Birds Of A Feather, Chapter 1.11

1.11

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A few moments passed. All three of the Scavs stared at my spherical form. Unknown to them, I was staring back, but I didn’t have eyes and so I would win any contest.

“So, we agree this is suspicious, right?” The first one asked, not taking his eyes off of me. “Big weird ball thing in a base with all ‘ware but no people...”

“It’s suspicious.” The second agreed. “But I’m not detecting any signals or anything.”

“It’s glowing.” The first said. “So it’s clearly got power.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s talking to anything.” The second stated.

Another moment passed.

“You should kick it.” The second stated.

“Fuck you.” The first said, instantly. “You kick the death ball.”

“Will you two please shut the fuck up?” The third finally joined the conversation, sighing and reaching up to rub his temples. Then his eyes lit up, literally, turning bright red. “Hey, boss? Yeah, we got something weird here.”

Hmm. I could actually sense the signals sent out by his Cyberware. Nice. Alas, also not particularly useful except to alert me that somebody was making a call.

“Yes.” The third said, nodding his head to only something he could hear. “They’re not here.” Another pause, another sentence unheard. “Sending the feed now.”

The colour of his optics shifted a little bit, gaining a slightly orange look. He stared at me, and I felt the gaze of another through those eyes all the same.

“Don’t know.” He said. “Scanner doesn’t recognize it.” Pause. “No. Just sits there.” Pause. “You sure? Alright.”

He glanced around, before going to pick up a rotted wooden beam that had probably once been from a pallet. New stick acquired, he promptly turned around, advancing towards me.

He raised his arm, and swung.

The first and second Savs both jumped, as though they had been expecting something to happen. Nothing did, though- save for the beam breaking, and myself rolling backwards along the ground for a little bit before I hit the wall with a clunk.

After a few seconds, the third shrugged. “Nothing happened.”

The first breathed out a swear, barely comprehensible.

“Alright.” The third said, before the glow of his eyes faded. “Grab some boxes. We’re bringing this with us, but we’re grabbing the faraday netting from the truck before we do.”

... Huh. It actually worked.

I was kind of expecting to just get left behind.

Well, that makes things easier.

The first grumbled, but all three went to grab the boxes of Cyberware, each of them taking a pair. All three left, but they were back in minutes, the second unfolding a metallic mesh that was likely only just large enough to wrap this form up.

Without ceremony, the second promptly tossed it over me.

“How heavy you think this is gonna be?” The first asked, all three of them moving around me now. “It’s a pretty big ball.”

“Eighty five centimetres across.” The second said. “It didn’t look completely solid, but it’s still metal, so it could easily be a few hundred kilos.”

“Deckie.” The first scoffed.

“Blockhead.” The second returned the insult.

They lifted, and it was clear that they didn’t expect how light I currently was with most of my mass incorporealised. I was half tempted to add some extra, make it difficult for them, but, well that was self-sabotage.

The third quickly abandoned me to the other two, sending them back upstairs, carrying me with them. Between them and their Cyberware, they had little difficulty in the task- though they did toss me, so I made a point of remembering that for later on.

From there, it was nothing but waiting. All three of them went in, grabbed boxes, then came right back out to put them all in the truck. Several of those boxes ended up being piled on top of me, improper stacking leading them to tipping over.

It took them half an hour to move everything out. They got stuck for another five minutes as they tried to play tetris with the boxes, but eventually they got them all in.

The extended time transformed was, in all honestly, almost therapeutic. It was meditative, all the distractions of my flesh quite literally disintegrated. It was nearly enough to make up for the fact that I was surrounded by the stolen limbs, organs, and more from dozens of people.

Regardless, once they were prepared, we were shortly on our way.

My general awareness of my surroundings was enough for me to keep track of where we were going, mostly by comparing the streets to the map that I’d memorized. We started by heading north a bit, but before we could make it into Arroyo proper, we turned west and went along the edge of Santo Domingo.

The driver made a lot of turns. A downright unnecessary amount of turns, constantly weaving through the streets. It meant, at least, that if anybody was following, it would be quite obvious.

Their lack of alarm despite their alertness told me that we weren’t being followed. As such, after an unnecessary amount of time spent driving, we finally arrived at our destination.

If my mental mapping was correct, we were still straddling the borders of Arroyo and Santo Domingo, though it was close enough that it wouldn’t surprise me if this area had either once been a part of the industrial zone, or will eventually become a part of it.

From south-west to north-west would be the industrial sectors. Megabuilding H6 was nearly directly north, and H7 was north-east. Completely the rest of the circle was Rancho Coronado, made up of mostly low-density housing, though a huge amount of temporary refugee housing was also present to pack the area.

A well situated spot for Scavengers. Victims in every direction, yet enough activity to cover their own.

As for the building itself, from what I could sense it was surprisingly large. Rectangular, with an additional building out front that was probably some kind of office for the rest of the area. It was tall, but it was built like a depot rather than anything else.

More unusual was that it had a second floor. The ground underneath the building had been excavated, another layer put in place. I suspect it might have once been important, but considering its current state of disrepair... probably not anymore.

The entire place was walled off, but those too were in a state of disrepair. As the truck pulled in, I could see that there were several sections of it that had collapsed outright, which was impressive because most of it was brick.

The truck followed the road around to the back, where I could perceive a pair of loading bay doors. The driver took us to the one on the right, and I briefly sensed an electromagnetic signal before it started to open up.

Once it was open, the truck reversed into the building, fitting through with not much clearance.

The inside of the building definitely told me that I’d been right on the money when I’d said it had once been a depot. Alas, on first glance, nearly everything of value had either been taken or looted. I could see several spots where the walls had been stripped, cabling ripped straight out of them. On the far side was a smaller office door, definitely intended for the attached building.

The fact that the loading bay door worked put paid to the idea that the building was nonfunctional, of course. That wasn’t to say that it was in good condition, merely better condition than a glance would imply.

The truck stopped once it was inside, the bay door closing shortly afterwards. All three of the Scavs quickly got out, and I felt another pulse of electromagnetic signals before the...

Huh. That entire section of the floor is a lift.

It was pretty big, too. Just slightly too much for the truck, but you could easily fit a car or three on there.

Behind the truck, the floor was descending, a hydraulic system whining in a way that said it was in need of some repair, but wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.

One of the Scavs was riding it, but the other two were already starting to pull boxes from the back of the truck, leaving them to the side of the lift.

The third one hopped off before it completely lowered, and he wasted no time sending it back up as soon as he was off of it.

“He knows there’s stairs, right?” The first asked the second.

“He thinks he’s preem when he does that.” The second stated. “Svoluch.”

They kept pulling the boxes out, though they started shifting them onto the floor lift when it finished rising again.

A few minutes later, the door to the office opened, and the third man emerged, followed quickly by five others.

Two of them looked like stereotypes of the word ‘huscle’, but the other three at least stood out. Two were women who looked like twins, but the last was clearly the important guy in charge here, made obvious by sheer self-confidence/arrogance of the way that he strutted around. The outfit he was wearing also helped, with a long apron on his front and an Exoglove on his left hand.

The two huscles joined the first two men in stacking boxes, as did the women, while the boss and the third man stood over the boxes, glowing eyes flickering from one to another. It looked rather unnecessarily dramatic, and I suspected that the third man, at the very least, had practiced.

With all the extra hands, it didn’t take them long to unload all the boxes. Eventually, the only thing left inside was me- and the two women wasted no time in rolling me out the back too.

“This is it?” The boss asked, attention drawn away from the Cyberware-filled boxes, finally. His voice was thick with his accent, which was so stereotypically Russian it seemed deliberately parodic. He moved over, eyes glowing as he scanned my form.

The third nodded.

The boss’s head tilted to the side, and then to the other side. He stepped around my form, looking at me from every direction, before kneeling down to pick up the faraday netting and move it out of the way.

“What is it?” The third asked, after a few seconds.

The boss stood up. “I don’t know.” He admitted. “Go find a crowbar. We’ll pry it downstairs.” He said, before moving onto the platform.

One of the huscles moved over, and rolled me onto the platform. Everybody else was quick to join the boss, though the first and second men took a moment to shut the doors of the truck before they did. Shortly afterwards, it started to lower.

Which gave me a perfect view of what they had set up down here.

Hello there.

The boss’s Ripperdoc-esque look wasn’t out of place, it seemed. Along the back wall were a variety of stations, built for many purposes. I recognized scanners, autosurgeons, a vat for producing biotissue, diagnostic machines, computers, an entire pile of connectors, and more.

Several tables were present, bottles full of chemicals placed next to microfibre clothes. More machines were close, intended to clean Cyberware without damaging it. Several rows of racks were present, Cyberware laid out in anti-static bags.

This was a full setup they had down here... Practically an entire clinic all on its own, and then some.

This... this was spectacularly valuable to me. Pretty much everything I’d need to get started was right here in this room.

Well then.

All eight people are directly next to me on a relatively narrow platform. None of them are expecting anything. They are, one and all, dripping with the blood they’ve spilled.

The conclusion was simple. This wasn’t an opportunity to be wasted.

My transformation is so swift that they barely have time to blink before I reform, curled up on the ground. My arms fling wide as I spring upwards.

Both of my hands collide with faces. The result is something like what happens when a watermelon is hit by a cannonball. One and two are dead.

I sweep forwards, the two huscles only just beginning to react. They’re not fast enough to stop me from chopping my hands into their necks, shattering spines and collapsing cartilage in an instant. Shockwave propagation will ring their brains like bells. They’re dead.

The other four were facing away. Their only hint that they’re in danger is the sound of their comrades’ deaths, but none of them have speedware. None of them can stop this.

All eight corpses fly off of the elevator from the force I just delivered to them. I rise to my full height, allowing my lungs to fill with the chemical scent that marks this place.

My eyes fix upon the equipment now awaiting me.

Time to make progress.