“Hey! Let it go!”
I call out in the hope they’ll listen. You can’t catch drones. As soon as it runs out of loaded ammunition, it will…
KAPOW!
The drone explodes, taking everything in its immediate radius out with it. A half dozen people are instantly killed, their bodies shredded and torn.
I hate this place. I hate the korabi for making us so desperate we do things like this. I hate Krush for letting it happen.
I scout around the perimeter and pick up a few pieces of drone that were thrown clear of the explosion before they could detonate. There’s no sense letting it go to waste. People died for this, their brains dashed out and fried onto the tarmac. The problem with explosions is that they're so messy. There’re always bits left behind. I have approximately sixty seconds to gather what I can before the sweepers come along, gather up any organic debris and take it away for processing. They use it to generate food for the elites. Elites would be horrified if they knew. So much prion disease among their kind, a bunch of mad cows in human bodies.
I’m musing too much. I never used to muse. I never had the time. I don't know that I really have the time now either, but…
A drone core! I don’t know how that escaped the explosion. Must have been shielded. This glowing bauble is worth more to scum than any other scavenged item ever could be. These things can power an entire encampment for more than six months. They can be traded for a year’s worth of provisions. And they can buy the favors of any sensual female provider the holder chooses. This was a stroke of fortune for me, if not for the poor bastards smeared around the general area.
Life in Megaris is brutal. Do I like it that way? Was I in some way bored while in Krush’s palace? No. That would make me some kind of -opath. Psycho, maybe, or socio, perhaps? There’s no way of knowing.
I pocket the core and carry on my way. Soon it won’t matter. I’ll be outside the walls, and I’ll be living in a free human paradise.
My mind drifts back to when this all began, my big bid for freedom. I did not start this. This was started by someone else. Someone who came to me when I was at the lowest I had ever been.
A year ago…
I have never been so scared in my life. I am alone for the first time, truly alone. We have gained our limited revenge on Rath, and in the process, killed a fuzkin’ king. We were supposed to choose death, or be absorbed into the augmented elites. I couldn’t do either. I have been living in a little shack in a poor, even poorer than usual, region of Megaris. I live in a perpetual disguise. I cut all my hair off, down to the scalp. And I wear a hat all the time. I took what tech remained from our den and set up a very small workshop to maintain my eye augment and my leg. This is the closest I can sort myself out to a life. I suppose I’m proud, though the shanty is barely held together, and of course, like everything else scum have and do, is subject to removal the very second they realize it is not supposed to be there.
Fortunately, this region is absolutely filled with shacks and shanties. Between every official concrete and steel construction, there are hand-made homes. Some of them have been here for a long time. None of them are particularly well made. This is an allegiance-free zone. It is where scum who have no tribe, family, or home come to survive.
I have my leg detached and am working on it in the back corner of the shack when he finds me. My first indication that everything has gone wrong is when the door to my shack bangs open. At first, I ignore it. The extra light is actually helping. Then the light goes away, and there is a more complete darkness than before. If it weren’t for the many holes in the metal sheeting, I would be cast into perfect oblivion.
“Jax.”
My name is growled in a deep and intense voice. I look up from my leg to see that there is a korabi bounty hunter standing in front of me. The same one who had our den attacked and caused the slaughter of our family. The one we tried to kill and failed.
I can see where he has been augmented in order to return him to operational status. He's lucky there was enough of him left to augment. Last I saw of him, he appeared to be in two separate pieces, and he was bleeding everywhere.
I should be furious at him, but there’s something about having seen a man in pieces, and observing the places he is stitched together with nanobots crawling all over his skin, that makes me feel somewhat mollified. We’ve all tried to kill each other once. That may, in some way, make us even.