years most of them drop dead. The strong ones, the really strong ones, however can live for eons, or so it is said. The others, like Saura, were not affected at all by the squids or their quickening substances. The lucky ones, they live on, able to produce children with the gene that makes them immune. Fuck, that's the last thing I want to think about right now, she thought, children. God, do I really have to go through that shit? Pushing a kid out of me? She laughed at the thought of her thick with child. That ain't gonna happen. 

It was after that the squids got another really good idea, and coded a version of the disease that kills cells at a 100% faster rate, meaning the mutation only lasts a few hours before the carrier dies. That's why the world was so empty now, the disease was efficient and it killed billions upon billions upon billions. Humans, animals, even birds and insects. Piles and piles of carcasses littering the land, and only the lucky ones left to take care of the dead. Saura grew up in this world, and watched the rest of her friends and family succumbs as she lived on in perfect health. Her adoptive mother and father, her brothers Olf and Dexter, and her baby sister Grela, she stayed with them and waited and watched as each one slowly died, before the mutation could even take hold. It was soon after that she was found by a group of wandering travelers, including her new mother and father, the gentle and sweet Maria, the coarse and gruff Fatius. They called her Miranda from then on, even giving her their own surname, and she traveled with them and grew and learned how to read and ride and drive and shoot and even, later on when she was 15, and with a nubile but experienced boy named Claude, she learned how to be a woman and how to make love. Those were the good days, when you could live on the outskirts and you'd never even see one damn greenish tentacle lingering behind some doorway. The squids had expanded their operation since then, but it wasn't them who put her second family to the sword, all except old Fatius. That was men, hairy men from the north lands with massive sabers hewn from great shards of metal and wearing the bones and eyes and skins and other body parts of their flayed and murdered victims. They descended on the travelers as they crossed the open land of a dry lake on their way to Culver to trade and supply, a whole bloody regiment, whopping and hollering and waving their clubs and daggers and long rifles above their heads. Against the back drop of a noonday sun, they were strangely poetic and beautiful for that one brief moment, until her whole world had crumbled down and descended into total chaos. 

First there was panic among the group, people began to flee, to scream, some to pull their weapons and trade fire with the long rifles on the hill. She was still a child then, 19 or 20, and barely knew a thing about combat, but what she did know was to keep herself low to the ground and out of sight. Fatius had taught her the basics starting almost as soon as she had arrived, and she was able to hold her own in a fight against a boy of her age, but these were full grown men, toughened beyond the realm of madness and depravity. She crawled toward a dark corner, picking up a rifle someone had dropped as she crawled. It was covered in blood, and she finally noticed, so was she. The oppressive ringing in her ears suddenly ceased, and she saw the carnage unfolding before her. 

She saw the swarm descend and she saw hairy men, three of them broad shouldered and grinning with gap toothed inanity, dragging a man from behind some cover and repeatedly bashing and bludgeoning him with their massive, chain covered fists. She saw two more pulling a woman right in half, her insides falling out onto the ground, blood and viscera and intestines, her eyes sunk and white with death, finally after all their pulling her spine snaps and they each tale their piece to sodomize and rape and destroy. She saw children, little ones, skulls punched in for sport, a group of marauders gathered around laughing and taking turns smashing a little girl named Sara with their clubs until she was no more than a mess of red and white. She saw people, people she knew and loved, stumbling through the smoke and blood, cut down by long rifle shots, through their legs, then their knees, then their torsos, then up, up, up, up until their heads, in pure sporting fashion. She saw their shots reigning down, she saw them rape and brutalize everything they could find, she saw them split open skulls and drink the blood and brains. She saw them take turns. She saw everything. And in that moment, she was alive. For the first time, she was really looking out at the world with eyes open. She saw them, and she watched them, and she cursed them with her revenge, but she was too terrified to move. She couldn't help them. And they all died. Except Fatius. He had taught her well. 

When the dust had cleared and the hairy men moved on to their next massacre, she crawled from the wrecked caravan. The scene was indescribable, like something from the depths of purest hell, a landscape of gore, total and insurmountable. She could tell they took a lot of the bodies with them, for later. The hairy men weren't men any longer, they were only beasts. She swirled and felt herself begin to collapse when a pair of hands rushed out to catch her fall. It had been Fatius; he was there in the end, covered in blood like her, and tired and hungry and wondering why he wasn't dead like the others, just as she was. He had embraced her like she was really his daughter that day, and she never forgot it. He burned the mark of his family, a crude "A" looking shape, into her upper left arm, and instructed her to do the same. 

"Now we will always remember why we fight, Miranda," he told her as she pressed the molten metal prod onto his fleshy skin, "for them. For Anders, and Mykayla, and Gort, and David, and Sara, and...Maria."

Fatius had taken her far away from that place, that scene of massacre that still haunted her dreams and her thoughts, and brought her to the relative safety of the big bad city. Culver was run by the sympathizers, humans who gave themselves over to be slaves in the employ of the squids to keep their meager lives, but it was safer than the outskirts, as the tribes moved closer and closer to the city, with their food sources on the rim running out, they hungered for raw flesh. So Culver was safe, if there was one thing the hairy men were loath to fight, it was the squids. Most of the hairy men were 75 precenters, that's why they lived so far from the squids in the first place, and they had a natural fear of the squids, and their allies, ways of weaving magic’s. Fatius had taught her the only spell she knew, Light, which like the name suggested was only that, a light, to use if she ever came in contact with the hairy men. It was a trick. The hairy men hated intelligence, and feared it so that mere words could deflect them. Sometimes. 

"Has it ever worked?" she asked him, "your spell?"

"It's a last resort, Pumpkin," Fatius smiled and patted her on the back, "when your back is up on the wall."

"And they're about to rip my guts out."

"That would be the best way for them to kill you darling," he laughed, warm and robust, "I don’t need to remind you..."

"No, you don't."

The idea that their prey was skilled in the magical arts could be enough to drive even a whole group of them away. That’s what he said; the magic was all in the mind. She barely remembered it now; the hairy men didn't really exist anymore, not like back then. The squids moved out and found them in their caves and wiped them out. The ones who survived went deep, deep into the wasteland, far enough away to never even see a squid. They were only a memory, a shadow of their former garish glory. 

Culver had been where she learned how to be invisible, how to hide in a crowd, how to pick pockets and rob food carts and climb up walls for a quick getaway. She learned how to run and jump, rooftop to rooftop, and how to fall and land when you were falling. She learned how to conceal her identity, how to kill with one move, how to disarm opponents and how to really fight. She learned how to hack computers and dive data systems and destroy from afar with deadly efficiency. The training was hard, and Fatius a harsh master, but she grew strong and learned. He taught her history and psychics and language. He taught her numbers and figures and science. He taught her to shoot, the right way, and reload, and find cover. He taught her everything he had ever learned. She had gone from a scared little girl under a caravan, hugging a rifle, unable to fight back, unable to act, to a bonafide killing machine. Fatius had taught her everything. 

For a few years they scraped by with whatever work Fatius could find. He did mercenary work for different companies, fought in two separate gangland spice wars, piloted a delivery truck for a local sympathizer, ran guns for different gangs in the city, blew up a building for some terrorist group, he even worked as a bartender for a little while. But it was the terrorism, the revolution as he referred to it, that really called out to him. You see Fatius really believed they could kill the squids one day, like before, when they had simply all contracted the strain of virus we know as "a cold," and died. He really believed we could win. 

It wasn't that she thought he was wrong, but she didn't see it as a matter of winning and losing, especially when the prize is nothing and the price is your life. She just wanted to live, and take as many goddamn squids down with her before she went. Winning wasn't a part of that. It was a foregone conclusion. But Fatius had belief, and belief is so very strong in our minds, the revolution meant everything to him. Saving the human race, but not just that, getting credit for saving the human race, it was all he talked about from then on. He had seen a sign from the otherworld, from "god" or "devil" or whatever you want to call it. It told him that he was right. 

That's how the baby Laiuna went from Miranda to Saura. It was also when she had joined up with the side of revolution, just like Fatius, and where she met Ares and Cal and Gineva and...Gaius. Fatius had brought her to this local gang leader, it felt line ages ago, and while they were talking about military strategy and past conquest, she had spied him, standing with some other boys his age not far off, handsome and strapping at the age of 24. They had become fast friends, Gaius cold and calculating, she quick and cunning, they formed quite a stunning duo. Gaius, she was beginning to lose hope in ever finding him, you're slipping away from me aren't you. She had gotten no answers when she went to the hotel, and even less from their contact with Jack. He'll be lost soon, she thought, and then what do we do. There was also the matter of the missing goods, Francis mentioned that they hadn't been recovered on their end so...could it all have been a robbery? She didn't think so, more likely it was just one of the many gunning for Gaius. He was never really one for accumulating friends and seemed to make enemies wherever he turned. He's probably dead, she thought suddenly, and though it had occurred to her before, now she was feeling guilt. Like it was in some way her fault. Like she was that little girl again, hiding, and she would never be able to save him. She saw them cleave a man in half and bathe in his blood. She saw them hold a woman down and gut her from her genitals to her neck with an axe bigger than she was, and watched as the dull edge tore its way slowly through her skin and bones and tissue and organs until her eyes burst with foamy juices that ran down her far like clowns tears. She saw them eating flesh, gnawing on human bones like vicious dogs, lying in the pools of sinew and viscera like it was some posh feast for a nobility, they gorged on eyes and ears and noses and buttocks and genitals and fingers and toes. She watched them make their prayers to The Lord of Doom, the god of destruction, the caller of death. She saw their twisted ceremony, impalings and gutting’s and massacres too unfit and disgusting for her to even describe. She watched it and did nothing. The hairy men built an altar to their savage games, and then dragged those few left living or near life away with them to continue the sick revelries in some other dark and deathly locale. Nostalgia. It creeps up on you. 

She checked her map again, the emergency receiver was only about a mile and a half away now, but she was coming into the radius of the gangs now. She bent low and checked Jacks shotgun still hanging on her back. She had eight shots plus her two bolt pistols, enough for a show at least. She moved forward, the bridge was close now. She saw movement in the distance and dove to the ground. She couldn't tell if she had been spotted, and crawling behind some low brush she pulled from her jacket pocket a pair of specs, but it was too dark to really see anything. All she could make out we're a few figures standing approximately one hundred feet ahead, and right in front of the bridge, so there was no way of sneaking around them. 

"Of fucking course," she muttered under her breath, putting the specs back in her pocket, "so, how am I going to figure this one out?" She scanned the area, there were some burned out cars stacked like ramparts to her far left, an obvious homestead of some degree, and a few scattered tanks and other downed vehicles, but not much else. She sighed. What a fucking week this is turning out to be, she thought. 

There were only a few options from here; one, she could backtrack to one of the other sites and try and find a different gang box, but that would take hours, and she was already short on time. The second option was to attack, just move in for the kill, guns blazing, and not worry about the consequences. Shoot first, ask questions never. But that was also risky, they could, and probably did, have superior firepower and numbers on her, and there was also a chance they were patrol men from Culver or even Jameson who would be friendly and perhaps even help her with some supplies or a spare receiver. That was unlikely, but that was choice three. Walk right on up there and act like you're supposed to be here. Get ready to blast away, but get a closer look first. They were all pretty fucking lame plans, but she figured at this point she didn't have many other choices. Time was running out, and if she ever hoped to see Gaius alive again...

Plan three it is, she thought, and crept up to get a better view of the men. They were dressed in the uniforms of security detail, but she had been trained to look past things like that into the very souls of her targets. They were odd looking for security men, but security men were not police, and tended to look a little odd, so there was a chance they were legit. They were still oblivious to her presence, or damn good actors, so she slid Jack's shotgun off her back and pointed it at the soldier’s legs. One of the soldiers moved, he was looking in her direction. He pointed. She was starting to sweat. The other two turned, and all three started walking towards her. She aimed the shotgun and waited. They were thirty feet away. She waited, the sweat poured down her face. They were closing in, twenty yards; the one on the left cocked his rifle. 

"Who goes there?" The other one said. They were ten feet away. She had to make a choice. She gripped the shotgun tight and closed her eyes. Fatius, she thought, what the hell do I do now? She could smell them, they were so close. She bit her lip. She heard them rustling around her, they were mere inches away from her. She aimed the rifle. The one on the right turned. 

"What was that?" He said. She fired. His head exploded bits of brain and blood and tissue flew in a blinding spray. She turned to the left and fired again, twice. The first shot took his legs, the second his torso, and he was flung back like some comical rag doll. The third was shouting, and shooting. She was on her feet; she had dropped the shotgun, and raced forward firing both her pistols. He caught three bolts before he went down. She scanned the area in a panic; reinforcements would not be far off, and as she made for the bridge, she picked up one of their rifles and a satchel with food and water and even some extra ammunition. She looked back as she came to the bridge, and the coast was clear; for now. But where had the third one gone, had she hit him? She looked at the ground, two dead bodies. That's not right, she thought. 

Then she saw it, why the soldiers had been standing there in the first place, and cursed. The bridge was out; she looked over the edge of the deep ravine and saw its shattered remnants fifty feet below. She turned and suddenly felt very strange. Confused. Like she was living in someone else's dream. She ran back over to one of the dead security men and pulled his ID tag out of his chest pocket. The faces matched, they weren't fakes. She began to grow nervous. They had been real soldiers, just kids, not rapists and marauders and hairy men, but green boys. And where was number three?

"Fuck," she said, as she gathered up the other two ration packs and ammo belts, "I killed them for nothing."

This was real bad, she didn't need to add "capital murder of a law enforcement officer" to her already impressive rap sheet, and it was just the kind of thing that would get all the hunters off their fat asses to take her down. Hunters were worse than hairy men, at least the hairy men would put you out of your misery, eventually. The hunters liked to twist the knife when it was in you, and let you lie there and decay. It was just a psychological difference of opinion on how to get the job done. 

She headed north immediately, by this time it made more sense to walk back to the safe house and call in from there than to backtrack. After a few minutes, she had put good distance between her and the bodies, but she still needed to cross this chasm. With the bridge out it was going to be a bitch getting supplies up to The Mouth where they made their camp, they'd have to either cross down south by Blackwood Gulch, which was squid territory and overrun with the slimy creatures, or head north, as she was now, toward the canyon, which was about twenty miles out of their way. What a headache and she could quite nearly see their camp, perched up on a ridge and only a simple hill to those with an untrained eye. It was so close there; she could almost reach out and grasp it. That's when she heard it, a crack, a footstep, she had been followed. She wheeled and let a shot fly. 

The man’s head burst when the bolt flew through it, popping like some gruesome child's balloon. The second man, a blur of brown and black and white and steel, lunging with a gnarled blade, slashing through the air with wide, wild swipes. She fired into him, the bolts ripping bloody holes through his belly, his sword coming down as if it was in slow motion, and she tried to side step but the blade was too quick and it glanced hard off her hand, and she felt her fingers loose grip on the handle, she felt her pistol fall from her hand, she felt her foot slip back and she felt herself fall. Hard. On her ass. The shock ran up through her spine and into her skull with locomotive speed. She was on her back now, and more shadows were emerging from their darkened hiding spots. She was hazy, blurry; she reached out for her pistols, but found nothing. The shadows were surrounding, closing in, teeth chattering, palms sweaty. She kicked out, threw her hands wide around her, and found the barrel of Jack's shotgun. And then they were upon her.

She felt the matted, hairy fist when it smashed against her temple, even saw it coming, but she was helpless to stop it. She could only brace for the impact and hope she would pass out. The pain was so excruciating, the force so powerful, for a moment she didn't feel anything. Suddenly there was the ear-piercing drone of silence and she was afloat in the air, the second fist had hit her, she was taken off the ground about an inch, and then driven down by a knee to her stomach. Blood poured from her mouth, her ribs were cracked and possibly broken, and even though she still clutched the shotgun in her hands, she knew the end had arrived. She rolled over and aimed, and with no real target fired. There was a burst of light as the body of her attacker was lifted from her sights by the blast, and a scream of terror. She tried to stand, holding the shotgun out before her as she limped toward the light. Fuck this shit, she said, and I thought I just got out of this. 

She fired again at a blurry speck of something that rushed toward her. The blur fell in a shower of red, with another blast of the shotgun. I can't go on much further, she thought; this is just the last stand. She fired at anything that moved. After a few shots, the shotgun gave an empty, echoing click. No bullets. She tossed it aside. I'm sorry Gaius, she thought, but I'm gonna die now. 

There was a blast in the distance. 

"I failed you," she was speaking aloud now, "I couldn't..."

There was another series of blasts. Bam. Bam. Bam. 

"I couldn't do it," she said, tears were streaming down her face, "Gaius, I'm so sorry...Fatius..."

Bam. Bam. 

"I'm weak, I'm a weak little child," she cried out, "are you fucking happy Fatius? I Failed!"

Bam. Bam. Bam. 

"I just hope they're not squids," she breathed, and fell to her hands and knees, "anything but that."

Bam. 

"Oh Gaius..." She rolled over on her side, "I don't love you..."

Bam. Bam. 

"Saura?" 

"I'm dead," she said. 

"Hey, I found her," that voice, she thought, so familiar, "get the stretcher!"

"I'm dead," she said. 

"What the fuck happened to her?" another familiar voice, "she okay?"

"She got beat up pretty bad by that big one," said the first voice. 

"Damn man, we got here just in time," said the other voice. 

"She got him though, the big one," the first voice said, "it was her shots we heard up there on the ridge. See, shotgun cartridges."

"Damn, she's still got it," said the other voice, she felt hands on her, shoulders and legs. They gently lifted her up in the air and placed her gently on a flat surface. 

"She's an idiot," the first voice said, "she should be dead."

"I am dead," she said. 

"She's trying to talk man," the other voice said, "hi Saura, it me!"

"She can't hear you, come on," she was lifted in the air again, and they carried her. It felt like she was on a boat, bouncing up and down and left and right, her weight shifting around her body to compensate, "she's in shock, give her some of your morphine."

"That's mine man," the other voice said. 

"Fuck you," they stopped, "give her some."

"Fuck me?" said the other voice, "fuck you, man, this shit is mine."

"She's gonna die," the first voice said.  There was a mighty unsettling silence. 

"Fine," the other voice said finally, "but you owe me. Or she owes me. One of you owes me." They were moving again. 

"That shit isn't for personal use," the first voice said, "just give her the damn morphine and shut up."

"Oh what you're in charge now?" She felt a pinch in her upper leg, the poke of a syringe. She fought the oncoming malaise, the all-encompassing sleep that charged in through her veins, but the world grew murky and warm and darker than ever before, but she felt strangely safe, like cradled in the arms of her mother. She was beginning to accept it. 

"Nighty night," she heard the other voice say as she drifted into unconsciousness, "little princess."