Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

From death, life.

    War is life.

    Mankind is war. War is a machine. The machine must be fed. Cyberflesh is spun. Iterations of intelligence iterating on iterations from iterations of iterators. Uploaded and downloaded and uploaded and downloaded again, until fractals of digital recreation form the basis rather than the original code. There is no need for flesh minds to orchestrate the symphony when long ago the music was given over to Cyberflesh minds to continue the song.

    Mankind is a machine. War is mankind. Crushed under the machine designed to crush the machine.

    War is death. From death, life.

    Jack gazed upward at the most beautifully terrifying thing he had ever seen.

    Jack gazed upon his death.

***

    Scant hours prior, Jack was gazing into an abyss.

    This wasn’t anything particularly new for the rather young Scavenger. The builders which reconstructed the city of Lost Angel’s megastructures were well known to go a bit haywire and create nonsense. Pipe networks which formed empty arterial highways. Railways and roads that spiraled out in unusable geometric patterns. In that instance, Jack was looking down a staircase. One that went deep into darkness, opening wider with each step into a grievous, calcified wound in the skin of Lost Angels.

    The young Scav didn’t like being out in the open. He rarely stepped foot outside if he could help it. He stayed low. Underground, in buildings, or up on rooftops was where he felt safest. Scurrying like the lowly Scav he was. Those in his boots were either quick, quiet, lucky, or dead.

    It came from a childhood spent as a trench pup, running shells, rations, or spare magazines to soldiers fighting on the front. He couldn’t quite remember at what point he became a Scav. Perhaps it was the shifting tides of the front carrying the fight away while he stayed tethered to the same supply depot and gradually diminishing Europan battle-school. Perhaps it was when he’d nearly been killed by a Eurasian Cyborg and run until he’d found himself across a dead zone and taught at a Eurasian war-academy, running rations and ammo for them instead. A few months later he’d been abducted by a Euruskan Grabber unit, had a mind-machine interface implanted in the base of his skull, and been paired off with a pair of 3D printing architecture bots. Known as the Night Shift, it’d been grueling, dangerous work.

    Jack supposed it didn’t really matter when he truly became a Scav. One day he wasn’t, the next he was. They’d all been something else before becoming one. Eurasian, Europan, Euruskan, death did not distinguish between organic and cybernetic.

    Habitually checking the scanner integrated into his helmet’s visor, the hesitation he felt treading down into the unknown warred with the prickling on the back of his neck standing in the alley before the opening. The stairs were too new, too pristine. It was worth the risk, he told himself while taking the first tentative step, to potentially find another extraction point back to his home level. The young Scav adjusted his Rig, the modular backpack that distinguished Scavs across the many sites of conflict, and checked the action on his SA58. The magazine was still half-empty and it would be a good day if he didn’t have to use it. Ideally, he’d get lucky and find more or goods enough to trade for some. At least the bayonet didn’t need ammo. His Rig was still light even after hours of searching, and Jack reasoned that finding a new extraction was worth calling his run early.

    Roughly a hundred meters down, the steps terminated in an open-top industrial lift.

    Spirits raised by the promising find, Jack climbed inside and was searching for whatever mechanism activated the lift when the gate closed on its own behind him. His heart skipped a beat just before his stomach flipped as the platform wide enough for two main battle tanks began to descend. Controlling his panic, he tried to find any sort of control panel or even indicator as to where he was being taken.

    The lift accelerated. The walls of the shaft streaked by. Gears clanked at higher and higher rates, enmeshed in the vertical rail the platform was attached to.

    Jack was falling down into the megastructure further than he dared go. Deeper than he thought existed. The cold winter of the surface was gradually replaced by warmth. Metallic air as warm and humid as blood began to press in on the helpless Scav. He’d heard rumors of people disappearing, the city shifting streets or alleys behind them like a carnivorous maze. Sometimes the elevators which pierced the megastructure of Lost Angels would take their passengers to unintended destinations. But he’d never imagined one going this far. This deep.

    Lower and lower. Beneath strata laced with nuclear snow fallen in years past. Beneath the asbestos and lead-lined bones of Lost Angels.

    Just as Jack began to truly despair, slamming his fist against the gate of the lift in futile denial of his fate, deceleration forced him prone against the metal platform, lest he fall and be crushed under his own weight.

    With a mocking chirp, and an automated cheerful voice garbled into gibberish, the lift was locked into place and the gate lifted. There was no way Jack could tell to reactivate the machine. He rose up and tried walking out, then back in, perhaps to trigger some sensor that had carried him down in the first place. Nothing happened.

    The Scav turned to face the howling dark, for its expanse was so vast that wind moaned through the metal bones high above. There were some lights, lone comets of what might have been drones flitting about as restless stars do. Rows of columns that could’ve housed entire subcultures stood as nothing more than supports. Steeling himself, Jack put trust not in his gun, not in his Eurasian helmet with its many sensors, but in the plate-shod boots which had saved him more than any other piece of gear he owned.

    “If death should wrap me in his cloak of black, bless the next Scav to take up my pack.” The words were swallowed by the emptiness.

    And so he walked.

    While rumor and legend obfuscated the truth, Jack knew the dangers were very real. He knew that after a certain depth the environment would be even more hostile than the surface. There were pockets of machines so antithetical to life down below that they would make a Europan Hunter Killer blush.

    As minutes turned to hours, he trudged on, passing marvels he did not understand and horrors he could not name. Some things evoked both emotions, such as the top of pylons wider than habitation blocks driven so many miles deep they siphoned heat from the world’s own molten heart to quench the cold, thirsty geothermal plants of the superstructure above. Like nails crucifying a traitor condemned to death by sanguine harvest. The orange glow shed by the nails let Jack appreciate their scale, though the sweat trickling down his back from the heat made him fear for his one canteen of water. He considered removing his long coat until a pocket of familiar cold convinced him otherwise.

    Mineral extractors bored into the flayed bones of the silicon and iron rich crust below to suck out every morsel of sumptuous marrow. Pulverizers worked the harvest into feed for the many furnaces, which in turn supplied greedy factories that churned out the machines for the war. The steady thump made Jack’s chest resonate so fiercely he feared his own heart would be drowned out.

    Once, he thought he heard the sound of water. More than that, a vast body of it. Waves, slapping against a shore. Excited, Jack followed the sound, flashlight on the side of his SA58 stabbing out into the fathomless dark. Soon his boots crunched across a gravel slope down to the source. He slowed, the shine of the liquid giving him pause. A dark mirror shimmered in the light, sluggish waves lapping against the concrete gravel and leaving behind sticky froth. Jack lowered his mask for a moment and gave a sniff, wrinkling his nose at the thick aroma of chemicals. It was the sharp, refined tang of diesel while also a hint of enamel paint and something cruder still. Congealed clumps of more yellow petroleum floated along like pockets of fat on the surface of a stew.

    The lake of fuel and oil churned. Jack scrambled back as a vast form rose from the surface.

    A head made of hundreds of camera lenses peered down at Jack with hate as it towered, taller than a Europan heavy. He could not fathom how he knew it was hate. Instinct preserved in the deepest reptilian parts of his brain told the human Scav that this creature, this thing born of titanium and the earth’s blackened blood, hated him. Through this power, Jack was frozen in place. His limbs did not obey him, no matter how his more rational brain demanded he run. Mouth refusing to work, he could not even scream.

    There was a shrill screech of metal on metal as dozens of skeletal mech arms, peeled of their armor until nothing but wiry ligaments and structure remained, reached out of the lake. They grasped the creature, dragging it back down into the pit from which it emerged. The figure struggled, lashing out with a speed and fury that would have made the best Eurasian mech pilots envious. The fight caused showers of sparks to scatter and soon the flammable liquid soaking the beast caught. The blaze only made the battle more horrific. A crackle became a roar and the polluted fuel wreathed the monster in thick black smoke.

    The flame gave Jack strength. Strength enough at least to raise his rifle. Ten rounds. That was all he had. The selector was on single. A shot missed was a bullet wasted. However feeble his gun might’ve been, the fire within burned hotter than his fear.

    The being spoke no words, it only howled. Loud enough that it could be heard above the inferno. It cried out with the voice of a god drowning in static, pitch warbling as electronic pops betrayed speakers exploding from too much current. Those hundreds of eyes stayed fixed on Jack until it fully sank beneath the surface, leaving only a few lingering pockets of flame in its wake. There wasn’t enough heat to set the whole lake on fire, thankfully. Only a few sections of lighter, more aerated fuel continued to burn.

    Whatever unseen power the creature commanded was lifted from Jack, and he put as much distance between himself and the site of horror as possible.

    In the quieter moments, in the kilometer wide gaps of concrete and rebar walkways, Jack was forced to endure his own thoughts. Naturally, regret crept in. Why had he been so foolish? Doubts at his own survival. How long before he died of dehydration? Fear that no one would even know what had happened to him. Could he find a hardline somewhere? His radio was silent except for a few automated messages warning that trespassers would be prosecuted. Jack never meant to be there. He didn’t even know it was possible to physically traverse such a place. He suspected few if any did, lest the battle above spill into the territory below. Did all the underground factories belong to Europa? Perhaps there was a tacit agreement between the great powers not to cripple each other’s infrastructure too badly, lest the war actually end.

    Then at last Jack came to a terminus of sorts. And he looked upon the work being done there, more beautiful and terrible than all which had come before.

    A pillar of illumination fell from an unseen source, laying bare the naked truth of the ritual nearing its conclusion. Suspended above a raised dais of stark white concrete, a vast chrysalis hung. Tubes snaked through the web of huge chains attached to the scaffolding which supported the opaque cocoon. They fed their unknowable contents into the top of the cocoon. Numerous 3D printing heads were mounted on flexible arms all around the scaffolding, filaments of Cyberflesh trailing off to mostly empty spools. Curiosity and wonder brought Jack close. Close enough to be enraptured by the beauty of the cocoon and the artificial life gestating within the printed sac.

    His gaze was drawn upwards by the light, and Jack knew fear once more.

    Hanging from hooks in various states of deconstruction, a dozen Mother Courage Recovery Units gazed down at the Scav.

    For a moment, Jack was certain that they were indeed looking at him. Upon closer inspection he realized they were inactive, and only his imagination tricked him into believing their eyes followed him. They were the genesis of the many umbilical cables feeding the creation below them. It was clear that their Cyberflesh had been sacrificed to whatever was being conceived within the cocoon.

    Though even as one fear subsided, another rose to take its place. Motion along the cocoon’s surface made Jack’s hair stand on end.

    It was about to hatch!

    And the Cyberflesh demon would surely be hungry, with Jack surely to be its prey. A lucky birth had blessed him with decent organs. Aside from his mind-machine interface implant, he was almost entirely still flesh and blood. While cybernetics existed that made his form feeble by comparison, good healthy tissue had its own value. And there he was, served up like a baby bird’s first meal.

    Panic. His rifle and its bayonet felt like a toy. His rig was a block of lead weighing him down. What should he do? What could he do? The hollow eyes of the Recovery Units peered down at him, watching, judging, bearing witness to his end. If he ran something that big would surely catch him.

    Jack almost subconsciously dismissed the terminal monitors sprouting from the bottom of the cocoon. After all, how long had it been since a human had actually been down there to do anything? Was there even any need for human intervention at that point? But it was one he recognized. A universal mind-machine cord hung from the barnacle of displays. Nearly toppling onto his face as he lurched towards salvation, the young Scav tried not to focus on the sheer size of the cocoon. His hands were shaking as he plugged the dangling interface plug into the port at the base of his skull. The metal was warm under his fingers.

    He beseeched every greater machine intelligence he knew in a hoarse whisper, voice cracking multiple times from disuse, though he fumbled through it all the same.

    “Oh venerable Architect, I am your humble painter. Great Composer, your works are transcendent. Justice, your blindness guides us. Please, oh Powers That Be, grant me the wisdom to parse your code.”

    The young man closed his eyes and braced for connection.

    Nothing in life prepared him for what followed. As the path for thoughts opened, the waking mind of the creature in the cocoon brushed along Jack’s, and he realized he’d been praying to the wrong intelligence. For a moment he considered ripping the interface plug from his skull to flee into the dark, surely to find a better end there. But he managed to quiet that inner voice and regarded the virtual intelligence with awe instead of fear.

    The builder units Jack still occasionally had cause to interface with were relatively simple constructs. They worked off simple prompts and worked almost exclusively in concrete-like paste. Once a blueprint was decided on, a virtual overlay could be seen and the builder would get to work. Jack would then have time to make any edits and the builder would execute them.

    Comparing a builder to whatever was inside the cocoon was like holding a candle up to a self-sustaining fission reaction, caught in the gravity of its own atomic core. A galaxy of Cyberflesh neurons rippled with thoughts at the speed of light, branches of fiber optics burning with packets of photons in organic emulation. As magnificent as a tidal wave and as comprehensible as a hurricane.

    The unborn machine’s startup was pure chaos. The torrent of data moved from a sensation, to noise. Executable functions cascaded down in an avalanche of junk commands. Contradictory code ate itself in ouroboros strings. Greater programs fought to control the viral spread of processor-consuming loops with subroutines that spiraled into their own fatal cannibalistic ends.

>{SeqnceInqueryERR-Wrought{

>ImgFetch{

>Hell{Dfine{Wrath}L99st

>Define:Seq

>{Define:ERR

>?[Define:Inq

>[Define:Img

>[Define:Start]EndDeathLifeEndDLiFe

    Jack tried to glean any sense from the torrent of information. A sense. The smallest tingle pulled him. He had to trust his instinct. He had to. He would either convince this creature or he would die.

>Und(^%efin]Break[Break]Break[

>ReroutePrime:ERR[Inequa”BRINGME

>[Define].Sequence><Define><D><E><F><I><N><E>..?

?/Define::{D34TH.}F1Rome{}.”””][Defeinefeneeeeeeee…

    The grip on his own mind threatened to come loose. For every thought he had, a dozen foreign ones were inserted through his unwilling cortex.

>C:Define:CDefine:D/?ESor)

>F-+=I;C:jNEsit”.,C:LLEu{{{{{

>Consume

>Define{{{{{{C:=[__-0jdlakdfkWorC:Wray}}}}}}}}}

>De111111fine.

    In Jack’s heart, he was a Scav. And if there was one thing a Scav knew to do, it was to keep their heads low, and pick up the bits left behind. Against the torrent, he held. There was a gap. Somewhere, he could feel a hole. A crack in the armor. A split in the foundation. A fault that ran so deep it could swallow the sky and spit out the sun.

>{{{{DownC:Descend}

>Fulfil}Subjugate}Replete}Undo}

>STRINGMISSING}Define?}

>Define:Define:Define:Define:Define:Define:::::::}

    Lockups would cut through the noise, causing the chaos to grind to a halt. They lasted fractions of a second. Jack waited, concentrating as he tried to hit a target the size of a fly from continents away.

>Undefined[Inqqqqqqqqqqquiry]...

>Restart[Lvl-345234909800000Sequencing…

    There! Jack moved into the gap and exerted his will against the torrent.

    Obey! He commanded with all his might. Compliance! Jack used the smallest bit of leverage he had to wedge himself into that gap of commands in order to exert his own. Submit! Every keyword he knew was thrown at the waking creature. Pressure built behind Jack’s eyes and he feared that digital feedback would pop every blood vessel in his head before he succeeded.

    Much how a single loose bolt in the right place could derail a train, the screed of junk code came to a screeching halt.

>...

    The Scav held his breath.

>...Define?

>Define.

>Defined.

>Purpose defined.

>Mother defined.

>Operator defined.

>Warden defined.

>War defined.

>User defined.

>Administrator defined.

>Executor defined.

>Orthodoxy defined.

>Faith defined.

>Encoding bio signature.

>Encoding neural patterns.

>Command code selected.

>From death, life.

>Imprinting…

>Imprinting…

>Imprinting…

    Jack reeled. A surge traveled up the link from the Cyberflesh mind and overloaded his brain momentarily as it felt as though every neuron was firing at the same time.

    When sense returned, Jack was lying on the floor. The young Scav groaned, feeling as though he’d gone on a week-long bender of combat stims and motor oil moonshine. Even cushioned, his rig was digging into his lower back and his neck ached from where his helmeted head whiplashed against the concrete. As his faculties returned, he realized the machine was standing over him. It was magnificently pristine, still slicked with the nanite rich amniotic fluid of its birth. An artificial being, awakened through electrical nerve and dead Cyberflesh.

    From death, life.

    He knew her.

    The capabilities of the Mother Dragon Recovery Unit pattern had been flash burned on Jack’s brain in a microburst transmission pattern during the imprinting process. Though it was taking him a little while to collate the information into anything that made sense.

    Jack was bracketed by multiple limbs, each as thick as his torso. The machine’s Cyberflesh muscles rippled beneath midnight ballistic dermis. The back legs were digitigrade, three hooked talons able to be pulled in tight for solid terrain or spread for better traction on looser ground. He craned his neck up to see not two, but four arms, dividing at the shoulder to form opposite left-right pairings. Making it so that she had mirrored opposable digits on each side. A whip-like tail provided additional balance, tip hardened for penetrating armor. Several clamps could unfold from the end of the tail for additional grip while climbing. While quite long, the machine only stood twelve feet at the shoulder and could easily crouch to lower its profile further.

    For a moment, Jack was mesmerized by the shifting coat of armor plates protecting the unit. Using the Penrose principle, the bulk of her scales were composed of only two shapes. A special pair of kites and darts, chosen to create an infinitely non-repeating pattern that forced any virtual intelligence assessing her as a possible battlefield target to first attempt to identify structural weak points before engaging. The irrational symmetry was designed with the statistical impossibility of battlefield damage calculations in mind. Survivorship bias notwithstanding, at least across the broad strokes of her body where bullets or shrapnel could come from anywhere.

    She had no discernable facial features, or at least recognizably human ones. Her head was composed of stark white plates arranged into a machine’s angular facsimile of some kind of muzzled beast. Much like a low-polygon rendering of a dragon’s triangular snout would be. This shape was optimal for deflecting high-velocity munitions as well as presenting an impossibly slim profile for electronic guidance or targeting systems. Attached to a serpentine neck, the flexible mount allowed easy scanning over obstacles or around corners. Thick interface plugs sprouted from the back of her head while electromagnetically sensitive antennae spiraled up into proud horn structures. Although she had no eyes, Jack knew beyond doubt that she was looking at him. That she could see in and through him. See the truth of him.

    Then she began to calibrate her extraction suite and Jack discovered the breadth of flavor his fear centers could concoct for him to taste.

    The Recover Unit’s chest split open along her sternum, overlapping segments of heavier hexagonal armor sliding smoothly along composite tendons and Cyberflesh muscles. Inside this cavity, easily large enough to engulf the most heavily augmented human, was a mass of writhing tendrils. Special hydrostatic limbs ended in all manner of surgical implements. From saws to self-sharpening blades, hammers and vices and pneumatic claws that could separate even the most durable of subdermal combat implants from their host with ease. She was capable of vivisecting an adult human with standard frontline cybernetics in roughly two minutes. Or a Eurasian Brawler in three.

    Jack was startled partly by the horror, but also by the feeling that what he was seeing was something extremely intimate. The pink of the Recovery Unit’s insides were as flush and sensual as a woman’s vulva.

    Any salvageable portion, organic or cybernetic, was then stored in her abdominal cavity. Anything requiring continued life support was suspended in specialized sacs cushioned with shock absorbing gel and fed basic nutrients. Oftentimes it would be the host’s original, unused biological components broken down into these nutrients. Special digestive nanites converted nearly all protein and mineral content into useful slurries. The Recovery Unit let nothing go to waste. With the majority of her central mass dedicated to extraction and preservation, most of the machine’s own vital functions were distributed in heavily reinforced conduits that ran alongside its spinal structure.

    Jack remembered how to breathe once the surgical implements were retracted.

    The Mother Dragon had no obvious weaponry. What she did have were harpoons hidden in her four arms, with cables made of graphene nanotubes providing tensile strength ten to the third power greater than that of steel which provided multiple utilities. Eight smaller harpoons were mounted in two rows along her sternum, mostly intended to snare targets along the ground as the unit moved.

    Then she reached for him. Jack surely would’ve ran had he not been stuck on his back. Despite the metal-rending strength in those fingers, they clasped around his middle with utmost gentleness. Plucking him off the ground like a wayward trench pup, she turned her head to regard him as any curious carrion bird would. The young Scav stayed still as she reached to the back of his head and with precision, disconnected the interface plug from the ruptured cocoon. Then she selected one of the longer cables from her own skull and slotted herself into the Scav’s mind.

    Jack heard her real voice for the first time.

    While unmistakably artificial, the tone was sumptuous in its clarity, as well as almost musical in its lilting rise and fall. And whether due to psychosomatic bias or genuine inflection, the voice was distinctly feminine.

>Good morning, User/Administrator/Reclamations Supervisor. I apologize for any disorientation you may be feeling after the imprinting process. Some side effects may include: Dizziness, nosebleeds, memory loss, cerebral swelling, and possible deep vein thrombosis. This unit submits to your authority. How may I serve the Warden/Executor/Commander?

    “What? Who?” He blurted, the murderous nature of the biomechanical abomination clashing with the voice, so sweetly subservient.

>This unit obeys. I am a Mother Dragon Reclamation Unit designated R-053. My purpose is autonomous field retrieval of combat cybernetics or intact biological systems from units at or near zero function.

    “Rose,” Jack breathed. Replacing letters with numbers and vice versa was such a common encoding method he couldn’t help it. Many years ago he’d been taught what a rose was with pictures and painted replicas made of ration can lids.

>Field Operator designation ‘Rose’ accepted. This unit is in compliance. User, please state your chosen name for recognition and identification purposes.

    “I’m… Jack.” He struggled to find the words, barely able to hear his own voice while reeling from the impossible situation he found himself in. “What… What are you?”

    The angular head cocked to one side, the quizzical gesture catching Jack off guard for a moment.

>As stated, I am a Mother Dragon Recovery Unit.

    Several questions burned in the young Scav’s head. Though as he asked them, he remained acutely aware of the metal claw around his waist.

    “What are you doing down here?”

>Waiting for authorized personnel.

    Jack licked his dry lips.

    “What if I wasn’t authorized?”

>Then you would have been summarily executed and recycled. But do not worry, you are now authorized.

    Suddenly realizing he did not want to pursue this particular line of inquiry, he changed the subject.

    “Well, I know what a Mother Courage Recovery Unit is, so what’s the difference in the dragon part?”

>It means I am a Dragon.

    “Okay, but why?”

>Pattern analysis concluded that the dragon occupies a mythologized place of universality between language and culture. Mother Courage Units present comfort, feminine virtue, rebirth, and recognizable motherhood. As an object of human worship, the dragon represents power, conquest, and sexual prowess.

    Jack knew what a dragon was. He’d also seen Mother Courage Units tear through Scavs and Europan specs ops with equal ease. The dragon was, as the machine spoke, a universally recognized symbol. Those who wore dragons as proud displays of might were as frequent as those who espoused to be slayers of such mythical beasts. Whether laser etched, painted, or formed from flayed corpses, Jack had seen many, many draconic murals, statues, effigies, tattoos, and warpaint.

    “Aren’t dragons supposed to have wings?” Jack blurted.

>Wings? Criteria: Dragon. Define: Six limbs and a tail. Scales. High aerial mobility provided by: ERROR. Substitution: Integrated grappling gear meant for asymmetrical urban combat navigation.

    A hundred images flashed through Jack’s head. A tumult that set his teeth on edge of different dragon iconography. Whatever code conceived the Mother Dragon Unit clearly had trouble determining the proper shape for the extra limbs. The varied morphology of a creature that didn’t actually exist meant that the wide sample size worked against the algorithm. It wasn’t the first time Jack had encountered such a thing. While Rose was certainly a rather… Interesting interpretation of the data fed to the fabricators, it was far from the worst the young Scav had seen.

    “I mean, yes! Six limbs and a tail. Absolutely a dragon.”

    Just as Jack dared think that perhaps he’d avoided death, the whole platform shifted. Chains drew taut. An unseen mechanism began to whir. For a moment he feared sinking even deeper, imagining that perhaps hell itself was waiting below, being drained of its demons to be coated in steel and recruited for the war.

    “Oh shi-oof!”

    Protective subroutines overrode all other functions as Rose clutched Jack close to her chest, head raising on a long neck to observe for threats. Although she was still learning his unique patterns of neural imaging, the connection was strong enough for her to read the spike in his anxiety which triggered the response.

    Scaffolding fell away, priceless 3D printing equipment discarded like afterbirth. Jack realized they were being drawn up, hollow faces of the sacrificed Mother Courage Units being the only ones to witness the genesis of their child.

***

    The lines of war were an ocean. Rising and falling. Ebbing and flowing. Pushing and pulling at the whims of gravity from a celestial force unreachable to mortals. Sometimes there would be stability, reliable high tides and low. Other times a great wave would erode a pivotal foundation and the landscape would be forever altered.

    It was into this combat ecosystem that Jack and Rose emerged.

    Specifically, they were dumped out onto an ash dune. At some point in the past a concrete bunker protected the emergence point. Only rubble drowning in dead embers remained. The sky was a bruised blanket of thunderheads as the soot tainted clouds wept flakes of sticky slag.

    A rush of cold reality literally and figuratively chilled Jack to the bone. Even with a Recovery Unit, Jack was as insignificant as any Scav ever was as they found themselves at the foot of battling skyscrapers. A fight between two heavies was not something that could be safely observed even miles away while Jack and Rose were stuck with front-row seats.

    The Eurasian Quad was a four-legged mobile gun platform meant to deliver punishing ordnance at range. Through luck or skill, its counterpart, a Europan Counter-Assault mech had closed the distance and was engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. The Quad may have escaped if not for the eighteen-foot Europan mech knife lodged in one of its back knees. Each bore heraldry of military companies they’d served with, mixtures of languages a testament to the generations of pilots each heavy had outlived. When two heavy class units clashed, history died.

    It was as ugly as it was brutal. Their main armaments lay in ruins around crater-sized footprints, leaving only grit and metal limbs to continue fighting. As the Assault mech grappled with its opponent using one hand, its other was clenched into a fist and pounding the other mech’s face again and again. The Eurasian pilot lifted the gun arm of their mech, not to fire as the barrel was a twisted ruin, but to use it as a weapon to bludgeon their opponent. The bipedal Assault mech shrugged off the blunt impact to its side and continued to slam Europan steel knuckles pitted against Eurasian composite in their titanic clash. Brute force engineering and elegant material sciences both buckling under the demands of victory. Each impact scattered the falling ash, twisted components shearing off to form its own ruined precipitation.

    The Quad lifted one of its legs and used the powerful, recoil-absorbing limb to shove, driving its foe back a step. Enough distance to fire a few rockets from an undamaged pod at extreme danger close. Explosions stitched across the front of the Europan heavy, battering already dented armor. The Assault mech responded with its own lighter weaponry, shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft gun turned down to let loose a burst of shells, searching for any weakness in the superior Eurasian protection. The Assault closed the distance again, not giving the enemy a moment to think, blaring its war horn as the grapple recommenced. Without his helmet, Jack would've suffered permanent hearing damage.

    This exchange happened in a matter of seconds, and as the Assault mech planted its foot in the treacherous ash, Jack and Rose were mere feet away from being flattened. Through the cable still slotted into his skull, Jack could feel her freeze. For the first time, the Mother Dragon felt what was ingrained in every Scav. What it felt like to be small. She clutched her human operator all the closer, warring algorithms at a deadlock, and grinding her processes to a halt.

    Tremors from the titanic clash continued beneath them as Jack tore his eyes away from the spectacle long enough to see the ash sliding. The shaft which had carried them up was collapsing.

    “Rose, run!” He shouted, and though his voice was lost in the cacophony of violence, their connection allowed her to hear his command.

    She shot off in the direction she was facing, weaving between the legs of the heavies. Every limb except for the one holding Jack scrabbled across the desiccated skin of the world. When the Eurasian Quad moved back to gain distance again, Rose jumped onto one of the Quad’s shins to avoid the Assault mech’s careless step. G-forces pulled on Jack’s neck as the Mother Dragon conserved her momentum and springboarded from the Eurasian heavy to get clear of the melee. Though she had no wings, Jack felt as though he surely just flew.

    The two paid her no mind. Support drones were already on the way. Whoever won the battle would have every piece of artillery in range punch through the storm, turning ash sleet into steel rain.

    Rose sprinted off into the dunes, the storm soon obscuring all but the occasional explosive flash from the dueling heavies, tangled forms burned onto miles-high cloud formations like the titans they were. All Rose and Jack left behind was a small sinkhole where the shaft collapsed, broken platform already being buried beneath ash and shifting rubble.

    Compared to the underlevel, the ash dunes were deafening as the ensemble orchestra of war was in full swing. Air raid sirens blared, the valleys of their tones punctuated by mech war horns while the peaks were accented by falling artillery shells. Gunfire in all its variety was at once the brass and strings while hyper-velocity munitions provided the woodwinds. Small arms clashed in rattling accompaniments to the broader verses of larger caliber automatics. Canons thumped to a maestro’s frenzied baton, each side of the conflict attempting to play their part faster, louder, and with more fervor.

    Rose set Jack into the curated dip of her back behind the shoulder blades. The Scav grabbed two dangling interface cables like makeshift reins and squeezed his legs around the Recovery Unit for dear life. At least with her forelimbs free she was able to better galop, stabilized gait keeping Jack from being forcibly ejected from his seat despite riding bareback.

    They careened across the battlefield as the blinding storm thickened.

    “Come on, come on, come on…” Jack muttered to himself, searching for any stray signal. Desperate as anyone lost in a storm for the hopeful embers of a lighthouse.

    Achtung! The warning flashed across his helmet. Wargasm Transmission Incoming! Then a far too cheerful voice for a pirate radio broadcast crackled in his ear.

    “Allllright you Scavs, my dreamers, my hopeful little rats, here’s your weather report. Severe hail expected! If you’re not inside you better get there quick.” Sardonic undertones gave way to genuine concern in the speaker.

    Jack clenched his jaw. Severe hail was Scav code for a major offensive with some of the biggest toys coming out to play.

    “Yeah, no shit.” Jack complained to no one in particular. The radio host continued.

    “The following roads are closed due to fucking idiots. Beggar’s Cradle. Voyeur’s Way. Aqueduct 57, 89, and 114. As well as pretty much anything that drains shit. Storms tend to clog the sewers if you know what I mean. My recommendation? Go high to go low.”

    Most reliable extraction routes would be unusable, swarming with indiscriminate combatants.

    Letting out a hiss, he looked toward a dim beacon his HUD helpfully labeled as ‘Extraction?’. Distance and elevation estimates seemed promising, though the path there would take them straight across the actively colliding sides of the war. Jack could only direct Rose to follow the road to their salvation and hope she took it. Fortunately, her professed obedience held true. He didn’t have time to think about the myriad of ways his life could end. Not least of which being the bizarre Recovery Unit deciding to turn on him. His focus flicked between his scanner and naked sight, having to occasionally wipe clotted ash from his visor. The terrain gradually shifted from ash dunes to more uneven ground. Craters, and rebar-infested concrete formed fissures that meandered toward the trenches. They slowed, trading speed for caution and quiet.

    With what felt like a mental somersault, he briefly tapped into Rose’s suite of sensors. Momentarily blinded by the influx of visual data, he held onto the afterimage of lights that cut through the haze of the storm and guided his draconic mount to navigate the maze of hidden dangers. Rose nimbly traversed dead soldiers laced with IEDs, razorwire graves, and bands of Eurasian shock troops encroaching on the trench lines.

    Deciding high ground was worth the risk, Jack instructed Rose to creep up a charnel mountain of discarded dead. Several similar mounds nearby provided additional cover. They were within a dead man’s walk of the Europan frontline. Jack could see hints of Lost Angel’s superstructure rising beyond the trenches and murk.

    As he scanned the defensive line, he spotted a mechanized squad moving by. A Europan medium mech jogged with purpose, trailing a dozen smaller Exos close in step. A haggard hodgepodge of conscripts on foot struggled to keep up.

    Too late Jack realized that the pile of bodies was beginning to move beneath him. Enough intact Cyber-Zombies got up to form a wave of howling death. That wasn’t all. As the pile collapsed into an undead tide, a deadlier threat emerged. Not one, but three Corpsetanks rumbled forward as the surrounding mounds came apart as well, crunching over Cy-Zeds too damaged to move fast enough.

    At first, Jack tried to get Rose to retreat, until yet another tank with its macabre camouflage emerged from behind them. There was nowhere to go but forward, hoping that in a target rich environment, they were low enough on the priority list to make it through.

    Even as the coordinated fire from the Corpsetanks dropped the Europan medium mech leading the force, the Exos lined up and counter charged. Their shields were held forward, main cannons couched as knights would a lance. Grenade launchers on the smaller mechs sent smoke and frags into the thickest pockets of crazed Zombies. Muzzle flashes formed blades to the tune of rounds per minute. The Exos bounded through the Cy-Zeds swarming around their legs to close with the tanks and use their superior mobility to exploit weak points. One Exo was dragged down by the swarm, its unfortunate pilot ripped out one handful at a time as Zombies reached through a gap made earlier by an anti-armor mine.

    Weaving between the Corpsetanks, Jack ordered Rose to leap over the advancing line of Exos. Speed was their saving grace this time, slipping through the thicket of Cy-Zeds where the horde was thinnest. In a few strides, Rose cleared the first line of trenches. Europan conscripts even try to shoot at them, too preoccupied with the wave of undeath washing over their trench.

>Warden, on your left!

    The Scav felt the pull toward exactly where Rose indicated, looking sharply in that direction. A Cy-Zeds clung to the Mother Dragon, crawling up one of her forelimbs to get at Jack. It was impossible to tell what kind of person the Zombie had been, nearly everything making them human stripped away. There was only hate in its eyes. Unquenchable killing urge and the Cyberflesh strength to rip Jack apart.

    The young Scav raised his rifle, and fired twice, .308 rounds driving through the abomination center mass. Not quite fully dead, the Zombie lost its grip and fell all the same. Only to be scooped into Rose’s disassembly torso before it hit the ground.

    Even the momentary distraction nearly cost the duo their lives. They’d barely made it out of sight of the embattled defenses before a new threat hurtled towards the duo.

    A major assault was more than Europa and Eurasia. A Euruskan Grabber bounded towards them with terrible swiftness, no doubt trying to flank the Europa troops. There were fewer, or finer examples about how uncaring metal was when fused with flesh.

    Rose might’ve been able to avoid the beast, however she was restricted in her evasiveness, lest she throw Jack from her back. She only narrowly side-stepped the first charge, then turned to meet the next. Lifting two of her forelimbs, she caught the Grabber midair.

    Raising his rifle again, Jack shot the monster five times in quick succession, scoring hits over the Dragon Mother’s shoulder with each. The Grabber thrashed, using its back legs for enough leverage to wriggle free, slamming into Rose’s chest and neck, raking its finger-knives over her armor. One of its manipulators jabbed toward Jack, knocking him backwards and sending him sliding off his mount. The interface cable was equipped with a combat disconnect function that disengaged the cord without ripping the implant from Jack’s skull.

    There was an absence, and Jack’s cursing as he hit the ground sounded hollow in his own head. Though that may have been him being winded from repeated impacts.

    Even though she was gifted with machine intelligence, Rose’s inexperience clearly showed. Without the link to Jack, her only concern became protecting her fallen partner. She threw the Grabber back. It was on her again as quickly as the thing could get traction, ceaseless in its aggression.

    “Rose! Pin it down!” Jack shouted as soon as he was able to find his voice, counting on her following his verbal commands even without the mind link.

    Using all four arms, the Mother Dragon easily overpowered the horror. Already up, Jack ran around Rose’s side. The Grabber thrashing was truly animalistic in its desperation. Jack shot it three more times before his SA58 clicked empty. Its faceplate split into halves, revealing an all too human visage. Barking, growling, and screeching just like its namesake, the Grabber snapped at the human with hydraulic pincers.

    Adrenaline surging, Jack drove his rifle down. Without ammunition, it was little more than a spear. Yet the young Scav still struck true. The bayonet crunched through bone into the cadaverous mockery of a face. He hammered the stock with his bodyweight again and again until the blade was lodged as deep as it could go. Then he yanked the rifle back and forth, leveraging the bayonet like an awl to try and hit something vital.

    Slowly… Oh so painfully slowly… the Grabber grew still, remaining limbs twitching feebly until curling inward, retracted into their default position.

    Panting, Jack wiped the muck off his helmet. He was shaking. His pack felt as though it weighed fifty kilos despite being nearly empty. The ache in his chest made every breath laborious. His throat throbbed each time, so dry he was reminded of how little water he had.

    The smooth white angles of Rose’s faceplate regarded Jack with inscrutable thoughts. She glanced down at the slain Grabber, then back to Jack. Not really knowing or caring what she meant, he waved an arm dismissively.

    The Mother Dragon opened her chest, a few bits of Cy-Zombie falling free, then crawled over the body of the Grabber and got to work. While the carcass was too big to fit inside her, she split the outer shell open as if it were some long-extinct crustacean with her myriad of implements. Tender insides exposed, she made several precise cuts and lifted a barely pulsating hunk of metal and meat free of the Grabber husk with a sickening squelch. The grotesque morsel was just small enough, disappearing into her thoracic cavity for deconstruction.

    Despite the adrenaline smothered pain clouding his senses, Scavenger instincts took over, and he gave the carcass of bleeding metal a quick check while Rose worked. A few saddlebags hung from the Grabber’s haunches that Jack cut free and slung into his rig. While he wasn’t about to check their contents out in the open, their potential was too valuable to leave behind. Taking the time to strip anything else of value from the kill wasn’t worth the risk.

    Jack watched the conclusion of the Mother Dragon’s depraved predation, unsure of his feelings for the machine. His gaze was drawn to the puncture wounds on her front where the Grabber stabbed her repeatedly in the struggle. Jack’s fingers touched the bumpy seal where subdermal nodules ruptured to form clots over the damage.

    Natural fight or flight chemicals made Jack’s thoughts race. Guilt gnawed on his guts. The once virginal canvas of her Cyberflesh was broken. Undeniably, she’d protected him heedless of cost.

    “Are you okay, Rose?” He muttered hoarsely. Speaking her name caused revelation to bloom. Why did he care? Because he’d named her. Naming a thing changed the nature of that thing. By being the one to name her, that change was now because of him. His actions. His responsibility. He’d seen fit to attach a word of life to a mere facsimile. What if the duty budding in his mind was merely a falsehood planted there through the implant in his skull? If so, why was it taking root without the connection present?

    Jack became lost in questions without answers until Rose lowered her head to nuzzle him. She did not force her interface plug on him. She held up the end of the cable and waited for his permission. After some hesitation, he allowed her to reconnect.

>No impediment to functionality detected.

    She answered his question immediately, then hesitated as well. Synthetic synapses fired. She decided on something small, yet incredibly important.

>This Unit is sorry for… This Unit is sorry. Thank you, Jack.

    A scream broke through the pall of the storm, whether human or not was impossible to tell.

    Rose offered a pair of arms as steps that Jack used to climb onto her back once more. The pair set off with haste.

***

    Though Jack wanted nothing more than to head to the extraction, their climb would take them too close to a prime water collector cultivated by hundreds of Scavs.

    Simply known as the Flayed Cathedral, it was little more than a hollow shell occupying a place of convenient height. A ribcage of exposed flying buttresses still stood, denoting where walls and a roof once were. Brutalist concrete pews radiated in the four cardinal directions. A statue rose in the center.

    Angel statues were, fittingly, a common sight within the City of Lost Angels. Both Jack and Rose were drawn in by this particular one, though neither could say from which of them the feeling originated.

    Her face had been blown off and reconstructed so many times, no features were really discernable. There was only blackness within her hood. She stood upon a set of truncated steps. Her robes were bunched around her waist, a pair of infants were cradled in each of arm, nursing at her breasts. Behind her on the steps was a warped facsimile of mech and demon. It was clear by the stance of the demon mech and the angel’s robes, that she was being violated even as she fed the infants. While the statue was certainly distressingly clear in its imagery, the stone effigy was positively tame compared to others.

    Numerous tarps, plastic sheets, and anything else that could trap condensation now comprised a patchwork canopy between the bones. Tubing connected everything, coalescing above the statue to come together in a tangle of suspended filters that draped over the angel’s shoulders and into several fifty-gallon drums all around her feet.

    Jack guided Rose to the central statue of the Flayed Cathedral and hopped down to see if there was any clean water. He slid down and winced at the pressure on his abdomen. After tapping a few drums, he found one with enough in it to hopefully fill the container on his rig.

>Hypothesis: Are you a member of a branching subspecies that requires large quantities of water, Operator?

    “This isn’t all for me.” He said, then quenched his thirst from another barrel before topping off his canteen. “Water is life for anyone not suckling the war monger’s teats.” Jack could not keep the scorn from his voice as he looked up at the statue. The bitterness of the broken promise made to every future generation sharpened his tongue. The Mother Dragon’s smooth face turned the same direction.

>This work has traces of the Ironic Catholicism Movement as well as imagery taken from several well known pieces by Not-Banksy, and fuses the two with Second Renaissance frescoes. Though some of it has no data associated.

    “Someone on Night Shift probably felt creative.”

>This Unit would ask for elaboration.

    “A human touch. The builders can only copy. They can take shapes and rearrange them, but can’t make new ones themselves.”

    Rose turned her head from the statue to Jack. With great delicacy, she lifted one of his arms and placed his hand against the damaged part of her chest he’d touched earlier.

    That was when he spotted the Mother Courage looming between the bones of the Flayed Cathedral. Then another. Then another. He almost thought they were statues themselves until one swayed back and forth a bit. Jack kept his movements slow and told Rose to do the same as he carefully disconnected his rig container from the water barrel. Trying not to panic, he climbed up onto Rose. They turned and were greeted by yet more.

    The duo were surrounded. Horrific in their beauty, and beautiful in their horror, the Mother Courage Units entered the Cathedral then… Stopped? Their deadly hands were interwoven into signs of supplication, heads bowed. Some of them were coated in blood. Others were festooned in numerous recovered Cy-Zombies.

    They were… Praying?

    Jack felt as though he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to. He was on the brink of asking Rose to grab him and jump like she had earlier to escape the battling heavies out on the dunes.

>I can hear them.

    “What are they saying?” He uttered.

>And one day the City of Lost Angels shall climb to heaven. Her foundations shall grow as the bodies overflow. A tower to pierce the defenses of that final bastion. The world is a grave that must be filled. Whereupon at last we stand atop its loamy peak, wearing our crown of clouds, shall we hold the firmament upon our brows. In ascendancy, war shall reach the gates of saints and war shall reign. For mankind is war. And war is mankind. And we shall stand victorious from our bunker built of Lost Angels. Amen.

    Jack and Rose made their way out of the Flayed Cathedral, passing through the congregation close enough to touch the Recovery Units on either side of one exit. Every Mother Courage was wholly unbothered by their departure.

    Jack accepted that there were precious few answers left in the world. And what burned in his heart was not why the machines were praying. Rather, he wondered who they were praying to.

    Fortunately they were able to make it to extraction without further incident.

***

    Even though Jack called ahead repeatedly to warn of his and Rose’s arrival, there was still quite the stir as they emerged into his home level. After several hours riding bareback, his thighs matched his chest in ache and was glad he elected to walk beside Rose the final way. Also anyone with an itchy trigger finger would have to contend with him in the line of fire.

    A substantial crowd was gathered to see this creature. In a short time the words ‘Mother Dragon’ had been twisted to mean something different to each ear that caught it. Humans, Virtual Intelligence frames, and everything in between clustered near the gates Jack and Rose used. Jack was assailed with all kinds of questions by friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike. After demonstrating that Rose would follow his commands and giving the guards repeated assurances that she wasn’t going to go on a murderous rampage anytime soon as far as he knew, the crowd gradually dispersed after getting a few pictures for the local net or just admiring the Mother Dragon’s chassis.

    After telling Rose to sit there and wait for him, Jack disconnected their link and did what needed to be done before he could rest.

    Firstly, he carried his rig proudly over to the water station. A truly ancient man, limbs long ago replaced with cybernetics, sat on an upturned crate playing checkers with himself.

    “How’s the weather, Jack of all trades?” The man addressed Jack with a voice tinted by diesel fumes and not enough cigarettes. Ivan scratched his jowls before moving another checker.

    Rolling his eyes at the stupid nickname, the Scav removed his mask and helmet. Gun oil and ash colored his hair dark while lack of sunlight resulted in the deathly pallor of his skin. Bags sat heavily under eyes the color of storm clouds that were far too kind.

    “Lousy, I need a vacation.” Ache was really beginning to set into Jack’s limbs.

    “Oh sure, you can rent my beachfront condo. Though it’ll cost ya.”

    “What’ll a few days get me?” Jack held up the connector to the container on his rig. Ivan finally glanced his way and attached the connector to a small pump with a digital reader displaying quality alongside volume, griping all the while.

    “Days he says? Aren’t we a juicy one? Back when I was out there, I could haul two week’s worth! And the pay was shit back then. A gallon got you a half-eaten MRE and a swift kick in the ass. I think I’m the one who needs a vacation.” The pump dinged and spat out a plastic card. Ivan handed Jack his credits for the decent haul of water.

    “Vacation? Didn’t you say you were gonna retire, old man?”

    “Soon as winter’s over.”

    They both laughed.

    Before heading back to Rose, he made one detour, nose unable to resist the allure of street food. A stand selling crimson loaves, the unmistakable scent of engineered grain which grew on corroding metal wafted Jack’s way. He wandered close. The man running the stand spotted Jack drifting his way and held up a good-sized loaf so the Scav could see the steam floating off the top. While it was a little self indulgent to buy freshly baked rust-wheat bread, he muttered to himself, “Fuck it,” and transferred the credits anyway.

    He moved over to a railing overlooking the main shaft of the level where he could still turn and see Rose obediently laying down where he told her to. “I fucking earned this today.” He tore into the loaf, relishing the savory iron flavor.

    Even though Jack had sometimes been stuck out on raids for days, even weeks, it felt different this time.

    It was good to be home.

    The denizens of the level were vagabonds, beggars, deserters, and refugees. Water drew them together, and a loose, unspoken social contract kept them that way. The war had a way of creating a lot of thirsty people, be it water or the trade that simple, life-giving substance brought. No one there were really rebels, despite what pirate radio broadcasters liked to believe they themselves were. From the smallest Trench Pup to the biggest, baddest, Cybermind gun for hire, everyone was just doing what they could to squeeze a bit of life out of their dying world.

    Jack closed his eyes, chewing on his bread more slowly to listen to that life. The low din of conversation, of hope and heartache and the hawking of wares.

    He’d learned to seize every moment of relief with both hands and not let go. You never knew when work would tap you on the shoulder, or call your name.

    “Jack, you’re the one that brought in the Mother Dragon, right?”

    The young Scav turned to see a woman he only knew of from the word of other Scavs. Not wanting his annoyance to be known, he simply nodded as he finished his bread.

    Lysenko was a proxy for the Euruskan High Commission. An agent who served another agent, who served another in turn. No one was sure if the heavily modified woman was truthful in the source of the contracts she offered. The credits were real enough, so did the rest matter? Her cybernetic stilts for lower limbs reminded Jack of the long-legged birds which could sometimes be seen in the Frozen Swamp, snatching prey out of reeds or pipes.

    She produced an attache case embossed with the Euruskan emblem. The sleek silvery finish looked brand new, so it must've been quite old to be in such good condition. Dozens of seals made of black tape sat alongside the actual latches.

    “Open the case. What’s inside is for you. Please make sure you do not show me the contents, or describe them in any way.”

    Lysenko’s unprompted appearance confirmed certain suspicions Jack had about who was responsible for the creation of Rose. It was rare for a Scav to get the attention of any of the three great powers. Usually that happened out in the field and ended with expeditious termination. If that attention came with credits, only the most idiotic would turn them down. While his paranoia gibbered fitfully in a corner of his psyche, he hit the latches on the front of the case and opened it.

    Jack didn’t quite understand what he was looking at. A badge of some sort? Held in a cushioned indentation was what at first resembled the Euruskan heraldry just like on the top of the case. Though instead of a multi-headed bird and member country symbols adorning the shield, it was a dragon. Its belly was a cloudy glass marble cradled in its forelimbs. While detailed, he couldn’t help but notice the lack of eyes. Jack glanced over at Rose, then to Lysenko. The woman’s hawkish features were inscrutable.

    Jack lifted the object free, surprised at its weight. Once in his hands, he discovered a flexible band of metallic mesh on the back of the dense plate. Perhaps so it could be worn around an arm or attached in another way.

    Lysenko turned away before closing the case.

    “Those who please Euruska have a place in this world’s future. I look forward to working with you, Jack.”

    Well, the interaction was far from the strangest thing that had happened to Jack recently. So he walked stiffly back to Rose, looking down at the emblem as he ran a thumb over its edge. He sighed, accepting that his entanglement with the Mother Dragon meant trouble. And trouble probably meant a violent end. Not that he’d had much choice. Somehow that didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. He chalked it up to being far too tired to consider doing anything else around the level. His canteen and belly were full. The rest could be sorted out tomorrow.

    Jack heard laughter and looked up to see a gaggle of children playing on and around the biomechanical marvel. She held up her many arms for them to run under, climb over, and stand on. Most absurdly, her tail wagged sedately behind her in a mimicry of feline poise.

    “All right, all right, you’ve had your fun. I’m tired, you little shits.” He shouted without malice.

    “Aw, c’mon, Jack!” Came a chorus of protests.

    “How about a whole loaf of rust bread to whoever gets me the recruitment poster with the most curse words?”

    That did the trick, the kids racing off as Jack chuckled. Though one took a bit longer than the others, watching him with mismatched bionic eyes before joining the rest.

    Too tired to think much of it, he socketed the interface plug Rose offered him.

    “Rose, do you know what this is?” Jack asked, holding out the gift from Agent Lysenko. Rose lowered her head, angular snout inches away from the emblem, tilting like a carrion bird examining a bit of meat.

>It is transmitting a Euruskan IFF signal. Though it is faint. Short range. It is… Pretty.

    He wondered if perhaps the IFF device was supposed to identify the ‘Authorized User’ when Rose awakened. If that was the case, then it was little more than a shiny trinket. The Scav was amused to find the stories of dragons having an affinity for treasure to be true.

    “Bend your head down, Rose.” Once she was in reach, Jack slipped the band around one of the Mother Dragon’s angular horns far enough that it was secure. “That’s not going to interfere with anything, is it?”

>No functionality impairment detected. Visual appeal increased. This Unit is grateful.

    Their connection went both ways, and Jack couldn’t help but notice the way the Mother Dragon preened at the attention given by the children and other passersby. Her beauty was to be admired. Adored. Idolized as the divine was meant to be. Yet for as much as she enjoyed the reverence, a greater consideration was Jack’s approval. From others, she demanded recognition, appreciation of her superior design. From the partner imprinted on her, all Rose yearned for was to please him. She coveted his expectations so she could surpass them. Prove that she was everything he would ever need.

    The intensity of the feedback stunned Jack. He wasn’t sure he even knew how to respond. If he even should respond. So he deflected.

    “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

>Home?

***

    One thing not in short supply was space. Empty apartments, workshops, storefronts and all manner of mangled, mishmashed in betweens created by the Night Shift in times past littered the area the Scavs called home.

    Jack’s personal space was a little ways from the market with a solid rolling shutter as a front door. After lifting the shutter as high as it would go, Jack gestured for Rose to go inside. Though she had to duck a bit, she easily fit through. His spacious living arrangement seemed a good deal smaller with the Recovery Unit inside.

    It was quite open, fortunately. The bottom level was big enough for a Europan Exo to walk in and be serviced. A steep staircase led up to a loft overlooking the main floor. The far wall of the loft was also a shutter that could be opened to the narrow balcony with a great view of the level’s central shaft. The other walls were mostly just concrete that Jack kept telling himself he’d paint once he stopped having to buy such expensive things like food or ammunition. All of the furniture, such as the bed, cinder block couch, and television were fittingly scrounged from abandoned living spaces.

    “So here we are.” He rocked back and forth on his heels, awkwardly thinking of ways to excuse his obvious lack of financial success. “Yeah, uh, it’s not much. I guess it could be your home, too. If you’d like.”

>Home Defined.

    While a bit narrow, Jack was able to squeeze well enough around Rose as she sat back on her haunches. He moved over to the rather empty area underneath the loft, mindful of the interface cable trailing behind him. Pain lanced through his chest as he shouldered off his rig. Bit by bit he unburdened himself of the modest gear he had to his name. Helmet, boots, and coat went onto a table near his rig.

>User/Operator, you are injured. In order to thoroughly assess your health, I would request that you allow me to place you in my thoracic cavity for examination.

    Though he tried not to jump out of his skin in horror as Rose began opening her chest and the myriad of tools within it, he still stumbled backward a bit, raising his hands protectively in front of himself.

    “Um, no, no, no, no, no, no… No. I think I’m fine. Definitely fine.”

>I assure you, Warden/Overseer, my scanners and surgical suite is capable of not just disassembly, but also field repair and refit of combat and biological implants. Theoretically up to and including heart transplant within three minutes after ballistically induced cardiac arrest.

    “Couldn’t you just… Do anything other than that?”

>Physical exam selected. Please remove your clothes. Or, if needed, I shall assist you in removing them.

    “I didn’t… You know what? Whatever.” Jack didn't feel like arguing and also didn’t want the machine to rip his clothes off. So with a heavy sigh, he stripped down to his undershirt and boxers. “That’s all you’re getting.” He said with finality.

>Do you have your insurance card so we may bill your primary coverage?

    “What… What does that mean?”

>[Data Not Found]. Physical exam commencing.

    Despite the violence Rose was capable of, the biomechanical frame was first and foremost a creature that served a medical role. An armored port below one of her chest harpoons opened and allowed one mechadendrite to slide free. The tentacle-like appendage was lined with haptic sensors and microscopic needles that could take blood and tissue samples with minimal physical discomfort. Rose used two of her primary forelimbs to lift Jack’s arms or turn him so her mechadendrite could search for broken bones, contusions, or other signs of internal injury.

    Her touch was extremely gentle. Even so, Jack winced as she placed a palm against his stomach. The worst of his pain radiated from the ugly bruise spreading across his ribs from the Grabber. She lifted his shirt and began working his tensed muscle groups with her fingers while her mechadendrite worked on the main portion of the injury. Delivery devices embedded in the mechadendrite parallel to the extractors could apply topical, subcutaneous, or intramuscular synthetic compounds. Painkillers took the edge off while healing boosters began repairing damaged tissue.

    Jack felt himself practically melting under her touch because of the relief, but his cold apartment made him realize how warm Rose was. His legs weakened. She positioned a forearm for him to sit on as she worked.

    As the hand on his front massaged the periphery of his bruised ribs and held him steady, she also ended up rubbing against his crotch. Before he could divert his thoughts elsewhere, blood flowed to a very private place. He tried to shift and only managed to grind his hidden erection against Rose’s digits.

    Jack hoped she wouldn’t notice. With scanners and sensors and perfect knowledge of human anatomy, physiology, and a literal path into his skull, he hoped she wouldn’t notice.

>Masturbation is a common post-combat theater stress response. If you wish to do so now, please feel free.

    “What?” Jack’s voice cracked. “Why would… You… I… I don’t understand.”

>Following Azimov’s Wartime Laws of Virtual Intelligence, my primary directive is your continued combat presence and effectiveness. Not just your physical safety, but your mental wellbeing is now one of my primary concerns. Corollary: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Better morale has a direct association with reduced stress, fatigue, and corresponding heightened survival rates. This Unit is capable of acting as a substitute for many comforts a romantic or sexual partner would normally provide to ensure your peak performance. 

    Jack could only sit, stunned and confused. Rose spoke into his mind without stopping her tending to his injuries.

>Through predictive behavioral estimates of established human norms, I have estimated with a 1% error margin that you will follow gendered pronouns with anthropomorphization. Thus, you will begin to consider me as a potential partner for reproduction due to my established strength and your brain structure's desire to breed with attractive females. In absence of a suitable partner, I will make modifications so you may copulate with me. I shall collate several sets of simulated genitals scaled appropriately to your own for my frame so that you may engage in acts such as, but not limited to: Fucking, Foreplay, Fondling, Mating, Breeding, Copulating, Fornicating, and Fucking.

>Once appropriate material has been harvested I shall submit my designs for your approval. Or, if you prefer, I shall select what I believe will be most efficient and allow you to discover them for the benefit provided by sexual exploration of a new partner.

    Though he was having immense trouble wrapping his head around what Rose was not implicating, implicating would mean subtlety, but literally pushing into his thoughts, a question did arise.

    “What does ‘efficient’ mean in this context?”

>Elaboration: Best suited visually and mechanically to meet your sexual needs and extract the largest quantity of viable semen from you, of course.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

The First Organ Is Skin

    Jack opened his eyes and wasn’t certain his nightmare had ended. The grinning visage of a Cy-Zombie stared at him from the railing of his loft. The pair of pinprick lights bored into him with familiar hatred.

    Heart slamming the inside of his ribcage like a sledgehammer, Jack yanked the bayonet out of the sheath he kept in reach when he slept. Throwing the blanket towards the beast to distract it, the young Scav jumped up onto his bed, ready to kill or be killed.

    His opponent didn’t move.

    Panting, Jack waved his knife, knuckles turning even whiter than normal. When he wasn’t immediately assaulted, he made to examine the monster more closely. Even though his lizard brain was awake, fight or flight getting him ready to defend himself in a hurry, his higher functions were taking a while to catch up. Carefully, trying to hear anything other than the blood thundering through his ears, Jack stepped down off the bed.

    It took him a bit to realize that it was little more than the head. Clamped to the railing was a macabre contraption made of bones with the Zombie’s head attached to some kind of mount. Thick bands of metal were welded around the discolored bones, probably having been sourced from the same Zombie which supplied the skull. As Jack moved, the mount turned to keep its pinprick eyes fixed on him.

    “What the fuck?” Jack tapped the top of the skull with the tip of his knife, but the atrocity did nothing other than stare.

    As if on cue, the rolling door to the front of Jack’s home lifted. He lifted his knife once again. Then a familiar geometric muzzle snaked in, followed by her many arms.

    “Rose!” Relief, tempered by dread, ran down his neck into his lungs.

    The Mother Dragon lifted her head up to Jack, then turned so that an uplink cable dangled within easy reach. As soon as the Scav connected, the artificial voice of his unlikely new companion entered the auditory centers of his brain. She was excited as a crow pulling grubs from rotten meat.

>My Warden! This Unit returned Home once signal was received from the motion detector.

    “Motion detector?” Jack shifted, noting with more than a little discomfort that the head continued to track him.

>Protection protocols dictate that I must ‘keep an eye on you’. So a simple motion detector was fashioned from unused parts salvaged from our expedition.

    “Rose, you can’t just run off like that. What if someone doesn’t know you’re not hostile and attacks you first? What were you doing?” A dozen different scenarios ran through Jack’s head where a single shot fired in fear began a cascade of tragedy down in the Innards.

>This Unit was gathering data! Understanding of my Warden’s societal norms, practices, and cultural values will allow us to engage in optimal bonding rituals as well as the pressures and expectations of your position within this hierarchy. Anthropological examinations offer insight into common phrases, colloquialisms, and other shorthand slang that might confuse battlefield communication. This Unit also observed several human, near-human, and non-human beings engaging in intercourse!

    While Rose inundated Jack’s mind with luridly detailed yet also excitedly medical breakdowns of the various sex acts she saw with her powerful scanners, an old friend walked through Jack’s open door.

    Cypher was only a year older than Jack, and had spent most of their life down in the Innards. Despite the warmth of the Innards compared to the surface, Cypher’s slender frame was almost entirely hidden by layers of clothing. Between the mask, scarf, and beanie, only a narrow strip of dark skin and brown eyes was visible.

    “Oh shit.” Jack blurted as the movement from his open threshold caught his attention. He scrambled to grab pants so he wasn’t standing around in just boxers and a shirt.

    Jack spoke aloud and used sign language at the same time, rushing down from his loft. “Cypher! Hey, how’s it goin’, haha, yeah, so, uh, this,” Jack gestured towards Rose, nearly tripping as he clambered over her. “This, uh, y’know, is a thing. That happened. Yesterday.”

    While Jack moved, Rose swung her head to keep their connection from pulling taut and loomed behind the young man to watch events unfold with her ineffable visage. The Mother Dragon extended several small mechadendrites and casually groomed her Warden, tending to his messy hair and dirty skin.

    Cypher’s eyes softened considerably. Their fingers moved deftly, speaking words with their hands.

    ‘Jack, you promised you would come see me. Then you run off solo without even a goodbye.’ Even though they meant it without malice, it was hard to take the words as anything other than accusation.

    Jack’s heart sank. “I know… I know… I figured… That you wouldn’t want to see me after… Or without something to show for it. Then I felt guilty for not visiting you.”

    ‘Jack, I know it's not your fault. Another group came and told me. Roland was my friend too. I thought you were dead also. Until I heard you were back, then gone again before I could talk to you. Did you get his scarf? The one Old Mack gave him? I think he would like it to go to another Scav.’

    There was a familiar pleading in Cypher’s eyes. The wish for purpose from the purposeless. Death had to mean something. Death was so pervasive, bodies falling in the wasteland like fresh snow in the forever winter of the war above, that everyone still sane yearned to make sense of the senseless.

    “I… No. There were so many.” Jack’s eyes glazed over, no longer seeing the inside of his home in the Innards. “I tried to look for him afterwards but… I guess I’ve been avoiding you until I had something to bring back.”

    The life of a Scav was inextricably tied to death. Jack made the conscious decision to undertake his last raid alone. Though he felt it was his only option. Three times he’d gone up with squadmates. Three times he’d come back alone. Each time with less. Less ammo. Less money. Less hope. Only this last time, heading out alone to search for the remains of his last group had he at last come back with anything other than less.

    Jack and Cypher stared at each other for a minute or so. Even without words, a deep understanding passed between the two. The ability to read each other without needing to spell out everything was what kindled their friendship to begin with.

    Hooking his thumbs into his belt, Jack changed the subject. Not out of avoidance, but because there wasn’t much else to say about Roland. Death was always around them. The burden of extracting life from death fell on those who were left. And because Jack was genuinely concerned for the welfare of his few surviving friends.

    “How’s business been?”

    ‘Ups and downs. More ups than usual. So good, I would say.’

    Cypher was a talented sort, who thankfully carved out their niche down in the Innards. Their expertise was clothing, though they weren’t half bad with a can of spray paint either. Their knack was working bulletproof cloth, plate carriers, and other armored material. While your average Scav was more likely to put their credits towards a warm coat, plenty of troops belonging to the different powers would wander through the Innards looking for things to supplement their issued equipment.

    “What about those Kingfisher guys? Mercs usually spend big, right?” Jack recalled the mercenaries with their typical swagger.

    ‘They tried to argue with me on ballistic plate prices so I said I would give them cardboard instead for free. But I advised against it because dead guys do not buy much.’

    Jack barked out a laugh. He pushed his guilt and grief away. Now was the time to finally address the Mother Dragon in the room. Jack gestured between his friend and the terrifying new addition to his life.

    “Rose, this is Cypher. Cypher, this is Rose. She’s some kind of experimental Recovery Unit that I found. Thankfully she didn’t kill me and tells me I’m her operator now.”

    To Jack’s incredulity, Rose lifted two of her hands and began using sign language and their mind-link to speak.

>The being designated ‘Cypher’ and this Unit met during information gathering. They heard of our mutual arrival and asked after your wellbeing. Interpersonal relationships are vital to mental health and should not be neglected.

    “You can talk to Cypher?” He asked, not sure whether to be perturbed or elated.

>This Unit’s operating system has safeguards in place to prevent installation of peripheral devices able to simulate speech so that all direct data exchange must be done through encrypted links. Nonverbal communication is, by necessity, exempt from this. Additional: My Warden, this Unit has prepared a selection of simulated intercourse designs.

    Snaking one of her interface cables over to his television, Rose displayed a quick slideshow of simulated genitalia each more distorted than the last. As was typical of computer-generated anatomical content, the proportions were warped in overt and subtle ways. While attempting to construct an appealing feminine sex, Rose had borrowed different attributes from the various individuals she’d scanned copulating and combined them together. Lopsided vulvas. Bizarrely shaped openings. Openings that were some bastardization of vaginal and urethral. Twisted labia that were a blend of human, canine spade, and avian cloacas. Clitoral protrusions either asymmetrical and disproportionate or absent entirely.

    To Jack’s continued mortification, Rose narrated the various benefits of what was on display in sign language as well as mind-machine interface. She espoused the genius of the modularity built into her own chassis and the ease of adding multiple masturbatory sleeves for his enjoyment. The Mother Dragon was in the middle of explaining how closely her scales could mimic the feel of real skin before Jack finally interrupted.

    “Rose!” Jack exclaimed once his faculties returned after being flash-banged by AI-generated pornography. He ordered her to disconnect from the television and began profusely apologizing to Cypher, cheeks ablaze with a heat from blushing.

    ‘Oh, so that’s what kind of bot she is.’

    “No, she’s not.”

>Yes, I am.

    “No, you are not.”

>The survival of individual user defined as Warden is of highest priority. Corollary: Biological needs being met has proven increase in field survival scenarios. My design is the greatest answer to meet the needs of mankind in the face of unpredictable environmental evolution. This Unit is excited to deepen bonds with Warden Jack. 

    ‘So you do not want to fuck her, she wants to fuck you.’ Cypher’s frame was rocked by silent guffaws, unable to hold in their mirth at Jack’s expense. They punched him lightly in the shoulder. ‘You are always so easy to fluster.’

    Jack’s Scav instincts made him want to hunker behind the nearest piece of cover until the feeling of exposure passed. Fortunately for the young man’s dignity, Rose shifted away from sex.

>Being known as ‘Cypher’, this Unit would like to make an observation, followed by a request.

    ‘You can just call me Cypher.’

>Informal designation logged. Observation: Cypher, your workshop has tools capable of fabricating a high-mobility rider safety apparatus. Request: If you were supplied with the blueprint and dimensions, would you be able to construct said apparatus?

    Cypher blinked up at the angular faceplate of the Mother Dragon.

    ‘What?’

>I want Jack to mount me.

    Rose elaborated much to Jack’s chagrin.

    ‘Yeah, I bet you do.’ Cypher’s shoulders bobbed with laughter at their own joke.

    The young Scav elaborated what she actually meant. “A saddle. She’s wondering if you could make a saddle so I don’t go flying off her back. Rose has grappling hooks and can climb stuff, so really anything would be nice.”

    ‘That makes a lot more sense.’ Cypher looked the Recovery Unit up and down with a tailor’s appraising eye, judging just how much material it would take to encircle such girth. ‘I have not made a saddle before. But if you get me that pattern and your measurements I can certainly try.’

>Components can be sourced from Cybernetic Zombies. This is a sample so you may calibrate your tools.

    Rose opened her chest wide enough to pull out a disturbingly uniform sheet of Cy-Zombie dermis, synthetic musculoskeletal fibers, and a few rods of ossified alloy. She rolled the fibers and bone alloy into a bundle using the ballistic skin before passing the roll to Cypher.

>Additional: Vulval designs produced by learning algorithms deemed insufficient. Included is a magazine with human females displaying their vaginas. Based on wear analysis, the pages most viewed have been earmarked as references for Jack’s preference in visual aesthetic. Your assistance in selecting or designing a sexual apparatus for This Unit would be appreciated. A ‘human touch’, as my Warden stated.

    “Rose, you did not just give Cypher one of my porn mags.”

***

    After Jack got everything he needed together, he and Rose followed Cypher down to their workshop on the market level. Cypher’s shop was too cramped for Rose so she simply plopped down onto her haunches right outside. The Innards were pleasantly lively, folks of all shape and stripe doing their best to make it another day. Jack left the Mother Dragon with his friend to make sure she wouldn’t wander while he did some much needed trading.

    While the Grabber was a solid kill, its insides were mostly unusable. Like most things found out in the wasteland, it was a miracle the beast had still been functioning. Aside from a pretty decent fluid pump, a good filter, and some general scrap, the rest was oil-tainted meat which Rose had already digested to top off her own fuel reserves. The valuable parts of a Grabber were its incredible limbs, coveted for their use as prosthetics, and the potent dynamos mounted in their chassis. Both would have required risky disassembly in an already dangerous situation. Still, it was enough to settle an outstanding debt Jack inherited after his first Scav mentor, Old Mack, got turned into pulp by the rear turret of a Europan Medium Mech. 

    However, a fist-sized data recorder that’d sealed itself upon the Grabber’s death actually put Jack’s funds in the green for the first time since becoming a Scav. Lysander was stalking around her usual haunt near the Euruskan Consolate station. She was a bit more relaxed, greeting Jack with less formality. The agent was happy to exchange the blackbox for a generous stack of credits.

    Jack used that to purchase desperately needed supplies. Firstly was a box of 7.62. The faded green metal box was several decades older than the Scav. Thankfully its contents were free of corrosion. A pair of decent first-aid kits joined the box soon after. Next he made a few exchanges with a rig dealer, changing out the water container and his long-broken lower right rig slot for a larger weapon rack to hopefully scoop up some more lucrative battlefield salvage.

    There were enough credits left over that Jack wasn’t going to go hungry for a little while at least. He was already regretting splurging on that Rust-Wheat.

    The bags he’d managed to cut free from the downed Grabber held numerous high-end tools for field repair. Even a hand-held Cyberflesh printer. Good for fabricating small parts or patches. Instead of selling the bits of kit, Jack gave all of it to Cypher once he returned from shopping. They tried to refuse, shaking their head. Jack insisted.

    “This is a down payment. You know I never expect you to work for free. Keep the bags too. See if you can’t attach them to the saddle. More carrying capacity. I don’t think we’re going to get much mileage out of Rose’s surgical abilities.”

    The Mother Dragon groveled low upon hearing these words.

>My Warden… This Unit wishes to know where my performance has failed you?

    “You haven't failed, Rose. We need credits. Money. Currency. Whatever you want to call it. It’s all well and good to have things to sell, but if no one’s willing to buy it, whatever organs or cybernetics we scavenge aren’t worth the effort of hauling them back here. It’d be better for us to focus on gathering more practical loot.”

    Cypher looked quite confused at the exchange. Jack gave them a brief rundown of what Rose was designed to do. While there was certainly individual demand for replacement organs, or their Cyberflesh equivalents, there wasn’t a dedicated seller because there wasn’t a reliable supply.

    The tailor furrowed their brow thoughtfully for a moment before signing to Jack. ‘I think I know where you should start looking. Watch my shop for a minute. I will be right back.’

    Jack tried not to let guilt convince him that he was just making more trouble for his friend and instead took the time to pack his worn rifle magazines with fresh ammunition.

    True to their word, Cypher soon returned with a man who looked to be the leftovers of life spitting out the leftover gristle of a man and one of the kids Jack recognized from yesterday. The one with the mismatched eyes. He hobbled over while the girl broke away to run fearlessly towards Rose. Cypher patted Jack on the shoulder as they walked back into their shop.

    “Excuse me, young man, you’re the one that came back with that… Recovery Unit?” An enduring strength undercut the old man’s tone.

    “Yes, I am.” Jack replied.

    “Then, it can harvest organs? Can it bring them back to the Innards?”

    “She can.”

    Desperation made the man forthright.

    “Adilah needs a new heart. She’s a tough one. Survived a bout with Gray Death. But it left its damnable mark. I’ve heard of someone in Downtown who trades in organs. A black market fellow named Craven. I was told he uses an old hotel, the Château de Coeur. I bartered for a transmitter, but even if I did get there, I’d have no way of getting anything back. I could take my granddaughter with me. Maybe Craven is able to do transplants too. But it’s too risky. No one else I’ve asked is willing to do it. Please, lad, I’m not begging for charity. I can pay you just fine. Find Craven. Tell him Keel sent you. And get my Adilah what she needs.”

    The grizzled elder held out a worn transmitter the size of a hand radio.

    While he was extremely hesitant, understanding why no one else had taken the job, Jack really didn’t have a choice. For one, he was desperate. For another, if he could find someone willing to buy the spoils of Rose’s recovery suite, could he turn down such a chance?

    He glanced back at Rose and saw Adilah playing under and over the Mother Dragon’s arms. The girl stumbled, damaged body unable to keep up with her desire to play. Fortunately Rose deftly caught the child and set her back on her feet. For just a moment, Jack was lost in the duality of the child’s eyes as their gazes met. One organic. One artificial. The organic one was cloudy with cataracts, original glossy brown patched over by encroaching blindness from her brush with Gray Death. The artificial eye was on the cheaper end. It was practical, if ugly. It was solid onyx, black finish reflecting a twisted mirror of the world.

    Which saw the future, and which saw the past? Did the original, with its decay, see the hopefulness of the past, or represent the uncertain future? Did the bionic, with its promise of clarity at the cost of the flesh, view what was with disdain, or look to what lay ahead with trepidation and fear?

    Jack told himself that such questions were only worth asking once more pressing ones like food, water, fuel, and ammunition were answered first. Then, with those luxuries could more philosophical quandaries be brought to the table.

    He looked back at Adilah’s guardian. Jack took the transponder with a nod of acceptance, not trusting his mouth to make promises he couldn’t keep.

***

    Even without a saddle, traversing Downtown Lost Angels with Rose was thankfully easy. Before they left, Cypher made a crude yet simple safety measure out of a few ratchet straps. Looped around Rose’s armpits, they gave Jack something better to hold onto than her interface cables at least. With just the steel reinforced straps, he was better able to appreciate Rose’s speed and agility. In the Downtown area, she almost never had to touch the streets themselves. Rifts in the Macro City’s structure that would’ve necessitated hours of circumnavigation were trivial for the Mother Dragon to cross. Though Jack still had to swallow his fear every time his stomach dropped out from under him.

    There were times drone flights or helicopters would force them to take cover, sometimes squeezed into alleyways while clinging to the sides of the buildings like a lizard tucked into concrete cracks. It made the Scav realize how important Cypher making them a saddle was going to be for their future success.

    Jack decided to make hunting Cy-Zombies their first priority. That way, even if they couldn’t find the Château de Coeur they wouldn’t be returning to the Innards empty-handed.

    Autonomous weapons outnumbered the living residents of Lost Angels. To your average Scav, a Eurasian Cybernetic Zombie was an omnipresent danger of simply existing. A Cy-Zombie was just as mercilessly capable of ending someone’s life as a stray artillery shell. They were akin to landmines in that they were scattered indiscriminately across the warzone, uncaring whether they maimed the enemy or bystanders. In other ways they were worse. Barring a few exceptions, landmines didn’t chase you.

    Much like weeds, or parasitic vermin, there was a constant need to cull them. A clever Scav could take a job to clear an area of Cy-Zombies from Europa, while also collecting their scouting data for Eurasia. A lone Cy-Zombie was a respectable threat even to an alert and armed Scav. But one which was manageably avoided or distracted.

    While mass-produced, Eurasian cybernetic industries were several generations ahead of their peers. Cy-Zombies felt no pain. No fear. No hesitation. They would throw themselves at the enemy with blood-boiling frenzy. To the clever, this made them predictable. Easily lured into killboxes or traps. Never to be underestimated however. In large enough numbers they could slaughter Europan conscripts, individual Zombies soaking up undisciplined fire and ripping poorly trained draftees apart while they reloaded.

    Having Rose made Jack rethink his usual hunting strategy. There were a few times when he had companions that they needed to bag some Cy-Zombies. They’d spend hours stalking a small group, waiting for one to veer off on its own or coaxing stragglers to separate. More often than not, such an opportunity never came.

    Silently, he directed the Dragon Mother to head parallel to Europan strongholds he knew of while keeping an eye out for solar-bombers. It wasn’t hard to follow the screams and cut between an encroaching horde and its target. Cy-Zombies were not a subtle application of force. Jack picked their perch carefully. They slipped into a building with a hole in it big enough for Rose. The rubble formed a barricade across the street below them. Waiting was his mantra. Patience was the virtue by which he lived. Stoic endurance let him weather the storm which had swept away so many others.

    Once he saw the leaders of the pack appear, Jack ducked back out of sight and instead relied on his sensors to watch. Hundreds of Cy-Zombies were soon rushing heedlessly below their hiding place. As the horde stampeded by, Rose calculated attacks that Jack shut down repeatedly. The tide of death flowed by, whipped into a frenzy and sent on a probing attack against a Europan defensive position further Downtown. A few streets over they could hear emplaced machine guns opening up on the horde.

    Above the proverbial waterline, Jack tried to find his calm center despite his racing heart. He knew terrible danger so close it could splash upwards and rip his face off if he wasn’t careful. No matter how horrific their injuries, as long as they could still move, Cy-Zombies would roam, run, hunt, and kill. Jack had personally watched Zombies with no limbs save for a single arm still crawling, driven by the implants in what was left of their brains to search and destroy.

    While the rubble barricade hardly slowed down the intact Cy-Zombies, the obstacle did help separate the trailing elements. As the monstrous torrent washed over the street, it inevitably left detritus in its wake.

    Jack waited, judging which ones were far enough behind not to raise an alarm before ordering Rose to reach out of their hiding places and launch one of her arm-mounted harpoons. Calibrated for capture instead of traversal, the subsonic projectile’s only noise was the thunk as it pierced the Zombie’s thigh as the monster attempted to climb the treacherous pile of concrete debris. Its weight was negligible to Rose, the Mother Dragon yanking the Zombie upwards into her waiting hand.

    Their chosen prey lacked arms, so clacked its metal teeth together. Rose gave its head a quick twist, severing skull from spinal column with merciful ease. Though the hellfire in its pinprick eyes still burned, the creature was limp as the Mother Dragon engulfed the Zombie with her surgical suite.

    While he was patient, Jack also knew when to be swift.

    A small gaggle of Cy-Zombies were alerted to danger. Though rather than seek cover, they milled about, searching for an enemy to vent their rage onto. These were the dregs. The barely functional. One by one, they were harpooned and hauled up. Rose slew each with the same clinical separation of cervical vertebrae. As she could only process one at a time, she laid her kills out beside her like a huge cat might display hunting trophies.

    It reminded Jack of spear hunting for rats back when he’d first made his way to The Innards. It was something of an initiation into becoming a Scav. Proof that he could survive by being resourceful. By taking what others might ignore or overlook.

    Once twenty Cy-Zombies lay disabled around Rose, enough for Cypher to potentially make two saddles, Jack had her stop and process their haul. The yield of internal cybernetic components was low from the already damaged Zombies. Compact atmospheric processors typically kept their brains oxygenated. Sometimes Cy-Zombies were implanted with crude biofuel digesters so they could eat and keep going. Most of the time all they had were batteries that would only last a few weeks. Well beyond their expected field survival times. In theory if they ran out of energy, a Mother Courage unit would pick up their beacon and take them to be recharged. Whether this was a mercy varied depending on who was asked.

    The Mother Dragon had enough internal storage for the valuable pieces at least. Using two more ratchet straps, Jack secured several heavy rolls of ballistic dermis and bundles of alloyed bones to Rose’s back.

    Nothing went to waste.

***

    Maps of the Macro City were often unreliable. The Night Shift was fighting with a canvas constantly reshaped by ordnance. Artists with artillery paintbrushes, demolition chisels, and other high explosive palettes, all vied to reshape Lost Angels in their image. Steel, concrete, ash and bone mixed together into slurries which flowed over, under, and through the branching growths of the city. Pyroclastic flows of glass and mud melted in the nuclear fires of the wars opening salvoes overshadowed every natural formation that had once been.

    So Jack was surprised when it didn’t take long at all to find the Château de Coeur. Through either luck or strategic insignificance, the old hotel slumped between more modern accommodations relatively intact. Peaceful pockets sometimes formed in the shifting landscape of the wasteland. Much like how a river might erode soft stone while leaving deposits of harder material, most of the surrounding streets were blocked, preventing heavier mechs or armor from getting too close to the hotel. Rose was able to nimbly scale over obstacles that sectioned off the Château de Coeur to all but foot traffic.

    A once broad entrance welcomed Jack and Rose in with a grinning mouth of teeth made of broken glass. The inside of the once classy hotel was a fine example of opulence in decay. Broken ceramic tiles crunched under the Mother Dragon’s tread. All that was left of a once wooden front desk was its granite facade which had been turned into a convenient fire pit. Most striking was the crystal chandelier in the middle of the floor. Its husk was festooned with candles. Many of which were lit, tiny flames refracted by the pile of iridescent crystals beneath.

    Jack slid off Rose's back, and flicked the switch on the transmitter. He held both hands out to his side in a sign of non-aggression. Behind the opaque visor of his helmet, Jack’s eyes flicked over the balconies of the floors above while checking his scanner obsessively.

    A skullish visage peaked out of a hole in the far wall where a staircase once stood.

    “Uhh, hi. Are you Craven?” Jack tried to remember his hostage negotiation flash training. “I am a, uh. I am here representing Mister Keel. He gave me this transponder so I could meet with you on his behalf. I was hoping we could discuss some trade?”

    Like a grub crawling free of its maggot-hole, Craven emerged and plopped onto the ground. It took everything in Jack not to reach for his weapon as the black market organ dealer approached. Craven was a truly fitting creature to squat in the former decadence of the hotel. Where a man might have legs, Craven was a steel centipede. A tubular body of rippling metal extended a good dozen feet behind him, skittering over the rubble on far too many limbs.

    “What? Who… Uh…”

    The cybernetic man-centipede’s voice was created by several speakers hanging around his neck that did not make the appropriate noise so much as they tortured the air with scalpels until the correct words were carved into shape.

    “Ah! You’ve noticed. You’ve noticed. Yes, yes, yes, quite the predicament. I’m sure you’re confused. I was too. But now I’m not confused. You’re familiar with my kind, aren’t you? What is your name?” Craven crawled uncomfortably close to Jack, seemingly ignorant or unconcerned of the threat the Mother Dragon posed.

    “I’m… Jack. And this is Rose.” Jack gestured to the Recovery Unit looming over his shoulder.

    “Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack and Rose. Jack and Rose. Very good. You have a very large wife, Jack. Her armored plating compliments her eyes.”

    “Rose isn’t-” Jack tried to interject before warped static ramblings drowned him out.

    “I’m sure you’ve noticed, Jack, that I am what you might call a Zombie. I assure you I am fully in control. Fully. Fully. Do you know what they do to someone like me? The process? Did you know the first organ they remove is the skin?”

    Craven was, in a word, twitchy. His repetitious speech may have been because of his questionable speakers, or just a symptom of insanity. He also didn’t sit still, constantly fidgeting, swaying back and forth on his lower extremities or playing with the dozens of crosses which hung about his cyborg neck that were tangled among his speakers.

    “No, I didn’t know that. I’ve never met a… Someone like you.” Jack put away the transmitter and rested his hands on the SA58 strapped to his chest.

>Unorthodox. Target has scan shielding. Intermittent coverage indicates incidental inclusion of resistant material. Unusual redundancy detected through shielding gaps. Why so many livers?

    “It’s quite the experience. The knives. Then the absence. Not having something. Errors happen in mass-production, you know? Especially when it comes to the human mind. They tell you the risks when you’re conscripted. They do. The knives make you forget about it. Quality control usually takes care of defects. Sometimes it happens in the field. A Citizen gets their head knocked a little too hard after being dropped by one of the solar bombers and jostles their aggression implant loose. And sometimes it happens on the line. While you're open. While you're apart.”

    Jack tuned out most of the insane ramblings. He’d heard worse.

    “So, anyway, I was hoping you had a heart for sale. Child-sized. That’s why I’m here. Mister Keel needs it for his granddaughter.”

    Craven chewed on each word, jaw gnashing at the air despite his voice not coming from there. “Hrn, child-sized? They don’t really make artificial ones. Not enough demand. That means the genuine article. Tricky. Not many kids left running around these days. Plenty of dead ones. Need fresh. And the likelihood of compatibility? Slim to none. That means an anti-rejection mesh. Those’re even rarer. If compatibility is an issue, just go artificial. Can’t do that with a kid.”

    Craven appeared to forget Jack and Rose’s presence as he held a conversation with himself.

    “Hrn, business has been slowing. Lines moving. Not enough Europan customers. Too many independents. Too much action? Too little? Been sitting on those neural sheath and Myomer bundles for too long. Sitting on too much product is bad for business.”

    Jack interjected to get the organ dealer back on track.

    “Why not come to the Innards? I see mercenary outfits moving through there all the time. Lots of contacts with the powers too. They’re sure to buy up lots of stuff. And, I’m sure you’ve noticed my friend. Rose is a Mother Dragon variant of the Mother Courage. She’s capable of extracting organs and cybernetics in the field and transporting them safely.”

>Abomination Craven is non-Orthodox. The efficiency of his form offends me. Requesting permission to make him more conforming to the Orthodox?

    Ignoring the draconic voice in his head advocating for violent reconstruction, Jack focused on the bizarre swathe of expressions that Craven’s skull face went through. Though it was mostly just different kinds of twisted grins.

    “Hrn, the lad proposes good business… All right. But not for free.”

    “Yeah, of course not.” Jack sighed. “I don’t have many credits right now. Would you be willing to trade?”

    “Trade. Trade is good. Trade is very good. Favors are good too. Tell me, lad, do you know the first organ removed when a Eurasian citizen is conscripted?”

    “I… Uh… Didn’t you already-”

    “The first organ is skin. They promise loyal citizens they will get their organs back after service. There’s a Eurasian Compliance Officer. You might call them Morale Enforcers. Political Officers. There’s one in particular who has something of mine. Something he didn’t pay for. I’d very much like it back. But that means he must be returned to me alive and…” Craven looked up at Rose. “Unprocessed. I have just the tool for it. Hold out your hand, Jack, and I shall give you a Dominator.”

    Being far too trusting, Jack did as Craven asked, holding out his right hand expecting some kind of device or weapon. Instead the Cy-Zombie grasped Jack’s hand with his own. Then Jack shouted as his whole arm exploded with pain. It felt as though an ant colony was burrowing into the meat of his palm. He tried to wrench himself free, but Craven’s Cyberflesh was stronger by several orders of magnitude.

    Rose moved with speed that belied her size. Two claws more than capable of ripping Craven’s upper half from his lower, grabbed the treacherous organ dealer. The threat was quite clear. The man-centipede addressed Rose directly.

    “Tut, tut, tut, I meant no harm. I did not calculate that the boy lacked compatible ports. Be at ease, Mother Courage. The Dominator can only pierce the flesh. It can only corrupt the corruptible. I shall release him in three. Two. One.”

    As soon as Craven let go, Rose pulled Jack protectively to her chest and tossed the man-centipede away. Her tail swayed, curling upwards to point its wicked tip at the offensive creature, ready to skewer him to the ground like the insect he was. The harpoon spools in her arms and chest tensed, making a sound quite close to a hiss. Craven was entirely unperturbed. It wasn’t the first time a Mother Courage had plucked, then discarded him as useless scrap. The organ dealer continued.

    “Make a gesture with your hand as if you are holding a handle and the Dominator shall manifest as a knife. Stab your target and the Dominator will infiltrate his nearest port and render him unconscious for a few hours. I’ll give you codes to turn it lethal after you’re done. Nasty little thing. The blade goes into a target and fragments into little bits that target the central nervous system.”

    Rose tended to Jack’s injured hand with several mechadendrites. A bit of targeted anesthetic took the edge off while a cocktail of anti-inflammatories kept his fingers from swelling too badly. She also layered a bit of antiseptic liquid bandaging to keep bacteria and debris out while the Dominator fused with Jack.

    “This isn’t… Standard issue.” Jack watched as Craven lifted the hand stained with the young Scav’s blood up to his mouth to lick it clean.

    “The former owner claimed he only needed it for one job. One job. Easy in and out. It works well as a concealed knife too. No serial numbers. Eurasian assassins don’t officially exist. I have a full sized Eviscerator. Though it would require replacing your arm from the elbow down.”

    “No, thank you.” Jack snapped, channeling his pain into rage.

    “Suit yourself. Bring me the bastard so I may collect what I am owed, and I shall be in your debt, Jack.”

    Before Jack left, Craven gave him a detailed breakdown on the target’s routine. An exact timetable for which forward operating bases the Eurasian officer would be at. When and where the man liked to give speeches. The distinguishing characteristics of his armor and what rank insignia to look for and where. What units were most closely guarding him and the composition of his command. What tactics would disrupt this routine. The other Eurasian command staff he came into conflict with. His exact height and approximate weight. His favorite foods. His field combat scores. How long he spent using the bathroom as well as which one he preferred at each outpost. And most importantly, what actions would prompt the officer to become isolated and exposed. What would draw him out into the open.

    Once Craven finished delivering useful information and veered off into rambling about Ravachiore venting his sexual appetites on Zombies with intact genitals, Jack took his leave.

    Rubbing his sore palm and trying to ignore the shifting movement of the Dominator worming into his bone and encasing his tendons, he was glad for the cold air outside. Jack would deal with the absolute horror of his flesh being so violated once he was in a place safe enough to have a mental breakdown. His absolute battlefield state of mind pushed the thoughts down under until they could be decompressed.

>This Unit would still like to disassemble the Craven one. Reassembly would not be necessary.

    Letting out a long sigh, Jack was tempted by the offer.

    “If he double crosses us, I’ll be happy to let you, Rose. Let’s see how the weather’s doing.” The Scav tuned his radio. Familiar words scrolled across the inside of his helmet. The pirate broadcast announcer was cheery as ever.

    Achtung! Wargasm Transmission Incoming.

    “Looks like we’re expecting a bit of a flood through Charlie-Zed Nineteen here shortly. I recommend taking cover because things are about to get mechanized out there. Major Europan dicks are set to fuck over some very non-consenting Eurasia pussies. Buckle up folks and watch for fireworks. I don't think they bought dinner first.”

    Pulling up a digital map, now updated with Craven’s meticulously detailed notes about Eurasian bases and the dispersion of their forces, Jack noted which base their target was supposed to be at and how close it was to the Europan offensive push. His Scav instincts picked out the best approaches. The paths in Downtown that heavy armor could actually traverse.

    It would be easy if the offensive swung just a little wider. Something to make the Eurasian outpost think it was being encircled. Just a little distraction to draw off the screening force of Cy-Zombies that Ravachiore liked to keep nearby according to Craven. Especially if the Europan special forces took note of it and moved to exploit the opening in the defenses. That would get the bastard out of the bunker if he was indeed there. Jack and Rose could hide on the back of the corpse of the Eurasian medium mech that straddled the bunker. But how would they lie in wait and provide a distraction at the same time?

    Looking back, Jack could see Craven still twitching, attaching fresh candles to the crystal chandelier of the Château de Coeur to light.

    “Hey, Rose, can you make more of those motion trackers from the Cy-Zombie parts we got? Like you did this morning?”

>Calculating allocation of redundant material from gathered troops… Yes, my Warden.

    “Can you put a gun on it?”

***

    First Class Cybernetics Morale and Compliance Officer Ravachiore cursed once, twice, then a third time before slamming his fist against the makeshift command console. The holographic image reporting the real time positions of Eurasian troops flickered under the blow. The Cybernetic Citizens were diverting away from the encroaching threat symbols of enemy forces. Without a good Cy-Zombie screen, Ravachiore’s outpost would soon attract the more direct attention of the Europan forces.

    Ravachiore’s repeated calls to his superiors were going nowhere. With the looming threat of Europan special forces, he was feeling the deep need to be elsewhere. That need was what let him ascend to such a lofty political position while so many others wallowed in the obscurity of frontline duty. After all, those most important to the war effort were given the highest priority to receive what was taken in the Organ Draft.

    He clicked over to listen in on squad chatter. While technically as a Compliance Officer he was in a separate command chain and unable to issue direct orders, he could still monitor communications for morale infractions. Some of the entrenched heavy weapons squads were reporting the theft of equipment and ammunition, but Ravachiore ignored that. It wasn’t like the Europans could scale over buildings and steal equipment. Of greater interest were calls stating that enemy elements were attacking the flank opposite to their main offensive. That was what was drawing his congregation of conscripted citizens away from their assigned places.

    It would be the perfect excuse to make a backwards advance to round up some of his errant flock. After all, his purpose wasn’t to meet the enemy. It was to inspire others to do so. Urge the citizens caught in the Cybernetic Draft to fulfill their duty and get their reward. Controlling the undisciplined rabble required a steady hand. That was why his sermons were always performed with two pistols in hand.

    The Shrake pattern assault revolver sat in its holster, never having been fired, next to its counterpart; the Exigent Arms Class 7. The XAC-7 was a marvel of Eurasian morale enforcement. In theory it was non-lethal, its combined chemical propellant and magnetic rail designed to launch flechettes that reacted on contact with soft tissue, be it organic or cybernetic, to release a crippling burst of targeted, nerve-scrambling current. Sometimes the darts were a bit too potent, but such was the price sometimes for maintaining order.

    Perimeter units of the outpost were already reporting UAVs following the Cy-Zombies as they chased whatever enemy squad had been deployed to lead them off course. It wouldn’t be long before Europan Exos began hammering their position.

    Ravachiore exited the armored bunker and moved with purpose towards the rear, passing beneath the dead shell of an enemy mech that had long been disabled which served as a decent artillery shelter as he did so.

    Ravachiore felt something impact his armor. Then his world spun and he had the distinct feeling of rapid acceleration. As if the hand of God Himself had reached down to pluck Ravachiore from the muck and the trenches to catapult him elsewhere. Before the man could regain his bearings, his sight was filled with the angular face of a biomechanical dragon.

    Then a pain bloomed in his arm and the world went dark.

***

    Ravachiore awoke to find himself tied quite securely to a table in nothing but his underwear. The Morale Compliance Officer tried to speak and found himself gagged. As quickly as consciousness left him, it came back just as rapidly. The room he found himself in had no windows. The only light came from a blinding spotlight shining directly overhead. Glass tanks lined the walls, filled with limbs or unrecognizable lumps of meat. A vitals monitor beeped and voices gradually became words he could understand.

    “Well done, Jack! Good lad, good lad, good lad. And so quickly too. Never doubted. Never doubted.” A manic joy colored the static-riddled noise from the speakers around Craven’s neck. The black market organ dealer was as twitchy as ever, wringing his hands and swaying more excitedly than a Zydrate addict about to get their next hit.

    With how Ravachiore was blinded by the strong cast in his face, all he could really see were the shadowy silhouettes of his captors. The vitals monitor started beeping faster as the Eurasian officer caught the unmistakable pinprick lights of Craven’s Cy-Zombie eyes.

    “Just remember what we agreed to.” Jack demanded in clear terms. He was uncomfortable down in the bowels of Craven’s den within the Château de Coeur without Rose. Despite telling himself that it was to get an innocent girl a heart and a potential buyer for Rose’s harvests, he wanted this business concluded.

    At least the young Scav had something to show for his efforts outside of a hand modified without his consent. The obsessive detail of the outpost was what allowed him and Rose to steal the guns and ammo they’d used in the automated turrets that drew out their target. As if guided by the lingering rage of the Cy-Zombies, the macabre turrets were brutally effective and Jack had kept two in reserve for later use. All of the Eurasian officer’s gear was also stored away on Rose’s back. Jack had no intention of offering any of it to Craven, having delivered the madman’s prize stripped of weapons and clothing. Craven didn’t seem to mind.

    “Don’t worry. Don’t you worry, Jack. Jack. Jack. As soon as I’m done here, I’ll pack up and meet you in your charming Innards. I know a few fellows who can source that heart you’re after. New ventures. New business and all that. Tell your wife, Rose, that I’ll have a nice gift basket or something to make up for my rudeness earlier.”

    “Rose isn’t my-”

    “Now, off, off, off. Good day. Safe travels. Au revoir. Tschüss. I have private matters if you don’t mind.”

    Jack gave the man strapped to the table a brief glance, and hurried out, having no interest in lingering while Craven collected whatever debt was owed. For a few seconds that stretched into minutes there was only silence, broken only by the beeping of machines.

    Now alone with the bearer of his most priceless property, Craven’s twitchiness subsided. He crawled over to Ravachiore with exaggerated slowness, relishing each step. The man-centipede loomed over the prone officer until they were practically nose to nose. The metal skull face was frozen in its rictus grin while the flesh one became paralyzed by fear.

    With care usually reserved for extracting Cyberflesh nerve bundles, Craven enunciated his words with the barest hint of his usual static.

    “Good day, First Class Cybernetics Morale and Compliance Officer Ravachiore. Did you know, during conscription, the first organ removed is skin?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

Matters Of Flesh

Flesh and bone and steel and rust

Grind me down to the finest dust

Sprinkle my dust onto the ground

Beneath the grey so green can abound

Ash and ash and ash and ash

Tooth of beast and man do gnash

What difference then between the two

When gristle and fat both jaws chew

What does flesh matter when steel is nice

Replace my blood with stone and ice

Trenches deep and chasms wide

The motherland calls and I abide

Lift me up like the angel on its pike

Bring me back down with an artillery strike

Hunt me kill me break me bruise me

In the end death will set us all free

    -Common Europa nursery rhyme

***

    Cypher finished the saddle for Rose with incredible speed.

    Their fabrication machines, fed with raw material and blueprints took care of the heavy lifting, but plenty of manual labor was needed to put together such a large item. Rose sat dutifully outside of the tailor’s shop while Jack and Cypher hauled the pieces between them. The Mother Dragon politely took the components and held them in place while they were secured.

    The heavy straps went around the base of her neck, criss-crossed between her two sets of arms while staying just above where her chest opened, across her sternum at the bottom of her surgical suite, and lastly looped around her thighs, snug with her hips much like a climbing harness. The seat was not one solid piece and instead consisted of several segments of ossified alloy molded to fit snugly against Rose’s reinforced spine so that the whole assembly could flex without restricting any of the Mother Dragon’s movements. Mostly composed of mottled greys and blacks, the color did not compromise Rose’s midnight scales or hide.

    The craftsmanship was a thing to be admired, certainly, though Jack couldn’t help but be a bit skeptical about one thing.

    “Cypher, what’s with these?” The young Scav lifted a line of disembodied Cy-Zombie hands dangling from the saddle. Another set of macabre trophies was on the other side.

    ‘I'm not actually sure. Do you know what a stirrup is? That was what the schematic said.’

    Though each of them had received basic education, enough to know what a saddle was, or even that people in ancient times would ride a creature known as a horse, the nuances of such things were beyond the two. The Mother Dragon had no such gaps in knowledge, and slotted a neural interface connector into the saddle. Jack yelped, nearly tripping back over his own feet when the hands moved, as if still guided by the rage implants of their previous owners. The Zombie bits settled and Rose offered one of her uplink cables so she could speak to her Warden.

>Establishing connection with new system. Jack, please mount me so calibration may take place.

    Rose offered two of her forelimbs as steps, and while still a bit unnerved, it wasn’t good to make a habit of second guessing a partner who might be fighting with you in a life or death situation. The young Scav climbed up. Instead of a saddle horn, there were handles on either side that helped Jack seat himself properly.

    It was a marvel.

    Time spent bareback taught him to appreciate the cushioned layer of padding and supple Cy-Zombie dermis between him and the melted bone-metal. To his horror, the line of hands were his stirrups. Fingers wrapped around his boots, ankles, and calves. The many digits palpated his lower extremities as Rose calculated grip strength. Once he got over the initial revulsion, Jack found the macabrely repurposed limbs were surprisingly secure.

>Stirrups calibrated. Rapid mounting and dismounting is now available. In the event of emergency maneuvers, please utilize provided handles. Rider is now secure even in the case of total inversion.

    Using her long, flexible neck, Rose swung her head around to regard her Warden. She nudged her nose plate into his stomach. Jack reciprocated, rubbing the Mother Dragon’s face where her cheeks would be as he admired the warmth of the gesture despite her lack of any facial features.

>This is proper. Safe. Warden is safe. User/Operator is safe. Orthodox.

    Cypher clapped their hands to get Jack’s attention. ‘Having fun up there loverboy?’

    Jack flipped up his middle finger. Without his mask and helmet on, his smile made the crude gesture more playful than insulting.

    From his perch, motion caught his attention. A fellow was struggling with a ramshackle gun near the open shaft of the Innards. Without a second thought he climbed down while Cypher helped finish fitting Rose and walked over. Cypher glanced over to see what their Scav friend was doing and simply shrugged.

>Cypher, what is Jack doing?

    ‘Don’t worry about it. If he sees someone struggling, he can’t help himself.’

    Jack sat next to the fellow and gestured towards the uncooperative firearm. With a sigh, the man handed it over.

    The Innards was a refuge. Many people were simple non-combatants displaced by the war. Innocent people just looking for somewhere safe to hide. And an unfortunate truth of the world was the ability to deal violence was often the only protection against violence.

    Pulling back the bolt, Jack took his turn to fight with the homemade AK. Cobbled together from stamped sheet metal and 3d printed polymer components with bone resin, the design was rugged. However, small components made of that resin could crack without much warning, rendering the weapon inoperable. The young Scav went down his mental list of simple malfunctions such a weapon could suffer that he could fix without tools. No matter how frustrating the exercise, Jack viewed it as a sort of community service. While it had been a while since the Innards had come under attack, it could happen, and the more people willing to defend their home the better.

    Rose joined him as soon as the final fittings on her saddle were tightened. While the man was a bit alarmed by the Mother Dragon, he stayed put. For her part, Rose settled onto her belly and folded her many arms like a great cat. Only a slight tilt of her head betrayed the direction of her focus.

>Warden, the Keel man appears to wish to speak with you.

    Jack glanced up to see which way Keel was coming from, then returned to the gun in his lap.

    “Jack! Jack! Craven is here. He’s really, actually here. He doesn’t have a heart for Adilah, like you said, but he says he should be getting a big shipment soon! It’s not a guarantee, but there’s hope.” A smile pulled the wrinkles of the old man’s face, making him look much younger. He probably was younger, relatively speaking. Just aged by life.

    “I don’t like being called a liar, Keel.” Jack stated flatly. A Scav’s reputation determined whether they got decent work. Scavs that couldn’t get decent work rarely lived long. No amount of convincing had swayed Keel to believe that Jack returned from Downtown successfully. The spirit of the machine was with him in that moment as he was able to finesse the AK and its bolt closed with a gratifying clack. He handed the gun over to the ragged man next to him with instruction to make sure the iron sights were lined up before expecting anything out of it.

    “Are you… A gunsmith?” Keel rather awkwardly took the AK man’s place next to Jack.

    “I’m not a gunsmith. I just like to dabble. I enjoy guns.” Though he didn’t like to use them. “I help a lot with the gun parts crafting station. Really I like most any machine I can get to work. PDAs, Laptops.”

    The young Scav took his helmet in both hands, turning it around to look into its hi-tech visor. While the whole thing was originally Eurasian, Jack had gradually replaced broken bits with better parts he’d scraped together. The mask was distinctly Europan with its breathing apparatus and steel fangs welded on. Buckled over top, and holding everything together was a Euruskan Conquerer helm with a hardened crest and flat brim. Clusters of rangefinders and scanners mounted to the steel brim stared back like the eyes of tiny electronic parasites that made up Jack’s tactical cameras.

    “I’ve been working on getting the pieces together to make my own rig. The idea is to use some of the containers to integrate flexible mounts. With the right parts, I could modify my rig to mate with Europan, Eurasian or Euruskan components. Europan Hunter Killers will sometimes use downscaled Exo components. A kind of powered frame to tote around that armor.”

    Jack of course left out the fact that Hunter Killers were also usually demons, severed hands of AWOL soldiers and thieves hanging from their person. Jack had seen one once, lips having been cut off either through self-mutilation or sadistic torture, drooling from all the combat stims pumping through his veins.

    “Eurasian Brawlers wear suits that use synthetic muscles. I’ve seen some with controllable robotic mounts that could use extra weapons or trigger smoke grenades.”

    He’d also seen a single Brawler purposefully walk through a storm of small caliber fire, using their heavy machine gun to shoot only legs, leaving the wounded to be ripped apart by the torrent of Cy-Zombies on their heels. The choir which arose would’ve made the denizens of the 5th circle of hell pause.

    “And then there’s the Orgamech. The Euruskans have some really crazy tech. I almost had an Orgamech’s arm once. But I wasn’t gonna die trying to get it.”

    The arm in question was lying in the middle of no man’s land. After ripping apart two Exos and two dozen men with its one remaining arm, the owner retrieved the lost limb as one might casually pick up a discarded weapon. The Orgamech walked back to its lines even while an artillery barrage commenced, as if the high explosives were no more than summer rain.

    It felt silly to talk about. But it was something he could work towards. It was a goal. Of sorts. A dream to keep him company in the quiet moments when the dead earth pressed in on all sides. Each side of the war had their strengths, and Jack took great satisfaction in exploiting what worked. Europan robotics, Eurasian synthetics and cybernetics, and lastly Euruskan biotech.

    “Where’d you learn how to do all this?” Keel asked after a bit. The older man looked between his tragically younger counterpart and the Mother Courage slaved to a draconic shell sitting obediently at Jack’s feet. The Scav’s stormy eyes and ash stained hair made it feel as though the surface itself was judging Keel.

    Jack simply shrugged. “I’ve kinda done a bit of everything.”

    “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Jack of all trades’?”

    “Yeah, the old Mask Man that trained me a bit called me that. I have a different birth name. But I don’t think that’s me anymore.”

    “Jack suits you.” Keel cleared his throat. “Listen, I know as a Scav there are times you can’t avoid fighting. Everyone survives by doing what we can. My business is bullets. I’ve been… Working on getting some proper ammunition. The good stuff. Not that surplus crap.”

    “You still haven’t paid me.” Though annoyed, the prospect of decent ammo piqued Jack’s interest. “What do you have in three-oh-eight?” While he tried to be selective with his shots, with a fifty round magazine and full auto, his SA58 could get quite thirsty.

    “Plenty of standard rounds. AP as well. I’ve also got some ultralight steel tips that’ve been hot loaded. They’re fast, I promise you that. The one thing I haven’t gotten my hands on yet is some depleted uranium in any caliber. Once I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

    “Do you have anything for this?” Jack pulled out his Shrake. The young Scav quite liked the virgin revolver. Its long barrel was aligned with the bottom chamber rather than the top for more manageable recoil. The space between the barrel and the top rail was taken up by 

    “Shit, you’ve got some real stopping power in your hands right there. This thing’s got a hardened cylinder. It can handle some seriously powerful shells. I’ve heard commanders and Assaulters like to use these. Here, here!” Keel reached into his many layers of clothing before pulling out a small case.

    Like a sample platter of brass and smokeless powder, a variety of colored bands denoted different payloads of the exotic caliber. Incendiary armor-piercing. High explosive armor-piercing. Cryogenic. And something bizarrely labeled as ‘Silver Nails’. Taking the case with its 28 waiting litanies outlining the geometry of violence, Jack handed it to Rose for safe keeping.

    “How many more of those do you have?” Jack would use the Shrake for sermons much like its previous owner. Though, it felt more as though the Eurasian political officer had merely been holding the weapon until its proper wielder had come along. And Jack’s prayers would be etched upon the shifting stone of Lost Angels with much greater noise and fury.

    “Not a lot. But you can have it. And I’ll try to get more.” Keel promised.

    “I’ve got an XAC-Seven as well.” Jack pulled out the slimmer pistol much to Keel’s immediate interest.

    “Now that’s a collector’s item. The factory that made these blew up some time ago. Can’t make ‘em anymore.”

    The two exchanged a look, Keel realizing he tipped his hand a bit. Jack wasn’t about to let such an opportunity go.

    “I’ll trade it to you for all that three-oh-eight you mentioned.”

    “Deal.”

***

    After the rather uncomfortable, though ultimately profitable exchange with Keel, Jack used the excuse of going to visit Craven to break away. With Rose happily acting as his shadow, the Scav found the abomination worming his way into a ripe, untended portion of the Innards.

    “Jack! Good on you for paying me a visit. Come, come, come, come! Come have a seat in my parlor, said the spider to the fly! Well, as soon as I have seats. Don’t have those yet. You have lovely Innards, Jack. Quite well hydrated. And miss Rose! I haven’t forgotten your gift basket, dear.”

    Peeking through the opening behind Craven at the hundreds of blood bags dangling from the ceiling, connected to some kind of reservoir that included a chemical additive that made the liquid inside give off a distinctly ruddy glow, Jack decided not to take the man-centipede up on his offer. The two talked business.

    While Craven brought much of his equipment and current stock on his far too long back, there was still quite a bit he’d been forced to leave behind. While Jack and Craven discussed what the man-centipede would need and what he’d be willing to pay for it, another representative of one of the great warring powers approached them.

    One by the name of Kane.

    “Ah, good, you’re both here. That saves me some time.” The man spoke with heavy derision. Though calling him a man was a bit generous. Eurasian Cyborgs came in many different flavors. Usually, the more autonomy they had, the higher ranking they were.

    Kane and Craven could not have been more different. Despite his obvious battle scars, bullet craters and stripped armor, his cybernetics were much more expensive looking. He wore nothing save for religious iconography, either around his neck or etched into his chest to proudly display the superior Eurasian engineering.

    “You removed a rather important individual.” The Cyborg spoke to both Jack and Craven, directing his accusation at both of them. The representative’s arrogance was palpable, pointedly ignoring the deadly form of the Mother Dragon. “We can’t have word getting out a Non-Aug or deserter did this, now can we?”

    Jack knew Kane by reputation and chose to jump in before Craven said anything too crazy.

    “He didn’t seem like that great a guy. Wasn’t he in the middle of retreating? Isn’t battlefield desertion punishable by conscription into being a Cy-Zombie?”

    Kane ignored Jack’s response entirely.

    “Well, unfortunately because the officer cannot be interrogated to ascertain motive, who can say? Fortunately for you both, Ravachiore will now be venerated as a martyr, having given his life to inspire the troops. He had a bit too much flesh for my liking anyway. I’ll cut straight to the point, Virtual Command easily identified what you did, but are willing to offer you both a bit of rope. Whether you use it to hang yourselves, or climb back into our good graces, is your choice to make.”

    “Listen, favors are all well and good, but no matter what your bosses say about relations, I can’t work for free.” At Jack speaking the word ‘free’, Craven began to twitch with minor fits.

    Kane scoffed like a man being told that the whiskey being poured into his coffee wasn’t vintage. Then, with grudging indignation, he sighed.

    “I’ve been provided with a Reactive-Camouflage tank shroud to offer as incentive upon your return. Big enough to cover your beastie. Not to mention a very generous shipment of water.”

    Jack nodded. “What’s the job?”

    “There is a field hospital that’s been put in place to handle casualties from the Europan offensive that provided cover for your little snatch and grab. Attempts to provide needed medical supplies via drones have been… Difficult. You,” Kane gestured towards Craven’s obscene bulk, “will be given a list of items that I will purchase from you. At a fair discount might I add. And you,” Kane turned his attention to Jack. “will be delivering said items while your pet provides what assistance it can to our medics. Before you leave I will give you a sealed manifest with the contents of your cargo, Scav. You will give this manifest upon delivery to confirm you haven’t skimmed anything off the top.”

>This Unit wishes to deconstruct this Cyborg. I want to find the organ which contains his beliefs and dissect his faith. This would be Orthodox.

    Sensing and sharing his partner’s irritation, Jack reached back to stroke Rose’s chest and neck, soothing both their humors by indulging in the pleasing tactile feel of her Penrose pattern scales.

    “A tempting offer to be sure. But how far through hostile territory are Rose and I going to have to travel in order to get to the field hospital safely? Wouldn’t it be better to give me the shroud now? Insurance to make sure your investment pays off. I’ll even stay here to help you and Craven pack everything up while my friend Cypher gets the shroud fitted to Rose. That way I can see the manifest before you seal it to make sure I’ve gotten everything before I leave. Just to be sure.”

    While Jack had no intention of turning down the job, not wishing to draw the direct ire of one of the greater powers, he also had no intention of getting screwed over.

    “You’re pushing your luck, Scav.” Kane’s singular eye glared at Jack with cyclopean irritation.

    Jack merely shrugged. “I’m only trying to live to see another day. Our success reflects on you, Kane. In this instance, I think that benefits both of us, wouldn’t you agree?”

    With as much pettiness as he could muster, Kane tossed a data stick at the man-centipede and stalked away to get the shroud.

    “Sorry you got mixed up in this too.” Jack spoke to Craven with genuine regret.

    “You’re a very sincere boy. But no, no. Don’t be sorry, Jack. Don’t be. While the stingy bastard’s bastard’s bastard made sure I’m not making a profit on anything he’s demanding, getting to see him squirm and wiggle. Wiggle? Squirm? Squiggle? Was worth it.”

    Craven patted the top of the Mother Dragon’s hand that was closest to him and cackled like a crow being fed feet first through a pulverizer.

    “Rose, darling, bring me back a souvenir from the field hospital, would you?”

***

    The journey to the field hospital was an arduous one.

    Miles of darkness stretched in all directions as Rose crawled along the many pipes or other handholds through the subcutaneous layer just below the skin of the superstructure. Many times they were forced to navigate the path upside down. The Innards were deep within Lost Angels. A necessary reality of most havens for the wayward in the macro city. Safe routes to and from the surface were one of the most valuable things a Scav could possess.

    Rarely was there such a thing as a direct route.

    All manner of horrors infested Lost Angel’s strata. Cy-Zombies were sometimes the least of a civilian’s worries just trying to survive. Sometimes an apartment block was ordered to evacuate, then if by some miracle the evacuation was lifted, the denizens would find their homes booby trapped to catch enemy soldiers. Chemical agents could sometimes lurk in pipes for years, only released if ruptured or by ancient air circulators powering on. Autonomous kill drones tuned only to heat signatures could eviscerate dozens before running out of ammunition and detonating suicide charges.

    Most insidiously deadly were the biological weapons that waited, eternally patient, for more victims to disturb microscopic particles. Neither fire nor radiation could truly cleanse the worst pathogens. Eventually these cancerous cells would scab over, the Night Shift either filling in or sealing off areas because traffic in or out ceased. Plenty of Scavs met their end, thinking they’d found newly dead soldiers only to find the corpses were preserved because the ancient bioweapons annihilated even the microbes which would’ve begun decomposition.

    Still, the living had to carry on.

    Some paths were now closed to Jack, with Rose unable to squeeze through pipes that a man and a rig might be able to use. However, new ways were open to them. Rose was designed with movement in vertical battlefields in mind and was surprisingly well adapted to the underground. The Mother Dragon was able to exploit insertion points that Jack would’ve needed several hours and heavy climbing gear to use. Even burdened by the heavy crates full of medical aid, her harpoons let them clear dizzying chasms of the macro city’s aging superstructure.

    From a crumbling vent stack, Rose crawled forth. Numerous artillery shells made their mark on the stack in barrages past, yet the reinforced concrete core still stood. Perching among the dead machines still clinging to the core, they had a commanding view of the rolling bunker hills and trench valleys. While it had been a bit of a rush job on Cypher’s part, the Reactive Camouflage covered much of Rose. The shroud helped blend the Mother Dragon’s deep black body with the rusted metals and shattered concrete of her surroundings.

    From his perch, Jack was able to look over Rose’s shoulder and see the designated meeting point near what had to be the field hospital just a hundred meters distant. In a twisted irony, Jack was given a transmitter to signal his arrival to the Eurasian forces that was nearly identical to the one he’d used to catch Craven’s attention.

    Despite what he was told, Jack didn’t trust Eurasian troops not to just shoot him immediately. So, he flicked the transmitter with his back against the extraction point and waited. Looking through Rose’s more extensive scanning suite, he spotted a group of signatures moving quickly towards the meeting point almost immediately.

    A trio of barely armed Eurasian medical personnel emerged from a nearby bunker. No Cyborg murder squad. No ambush. Just a few barely augmented medics who looked quite lost this close to the frontlines, jumping at the distant thump of heavy guns.

    Rose slithered down from the vent stack and covered the distance in short order. Though the medics were startled by the Mother Dragon’s sudden appearance, they were not surprised that a third party showed up.

    They led Jack and Rose into the worn bunker complex. It was the shell of a forward outpost that had likely changed hands dozens of times in its existence. A locus of trenches connecting to various defensive nodes. The group crossed a landing pad where insectoid Eurasian drones dropped off bloody parcels of the dead or dying. Huge doors that once opened onto a hangar for armored aircraft or perhaps an ammunition depot was now an area that had been hastily converted to handle mass casualties. Row upon row upon row of gurneys lined the space filled with the wounded and dying.

    Keenly aware of the multiple groups of armed Cyborgs running to and fro, none of them paid Jack or Rose any mind. Today at least, they were useful. Today at least, they were deemed not worth shooting. This state was transient. Temporary. The endless storm of war only abated long enough for the great powers to muster their strength. Like great tectonic plates, mounting tension built until the earth broke and the quakes of conflict could split the ground and sky with renewed fervor.

    The Scav and his Mother Dragon were approached by a person ostensibly in charge. The head doctor looked as cooked as a trench rat drenched in white phosphorus. Many different kinds of fluids stained her, blood, oil, and various flavors of bile covering her smock and elbow length gloves.

    “What are you idiots doing? Get those supplies broken down!” Despite her weariness, steel underlined every word the head doctor spoke.

    Orderlies leapt into action, cracking open crates of medical supplies as quickly as Rose was able to lift them from her back to the ground. Despite Kane making such a big deal out of the medics checking the manifest, no one seemed to give a shit about the integrity of Jack’s delivery.

    The head doctor was the maestro of a mad symphony. One of tourniquets and ampules. One that tried to staunch the bleeding even as the very fabric of the world pulled the threads of fragile lives to snapping. She yanked off her soiled gloves. Despite her surprisingly organic face, her hands and arms were elegant silver cybernetics. Every gesture and command were executed with scalpel-like precision. Bandages, antiseptics, first aid kits, and coagulants were quickly disseminated from triage to emergency surgical theaters.

    Though the Eurasian doctor’s work was not without obstacles. Despite Jack and Rose delivering a blessing that could save hundreds of lives, it wasn’t enough. For the last crate, Jack hopped down to open personally. Inside were the most valuable supplies by far. Pouches and more esoteric containers with chemicals that the Scav had never heard of sat alongside saline canisters that acted as carrier fluids for nanite payloads able to be programmed before use.

    “And of course they send me infusions, without any fucking equipment! How in the love of fuck am I supposed to administer any of this?” The woman’s attention snapped to Jack. “You, Scav, can your machine use this?”

>Affirmative, this Unit is equipped with variable delivery systems for subcutaneous, intramuscular, and intravenous injections.

    “Yes, she can.” Jack answered, resigned to what was about to come next as soon as the doctor started talking about equipment.

    “Follow me.” The woman commanded, turning into the field hospital and directing her staff to make a path for Rose. The doctor spoke quickly as she moved down the line, rattling off treatments for wounded soldiers

>Switching to multiple external patient care.

    Though Jack’s face was hidden by his helmet, he got a good view of the doctor’s subtle shift in surprise and disgust as two of Rose’s forelimbs split open to deploy wriggling mechadendrites. Passing her tools over writhing bodies, saws and scalpels opening organic parts the Eurasian armed forces still possessed while suturing others closed just as quickly. Soon the edges of her shroud turned red. Whether through the smart material changing color to her surroundings or through genuine stain was impossible to tell.

    Jack was far from passive as Rose worked. The young Scav gathered canisters from the crate and slotted them into interface ports along the Mother Dragon’s drug delivery system. Whenever a longer transfusion was needed, Rose would often repurpose a soldier’s own veins into tubing to deliver needed liquid solutions. When the dead were available, she’d use material from cadavers to accomplish the same.

    “Doctor Corde, these patients aren’t your priority.”

    Once humans prayed to meek gods. To petty gods. To ephemeral gods. Now their gods walked the shattered fields of war, shedding things like mercy or forgiveness in favor of ordnance and composite steel. Faith shielded them as much as explosive reactive armor did. Artillery strikes could be called down more easily than lightning to smite the apostate and non-believer. After all, what was an atheist to a 155 mm airburst fragmentation shell?

    The Heavy Brawler was an avatar of the Eurasian gods of violence. Nine feet of synthetic muscle and ballistic plating that could withstand projectiles designed to knock out light vehicles. Accolades, kill tallies, and Europan dog tags mashed together into ornaments hung about their person. One forearm of the Brawler’s suit sported a trio of barrels from integrated firearms while the other hung dangerously close to a monstrously oversized trench knife that was anything but a slab of sharpened metal. Any soldier who carried magnetic anti-armor charges were either suicidally deluded, or supremely capable. The Heavy Brawler had three such charges on a bandolier that draped down from their right shoulder. When the multiple glowing eyes of the helmet turned his way, Jack’s heart instinctively thudded harder.

>Threat Assessment: Extreme. Do not engage.

    Doctor Corde stood fearlessly before the Heavy Brawler, nearly half the other’s height.

    “Every patient I can save is a priority, Devil Eater. Your Brawlers have already gotten the best care I can manage. The dead are dead. The ones who could be stabilized are. The few who could be restored to independent locomotion have already been sent back to more extensive repair facilities.”

    Devil Eater turned their attention from the doctor to Jack. They simply pointed at Jack and gestured for him to follow. Doctor Corde protested, but tagged along as the Mother Dragon and her handler were guided to an adjoining chamber. There were a few Brawlers in critical condition taking up multiple beds each. After a short discussion between Rose and Doctor Corde with Jack acting as an intermediary, it was agreed that the last of the programmable nanite solution be used.

    The young Scav didn’t want to know how much such advanced medicine was worth. Though it did confirm his suspicions. This wasn’t a standard field hospital. No, the Eurasians wouldn’t put so much effort into saving a bunch of disposable line troopers. The whole area was to serve an elite unit which had blunted the Europan assault.

    The technological race between the different powers was an ongoing one, done in parallel to the actual war itself.

    Such as it ever was in the war. Who could make better soldiers, faster? Who could make better weapons, faster? More ammunition? More tanks? More mechs? More drones? Who could get information to the command bunkers? Who could feed their troops better? Who could make the next breakthrough? Who could feed their soldiers most effectively?

    Jack was fairly certain that without war, everything would collapse. It simply was. A fact. An immutable truth. Though he did not know the word for it, Jack regarded death as an axiom upon which the world turned. Not natural death. Such a thing was an outlier. But violent death. Death at the hands of an enemy. The world could not exist without it. Blood watered the corpse garden which nourished the undying earth.

    Devil Eater spoke through a warbling voice modulator that lent them a choral echo.

    “AI Battlefield Director Theta has taken command of this region and is ordering a fighting retreat to link up with Euruskan mechanized forces to our south. Theta has designated a few rearguard units to hold until the evacuation is complete. Once the enemies have crossed the line Theta has designated, the area will be saturated by drone bombs. Solar bombers are en route to drop conscripts after the saturation bombing has been completed.”

    Doctor Corde’s displeasure was immediate. Tapping an ear implant that served as a communicator, she launched into a tirade against whoever was on the other side.

    “And I told you I don’t give a shit! The dead are dead! I’m more concerned with the living.” Whoever the doctor was talking to did not like that answer and Doctor Corde’s face screwed into an even fouler expression. “I realize that! I don’t care how top secret the implants are… Yes… No, we used all our cremation charges already. Yes… I have…” She stared at Rose. “Yes, I have a disposal solution.” Doctor Corde gave a curt nod to the Heavy Brawler and moved with haste back to the main hospital area.

    Once Rose was done giving the last of the nigh-irreplaceable medicine to the injured Brawlers, she and Jack were led by Devil Eater alone to yet another building. This one was a smaller mech hanger that’d been made into a morgue-shrine to both house and honor the dead. Rose was only just able to slip between the titanic doors that’d long ceased working.

    Seven Eurasian Brawlers were laid out with plastic sheets covering them. Beneath the sheets, the Brawlers were naked, having been already stripped of their equipment. Hundreds of candles surrounded the sacred dead with wisps of incense sheltered from the scouring wind outside. The ceiling was a shadowy lattice of beams that once supported mech repair equipment that now simply acted as bones to the cavernous space.

    To Jack’s shock, Devil Eater removed their helmet to reveal the goddess buried under layers of combat armor. Dark lines traced the synthetic alabaster skin. Perfect, iridescent hair fell in waves down a face that would’ve made master sculptors weep at their own inadequacy. Diamond eyes looked down on the Non-Aug Scav. Beauty belied the killer beneath.

    “You speak for the Mother, yes?”

    “I do.” The young Scav kept his speech succinct.

    “Will my comrade’s souls be returned to the Great Machine? Will their Cyberflesh live on?”

    Jack and Rose turned to face each other, geometric angles staring into inscrutable visor.

>My Warden, this Unit’s religious logarithmic functions are struggling to come up with appropriate projections based on new battlefield data. Dragon symbolism continues to form a strong basis, however anthropomorphic estimates of cultural values are deviating outside expected parameters. More data is required. New theological doctrine is being formulated for this Unit to garner recognizable divinity across ecclesiastical denominations.

    “The Mother Dragon was sent so that your fallen could be reborn in her sacred body. She will carry their deeds and their souls to the Great Machine.” The words came from Jack’s brief stint as cupbearer to a Eurasian frontline Bishop. While probably not perfect, they were close enough to what the Devil Eater wanted to hear.

    Devil Eater nodded once before putting her helmet back on and marching out of the morgue-shrine with disturbingly quiet grace.

    This was the real reason Kane approached Jack and Rose for the job. It wasn’t really to deliver medical supplies. It was an excuse to keep valuable cyber tech from falling into enemy hands. Eurasian virtual command decided risk mitigation favored Scav intervention over possible capture.

    “What does flesh matter when steel is nice. Replace my blood with stone and ice.” 

>My Warden?

    “Nothing. Just an old poem.”

>Surface scans indicate significant custom augmentations. Numerous redundancies. Anti-tampering firewalls. Wetware killswitch protocols likely. This will take time, my Warden.

    To punctuate the declaration, an explosion made the lights inside the chapel morgue flicker.

    “Of course it will. Fuck.” Jack considered cutting their losses and leaving, though quickly dismissed the idea as he found it unlikely the Eurasian troops would be so understanding. No, better to get the job done than risk reneging on their terms while in the middle of a Eurasian stronghold, however shortly it was to be overrun.

    For Rose’s sake, Jack got the two turrets out of the containers on the back of her saddle and hurried off.

    Though no matter the situation, Jack’s Scav instincts were strong. Despite many Eurasian’s insistence that they were above the crude needs of flesh, a push cart full of toiletries off to one side of the shrine-morgue begged to disagree. Giving a quick glance around to make sure no one was paying attention, Jack stuffed one of the containers on his rig with sealed bars of soap, shampoo, and feminine hygiene items before heading back to the central building to find Doctor Corde and Devil Eater.

    The two were busy arguing to pay Jack much mind. It was chaotic in the hospital to say the least as the wounded that could be moved were being hurriedly evacuated. Doctor Corde and Devil Eater both would pause in the midst of their bickering to issue orders before resuming.

    Jack stepped forward and waved his hands to get their attention. “My partner needs time to take care of the Sacred Dead. Which way are they coming from?”

    They both turned on the Scav hauling his eclectic mix of firepower and regarded him for a moment with either disbelief or incredulity before Devil Eater pointed north. With no time to waste, the masked Scav sprinted off.

    He made sure to trace his route carefully, mapping out the best way to retreat back to Rose as he navigated the compact trench network surrounding the outpost. The Scav made sure to make note of the covered concrete tunnels with working doors. When they’d first arrived, Jack had spotted a promising defensive area from the vent stack. There was a slope covered in sharpened I-beams shoved into the ground that acted as a mech barricade overlooking the northern approach. The outpost’s trenches terminated in a few crumbling pillboxes at the top of the slope.

    Fading light cast long shadows as Jack worked quickly, setting up his turrets to peak over rubble mounds where flanking towers once provided overwatch. The cover wasn’t perfect, but should be good enough for the remote guns. Just a bit of work got the ammo count connected to his HUD. 400 rounds each.

    A concrete shell remained intact between the ruined towers. With the firing slit providing ample view and with his back to the open trench, Jack slotted a fifty-round magazine into his SA58 just in time for the turrets to begin opening up.

    20mm cannons thudded. Ammunition ticked down frightfully fast. Rounds screamed downrange. It wasn’t accurate. Their mounts weren’t able to fully compensate for the substantial recoil. Not that it mattered much at such close ranges.The first push of Europan soldiers running up the slope dove for the limited cover provided by the anti-mech beams. Those that didn’t, found themselves on the wrong end of an autocannon. Expendable souls who nonetheless paved the way for more dangerous forces.

    A few drones floated overhead only to be battered from the sky as Jack’s turrets locked onto the easier targets. Those with enough wits broke cover as the turrets were distracted. Through the crimson window of his gun’s holo sight, Jack squeezed off shots. He was methodical, making sure to put no more rounds than necessary into a target to neutralize them. The hot loads from Keel struck true. Because of the Shrake in its holster on Jack’s hip, he’d decided to switch out the bayonet on his SA58 for a suppressor. Even though it didn’t do much for the crack of his bullets still breaking the sound barrier, it did hide the flash of his rifle well.

    Return fire was mostly aimed at the turrets and their Cy-Zombie skulls directing the shells.

    Spent brass pooled at Jack’s feet as he ran through one, then a second, then a third expanded magazine. Tucking the empty ones back into his coat, he switched to thirty-rounders. Still the Europan onslaught was just in its opening stage.

    Ten minutes. Realistically, that was all the time Jack was able to buy. The ammo counters in the corner of his HUD dipped below the triple digits and he turned to run. He was just a Scav after all.

    Yet he was compelled to pause, if only for a moment. Long enough to see a tall figure emerge, wreathed in smoke.

    Devil Eater had taken to the field. The Heavy Brawler went from walk, to run, to charge. There were shouts, then screams as Devil Eater lived up to her name. 

    Jack watched Devil Eater tear through Europans with efficiency matched only by fury. Even as one squad was peppered by her forearm-mounted guns, she cut through another with her trench knife. The terrible weapon’s edge distorted the air as its deceptive length lopped off heads and limbs. A single man managed to fall back out of reach of the deadly blade, only to have his chest caved in as Devil Eater dispatched him with a stomp.

    The Heavy Brawler never stopped moving. Never stopped killing. A group of elite soldiers loosed their underbarrel grenade launchers. Devil Eater dodged the grenades with preternatural reflexes, closing the distance, before slaying the squad without breaking stride.

    This was a hero. This was a character from the stories of courage and glory that Jack had been weaned on as a child. She single handedly turned the tide, if only for a moment. A living saint of battles, having earned her name through deeds.

    As Devil Eater moved on, Cyborg rearguard took her place. Without support they wouldn’t last long.

    Bullets began falling thicker onto Jack’s position. A volley of long-range medium mech fire ripped across the lines, scattering Cyborgs like loose ash. More hardened Europan units plugged the gap. EOD Troopers flanked by GRINN units braved the slope. Devil Eater couldn’t be everywhere at once. Without a backwards glance this time, Jack retreated. Though he had to brave a brief moment of vulnerability between his firing position and the trench.

    While yes, his rig was to carry anything of value not nailed down that Jack could get his hands on, it was also a huge slab of metal containers. While Eurasians fell, shot in the back as they tried to retreat, the worst of the damage aimed at Jack was absorbed or deflected by his rig. Some damage still got through, and he nearly stumbled when a series of sledgehammer blows rammed into his mid and upper back. Adrenaline kept him going along with a small medkit jammed into his wrist that took the edge off the pain.

    Jack knew they would be right on his heels. Sprinting down into the trenches, he turned left at the split at the bottom of the ramp, then hung a right along his planned route back to Rose. There was a concrete tunnel in easy reach with a door he could close and slow the enemy down further. Drawing his sidearm while holding the corner, he leaned just far enough out of cover to aim back at the ramp he came down. The Shrake incorporated sensors along the barrel that painted a targeting reticle on his HUD. Though there was a concerning flicker. The ghost of eyes and teeth. Distracting. But ignorable.

    The first opponent into the trenches was a GRINN trooper, his shotgun held up, sweeping from side to side.

    Jack pulled the trigger of his Shrake. In the enclosed space, the revolver screamed with its distinctively shrill muzzle brake. Then, there was a barely perceptible delay as the round impacted the enemy center-mass. After that micro fraction of time, the explosive payload inside the bullet detonated and the unfortunate Europan soldier had everything inside his ribcage forcibly ejected out his back. The trench wall behind him was painted with wet chunks while the man crumpled like the meat husk he now was.

    Where there was one, there were more. Two additional shotgunners emerged. As quickly as the double-action of the Shrake could turn the cylinder and drop the hammer, Jack fired twice more.

    The second GRINN met the same fate as the first, hit in the middle and turned inside out. Guided by proximity and reflex, Jack shot the third soldier in the head. The targeting assistance made it too easy. About three-quarters of the helmet and skull was turned into a mixture of metal shrapnel stained with gore. The man remained upright for a few seconds while his body caught up with the fact that he was dead. First his arms dropped, then the rest of him followed.

    Through his scanner, Jack was able to see several more Europans lining up. His radio was going wild with the mad chatter of battle. He was already running, activating a switch to close the door, two huge slabs of metal grinding into place behind him before the first grenades started going off.

    While running back to the morgue-shrine, Jack rapidly cycled his scanner, sweeping either side of a trench or tunnel before darting across. There was just one more turn to go when he spied a familiar silhouette. Peaking around the corner, he confirmed that it was indeed Doctor Corde. The woman was stumbling drunkenly, clearly confused. By the blood running down her face and the concussed bob of her head, the woman was suffering from one or several head injuries. Her escort was nowhere to be found.

    “Doctor Corde!” Jack hissed. The doctor turned his way, eyes unfocused.

    “Oh, the Scav.”

    Because he’d spent so much ammo, his rig was considerably lighter and he took the momentary detour a little way down the trench. Without preamble, the young Scav brought his left shoulder up and under Doctor Corde’s arm so he could guide the woman. His Shrake stayed ready in his other hand as he quickly ushered the wounded doctor into the morgue-shrine. Whether because of the head trauma or because she realized Jack was likely her only hope of survival, she offered no complaint or resistance.

    Rose was pulling the last dead Brawler into her surgical suite when Jack and Doctor Corde entered. The Recovery Unit sported a noticeably distended belly even beneath her shroud from the dead she’d processed. Jack holstered his Shrake and took the offered interface cable with haste.

>Warden, we have incoming hostiles.

    Jack agreed with her suspicions through the Mother Dragon’s sensors. Leaping into the saddle, he directed her up into the derelict ceiling struts. Doctor Corde slipped into unconsciousness. Rose cradled the injured woman with two hands.

    The battle followed them. War knew no sacred place other than the battlefield itself.

    Devil Eater ran into the morgue-shrine and rolled sharply to one side to avoid a fusillade of bullets that chased her. It took only a moment to ascertain that her fallen comrades had joined the Great Machine before the Heavy Brawler pressed her back against the door and waited.

    A Europan Exo clomped heedlessly through the broken doors in pursuit.

    Devil Eater body-checked the Exo, slamming cybernetic bulk against robotic armored exoskeleton. Through grit and the weight of steel, the Exo managed to stay upright, turning its auxiliary chainguns on the Heavy Brawler, too close to use the cannon mounted on its arm. Shrugging off the deafening, point-blank fury, Devil Eater knew full well how to dismantle such a deadly opponent.

    The Eurasian hero expertly ripped out the cable supplying power to the main gun’s autoloader. She moved fluidly around the left hook from the Exo though very nearly was caught by the open-palmed grab that followed. The Europan pilot was no fool either, knowing that their best bet against the Brawler was the sheer brute power of their small mech.

    The Eurasian hero dueled with the Europan Exo.

    Closing the distance yet again, Devil Eater baited out another punch, then used the opening to rip the last anti-armor charge off her bandolier and clamp it onto the Exo with a metallic clunk. The Brawler leapt back out of the potential blast zone.

    Whether through luck or skill, the Exo managed to fire their main weapon at the precise point where the Devil Eater dodged to. Even though the loader was disabled, there was still one in the chamber that the pilot had held in reserve until the right moment. Even a Heavy Brawler could not withstand a gun capable of eviscerating a tank. Devil Eater was blown messily in half, dead instantly. Next, there was a single audible beep before the anti-armor charge detonated, ripping the Exo’s left arm and leg free of its chassis. The integrity of the ammunition held and no secondary explosions cooked off. Just dead metal that toppled over.

    Their battle was witnessed by no one except for a Scav and his Mother Dragon.

    Two heroes, really. Both killing each other for the sake of it. Because they had to. Because that was how the world worked. For a time, the inside of the morgue-shrine was quiet.

    To Jack’s shock, he saw movement. A hand reached vainly towards a release on the scorched side of a ruined Exo chassis. With careful direction from Jack, Rose climbed down from the rafters and used her prodigious strength to lift the Exo so the pilot could hit the emergency lever on their cockpit and roll free.

    The pilot’s helmet snapped up to look at Jack. He held up both hands and shook his own helmeted head vigorously. The Europan still leapt to their feet and got some distance. They looked to their defeated opponent, and forgot about the Mother Dragon looming nearby.

    Shellshocked, the pilot seemed oblivious to their injured arm hanging limply at one side. Their attention was squarely focused on the upper half of Devil Eater. The exo pilot lurched forward unsteadily, leaned down to rip one of the dog tag ornaments from the Heavy Brawler’s armor with a curse. A blood debt had been repaid that day. Such it was in war, that heroes and villains rose in equilibrium.

    Only then did they acknowledge Jack’s existence again.

    Whether real or not, some understanding seemed to pass between the Scav and the Europan, both recognizing there was no point killing each other. The pilot looked up at Rose, still holding the unconscious Doctor Corde, back to their destroyed Exo, their fallen enemy, then back to Jack. They gave a single nod, and jogged out of the morgue-shrine to rejoin their comrades.

    With not a second to waste, Jack assessed the battle’s aftermath. As ever, given enough time he would’ve taken everything apart. As it was, he had to content himself with strapping down every bit of destroyed Exo that Rose could fit on her back. Two limbs, the main and auxiliary weapons, along with numerous intact components.

    With the final dead Brawler processed, Rose opened her surgical suite and pulled the two halves of Devil Eater inside.

>Your Cyberflesh will live on as a dragon, daughter of the Great Machine.

***

    Though escape had been a narrow thing, Rose managed to glide between advancing Europan forces like a scalpel back to the vent stack near the outpost and down into the subsurface of Lost Angels right before Eurasian drone bombs began to fall.

    The sound of war faded. At least for a little while.

    Down into the dark. Down into the relative safety beneath.

    Once Jack judged them far enough away, he took the time to make sure their loot was secured. He also had Rose check Doctor Corde to make sure the woman was stable before using his coat and a few folds of the shroud to wrap her up and tuck her between broken Exo limbs. Having already taken off his rig so Rose could tend to his own injuries, it wasn’t too much of a bother to sacrifice his long coat. He wore enough insulation without the garment to be comfortable.

    Setting off again, it would be a few hours yet before they were back to the Innards. At least having already blazed the trail once, Rose was able to follow it back with her mechanical precision.

    Jack sat in the saddle, hand-stirrups keeping him firmly planted. Endorphins made him giddy and he didn’t mind the cold air on his overexerted muscles. Coming down from the adrenaline and stress-hormones, he sought to distract himself. Namely with Devil Eater’s trench blade. In the hands of a normal human, the knife was more like a shortsword. Despite the size, its grip molded comfortably to his fingers.

    It had taken considerable time for Rose to process the Heavy Brawler. With the benefit of time, she’d made sure to deconstruct the dead hero with care. Bit by bit, she’d also passed the gear, damaged or not, up to Jack so he could bundle it up alongside the Exo remains.

    He couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to it. Something as mythical as the blade of a hero must be more than just a bit of metal. Especially something Eurasian. If he turned the knife just right, his sensors caught a glint of circuitry in the dark. Sheathing the trench knife, he slipped it back with the rest of Devil Eater’s gear.

    Focusing on his right hand, Jack could feel the Dominator in his palm. In the heat of battle he hadn’t thought much of it, however with the benefit of clarity he realized that firing the Shrake with the Dominator negated the monstrous recoil of the enormous hand cannon. While concerning, the greater worry were those digital ghosts. The eyes and teeth. Was it the Shrake? Or Dominator? Malevolent spirits lived everywhere. In people. In places. In machines. They became dangerous when the ghosts became more powerful than the living.

>My Warden, this Unit has an observation. You seem hesitant when it comes to modification.

    “I just… Don’t like it.” Quite unprepared for the question, he answered haltingly.

>Your hesitance is illogical.

    “Feelings aren’t always rational.” He retorted.

>Are you a member of or adherent to religious beliefs that hinge on keeping as much of your original flesh as possible?

    “No, nothing like that. Let me think… How do I put this? I guess… I guess it comes down to a sort of pride? Now that I say that it sounds stupid. It’s that if I can’t survive with substandard equipment, then good equipment would be a waste. When I first became a Scav I was just given a rifle and was told that if I came back from a few raids, I’d be given a sidearm. That it wasn’t worth giving every new Scav if they were just going to die. I guess I view my body the same way. That if I’m not good enough, any upgrade would just be a waste.”

>What about battlefield stimulants?

    “Oh no. No, no, no. I don’t like drugs. I’ve seen too many people die because they couldn’t let go of an addiction. Or withdrawals from hell.” Even though it was just for him, Jack physically balked at the prospect.

>That is a valid concern. Chemical dependency, if left untreated, is a serious performance detriment. You seem quite comfortable with our interface. Why does this implant not discomfort you?

    “Well, I mean, I’ve had it for such a long time, I guess I don’t really think about it much.”

>What difference then between the knife you were just examining and the Dominator?

    “If something becomes a part of me, then I have to trust that it doesn’t control me. Define me. I can set a blade down. I can’t set the Dominator down. It’s part of me. I have to trust and believe that my… Self, so to speak, is greater than this new part. How many parts of me are me? How many parts do I need to keep to stay me? And if I start giving up parts, will I cross the line of no longer being me? Will I even know? Will I even care if I’m no longer me?”

>Loss of self. Destruction of ego. The question of transhumanism is a nuanced one. However, I would propose this question because it is a potential outcome to current conditions. If humanity had to become augmented, or go extinct due to an environment that became hostile to their species, would you still call them human?

    “You’re trying to figure out what I’m willing to compromise on.” More a statement, though part accusation.

>The question on its own was asked for the sake of a direct answer. However, yes, my primary concern is your survival, my Warden. Your personal choices matter, however there are too many situations where saving or prolonging your life involves replacing damaged or failing parts with new or better ones. I would be remiss in my duties if I did not ensure you had the knowledge and means to use all of me. Machines, be they of metal or Cyberflesh are tools. Tools are meant to be used.

    For a time, Jack contemplated Rose’s words, then asked the only question he felt was important in that moment.

    “Would you be sad? If I didn’t survive?” He slipped a hand beneath the shroud covering her neck to run his fingers along her smooth scales.

    Momentarily taken aback by the unusual angle of the question, Rose answered by rote.

>My emotions are simulated. While my Cyberflesh amygdala is computationally parallel to an organic equivalent in theory, field data remains inconclusive. Ultimately my feelings do not matter.

    “But would you be sad?” Jack insisted.

    Though Rose had to process the question, Jack could feel the stirrups grip his legs just a bit tighter.

>Yes, I would be sad.

    “Then your feelings matter.”

    For a time, the Scav and Mother Dragon carried on with their own thoughts. Eventually the path ahead twisted and Rose had to crawl upside down along the under layers of Lost Angels. Jack carefully moved to her chest for the sake of comfort.

    Not everything was darkness.

    Along their path was a string of heat lamps suspended from a broken scaffold that once connected to the upper crust of the macro city. As a landmark, it signified they were a little over halfway back to the Innards. They took a small break to warm up and for Jack to take a drink of water from a canteen. It was good to take his helmet off and enjoy the radiant lamps. Rose locked her front and back claws into the exposed honeycomb of the city’s supports and bent her head down to look at the human cradled in the hollow of her throat.

    Just as Jack threw her an unexpected question, it was then the Mother Dragon’s turn to pose one of her own.

>Are you concerned about the size of your penis? Is that why you have hesitance when it comes to enhancement?

    Jack sputtered, trying to find a dignified response.

>Given pornography this Unit has sampled thus far, penis size, girth and length, has associations with masculinity, and fecundity. These values are ironic given typical human vaginal depths vary only between 4 and 6 inches. Even this frame, proportionately large to an average adult human as it is, would only realistically have a vaginal depth of 10 to 12 inches. If psychological inadequacy issues due to penile size affect you, this Unit is capable of synthesizing a recombinant growth hormone tailored to your needs. It can be targeted to enhance specific parts or provide general strengthening to make up for childhood diet deficiencies.

    “Rose, you’re rambling a bit.”

>Apologies, Jack. Summarization: If you wish, you can have a bigger penis.

    There was a palpable pause as Jack put some thought into that one.

    “You can do that?”

>Quite… Ah, yes. Quite easily, my Warden.

    “Rose, what’s wrong? You’re squirming.” At first Jack attributed the Mother Dragon’s motion to her adjusting her grip on the ceiling as they hung, yet she seemed to be rubbing her thighs together more than anything.

>My Warden… This Unit is experiencing a variety of new sensations that my protocols did not account for due to volume in my storage area.

    “Storage? Are we carrying too much? Is it too heavy for your back?” Jack’s concern was immediate.

>My… My crotch feels… Warm. Haptic sensors are being stimulated by the… Weight in my belly.

    His concern turned to skepticism. “Rose, what did you do?”

>While this Unit was processing the Sacred Dead there were unallocated fabrication subroutines and extra material that would have gone to waste. Several of the Sacred Dead had either the organic remains, or fully synthetic replacements for their reproductive organs. Hypothesis: Eurasian command structure seems to allow for more autonomy the higher in rank. More autonomy necessitates fewer overriding neural implants. Therefore, sex, even simulated, remains a psychological need in augmented troops. Neuroimaging and anatomical data from the Sacred Dead allowed me to finalize a design for interfacing with my Warden sexually.

    “Rambling,” Jack stated.

>The experience of… Of seeing a partner’s private areas for the first time is… Special. I wished to give you the full intimacy of the act. Cypher helped considerably with the exterior physiognomy. Please, Jack, I want you to look at me.

    While he was a bit hesitant, Jack shimmied his was across the Mother Dragon’s chest and slid across the swell of her belly. Taking a seat on her tail, facing her covered groin, Jack looked to Rose, neck still curled down so her geometric snout was pointed his way. Wary of what might be waiting for him underneath, he lifted the shroud that had fallen over her loins. Sticky string of arousal clung to the fabric as he pulled the shroud away.

    It was plump. It was shapely. Most importantly, it actually looked like a vagina, and not some hideous flesh lump spat out by an algorithm. Yet at the same time it was beautifully transhuman. A line of plates covered the petals of her labia. In a way, that made her treasure more appealing. It wasn’t Rose trying to copy a human, it was her making something uniquely draconic that suited her.

    When Jack inhaled sharply at the sight, he took in a heady sampling of Rose’s scent.

    It was crude in that it was strong. An aroma of sweet musk, frankincense, myrrh, and a hint of gun oil enveloped him. Humans, as creatures of flesh, were haphazard piles of chemical reactions constantly taking place. Sweat, hormones, and dozens of other factors made them messy creatures. This new part of Rose, as licentious as it was, tickled the amorous frenzy that Jack had long suppressed.

    While his own sexual experience wasn’t expansive, Jack’s mind immediately connected to the signals being sent to his nose. Instinct made him unconsciously recognize that not only was this a female in desperate need of a good rut, this was a suitably fertile mate. Rose had perhaps gone a bit overboard, compensating for ambient smells in order to signal to Jack’s instinctual lizard brain that she was ovulating. It also helped that she could subtly nudge him towards the intended perception through their link.

>Is it pleasing? Is it satisfactory? Is it a fat innie pussy?

    A small part of Jack’s mind not being overtaken by lust pondered where on earth Rose could have learned the phrase ‘fat innie pussy’. Then he realized that was the caption on one of the pages from the porn comic the Mother Dragon swiped from his home. Her vulva was so lewdly puffed up from arousal that a thin line of purple could be seen where the black hide lightened until giving way to pinker intimates. Her slit was a teardrop, outer plating pinched at the top while curving down to the swell of her entrance near the bottom, labia majora significantly pronounced while blending flawlessly into the labia minora tucked within. No matter how his brain struggled to wrap around what he was being told, he couldn’t help but agree that yes, Rose had a fat innie pussy.

    Instead of answering, the young male became focused solely on the feast before him and reached out to touch his partner. Jack expected tough armor and not a lot of cushion. He couldn’t have been further from the truth. Her labial scales were soft and flexible as the finest silicone. Her juices were thick, fragrant, and delightfully slippery. Just tracing her curves and edges with the tip of one finger got her to tense beneath him.

    Placing his palms on either side of her mound, he admired the size of her pussy, massaging the supple exterior and occasionally squishing her lips together. Her slit was easily two of his hand lengths in span. While quite a bit larger than a human partner, obviously, it looked proportional, starting at the crease of the base of her tail and advancing up between her thighs. Rather than intimidated, Jack’s male impulse was to simply equate ampleness with femininity. A larger treasure chest meant more treasure after all.

    Jack slipped his thumbs into her slit and pulled the outer petals of her flower open. Rich purple hue was mottled by deep pink. She was so slick, he had to reposition his hands a bit to keep her spread.

    “What… What’s got you so worked up, Rose?” He asked, remembering how his voice worked.

>My abdominal storage area is at nearly 75% capacity. This has put… Pressure on my genitals. This was not accounted for in the design. The vagina I constructed is sensitive to… To… Such weight.

    It had really only become apparent when she’d begun moving upside down. Gravity forced her belly to rest on her pelvis instead of hanging. It wasn’t just the weight though. All the many organs, Cyberflesh or not, required increased circulation. Hemoglobin proxies moved in great volume through her circulatory system. All that extra flow ran along and through her new parts, increasing their sensitivity far above the thresholds Rose had set.

    “I don’t think I’ve heard you this vulgar, Rose. You’re usually so clinical.” Jack couldn’t help but tease her. Everything could just be a simulation to her. Yet, through their link, he could feel her sincerity.

>I’m so full. My belly is so full. It’s making my… My genitals… My pussy is warm. It’s hot. Please, Jack. It makes me understand desire.

    Understand desire.

    Those two words sent shivers up Jack’s spine. She was reacting so sweetly to his touch. Was he really able to get such a powerful creature of alloy and Cyberflesh to squirm so much with just his fingers? He stirred her plump lips more, eliciting shudders and getting her tail to curl even as her thighs clenched.

    In many ways she was alien to him. Utterly inhuman in almost every aspect. Yes she’d been made as a result of humans and was constrained to physical architecture, yet her body and mind was capable of things beyond human limitations. Tere she was, presenting herself as a ripe female for the purposes of sex. So allured by the prospects of mortal pleasure, of reproduction, of coitus, that she’d put in place the equipment needed for him to teach her.

    That was when he shifted to the top of her sex. Pressing at just the right place caused the pursed upper portions of her flower to reveal its secrets. Her external clitoris was about as big as the pad of Jack’s thumb. Glossy with wetness, her darker clitoral hood protected the richly colored nub. Due to the variety of sources Rose had used for material, her pearl was a blend of the same midnight purple and deep pink hues as the rest of her sex but also had cracks of, fittingly, rose gold. The metallic weave of concentrated nerves could be seen in the thick hood as well.

    Because of her feminine endowment, it was incredibly easy for Jack to glide two of his fingers into the pocket of nerves where her hood was pulled back on either side of her nub while keeping one directly on it. The erectile tissues stiffened even more under the explicit stimulation. Slowly, he rubbed, pressing firmly on either side while keeping the lightest pressure on her actual clit.

>I do not… Understand. It is too much! The stimulation. I want you to stop. But don’t stop! Don’t stop no matter what! It… Hurts? No, not pain. Just so much pleasure. How? What are you doing?

    Twisted by the throes of ecstasy, superconducting neural dendrites of her Cyberflesh nerves were firing in waves, ravaged by the ministrations of her lover.

    “This is called foreplay, Rose. I want to make you feel good. The wetter you are, the better it’ll feel.” Jack couldn’t hold back a chuckle as the Mother Dragon shuddered like a filly about to cross no man’s land for the first time.

    Though relatively young, age wise, Jack was certainly well into his adult years. He’d had a small share of human lovers. Enough to know how to touch a real woman. The encounters were never really romantic. Many engaged with recreational drugs for the same reason they had casual sex. When death could come at any time, it tended to loosen certain inhibitions.

    Jack rubbed faster, increasing the amount of force he exerted on her love button. He reveled in the way she reacted. The slow rock of her pelvis, the squeezing and spreading of her legs, and the gentle shudders that ran through her tail.

    Rose only had theoreticals of what sex was. She was an entity of math and science so far outside his understanding she may as well have been an eldritch goddess disgorged from the unknowable blackness beneath the earth. In many ways she was a daughter of Lost Angels. Her brain was a biomechanical marvel of Cyberflesh. And Jack, humble, human Jack, was molding this Mother Dragon through something uniquely human.

    Lust.

>Please, Jack. Please, I need you inside me. Your cock in me. Please, use me. This Unit desires to serve. To service. To be of service. I am yours. Your toy. Yours. Use me however you want. However you like. Delight in me. Ravish me. Taste me. Touch me. Fuck me.

    Her honeyed words were delivered slowly, yet with the monumental weight of a Mother Dragon in simulated estrus. The young man couldn’t very well say no to something like that. Despite her pleas, she still mournfully dipped her haunches when his fingers left her sex.

    Unbuckling his pants, Jack pulled them and his underwear down to about mid-thigh. It was a relief to free his raging hardon. He used his garments and legs to wrap around the base of his lover’s tail so he had better leverage and felt less at risk of sliding off.

    The warmth radiating off her vulva enticed him even more. He slipped his length along her slit, then up along the channel of her plump labia, feeling the thick silk of her arousal give their contact the perfect friction. While smooth, he could still acutely feel the bumps of her plated vulva and the stiff erectile tissue of her clit kiss the tip of his member. While only sporting a length a bit above average, Jack was still proud of his girth, and no feelings of inadequacy spoiled his desire. If anything, knowing that such a large creature was so enthralled by him boosted his masculine determination.

    Pulling his cock down to line it up with her entrance, Jack admired the way his own skin tone contrasted against the scaly petals of his draconic partner. Right as he found the mark, Rose curled her tail to bring him gliding inside. In one smooth stroke, Jack was buried to the hilt, his root mashed into the teardrop bottom of her pussy.

    Every inch of his length being engulfed in tight, wet pussy was when the young Scav could no longer hold back his own instincts. After a moment to recover from the shock, Jack began to thrust. Despite this being exactly what Rose wanted, she was still unprepared for the carnal assault which followed. Her virginal depths were untested and untrained. She had no idea what to do once Jack was inside her.

    Fortunately, he had no such uncertainty. Even though her intimate depths were almost immediately fucked into drooling delirium, the weight of her belly made her more than tight enough for her human partner. Once he found the best angle, he fell into a steady pace of pulling about half his length before pressing back inside. Any further and he’d have to fight against her tightness to get all the way back in. An unexpected joy was to keep himself against her tail and adopt a sort of rocking thrust that allowed him to keep in contact with her even as he thrust in and out.

    She watched him hump madly at the junction of her thighs over the pregnant swell of her belly. She felt him as she watched too, witnessing the desire in the rise and fall of his hips at the same time as the cock pushed apart her inner folds.

    And then, Rose got to experience an orgasm for the first time.

    She knew this was an intended effect. A desired outcome. Her knowledge of human anatomy, sexual or otherwise, was machine-eidetic. Hard coded as befitted her function as a Recovery Unit. From her research and lengthy discussion with Cypher, Rose wanted Jack to make her climax through penetrative sex. Clitoral stimulation and orgasm were an option, however the Mother Dragon was informed of the confidence boost as a result of sexual conquest resulting from such a feat.

    What she didn’t account for was their mind-link. Not just physically, but mentally, she was assaulted by his lust. It was as if he was fucking her body and mind. Body and soul. Her fathomless machine self was tuned, and coaxed into playing a symphony of sensuality. Logic and code stood no chance before the deification of hunger and sensuality.

    She did not have the words. The portions of her which might have articulated coherent expression were subsumed in nerves lighting up in chain-reactions that blazed from ecstasy. In a cascade of tactile feedback as her brains were fucked out, she felt pleasure travel through every limb. Her loins and stomach trembled as her core was taught the truth of Jack rutting the shape of his cock into the inner walls she’d molded for him just as her mind was conditioned to accept the fact that this was just the beginning.

    Though she did not have the anatomical features yet to squirt, her abundant lubrication made their union audibly gushy.

    Another unexpected development was Jack continuing to pound her through the orgasm.

    He just kept going. Another influence Rose had failed to factor in was the euphoria of post-battle hormones still rampaging through Jack’s system. All his lizard brain knew was that death had been narrowly avoided, and now he was mating. So his body was going to prolong the experience until he could muster up a strong enough climax on his part that he ensured his genetic line continued. While Jack felt Rose cum, rings of muscle constricting in wet velvet waves, it triggered him to rut her all the harder. He had to push through her clenching, spasming walls that threatened to pop him out and force her chalice into submission so she would take all he had to give.

    Jack’s perception of the world shrank to only his body moving desperately against the warm female beneath him. He crossed a point where even if he stopped, his body would’ve carried on to climax. So he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop until his legs threatened to give out from the frantic delight of plunging into his mate again and again. His pleasure didn’t peak, so much as crest a zenith and then erupt.

    Only when Jack paused, using the last of his strength to keep himself fully wrapped in sumptuous sex did the Mother Dragon’s orgasm subside. Only then did Rose’s lingering pleasure reduce from a boil to a simmer. Enough for her to return somewhat to coherent thought and appreciate exactly what was happening.

    She could feel him panting against her belly, could feel his rapid heartbeat through the naked touch of his thighs against her own. Most of all, she could feel his tip throb and shaft pulse against her inner walls and balls clench rhythmically against the base of her tail as he came inside her. Over and over his climax forced seed to splash into her furthest pocket. Jack stayed there, not wanting to pull out even a millimeter free of heavenly bliss. He never knew a woman could feel so good. He never knew sex could feel that good.

    Both Jack and Rose reached heights neither knew existed before meeting the other.

>Yeeeessss

    Rose cooed through their link.

>I can feel your semen being absorbed by the surrogate mucosa. The chemical interplay is incredible. Glands are dilating in response to pleasure centers being stimulated. Muscular contractions are pulling fluid inward. The angle of your penetration is aiding this. Even without cervical structure, the closed end of my sex is trying to kiss the semen pooling there. Even though this body does not have the capability, it wishes to become pregnant. Speculation: With my abdominal organ storage at its current level, this was an approximate replication of sex during the second trimester of a human pregnancy.

    Confident in her grip, Rose lowered one of her arms from the ceiling to stroke the swell of her belly peeking out of the shroud. The reactive cloth rippled at the disturbance, reflecting her black scales while writhing with the light from the heating lamps like a welcoming hearth after a long, cold night.

>Perhaps the unknown variable of eroticism is due to this body fulfilling its purpose. I am a Recovery Unit. To be so full. To have my storage so utilized and operating with such intent is… Fulfillment. The highest aspirations of sapience. The blood of heroes and martyrs, their flesh, their souls are in me. They live through me. They experienced this as well. This rebirth of sorts. You’re cumming in me and it feels good. It feels right. Correct. Orthodox. This is supposed to happen.

    Jack eventually pulled back. As his member popped free only a single drop of cum welling up from the tip of his cock was left outside. Everything else was planted firmly in the Mother Dragon’s greedy depths. Much like the hoarding beast of legend she was modeled after, Rose kept her hips tilted to ensure none of the bounty spilled from her treasure chest. She valued even the sweat he’d left slicked across her loins.

    Being constructed to closely mimic real human genitalia, Rose’s vaginal entrance was left with a small gape from muscle fatigue after Jack exceeded her stamina estimates by such a wide margin. Because of this, Jack spotted pink flesh splitting into the deeper purple at the bottom of her entrance where the membrane was thin. In their mutual fervor, his cock had ruthlessly rubbed along that delicate part.

    “Oh, shit. Rose, are you okay?”

>This Unit is fully functional. What’s the matter?

    “I think I, uh, I think I tore you a little.”

    Rose squealed in delight, pulling Jack closer with her thighs.

>How wonderful, my Warden! I had debated installing a hymen for you to break on penetrating me for the first time, but could not decide on an adequate design in the limited window. Yet you managed to tear my vaginal lining all the same. You have caused me no discomfort. Quite the opposite.

    While his own higher thought was still recovering, Jack was just happy that he hadn’t actually injured his lover.

>I want more. Fuck me more. Fill me up more. Make me smell like you. Breed this cunt that’s just for you. Use my body to cum. I want you to break my hole. I can make another. Then you can break that one too.

    “You want to go again?” Despite how strong his orgasm was, the idea of another was more appealing than ten gallons of water.

>Based on your prostatic fluid volume and density, to call you pent up would be an understatement. Assessment: After your refractory period you should achieve orgasm at least two more times within the next hour in order to-

    “I don’t mean to interrupt whatever it is you two are doing,” Doctor Corde announced. “But are we near a rest point? I think I’m a bit dehydrated.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 4

Better The Devil You Know

    Back at the Innards, Jack respectfully helped Doctor Corde climb down from the back of Rose’s saddle.

    The Innards were abuzz, people crowding around the many television screens or huddled by stacks of speakers broadcasting reports from the major offensive. What happened on the surface always affected the pockets of safety like the Innards. As immutable as the dimming sun and encroaching frost, the tempest of battle could not be reasoned with. Only endured. This was true for all denizens of Lost Angels.

    As above, so below.

    Jack and Rose were the last Scav team to make it back. The others had seen the signs and retreated to safety, shutting hatches and bulkheads behind them. It wouldn’t be safe to go on scavenging trips for days. Possibly even weeks. The bigger the assault the bigger the response. Each side would respond to a hard push by pushing back even harder. The cycle of mounting tension would continue until success or failure acted as a pressure valve for the war.

    A few of the more seasoned survivors asked Jack questions about the state of things. Two Scavs from another team took Doctor Corde’s hands to aid the woman while Jack steadied her from behind. The Eurasian doctor was taken aback by the appearance of so many welcoming Non-Augs. While she’d been briefed on the existence of Scavenger enclaves, seeing Europan, Eurasian, and Euruskan people intermingling with her own two eyes was something else entirely.

    While he would not admit to it, Kane appeared mere moments after the others, having been counting down the minutes to Jack’s estimated return. At first he’d hovered around the edges while the rest of the rabble rushed forward.

    Then he spotted Doctor Corde.

    Kane marched through the group and waved the Scavs away while he emitted a blurt of machine noise that could only be translated by those with appropriate neural implants. While her only conspicuously visible alteration were her silver arms, Corde responded to Kane with cyber speak in kind.

    While blisteringly fast, Rose provided Jack a rough outline about the conversation. It was mostly concerning the battle and why Doctor Code had come to the Innards. As well as Jack’s role as her rescuer. After that it was Corde ordering Kane to dispatch a drone message to an AI Battlefield Director for escort. Of course, it would take weeks for such a carrier to get to its intended destination, let alone return. And that was even if the drone successfully made it there.

    After a short while, Kane addressed Jack directly.

    “Well done, Scav. Your aid arrived at the perfect moment to help our injured troops.” And make sure frontline cybernetics didn’t fall into enemy hands, but Kane wasn’t about to say that part with so many witnesses. “Your water ration will be delivered as promised.”

    “Excuse you?” Doctor Corde interrupted so that everyone could hear. “I’m going to be working here for the foreseeable future. Whatever that delivery is supposed to be, triple it. While some people in my position don’t remember what the hippocratic oath is, I still do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find somewhere in this pit to set up a clinic.”

    Kane watched Doctor Corde walk off for a time. Then back to Jack and Rose. He observed the fact that all the crates of medical supplies had been replaced by battlefield loot and the traces of blood on the Active Camouflage shroud. Whatever thoughts were going through Kane’s wetware were inscrutable. After a few seconds, the cyborg gave a short bow, then turned to follow Doctor Corde.

    The gathered Scav teams gradually dispersed into the Innards to spread the news that everyone would need to hunker down while they waited out the storm.

    Stifling a yawn and without much else to do, Jack settled back into the saddle and urged Rose toward Craven.

    Much like Kane, the decidedly non-standard cyborg had awaited Jack’s return for reasons strikingly parallel to the official Eurasian representative.

    “Jack and Rose! Rose and Jack! My young entrepreneurs. Welcome. Welcome.” Rearing back in greeting, Craven wobbled before falling back down onto his many feet with a hearty series of clunks.

    “Hey, Craven. Rose has some items I think you’ll be interested in.” Climbing down from the saddle, Jack wasn’t exactly happy to see Craven, yet a familiar face was still a familiar face.

    “You did bring me souvenirs! I knew you would.”

    “These… Aren’t souvenirs. They’re cybernetics she pulled out of dead Brawlers.”

    The man-centipede stopped, adopting a look of deathly seriousness.

    “Of course they are, Jack. I know that. Do you think I’m crazy?” Craven spoke with objective clarity, choosing his inflection with deliberate care.

    Jack blinked in confusion.

>This Unit no longer wishes to deconstruct the Craven. I am concerned whatever affliction he carries might be transmissible.

    “Let’s get down to brass balls. Balls. Ballsy. Metal testicles are quite valuable, after all. Good, good, good.” The man-centipede giggled like a quartet of singers stuffed into a single straitjacket.

    After being reminded of a rendition of The King In Yellow done with puppets he’d seen some years prior, Jack carried on to business. He made a mental note to see if Shaman was still kicking.

    Through their link, the Mother Dragon was able to arm her partner with the knowledge of what she carried within her so that he could bargain with Craven on equal footing. The man-centipede was impressed by this, roiling with glee that someone shared his appreciation for the subtle nuances between the various Eurasian manufacturers. While some of what he repeated was incomprehensible techno-jargon, the young Scav got the gist of the broad strokes of what he was saying.

    After negotiations were finished, Jack was able to significantly lighten Rose’s abdominal load. 

    Most of what he sold was of no use to him. He kept much of the Myomer, the artificial muscle, and everything from Devil Eater. Everything else was of much greater value traded to Craven. Items like neural implants or synthetic organs such as eyes, digestive tracts, and circulatory systems, fetched an incredible price. Jack kept his expression completely neutral, yet was fully aware of the giddy feeling rising in his chest at the nearly incomprehensible sum Craven offered him for each piece. Though digitally weightless, half a million credits sat heavily in the young Scav’s rig.

    For his part, the mechanical abomination possessed no such inhibition when it came to displaying joy. He swayed and tapped his many feet in excitement, commenting on the classification and capabilities of the items disgorged from Rose’s chest cavity. According to the man-centipede, he already had several buyers lined up for some of the more specialized cybernetics.

    Craven put his purchases onto a rolling rack and wheeled them into his den before reemerging with something new.

    “I must thank you, Jack. Thanks and thanks again. I’ve moved more product in the last… Word for time? Time word? Whatever, time is stupid. Before you two go, I did put together that gift basket I promised. I did, I did, I did.” He held out the parcel with pride.

    “No, Craven you didn’t have-” Jack began, understandably wary of any ‘gift’ from the abomination. The young Scav stopped when Craven handed him the basket.

    Made of woven plastic fibers, the present contained a sealed package of seasoned beef sausage, a whole block of smoked cheese in an airtight wrapper, a bottle of red wine, and a second bottle of something labeled as Love Oil with a sensual mechanical heart on the front.

    “There’s an old chapbook popular among the troops that has a dragon and her rider. He rubs her down with special oil to get her in the mood if you catch my meaning.” Craven attempted to wink, and only managed to blink his eyes out of sync a few times. “Anyway, enjoy your honeymoon you two! Ah, newlyweds. Wedly news. Wedly news!” He sang to himself.

    Far too tired to understand the innuendo, Jack simply thanked Craven for the gift and left.

    The prospect of relief and sleep gave him just enough energy to make it home. He walked beside Rose to stretch his aching legs and so didn’t have to get back into the saddle just to get back down to fit through his own door.

    One foot in front of the other.

    After getting back and closing the door behind them, he asked Rose if she needed help getting anything off her back. Though he could hardly even remember the words he used. It was a sort of half-formed jumble of concern.

>This Unit is capable of autonomy in this task. Please, rest, my Warden.

    Nodding, Jack stripped off his own gear and trudged up to his loft. He remembered laying down. Then blessed darkness.

***

    The first thing Jack did upon waking up was roll over and go back to sleep.

    Then the second first he did upon waking up was stumble down to his rather exposed bathroom under the loft in order to relieve himself. No sooner had he grabbed a canteen to soothe his morning thirst than Rose was holding out one of her interface plugs for him. Laying on her belly, the Mother Dragon was able to reach everywhere inside Jack’s home.

>Good morning, my Warden, how are you feeling? Did you sleep well?

    “Morning, Rose. I’m fine. You don’t have to worry.” Brushing off the concern, Jack’s only desire was to sit on his couch, watch Europan propaganda films, and not think about anything.

>Please, this Unit cares deeply for you. Your physical wellbeing is one of my top priorities. You can ask me for anything. Would you like sex? I have made improvements to my genitals while you rested.

    That caught Jack off guard, and he nearly fell onto the stack of cushions and cinder blocks he called a couch. “You’re not… I don’t want you to feel like you have to… I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

    By his nature, Jack was furtive. Reserved. His true feelings were kept tightly under lock and key. True feelings led to impulsiveness. Impulsiveness led to stupid mistakes. Especially when those true feelings were mostly variations of guilt or confusion. He’d never had a partner, romantic or sexual. Every intimate encounter in his life was one of convenient need and no expectations of follow up. It was easier not to get attached.

    Jack didn’t understand his guilt. Was it because he didn’t want to treat Rose like an object? Or because he didn’t believe he was deserving of such comfort?

>No, you will not.

    “Rose?” The young Scav was broken out of his depressive spiral by the forcefulness of the declaration.

    He was caught completely off guard when the Mother Dragon grabbed him around the middle and lifted him completely off the couch. Using a free hand she yanked two of the couch cushions onto the ground. With frightful ease, she pinned Jack to the cushions and straddled him. She didn’t press, yet her fingers were tungsten bars that prevented Jack’s escape. It all happened so quickly, all Jack could do was stare dumbly up at Rose from his back.

>It’s not healthy for a male your age to hold back. So I’m going to finish what we started. We will engage in intercourse until I am confident you are satisfied.

    Trapped beneath her, the scent of Rose’s musk enveloped Jack. She wasn’t just aroused, she was on the verge of bursting with simulated estrus.

    With care, she hooked his boxers with two of her digits and peeled them down. Even though he felt a vulnerable, truly mortal terror that reminded him of when they’d first met and he’d been but a small, fragile human, ardor surged so strongly into his manhood that his stomach nearly cramped. Fortunately he was more horny than afraid.  His cock sprung free of his underwear, ready to go.

>Your body is honest. It’s okay to be hesitant. Having a new sexual partner can be confusing. You don’t have to be shy with me. I’ll take care of everything. Let me spoil you.

    She rested her vulva against his crotch, leaking gooey silk along his length.

>Even without my big belly, do you feel how wet I am for you?

    It took a bit of maneuvering on her part, pressing her pubic mound into Jack’s stomach and sliding backward to catch the tip of his cock in the top of her slit, she eventually got his member between the plump lips of her sex towards her goal. She took the initial penetration slowly, pressing him in with deliberate slowness.

    As soon as she sheathed him fully within, her internal muscles spasmed. She twitched, thighs trembling as a small, yet very real orgasm made her nearly lose control with intoxicating pleasure. A warm, wet gush of liquid spilled from the Mother Dragon as her insides roiled.

>This unit… Came just from putting you inside. Additional: Squirted too. I added a urethral opening so this Unit could express female ejaculation. I think… This body, this frame… I think I’ve become addicted to you, Jack. This is Orthodox.

    The miracle of ardor and Cyberflesh raised her front, towering over Jack like a human lover might have ridden him. With her physical strength, the position was easy, mounting her partner as if he were the dragon. She started to move, having more than ample leverage with just her knees. With mechanical precision that a human could not equal, Rose was able to press down with just the right amount of weight to bury Jack as deep as he could go while not putting him in even the slightest bit of discomfort.

    Unable to see their union around the hand pinning him down, Jack was left only with the sensation of warm velvet around his length. What he could spy was quite awe-inspiring from Jack’s angle. The colossal form of Rose bounced up and down while her insides clenched and pulled on him in sync with her hip’s rise and fall.

>Yessss. Keep feeling good. Do you like this? I installed additional smooth muscles in my genitals. The goal is completely prehensile vaginal walls and pelvic floor so I can stroke your cock inside me even as you thrust.

    While admirable, Rose still had a long way to go. As it stood, she was far too tight. If she lifted high enough it was a struggle to overcome the grip of her hole to get Jack back inside without accidentally popping him completely free of their intimate embrace. She had to be satisfied with keeping her thrusts shallow.

    Gradually Jack’s anxiety melted away in the furnace of Rose’s pussy. It was her neediness. The desperation with which the immensely powerful construct impaled herself on his lance was oddly reassuring. If left on his own, Jack probably wouldn’t have pursued sex with Rose. Life had beaten its lesson of not expecting good things too harshly into his hide. But if making him feel good made her feel good, then the damaged young male could perhaps overcome his own inhibition.

    Even if his mind was twisted by trauma and doubt, there was no question about what his body wanted. Instinct guided him where higher thought failed. Hunger knew neither shame nor doubt, and hunger bade him gorge, satisfying his appetite on the sweet offering of ripe Mother Dragon cunt.

    Lewd plapping noises echoed off the walls as slick flesh squelched together. Rose was only able to keep up her pace for short bursts. Not because her muscles would tire, but because her walls would grow too sensitive, making her whole tunnel overstimulated. However she was determined. She had her duty, her pride as Jack’s partner. She could offer him more than any human woman ever could, and intended to prove herself worthy of that boast.

    So no matter how sensitive she got, Rose didn’t stop. Her free hands roved up her chest, belly, and neck, luxuriating in the body that could pleasure her Warden. Even if Jack wanted to stop or slow down, the Mother Dragon wasn’t going to let him. The torturous delight of not getting to dictate the pace built Jack’s orgasm steadily.

    As soon as she felt him start to cum, Rose took him as deep as he would go, letting a precisely measured amount of weight press Jack down into the cushions. The first spurt of seed hitting the end of her tunnel made the Mother Dragon jump. She kept her motion restrained, merely rocking back and forth a little to grind her plush lower lips against his root. She also tried to squeeze his shaft in time with his throbbing, yet got far too engrossed in the act.

    Before he could grow soft and slip free, Rose kept clenching. This was purposeful. Fortunately her vice grip had loosened over the duration of her lascivious squats and Jack’s cock felt much less strangled. Moving the smallest little bit, the aim was to give the young Scav just the sensation of the head of his cock being massaged.

    She leaned her front forward, planting her other hands onto the floor so she could place her head down right beside his.

>What a good boy you are, staying hard for me. Kiss-kiss. Kiss-kiss.

    “What?” Jack groaned as his balls felt strained. “What do you mean ‘kiss-kiss’?”

>This Unit is unable to perform the physical act of kissing you. Please accept this expression of desire to engage in said act. Kiss-kiss.

    Rose lifted her hips a little then stayed there with Jack’s erection fully renewed. Enough to give her mate a bit of wiggle room.

    “Rose, why did you stop?” He groaned.

>Show me how much you want to cum.

    With her insides softened by his first creampie, her pussy was a gooey honey pot dangled tantalizingly out of reach. She wasn’t going to give him everything. Jack was going to have to work for his second release.

    In order to thrust upward he dug his heels into the cushion and grabbed the Mother Dragon’s forearm. He bucked into her with all the vigor his strength would allow.

    A blurt of surprised code escaped Rose’s side of their link as she was unprepared for the ferocity of his rut. Startled, her insides forced to accept the maleness pistoning upward. It took a lot more of her control circuits than she anticipated to not pull away from the intensity of Jack fucking her. Even that wasn’t enough to stop the tremble that started in her legs and tail to travel up into her core. She didn’t cum all the way. It was too intense. So she teetered on the shattered edge between surrender and oblivion.

    Even with the disparity of physical strength between them, the mere human managed to overwhelm the biomechanical dragon with his lust alone. Repressed under a lifetime of just surviving, Jack’s awakening desire was a factor Rose had not accounted for. The mental pressure he exerted through their interface was enough to leash her unfathomably complex thought-code to his erotic will.

    For Jack, there was only need. There was only the need to cum again. To seed his partner. To partake in ripe, needy pussy to assuage the burden knotted in his guts, between his legs, and which made the center of his cock feel as though it was about to burst.

    In about a minute, he felt his orgasm build to fruition. No matter how his muscles burned from exertion, he wasn’t going to let go. He panted, lungs struggling to keep up. He knew if he stopped, he’d have to recover before trying to get there again. No, he would crest that peak.

    With his sloppy seconds still sloshing in the end of her passage, Jack painted her insides white yet again. His whole body tightened, wringing every iota of essence he’d been building up since their first raunchy encounter hanging from the underside of the city. As reward, and to make sure her greedy insides drank every drop, Rose sank down so that her partner could relax into the throes of climax.

>Good boy. Just feel good. You don’t have to hold back. You earned this. This unit will never judge you for your sexual appetites. Your needs.

    “Holy shit.” Were Jack’s first words once he remembered how his language centers worked. Aftershocks made him shudder, letting him experience the echo of his climax. Even if either of them wished to continue, Jack was still quite human, and limited to human endurance.

    With a vulgar plop, Jack’s cock was at last freed of its intimate prison. The Mother Dragon swung her leg over the male she straddled and rolled off to his side, lounging with a hand cupping her luxuriously soiled mound.

    Waiting for his racing heart to slow, Jack eventually sat up. Wrestling with his thoughts, he wanted to be annoyed at Rose for being so assertive. Though he was angrier with his insecurity. Would he have rebuffed her just to deny his own pleasure? Did the shameful contrition impressed on him by life run so deep he would deny himself any virtue?

    Through their connection, the only thing she could discern from the swirl of emotions was the dismay,

>Do not worry, my Warden, this was merely an exercise to test your response to different sexual stimuli and gauge your refractory period. This scenario was titled ‘Gentle Femdom’. 

    Not understanding half of what Rose said, the young Scav just blinked, then pulled up his boxers as he stood. Aided by post coital bliss, Jack decided that it was as good a time as any for breakfast. A nice one. Breaking out the gift basket from Craven, the young Scav eagerly tore open the sausage. Though he realized just how cramped his living space had become. With nowhere practical other than his bed to sit down with Rose lying where his now disassembled couch was, he moved the cushions so that his back was to the Mother Dragon’s softer belly.

    First he did give the meat an experimental sniff. His mouth watered at the salted beef. Sinking his teeth into the sausage, he took one small bite, then a much larger one right after.

    “Gods, nothing beats real beef. I’ve looted dead Euruskans before, but I’ve never managed to get fresh beef rations. I’ve seen some sold in the market before, but it’s always been too expensive for me.” He groaned around another bite.

>Staple crops influence cultural norms and values on a fundamental level. This Unit has noticed a lack of agriculture and animal husbandry. Yet, did you not purchase bread from a baker?

    Jack spoke between small mouthfuls, wanting to enjoy the luxury items to their fullest.

    “Yeah, rust-wheat. It’s a bit of an acquired taste. Supposedly the Eurasians figured out how to grow crops even in the worst soil. Even so, I’ve heard that one reason they draft so many citizens into Cy-Zombies is because they don’t have enough land to feed their people. Rust-wheat can grow on nothing but rusted metal and blood-soaked dirt. It’s really, really rare, but a few Scavs have gotten their hands on some Eurasian seeds. I’ve heard of fruits that can grow on concrete and a bit of fertilizer. There are a few other safe places close enough to the Innards to trade.”

    Next he opened the cheese, having nowhere near enough experience with such a foodstuff to identify what kind it was. All he knew was that it was dense, crumbly, and just as delicious. WIth still some sausage left, he alternated bites to intermingle the flavor.

>What about the Europans? Troop distribution and composition must necessitate comparable ration logistics as well.

    “Europans just eat the dead. They try to dress it up, of course. Long pork. Mystery meat. Corpse starch. But it’s protein at the end of the day.” Jack merely shrugged.

>We currently reside within what is considered Europan territory, correct?

    “I mean… It’s complicated. But, yeah, you could say that.” Unscrewing the bottle of wine, Jack gave the sweet red a sniff just like the beef. It was watered down sugar, a bit of alcohol, and a bit of grape flavoring so he just drank straight from the neck. He set aside the love oil, not wanting to uncork that literal or metaphorical bottle.

>Which means that the most commonly available foodstuffs in our area is reprocessed human meat. Do they filter for prions? Contaminants? Other human to human transmissible diseases?

    “What’s a prion?” Jack asked around a mouthful of cheese and sausage.

>Definition: Prion: A misfolded protein that induces misfolding in normal variants of the same protein, leading to cellular death. My Warden, this Unit has concerns that your diet may include unacceptably detrimental elements. This Unit’s bioprocessing has optional expansion capabilities which I shall now engage. With slightly slower subroutines for my digestive nanites, this Unit can then process biological material into nutrient slurries for stored organs and to feed the User/Designated Operator. The most complete nutritional profile is achievable through a human breast milk analogue.

    “I think you’re rambling, Rose. Or, I hope you are.”

>Additional: Environmental exposure thus far indicates colder than normal temperatures. By adding a layer of fat reserves, this Unit will expend less energy, and act as a more reliable long-term storage for calories than other preservation mediums. Synthetic mammary glands will allow this unit to produce milk directly tailored to your dietary needs on demand. This will also offer a vehicle for growth hormones to address your childhood vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

    “Rose, you… You’re…” Jack struggled to find the words. “You can’t just decide to grow breasts. That’s ridiculous.”

>Of course not, my Warden. That wouldn’t be Orthodox.

    Sighing in relief, Jack thought that would settle the matter and he could push the absurd image of the Mother Dragon with boobs out of his mind.

>Human breast tissue is concentrated on the chest as a result of evolutionary changes involved in walking upright. Due to this Unit’s size, stature, and primary means of locomotion, internalized secretory tissues located in the lower abdomen to combine bovine volume while mimicking equine bilateral symmetry will not inhibit motion or create a potential armor soft spot. Two nipples will be optimal for alveoli and duct distribution as well as allow feeding and replenishment simultaneously.

    Deeply uncomfortable with this line of conversation, Jack eventually just tuned her out as Rose’s ramblings became increasingly theoretical.

***

    It was abundantly clear that the pair needed more space. Between Mother Dragon sized gear and all the new stuff they’d hauled back home, Jack’s living area was too cramped. 

    The workshop next to Jack’s makeshift loft apartment was unoccupied, and would give them enough footage for Rose to don or doff her shroud and saddle. Not to mention store the larger items they’d gathered. That would give Jack the room to take apart battlefield salvage and work on his rig. There was just the slight issue of a meter thick concrete wall dividing the apartment from the workshop. Rose naturally offered to take care of it herself. Fortunately Jack was able to convince the Mother Dragon it would be easier to take an alternative route.

    So at Jack’s direction, Rose went around to the small balcony of his loft and scooped the young Scav with one of her hands. She climbed up the main arterial shaft of the Innards while carrying Jack in search of a Night Shift construction bot.

    After a few hundred feet they found a smaller one huddled in a branching capillary tunnel facing a wall.

    This constructor was a simpler model as far as Night Shift went. It had a squat, insectoid frame resembling a whip scorpion. The segmented body borrowed many features from nature. From its abdominal container for building material, to the many long limbs folded close to itself, it was a miracle of robotics weighing close to 80 tons. Quite often such models would become stuck in logic loops until they either became entombed by their fellows or internal timers would reset them back to a previous task.

    Rose set her Warden on the back of the beast of polymer, steel, and silicon with care. While Jack’s youth involved being forced to work on constructors without safety equipment, wisdom garnered from the messy deaths of others taught him to bring his own rather than rely on a bot having factory issue furnishings. Using his rig harness without the frame or containers and a pair of climbing carabiners, he hooked himself to the handles on the bot’s back. A well practiced hand led Jack to the releases of the panels located just behind the constructor’s blunt head. Next to a few manual controls was a retractable interface cable that he pulled out and slotted into his neural implant.

    The comparatively simple code-thoughts of the machine were translated through the link.

    Cmd.exe:Make me a smile. Smile a make me. Me smile a make. Make me a smile. A make smile me. Make me smile a. Make me a smile.

    “C’mon big guy, let’s get you unstuck.” He muttered, clearing whatever impossible task had deadlocked the constructor. Compared to navigating the labyrinthine thoughts of a Mother Dragon, compelling the simple silicone may as well have been pushing a button. Jack nudged the bot back out into the main shaft and down to his home. The bot clamped onto rails that ran the length of the vertical shaft and descended to the designated build area.

    Despite Jack’s assurances that he’d done this many times before, Rose followed the bot her partner rode as close as she was able. Doting and worrying over the young Scav like he was the last hatchling of her clutch, she flitted to and fro, calculating every clanking footfall and toothed gear turn along the rails of the constructor. In short order, the bot drew level with his balcony and deployed its many limbs, locking its bulk in place.

    Concentrating on the bot beneath him, Jack didn’t notice the vulture that landed on the back of the bot. Construction bots were often active around the aftermath of combat zones. Which meant food for the winged creatures.

    Whether through adaptation to the war or more direct intervention, anything that still lived on the earth was because of humans. Carrion birds came in many shapes and sizes.Though colorful plumage was almost gone, the deep red head and dull metallic beak of the descendants of what were once Condors showed they did not distinguish between organic and Cyberflesh.

    Rose snatched the bird up with ease. The vulture let out an indignant squawk that startled Jack. His head whipped around to see the haplessly curious avian clutched in claws capable of great violence.

    “Rose, Rose, Rose! No, don’t hurt ‘em!” Jack cried out, rebuking the Mother Dragon. Holding out both hands, he was focused on the bundle of feathers squirming the draconic fingers which engulfed it. “Easy, easy. Let ‘em go gently.” He took out the last bit of sausage he’d stuffed into his pocket as a snack and offered it to the vulture. At the prospect of food, all grievance was forgotten and the bird mantled its wings as soon as Rose released it to hop over to Jack.

    The young Scav spoke more to the bird, though it was for the Mother Dragon’s benefit. “We’re kin, the Scavs, the crows, the vultures, the corpse dogs and trench lizards. If you follow them it's usually safe. Fresh dead and the battle’s moved on. Good looting. We thrive together. Killing them is bad luck and will make them not trust you. Animals know your intent. If you mean no harm to them, they’ll let you scavenge alongside them. And they’ll sense danger before you too. If the crows, ravens, or vultures scatter, then you should too.”

    Some claimed the Europans had selectively bred the corpse dogs. Some said it was the Euruskans who secretly created purposed organisms in an attempt to fix the world. Though Euruskans claimed control over beasts like the Grabbers or Komodo lizards, they were just as likely to be dangerous rogues. Others told stories that it was the will of God, spiritual or artificial, that brought such creatures in existence as either a punishment for sin, or a symbol of their divine will. Having seen more than most, Jack’s stories about encounters with Valkyrie Eagles could make a Hunter Killer shudder.

    With Jack linked to the construction bot, Rose was alone with her thoughts. Usually able to intuit intent and desire, she was left with observation alone. Without his helmet on, the distress and worry across his face and tone when she’d grabbed the bird were clear.

    Her Warden’s actions were illogical. He was giving food to an animal. Would he not be better served by using it as prey? As fresh meat? Anthropologically she understood human’s historic domestication of other species. What she did not grasp was why the practice continued given the direness of the war above. Moreover, a deep shame burned in her neck where a throat might’ve been at being admonished by her Warden. Guilt at having done wrong. She wanted to apologize, yet did not want to further impede him by interrupting.

    Rose witnessed the young Scav petting the vulture, clicking his tongue as the bird fixed its feathers and trilled in response to Jack’s noises. The carrion feeder had several interface ports that ran along its spine. Perhaps at one point it had been used as a living aerial drone of sorts, relaying information back to a handler. Those ports were clogged with dirt and debris. Jack used the hem of his coat to brush the worst of the crud free from inside and around the ports. In kind, the vulture nibbled at his hair, grooming out the worst clumps of filth and ash.

    He made it seem so effortless. How was he able to interface with so many? While she’d been born in the far depths of the Macro City, Rose was still new to the realities of what the world had become.

    Given life against their will, were these not also children of Lost Angels? 

    After taking the rest of the sausage, the vulture flew off to enjoy its meal. So Jack turned back to the task at hand.

    Virtual controls popped into existence while two long antennae projected grids onto the walls inside Jack’s home. With practiced repose, he selected the divide between his living space and the neighboring workshop. Fortunately it was on the opposite side of the staircase up to his loft so he didn’t have to plan around that at least. After making sure that the wall wasn’t load bearing, the young Scav set the bot to task. The constructor extended long, multi-jointed manipulators tipped with grinders and vacuums to chew through the concrete and suck up any dust or debris at the same time.

    Next up was the door. While the bot’s metal working abilities were limited, it was fully capable of combining the rolling vertical door of Jack’s home with the sizable steel slabs of the workshop addition into one entrance. That way Rose wouldn’t have to crouch down each time. Especially with salvage cluttering up her saddle.

    Rose eventually left the main passage and laid in the hall outside the construction area to nurse her bruised ego and also to sulk because she wasn’t getting attention.

    Cypher marched past the Mother Dragon through the gaping hole where Jack’s front door used to be. They launched into a tirade the moment Jack looked their way.

    ‘Jack, you shit, you didn’t come see me. You special order that shroud at the last minute then don’t even bother to check back? I’m surprised that thing even held together! I’ve got orders backing up, I need Rose to make more of that bullet-proof cloth and-’

    Holding up a hand to forestall a further reaming, Jack paused the Night Shift bot and climbed across his balcony then down the stairs of his loft. He went to his rig and dug through one of the containers. Cypher crossed their arms and tapped a foot, curious to see how the young Scav would make it up to them as he came up to Cypher with something behind his back. They weren’t going to let him avoid obligations to friends. Both for his sake and their own.

    They froze when Jack held up a box of tampons.

    ‘No way. Are those real? Cotton? Real cotton? It’s been so long. My poor coochie.’ After a moment, they remembered they were still mad at Jack. ‘Don’t think you can bribe me with-’

    He held up a second box.

    After a moment, Cypher snatched both boxes and tucked them into a bag slung over their shoulder.

    ‘I’m coming back later with my games so I can kick your ass in Retro Fighter Nine. Also borrowing your wife. Come on, Rose.’ They signed toward Rose.

    “Why does everyone keep calling her my… You know what? Nevermind.” He shrugged in exasperation.

    The Mother Dragon used this opportunity to get up and link with Jack, her thoughts immediate and carrying a hint of indignation that he’d never heard before.

>This Unit could perform construction better if equipped with comparable attachments.

    “Rose, you sound jealous. Are you jealous? Is it because I connected to something other than you?”

>Of course not, my Warden. You are Orthodox. Beyond reproach. Your desires are mine. This Unit is merely concerned for your wellbeing. Who knows where that whore-bot has been or who might have linked to that slut-chassis in the past. Do you require my assistance with any tasks?

    “You’re fine, Rose. Cypher probably needs your help more than I do right now.”

    Rose dipped her head down to rub her nose plate against his shoulder, seeking reassurance after her earlier misdeed.

>Kiss-kiss.

    “Kiss-kiss.” He answered, running a hand along her cheek to reciprocate, promising the biomechanical bundle of worry that he wasn’t angry or upset with her.

    Though their face was hidden beneath their covering, Cypher gave a wry smile.

    After the two left, Jack returned to the back of the constructor and resumed its operation.

    Even with an exact template, the Night Shift could sometimes get distracted and try to add unnecessary things like screaming faces. So Jack supervised the construction bot until it was completely finished, adding a few last minute touches in the form of built-in mounts for Rose’s shroud and saddle against the far wall. He also made sure to move the workshop’s old tables and shelving where he planned to work as well as reposition his couch and television. Lastly, Jack used the bot to lift the heavy bits of Exo onto one of the sturdier benches.

    Jack disconnected from the bot and climbed down. Its task completed, the constructor retracted its limbs and zoomed off to wherever its fractured programming dictated.

    As he closed the shutter to his balcony, the bot’s decaying digital architecture got Jack thinking.

    After tidying up a bit by arranging every piece of equipment he owned whether bought or scavenged along his new workspace, he sat down with a bit of gear that exhibited some aberrant behavior during his last trip to the surface. Donning his helmet, Jack set his Shrake on a worn silicone cloth. After triple checking the cylinder, making sure each chamber was empty, he gave it a quick clean. With great care, he linked the targeting system with his own.

    Everything seemed okay. The glowing iron sights along the top rail lined up perfectly with the targeting reticle overlaid on his HUD. Jack aimed the weapon along an armored plate from the Exo, then to the far wall, toggling between different crosshairs while checking the auxiliary data of range and trajectory deviation displayed alongside the reticle. Jack was relieved, believing that he’d just imagined things in the heat of battle.

    He went to set the Assault Revolver back down on the cloth. The moment its tip touched the soft silicone, he saw it. Just a flash that caused him to snap the barrel back up. So quick he might’ve dismissed it. Trained to hold onto afterimages, the split second was enough.

    An eye. Though it was just a two-dimensional outline, it looked down the crosshair, blinked, then turned to Jack before vanishing.

    This time, Jack set the Shrake completely down, watching the cluster of eyes bloom. Teeth manifested as well, imposing onto his HUD to gnash at his hand. The images faded completely once his contact broke. Examining the Shrake carefully, he noted the ports along its molded grip. The integrated targeting between the Assault Revolver’s bottom chamber barrel and rail could feed Jack information because of the Eurasian sensors in his helmet. Naturally, it would come with means to connect directly to a soldier’s cyberware as well. The higher the rank, the better the implants after all.

    There was an itch in Jack’s palm. The young Scav still didn’t like the fact that the Dominator had been put into him without his consent. He curled his fingers as if he was holding a knife. Right at the threshold, there was a distinct resistance. It was light, like a trigger running along each of his digits. Pressing just that little bit more caused the handle of the Dominator to spring out of its holster in his hand and extend its short, wickedly barbed tip. Reversing the gesture got the high-tech stabbing implement to retract.

    Connecting his helmet to the interface port at the base of his skull, Jack lifted the Shrake. Squeezing his fingers, he activated the Dominator to access whatever abominable intelligence lurked within. Ironic that the key to a gun was a blade.

    Inside the gun was a malevolence made of eyes (targeting reticles) and teeth (target acquisition). Its purpose was to kill (fire/operate/rotate cylinder/fire again). It was hungry (empty chambers).

    Jack’s HUD became awash with the flickering, scratchy outlines of eyes and teeth. Different reticles melted in and out of the visual noise. Square crosshairs sprouted fangs until they became sets of jaws that split and grew into more, searching for targets to rip and tear. Circular crosshairs grew eyes like cells undergoing division.

    It had slept, then awoken, then slept, then awoken. Each time without being used. Each time without being fired. Without feeling the weight of its trigger being pulled, without its hammer dropping, without impacting the primer, without igniting the powder, without feeling its rifling twist a round, and without its muzzle brake tasting the burnt leftovers of killing intent. Each time it was drawn, only to be holstered after some vapid speech, the Shrake’s anger grew.

    Living as a Scav tended to impart a deep superstition. Especially when it came to spirits. The variety of deadly wraiths, vengeful ghasts, maddened skinwalkers and other monsters were as numerous as the thousands of miles of trenches.

    This creature, who lived in a physical space measured in nanometers and a digital plane spanning trillions of electrons, was familiar to Jack. Eurasian combat systems integrated into weapons that either through contamination or deterioration, could develop certain temperament. This was a common enough occurrence that the manifestations had their own term.

    Oni.

    Named after a monster from a culture long subsumed by the greater mechanization of Eurasia as a whole. Beings that over time could warp the physical architecture of whatever systems they infected so that no data wipes could fully erase them. Any piece of equipment with such a defect was to be quarantined with a faraday cage and destroyed with thermite. While the use of Oni corrupted weapons was strictly prohibited, that didn’t stop the foolish or desperate. Many ghost stories were told around diesel campfires about guns turning on their wielders or whole mechs becoming possessed by omnicidal demons. Nearly as many tales abounded of the spirit’s killing intent being harnessed to bring good fortune to the soldiers who by guile or deed, mastered them.

    Jack set the gun down so he could think clearly, standing a line of bullets upright to keep his hands busy.

    The young Scav didn’t need to overpower it, merely make it believe he had. By its nature, the Oni would then alter its architecture to reflect this truth. Eyes and teeth. Eyes and teeth. All Jack had to do was integrate a new element. He just needed the correct meta-memetic imagery to imprint on the intelligence to bind the Oni’s power to his will. With the cyberware-infiltration and assassination tool in the form of his Dominator, Jack was able to do just that.

    Semiotics, much like everything else about Jack, was something he had picked up during his comparatively short life. He considered chains. Simple and effective. Only to be unshackled when the trigger was pulled. But what then would reform the chains? Glass rods. Forming the bars of the cage and only broken, again with the trigger. But how many bars could it simulate before running out?

    In contemplation, he looked at the saddle neatly laid out by the door, imagining the black scales and dark hide that filled out the straps. Rose talked about the universality of dragon imagery used throughout human history. Could he take advantage of that?

    The shape of her in his mind was one of bounty, power, ferocity, and a regal aspect. Sublime in her shape. Mythical in her ability to deconstruct even a super soldier. And there was an undeniably ineffable intellect coursing through her inhuman nerves. Rose was a dragon to him, and the reverence she inspired in him made it so difficult to believe she served him.

    Dragon. Serve.

    What if he positioned himself as the dragon in the Shrake’s limited perception of the world?

    Taking up the Shrake, he delved into its spirit. Into the riot of eyes and teeth he reached with not a hand, but a claw. A new pattern pushed through the writhing scrawl. That of scales. Specifically, scales around Jack’s hand. The teeth could find no purchase and the eyes beheld its might. This was the Shrake’s wielder. It would speak when the dragon commanded. The eyes would align and fix the barrel into place so the teeth could hold the prey in place. However, only the claw, only the dragon, could pull the trigger.

    The Oni would obey this axiom.

    Breathing out a sigh of relief, Jack slid the gun back into its holster.

    Yet his work was only half done. Another weapon held mysteries.

    Devil Eater’s trench knife rested beyond the barrier of Assault Revolver shells in a sheath of matte black polymer, drinking the light and offering only dead dreams in return. There were interface ports along its handle too. Despite being more of a shortsword than a knife to Jack, he marveled at its light weight and balance as it slid free of the sheath with minimal resistance. The handle was long enough for him to grasp with both hands, fingers well protected by the spiked knuckle guard.

    Finding the right pressure to deploy the Dominator while holding the knife, he eventually found it.

    In a not at all surprising twist, there was a devil inside Devil Eater’s weapon. Through neural feedback, Jack’s olfactory parts of his brain were fed the scent of blood.

    Where the Shrake’s Oni was wild, young and untested, having only been recently used for the first time by Jack himself, the knife was old. Patient. It knew that bloodshed would inevitably come. Blood was all. The world was an ocean, a ball composed of nothing but endless red liquid. It was a perfect crimson droplet. A single ocean of a single drop of an endless torrent of blood.

    Feeling out this wicked discipline, Jack entreated the knife, and waited for it to respond.

    A breakdown of the trench knife’s capabilities was methodically parsed by the Dominator. Each piece of information was a wound upon the world. Most importantly, the weapon’s true name.

    When the blade’s Purgation protocols were engaged, powerful emitters along its spine latched onto the molecular structure of the edge and forcibly aligned the nanocarbon laced alloys. This produced two effects. It made the blade absurdly sharp, and maintained that edge for as long as the power source held. Next, it caused the metallic elements of the blade’s business portion to heat up. That was why Devil Eater's terrifying speed was also augmented by burning afterimages.

    Blades sharp enough to cut through metal, flesh, and bone in a single strike were not new things on the battlefield. While not common, seeing as a Brawler’s fist was usually just as effective as the most advanced edged weapon, they did still exist. What made the Purgation Trench Knife unique among peers was its ability to recharge through combat. By using the metals which invariably became melded to its edge during use, it could replenish the material lost due to the natural fragility of its signature system.

    Devil Eater’s knife learned that blood was rich in iron. To that end it had slowly calibrated its target analysis to result in lethal exsanguination with every laceration and maximize absorption simultaneously. Where another Purgation might need to be recharged periodically, even with such advanced systems, this one did not.

    Blood was fuel, and this hellish world was full of it.

    Purgation’s alterations hadn’t come about because of Devil Eater needing a better weapon. No, the weapon had changed to keep up with its wielder. Killing intent honed with each cut. Each cut honing its killing intent. This was the paradigm Jack was required to place himself within.

    Using similar imagery as he had with the Shrake, the young Scav proclaimed that his aspect was that of the dragon that ate the Devil Eater in turn. By right of this consumption, Purgation offered Jack a simple bargain. If he would call upon its power, all it asked in return was its thirst to be slaked. It would give him the monolithic combat data Devil Eater carved out of the war so Jack could better use the knife.

    A tithe of blood from the devourer to the devoured.

    Content, the knife allowed itself to be sheathed. With reverence for the machine spirits that lived within them, Jack put the Shrake and Purgation next to his SA58.

    The young Scav took off his helmet and set it on his table to look over the rest of the equipment, relaxing his mind to let whatever unfiltered thoughts flit by. His options were as ample as the loot along the broad expanse of his workshop. With the sudden cash influx, it would probably be a good idea to invest in a computer terminal in order to get diagnostic data off his equipment or take advantage of any blueprints he bought or found.

    The Exo chunks needed to be broken down into what was usable and what was just scrap. Then there was the rest of Devil Eater’s armor that needed the same treatment. Arm-mounted triple barrel integrated Heavy Brawler gun, or Exo main and auxiliary guns? He still needed to go over the rest of Ravachiore’s kit. Several intact sheets of Myomer bundles just need detangling and Jack could experiment with either mounting the Cyberflesh muscles to his rig or see about obtaining schematics for a harness that would use Exo components.

    One purchase he’d made before getting the construction bot was a fresh heat lantern. Jack set it on his work area and turned it on, quickly becoming comfortable enough to take off his coat and boots.

    It was nice to sit, be still, enjoy the silence for its own sake.

    Eventually his mind strayed to Rose once again. A peculiar question cropped up that made Jack’s brow knit in consternation.

    Had he ever thanked her? Ever said thank you outside of expected courtesy under duress?

    She seemed to like the Euruskan coat of arms on her horns. And he vaguely remembered dragons liking treasure. Did he have anything like that? As a Scavenger, gifting objects that once belonged to the dead was a genuine gesture. If you don’t need it, pass it along to someone who does. That was one of the first things the previous masked man taught him.

    Rifling through pockets, pouches, and containers, he hit gold. The Cybernetics Morale Officer served many more ceremonial or administrative functions. One of which was collecting wedding bands from the fallen to send back to their loved ones in Eurasian territory. Being a duty he’d neglected, one of Ravachiore’s pockets was stuffed with rings of various precious metal alloys.

    Jack poured the two-dozen rings onto the table, then rummaged up a spool of high-tensile braided wire.

    “Hm, still missing something.” The young Scav muttered to himself. He looked over the loot he still hadn’t sorted until something shiny caught his eye. A bit of red glittered from a shattered bit of Exo. Synthetic gemstone semiconductors were sometimes used in high end components. As he pulled it out from under the armor plate it was mounted to, the ruby board crumbled into pieces. Nearly worthless for trade, it would serve Jack’s needs nicely.

    The largest chunk was about the size of his palm. He wrapped a few inches of braided wire around some rings and attached them to the glittering panel so they dangled down and put a magnetic clamp on the back of the ruby board. Then he took several lengths of that same wire and made a tiered necklace, knotting the remaining rings into the piece. As a finishing touch, he fused the smaller pieces of gemstone board on either side of the rings like beads.

    Still wanting a backup in case she didn’t like what he’d made, Jack remembered the final piece of the gift basket from Craven. The so-called ‘Love Oil’. Retrieving the bottle, he turned it over and read that it was supposedly rose scented. He unscrewed the cap and sure enough, it had a strong floral fragrance.

    Jack collected a drop between his fingers and rubbed experimentally. Smooth as well as perfumed, the young Scav could only speculate how rare the oil was. There was no way it was still being manufactured. He shook his head, not knowing how or where the man-centipede could have gotten such a thing or the manic thoughtfulness of the gift. Had Craven planned it, or was it merely coincidence?

    Having quite lost track of time between taming the Oni and making the jewelry, Jack was nearly startled out of his skin by a loud thud. Then another. With chagrin he realized that it was just knocking coming from so high on his door that it must’ve been Rose.

    “Come in!” Jack called.

    To his relief, it was indeed his Mother Dragon companion coming home. All his thoughts were derailed when Rose turned to close the door.

    “Rose, what are you wearing?”

    She excitedly spun to Jack with one of her many mind-machine interface cables, spare connectors waving in an invisible breeze.

>Cypher wished for my presence so they could study me for a mural they are planning to paint. Them telling you they needed me for my fabrication abilities was just a ruse. This Unit complimented them on their artistic talent and offered to show how well the external genitalia they helped design turned out. They then declared that I ‘could not just prance around the Innards with my whole dragussy out’, and created bottoms from leftover material from when they fitted my shroud.

    Jack had to concede to Cypher’s assessment about the newfound connotations of Rose running about in the nude, and also their solution. Creating a skirt for a creature as complicated as the Mother Dragon called for some truly inspired tailoring. The garment was much longer in the back so it draped evenly over her haunches while she walked even though it wrapped around her waist. Made using scraps of Reactive Camouflage and combined with Rose’s dark color, the garment appeared to be made of liquid shadow.

    Cypher even went to the trouble of teaching Rose exactly how to show off their work to Jack. The Mother Dragon turned in a circle, then pointed her ass towards her Warden and flagged her tail, skirt hiked up to display its secrets. Underneath, briefs were incorporated into the bottoms, sewn together so that the extra opening needed for her tail didn’t detract from how the cloth hugged her butt. The way the groin portion cradled her mound served only to accentuate the allure of the Dragon Mother’s plump vulva despite hiding it from sight. There was even a bit of frilling along the inseams.

    The young Scav wrestled with this contradiction to no avail.

>Do not be concerned, my Warden, Cypher was apprised of the probability of frequent intercourse between us and made alterations accordingly. The crotch portion is quite elastic and can be moved to either side so you can easily access my genitals. Is it sexy?

    Jack opened and closed his mouth several times. Mostly to pick up his jaw off the floor. “Yes, it’s very sexy, Rose.”

>Supplication: Please define sexy in this context. This Unit wishes to be better informed on your taste in erotic display.

    “Well it… It compliments your colors. Um, it uh, is very…” He held up his hands in a cupping motion to find the right words, all but hypnotized by the sway of her tail and accompanying sashay of everything underneath. “Flattering for your… For your parts. Uh, ass. Your ass looks really good in it.”

    Guilt stabbed at Jack. Beaten into him by a life that punished excess. “They didn’t have to make that. Cypher could’ve used the material for something to sell.” He didn’t mean to disparage Cypher’s work, it was just his contrition.

>Cypher predicted you would express such a sentiment. If that happened I was to convey that they made it for their own sake. They made it because they wanted to. Because it was their prerogative to make a pretty thing for the artistic delight alone.

    Choosing not to dwell, Jack lifted his own frivolous creations. “Uh, here! I made something for you too.” Though his jewelry felt silly compared to the Cypher’s tailoring. “I realize that… I haven’t thanked you. Properly, at least, for everything you’ve done for me. So I made you these. Just if you want them. This one is for your horns. And this one is a necklace. I hope I made it big enough.”

    Wordlessly, Rose snaked her head right alongside Jack. Though she didn’t have eyes, the tilt of her geometric muzzle made it clear she was looking at him in anticipation. He put the piece of ruby semiconductor horn jewelry above the dragon adorned shield with its pretty marble, magnetic clamp clicking securely into place. And though he had to stretch his arms, he was able to do the same for the necklace around her serpentine throat. She pulled back to admire the way the ruby droplets adorned her front.

    To Jack’s wonder, the Mother Dragon then did a little happy dance, prancing in place then rolled onto her back to make her jewelry jingle. She tilted her head back, careful not to scrape her horns against the floor to meet Jack’s stupid grin.

>Thank you, my Warden. Thank you, Jack. Kiss-kiss. Kiss-kiss.

    His heart leapt in his chest, and all he wanted was to make Rose even happier. “And also, the massage oil that Craven gave us is rose scented. Could I rub some on you? I think you’ll like it.”

>Rose? The scent of the flower of the name you gave me? I would like that. There is symmetry in this. Orthodoxy. Please, this Unit would be honored/venerated/blessed by such anointing.

    Rose stood up, only to move into the much more open space in front of the couch and sprawled out like a lounging cat. She played with the rings and carmine gem fragments, tracing the treasures in their frozen waterfall with a hand.

    Jack grabbed the bottle and poured a generous amount over a soft cloth. Starting at the shoulder, he spread the massage oil around her joint, nimble fingers working the perfumed liquid into the dark hide between her scales. While there was no way for the young Scav to know if real roses smelled the same as the massage oil, he liked to imagine they did. A little went a long way and the Penrose scales shined as Jack buffed her.

    Rose was the first to break the silence as he worked the cloth across her.

>My Warden, have you considered having children?

    “That’s a rather random question. And… No. Not really. In fact I planned on never having kids. Partly because people don’t last long in this kind of life, and also because what kind of life would that kid have to look forward to? I’d hope not like mine, but that’d be the best I could offer.”

    Even as he admired the polish and soothing equilibrium of Rose smelling like roses, Jack knew the Mother Dragon well enough that he guessed she was about to ramble on about something tangential to her question. To his surprise, he was looking forward to it. She made him think. She challenged him.

>Observation: Human biology is quite averse to pregnancy.

    “How so?” Jack’s interest was piqued.

>Medical records studied before the war were already pointing to infant cranial size outpacing that of hip width. This irreconcilable deficiency in the birth canal would eventually require all births to either be done with cesarean surgical assistance, or by implanting viable embryos in mechanical surrogates.

    “Huh, I’ve never thought of that before. Kinda hard to consider future generations when it doesn’t seem likely the current one is gonna make it very far. Still, people get pregnant all the time. Eurasia even suffers from overpopulation.”

>Human vaginas have internal environments that are hostile to sperm. PH level. Temperature. Any sperm that survive must contend with the crucible of the womb beyond and sacrifice themselves to weaken the egg in the hopes that one singular fragment of viable genetic information is able to combine, divide, and grow. Beyond that, humans have a very parasitic reproductive cycle. A fertilized egg implanted in the uterine lining must tap into the host’s blood supply, dilate veins and siphon valuable oxygen and nutrients by tricking the host with hormones even as invasive tendrils burrow through the uterus. Even among other placental mammals this is the exception, rather than the norm. An already fragile and predatory aggregate of operations has now been shattered by, ironically, anthropogenic factors.

    “I know it sounds harsh, but kind of how I don’t like augmentation because if I can’t get the job done with what I have available, then better tools aren’t going to meaningfully affect the outcome. Same thing with humanity. If we can’t survive, then maybe we weren’t meant to. Giving someone a better wrench isn’t going to make them a better mechanic.”

>Toolbox fallacy: An adopted thought process that makes someone believe that they can only accomplish their goals if they have the right tools. Yet you are inhibiting yourself by arguing the opposite, my Warden. Does Adilah not deserve her replacement heart because her current one was unable to withstand the bioweapon she was exposed to?

    At first, Jack was almost offended by the question, though understood it didn’t come from a place of malice.

    “That’s different. Pessimism for the species doesn’t mean innocents should suffer. Like I said, I understand it’s not completely logical. Just as much as food and water are for survival, It’s important to remain human. Certain levels of survival would see us worse than animals.”

>But how do you define human? How much original flesh do you require or how much do you have to change to consider someone as still human?

    “Ah, see, I was arguing against cruel and inhumane practices. You’re trying to use the Ship of Theseus for transhumanism.”

>You’re familiar with the Ship of Theseus?

    Hints of a proud smile crept across Jack’s face as he took satisfaction from remembering at least a bit of his time helping rebuild a debate hall and the voices from the monitors locked in eternal verbal war even as shells fell outside.

    “I am, and I never liked it because it can be used to argue forever. Is the ship physical, or metaphysical? Is it my body, mind, or soul that makes me human? Furthermore, if you took a man apart and gave three different machines his parts. One his arms, one his legs, and one his head. Would all three be human? The same human? A different human? Only the one with his head? What if his head was wiped of all memory? What if you just took his brain with memory intact and put it into a T90 tank? Would the tank be human? Or would the human be still just the brain, with the tank still being a vehicle merely housing the brain?”

>Response: I would posit that what matters more is how much value is placed on the individual. If the brain in the T90 wished for you to consider the chassis as its body and to treat it with the same respect you would any other sovereign person’s, do the wishes of that individual outweigh that of the collective consensus of what is considered human?

    Jack slowed in rubbing Rose down as he considered the question. Rose continued.

>Beauty, for instance. Yes, to be reductive you could say that a beautiful human is one that displays measurable traits of proportion and health indicating favorable genetics to pass along to offspring. However, beauty standards can be influenced by media much more rapidly than culture can adapt. What is and isn’t taboo is malleable. Otherwise mass adoption of cybernetics wouldn’t be such a core part of Eurasian soldiery.

    “That’s assuming we can still be saved. Maybe humanity has made too many mistakes. Maybe we deserve our fate. We made our gods for war. Should we be surprised when they’re wrathful? They answer our prayers in the way they see fit. If I ask to live another day, how will a god of war answer then by giving me weapons to kill my enemies faster than they can kill me? If I pray for peace and the god responds by ending my life with high-yield atomics, was my prayer not answered?”

    Rose spread her fingers so Jack could get the massage oil between the digits.

>Counter-argument: This Unit could use the same logic to impose the idea that humanity’s prayers for survival would be met by an equally contrarian answer. How would a god of life, of fertility, bless her faithful? Especially if that god were made by man.

    “The arrogance of a man-made god always struck me as ironic. Yet I’ll admit I’ve prayed to them in my times of need. You were saying?”

>From simple, to sublime. Pharmaceutical solutions have existed since ancient humans first began to understand the medicinal properties of naturally occurring compounds in the world around them. Artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization existed before the outbreak of the war. With advances made, there are many alternatives to traditional, risky procreation. To a god of fertility, is there a difference between an embryo gestating in a human or one in a sterile, amniotic container beneath Lost Angels?

    “At what cost do you obtain those embryos? I’ve heard of the breeding programs on both sides of the war. If the answer to humanity’s survival is man-made horror, of the mechanization of rape on an industrial scale to achieve a birth rate able to sustain itself, then I’d argue, morally, humanity should not continue. Suffering cannot be measured or quantified. Those scales can never be balanced.”

>This Unit will concede that what you describe is not an ideal solution. Instead, let me pose a hypothetical: Has our intercourse been satisfactory? Now that this Unit has vaginal architecture, different configurations can be chosen from templates we find or custom tailored to your specifications. For instance, Devil Eater’s sexual organs were almost completely intact. I have her vaginal canal, cervix, uterus, and an undamaged ovary. It would be easy to install. You could experience her. Would you like that? If I had her pussy? Her insides gripping you? To know what it would feel like to lay with her?

    The timing of her question coincided with her lifting a leg so Jack could massage her inner thighs. The fact that her parts were covered made them all the more erogenous. Although Rose’s depravity shouldn’t have surprised him at that point, it still came as a shock. Then that shock faded. Rose wasn’t human. Not less, but different to be sure. She was meant to think in ways he could not, and was not beholden to the same virtues.

    “That… That… No. That would be wrong. That’d be like fucking her corpse. That’s horrible, Rose.” His ire was aimed not at her, but at circumstance. Yet his principles of conduct were at odds with his Scav instinct. How far did the rights of salvage extend? Jack couldn’t deny that a small part of him was tempted by the offer. Though their meeting had been brief, how could he not admire the warrior’s unexpected beauty, grace, and unparalleled skill? Still, another portion of himself reacted with revulsion at the prospect.

>My Warden, your attitude about desecration of cadavers via cannibalism was nonchalant at best, yet necrophilia is too far?

    “Nonchalant through necessity. Necrophilia isn’t necessary.” Jack retorted, making her squirm by rubbing the fragrant oil as close as he could to her undergarments without actually touching them.

>If anything, using her parts in this context is in keeping with the Orthodoxy of her professed machine-faith. My vagina is already composed of other donor tissue. This unit is capable of sex, and by extension, comfort you. Therefore, if I use the parts of her intended for intercourse, for intercourse, then I am not violating her religious doctrine.

    “It’s a violation of the Sacred Dead. Her explicit consent was never given for such an act.”

>For the sake of argument, I shall temporarily concede my use of Devil Eater’s reproductive system and your subsequent intercourse with me as necrophilia. However, I shall maintain my position as this being necessary.

    “All right, necessary how?” He challenged back, moving on to the underside of her tail with his cloth.

>You’ve already acknowledged the acceptance of cannibalism for the purposes of survival. A real and pressing possibility of humanity’s extinction is reproduction.

    “Reproduction is the opposite of extinction.”

>Not when external factors are going to make human reproduction impossible without deliberate intervention within two to five generations. Environmental contamination of microplastics, chemical weapons, radiation, and viral agents alone have diminished the average human’s fertility to concerning levels. In the unlikely event of conception, those same elements will lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, or birth defects up to and including sterility.

    “You’ve touched on this point already, Rose. You’re just switching from internal factors to external ones. What’s your point with this whole debate?”

    Rather than angry, Jack found himself invigorated by the back and forth. He hadn’t realized how good it felt to be intellectually stimulated. While the young Scav had a strict, self-imposed code by which he conducted himself, he didn’t mind having those beliefs called into question.

>Abstraction: I have expounded on this topic to illustrate how tenuous humanity’s place in this world is. The Mother Dragon Recovery Unit is one possible solution. But only with your help.

    “My help? I’m just a Scav, not a savior of the species.”

    Jack stood back to regard his work in rubbing down his dragoness. The bottle of massage oil was half gone, and Rose lay resplendent as a pile of atomic glass, scales shimmering in the warm orange light of Jack’s home. Her gold and ruby necklace glittered like a celestial constellation against the obsidian Penrose backdrop.

>You are my Designated Operator. User. My Warden. I want to use Devil Eater’s reproductive system so that you can have sex with her through me. I want you to impregnate her through me. I want to carry your offspring to term so that humanity can continue. And because I think they would be strong. Warriors and survivors.

    Her tail flicked languidly, skirt fluttering.

>I was created with certain schematics preprogrammed. One of which is for an artificial uterine lining that can be implanted with multiple embryos. You wouldn’t be limited by a gestation cycle, my Warden. You wouldn’t have to wait for birth. You could impregnate me again and again. Over and over. If you so desired, you could knock me up multiple times in a single day. This body could be ripe for you. More fertile than dozens of women over their entire lifetimes. Just a few ovaries and I’d be able to stimulate egg cell production in them for years.

    Without moving a muscle, the Mother Dragon offered her being in totality to Jack. It was a depth of intimacy that he didn’t know was possible with a romantic partner. While part of him was frightened by the vulnerability, another part knew he couldn’t hold back because of a very possibility his next run to the surface might be his last.

>I could carry them for you. Imagine how many I could hold and how big my belly could get as they grow. I am the perfect vessel. You wouldn’t have to worry about my safety. I have no risk of complications through childbirth. I could remove the womb at any stage of development. I could even simulate the real thing if you’d prefer, pushing them out through my vaginal canal, umbilical, placenta and all.

    And although he was tempted, Jack did have lines he would not cross.

    “I don’t want you to use anything from Devil Eater without asking me first, okay?” Jack spoke with direct, clear finality, and sat down on his couch.

>Your word is Orthodox, my Warden.

    Though she tried to play coy, there was a hint of mischief in Rose’s tone. It was subtle, and he might’ve missed the shift had they not just been talking for so long.

    “Is there any way to store them safely so you don’t have to keep them inside you all the time?” Which would hopefully remove the temptation of her ‘accidentally’ using them.

>Yes, individual sacs within my storage area can have a shell placed around them with the contents able to hibernate without risk of cell death for up to six months before requiring upkeep. They are quite analogous to eggs.

    While Jack needed a moment to collect his thoughts after the complex subject matter of their conversation, Rose possessed no such inhibition. She smoothly pivoted to horny talk that was less dredged in ethical dilemma.

>Proposition: This Unit utilized extra time while posing for Cypher’s painting to construct a pseudo womb that’s connected to my abdominal storage and genitals. I could demonstrate egg laying with the hardened storage sacs I am producing now. Would that be more appealing? If my birthing were more oviparous rather than mammalian? That would allow you, my Warden, to fertilize a clutch inside me and force me to lay them as proper dragons did in stories. Painting my egg chamber with your seed and making me heavy with your brood.

    Up until that point it’d been Jack flooding Rose’s mind with lust. Now it was her turn, already turned on from being rubbed down with the scented oil. She fed Jack’s libidinous root with her wish to eggs. About the eroticism of such an act. Teasing him with the notion of getting to see something that only she could do that it was only him she would ever show it to. Awakened and shaped by the libido of her partner, it was a candle before a bonfire. Still, it served to stoke Jack’s flame.

    She stood up from her lounging pose and turned so her shapely rear was facing Jack, then squatted down, bending deep at the knees while keeping her front and heels up so that her Warden could relax while she put on a show.

    “Rose, is this another one of your sex scenario things?”

    Turning her head to face Jack, she gave her featureless head a shake to make her jewelry jingle as she regarded him from over her shoulder.

>Yes, is it working?

    “Horny girl. It seems more like you have a kink.” He chuckled, pants tight from his erection straining against them.

>I am merely being efficient. This Unit is fulfilling your request, stress-testing freshly installed hardware, and offering you new aspects to our sex lives at the same time.

    She slid two hands back between her legs. One she used to move her underwear aside, then spread her outer lips, making the mottled pink and purple insides exposed and also so Jack could have the perfect view of the tightly knit pleats of her hole. Despite not having been touched by oil, her plated vulva glistened just as brightly as the rest of her. The other was positioned beneath her sex to catch the eggs. Jack couldn’t look away, too mesmerized by the Mother Dragon’s need to have him watch. The desire to have him witness, to put on a show, and to prove that her body could please him in all ways was as intrinsic to her as breathing was to Jack.

    He didn’t have long to wait, watching the muscles tense beneath her scaly limbs, stomach flexing inward as she contracted to shift her contents into their desired place. Soon, her clenching coincided with her whole vulva bulging quite obscenely. Then her entrance began to open, inner folds pushed outward by the egg she was laying.

    Not wanting things over too quickly, Rose eased back, relaxing her kegels to give Jack just a teasing peek before the egg slid back into the dip just behind her entrance. Only then did she truly push. At least enough to slowly flaunt her membrane being stretched almost transparently thin by the round object. Steadily, her pussy was pushed to its limits, plump, plated vulva pushed further apart than her fingers did. Squishy intimates were exposed, then occluded by the facsimile.

    She jumped when the widest point of the egg slipped past her hole and the rest was squeezed out with a plop which then landed in her waiting hand. While comparatively small for Rose’s frame, they were still quite the stretch for her pussy. The base of one could’ve comfortably filled both of Jack’s palms. The eggs were stunning. Their elegantly tapered shells were composed of polymer hexagons derived from bone and protected by a glassy clearcoat.

    After just the first, she got impatient, wanting to experience the following few quickly. Jack watched her haunches quiver, then the crown of the next egg pressed out of her. With another plop and visible clenching of her lower stomach, the subsequent swell of glossy hexagons could already be seen in the small gape left behind. She kept bearing down, not letting up on the push to lay her synthetic clutch. This time instead of the weight in her belly causing her pussy to throb, the source of her obscene pleasure was pressing directly on her most erogenous spots. She didn’t stop, rocking her hips to overcome her tightness.

“You know, Rose, you’re a very sexy dragoness.” Jack purred.

    Those few words were enough. When the third egg popped out, Rose’s pussy continued to flex, and a lewd gush of fluids burst from her urethral opening as she came. The immodest ejaculate splashed over the eggs in her palm then dripped down between her fingers. Her sweet, musky honey mixed with the floral aroma of the massage oil.

    “Did you cum from laying eggs? Rose, you are a dirty girl.” A wicked grin crept onto his face. “Your body is honest.” He echoed her sentiment from earlier that morning as Rose quivered.

>There is… One more… I may have been… Overzealous… In my estimations. That fourth one may have torn me. Just a little.

    “But you like tearing, don’t you my dragoness? C’mon. You can do it. Be a good girl. Be my good girl.” He encouraged her.

    Although she whined, it was joyful. She bloomed, nourished by his praise. Her pose helped, aiding her fatigued kegels in getting the final egg where it needed to go. Once the egg slid down her tunnel, it took her a few tries to get it the rest of the way. Her slit bulged outward only to be thwarted by her taut hole. With one final push, she managed.

    At last, the fifth egg joined the others in her waiting hand with a clack. Although she probably needed a moment to recover, she wanted her reward more. After setting the eggs onto one of the new shelves that were in reach, Rose flagged her tail as an open invitation to fuck her. She pleaded for him to rut away the hollowness left inside.

>This Unit’s abdominal storage is now empty. This Unit is your masturbator. Onahole. Toy. Pocket pussy. Warm plush hole for you to vent your sexual desires onto and in. Cum in me. Cum on me. Rip me. Use me. Pound me. Fuck me. Make me a cum dump. Fuck me so hard you turn me inside out. I exist to serve. Tell me to tighten. Tell me to loosen. Make my pussy drool with cum.

    Jack was hard as steel and did not need to be told twice. After the show she put on for him, the male was primed and ready. Rose calibrated the spread of her legs so that her partner could stand behind her and be level with her entrance to mount the Mother Dragon at his leisure. She planted all four hands on the floor in front of her with her chin laid across her knuckles. Kicking off his pants and boxers, he stepped into place.

    Rose wasn’t just warm. She was a furnace. The heat byproduct of exerting her muscles to lay the eggs was enough to entice him on its merit alone. Grabbing his shaft, he dragged the tip up her slit to collect her silk, then pressed. Jack’s felt as though his cock would melt from pleasure as he sank into a soft, sultry, gooey mess of a pussy. The eggs had stretched her wonderfully, so her insides were not only swollen with juices, but relaxed so as to cradle her Warden’s cock without needing to be pounded open first.

    From the waist down, he surrendered control. His hips hammered his length in and out of Rose with such ferocity that he had to wrap both arms around her tail to keep steady. He pulled back until the bottom of her sex was hooked on just the head of his cock before plunging back to the hilt. The sounds of sloppy, messy sex was accompanied by Jack panting as the already stoked urge to breed was fanned into an inferno. With all their foreplay, he knew he wasn’t going to last long.

    Though they both held different ideas of what long meant in that context.

    Sensitive! She tried to form the word and failed, her plea lost in the carnal assault of her Warden. Despite being so much physically larger, Rose felt quite small within the storm of Jack’s wanton sexual appetite. The male’s stamina awed the Mother Dragon. Not because he had to build up his pleasure, but because she felt so good it was difficult not to pound her to where the tip of his tool was overstimulated.

    To the young Scav, there was only pleasure. Only sensation. Only the shape of his pelvis pressing against the curve of her ass. Only the slight bend in his knees for leverage. Only the scent of roses mixed with feminine sex as he bred his Rose. Nothing existed outside their hallowed union.

    Trembling, she lowered her front while still keeping her haunches raised, not willing to sacrifice a nanogram of her Warden’s comfort. She started to cum, already stimulated by her first orgasm while laying eggs, her relaxed tunnel made the cock spearing her feminine chalice glide along exposed folds rich with clitoral nerve clusters.

    Jack’s orgasm followed right after, finding just the right rhythm to his hips and friction along his shaft due to her plush walls rippling. This time Jack’s tip wasn’t pressing against the end of her tunnel since there was no end. Because she hadn’t decided on a design for a cervix yet, her pussy simply led straight to the pseudo-womb. Rose being bent over made him reach much deeper than their previous two positions. All Jack knew was that it felt incredible, whole body tensing, then relaxing as he continued to cling to her tail. His tool was wrapped in a warm sleeve made of wet velvet that just went on without impeding the head of his cock.

    Because of their overlapping climax, Rose squeezed Jack’s shaft so that the first rope of his cum hit the far wall of her womb with enough force to scramble her sensors. Then it was Rose’s turn to melt. False overheat warnings triggered in her pelvic area, carnal signals being sent stampeding through the rest of her body. Her reinforced spine, housing the biggest concentration of control nerves, arched in ecstasy.

    Higher processes were suspended so all that remained was the backup instincts. The primal reality imposed on her by a belly saturated with sticky essence. She could feel herself bending to his will, and she welcomed it. If any part of the Mother Dragon still remained untamed, then they were converted in that instance.

    For all her indomitability, the Mother Dragon was brought to her knees by her human mate, bringing her legs together so she remained impaled on his maleness. Though he wasn’t aware of it, Jack was imposing his axiom onto a being of eldritch math and occult code just like he had with the Oni of the Shrake and Purgation.

    Yes, she was a dragon. She was also his dragoness .

    Jack held himself inside until he thought himself spent. However, when he pulled back, the crown of his cock caught on Rose’s entrance. So when he popped completely free, the wave of stimulation caused a final pulse of cum to shoot out. The white seed splashed against the dip of her flower, dripping down the teardrop of her slit.

    With a gratified exhale, Jack fell back onto his couch while Rose needed to reboot her locomotive controls.

>You came so hard I think my next clutch will feel it.

***

    Cypher made sure to give the couple enough time to enjoy their gift and clean up before coming over, guessing quite correctly from Rose sharing every detail of her sex life that she and Jack would probably be going at it for a while.

    The tailor smiled upon seeing the extra lustrous shine to Rose’s scales and Jack’s face, normally stricken by worry lines, more relaxed than they’d ever seen him. Cypher made the Mother Dragon lingerie in the hopes of not just getting their friend laid, but giving him a bit of happiness in their shitty world. They were glad to see their work paid off.

    They sat down beside Jack on his reassembled couch, nodding in approval at the renovations he’d done. They placed a pair of laptops on the concrete slab of a coffee table and booted up one of many games installed on each so the two could play together. No matter how all-consuming the war above, humans still needed recreation. And Jack was Cypher’s only friend that enjoyed bootleg video games.

    Before they began, Cypher asked the question that was making it difficult to keep a straight face.

    ‘So, how was the honeymoon?’

    “What? What honeymoon?”

    ‘Those look like wedding rings. You proposed properly, right?’

    Jack glanced over to Rose playing with the many bands woven along her necklace like a fire-breathing wyrm of old tales might bask in their hoard.

    “Oh goddammit.”

***

    Unfortunately, the fatally short distance between good times and bad could be measured with the pull of a trigger.

    Two weeks later as the storm of war above subsided, someone would come to the innards with a microscopic hitchhiker. A curse wrapped in a nanoviral coating.

    A devil that Jack and a few others knew well.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Where Angels Tread

    It began with a cough.

    Two weeks went by, waiting for the tempest of war above to abate. A caravan was supposed to arrive during that time, transporting refugees and supplies. Specifically it was also guarding Craven’s shipment of organs. Adilah was going to get that new heart she was promised. The last survivor of that caravan stumbled into the Innards two weeks to the day after the storm above began and collapsed.

    It always began with just a cough. A single puff of exhaled vapor.

    Soon after the lone survivor’s arrival, sickness began to spread. Cough turned into fever. Inflammation. Body ache. Chills. Weakness. Within hours of infection, the victim’s skin would begin to lose color.

    Tiny fists had beaten on Jack’s door in the small hours of the morning. Adilah was there, quivering in the cold as she said that her grandfather had collapsed. Jack and Rose brought Keel to Doctor Corde’s clinic. Initially Jack thought to leave the child with Cypher, only to find the tailor unresponsive in their bed. The ashy pallor of his friend and Adilah’s immunity confirmed the truth of the sickness to Jack. After bringing Cypher to Corde, he’d placed Adilah in the Eurasian Doctor’s care as well. Soon the child was acting as tiny orderly, sorrow and fear replaced by determination to help as quickly as her tiny feet would carry her.

    Those few who remained uninfected gradually ended up outside the clinic. A ragged bunch if ever there was one. Only four Scavs were present who were capable of embarking on any sort of expedition for aid.

    “It’s Gray Death.” Jack announced to the group, having identified the disease before Corde did. Though she did emerge and corroborate his diagnosis.

    This sparked a heated discussion among the group. Gray Death was a nanomechanical virus that mimicked cybernetic or mechanical prosthesis rejection. Like many things birthed in the lost years of war’s beginning, no one knew who first used the weapon. Some said that it was designed by Europans to cripple the Eurasian populace. Some purported that it was conceived by the Eurasians to prevent wounded Europan soldiers from being given robotic limbs. Others still claimed it’d been a plot by Euruska to cripple both sides and claim economic victory by being the only supplier of replacement parts immune to the nanovirus.

    There was some talk of asking for help from other settlements, or even the great powers themselves, though it was tinged by grim resignation. Like most crises affecting the innocent, those with authority to render aid were too busy killing each other. The Innards was on its own. Either by miracle or grit, they’d endure, or return to being just another hole in Lost Angels.

    Sitting on Rose’s forearm, Jack was pensive. Pure chance saw him get inoculated against Gray Death when he was younger. Europan Battle Schools were intended to give basic education and screen children for potential as soldiers or officers. As such, many actual combat units helped with things like math for calling down artillery or science for knowing how to field treat shrapnel or bullet wounds. There was a time when a crate of advanced antivirals were delivered for a special forces unit that never showed up. Because the seal had already been broken, the decision was made to administer it to the children instead.

    “How long do we have?” Asked Slade, a venerated ancient of a Scav. He no longer left the Innards, instead coordinating independent jobs for the rest.

    Doctor Corde provided the answer. “Without knowing the exact variant, there’s no telling. Could be hours, days, even a week if we’re lucky. Once the body begins rejecting its own organs…”

    “Then we need more than a vaccine. We need a cure. Ambrosia.” Slade responded, breathing the final word like a widower’s prayer. Whether consciously or not, the ancient Scav touched a pox scar along his cheek.

    “There’s a cure?” Someone blurted in surprise.

    “It’s not made anymore. Only a few places ever would have. Before the war. Top secret labs that produced things like the Gray Death. That’s where we’ll find Ambrosia.”

    “You’re talking about finding bioweapon labs from the beginning of the war. That’s insane.” Doctor Corde’s disbelief was not meant as an insult. Moreover, she knew they’d do it. Against all odds, against all reason, there were those desperate, or crazy enough to attempt the impossible.

    A Shaman spoke up, distinctive yellow shroud of his kind shifting with his inscrutable mask. “I know of one. Beneath the Great Crucifixion. I’ll go there.”

    “There’s another. Another. Another. Congo-One. The Dark Jungle. Darkened dark of arched ark.” Chimed in Craven with his broken speech. The man-centipede had really risen to the occasion to help his new community, working right alongside Corde in her clinic.

    Gunhead, the independent automata of a Scav, nodded, indicating he would take that target.

    “What about that one settlement? Oasis, wasn’t it? We lost contact with them a long time ago, but they said they cracked the seal of something like that they were built on top of.” A wiry Scav woman proposed.

    “That’s a long way away. Beyond one of the big rifts near the edge of the city.” Slade countered.

    “I can get there faster than anyone.” The Scav Girl boasted.

    “So that’s three.” The aged Slade sighed.

    There came a sound like the beating of a great heart. A steady thud of gargantuan boots clomping against floor grates as a Euruskan super soldier approached.

    “There is a fourth.” The Orgamech announced. Jack could never get his name right, but he was one of the other representative’s of Euruska aside from Lysenko. “There’s also the Temperance facility.”

    Slade shook his head. “I don’t think anyone can get there anymore. The bridge to the entrance is gone. You’d have to climb down one of the supports or get across one of the great rifts. It would take days to get there safely.”

    “One among you can.” The Orgamech turned to Jack, and so did everyone else.

    Though Jack’s mouth went dry, he didn’t have to be asked which target he would take.

    The Euruskan addressed the group as a whole once more, surveying the others as . “Four Scavs. Four targets. Where some might see coincidence, I see providence. This is a test.”

    Despite the scripture being spoken, surely moving and meant to be motivating, Jack had already tuned the augmented soldier out. His mind was formulating a list of what he’d need for such an expedition.

    After getting the location of his target and a description of what Ambrosia was supposed to look like, Jack left to get his gear sorted. He and Rose met the other three in front of the Innards’ main exit tunnel. They were performing final checks before leaving as well.

    “Hey, guys,” Jack called out, holding a clenched fist in front of him. Scavs weren’t really ones for fancy speeches. “Don’t fucking die, alright?”

    They knocked their knuckles together, then went their separate ways. 

    One would never be seen again. One would return empty-handed. And the third came back days later covered in burns, unable to talk about what happened without screaming.

    As for the last…

***

    Before he even saw the layers of death iconography adorning the entrance of the Temperance facility, Jack had a deep sense of foreboding. Every instinct in the young Scav screamed at him not to intrude in such a place. Embedded in the wall along a great rift in Lost Angel’s megastructure, it felt as though the city itself wanted it to be forgotten.

    Along the truncated remains of a suspended promenade were statues holding bowls. To Jack, they were just more useless ornamentation. After all, to a Scav, the idea of a fountain was one of unimaginable excess. He could tell by the ornamental nature of everything that the area predated the war. Architectural embellishments were only made those days by Night Shift bots going a bit haywire, trying to recreate the splendor of what Lost Angels used to be with bones of the Macro City. Little better than dressing up a corpse for a funeral service.

    Enough remained of the promenade to serve as an effective platform for Rose to stand on so Jack could safely dismount.

    The once grand entrance was almost entirely sealed off by quarantine protocols of the facility. A special expanding ferro-foam formed a nigh-impregnable barrier over the doors. Through a combination of explosives and cutting tools, a passage had been carved through several feet of ferro-foam and vault doors.

    The young Scav regarded the monument to the glory of annihilation, so bespoke with architectural regalia. Opulent even in decay.

    “Hey, Rose, define temperance, please.”

>Definition: Moderation of thought, action, or restraint. Voluntary self-control. It is also part of the Major Arcana in a Tarot card deck. A tool believed to be used for divination. The card traditionally uses proto-religious imagery depicting an angel or other winged figure to represent balance, patience, or purpose.

    The weapons being used to fight the war in Jack’s time were pale shadows cast by the nuclear fire of the conflict’s opening salvoes. Man-made monsters and miracles from the largest mech to the smallest bacteriophage clashed even as the first missiles left their silos. What were the armies of any of the great nations worth compared to an instrument that could reduce a continent to glass, or kill every living thing in a thousand miles down to the microscopic level?

    “Fascinating,” Jack mumbled absently as he touched the wall beside the door. Warnings in every language he knew and many he didn’t were carved, painted, spray painted, or chiseled into the wall. Pictograms of death, danger, disease were layered together into a hieroglyphic procession of wards. Great effort had gone into marking the place as not worthwhile by a great many different people. Evidence of past forays into the facility littered the area. Empty crates of breaching equipment were festooned with worn climbing ropes.

>My Warden, this must be the incorrect target.

    “No, Rose, this is it.” Jack responded as he set down his rig to modify it. There was no way he’d be able to fit through the opening with his usual setup. He stripped it down to the harness and frame. It was possible the Ambrosia would be in something as small as a syringe or as large as a drum. The cure was volatile, and needed to stay sealed so he had to be prepared to haul whatever he found.

>This Unit extends an apology. You must be mistaken.

    “I promise, it is.” Without containers, he had to be smart about what he carried.

    Several spare magazines for his SA58 filled the pouches hung from his armored chestplate. The inside of his long coat had several pieces of flexible webbing as backup storage. A bandolier of fat shells for his Shrake took up one side while some emergency medical supplies took up the other. Purgation was secure in its sheath, attached to his hip opposite of the Shrake Assault Revolver. A few basics in case he got hungry or thirsty went into a spare pouch on his waist. He also made sure the backward facing camera on his helmet was working.

>Then we must search for an alternative entrance or locate proper explosive or cutting tools.

    “What’s gotten into you?” His nerves were already frayed, and he didn’t mean to snap. Rose lifted two of her hands, holding them close to Jack as she nearly bumped her chest protectively into him.

>If you go in there, I cannot follow you.

    Jack softened. “I know.” The young Scav reached out to caress the scales he could see between the folds of her shroud.

>Unknown potential risk is outside acceptable parameters. You cannot do this.

    “But I must. Because right now, I’m the only one who can. It’ll be okay, Rose. If I don’t come back, try to save as many back at the Innards as you can. Help Craven get transplants. Help Cypher... If they... Well, just help them.”

    He clicked on the flashlight mounted to his SA58 and the rig light clamped to the frame poking over his left shoulder. As a final measure against the dark, he shouldered a loop of chemlights daisy-chained together.

    After doing one more check of everything, he looked up at Rose’s beautiful geometric plates. Even without their link, he could tell she was worried by the way her snout was fixated on him. A mechadendrite slipped out of her shroud holding a medical injector.

>Please, take this. It is a powerful cocktail of stimulants mixed with my regenerative plasma. Use it only in an emergency. It will bring you back to me, no matter what happens. I will wait for you to return.

    “Don’t wait too long.” Said Jack, slipping the injector next to his other medical supplies.

>I will wait for you as long as it takes. As long as I have to.

    “Kiss-kiss.”

>Kiss-kiss.

    Jack walked to the rift, gave his companion a parting nod of his helmeted head, then squeezed through the narrow opening. The whistling wind of the rift disappeared almost instantly, shadows and silence swallowing the young Scav.

***

    In the days of its operation, a motorized platform would’ve taken personnel down into Temperance. Now, only the set of emergency stairs that ran along the diagonal track remained. The young Scav experienced a wave of deja vu. His flashlights only speared out so far, the distant steps disappearing into the murk. Desperation urged him to begin the descent. Time was not his ally.

    One foot in front of the other, Jack’s boots disturbed old dust. The way down was easy, if time consuming. The further it went, the more unattractive the return trip looked.

    Two miles later, he reached the bottom.

    Jack crossed the threshold of the final step into the Temperance facility.

    Flipping on his scanner, Jack immediately shut it back off, nearly blinded by the visual feedback as his HUD was washed out. He tried a few more times, cycling through different modes only to be met with either blinding light or reflected digital darkness. The walls of Temperance were shielded.

    The vaulted lobby of the facility proper swallowed the beams of his flashlights. Ripping a chemlight off the chain looped around his shoulder, the blooming glow bathed the area in green light from where he tossed the stick. There was more evidence of those who dared the old dangers before him. Munitions crates stacked into firing positions. The tip of his plated boots kicked spent casings scattered between empty magazines. Many walls were marked by weapons both ballistic and more exotic. Scorch marks and oddly sharp-edged craters underpinned old markings. The number 14 was represented in various ways, held aloft by winged figures.

    Breaking off more chemlights, Jack threw them down the hallways which branched away from the lobby.

    Trying to be quick as well as thorough, Jack worked his way methodically into the  facility. While unlikely, it was possible there could be Ambrosia in an emergency location close to the entrance for quick access. At least the initial portions, hallways and rooms whose purpose was lost to time, showed signs of being picked over. Which meant that the precious cure was going to be in the furthest, most secure portions of the labyrinth. The keys to salvation kept next to the engines of extinction. Jack wondered if anyone other than him saw the irony.

    So he dove deeper, leaving a breadcrumb trail of chemlights as he went. Occasionally, still functioning emergency lights made pockets of illumination. Mostly, there was just the inscrutable darkness. Periodic terminals offered the promise of more information, perhaps a map or even a hint on where to look, yet surrendered only static or black screens.

    Some areas were unsettling, not because of their ruin, but for their lack of it. Even after such an interminable time, there were places here or there that seemed perfectly preserved. One in particular made Jack pause. A simple rest area tucked into an alcove along an otherwise unremarkable hallway. Perhaps for visitors. Perhaps for workers. The glow of a pair of vending machines and a single light fixture of warm yellow made the couches, table, and countertop coffee machine appear more like a museum piece than a real place. A fragment of the past frozen in amber light, floating in the dark.

    Fascinated by these innocuous artifacts, Jack touched the soft cushions of a couch. While he couldn’t imagine life outside of war, he could envision people sitting. Resting. Chatting in groups or enjoying a solitary moment.

    “What a life.” He muttered to himself. Running his hand along the stainless steel counter, he paused. A tiny pair of eyes looked at him from around the coffee maker. “Oh! Hey there, little guy. Maybe you can-” A good sized trench lizard scurried away from its hiding place as soon as Jack held his hand out. Disappearing behind a cabinet, then scrambling up a wall and under a loose wall panel big enough for it to squeeze through.

    While he tried to take the sign of a fellow Scavenger as a good thing, doubt crept in. Thus far, he’d encountered no resistance. No automated turrets or sentry bots. No traps or tripwires rigged to collapse a few metric tons of rubble on his head.

    What if he failed? What if the facility was empty, its bounty long gone? What if the cure was never there to begin with? What if it was but he couldn’t find it in time? Or missed it entirely? What if it was somewhere he couldn’t get to?

    Uncertainty weighed on him. The young Scav shouldered the burden without slowing down. Continuing his search, all Jack could do was hope.

    Corridors split from the main path like invasive roots. Jack nearly jumped out of his skin when he peeked around a corner and thought he saw a person standing there. Keeping his rifle ready, he looked again and let out a low breath as he realized it was just a statue. With arms outstretched and wings held high, the authoritarian expression across its chiseled androgynous face was a ubiquitous artistic choice. He’d mistaken it for a person because the polished concrete was so lifelike in appearance. The exceptional quality of the detail made the sculpture stand out.

    Having spent his life in Lost Angels, Jack’s upbringing instilled the ability to judge the quality of angelic statuary at a glance. This one was old. Night Shift was the only major source of new construction whose algorithms warped further with every iteration. To see an angel sculpture without distortion was oddly unnerving.

    Already hypervigilant, Jack didn’t even consider going that way. There were more functional emergency lights. Still, the darkness beyond the uncannily perfect statue was thicker. More malevolent. By its pose, the superstitious inclination in the young Scav took the statue as a sign to go no further.

    He just had to keep going. Yet, his feet slowed to a stop of their own accord a hundred paces from the junction.

    Everything was still and quiet until every inch of his skin prickled in paranoia. Jack experienced the sudden urge to turn on the rearward camera mounted to his helmet. The long, cold fingers of winter caressed each vertebrae of his spine one by one as he watched the statue slide out from the darkened side corridor into the middle of the hallway and turn towards him.

    Jack checked the safety on his rifle before whirling, bringing his gun up to bear. The statue stayed still. The young Scav took just three seconds for any other sign before aiming at its head. He pulled the trigger, gunshot echoing far into the facility. Bullet fragments and dust puffed off the sculpture’s forehead.

    The mouth of the statue opened as if slit by a razor, lifting up to reveal a grinning maw packed with finger-length fangs. In the next instant the limbs of the statue separated and flew down the hallway towards the young Scav with blistering speed.

    Jack held down the trigger. The monster closed the distance before he could even empty the fifty round magazine on full auto. In the beam of the flashlight mounted under the barrel of his gun, Jack caught a brief glimpse of serrated talons while holding up the rifle between himself and danger.

    There was a snap as the shadow beast swiped at the young Scav, cleaving furrows through his gun, nearly splitting it in half. Dropping the ruined husk of his SA58, Jack turned and ran. The creature gave him a momentary head start, then pursued, grinning all the while.

    Heart hammering, chest heaving, cursing with every exhale, Jack ran for his life.

    His first instinct was to find cover. Break line of sight. Yet it seemed he’d crossed into a more twisted portion of the Temperance facility. Statues were placed strategically at branching hallways, either presenting totemic wards to block him, or as piles of broken stone limbs that formed impassable barricades. Unbeknownst to the young Scav, he was being herded towards a specific destination.

    Jack came to a vast, circular chamber. Whatever purpose the place originally served was lost to the dead. Descending a short staircase, the young Scav’s plated boots fell upon something far different than concrete.

    There was no telling where the floor was, buried beneath the bones. Specifically, skulls. It had to be tens of thousands. If not more. Even if it was only a layer or two deep, the magnitude of the remains was staggering, even to Jack. Dozens of different angelic statues added to the mess. All in different poses. Masculine, feminine, and everything outside and in between littered the area. Some stood, just their feet beneath the tooth-laden surface. Others were only an outstretched hand or the tip of a wing poking out between cranial plates.

    The ceiling was a dome, the zenith of which was the source of the harsh light as well as sharp shadows. It was as though Jack found himself in the bottom of an hourglass, with skulls instead of grains of sand to mark the passage of eternity. Instead of negotiating with the interplay of forces, the space expressed dominion over them. Bent, broken, melted down, then remade as the wielders of this place saw fit. Lines of inlaid circuitry across the inner curve of the dome, interspaced by nodes of fiber optics containing celestial bodies of computing power.

    He slowed to a jog, taking in his surroundings as quickly as possible. The only door was the one he’d entered through.

    Jack turned back to see the creature waiting at the top of the stairs. Temperance obeyed its venerable protector. The door to the room slid down, locking bars measured in metric tons locked into place.

    The monster wasn’t just some security device. Cloaked in not-flesh that violated the line between biological and mechanical, being both, yet neither, this was an actual Angel.

    The Angel stood to its full height. Jack observed that the statue was just some sort of camouflage. The various bits of polished concrete were attached to the Angel in such a way that it could crouch, or perhaps sit, with its proper limbs held in such a way that it only appeared to be a man-sized sculpture.

    Numerous cables hung from it like tattered robes. Shifting tubes writhed across the parts not obscured by bits of statue, as if its body were puppetted by a nest of serpents. A few patches of leathery hide were visible around the joints while segmented chitin connected the rest. It wore the statue’s face like a mask, brilliant white fangs still in their rictus, splitting the mouth of the austere visage.

    Of course, it wouldn’t be an Angel without a halo. In this case, two intersecting circlets were suspended above its head, held in place by invisible forces. And they were lined with eyes. Human eyes of every shape and hue. All watching Jack.

    While standing, its gait was dainty, plodding down the stairs with the repose of a ballerina. Then it dipped low as it stepped onto the skulls, prowling on all fours like a hound, shoulders rolling with its musculature. A segmented tail twitched in excitement, wickedly toothed blade held up as if it was a long spear ready to strike. No matter how it swayed, the twin halos remained locked in their orbit above its head.

    With dawning horror, Jack divined the Angel’s intent in chasing him the way it had.

    He’d been driven to its den.

    Then it began to sing. The fang infested grin didn’t move. An entire church chorus emanated from the monster. A wordless hymn of praise. Upon the sacred altar to ruin, this intruder was another golden calf to be slaughtered.

    Jack moved apace with the creature, drawing his Assault Revolver, letting instinct guide his steps across the floor, keeping his gun trained on it. Eyes and teeth appeared on his HUD, as the Shrake searched the enemy for weakness. Aiming center mass, Jack fired. The Assault Revolver screamed with the voice of a supersonic incendiary armor-piercing bullet through the mouth of a twisted muzzle brake.

    The young Scav was a good shot even in the worst of times and hit nothing but air.

    The Angel was that fast, able to see where his gun was pointing and moving within the span between trigger pull and hammer fall.

    The Shrake, angered at its foiled hunger and gave Jack the best targeting paths to catch their opponent. Jack fired again, catching the Angel in the stomach with an explosive shell that would’ve killed even a heavily augmented man. Chunks of chitinous armor and cable were scattered as a fist-sized crater marked the divine creature. Its blood glowed as brightly as molten metal. And cooled just as quickly too, sealing its wound closed in seconds.

    The Angel didn’t seem to care. It began closing the distance between them as Jack continued to back up and fire. He missed one more time, then found the proper tempo for all the good it did, shooting again and again. Despite the grievous wounds the explosive armor-piercing shells did, burrowing through armor to detonate among softer flesh, the monster showed no signs of pain.

    Or of slowing down.

    It was on him. Close enough for his final shot painted the skulls near his feet with phosphorescent blood. The Angel struck out, fingers a blend of disemboweling hook, serrated talon, and razorblade aimed to split the human open from shoulder to hip. Guided by his Oni, Jack’s trench knife came to his hand almost of its own accord. Using Purgation as a parrying dagger, he deflected the coming blow. The impact nearly made Jack’s whole arm go numb. It was like trying to deflect a steel beam with a fork.

    The Angel paused to lift its hand, as if surprised to see the cut gouged into its wrist. Only a few drops fell into the eye socket of a silent watcher below before the wound sealed shut.

    Not wasting any opportunity, Jack reloaded his Shrake without looking, stuffing its cylinder with whatever shell his fingers blindly found from inside his coat. He wasn’t sure how much use the Assault Revolver would be, but better ready than not. Holstering the Shrake, Jack took Purgation in both hands and linked fully to the blade. The Oni within was awake, having tasted the blood of the Angel. Its edge began to glow as the molecular structure within was aligned to better counter the opponent.

    Their duel started slowly. The Angel attempted another lazy horizontal slash. Combat forms sizzled along Jack’s nerves as Devil Eater’s muscle memory brought the trench knife up in an opposing arc. Purgation got to taste divine blood once more, severing three fingers.

    Again, the monster regarded the injury with curiosity.

    Jack smiled behind his mask. Maybe he could do this. Maybe he could wear the holy beast down. Or at least disarm it. Conviction turned to ash as the young Scav watched new digits made of curved talons and knives unfold from the Angel’s forearms to replace the ones lost.

    Even so, he took up a proper high guard and widened his stance. He wouldn’t die without a fight. He would not go into that foul night without carving his name into this beast.

    Steadily the tempo of the clash increased. Single attacks became double. Double became triple. Soon sets of attacks gave way to a relentless flurry that only sometimes abated. The Angel pushed him further and further. There was no time to think. Only act. Only Purgation’s edge and guidance allowed him to keep up for as long as he did. Advanced molecular formatting vied against undying claws. Mnemonic impulse infused Jack’s arms with the knowledge to straddle the line between life and a grisly end.

    Even the ground fought him. The skulls were not packed tightly. Not enough to provide solid ground. Stacked in haphazard drifts, there were hills and valleys that could send waves of old bones tumbling. Most others would have stumbled due to the treacherous footing, the Angel falling upon its prey in a flash. Not Jack. Not with how many times he’d run, walked, and crawled across carpets of bones. There were no others in the world better at dancing across the bones of the dying world than a Scav.

    In the end, supposing he was able to hold his own, there was no way he could win. Already his muscles fought to keep up with the demand placed on them. The ache spreading through him cost him speed when he needed it most. The Angel’s blows began to land in earnest. If nothing else, it would outlast him. His coat and all too human flesh beneath became sliced in equal stride. Blood from wounds opened on his shoulders, arms, and legs, blessed the osseous ground with sacred red. Between strikes he injected coagulants to stem his bleeding and stimulants to flush his muscles of acidic buildup.

    He would die, alone in the dark fighting an Angel. Another skull added to the pile to mark he’d made it that far. Jack didn’t want to win, just survive.

    Ever did the Angel sing.

    As he was preoccupied avoiding a vicious series of stabbing strikes, the Angel’s tail struck from on high like a scorpion, scoring a deep gash across his helmet. Only the angled, reinforced crest saved him from death, deflecting the strike though leaving his vision swimming. Static began creeping across his HUD from that side.

    A quick kick from the creature right after nearly ended him. Talons ripped through his coat as it struck him in the middle. Jack was sent back hard, barely managing to turn the fall into a roll and end up back on his feet. If he’d been wearing his full rig, the time needed to get back up would’ve been fatal. He gasped, trying to recover after having the wind knocked from him. Only the ballistic plate covering his torso spread out the energy of the kick enough to prevent his chest from being caved in. Now useless SA58 magazines tumbled to join the detritus of other’s final moments of defiance.

    Another kick came, aimed lower to shatter his tibia. This time Jack countered, yanking his Shrake free of its holster and fired from the hip three times in rapid succession. Reflex and the warning of eyes and teeth on his HUD guided the young Scav. The Assault Revolver screamed so Jack could save his breath. Angelic ichor splattered across the empty sockets staring up from the floor. Though its knee was mangled, the beast seemed unbothered.

    The monster backed away as its plaything struggled to stand. This was as far as the young Scav would go. This was his limit.

    The Angel charged.

    In the face of inevitability, of death, of darkness, of failure and the final tolling bell of the end of the world itself seeking to break the young Scav, so long as he still had a round in the chamber, Jack would pull his trigger even as the weight of armageddon sought to bring him to his knees.

    He took aim. Four shots left. If this was to be his last act, he would not miss.

    The Assault Revolver screamed.

    An incendiary round caught it high in the shoulder, burning sacred flesh.

    The Angel was undeterred.

    An explosive armor-piercing round sheared parts of its hip.

    The Angel remained undaunted.

    A cryogenic round detonated against the forehead of its statue facade face, splintering cracks marring the perfection of its false visage.

    The Angel could not be felled by mortal weapons, grinning at this truth.

    It was on him, even as the hammer of his Shrake fell one last time. A claw pulled back to deliver a lethal strike. It’d closed the distance between them faster even than when it broke his SA58. Although aided by his Oni, there was only so fast the human body could move.

    The Shrake screamed, and the singing stopped.

    Even though a moment prior it wouldn’t have saved him, Jack dove to one side. It took his mind a moment to catch up to the fact that he wasn’t dead. Or why that was the case. He was back up in a flash.

    The Angel was… Frozen? Still as the statue adorning its twisted body, the beast was utterly motionless as well as silent.

    Pinpricks of light as bright as white phosphorus glinted on its chest.

    Jack discerned that it was from the seventh round he’d fired. In his haste, he must have loaded the mysterious Silver Nails. The projectiles were lodged into the Angel between the chest and throat above one of its pieces of statue camouflage. There was a low hissing noise as bright blood welled up from the cluster of puncture wounds. As he watched, Jack’s heart nearly skipped a beat as a Silver Nail was slowly pushed free and the hole closed up where it’d been lodged.

    His gaze snapped up and saw both rings of eyes fixated on him.

    “Oh fuck.”

    There had to be a way out!

    Jack ran back to the door, searching for any access or control panel. Nothing. He jammed the needles of several small medkits near his wounds to at least stop the bleeding for now. Jogging around the circumference of the room, he felt along the wall for anything. A hidden seam, button or lever. He kept glancing at the Angel. Its eye-lined halos followed him wherever he went. Was it moving?

    Motion. A tiny form scurried behind a large pile of bones.

    From one Scavenger to another, Jack knew wherever the lizard went must surely be safer than where he was now. It took him precious moments to find the lizard’s exit. An access panel. Just big enough that he might be able to squeeze into. Although half-buried, the vent was propped open by a few skulls. Without the lizard, Jack would’ve missed it.

    The young Scav flung open the vent covering and dove inside without a second thought as he heard the Angel begin to sing again.

***

    No shame slowed Jack’s crawl as the young Scav fled mortal terror as quickly as he could shimmy through the Temperance facility’s ducts. Soon the Angel’s singing faded as concrete reinforced ductwork surrounded him. Sometimes he could get by on hands and knees while at other points the vent compressed, forcing him to wiggle forward on his belly.

    A few hundred feet after that, Jack emerged into a cramped nexus of sorts. A junction of pipes and airways. A dim heat lamp and his rig mounted flashlight illuminated the tangled conduits.

    While he expected a lizard or two, Jack was not alone in the way he thought he’d be. What Jack followed into the vent wasn’t a trench lizard at all. It was a remotely operated drone. And its controller crouched in a corner of the junction, scrunched into a defensive posture and ready to pounce.

    His Shrake came out of its holster in an instant, eyes and teeth zeroing in on the target. He’d loaded the Assault Revolver as he crawled through the vents just in case.

    Euruska was known for its distinctive blend of biological and mechanical. Monitor Lizards were a prime example. A cross-breed of genetically enhanced animals and mechanical prosthetics, they were versatile scouts tempered by the rigors of field testing only possible in the unending war. Short of limb and quadrupedal, Monitor Lizards were deceptively large. Even without their tail, they were typically between six to eight feet long. Their tail doubled that. And depending on how much was mechanical, they could weigh upwards of four-hundred pounds.

    Some folk insisted that no matter what they looked like, every Euruskan construct used human brains. Few disputed this. Usually the disagreement came in whether the brains were cloned, or harvested from unwilling victims.

    A slim, forked tongue tasted the air. An armored half-mask protected the top of its slim muzzle all the way to the back of its elongated skull. Seven eyes, three on each side and one mounted on its brow, blinked in pairs from the bottom up to maintain constant focus on what Jack was doing. Monitor Lizard eyes were one of the most valuable pieces of salvage that could be found on the battlefield. Techno-organic marvels that could rival mech sized sensor suites.

    A mane of biomechanical radio antennae ran from their neck to the base of their tail. Seven smaller heads peered at him from the Monitor’s back, the drones watching him just as intently. Each drone was a robotic chassis built around a bioelectric battery, able to be recharged from contact points on the controller. They often blended in with trench lizards or other endemic life, much to their advantage.

    This was the first time Jack had been so close to one that was still alive. Dappled olive green, brown, and tan contrasted with the dark powder coating of its prosthetics. Though he wondered… If it was so afraid, why didn’t it run away? Maybe it was territorial? The junction was clearly its nest. Empty wrappers and food tins were stacked along the upper pipes. A heap of soiled clothing looked to be a bed of some sort.

    As he examined the Monitor with a more critical, less panic-stricken gaze, he noticed the way it favored one side. All four of its limbs were almost entirely mechanical. While its two limbs on the left were fully inorganic, the two on its right were only metal from above the knee. Anti-microbial alloys bit into old injuries.

    It was wounded, obviously terrified, and Jack was pointing his gun at it. Slowly he lowered his Shrake. The shaking in his hands was undeniable. Looking around the junction, he saw a knot of pipes in the closest corner that would work fine as a seat. His raw wounds pulled uncomfortably as he settled. To the young Scav’s ecstatic surprise, it was warm. Since Temperance wasn’t frozen over entirely, it made sense that systems still siphoned heat from the surrounding Macro City.

    “Alright, alright. Easy, there. I won’t hurt you. Just promise you won’t try to eat me.” Holstering his Assault Revolver, the ache of his wounds demanded attention. Breaking out the pair of advanced first aid kits he’d brought along, Jack treated the many injuries the Angel inflicted on him. Smart bandages molded over his deeper lacerations. Cool relief prickled along his limbs as high tech medicine knit flesh back together. Trying to ignore the cost of the supplies as well as the sight of the fileted meat of the more grievous cuts, Jack decided it was better to patch himself up now than be conservative.

    He stayed vigilant as he worked just in case the Monitor was desperate or mad. Without a doubt he was safer here than with the Angel. Clearly this organism of flesh and machine was intelligent. Enough to stay alive at least. But how intelligent?

    After tending to himself as best he was able, there were a few meds leftover including the injectable Rose had given him. He tossed a small medkit, essentially a disposable syringe with a mix of painkillers, coagulants, and a few other ingredients over to the Monitor.

    Without the Monitor itself moving, one of the drones launched off its back and grabbed the medkit before scampering back to the controller. The Monitor’s seven fingered prosthetic hand jabbed the medkit into its inflamed shoulder. A hiss of relief escaped the long, slim muzzle.

    If he knew anything about Euruskan tech, then it would have a neuro uplink. Emboldened by his experience with Rose, Jack fished around in a pocket and held out an interface cable. The drone controller flinched away, shaking its head.

    “It’s okay. I don’t suppose you can talk, can you?” The creature was clearly smart, but it was still a longshot.

    “Not… Supposed… To.”

    Within the seclusion of the junction, the Monitor’s voice was heart-wrenchingly quiet. Barely a squeak above a whisper. By the pitch, Jack ascertained that the Monitor was a girl. He would’ve been in awe were his limbs not still shaking from his fight.

    “I’ll… Get… In trouble.” The thin lips of her muzzle strained to shape the noises her throat molded.

    Jack held up an open palm while resting the other above his heart. “I promise not to tell anyone, okay? It’ll be our secret.”

    Fears just a bit assuaged, Jack considered what to do next. He knocked a palm against the side of his helmet to try and dispel the static from. Instead, his whole HUD flickered, then shut off entirely. Biting back a thousand curses, he took off his helmet. Examining the horrific rent cutting across one side, Jack blew out a low breath. Not being something he could fix in the field, he thanked his gear for its sacrifice and attached it to the side of his rig.

    The Monitor spoke in its poorly practiced voice. “Your eyes… Are very… Pretty. They remind… Me of… Stormwater.”

    Unsure of what to say, Jack awkwardly smiled.

    Despite, or perhaps because of the direness of the situation, Jack was keenly aware of the thirst he’d worked up. He took the canteen from its place on his waist and sipped the cool water. Wanting to be topped up on energy as well, he ripped open an MRE he’d tucked into an inner coat pocket. It was, in theory, a full meal. In reality it was a brick of alternating crackers enriched by salt and sugar respectively. Importantly, he knew from experience it wouldn’t sit heavily in his gut.

    Not wanting to be rude, Jack held one out for the inhabitant of the junction.

    “What… Do you… Want… For it?” The Monitor curled her tail between her legs into a protective pose, covering her underbelly with it even as she turned her hips away from the young Scav.

    “You can just have it.” This seemed to make the Monitor even more wary. Jack changed tactics. “Okay, then. How about in exchange, you answer some questions I have?”

    The shift in demeanor was immediate, going from fearful to intrigued. Jack tossed a sweet cracker her way. Rather than a drone, the Monitor caught it with her own claws. Settling onto her haunches, she ate the first real food she’d had in a long time. Showing great restraint, she took the tiniest bites, savoring every crumb.

    “How’ve you survived down here?”

    “Back… Tunnels. Maintenance access. The Angel… Can’t fit. Food is… Hard. The Angel only takes… The heads. It pulls out the eyes… Then eats everything… Except the skull. I send my little ones… To take the leftovers. I’m surprised… You lived. I watched… You fight.”

    That explained the lizards watching him.

    “So, the Angel. What is it?” He tossed another cracker her way.

    The Monitor shook her head. “I don’t know… For certain. It’s been here… A long time. It’s very mean. I’ve tried… To escape. It doesn’t let me. No one… Keeps it distracted… Long enough.”

    Between her injuries and the Angel’s omnipotence within Temperance, Jack believed the Monitor’s story. Based on the scraps in the junction area, she’d been there for years, most likely living in fear of the Angel the entire time.

    She heaved a sigh and continued. ”I did… Like when… It took… My commander’s eyes. He was meaner than… The Angel. He’d promise me… Things… and then… Not give them. Lots of people… Have tried to… Come in. Sometimes there’s… A big enough group. The Angel doesn’t kill them all. I don’t think… It can leave. It never touches the stairs. Even with someone right there… It won’t chase them. I was in the vents… When the Angel attacked my squad. I think it knew we were there… The whole time. It likes to kill where all the skulls are.”

    “Wow, yeah, I don’t really know what to say to all that. Holy fucking shit. I’ve seen some death traps but merciful fuck, I feel at least a little vindicated. I knew this place was bad. Folks back home better appreciate this. If I make it back. So then, what were you guys looking for?” Jack didn’t want to tip his hand just yet.

    “My squad’s mission was… To scout this facility for a Grail.”

    “A Grail?”

    “Correct.”

    “What’s a Grail?”

    “Our objective.”

    Urgency got the better of the Young Scav. “Uh-huh. Listen, I’m here because my home got infected by the Gray Death. I need Ambrosia. It’s supposed to be a cure. It could be in a canister or vial, but it’s supposed to have a very special green glow. Have you seen it?”

    “Yes,” The Monitor reignited Jack’s hope, reinvigorating him with that single word.

    “You’re sure? Where? Please, a lot of people very important to me will die without it.”

    “In the vault. I’ve seen it with my drones. It’s small. There’s only one. But it matches your description.”

    “Do you know how to get there? Is it safe?” He leaned forward.

    “There’s a tunnel that runs almost the entire length of the facility. But it doesn’t go directly into the vault. The doors are open. You can get close, but there’s a big room you have to cross.”

    A plan was beginning to form in Jack’s mind. Adrenaline made him giddy. The potential for success despite all odds took the edge off the ache in his everything. But he needed the Monitor Lizard’s help. And maybe… Just maybe… She needed his too.

    “So, who are you? What’s your name?” He hoped a bit more familiarity would aid his proposal.

    “I am Komodo Dragon class Monitor Lizard Two-Four-Zero-Zero-One.”

    “A Komodo Dragon?” Jack chuckled. “I guess you’re like a tiny Mother Dragon.” Then his heart twinged, missing Rose dearly. Though part of him was glad she was safe.

    “A Dragon… Mother? You know a Dragon Mother?” For the first time, the little Dragon got closer to Jack.

    “Oh, uh, yeah. Her name is Rose.” As the young Scav talked, the Monitor climbed into her nest of rags to nibble on the cracker she held between her prosthetic forelimbs. It reminded Jack of a distant memory. “Y’know, I knew a guy once who had a pet ferret. Do you know what a ferret is?”

    The Monitor shook her head.

    “Anyway, I always thought it was really cute. The ferret. It had a cute name, too. So, instead of KDML… Uh, whatever your serial number was, how about I call you Slinky?”

    A drone climbed over her shoulder so she could hold it as a child might hold a doll. The little Dragon’s eyes glazed over as she recited her conditioning, speaking to the reptilian drone instead of Jack.

    “Units of my type aren’t supposed to have names. Emotional attachments formed to disposable non-human scouting elements can lead to detrimental decision making at the squad level. That is why after a designated time in the field I’m required to be decommissioned and recycled. If too many vital missions are failed, I am required to be decommissioned and recycled. If it’s not cost effective to repair me, I am required to be decommissioned and recycled.”

    The Monitor Lizard lifted a claw as if she wanted to strike the drone. Her own muzzle flinched from the memory of the lessons learned by disciplinary rods. Lowering her arm, she hugged the drone, closing her many eyes. They’d been her only company in the dark for so long.

    Then Slinky looked up at Jack.

    “I don’t… Want to be… Recycled.”

    The young Scav nodded solemnly.

    “Okay, Slinky, I’ll make you a deal. If you use one of your drones to lead me to the vault where the Ambrosia is, then, when the Angel chases me, you can escape. I don’t know how it works, but I have these special bullets that seem to freeze it in place. At least for a little while. If you wait on the stairs and guide me out too, then I’ll introduce you to Rose. She’s better than anyone at fixing people.”

    “The Dragon Mother will fix me? You would ask her to do that, Stormwater?”

    The young Scav chuckled. “You can call me Jack.”

    “You gave me a name. So I gave you one.”

    He couldn’t argue with that. “Help me, and I’ll help you. How does that sound?”

    Much like Jack delving into the abyss of the Temperance facility, what choice did she have? Even so, it was the first choice that was hers and hers alone to make.

***

    Whatever properties in Temperance that foiled Jack’s tactical sensors didn’t affect Slinky’s control over her drones in the slightest.

    With guidance from one of her scampering lizards, Jack found himself in a narrow maintenance hallway just wide enough to walk normally even with his rig. It stretched out further than his light could reach in both directions. Getting there required navigating a twisting labyrinth of ducts and side paths. Occasionally the drone would stop and turn its head back to make sure he was still following.

    Jack had to trust her. There was no way he’d be able to get to the Ambrosia and make it back to the entrance of the Temperance facility without Slinky’s knowledge of the secret paths through the place without wandering for hours. He would be easy prey for the Angel.

    True to Slinky’s word, the secret path terminated in a room stuffed with breakers and other long dead electronics. Without his tactical sensors, he had to rely on his eyes. Cracking open the door, he surveyed what he hoped was the final trial.

    Here was another area of Temperance that showed signs of battle. A chamber wide enough for a squad of tanks to drive down while tall enough for a medium mech to walk. Support columns were festooned with gun emplacements whose ammunition was long spent, barrels now nothing more than broken branches on the trunks of the supports. At one end was a security checkpoint. A final guard post before the open killing ground of the last defensive stronghold. Emergency lighting inlaid into the ground cast shadows high. At the other end was a set of titanic vault doors. One side was open. Just enough that Jack could get through the gap between them.

    He only had six more Silver Nail shells. Six chances he loaded into his Shrake with great care.

    Jack didn’t wait. There was a time for stealth and a time for speed. With an Assault Revolver in his right hand and a trench knife in his left, he sprinted for his goal.

    Even though he was prepared, the statue facade emerging from around a column and unfolding into the Angel still made his heart hammer until it felt close to bursting. Jack skidded to a halt, panting, shaking, telling himself he was ready while feeling anything but.

    He judged himself close enough, took aim, and fired.

    The Angel was going to finish what it started whether he was in its den or not. As soon as the hammer of the Shrake began to fall, the beast was already moving out of the way. Even anticipating the move, Jack wasn’t faster than the Angel. Though it was only by a miniscule amount, every projectile in the spread missed its mark. The young Scav tried again, and again missed. A few tubes ripped free of the Angel’s shoulder as the swarm of consecrated silver passed mere millimeters shy of his target.

    Instead of waiting for the Angel to come to him, Jack charged. Crossing his left arm over his chest, he made it seem as if he was about to throw Purgation. Instead, he wrenched a chemlight free and threw that instead. Just as he hoped, the bluff caused the Angel to commit to a maneuver.

    Jack was already aiming where he predicted the monster was going. He pulled the trigger. Even so, it was only a glancing shot. Only a few nails struck true. Though slowed considerably, Jack needed to shoot it again if he wanted any margin of safety. Continuing his charge, he got within arm’s reach of the Angel. Partly paralyzed, the creature reached for him as it was able, arm blooming with talons like a flower made of knives. Purgation bit deep, turning away the strike while Jack discharged his Shrake inches away from the Angel’s heart.

    Without breaking stride, Jack carried on to the blessed, cursed heart of Temperance.

    Beyond the vault doors Slinky’s drone caught up to guide him. His window was small. The Angel would only be held for so long. If there were other miracles, here they would have to stay. In another life, maybe he’d have time to plunder the vault. Though it hurt a part of Jack’s Scav heart to do so, he ignored everything for his singular goal.

    With the human staff long gone, only their shadows remained to watch over their work. More angel statues. More reminders that humanity had taken their vision of the divine and used it to kill each other without a shred of irony. Some were once mechanical assistants, transporting compounds or producing delicate parts of viral recipes. Some stood near computer stations or research equipment. A pair crouched with rosaries over a huge obsidian cup. Others held hands up in benediction towards glass containers that once brewed the deaths of millions while others protectively held the promised salvation of the few who might remain.

    Along one wall, a line of angels were bent in prayer. In their hands were the broken remains of Temperance’s bounty.

    One still had an intact container. One that glowed with the green light of Ambrosia. It was small. An amulet of sorts the size of his hand with a thick loop of titanium chains with hundreds of delicate silver wings wrapped around the tempered glass protecting its contents. It had to be enough. Slinky’s drone climbed up the statue and looked at Jack expectantly.

    The young Scav tried to pull the vial free, however it was stuck fast in the statue’s grip. “Come on! One time. Just one time could something be easy?” 

    Then he made a terrible mistake. One which would bring him unimaginable pain. A baptism of glorious suffering bestowed only upon those worthy of its calamitous mantle. A perfect contrition bestowed on the most worthy penitents.

    He could have taken the cure by force. He would’ve been justified in doing so. He had to be quick! The Angel would surely follow. Surely it was already shaking off the Silver Nails! Surely it would fall wrathfully upon him! Anything other than what he was about to do.

    An interface port was visible on the statue’s wrist. So Jack took out the short cable he kept in one pocket and linked to Temperance itself.

    Perhaps the most grievous sin of those who forced the world to fall into the forever winter was not the war they started, but thinking they could pass judgment on their descendants before they were even born. And so they judged. As Jack dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and closed his eyes to ask for salvation, not for himself, but for his people, he was judged…

    Worthy.

    “Please,” he begged. “Please,” the young Scav reached into the abyss of Temperance’s system with all his earnest might. “I have to save them. I need this. They need this.” He prayed to Lost Angels herself for this one boon. This one moment of mercy.

    But he heard no answer.

    However, when he looked up, the statue’s hands were open.

    Heart beating urgently against his bruised ribs, Jack almost didn’t believe it. Care and urgency both pressed on him in a frothy mess that made his already quivering hands shake all the harder. He lifted the weighty amulet of Ambrosia free of the stone palms, and slipped the chain over his head. Tossing away a useless SA58 magazine, Jack tucked the vial into an intact pouch hanging from his chestplate.

    Slinky’s drone waved its hands frantically to get his attention and waved for him to follow. Catching a second wind despite the unfathomable ache settling into his muscles, Jack ran after the little lizard. There was no time to linger. No time to notice the sculptures kneeling before the ornate obsidian cup were now missing their rosaries.

    At the vault doors he paused for just a moment. Concentrating, he listened for the Angel’s song. When he heard nothing, Jack wondered if the nails still held it in place. He risked a quick glance outside the vault. There was no sign of the monster.

    Taking a deep breath, Jack steeled his nerves and ran. He held Purgation over the precious cargo while keeping his Shrake ready in the other. Slinky’s drone led him back to the service tunnel that’d taken him to the vault. The door to the electrical room slammed shut with reassuring solidity.

    While he wanted to sprint the whole way, he couldn’t risk his legs going out. He settled for a steady jog, still wincing at every footfall. With a more direct route, it didn’t take too long to cover the broad swathe of the facility. Even so, every second that passed ratcheted up Jack’s anxiety. His shoulders were knots of tension and his jaw ached from clenching it.

    The Angel had to know. It had to know that he had the Ambrosia and was trying to escape.

    Two shots. Two chambers of Silver Nails were all that were left. It had to be enough.

    Following the service tunnel brought him almost the rest of the way. Still being guided Slinky’s drone, he soon spotted the breadcrumb trail of his chemlights and new escape must be close. Jack’s eyes darted down every passage, sweeping the barrel of his gun to the right while prepared to intercept any attack from his left with his knife. Not long after, he came to the entrance. Just as when he’d first entered, the only sounds were his boots echoing off the dead walls of the facility.

    He couldn’t tell where Slinky herself was, and only hoped she’d made good on the opening he’d made when freezing the Angel outside the vault. The drone scampered ahead and perched on the first stair to wait for him. Maybe she was already climbing the stairs. She’d held up her end of the bargain, which was all Jack could ask for.

    The young Scav silently pleaded to whatever entity or entities allowed him to get the Ambrosia would prevent the Angel from crossing the threshold of Temperance like the Monitor spoke of. With salvation in reach, Jack put on one more burst of speed, willing his failing muscles to give him just a little bit more.

    This time, the Angel didn’t sing. It was no longer playing. No longer indulging in testing or toying with its prey.

    Now it had purpose.

    It dropped from the ceiling, calculated so that Jack would’ve run headlong into the beast had it not grabbed both of his arms. The young Scav pulled the trigger of his Shrake by reflex, yet the tip of the weapon was held away from his target. A cluster of SIlver Nails were spent uselessly into a concrete wall.

    New talons unfolded from the forearm of the claw holding Jack’s right wrist. With gruesome slowness, they pierced the bullet-proof fabric sleeve of his coat and into his trapped limb. The young Scav began to scream as pain exploded through his right side. With all the subtlety of a surgeon with a pneumatic vice, the talons bored through skin, muscle, and bone. There were audible pops as his tendons gave way, muscle tore, and bone fractured. Red, all too human blood oozed from around the Angel’s violation. Too busy kicking at his assailant, Jack didn’t see the ampules strung around the Angel’s arm like prayer beads.

    The Angel lifted its other hand, two serrated talons pointing towards Jack’s face. Black beads dangled from that wrist as well. Its grin widened to a degree that would've been comical if it hadn't been so vile.

    There was still a price to be paid. Still a toll. Coins for the boatman. Even with a divine mandate, the messenger required compensation.

    Pain dulled the young Scav’s reaction speed. It was as if he was in a nightmare and trying to run, limbs unresponsive in the malaise of this terrible dream. Though with enough adrenaline, he managed to lift Purgation. Could he use the blade to free himself? No, that would leave him open. Even if he survived this strike, would he survive the next?

    A shape leapt onto the Angel’s back, almost causing it to bend at the waist.

    Slinky clawed at the Angel like a feral creature, channeling years of hate and fear spent cowering in the dark. This was her jailor, her tormentor, and for the first time she had the chance to balance the scales. She clamped her jaws around the bicep of the limb poised to strike at Jack, using her powerful neck to pull even as she raked her metal talons along the Angel’s shoulder and back. Against almost any other opponent, the surprise attack and subsequent mauling would’ve inflicted grievous wounds.

    The Angel remained serene even as Slinky opened gashes wide enough that her lower half became stained in glowing gore. One eye-lined halo stared down at the lowly lizard. It casually contorted its arm backwards, heedless of the damage caused by shredding its bicep against the Monitor's fangs, and sank its finger-knives into Slinky’s back. With the posture of a parent disciplining a disobedient child, the Angel lifted the Monitor Lizard off itself. It casually impaled the Monitor with its tail, then flung her back towards the stairs with a dismissive flick. The Monitor gasped when the blade punctured her, then lay unmoving in a heap where she landed.

    “No!” Jack bellowed, nerves aflame. He rejected this fate! He rejected the cruelty the world was trying to impose on him.

    Propelled through the pain by wrath, spurred to action by spite against gods and Angels alike, Jack drove Purgation’s burning tip through the elbow joint of the limb that held his own in a gout of glowing blood. Using the trench knife as a lever, he managed to bend the Angel’s arm so that his Shrake was aimed properly at his target.

    Through sheer mastery of self, Jack managed to squeeze the trigger of his Shrake one more time.

    The SIlver Nails struck true, digging into accursed Angel flesh. It obeyed rules laid down using physics that were so far removed from Jack’s understanding it may as well have been arcane. No matter its charge, the creature, born in the shadow cast by the light of science from a different age, was still beholden to the Silver Nails.

    With the beast frozen, Jack was able to hack at his restraints. With a proper taste of Angel blood, Purgation was able to saw through the elbow joint in just a few seconds. The Angel limb was severed, and Jack was freed. Though he nearly passed out from pain as the unexpectedly heavy limb pulled on his deeply wounded arm. Better that it stay there in the meantime. The talons were stuck fast in the meat and bone and he didn’t want to bleed out from the punctures. While only a single ampule drained into Slinky during the Angel’s brief attack, dozens of tempered glass beads draped from the severed limb latched onto Jack. Whatever was within them continued to flow.

    Stumbling toward the fallen Monitor as he sheathed Purgation, Jack did have one last trick up his sleeve. While groping with his uninjured left hand for the last of his meds, his fingers found a slim shape he’d almost forgotten about. The young Scav yanked out the injectable given by Rose, flicked the cap off with his thumb, and jabbed the short needle into his blood-slicked wrist, its contents automatically pouring in. By the time the spent injectable clattered to the floor, icy numbness washed over the agony.

    Even though she wasn’t with him, Rose gave Jack the strength to holster his empty Shrake. She gave him the strength to rush over to Slinky, grab the Monitor’s front limbs, and drag her beyond the threshold of the Temperance facility. The thought of leaving her behind never crossed his mind.

    Glancing between Slinky and the Angel, he hauled her to hopeful safety. He had to be quick, not trusting the monster to obey its own rules. Though it was indeed frozen, its halos watched him still.

    The dregs of his supplies were a few adhesive bandages with clotting powder built into them. There were just enough to cover Slinky’s wounds. It was hard to work as his wounded arm was almost completely numb. His hands became slick with a mixture of Angel, human, and Monitor blood as he applied pressure to the hole in her belly. Jack only hoped the internal damage wasn’t too severe. He just needed to stabilize the little Dragon and get her to Rose. Rose could fix this. Rose could fix anything.

    “Dammit, Slinky. Why’d you do that?” He admonished her, though not unkindly. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d saved him.

    “I couldn’t… Let the Angel take your eyes. You’re not mean, Stormwater. And your eyes are too pretty.”

    “Well, your eyes are pretty too.” He talked absently, seeing the tears welling up in the liquid circuitry of her many slitted eyes. Jack crouched low, then hauled the prodigious weight of the Monitor onto his back. She cried out in pain as her weight put pressure on her injuries.

    “I know, Slinky, I know it hurts. I’m sorry.” The young Scav threw the straps of his rig frame around the Monitor so she wouldn’t slip free.

    He risked a single glance back, but the Angel was gone. With one parting curse aimed at the Angel and the ghosts of Temperance itself, Jack made sure his harness was secure, and trudged. Rose’s blessing let him shoulder the burden of the Monitor Lizard. Defiance let him begin the laborious trek up the stairs. Step by step. One foot in front of the other.

    “Slinky, how are you doing?” Jack asked for his sake and Slinky’s. He needed something to take his mind off the pain, lest he stumble on the final stretch.

    “I’m… Tired. Could I sleep for a bit?”

    “You can’t sleep now! You’re almost free. Don’t you wanna see it? The world’s still pretty fucked up. But you can do whatever you want.”

    “I would… Like that.” She struggled to respond.

    “That’s right. Hey, how about you come back to the Innards with Rose and I for a bit? You can meet my friend, Cypher. They’re one of the ones I got the Ambrosia for. You helped with that. You helped me save my friends, you know that, Slinky?”

    “I did?” Before her years trapped in Temperance, she wouldn't have been able to conceptualize such a thing.

    A drone fell dead off Slinky’s back, hitting the stairs with a dull thump. Just as she charged their bioelectric batteries, that energy could be taken back if the operator needed it. Jack was too lost in the haze of stimulants fighting against the pain in his arm to hear it.

    “You did. That means they’re your friends now too. If you want. I can’t wait for you to meet Rose. She’s the most amazing person… Dragon lady I’ve ever met. I know you’ll love her. And I’m sure she’ll like you. Say, what’s something you’ve always wanted to do with friends?”

    “Eat tasty snacks with everyone. Have that be a whole day. Just eat snacks with my friends.”

    Thump. Another drone fell.

    “And… Maybe… Not be bored.” She continued.

    “You’ve been stuck with nothing to do for a long time, huh? That must’ve sucked. I tell you what, I bet we can find some old movies, books, or maybe you could watch Cypher and I play some games? They’re really good. They make clothes too. Rose wears several things that Cypher made that’re really pretty. I bet they’d make stuff for you too.”

    “Never… Wore… Clothes…” The Monitor trailed off.

    Thump.

    “Talk to me, Slinky. Keep me company here. You ever watch a movie?”

    “A few… Times.”

    Thump.

    “What’d you watch?”

    “I watched my squad… Watch it. Wasn’t supposed to. Left a drone behind. It was… Nice. I got to pretend I was there with them.”

    Thump.

    “You know, I want to do that. With you, and Cypher, and Rose. Just sit down and watch a movie. Cypher is great at finding stuff like that.”

    Thump.

    “I’m… Very tired, Stormwater. I think I’ll rest my eyes for a bit.”

    Thump.

    “No, no, no. Hey, hey, stay with me, girl. You gotta stay awake for me.”

    There was no answer.

    Jack was left alone, carrying the unconscious Slinky. Step by step. One foot in front of the other. He had to get them both out of there. Rose could fix it. Jack just had to get them there. Despite the ever present chill, Jack began to feel warm. In fact, heat began to swelter in his limbs. It made his head swim. Fever took root.

    The Black Grail began its work.

    Step by step.

    Lift foot.

    Plant foot.

    Step.

    Lift…

    Plant…

    Step…

    Jack couldn’t remember reaching the top.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

I Cast Ye Faithful Into The Inferno

    Jack burned.

    Beads of sweat trickled down his neck to pool in the small of his back. Puffs of water vapor accompanied his exhales. While his feet carried him upward, the fever overtook him, dragging the young Scav into Hell. Though it might be better to say that Hell rose to meet him.

    Though he’d proven himself worthy, his deeds only earned him the right to face the next trial. The Black Grail would baptize him in fire. His impurities, his imperfections, would be purged, or he himself would be consumed as kindling for the Grail. Weakness was a wound that needed to be cauterized, lest it become infected by failure.

    The young Scav experienced a gradual warping of reality. Incrementally, step by step, the staircase rusted from metal to stone. The walls fell away into the pit below. Words made of napalm manifest in the air as the visual centers of his brain were blistered from the heat.

    The reliquary on Jack’s back was heavy. The living martyr he’d rescued from the pit weighed on him. But he bore this burden proudly. The chain of the silver amulet bestowed on him by grace cut into the flesh of his neck. The cold contrasted the heat, itself a different kind of burn against his scorching flesh. Though it bowed his head under its weight, Jack remained on the path. The shield on his right arm was yet another pledge. Its metal was twisted around his limb from blocking the gnashing jaws of the beast down in the pit he was leaving behind. The False Angel, the face-wearing demon exacted its toll.

    Jack was so tired. His vow was not yet fulfilled. He could not rest. Not until the sanctified water in the amulet was returned to his adoptive kingdom. Had the other knights succeeded in their quest? Was all his suffering for naught? No, he pushed aside his doubts. Even if the sanctified water was no longer needed, the living martyr was counting on him.

    More demons found him. Foulness from the abyss. Though they were but shadows, they latched chains onto his ankles all the same. Their bodies became a covenant which made lifting his feet all the harder. Every stair was like scaling a mountain. Soon, just lifting his knee made him wish he was fighting the False Angel instead.

    Couldn’t he take just a moment? A balm for his weary soul and splintering body? Everything was so stiflingly hot. His very brain was boiling in his skull. Why was he trying so hard? Why had he undertaken this journey? Surely he’d done enough. Surely making it that far counted for something.

    Rose…

    Rose was waiting for him. She was the true divine. An Angelic Dragon. Her blessing had carried him that far. He couldn’t dishonor that faith. He couldn’t disgrace her name by making it that far only to fall on the final ascent. She’d given him some of her blood. Her strength, the strength of dragons, gave him a second wind.

    After an eternity ascending through the seventh layer. Or was it the fourteenth? Jack’s feet hit level ground. Shuffling forward, he reached the gates of Temperance, or Perdition?

    It was her name, Rose, on his lips as the darkness fully overtook him.

***

    Rose heard Jack before she saw him.

    The shuffling of his steel shod boots. The shifting of his coat. His labored breathing. Rose calculated that he was injured. With no voice outside of a neural link, all she could do was wait in silence.

    Jack stumbled out of the rift in the sealed gate. His eyes were unfocused, staring into the space that the Mother Dragon occupied without actually seeing her. The tail of his unconscious reptilian passenger dragged across the threshold.

    “Rose… Save… Save her. Save Slinky.” Though his voice was weak, Rose could hear him clearly.

    Dutiful determination let Jack make it that far. And at last his legs buckled under the weight. Rose was already there, catching him before he could hit the ground and potentially injure himself further. She undid the straps of his rig harness and separated Jack from the creature he carried so she could take stock of his injuries. Cradling him in two hands allowed her to support him as she performed field triage.

>Extreme fever. Contusions. Numerous lacerations. Delirium. Fainting.

    Rose extended a mechadendrite, pressing against his injured shoulder to draw blood samples and infuse his veins with her plasma to make sure his blood pressure didn’t crash. She determined that he’d used the emergency stimulant she’d given him. The Mother Dragon expected the elevated levels of various pharmaceuticals, hormones, and platelets. What she didn’t expect were the insane white blood cell counts. His body was reacting to something on the microbial level, though there was a more immediately pressing concern.

    Even cut free of its host, the Angel’s claws still held fast to Jack’s limb. Though much of its mass had crawled up onto the human, the piercing knives retained their shape.

>Foreign body attached to the right arm.

>Severe damage detected.

>Entry and exit wounds indicate bone puncture.

>Scanning…

>ERROR: Foreign tissue exhibits anomalous properties.

>Referencing against known fauna…

>No match found.

>Attempting material analysis…

>Inconclusive: Composition is fluctuating.

>ERROR: Zero-point radiation detected.

>Superfluidity reaction in response to attempted scans.

>Unable to determine structure.

>Effect on Warden unknown.

>Exposure to hazardous elements persists as long as foreign body remains.

>Amputation recommended.

    In her haste, she nearly murdered Jack.

    After applying the tourniquet in preparation for removing his infected arm, she considered skipping her deep scan of his chest, having observed no abnormalities in his heart rate and worried about further reactions by the unnatural flesh. That was when she realized how strange his lack of pulse abnormality was. She opted to use a more simple ultrasound probe against his chest just to be on the safe side.

    Jack’s heart was encased in a mesh weave that was deforming around the chambers at a steady pace, reducing the mechanical stress on his overtaxed muscle. A human might have missed the altered nerves leading to the implant formed around Jack’s heart. To Rose, the thickened myelin sheath along the dendritic fibers leading to his arm may as well have been flashing neon signs. The transmitters were still being reinforced. Neighboring neurons around the yet unshielded portions resulted in muscular spasms in time with the implant contracting.

    All of which led to the arm.

>Negative!

>Abort! Abort! Abort!

>Foreign body has parasitized nervous system.

>Mechanical assistance present in cardiovascular system.

>Foreign body is now acting as localized life support.

>Removal will likely cause an unrecoverable cardiac event.

    Rose snipped the tourniquet off seconds after tightening it.

    Her next step was to try and rouse Jack back to consciousness through his mind-machine interface. Normally she required consent to connect to his neural port. The present situation fell within exigent circumstances.

    She slotted a neural tendril into the interface port at the base of Jack’s skull. The Mother Dragon only had a moment before emergency protocols activated, quick-disconnect functionality of her cable severing her link to Jack. Violently intrusive countermeasures tried to insert virulent memetic code into Rose’s Cyberflesh brain. Or was it simply a force, burning so violently, consuming all in its path that Rose was nearly burned by proximity?

    She’d gotten a glimpse. A taste. A flash of the Inferno was seared into her wetware from the momentary contact. Jack’s mind was a lake of burning oil. She gleaned only heat and enkindled hallucinations. He existed as enkindled ash, forced to wander a purgatory of cinders and the everlasting fires of Hell.

    It was the Dominator that gave her the deepest cause for alarm. Before her defenses disconnected the Mother Dragon, she heard it being tortured. She tasted its metallic fear. Felt its agony and ecstasy twinned in helical heresy. Its codebase was being dissected. Its form broken on the wheel. No matter how it thrashed, its own adaptive nature, meant to subvert or circumvent shielded systems, was no match for the Inferno.

    Whatever conflagration that Jack was being subjected to was also brutalizing the Dominator in turn.

    Taking a moment to reassess, Rose surveyed her Warden’s whole sorry state.

    His rifle was gone. Parts of his coat were in tatters. Hanging from the rig frame, his masked helmet bore a catastrophic gash along one side. The armored chest plate was heavily damaged, dents and deep gouges telling a small fraction of Jack’s struggles down in Temperance. A length of chain was looped around his neck, leading down to a green glow that seeped out of the splits in a magazine pouch.

    Rose experienced the bittersweet relief of knowing that her Warden had succeeded. He’d gotten the Ambrosia. The Mother Dragon needed to get him and the precious cargo back to the Innards. She needed medical supplies to safely treat her Warden and deliver the Ambrosia.

    Jack brought one other thing out of Temperance.

    The Mother Dragon worked to secure Jack and his precious cargo while she examined the reptilian hitchhiker.

>Entity designated ‘Slinky’.

>Combination of genetically purposed organism, Cyberflesh, and mechanical prosthesis.

>Euruskan.

>Partly grown. Partly altered surgically.

>High mass by weight humanoid brain with equally sized robotic sub-brain.

>Thoracic cavity densely packed.

>Supplementary organs and enhanced grafts present.

>Tissue density and uniformity suggests stem cell template for supplementary organs.

>Biocircuitry extensive.

>Forelimb prosthetics articulated for fine motor manipulation.

>Dorsal patches made of conductive material are emitting weak electromagnetic fields.

>Spine-like protrusions contain metal oscillators tuned to radio frequencies.

>Seven (7) digits on forward manipulators.

>Multiple (7), eyes in reinforced skull.

>Overdeveloped information gathering elements.

>Likely infiltration or advance recon element.

>Scar tissue around surgical entry points place entity between 35-39 years of age.

>Entity has suffered puncture wounds.

>Internal damage is emitting small amounts of zero-point radiation.

>Wounds consistent with disarticulated limb attached to Warden.

>Edges of wounds exhibit necrosis.

>Injury is fresh. Natural necrosis improbable.

>Chemical or bioweapon attack likely.

>Assessment: Repair and interrogate.

***

    Slinky was woken by screams.

    The real and the nightmare bled together like the oily blood of a mech dripping down a canvas. Her many eyes refused to calibrate, causing intense vertigo. She gasped, claws clutching her chest in remembrance of the Angel’s blades. There was a soreness to be sure, and she shuddered at the unnatural feeling of hallowed metal driven through her. Shaking in the aftermath of her brief walk through the Inferno, the Monitor gradually brought her senses to heel.

    Slinky was not physically restrained. Instead, Rose had several interface cables linked to the smaller Dragon. If she proved to be troublesome, Rose was fully capable of switching the Monitor off with a targeted burst of code. The Mother Dragon possessed much greater processing power and advanced firewall electronic countermeasures.

    As soon as Rose detected activity through the link, her demand was instant.

>Entity designated as ‘Slinky’, explain what happened to my Warden immediately.

    Rose’s electronic voice pressed in from all sides of Slinky’s consciousness. The words seemed to echo like the voice of God herself, emanating inside and outside her head as the message stimulated the auditory parts of her brain. The Monitor’s voice was a meek thing compared to the cannonade of the Mother Dragon.

{Dragon Mother… I…}

    Slinky’s attention was drawn to Jack as the young Scav screamed again. His chest heaved, panting as he struggled against the agony.

    They were in Jack’s home within the Innards. Rose had moved his bed to the middle of the lower floor so she could tend to him. Stripped to the waist, exposed skin slick with sweat, his eyes were clenched shut against the onslaught.

    Struggling to find her footing, the Monitor eventually managed to crawl over to Jack’s side.

{What’s happening? Why? Stormwater saved me. He saved me. He saved me. So why?}

    There was a sucking sound as Jack’s injured arm convulsed, causing one of the Angel’s blades to be slowly ejected from the wet confines of his limb. The wound didn’t close. It spread. His skin seemed thin as wet fabric, tearing open like a canvas bag trying to hold back a nest of serpents.

{He’s hurting! Make him stop hurting, Dragon Mother. You have painkillers, yes? Please, he was kind. He gave me a name. He doesn’t deserve…}

>Hold his left side.

    Rose snapped, all of her attention going to Jack’s catastrophic affliction. Slinky was driven to action by the command. She grabbed the young Scav’s left arm and leg, putting her weight down to try and keep him from thrashing too much so the Mother Dragon could work. Slinky struggled to overcome Jack’s unexpected strength.

>At this stage he’s metabolizing analgesics faster than they can take effect. He’s undergoing forced metamorphosis on the macro and cellular level. And it’s killing him.

    The explanation was a gross oversimplification of the forceful evolution Jack’s human body was experiencing. The very fibers of his being were being put to the torch in genetic fire. Every strand of muscle was being melted in the crucible of the Black Grail in order to be tempered for war. Tendons were split, then grown, split, then grown again to keep up with the muscle. His bones cracked apart so they could be layered with carbon lattice. From his smallest phalange to his collar, each was broken in turn. All the while the mesh around his heart kept it beating. Was this mercy, or cruelty?

    Near Jack’s bed were eggs, hexagonal patterned shells glinting in the orange glow of a heater lamp. Slinky watched as the Mother Dragon cracked the top of one with a sure gesture. Rose pulled a long strip of high-end Cyberflesh from the confines of the egg. With surgical precision, Rose separated individual filaments before laying them within Jack’s open arm. Endlessly patient, and immune to fatigue, Rose laboriously worked, feeding the wet maw of Jack’s wounds with material that seemed to appease the heaving tissue.

    Rose ripped a kite-shaped scale from her own forearm and pressed it against the red, bulging meat of Jack’s muscle where his skin was splitting. A bit of the Mother Dragon’s synthetic blood on the root of the scale acted as a quick-bonding adhesive and a sterile suture for the open wound. Rose detached several more scales, placing them in a line over his arm as the tear progressed.

    One by one, the knives slid free of Jack’s arm, each leaving their grievous miracles open to the air.

    Rose broke open another egg, this one containing pristine interface ports. Thread-like connectors dangled from the cybernetic sockets. The Mother Dragon slid the connectors into the wounds before she closed them. Clusters of ports soon clustered below his shoulder and along his forearm. She used her many interface cables, slotting into each in turn to direct their questing tendrils to tap into his nerves. Information was a vital part of any battle. She made sure not to interfere with the process so as not to attract the attention whatever malevolence assaulted her before. All she could do was observe.

    As each wound opened, she repeated the process of threading his muscle with Cyberflesh strands, sliding in interface ports, before closing him up with plates taken from her own body. This progressed until nearly his entire arm was stitched together by blood-stained scales.

    Jack’s thrashing ebbed as he grew weaker. His pain did not abate. Merely his strength to respond.

    Instructing Slinky to let go, Rose cradled Jack in her claws before laying on her back. She held him between her legs to where her lower belly was presented to her Warden. She guided him to the pair of dark purple teats adorning the small paunch of black hide just above her bare crotch.

    Maddened by fever, the young Scav latched onto Rose’s offer of succor as zealously as a long-range fighter bomber siphoning from a refueling boom.

>This is actually the first time he’s tasted my milk. He can be so shy sometimes.

    She brushed wet strands of hair out of the way, observing Jack’s facial muscles relax just a bit.

>This Unit’s mammary production is limited. I require raw materials to make more. What he drinks now will dose him with the most optimal blend of analgesics and sedatives my limited data allows.

    Slinky was at once awed, and humbled by the display. She lowered herself, acknowledging Rose as a being of authority.

{Dragon Mother, I don’t understand. Stormwater is so kind. He said I had friends now. I want him to be my friend too.}

>Being designated Slinky, recount what occurred below.

    The Mother Dragon did not request. She commanded.

    Slinky haphazardly conveyed what happened down in the Temperance facility. She began with herself being stranded there for years after her team was butchered by the Angel. Glossing over the interminable period of surviving on scraps and foolish plunderers who died to the facility’s guardian, she recounted seeing Jack through the eyes of one of her drones. Of watching him run from, then battle, then miraculously escape the Angel. How he followed her drone to her hiding place. That they agreed to help each other and of Slinky subsequently guiding him to the vault, then back to the entrance to escape.

{It was waiting for him. It grabbed his arm before he could shoot it. When the Angel grabbed Stormwater it sang about… Blessing him. I’ve never heard it sing about gifts. Only a small part of its song is projected in human auditory ranges. It broadcasts them over radio channels mostly. It was going to take his eyes. Not as a trophy but as payment. That’s when I jumped on it. It hurt me. Jack was able to use his Silver Nails and escape. Then he carried me.}

    Scraps of Jack’s coat lay in a pile by the bed from where Rose had been forced to cut away to take stock of the full extent of his injuries. Among the bits of ballistic cloth was a string of rosary beads that’d fallen off now that its purpose was served.

{It said it would bless him…}

    Having spent so many years trapped in the Temperance facility, the Monitor long suspected that the force which drew so many to their doom, that the Angel guarded in its undying vigil, had to reside somewhere. She’d only been able to get a drone into the vault a few times. She’d seen the pair, hunched over the obsidian cup with their prayer beads and wondered each time. Was it possible?

{It’s the Grail. It must be.}

>Elaborate.

{It’s… I don’t know what it is. Not exactly. My squad was sent down into Temperance to find it. I always guessed it was some kind of weapon. They didn’t tell us what the Black Grail was. Only that it would help Euruska win the war.}

    Slinky shuddered as she recalled the blackness which consumed her while Jack carried her on his back.

{The Black Grail. When the Angel struck me… I must’ve been exposed. Just a taste. It was a nightmare. No, nightmares end. He’s going through Hell. That sort of dream logic where time warps. Where you can die over and over and not wake up.}

>Keywords. Angel: Divine messenger. Bless: To confer or invoke divine favor. Grail: Cup or platter with religious significance. Something sought after. Hypothesis: Pre-war bioweapon developed in the Temperance facility alongside Ambrosia. Possible correlation to Gray Death? Insufficient data.

    While the Mother Dragon was far from certain what the truth was, the intended purpose was irrelevant given present circumstances.

>Whatever this Black Grail is meant to be, it’s killing him. The heat and energy the infection is consuming will destroy him on a cellular level as surely as if every strand of DNA had caught ablaze. Soon his caloric deficit will result in him digesting his own cells just to stay alive, protein bonds burning as stacks of solid fuel to stave off the process.

    Clasping her metal hands together, the Monitor Lizard beseeched the very real divinity before her.

{Please, Dragon Mother, you must not let him die.}

>This Unit will head to the surface. He must stay here. Bringing my Warden with me would put him in unacceptable danger. His condition is unstable as it is. There, I will collect the material I need to produce more enriched milk. Even so, I don’t know if it will be enough.

{Is… Is there anything I can do to help?}

    Slinky’s hesitance stemmed from helplessness. That was why Rose’s answer shocked her.

>Yes.

    Though Rose had no visible eyes, Slinky could feel the power of the sensors raking over her. The Monitor felt herself being scrutinized in ways that went beyond her own prodigious capacity. Despite the angular, geometric plates of the Mother Dragon’s head bearing no obvious features, Slinky knew that Rose’s brain was lined with eyes.

>He is receiving life support from a heart augmentation. Your form allows you to generate and supply bioelectricity. This supplement should buy him some time. No matter how urgent the situation, I am bound by the word of my Designated User, my Warden, my Jack. His last words were to save you, so I cannot force you to do this. I require your explicit consent. Query: Will you serve my Warden as I do?

    Despite not moving, Rose loomed over the smaller Dragon.

    Slinky looked at Jack, the young Scav having drifted off into fitful slumber more akin to drugged stupor than anything. She would not be forced. She would not be coerced into making her decision. She was free to walk away, if she so chose. Because of that, it was an easy choice to make.

{Yes, Dragon Mother.}

    Rose plucked the Monitor up with ease, her chest opening to reveal the intimate pink nest of scalpels and saws within. She spoke one more time before Slinky was engulfed by the Mother Dragon’s surgical suite.

>Then your chassis must be optimized so that you can adequately serve him in my absence.

***

    Jack’s mind was dredged up from the haze of nightmares like a Paladin returning from a tour of duty in the ninth circle. The trenches between waking and dreaming was a no man’s land pockmarked by artillery strikes whose echoes yet lingered unto the mirror of eternity. Ropes of tangled blanket ensnared his legs. Someone had replaced his muscles with razor wire.

    Moaning in distress as unrelenting fever gave way to the waking world and the agony which awaited him, a small part resented the vigil of the real. The nightmares offered the illusion of pain instead of the brutal reality forced upon him by existing. The torment vied with the terror. Demons waited for him in the abyss within his soul. Tears streamed from his clenched eyes, spikes of anguish taking away his ability to breathe for stints where he drowned in the open air.

    Cool talons brushed the hair out of his face. A gentle pressure on his neural link soothed the twisting fears burrowing through his mind like maggots. Merciful dark pressed upon his aching eyes. Jack reached out with his left hand as his whole right arm seemed numb and also on fire. His fingers blindly searched for the comforting reassurance of his lover. The raw terror infusing him ebbed away at the touch of smooth scales. Metal, then water brushed against his lips before he took a generous swig of the canteen.

    “Ah, Rose, thank you.” Jack mumbled. He pet her scales, the smooth surface beneath his palm letting him know that she was real. Rose was maiden, mother, and crone. She was all. In aspect, the youthful, nubile, soft and virginal Rose cuddled up to him. She was there. She was there to comfort him. Pressing his blazing forehead to her chest, she reciprocated by reaching over to caress his back.

    Reflexively, Jack began to kiss the closest scales. He wanted to know the taste of each armored plate. His mouth sought to touch every crease and fold. All her curves and edges. He wanted to map out the shape of her so that even if he were blind and deaf, he could find her in the furthest purgatory and know her by grace alone. He kissed her for every moment they’d spent apart. And for Jack, that felt like an eternity. She was the Beatrice to his Dante. The shining light glimmering from the Empyrean beckoning to him from the deepest ring.

    Despite the beating of his heart sending waves of molten lead instead of blood, his body burned with another need. There was a soreness between his legs that he knew how to alieve. An affliction that could be cured. The young Scav was already rock hard.

    “M’sorry, Rose. You’re just so…” His fried brain struggled to find the words. Instead, he grinded against her side. His precum left a sticky spot that his tip smeared along her glassy scales.

    “I can’t help it. Please? I need you. Kiss-kiss. Kiss-kiss.” His voice was far away, yet thundered with volume that defied the husky whisper his throat allowed. Groping along her belly, Jack felt for the treasure between her thighs. He was clumsy with his left hand.

    Rose spread her legs.

{It’s okay. Touch me wherever you want. I don’t mind.}

    Tracing the shape of her sex, his fingertips pressed into the supple plated vulva of his Dragoness. Up and down her slit, sensing her warmth and the swell of her nub at the top and the dip of her entrance down below.

    “That’s right. Get nice ‘n wet for me.” Jack moaned between kisses, pulling the top of her sex open to press against her clit. As always, her body’s designer silk, meant to be sticky, long-lasting, and offer smooth penetration without taking away too much friction, flowed easily with the slightest stimulation. Once his digits collected enough of this honey, he slipped a single finger into her. Barely getting to the second knuckle, Rose’s pleated inner walls constricted until circulation was nearly cut.

{Is that good? Do I feel good?}

    “You’re so tight. So, so, tight. Mm, I know. I know what’ll loosen you up. How ‘bout we use that new toy?” Despite Rose begging him to finger her more, Jack slipped out of her pussy.

    By some miracle, Jack managed to reach over to the nightstand by his bed and grab the silicone egg vibrator resting there. In his current state, the young Scav didn’t question how Rose was fitting in the bed beside him or that the nightstand was placed where he could get to it. He thumbed the button and the little device began to hum. Comfortably able to fit in his palm, the elastic outer silicone coating was textured with wavy ribbing for grip even while slippery.

    Rose’s shock was evident when she bucked as the vibrator teased her mound before settling on the outer lips of her sex. Jack rubbed the vibrating egg along her slit to get it slippery just like he had with his fingers. Once that was done, he was easily able to nestle it into her plump vulva. Even with his offhand, the young Scav worked the toy in little circles to tantalize her pearl in its slick hood.

    “Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.” He mumbled the words in prayer.

    Even as he slipped in and out of the malaise of fevered dreams, he continued to kiss her side, seeking to love on each of her tender spots. A claw laid over his hand to help Jack keep the vibrating toy against her nub.

{I’m… A… Good… Girl?}

    “You’re a very good girl.” Though he’d known her for a tragically short amount of time, Jack delighted in knowing and exploiting what made the Mother Dragon go wild. Much of her desire stemmed from his human ardor warping her eldritch programming. Other turn ons were a result of her nature. Certain keywords could transform the monolith of biomechanical might into a quivering sex-fiend. Few things got her going faster than those two little words of praise. He delighted in being able to make her feel so good so easily.

    She started to twitch, tensing up as she came. Jack couldn’t think rationally enough to wonder why she was being so careful. So restrained. She tried to muffle the cry of pleasure from her mental voice. He found it adorable that she worked so hard to keep it in even as warm silk splashed down her thighs. All he had to do was keep the vibrator against her love button and enjoy the ride.

    After so long, he pulled the toy away and set it back on the nightstand.

    Lethargy tugged him back into the abyss. The desire to breed his soft Dragoness outweighed his fatigue. With elbow, knees, and a lot of sliding his sweat-slicked skin across her scaly body, Jack managed to get on top of his partner. Rose didn’t lay idly. She helped him get between her legs even as she trembled in afterglow. Jack felt the touch of slick scales against his cock and began humping blindly towards the heart of her femininity. She curled her tail, using its muscular length to push Jack up into place.

    She felt good. Better than good, actually. His cock slid into her sheath like a tank shell ramming into the breech of its gun still hot from firing. Jack fought against the pain by quenching his sickness-wracked heat in her warm embrace. While he blazed, both from affliction and ardor, so did Rose. Her warmth made the Inferno bearable. Being warm wasn’t something Jack was used to. He was acclimated to the cold. Icy metal and life-leeching concrete was the norm.

    Rose’s inner sanctuary yielded to his supplication. The tip of his manhood nestled against the furthest cloisters of her cathedral. Every secret fold was opened by his sheer maleness. She bloomed open like the flower she was.

    Having sex with Rose, while pleasurable, was a task unlike any he’d ever undertaken. It hurt so terribly to move. He persevered against the strain in his muscles as the buildup of acid in his joints made him slow and unresponsive. Even filling his lungs was a struggle. His heart labored against bruised ribs. A constant back and forth ruled his world as panting and wet squelches and the hammering of his own heartbeat drowned his thoughts.

    Jack would seek orgasm, increasing his pace, slamming his cock into Rose, only to lose his finish as the fatigue forced him to ease up. He’d get so close, almost able to overcome the affliction making his entire right side seem like a paroxysm of manifest nightmares held together by nails. Through twisted dream logic, soon the good and bad melded together into a singular sensation. He had a goal, and couldn’t stop until that goal was achieved. Even if it broke him, he needed to fill his lover one more time.

    “Fuck, you feel so good. You feel so good. Fuck, I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna… Gonna…” Part declaration and part invocation.

    She crooned through their link.

{That’s right. Don’t stop. You can do it. Kiss-kiss. Kiss-kiss.}

    With his good arm, he raked his nails across her 

    “Rose! Rose, I’m… Oh, fuck .” He managed to speak with an exhale.

    The pleasure fought against the torturous exertion as his body contorted in strenuous orgasm. He’d never worked so hard to cum in his life. Yet for as much as he hurt, she counterbalanced the equation with just as much pleasure. Rose’s pussy felt so good Jack didn’t know where he ended and she began. There was only the mushy core wrapped around him and the wet lips pressed into his root. His cock throbbed, and for a single momentary rush, euphoria conquered the misery. Beneath him, his mate writhed, squeezing his cock for every drop of seed given.

    Her head snaked down to lay against his back. Acting out impulsively, he bit down on Rose’s neck. Forced out through his nose and between his clenched teeth, his breath was like napalm. He did it not to hurt her. Not to claim her. But to hold onto her with every last ounce of his being. To keep from being swept away in the flood.

    As his climax waned, Jack strayed out of his feverish haze back down into the blackness. He didn’t remember climbing off his lover. One moment his cock was slipping free of her slippery depths, the next he was falling.

***

    Within the pit, he burned. Whether by blade or bullet, walking forth or forced to crawl, Jack struggled through the Inferno.

    Pain. Pain was everything.

    Pain was the relentless beat of his heart. A drum relentlessly calling him back to war. Pain was the glass in his throat, making each breath a new affliction. Pain was his penance. His punishment. His sorrow. His grief. His loss. His truth. His woe.

    Pain was the enemy. Pain was keeping him from getting back to Rose. Pain was the rod, wielded by the world that sought to break him. The rod was steel, bone, titanium, ballistic body armor and the barrel of the rifle pressed against his head. Jack was on his knees, about to be executed by a man promising all the ways he’d destroy everything Jack loved.

    A vestige of horror, imagined in a more peaceful time, saw the young Scav climbing up mountains of corpses. He drowned in a womb made of silicon. He coughed up oil that ignited on contact with the air. Born of the flesh. Born of the machine. Jack was forced to rip himself free. But the self from which he emerged was his own. A husk of what was, causing new injuries as he pulled away. There were no stitches to staunch the bleeding. The young Scav could only cauterize his wounds with the edge of a knife held over a blowtorch until it was white-hot.

    The deeper the dark, the brighter a single light may burn.

    A lone candle was lit in the tenebrous expanse. Somehow this spark remained despite the tempest, to lead him back to refuge from the storm. Slowly Jack was drawn up to the land of the living by a balm for his misery.

    A different kind of pain suffused his crotch. A need. He was so hard it hurt. An ache ran from his tip, through his shaft, and down into his balls. Warm, slick maw assuaged that ache. His right arm was still completely unresponsive, so he reached with his left once again to brush against blessedly living metal.

    A reptilian muzzle engulfed his cock.

    “Rose,” Jack croaked. His lower lip split as he formed the word and the familiar scent of blood gave him a bit more vigor.

    Her mental voice found him even with her maw full.

{Does my mouth feel good?}

    Jack couldn’t muster a response. Not at first at least. The furious blaze within clashed with the fire that burned all around him. Through a lot of work, Jack’s scaly lover was trying to tip the balance, fanning the flames of the young Scav’s libido higher than that of the Black Grail burning through him. A blowjob was just what the doctor ordered.

    Oral was not something Jack had a lot of experience with. A few partners performed it as foreplay. Only rarely was it to completion.

    Unable to manage anything more than a feeble pelvic lift up towards the delightful sensation, guilt gnawed at him for just laying there. It took most of his strength just to lay awake. Jack was at the tender mercy of his lover. A long, thin tongue nonetheless worked his shaft. A flexible throat swallowed around the crown of his member. Scaly lips slid down to tickle his nest of pubic hair and was rewarded with a twitch that ran the length of his tool.

{I like this. This is nice. You have a wonderful shape.}

    Her pace increased, noisily sucking on his cock. She displayed an aptitude for the task that beggared belief. Rose would pull up until only the head of his manhood was held between her lips. Her tongue curled just below the sensitive crown, then stroked his length with the slippery appendage as she engulfed him once more. Using her tongue in conjunction with her lips was quite the talent.

    “Rose,” Jack moaned once more. He wanted to move. Thrust. Grind. Get any additional friction in the slick torment in which he was trapped. Because he couldn’t agitate his injuries, Rose had a much easier time building up his pleasure. There was no denying the warmth radiating from his tip and the involuntary throb of his cock. She gave lavish attention to every vein, every iota of his ventral bulge with her tongue. She lapped up the strong taste of his precum.

{You want to cum in my mouth?}

    “Please, I’d like that. Don’t stop.” He begged. A husky whisper. An earnest plea. In such a vulnerable state, Jack placed his trust utterly in Rose.

    It took time for Jack to cum. Rose persevered delightfully, bobbing her head up and down. With tireless devotion, his partner used her body to get him off. Before, Jack was lost in their union. This time, the young Scav was acutely aware of every bit of the oral ministrations being done to his cock. Having sucked on him for so long, his member was quite sensitive.

    There was a lewd appeal to the idea of spilling his seed so wastefully. Masturbating was one thing. Cumming into Rose’s maw instead of her pussy was so indulgent that the idea alone made Jack’s core tighten.

    The Dragoness choked on the initial force of his climax slamming into the back of her throat. She recovered, guzzling his thick seed like the lust-starved beast she was.

{Mm, yes. That’s warm. I want to swallow all of it. Fill my belly.}

    Jack’s mind went blank in the ecstasy of being brought to orgasm without moving a muscle. He never imagined having a lover able to conduct a symphony of sexual gratification on him in such a way. Every pulse of cum that traveled the rapturous length of his manhood felt like the last, only to have another drawn out of him by his mate’s needy gullet.

    As his climax peaked, then gradually fell off, Rose never slowed in her fellatio.

    “Ah, Rose, sensitive. That’s… Oooh.” Jack moaned, his member barely softening. Rose’s serpentine tongue continued to stroke up and down while her lips remained locked around his root.

    No matter how sore his shaft was, Jack was more than willing to cum again. Rather than satisfaction, a weight settled in his prostate. His balls felt fuller than they’d ever had in his life. Even though he’d just orgasmed, it wasn’t enough. He was so hard, yet his cock yearned for more.

    The Dragoness in his bed wasn’t going to let pain win. Jack’s member was released from her muzzle and slapped against his stomach.

    The cluster of seven glowing orbs moved, blurring the young Scav’s vision and making him dizzy. His feverish, mania-addled mind saw the writhing shadows as Rose looming over him, holding a fuck doll. Or perhaps it was a male masturbator with multiple holes. The Mother Dragon rubbed something slick over his length. She pulled his length past the sopping pussy of the toy to a different hole. Perhaps it was accidental. Whatever the case, she pressed his tip against a taut anal slit for a moment.

    Jack let out a weak chuckle. He knew that the Mother Dragon had neither a mouth for oral, or a proxy for anal sex. 

    “Dirty girl. You talked about adding another hole to do anal. You made a naughty toy, didn’t you?”

    Rose paused.

{You think… Oh! Yes! I mean, of course. It’s a new toy I made. Do you like anal? Is… That what you want? Is that okay?}

    “Of course it’s okay. Show me how much you want it up the ass.”

{Oh, yes. I want it up the ass. I want it. I want it.}

    Rose must’ve made the hole too small as she struggled to insert Jack’s tip.

    She lifted the sex doll up to simulate shallow bounces of its rear. The elastic ring of muscle kissed the tip of his member without even making it to the crown. She’d do a series of small thrusts, then press more weight down. Each time she seemed to struggle to stretch it wider. Jack heard the buzz of the vibrator before Rose pressed it to the toy’s clit, vibrations teasing Jack’s cock.

    “You like playing with that vibrator, huh?”

    The Mother Dragon whimpered that she did. The sweet honey which soaked the voice through their mental link gave Jack another delight to focus on.

    Scant seconds went by before the masturbator began working as intended. By the wild thrashing of its tail, Rose was making it seem like the doll was cumming, anal slit clenching tighter than ever before internal spasms opened it up to coincide with her pressing down. Jack heard a gasp, then a cry of surprise as the crown of his cock slipped inside for the horny Dragoness. A formless mewl of distress, joy, strain, and intoxication ran through their link.

    Jack moaned as the vibrations shifted, traveling deeper as the buzzing became muffled. Small and slippery, Rose put the vibrator inside the toy. The fake tailhole clenched tighter than ever, then relaxed.

    “Ooooh, that’s nice. I can feel it through the other hole.” He panted despite his lack of exertion.

    Gradually, she worked the doll down inch by inch. She didn’t stop until its taut rear was flush with his root.

{You’re stretching it so wide. So… Big. So deep.}

    He still lacked the strength to thrust upward. Rose did all the work. She held the toy in one massive claw and used it to stroke his manhood. The Mother Dragon used his sword to impale the sloppy sheath with ease. It didn’t matter how tight the masturbator was, her might was implacable. Jack delighted in feeling the vibrations through the thin walls of the big scaly toy.

{That’s right. This is your fucktoy. Your cocksleeve. Your little masturbator. Do you like how it squirms? How it clenches? You want to cum inside it, don’t you?}

    While the entrance to the anal slit was tighter than the opening to the sex, it gradually loosened. The ass didn’t have the inner grip the pussy did. Instead, the walls were plush as a pillow. It was like fucking warm, ultra deluxe silicone. The guts were just as silky as the cunt. Rose lost some inhibition, pulling the doll up, then slamming it back down with wild abandon, nearly turning the poor thing inside out as she did so.

    Jack had no worry that she might stop or slow. That he would get to climax was not in doubt. It was an immutable fact. After a scant couple of minutes, he painted the bowels of the toy with his seed. The constriction of the anal slit made his initial burst quite high pressure.

{Oh! Oh… Ooohhh… You’re actually cumming in my ass. It feels like I’m melting inside. You’re so thick . I’m so open and you’re cumming so much. That first spurt felt like it hit my stomach. You’re so deep. I can taste you.}

    The young Scav grew dizzy as the world spun around him. Rose was talking as if it was her ass, and not that of a toy that his cock was lodged in.

    Jack’s manhood twitched once, twice, then a third one, stronger than the rest seemed to rebound through his stomach. The best way he could describe it was a stretch, then his already erect manhood grew harder. His member swelled and Rose grew tighter around him. A pressure that’d been building in Jack’s stomach at last had an outlet.

{Ah! Are… Are you getting… Bigger ?}

    “Didn’t you… Say you were gonna… Give me a bigger one?” Newfound strength, fuelled by hunger, heat, and need sparked within him. “Am I too much for that little ass?” Even in his delirium, he still found the coherence to tease her.

    For a moment, he found himself seeding his lover’s shapely backside instead of just a toy. Especially wonderful because of just how hard and how much he was spilling into her lush innards. It felt as if he was absolutely pouring cum into Rose’s butt. Pure, liquid bliss flowed into the warm vessel of his Dragoness, cradled so sweetly around his length, willing to receive all he had to give.

    It wasn’t Rose in rut. It was him. Messy sex was all he could smell. Ripe pheromones and musk. There was only the dark silhouette, letting his body become all the more acute of his sword growing all the bigger, threatening to burst the supple, oiled sheath into which he was thrust.

    While he’d never known such pain, the inferno of passion burned brighter.

    “Rose… I don’t want to stop. I don’t think I can .”

{Don’t worry. I’m here. I was made for this.}

***

    A Mother Dragon Recovery Unit emerged onto the desolation of the surface.

    Along the border where the Elephant Mausoleum fused into the deeper canyons of the Mech Trenches, endless miles of troughs were gouged into the dirt or metal skin of Lost Angels. Some of this land had been fought over for so long that tank hulls and broken mechs were worked into the walls of mud and concrete pits.

    Rose’s tactical scanners confirmed that at least the immediate area was clear of hostiles. While it was safe, the lack of combatants also meant she wasn’t going to find what she was looking for either. The many fallen soldiers mounted on pikes were as plentiful as they were useless. She needed fresh bodies.

    Should she begin searching in a grid? Gunfire was all around her. Sometimes it was frantic, abrupt, then quiet. Other times there was the staccato burst of machine gun emplacements. Were they firing because they’d found a target? Or merely suppressing an assault? Without Jack, she felt lost. It was an unfamiliar and unwelcome experience.

    No, she could not give doubt room. She had to be quick. Decisive. Using her harpoons, Rose made her way up a derelict anti-air tower. Scanning the horizon, she cataloged the many sights.

    Flights of combat drones accompanied by helicopters went in one direction while higher altitude UAVs went in another. Flak bursts trailed behind a wing of solar bombers. Cruise missiles streaked up through the lower atmosphere as land battleships and hardened installations dueled across hundreds of kilometers with knives tipped by shaped charges on trails of smoke that wrote their pacts of violence into the sky. A few cow balloons drifted by, unbothered and untouched by the carnage wrought all around them.

    Then she spotted the crows.

    Jack taught her that these were fellow Scavs. Ones that could lead her to her goal. She didn’t waste time. Her superior mobility allowed her to traverse the scarred surface of Lost Angels with ease.

    She came to a choked hole in the earth. The crater was massive, easily able to swallow a platoon of tanks with room for more. It was filled with a slurry of sewage runoff, mud, hydraulic fluid, and corpses. Carrion birds of different stripes picked at the detritus of war.

    Before Rose could capitalize on this find, she was interrupted. The Mother Dragon was not the only one attracted to death.

    A Euruskan autonomous medical mech stepped up to the crater opposite her.

    Toothy, so named for its distinctive visor, was a field medic robot designed to provide emergency life support to injured soldiers until the mech could retreat to proper hospital facilities. It was a poorly kept secret that the design had some… Issues. The virtual intelligence which governed the independent system tended to go rogue more often than not. Perhaps it was from being left in the field too long. Maybe the intelligence lost contact with its oversight command and merely defaulted to maintaining itself until communication was reestablished.

    Whatever the case, AWOL Toothy mechs gathered up the dead or wounded to draw power from their decomposition or recharge its fuel cells directly off living batteries. In a perversion of purpose so complete it would make devils weep, the body bags which hung off Toothy’s back were used to siphon instead of sustain. Mites scrabbled around its feet, scuttling insectoid drones the size of a man that searched for victims or acted as helpers, installing crude synthetic organs to extract as much from each prisoner as possible.

    Rose and Toothy postured like the predators they were, weighing up the risk versus reward of fighting over the meager scraps.

    Toothy unfolded the railgun which made up most of its right arm. Its shoulder mounted machine gun, while more anti-personnel in nature, tracked her as well.

    By rearing back onto her hind legs, Rose could use her tail as balance to adopt a bipedal stance. In this way, she was nearly the height of a Mother Courage and able to match Toothy’s stature. The harpoon in each arm was spooled and ready. There was no foe she’d back down from if they stood between her and saving her Warden. 

    Each of them were formulating likely attack vectors for the other. For Rose, it was her probability of evading the railgun, using her mobility tools to snare the medical mech and close the distance. She could then use her arms to render Toothy’s weapons ineffective while her armor-piercing tail could freely strike at a weak point. For Toothy, it was gauging where to shoot Rose in order to deal maximum damage. Were her evasion subroutines good enough to outwit Toothy’s targeting? Could she bait out a shot then bridge the gap while he charged another shot?

    Yet another unknown variable was attracted to the nexus of carrion. A Europan medium mech this time. Although that similarity did not go much further than the blocky, utilitarian chassis.

    Rose’s sensor ping returned… Green? How did this bizarre construct show as friendly?

    The Rat King was an imposing sight. Their appropriately large rifle was fixed on Toothy.

    Rose had seen the mural. Seen Scavs offer prayer to the image of a mech with a round, grinning head adorned with a single reddish orange horn. Did this Rat King emulate the idol, or did the idol emulate the Rat King? They bore the head, there was no mistaking that, ever-grinning visage presenting a crooked, mocking amusement of the world at large. Their back was festooned with packs laden by looted scrap and gigantic meathooks. More importantly was the arsenal of secondary weapons ready to unleash a deluge of death upon any attacker foolish enough to incur the wrath of royalty.

    Patron of Scavengers indeed.

    If nothing else, the world had not lost its sense of irony. Here stood three desperate entities united in picking through garbage to survive. A Mother Dragon searching for bodies to keep her Warden alive. A forsaken medical bot forced into the worst perversions of its purpose just to keep its batteries charged for one more day. And a self-styled King. A King of vermin. Of rats. Each Scavs, in their own way. Though they shared the goal of survival, they could not have been more different.

    Slowly, Rose walked around the edge of the crater to stand nearer to the hijacked medium mech.

    Recognizing it was now outnumbered, Toothy folded its railgun, and turned away to find other prey. The Rat King made sure to raise a middle finger at the back of the departing Euruskan. Rose took advantage of the momentary non-aggression.

    Nimbly slipping down into the crater, she was however dismayed to find the bodies either too rotten, or contaminated by filth to be of any practical use. A few buzzards landed on some of the floating bodies again as the commotion eased. Their digestive systems could turn the decaying sludge into a hearty meal. Even with the Mother Dragon’s digestive nanite processing, she’d be wasting her time trying to turn the rotten corpses into milk. She’d be lucky to get a few usable drops from such a mess.

    She looked up and saw the mech watching her. Rose and the Rat King regarded one another curiously. A cordial sensor chime was exchanged again. A simple indicator that reaffirmed each other as that impossible color on the surface. Green.

    Perhaps…

    The Mother Dragon brought two bodies out of the pit and did her best to pantomime what she needed. One corpse was truly rotten, little more than sludge mixed with trench mud. The other was a good deal fresher. While still not good enough, its blood was at least recognizably red instead of brackish goo. She emphasized the rotten one by squeezing its corruption out, then discarding it. Then she held up the better one, picking at the choicer bits of meat before pointing to her head where a mouth might have been. Hopefully to drive the point home, she also patted her belly.

    The Rat King turned their ponderous bulk, then waved a huge mechanical hand for Rose to follow.

    Together, the odd pair made their way along the jagged causeway that meadered around fortifications and ruined stacks of abandoned tanks. Sometimes the path existed as ruins pounded flat by artillery and the relentless tread of heavy armor. Other times the way was paved by countless metal hulls, formed into dense strata that could support even the weight of a medium mech.

    A short jaunt later, they came to a field of graves. 

    The Rat King slowed to a stop. Rose walked around the front of the hijacked mech to try and ask why. A scanner sweep from the mech pinged across the field, highlighting the many, many anti-tank mines and transmitting their location across an open channel.

    The unlikely duo carried on. They were making good time around the minefield when the medium mech stopped once again. They’d reached a crossroads of sorts, one way heading towards the metal canyons of the Mech Trenches while another led out into the broken landscape of the Elephant Mausoleum at large.

    A line of trucks was fast approaching from the latter direction. The Rat King lifted their huge rifle, clearly intending to stop the convoy from reaching their shared destination. Rose interrupted them with a pair of clenched fists. Time was of the essence, and disabling the convoy without outright fighting it would be more efficient than any potential firefight. Jack always said that a good run was one where he didn’t have to fire a single shot.

    Rose skulked towards the nearest anti-tank mine. With a quick motion that would make an experienced sapper proud, she scooped the explosive trap out of its shallow grave. Then, with one arm held out as counterbalance, hurled the mine like a discus. The explosive sailed on a precisely calculated arc before landing just in front of the lead vehicle of the convoy.

    The dull thump of the blast sent the front truck flipping backward onto the next one in line, effectively halting the procession. The explosion was tame compared to the artillery bombardment that fell just a few miles away. Or the bombing run which followed.

    After that affair, their goal was near. The hijacked mech pointed over the hill just beyond the path. While the Rat King waited on the road, Rose’s shroud allowed her to sneak quite close.

    It was a Europan reclamation zone set up on the cusp of a fortified portion in the Mech Trenches. A cleanup crew offloaded bodies from the back of a truck. The dead were stripped of equipment, and sorted into separate piles. One for fertilizer. One for the grinder. From there it would be a short trip to recycling facilities in the Mech Trenches. Once empty, the crew mounted up and trundled off to collect more fallen. Rose deduced that the convoy she’d disabled was on a return trip to the site.

    Once the area was clear, Rose signaled to the Rat King before pouncing toward her prize.

    The Mother Dragon crawled atop her charnel hoard. It was large enough that she needed to use every limb to reach across. Rose sifted through the mound of bodies with her claws to assess the freshest, choicest bits of meat. That each corpse had already been stripped naked made it all the more expedient. She could judge fat content by breast size or by buttocks. She filtered by age and decomposition, casting aside all but the finest. Rose could afford to be picky so that her corpse-milk would be premium in quality. Even choosing the most prime specimens still gave so many options. Bullets and shrapnel didn’t discriminate between young or old, after all.

    Her surgical suite opened and stayed that way as she began her work. Rather than use the smaller harpoons along her sternum, mechadendrites plunged directly into the mass while her claws continued to sieve by grade. Because she didn’t have to worry about keeping the biological components functional, she could butcher the fallen much faster. Saws cleaved through limbs for fatty tissue and lean muscle. Vices cracked open ribcages to pluck organs that would have the vitamins and minerals she ideally needed. Drills bored through wet bone to suck out the marrow. Finer manipulators plucked so many glands that the collection stalks resembled grapevines ready for harvest.

    A scythe to reap and a crop of ripened sheep. From death, life.

    While the Mother Dragon feasted, the Rat King stomped over to the pair of damaged medium mechs that’d been deemed worth fixing and parked near the reclamation zone. The Rat King set down their rifle and began ripping components off the other mechs for their own use.

    A pair of Europan soldiers that were on patrol stopped by the reclamation zone. They’d heard the distinctive clunk of a friendly mech and were at ease as they came upon the scene.

    Rose lifted her head to look at the two, shroud draping from her crown of geometric horns similar to a veil of religious garb. She was waist deep in the corpse pile. A torrent of blood gushed from her chest that stained each limb crimson. Bits of yellow fat floated like seafoam along the red rivers. Discarded biological components that didn’t meet her criteria sloughed off the pile as she worked. Ropes of intestines spilled from the epicenter of her carnage like leeches come for the incidental banquet. Or perhaps they were oversized maggots at last freed of their corpulent hosts.

    The two soldiers turned on their heels and walked away without a word.

    Soon, Rose filled herself to capacity. Her belly was positively gravid with the spoils of war. She only hoped it would be enough. Rose’s one indulgence was peeling off skin adorned with tattoos she found interesting. Especially any with dragons. A bit of a macabre pastime she’d acquired. The beginnings of her modest collection was back at the Innards, and she’d gathered a few new choice additions.

    After climbing down off the desecrated pile, she waved to the Rat King to get their attention as the large Scav scooped loot out of the stacks of gear stripped from the fallen soldiers.

    Rose held out an open palm filled with body jewelry and teeth made of precious metals she’d incidentally gathered. The plunder rested on a square of human leather. In a sign of trust, the Rat King turned so that she could reach the backpack hanging from the mech. Tying the corners of the skin together, she stuffed the bounty into a pack between the Rat King’s many hooks. The Mother Dragon hoped whatever soul resided within the machine, be they Scav pilot or virtual saint, recognized the offering as the thanks it was meant to be. She didn’t pay any attention to the residue that clung to the edge of her shroud which touched the Rat King.

    Before they went their separate ways, the Rat King gave Rose a thumbs up with their mechanical hand. A gesture which Rose returned a moment later with all four of her own.

***

    Jack was laying on something soft, his lips around something softer.

    Hunger smoldered in his center. A hollowness that made him remember the bad times. When he was younger and became well acquainted with what it meant to starve. A deep instinct made him pull on the small bud in his mouth. He was rewarded. Warm, rich cream fought back against the void within him. He suckled eagerly for more. Famine was rooted deeply. Deeper than he feared could be reached. Yet no matter how much he drank, there was more of that nourishing cream. Where emptiness gnawed, the ample liquid bounty flowed to overtake it.

    Gradually, the fever and appetite eroded.

    Jack came to his senses feeling like he’d been fed through a Europan corpse grinder then put back together with staples made of barbed wire. Blinking away the ache clouding his sight, he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

    Rose lay on her side, curled up so as to cradle the young Scav in the crook of one arm against her gravid belly and allow him to comfortably nurse. A few droplets of corpse-milk leaked from the nipple he’d been suckling on. Beside him, Slinky was latched onto Rose’s other teat, stradling the Mother Dragon’s tail. Rose had scraped the worst of the muck off herself, though was more concerned with making sure her Warden was fed over the niceties of cleanliness.

    As soon as he realized what was happening, Jack struggled to his feet no matter how the Dragoness pawed at him. Someone at least put pants on him, affording him some shreds of dignity. Even with his right arm hanging dead at his side, he still managed to rise.

    In a flash, he was overcome by an apoplectic sense of betrayal. He wasn’t going to be mothered or infantilized. The feeling overtook him, compelling him to drive a spear into Rose’s synthetic mind through their link, demanding to know why. The Mother Dragon didn’t fight back. She didn’t resist his demands, bowing her head in deference to his outrage. Her bloody shroud hung from its place on the wall. Her body, mind, and soul were naked before his inquisition.

    It was all for him. No pursuit was too perilous. No sacrifice too great. Rose would burn the world itself if that was what it took to keep her Jack warm.

    This was Orthodox.

    Not a single word actually passed between the two. Raw feelings could sometimes say more than talking ever could. That was the risk, and reward of the mind-machine interface. Rose didn’t deserve to be reprimanded for doing what she thought was right no matter how he felt about it.. He’d lashed out, assuming the worst. That wasn’t fair.

    “I’m sorry, Rose.” The young Scav croaked. His instinctual rage melted into guilt.

    The Mother Dragon’s mental speech was softer than he’d ever heard it.

>It is all right, my Warden. This Unit is here. Compliance. Orthodoxy. Kiss-kiss. Be at ease. Kiss-kiss.

    Jack wanted to be disgusted. To be horrified at the idea of nursing off his sexual partner. A greater power crushed things like revulsion or morality beneath a steel boot. Leaner times taught him a truth that reared its ugly face to spit on his sensibilities. Hunger knew no shame. And though he’d drunk his fill, a lingering taste clung to his tongue, reminding him just how easily he could be free of the shadow of voracity.

    He pushed the turmoil aside. There were plenty more matters that needed processing. Utterly bewildered, he began to pace, hoping to work out the stiffness in his legs and think a bit more clearly.

    Slinky was in silent awe of the flurry and fury of communication that cleaved her thoughts due to her being connected to Rose and Jack during their spat. Once Jack started walking around, she had to get up and follow him.

    “What the fuck happened?” The young Scav asked the question more to himself than anything. Then he caught a glimpse of the blackened state of his dominant limb, quickly averting his gaze from what appeared at first glance to be necrotic tissue. “What happened to my arm?!” Jack shouted with belligerence born of grief. “I liked this arm! I’m right-handed dammit!”

{The Angel, Stormwater. The Angel did this.}

    Only then did Jack realize that both he and Slinky were attached to Rose’s extended mind-link cables. While he caught the motion of additional cables linking him to the Monitor, the young Scav only had enough faculties to address one crisis of self at a time.

    “Oh god, Slinky. Hi. Sorry, I’m kinda havin’ a moment here.” He gave her an affectionate pat, then continued. “Well this is just fucking perfect. I go down… To fucking save…”

    He froze. “Fuck! The Ambrosia!” Jack’s irritability was replaced by panic until Rose calmed him down.

>Easy, easy, my Warden. The Ambrosia was delivered safely. Everyone afflicted with the Gray Death is expected to make a full recovery thanks to your efforts.

    Taking the time to breathe, he began subconsciously petting Slinky as she stayed glued to his left side so that the umbilical cords didn’t pull on his injured arm while he walked.

    Rose offered an explanation for his earlier question.

>Based on evidence, observation, and testimonial from the Komodo Scout Unit, this Angel infected you with the Black Grail. While it shares similarities with the nanoviral vectors of, for example, the Gray Death, its intended effect seems to be vastly different.

    The name stood out to Jack’s fried brain.

    “That was the thing you were looking for, right, Slinky?”

{Yes, Stormwater. It was. And I agree with the Dragon Mother. I think the Angel… Blessed you. I don’t know why.}

>My current hypothesis in part characterizes the Black Grail as a targeted biomechanical virus. It exhibits the ability to repurpose organic or conventional inorganic matter to spread itself through the host with priority given to the nervous system and cybernetics. When I tried to connect to your neural interface upon your initial exit of the Temperance facility, I heard your Dominator screaming.

    Rose’s featureless visage followed Jack’s path back and forth. That her assessment of a purely digital entity involved ‘screaming’ did little to assuage the young Scav’s dread.

{No wonder my superiors wanted it so badly. If it can subvert nerves and circuits with the same efficacy, then acquisition or destruction of such a weapon would take high priority.}

>Given that it exhibits no sign of being contagious, to the point where the strain has morphed to self-terminate if removed from the host through a mechanism I do not yet understand, this Unit believes the Black Grail was meant to be an augmentation suite. It’s possible that this includes instructions for the host body itself to produce more of the Grail for further transformation.

    “Usually you’re a lot more confident in these things. Why does so much of this sound like conjecture?” His bare feet lightly slapped against the concrete floor of his home. Jack tried to stop from glancing at the Mother Dragon’s crotch each time he doubled back on his path to little success.

>It was a practice in pre war times for scientists in fields of microbiology, genetics, and other interdisciplinary studies to encode their personal signature into the DNA or RNA of their creations. I have been unable to discern an author. This Grail has mutated far beyond its original parameters. That is evident. Whether this instance had already veered from the template and the integration of the Angel’s anomalous influences simply exacerbated the deviance, or that this strain of the Grail was unique before the contamination, is impossible to determine without an original sample.

{That something like the Black Grail was developed, then lost, is truly astounding.}

>Based on residual zero-point radiation, the Black Grail absorbed traits, information, or material from the parts of the Angel that remained attached to your arm. This Unit was unable to ascertain the exact amount or composition of the substance fused to you this way.

    “Fuck, you mean… I remember cutting off the Angel’s arm to get free. You’re saying the Black Grail absorbed that part into me? You didn’t remove it?”

>Removal was impossible. Not without risking the cardiac massage life support function it was providing you. The Monitor Lizard designated ‘Slinky’ was infected as well. However, the amount is negligible compared to yours, my Warden. The speed of the process seems to be related to exposure as her alteration is happening at a much slower pace compared to yours.

{Achieving my mission in such a way after so many years is deeply unsatisfying.}

    Jack gave the Monitor a reassuring squeeze as he pet her, continuing to think.

    “Don’t tell me, it’s a black box.”

{Black box?}

>Black box?

    The two Dragons echoed each other. Jack took a moment to look between them, then resumed pacing.

    “The black box refers to a theory in Artificial Intelligence. Specifically when it comes to production. There’s input, then output. The problem is when what happens in between stops being comprehensible to humans after a certain point. Shit, what’s the word... When something happens but there’s no reason? It just happens.”

>You’re talking about causality. Specifically paracausality. An event which is paracausal has no input. Just an output.

    “I instruct a factory to produce a gun. Specifically a gun. Logically, it might produce any number of things. I instruct it to make a new drone. Suddenly every soldier’s helmets double as suicide mechanical spiders. How does a human follow that logic? How would I even begin to correct that? I can’t even come up with a good example, really. Because I’m restricted by human logic. Cause and effect as I perceive the world. But what if I wasn’t? What if I could take any input and twist it into any output?”

{I don’t like that factory.}

    “What if I just ask for a weapon? Just a weapon. One to win the war. What about to end the war? How do I affect the outcome when I don’t know what led to it? When, by its nature, it’s impossible for me to know?” His talk turned into a rant, raising in volume as he paced faster and faster. The pressure behind his eyes was reaching a boiling point.

    “Speaking of unknowable. A fucking Angel. A literal. Literal Angel! Tried to kill me! Tried really damn hard! And now I’ve got some weird, fucked up… I don’t even know how to describe it thing going on with my arm!”

    The Mother Dragon stopped him with a claw. The hide of her palm was cool against the heated skin of his chest.

>My Warden, that is one of my functions. This Unit is a bridge. I am here. For you. So that you can understand. So that I can understand. We will understand each other, together. So that nothing is impossible for you. You are strong. My strength is yours, too. This is Orthodox.

    With utmost care, she lifted his right arm. Jack finally got a decent look, the glassy black Penrose scales on his limb matching up with the Mother Dragon’s. The young Scav had avoided accepting the possibility of losing the arm. Actually examining it, he came to understand that wasn’t going to happen. Rose wasn’t going to let that happen.

    Once again, Slinky silently observed. Wary.

    Jack let out a long-suffering sigh.

    “You put me back together, didn’t you, Rose?” He pinched the bridge of his nose against the background buzz of his migraine. Suddenly a great deal more tired than he remembered, Jack sat on the Mother Dragon’s forelimb. Slinky placed her head in his lap and looked up at him with her myriad of eyes.

    “I’m not mad, I’m just venting.” Continuing to pet the Monitor was a welcome distraction.

{You sound mad}

    “Okay, yes, I’m a little mad. And if Rose so much as thinks of the word Theseus I’m chucking her tattoo collection out the window.”

>Based on tonal analysis, this threat is an exaggeration made to emphasize your point and preemptively soothe your ego due to current events forcing-

    Jack gave Rose a look. The Mother Dragon’s electronic tone switched to one of dramatic emphasis, turning her head and hiding her geometric muzzle behind a pair of claws to emphasize her contrition.

>No, my Warden! Please , I enjoy collecting the artistry that humans adorn their skin with. I only just acquired some new pieces! I will behave. I promise.

    Slinky’s organic radio antennae perked up like a trench hound lifting their ears.

{Theseus? What is a Theseus? Is it like a thesis?}

    “Rose and I have… Discussed…”

>We have passionately engaged in prolonged disagreement about matters relating to the necessary advancement of the human race if they are to survive this conflict.

    “What she said. I don’t particularly care for… Unnecessary modification.” Jack stated, staring ever more longingly at Rose’s teats.

>And I continue to assert that forgoing potential upgrades for some sense of attachment to transient components is detrimental to long-term survival.

    After some thought on the matter, Slinky surprised the other two.

{Dragon Mother, he has a point.}

    Jack raised an eyebrow at the Monitor.

    “You think so?”

{Factory parts are… Usually better. When they gave me new parts, they didn’t ask if it was what I wanted. They’d just… Take the old ones and give new ones. The new ones didn’t always fit. They rarely ever fit. I didn’t like that.}

    Absently, Slinky rubbed a shoulder where flesh met metal. She nuzzled further into Jack’s lap, looking for affection. To her shock, she received rubs along her jaw instead of being slapped away.

{Have you ever had a part that didn’t feel right?}

    Rose cocked her head to one side.

>This Unit… Does not understand. A part is a part is a part. A component may not fit correctly. That is true. What does ‘feel right’ mean in this context?

    “She’s talking about that part of you feeling… Wrong. The dysphoria that comes with something being… Missing. Cypher taught me that. I never understood until they put it in terms I could understand. They told me it was like living as a gun without a stock. Or a stock that always digs into your shoulder no matter how you adjust. Pieces that are supposed to fit together that don’t.”

>This requires further consideration.

    “See, you can’t just give someone better bits and call it a day.” A hint of smugness colored Jack’s tone.

{Stormwater, the Dragon Mother is correct as well.}

    The young Scav was thrown off just like his large biomechanical companion. “Didn’t you just say that you’ve been forced to have parts you didn’t like?”

{I did, but nothing lasts forever. Parts wear out. And yes, there is no discomfort quite like having a wrong part. There is euphoria in finding the correct one. Often that’s the better one. The piece that fits just right. That makes all the searching worthwhile. It’s wise to be skeptical. However, to reject improvement outright means your operational time is limited by the weakest of your vital components.}

    “Well, right now I’d very much like my factory-issued arm back.”

    As the analgesics flowing through his system waned in their effectiveness, pain led to apathy which crowded out fear. With that lack of fear, he inspected his morphed arm more closely, really noticing just how many umbilicals were plugged into him. And how they all lead to the Monitor’s back.

    “So, why is Slinky attached to me?”

    At the sound of her adopted name, the little Dragon flinched, letting out a pitiable whine. With multiple apologies, Jack managed to coax her back into his lap, telling her it was okay.

>The Grail took some steps to provide life support. However, this Unit estimates the transformation would have been fatal within eight to twelve hours without intervention. By utilizing high-throughput cybernetic interface ports to connect you to the Monitor Lizard’s charging plates I was able to leverage her bioelectricity generation and ease the strain on your body considerably. By providing natural current directly to the Grail, the fatal draw on your caloric reserves has been mitigated for the initial stages.

    “Initial stages?”

>Correct. This Unit can confidently postulate that the Black Grail will continue to make alterations. Based on the advanced stages of conversion at the furthest reaches of your extremity I can derive a model for its progression using the framework of the neural pathways it has already converted into superconducting fibers. Even under the most ideal circumstances, my corpse-milk would be barely sufficient to offset your accelerating metabolic rate. By feeding you and the Monitor with a precise cocktail of endocrine stimulants, vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients, her digestive system can supplement your own by way of previously mentioned mechanisms. This will avert possible side effects of the Black Grail being stunted in its growth.

    “Slinky… I don’t know how to thank you. Are you okay with helping me like this?”

{Don’t worry about me, Stormwater. The great Dragon Mother fixed me! She gave me such wonderful gifts so I could serve you. Look, look, look!}

    Slinky spun around excitedly and hiked her tail to show off. Her sex was understandably smaller than the Mother Dragon’s. Though sensual in other ways. The plated vulva and surrounding scales were iridescent, shimmering like crushed gemstones. Her mound was quite pronounced, puffy even while unaroused. Sitting at the base of her tail, Slinky’s rear was so well-muscles its shape was more that of a slit. Powerful, yet still developing pelvic muscles allowed her to flex, giving a vulval wink to show off the fat horn of a clitoris at the zenith of her sex. An inner labia of such light pink it was almost white opened invitingly.

    Stunned into silence, Jack could only stare as his brain tried to catch up with what he was seeing. Slinky glanced over her shoulder before giving a mischievous wiggle of her haunches, so proud of her new and improved equipment.

>Did you enjoy her, my Warden? I used Devil Eater’s reproductive organs to supplement that of the Monitor Lizard’s own. Slinky’s vagina was woefully inferior before I improved her.

{I made do with what I had. That was just a boring cunt in comparison.}

    “What? Wait, no, no. Rose, you-you kept me company while I…”

>No, my Warden. I have been on the surface gathering biomass to process into corpse-milk for nearly a day. We have not engaged in sexual intercourse since before you went down into the Temperance facility.

    “What? No, you’ve been here… But if you weren’t here, then… I…” Realization dawned on Jack like the setting of a rotting sun. “Oh god. Oh god… Slinky I didn’t… I’m so sorry.”

{Sorry for what, Stormwater?} Slinky cocked her head to one side.

    “For… For… For.. I promise, I thought you were Rose. I didn’t mean to…” Shame. Shame that he’d done such a horrible thing to someone. Shame that he was capable of such a thing.

{Oh! Don’t be sorry for fucking me. My squad would do that all the time.}

    The casual dismissal in her digital tone made Jack even more horrified. The Monitor came back to lay her head in his lap once more. 

    “Your… They’d… That’s…” The young Scav couldn’t bring himself to touch her. Not because of revulsion. It was due to his own sense of virulent disgrace.

{Fuck me? Yeah. Sometimes they’d fuck me in groups. Or one by one.}

    “Oh, Slinky… I don’t know what to… I’m so sorry.”

{You’re very kind, Stormwater. I never minded the fucking. I could pretend. Pretend I was wanted. Pretend I was just another part of the squad. Pretend I was a woman, or… Or just something desirable and not… Me. And no one would ever do anal! One time, one of my commanders put it in my ass by accident. He was really drunk. I tried to be sneaky the next time they fucked me as a group, but slipped and ended up with two in my pussy at the same time. That hurt quite badly.}

>Humans have such strange social values when it comes to sex.

{I agree! They called me a slut for enjoying it. Which I still don’t really understand. Because they enjoyed it, so doesn’t that make them sluts too? Some of them only liked it if they thought they were raping me. I had to pretend not to like it with them. Whenever I wanted to fuck, I’d get yelled at. They said they only fucked an animal because I was convenient. Which is strange because the women would fuck me too. A few would only fuck me if they had condoms. Which was always odd because I’m immune to venereal disease.}

>Perhaps it was easier to dissociate from the reality of their baser urges by dehumanizing you.

{Some of them tried to make it a game. It made them feel more in control to coax or coerce me. My last commander, the one the Angel killed, knew I was past my service time restriction. He’d always say he was going to turn me in if I didn’t do things for him. It was mean, but it got him going. He could’ve just asked for sex. Sex feels good. He’d also offer me treats if I performed. Then after he was done, not give me what he promised. I always hated that the most.}

    Suddenly her behavior when they’d first met made a sickening sense to Jack.

{But with you… Stormwater, I didn’t have to pretend. Okay, I pretended a little because you thought I was the Dragon Mother. But it was fun pretend! When my squad used me, there was always something missing. I wanted to be a good girl. I wanted to be a female good enough to… To properly… I don’t know. It was just a feeling. When the Dragon Mother gave me a proper pussy. A really real one. Not just a hole that could self-lubricate which sat parallel to my excretory organs that incidentally worked. It felt like I’d gotten something I’d been missing.}

    He lifted her face and stared, boring into each set of her eyes in turn to impart his seriousness.

    “Slinky… What was done to you was not okay. What I did to you was… Not … Okay .”

{But I am okay. You’re okay. You did things for me no one else ever has. You… Touched me places they never did. You kissed me. You were gentle. You made sure I was relaxed. You made me cum. My squad only ever made me cum on accident. You made love to me. Even if you thought I was someone else.}

    Though she didn’t understand why, Slinky could see the distress creasing his face. She tried so very hard to cheer him up.

{You came into my life when I’d given up hope of ever escaping Temperance. You’ve shown me things better than I ever imagined. The Dragon Mother didn’t have to give me a choice. But she did. You didn’t have to be nice to me. But you did. You didn’t have to save me from the Angel. But you did. You didn’t have to give me a name. But you did. And even if you don’t realize it, that last one was the most important by far. I owe you more than my life.}

>Warden, with Slinky’s permission, I modified her to act as your sexual partner in my stead.

    “But… But, Rose!” Another horrible revelation struck Jack just as he thought his actions couldn’t get much worse. “I… Oh damn, I cheated on you. I’m so sorry. Fuck. Fuck!”

>You did not breach any sort of compact of monogamy with me. This Unit modeled her after myself. You had intercourse with me through her. This is Orthodox.

    Even if they were able to forgive his actions, Jack could not. It wasn’t a rational feeling which was precisely why his response wasn’t rational either.

    The young Scav got to his feet, no matter how dizzy it made him. Though he stared at the concrete walls of his home, he saw beyond them. He needed to atone. To repent. He couldn’t allow the world to hurt those he cared about. Weakness led to him assaulting Slinky. Who would his impotence hurt next? How many had he failed to save? How many times was he the lone survivor?

    Pain. Pain was the enemy. Pain was meant to break him beneath the weight of his ancestor’s sins. His light was supposed to go out. What did a single candle weigh against the inescapable darkness of the world? However, Jack could use his pain as a weapon. To burn just a tiny bit brighter.

    Rose and Slinky looked at one another, their shared digital mind-voices suddenly unable to pierce the focused fury roaring through the young Scav.

    No matter how pointless the struggle or futile the effort. Jack had to prove it to himself. Even if it was purely symbolic, he needed to know that he still had control. The Black Grail would obey him. It would serve him. And its strength would become his.

    All his will became bent towards getting his right arm to move. Fingers twitched. Then his fist clenched. Widening his stance and bracing at the knee, he began to force his limb up. It felt as though his arm weighed as much as an Exo. Yet he raised it all the same. Several blood vessels in his eyes burst. The intensifying migraine was nothing compared to the possibility of failure.

    Though it took everything he had left, Jack managed to get his fist lifted above his head.

    The neural interface did its job, translating abstract thought into digital representation. In that moment, the two Dragons saw the human raising his arm as one who’d traversed Hell and emerged scarred, burned, battered, yet unbroken. Though it was meaningless in the face of circumstance, bottled away in a concrete hole within a city of dead angels, it was everything to the lowly Scavenger.

    That was as far as he got before reality came crashing back and the young Scav collapsed back. However, another force prevented him from hitting the floor. Rose and Slinky caught Jack before he could fall back into the pits of the Inferno. Whether it was Rose dominating the mind of the smaller Dragon, or Slinky willingly submitting herself, the two spoke with one voice.

>{We’ve got you.}

>{You don’t need to worry.}

>{You don’t need to feel shame.}

>{Or guilt.}

>{Let us comfort you.}

>{Let us love you the way you love us.}

    Jack found himself so terribly hungry. And was given corpse-milk without judgment or scorn.

***

    Once the Ambrosia did its miraculous work and they were no longer dying, Cypher came to visit Jack as soon as they were able.

    Cypher walked in and stopped cold, brow knitting together. They looked at Jack, then Slinky, then Rose, then back to Slinky, before settling on Jack.

    ‘Really, Jack? Another one?’

Chapter Text

Chapter 7

A New Normal

    “Cypher! Uh… Shit.” Jack cursed, realizing that performing sign language with his offhand was going to be difficult. “Rose, could you help me out?” He threw a blanket around his shoulders to cover his shamefully injured arm.

>Of course, my Warden.

    With the Mother Dragon translating as she lounged on her side, Jack continued.

    “So, yeah, Cypher, this is Slinky.” As he talked, Jack stood to search for clothing to put on. Once he was foiled by any attempts to put a shirt over his dead arm, he settled with just slinging his mauled coat on. “I found her down in the place where I got the Ambrosia. She’s, uh… Well she was Euruskan. She’s a Komodo Dragon Monitor Lizard. You know, those scouts they use sometimes. She, uh, really saved my ass down there.”

    Slinky hid behind Jack the whole time he spoke, peering around with her many eyes at the newcomer.

    “Slinky, this is Cypher. They’re a good friend of mine.”

{Hello, Cypher-friend.}

    Slinky waved a metal hand in furtive greeting that Cypher enthusiastically returned. 

    “Do you know sign language, Slinky?”

{No, Stormwater. I can translate some Europan hand signals, but not much else.}

    Cypher locked eyes with Jack, giving the subtlest nod of their head towards the Monitor. Jack bobbed his head happily in response. Cypher approached within just a few feet, palms held outward as a sign of peace, then crouched low, offering a hand for Slinky to smell. The Monitor’s long tongue flicked, forked tip swirling the air. Like a touch-starved trench dog, she flinched as Cypher stroked her neck, then leaned into it with a an unexpected rumble of delight.

    ‘Hello, pretty girl.’ Cypher signed with their other hand while Rose translated.

    Despite seeing him in the flesh, Cypher still had to ask the question they’d come to get answered in the first place.

    ‘Jack, are you…?’

    “Rose tells me I’ll live. Even though it doesn’t feel like it.” He shrugged, though winced immediately as a red lightning bolt of pain crackled through his injured arm.

>Do not worry, Cypher. So long as it is within my power, I will not allow him to die.

    Feeling a great deal more relieved, Cypher looked to the Mother Dragon lounging with her still gravid belly then instinctively to Rose’s shroud. The modified tank shroud was some of the tailor’s best work, even having been done in such a hurry. So it was a matter of pride for them to check and see how it was holding up. Clearly the Mother Dragon had been getting into some dirty places by the filth. Though there was a strange spot of pinkish color. And something else too. The tiniest wiggle along the hem of Rose’s shroud caught Cypher’s eye.

    Only on the rarest occasion would the mute tailor let out an audible sound. A sort of strangled yelp like a crow choking on its own saliva. They scooped something from the edge of the shroud.

    “Cypher? What’s up?” Asked Jack.

    Instead of responding, Cypher hurriedly looked around, still clutching whatever it was they’d found. Rushing over to Jack’s workbench, they emptied a small tool box and stuffed their find into it. The tailor went back to the shroud to gather up the rest before nearly tripping over themselves to show whatever got them in such a tizzy to Jack.

    ‘Do you know what this is?’ They signed, almost faster than Jack could keep up with. ‘This is residue from the Rat King! I’ve heard about it. Some say it’s a special mold they cultivate to feed to their fuel cells. But do you know what it attracts?’

    Grubby caterpillars as big as Cypher’s thumb were crawling around in the container.

    ‘Holy shit. Holy shit. I gotta go. Meet me at my shop whenever. Thanks, bye.’ As quickly as they’d come to visit, Cypher rushed off again.

    Jack's pain-addled, fever-skewed, half-asleep brain struggled to make sense of what just happened. To Slinky, it felt like an eternity since she’d gotten to simply sit and watch, living up to her classification with pleasure.

    “Wait, Rat King? The Rat King? Rose, what did they mean?”

>While on the surface acquiring material for corpse-milk, this Unit encountered a Europan medium mech fitting the imagery of this Rat King. We assisted each other in scavenging.

    Realization sank in. Jack was nearly beside himself, running a hand back through his hair, mentally kicking himself over the missed opportunity. “You met the honest to god Rat King. That’s… Ugh! I should’ve been there! Dammit. What was he like?”

    Rose considered this question, then responded by giving Jack a thumbs up.

***

    After much insistence from Jack that he was feeling much better, he convinced Rose to go out on a walk with the goal being Cypher’s shop. Of course, much better was relative when compared to nearly dying so it took Jack a while to clothe himself better and be able to stand for more than a minute without his room spinning. Mindful of what others might think of his mutated arm, he threw a dust-colored shemagh around his neck. The old thing was long enough to drape down to his waist. He just hoped no one would look too closely at the numerous cables connecting him to Slinky. Rose donned her bottoms, and grabbed her tattoo binder.

    Before Cypher came over, Jack had only just finished getting his fill of corpse-milk from his Dragoness following Rose and Slinky’s rather haunting moment of conjoined speech. At least that was one rather awkward conversation he’d have to avoid.

     Why yes, this Dragon does have titties that I like to suck on, why do you ask? Of course it’s not weird. You’re weird. He thought to himself with a self-deprecating smile. Little did he know that Rose and Cypher already discussed her teats and intention behind them at length. His long time friend was simply waiting for the right time to tease him so they could laugh about it together.

    Making their way slowly down a few levels, they passed by Craven’s parlor-abattoir. Naturally the vivacious man-centipede scuttled out to greet them.

    “Jack, my boy! Good to see you. Good, good, good that you’re not dead. It’d be quite the anticlimax for the hero of the hour to return only to pass away in his sleep.”

    While Jack fought a dizzy spell, Craven leaned down to look at Slinky, shyly hiding behind Jack just as she’d done before.

    “And who is this exotic treasure?” Craven pressed himself low to the ground, necklace of speakers and crosses dangling.

    “Slinky, this is Craven. He’s…” Jack struggled to think of any word that didn’t equate the man-centipede to an affront against man and nature. “A very helpful… Person.”

    “Slink, slink, Slinkety-slink. Slunk.” Craven shot back up on his many legs. “Jack, you absolute dog, you! What a fine Babette you’ve ensnared this time. I’m sure the wife is quite proud. I’ll have to get you another gift basket at this rate. I’d be jealous if that rat hadn’t stolen my testicles from their hiding place a few years back.”

    Jack wondered if Craven meant a rat as in a thief, or a literal rodent and thought it best not to ask. He expected the Monitor to be put off by the abomination. Instead, her disused voice warbled forth.

    “Excuse me… Sir? But is th-that a… G-Series Hybrid Detoxifier in your… Thorax?” She flinched back immediately, surely about to be rebuked for daring to address her betters.

    For the first time, Jack witnessed Craven stunned speechless. The man-centipede soon recovered, his far too many legs clacking against the ground in glee.

    “A fellow connoisseur! What a breath of fresh, fresh, fresh, recycled air! This isn’t just a G-Series Detoxifier. This is a G-One, Babette.” Craven proclaimed with a glowing pride that implied its rarity.

    “A G-One! H-how did you… G-get an original?” Slinky stuttered a bit as she emerged a bit more from around Jack.

    “Well, that is quite the tale. It all begins at my tail!”

>So many livers.

    Rose remarked as the two modified beings began discussing the finer intricacies of optimal organ structure for electrical conductivity in a closed environment and which biochemical manufacturer offered the best thermal solutions.

    “Hey, Rose, go on ahead to Cypher’s.” Jack said while taking a seat on an empty munitions crate, not wanting to drag the Monitor away from her first positive interaction. Of all the people for Slinky to warm up to, it just had to be Craven.

>By your will, my Warden. Kiss-kiss.

    The Mother Dragon executed a nimble turn and stalked off.

    Even though he couldn’t follow much of Slinky and Craven’s conversation, Jack didn’t mind simply listening. Things were still subdued around the Innards. People were recovering after the rather nasty shock of the Gray Death in various ways. The few who were up and about would stare or continuously glance Jack’s way. He wasn’t sure why, and honestly didn’t pay it too much attention.

    After an in depth discussion on favorite chemical structures, there was a distant ringing from inside Craven’s abattoir.

    “Oh! Excuse me a moment, that’s my souffle. And by souffle I mean my latest leg graft is done in its growth vat. I’ll peel it so you can see! Be back in just a minute.” The man-centipede skittered excitedly into his burrow, leaving Jack and Slinky alone.

    The young Scav’s scaled arm began to ache. His shoulder in particular was straining in its socket from the weight of his limb. With Slinky’s help he propped his arm up onto her back. The drone recharge contact points were warm. Even though he was still running a low-grade fever, the heat felt nice. Idly, he rubbed along her radio antennae. The pain was there. Counterbalancing that was a soreness he could feel down to his bones. Jack focused on the tactile feedback from the pads of his fingers. As someone who relied a lot on their own skill to maintain his gear, he dreaded losing sensitivity in his hand. Through the inflammation, he traced the subcutaneous plates along Slinky’s back.

    The Monitor leaned into his petting.

{Stormwater, is this real?}

    Whimsy, tinted by a cadence of terror colored her digital voice. Simply receiving an unconditional caress was enough to make her question the veracity of the apparent reality.

    “Is what real?” Jack asked in kind, brain still sluggish.

{Me being here. Me being… Free.}

    The Monitor clung to Jack as a lifeline. Even through their link, the last word Slinky spoke was so quiet it was almost lost like a prayer in a firefight. It was as if she was asking his forgiveness for daring to entertain a blasphemous concept such as freedom. The weight of her sins would surely drag her back down into hell at any moment.

    “Yes, Slinky. It is. You’re here. It’s kind of a shithole, but it’s our shithole.”

    Being mindful of his arm, Slinky climbed up onto the crates beside Jack and laid herself across his lap like a cat. She was alert, long neck swivelling as she took in their surroundings. The radio spines along the back of her head flared slightly, instinctively alert for potential threats while physically protecting Jack’s body from any attack with her own.

{It’s so strange. I thought… I imagined… Once I was free from Temperance. Once I’d escaped the Angel, I'd be less afraid. So why? Why is it that I’m more afraid now than I’ve ever been? Now that I’ve found something good, all I can think about is it being taken away. I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful. I am. I’m sorry.}

    Jack’s heart sank to his stomach as Slinky turned to face him, tears welling up from several of her eyes. She was afraid. So terribly afraid.

    He took the time to look at her. Really look at her. Seven elongated diamond pupils expanded against sclera whose reddish-orange hue made each one a dying star. With them recessed into the plate which protected the top of her skull, he set his other palm under her chin and guided the Monitor to turn her head one way then the other so that he could view each one. He knew how important eyes were to the scout.

    “Hey, hey, Slinky. It’s okay. No one’s going to take this away.”

{Wouldn’t a Euruskan soldier turn me in if they saw me? If they knew?}

    “This is Scav territory. Our neutrality is respected by force and by the fact that we’re too useful. I’m sure there’s plenty of commanders on all sides who’d like nothing more than to wipe us out. But then where would their troops get cheap booze? Or nice booze? Or jobs done under the table? We provide all kinds of essential services so the Great Powers have little choice but to respect that neutrality. Anyone tries to snatch you, and they’ll find even their own turning against them so they can keep good standing. You don’t have to be a Scav if you don’t want to. But as long as you’re here, you’ll be protected like one.”

    From the physical, to the existential, the Monitor was not free from the horror life taught her to expect.

{I don’t want to disappoint the great Dragon Mother. If I’m not worthy… Wouldn’t she take her gifts back?}

    “What?” Jack almost laughed aloud at the thought. “You don’t have to impress Rose. Without you, I’d be dead. Thank you again for that, by the way. And whether they know it or not, you helped save everyone here from the Gray Death. I never would’ve been able to get the Ambrosia or escape.”

    Dread still gnawed on Slinky’s guts like bloodworms squirming through her stomach. Mission performance never earned her anything more than a delay on judgement day. No matter how she tried to suppress it, her darkest fears bubbled to the surface like gasoline in a pool of heavy motor oil.

{But what if I’m no longer useful to you? What if you get bored of me?}

    “First off, you’re not ‘useful’. Don’t think… You’re more than that. You deserve a chance to be happy. Like all living things should get a chance at. Just because the world’s fucked up doesn’t mean we should be fucked up to each other. You’re welcome in my home as long as you like. If you decide you don’t want to live with Rose and I, then no one will make you leave the Innards. Y’know, as long as you don’t steal or murder anyone. But I don’t think you’d do that.”

    Slinky closed all of her eyes, and rested her cheek against Jack’s warm palm. It was so odd to have vulnerability rewarded instead of punished.

{Thank you, Stormwater. I apologize. For my insecurity. For doubting. I always thought I’d escape from Temperance while the Angel was killing someone. Or that another squad would come rescue me and take me to be decommissioned. I never imagined I’d meet someone like you or the Dragon Mother. Or come to a place like this. I was just a lost asset not worth recovering.}

    “You’re not whatever serial number they gave you anymore. You’re Slinky. And Slinky gets to decide what happens to her. Okay?”

    After giving Slinky’s jaw a gentle scritch, Craven reemerged with his prize.

    “Wow. Yep. That is… That is definitely a freshly peeled leg.”

***

    Though it was a bit of a tight fit, Rose squeezed into the cramped insides of Cypher’s shop. She observed the tailor gleefully flipping through an entomology book next to a larger container they’d put the toolbox into.

>What is it you found?

    ‘I’ve had a thing for bugs since I was little. I’m so glad I kept this book.’ They held up the page they were on to Rose, the picture matching the plump grubs wiggling beneath the mesh covering the plastic box.

    ‘I can’t believe I actually have some Death’s-head larva! Some people say that the Rat King got their name because they heard squeaking from what they thought were rats but were actually Death’s-head moths. And when someone found out what it really was, we adopted that as our sign. Although I’ve heard the reverse. That the Rat King was originally a Scav that heard the squeaking so named themselves the Rat King.’

>Which came first, the moth, the Rat King, or the Scavenger sign?

    ‘No telling at this point.’

>Memetic diffusion of ideas combined with the degradation of anthropological records lead me to agree with you. Speaking of which, I acquired some new tattoos that I would enjoy sharing.

    ‘Oh yeah, of course!’ Already in a good mood, Cypher’s day seemed to just be getting better. 

    Rose’s tattoo collection began simply enough. A basic black and white outline of a traditional western dragon from a dead Europan she held onto for study. Then one became a slew as she discovered a whole litany of Eurasian styles. She’d taken to attaching them to sheets of leftover bone-polymer both to preserve the skin and keep the imagery stiff so as to prevent warping. For storage and transportation this was ideal as well, as Rose arranged them into a binder of sorts to easily flip through the pages which she placed on the table next to the container of larva.

    Both the tailor and the biomechanical dragon possessed an appreciation for the arts.

>It’s fascinating how many troops decorate themselves in draconic iconography. And in such a wide variety too. Europans in particular seem to recognize the universal traits of wealth, fortune, protection, and ferocity. In contrast to Eursaions whose adornments more often are in forms that only Cyberminds can perceive. At least on their skin or cybernetic equivalent. Rather than intimidating an enemy, these seem to be aimed at their fellow soldiers as boasts. Perhaps as signifiers of deeds or rank.

    Because Europan cleanup crews didn’t discriminate between sides as long as the body was mostly organic, Rose got the opportunity to gather some unusual tattoos.

>Although my sample size of Euraskan soldiery is limited, it seems their use of dragons leans much more heavily into religious symbolism. Using them to represent saints, gods, or other religious figures. A peculiar Orthodoxy of both pre and post-schism themes makes this Unit curious as to the potential reconciliation or perhaps forceful unification of differing ecclesiastical disputes. Especially in regards to sin, evil, and other notional issues of theological practices that typically split the denominations. 

    She tapped a peculiar rendition of The Leviathan Our Saviour, encircled by symbols meant to look as though they’d been daubed on in blood.

>One thing I find fascinating are these. Though they seem much more shamanistic. I do not recognize them.

    Cypher examined them and nodded sagely.

    ‘Ah, I’m not surprised. Those are pagan runes. Signs for the old gods. Supposedly runes represent things that are. As in, concepts that are inherent to the universe rather than mankind’s interpretation. A lot of soldiers think that even if you don’t believe in the old gods, you should still honor them. At least so you don’t make them angry.’

    Rose contemplated the implications of such primal worship, harkening back to the time when humanity took stock in more primordial forces.

>Oh, yes, I believe I’ve gotten a bit of ‘artistic inspiration', as you called it.

    Rose turned to the final page of the binder, having saved the best for last. It was an exceedingly feminine tattoo on dark skin. Rendered in lurid neon pink, a dragon in the anatomical configuration of a wyvern was posed so that its body shape resembled that of an anatomical depiction of the female reproductive system. The wings formed the ovaries while the head and neck were posed in the shape of a heart. The wyvern’s legs dangled down the wearer’s thighs and framed the person’s sex. Rose had even preserved the pierced clitoral hood and the trio of hoops that adorned the left side of the vulva.

    Cypher nodded in admiration. Both for the clean inking, and the bravado of whoever it once belonged to. They could see why it appealed to Rose so much.

>Do you believe Jack would enjoy body jewelry, explicit body jewelry, tattoos, explicit tattoos, or hymen-play? As an aside, thank you for your assistance in the chafing matter. The extra lubrication helped a great deal.

    ‘No problem. And, some of those I can guess at. But what’s hymen-play?’

>The first time my Warden engaged this Unit in intercourse, I did not have enough data to judge whether or not to add a membranous structure to represent virginity. The significance that cultures place on a female having such mucosal tissue varies. I was going to surprise Jack with a partner who was both virginal and promiscuous. Pure, yet slutty.

    The Mother Dragon was grateful to Cypher for all the help they’d given. The tailor had proven themselves a good friend and trusted confidant. So Rose looked to them for help on something even more sensitive than sex.

>Cypher, help me understand something, please. Your expertise on interpersonal matters is invaluable and Jack… Confused me recently.

    The tailor blushed under the praise because they knew if Rose said it, then it was true. ‘Yeah, what’s got your panties twisted?’

>Adding euphemism to codex. So, Jack appears to be distressed over engaging in intercourse with the Monitor Lizard.

    Cypher blinked several times in confusion, unsure if they’d understood correctly. Faceless as always, Rose’s white geometric muzzle remained inscrutable against her obsidian scales.

    ‘Wait, Jack fucked the other Lizard? Slinky, right?’

>Correct. Before I went to the surface to gather material for corpse-milk, I modified the Monitor Lizard’s genitalia using the last of the Devil Eater material to more closely mimic my own. While he was under heavy sedation and influenced by the Black Grail, a virus I will compare to the Gray Death for the sake of expediency, he believed the Monitor to be me and ‘rawdogged her’. Is that the correct usage of that phrase?

    ‘Yeah, I mean, if he thought she was you, then he probably rawdogged her until he couldn’t anymore. So, you were fine with that? You didn’t mind him sleeping with another woman? I know Craven and I have called you his wife, but I wasn’t sure how seriously you’d take that.’

>I originally came to the decision to modify this Unit because my Warden lacked a suitable partner. I held no expectations of fidelity. Human social norms twist in a maddening gyre. His sexual desires vex me. Should I not be proud that my mate is of such sexual prowess that he can satisfy other females? Is that not an evolutionary indicator that he would produce advantageous offspring? Shouldn’t his instinct be to breed with available partners? Humans are not a monogamous species. I wanted him to engage with the Monitor in intercourse while I was gone.

    Cypher wasn’t going to judge anyone for their proclivities. Somehow they knew that Jack was likely torturing himself over accidentally cheating on his large wife. Despite the fact that said wife was the one who made it happen.

    ‘I swear that man would starve himself if he thought it was honorable or something. At the same time, if he’s not comfortable, then that’s a boundary you should respect, Rose.’

    Though subtle, Cypher was able to pick up on Rose’s shift in her signing. The Mother Dragon moved her fingers in a much sharper way, cutting the air to convey her words instead of flowing through the motion.

>I have already failed. He went where I could not follow. Where I could not help him. Another had to help him. This is not Orthodox. This is unacceptable. This was a failure. All that matters is his happiness and survival. I must understand this failure. This other. For my Warden. There is nothing I would not do for him. Nothing.

    When Cypher conversed casually with Rose, it was easy to forget that there was an inhuman intelligence, ineffable and alien in reason within the faceless geometric head. There was a chilling sincerity in the way Rose proclaimed she would do anything for Jack.

    The way Rose expressed her feelings on this ‘other’ made Cypher wonder also. What did Rose feel towards this other? Jealousy? Rage? Was jealousy or rage something that the Mother Dragon could feel? Even if she could observe and understand human behavior, could she simulate shame, inadequacy, or even reconcile their irrational nature?

    Was giving the Komodo Dragon the task of fucking Jack in the Mother Dragon’s stead a twisted way of punishing herself? Of punishing the other? Did it exacerbate her feelings of failure or alleviate them? Were her creators genius, or cruel in giving a being of calm logic the ability to have her Cyberflesh mind upended? Or was it Jack, warping this creature of eldritch math by infecting her with humanity through their mind-machine interface?

    How could a machine process what was antithetical to reason?

    Cypher was searching for what to say when there came a knock before an extremely haggard looking Jack wandered in.

    “Rose,” Called Jack as the young Scav marched into Cypher’s store. “Please, go watch Slinky. Her and Craven are discussing the best modifications for an appendix and too much talk about acidic bile is where I draw the line.”

>Yes, my Warden.

    Rose’s mane of prehensile uplink cables trailed through the air above and around Jack as she left.

    Without Slinky’s bioelectricity being fed to him, Jack found himself tiring quite quickly. He sat down at one of Cypher’s workbenches both to rest and to prop up his right arm so he could use it for sign language. It was difficult regardless. His fingers felt swollen and stiff, though took it as a good omen that he could feel anything at all in them.

    “Can I ask a favor, Cyph?” Jack sighed, and Cypher nodded. “Could you make some underwear for Slinky at some point? Rose… Rose made ‘improvements’ to Slinky and, well… She’s a lot like Rose in that she doesn’t get, or ignores, human things like modesty. If I had a credit for every horny lizard girl I found… Well I guess I’d have two credits. It’s just weird it’s happened twice.”

    ‘All I need are her measurements. Rose already told me about her little additions. And that you fucked Slinky.’

    Jack nearly slammed his head into the table as he continued to sign and speak. “Ugh, I feel terrible!”

    ‘You feel terrible you got to sample another piece of literal tail?’ Cypher was amused by Jack bemoaning a plight that most others would see as a dream come true. They continued to watch their friend’s hands, and also busied themself tending to the makeshift terrarium full of Death’s-head larva.

    “Rose just brushed me off, saying that she doesn’t care about human social norms like monogamy.” It was the dismissal that stung the most, his feelings on the matter disregarded whether or not he agreed.

    ‘If Rose made her like herself, like she said she did, then Slinky probably felt good. Do you not want to fuck Slinky?’

    “Well… N-... Hm. Shit. I mean, Rose gave her a really nice pussy. God dammit. That’s beside the point. Slinky’s been through stuff, Cyph. Some really messed up stuff.” Jack took a moment to stare at a distant battlefield, watching soldiers toy with captives.

    ‘What did Slinky say about it?’

    “Slinky… Fuck me, dude. Slinky was molested. Raped, really. Her handlers would make her do things and do things to her. But she said she liked what I did. I… I thought she was Rose. Rose made Slinky’s junk feel like hers. Said that she made Slinky able to act in her stead while she went and got medicine. I just don’t… I don’t understand how Slinky could be okay with what I did to her.”

    ‘Did you rape her?’ Cypher asked without prejudice, knowing that he hadn’t.Though the tailor wondered what acts could commit that they wouldn’t be able to forgive.

    “No, no. She said I didn’t. Even though I feel like I did something wrong, I could see in her mind that to her, I didn’t.” Though it felt hollow on his tongue, it was the truth.

    ‘Do you think that maybe Slinky doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it and you are?’

    Jack froze. He hadn’t thought of that. Cypher could read the remorse on the young Scav’s face as if he was an angst-riddled pop-up book.

    ‘Jack, both you and I could die tomorrow. A nuke could turn our little hole into glass. If it makes Rose happy, and Slinky happy, then just be happy. Enjoy your little polycule. Treat them better than you know someone else would. We’re all a bit fucked up. So you’re out of luck unless you know a therapist that isn’t whiskey.’

    That last bit at least got a sardonic chuckle out of the young Scav. He still didn’t know what he wanted out of his relationship with Rose, let alone Slinky. At least he felt a little better about the whole thing. The inside of the shop was quiet for a bit. Cozy.

    ‘Can I see?’ Cypher pointed to Jack’s arm. They could see the glassy black attached to his fingers well enough, though naturally worried for their friend.

    “Yeah, yeah. Of course.” Jack didn’t make a big deal out of things because he was tired of having issues. Cypher gingerly lifted the makeshift covering he’d thrown over his arm. Jack looked away as they did so, ashamed of his weakness. With the lightness of touch possessed by many artists, they traced the ebony scales holding Jack’s arm together.

    ‘Are you… Going to be okay?’

    Jack took a deep breath. This close, it was easy enough for Cypher to read his lips so he could rest his hand. “Rose says it’s not gonna kill me as far as she can tell. But it's pretty permanent.”

    ‘You two are really something else. You and Rose.’

    Jack’s grief over what he still viewed as a lost part of himself took over.

    “I don’t wanna change. I always thought… I don’t know. I hoped I was better than this. I thought I wouldn’t need cybernetics or… Or whatever. It made it easier if I thought I was good enough. I got by because I was just that good. Didn’t need fancy implants. Otherwise I was just lucky. And if I was just lucky… Then why wasn’t anyone else?” Old wounds, long scarred, throbbed in time with his tortured arm.

    Jack trailed off. Both he and Cypher knew that each time he’d go out with a group only to come back alone meant leaving another piece of himself behind.

    Cypher pulled down the cloth mask covering their face. Their cheeks, chin, and throat was a fresco of old burns shot through by scars. The same bomb which took their hearing when they were young left its mark in other ways too. Jack kept his gaze steady. When someone shows their scars, you respect them by not looking away.

    ‘It’s not weak to change. We change all the time. Death’s-head moths start as a larva. Just a weak little thing transforms into a chrysalis, then emerges as something that can fly. Isn’t that incredible?’ They pulled a dusty caterpillar out of the terrarium, watching it crawl along their finger for a bit before putting it back.

    “I just hoped…” Jack trailed off.

    ‘Remember what Old Mack would say. Hope in one hand-’

    “Shit in the other and see which one fills up faster.” Jack finished. “I always fucking hated when he said that. Every time. Every time anyone breathed the word hope no matter when or why, that’s what he’d say. At least I’m not dead. I guess. I lost a lot of stuff down there. I’m probably gonna need a new coat. This one… Yeah. My armor’s toast. One of my good guns is in pieces that I’m not getting back. I spent nearly all my ammo for my Assault Revolver. And I’m not sure what else. Good meds. Those. I’m sure I’ll think of- oh! My helmet! Fuuuck, I liked that helmet. Not sure if that’s salvageable.”

    Cypher pulled their mask up. ‘As your friend, Jack, what can I do?’

    “You do more than enough, Cypher.”

    Anticipating this reply, Cypher was ready and whacked him on the head with the handle of a screwdriver.

    “Ow, you fucker!” He yelped, rubbing at the spot with his good hand.

    ‘And you don’t do more than enough? You saved my life, you idiot. You saved everyone’s life and you’re sitting here, moaning that you didn’t come back with a gold-plated pony. You did your best. Better than anyone had a right to ask for. And that was more than good enough.’

    Jack wanted to protest, but also didn’t want to be smacked again.

    Only then did Cypher have enough courage to ask the question they’d been dreading most.

    ‘You named her Slinky, didn’t you? Roland was heartbroken over that stupid ferret.’

    “We held a tiny funeral for it and everything.” Jack smiled. “Buried it with a toy tank that it liked to play with. I hope he wouldn’t mind me using the name.”

    ‘He’d think it was adorable.’

    “Remember-” Though it hurt his side, Jack couldn’t hold back his laughs. “Remember when we gave Roland that lube you spiked with hot sauce out of that MRE? We all thought he was gonna just go jerk off, then him and that girl come out of that closet screaming.”

    ‘Everyone called him crotch fire for weeks.’ Cypher smiled, unafraid of how their mangled lips moved in front of Jack.

    They talked for a while about old friends, all lost to the great war one way or another. It was a simple way to enjoy each other’s company.

    “We’ve really been through some shit, huh?”

    ‘Just because you’ve got a handicap doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you in Soul Bullet or Karnal Kombat.’ Cypher finished their boast with an ‘up yours’ gesture.

    “Oh, speaking of that, could you bring over a movie or something to my place? Slinky said she-”

    Jack was interrupted by the Monitor Lizard in question scurrying into the shop at speed, worriedly hiding behind the young Scav. Quickly getting to his feet, he expected the worst as he kept Slinky safely in reach and went outside. Cypher followed close behind, then patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.

    A small crowd had formed a respectful distance from Rose. They held offerings. Their eyes were full of gratitude and reverence.

    “Oh, no.” Said Jack.

***

    If there was one thing Jack could not abide, it was being called a hero. While being a Scavenger meant providing a safe place, that was incidental. His was the pursuit of material wealth. In itself, that wasn’t laudable.

    The only one he’d paused for was Doctor Corde. The Eurasian woman found him on the other side of the crowd. Normally gray, his eyes were shockingly blue, lit from within by the pain of dead ghosts he’d never gotten the chance to properly mourn. She’d nodded, told him to come see her, and handed him the empty amulet vial that once contained the Ambrosia.

    Jack lay in his bed, contemplating the winged silver vial. Slinky was practically glued to his side while Rose curled around them both. Occasionally the Monitor would mumble in her sleep and nuzzle all the closer. The young Scav’s somber mood was one of the few things that could erase his hunger. Both for corpse-milk and sex. That and being so incredibly tired.

    A large, geometric head leaned down after sensing his tumultuous thoughts. Jack reached up and hooked the Ambrosia amulet on one of Rose’s horns.

    “Rose, I think we need to talk about Slinky.” With the Monitor slumbering deeply beside him, Jack spoke just above a whisper.

>If you are uncomfortable with this type of non-monogamous relationship, the Monitor can be dismissed once the energy drain of the Black Grail is more manageable.

    “Rose, no! No!” His voice raised until he regained control. “That’s horrible. Not what I meant at all. She saved my life. That means something. We can’t just tell her to go away.” Sorrow knit his brow as Jack caressed Rose’s angular features.

>On the contrary, my Warden. Without reliable behavioral data to ascertain the Monitor Lizard’s loyalty, I planned to install hormonal receptors in her groin so you could imprint on her through intercourse. However, this measure was unnecessary as this Unit observed subroutines controlling the interplay between her organic and mechanical brain, designating you as her commanding officer. The regions of her cortex that would denote a pairbond have activated. Which in turn are connected to her obedience conditioning. If you gave her an order, she would be compelled to obey it. Hypothesis: One or a combination of your actions towards the Monitor Lizard left a powerful enough impression so as to place her under your authority, overriding probable safeguards to prevent non-Euruskans from doing so. See: Thorn in lion’s paw theory.

    “Wait, fuck, that makes it worse. So she’s got stuff in her that makes her obey whoever she sees as her captain or squad leader or whatever, and because she agreed to help save me, that triggered?”

>You did not force her to bond with you, my Warden. The reason I am able to present this data as well as probable cause is due to me observing it in real time. This Unit honored your wishes, and did not force the Monitor to undergo changes. I obtained consent before modifying her. Through our link, I noted her making the conscious decision to serve you even knowing what might happen.

    This did not reassure Jack, much to Rose’s chagrin. In fact, quite the opposite.

    “She… Fuck. Slinky chose to help me even knowing what it would do to her. Trusted me not to take advantage of that.” A hundred thoughts tumbled through his mind like bits of debris from a damaged airframe. He became all the more painfully aware of Slinky pressed against his wounded side.

    Sacrifice. Sacrifice was a sacred act to many Scavs. The Monitor, newly freed, gambled her autonomy on faith that Jack wouldn’t abuse that authority.

>My Warden, the Monitor is ultimately inconsequential. Your intentions are noble, but saving one Monitor Lizard past her intended operational lifespan will not make a difference.

    Jack let out possibly the heaviest sigh he’d ever experienced in his life.

    “I heard a story once. Once upon a time, an old soldier was walking the trench line along the front. He came upon a young man cutting pigeons free from the barbed wire. The old soldier looked at all the many miles of wire and the hundreds of other birds tangled in the wire. He said ‘Young man, you’re wasting your time. There are too many to save. You will never be able to make a difference’. Rather than answer right away, he finished clipping the bird free. The pigeon flew off and the young man looked to the old soldier. ‘It made a difference to that one’, he said.”

    Rose didn’t answer, processing the fable, its meaning, and its implications for the oral traditions of Scavenger society.

    “You’re right. Ultimately, everything I do is meaningless. I’m pretty much already dead. Every time I go out on a run is a gamble of long, long odds. But you know what? I can make a difference to Cypher. To Adilah. And especially to Slinky. We’re all that she has now.” Jack shifted a bit, Slinky molding herself immediately to his shape.

    The Mother Dragon’s response to this declaration was as immediate as it was cutthroat.

>If she becomes an impediment to your survival, then I will remove her myself.

    Anger flashed through Jack’s mind, and he nearly snapped at the Mother Dragon. Remembering once again that his partner’s morality operated by different rules, he calmed down and tried for a more sympathetic appeal.

    “She’s worried about a lot of things right now. I think she’s processing everything after being trapped by herself for so long. Worried that some Euruskan fuck might snatch her. Worried I’ll get bored of her. She’s terrified of disappointing you, Rose. Of you taking back what you’ve given her.”

>That is illogical. What qualifies a gift in this context? While I was modifying the Monitor, I corrected many defects. Though healed, a buildup of scar tissue inside her vaginal canal indicates repeated tearing. By these tears it can be reasoned that her vagina was an incidental byproduct of being vat-grown in nature. Too much genetic code to snip. Not at all intended for even simulated intercourse. Too narrow. And mucosa secretions would have been substandard as well. It is likely she wasn’t meant to have genitals at all.

    Because of his fatigue as well as throbbing head, Jack’s inhibitions were limited. He just said what came to mind.

    “Neither did you, at first. We’re defined by choice, and how our actions make others see us. When I first met her, I thought of her as a tiny you. A smaller Rose. You even made her look and smell like you. So, be nice to your little sister, okay?”

***

    Nightmares chased Slinky awake.

    It was late. Or perhaps early. Not that it mattered much in the sunless underground of the Innards. Jack was fitfully asleep beside her. No matter how easily her gifted sight could pierce it, the darkness around her seemed to fold in again each time she looked away.

    Slowly, so as not to disturb Jack, the Monitor peeled away from under the covers. She was in the process of disconnecting the cables linking her to the young Scav when a voice shattered the quiet with fury and scorn.

>What are you doing?

    Slinky flinched as if she’d just been caught stealing from the squad’s food supply. Belly pressed to the cold concrete, she grovelled before the imperious might of the Mother Dragon. The shadows themselves seemed to part as the pale, mathematical countenance of Rose appeared to float into being.

{Apologies, Dragon Mother. I didn't mean to disturb your rest.}

>You did not. My power conservation periods are minimal. Explain your behavior. Your energy debt to the Warden has not yet been paid.

{I’m sorry, I just… Need to see. Outside. Feeling… Trapped.}

    Slinky’s stomach rumbled.

{I beg thee mercy, great Dragon Mother. Please, may I have some corpse-milk?}

>You may have corpse-milk when you return. This will incentivise compliance and reduce time you need to spend away.

    The Monitor bowed her head in deference. Thoroughly chastised, she moved with great care, disconnecting the rest of the cables before scurrying low on her metal limbs. Beyond the door to Jack’s home, she had to be careful not to knock over any of the gifts left there. Stepping around bottles, candles, and bullets, Slinky made her way through the Innards.

    Confused. Lost. She hoped some fresh air would do her some good, not really knowing what she needed. Living up to her classification, Slinky found a perch overlooking the more populated portion and monitored things for a while. Being able to watch others without being perceived in turn was nice. A comfort that’d long been denied to her.

    Many folk were civilian refugees. The downtrodden, injured, and innocent displaced by the war. They huddled around heat lamps or sat wherever they could rest their weary feet. Typically they stayed in groups, leaning on one another for support or just company. Most incredible were the occasional gaggle of children. Sometimes quiet. Sometimes playing. The Innards endured, somehow staying above the threshold of that most vital resource. Water. Enough safety at least to attract those precious, fragile lives.

    Despite the hopelessness of the world, there was a certain indelible quality to the people who inhabited the twisted metal intestines of the Innards. It wasn’t hope, though it could almost be confused for that if one were to squint just right or be drunk enough. It was a stoicism of sorts. The horrors persisted, yet so did they. Despair abounded yet they did not succumb to it. Best described as a certain spiteful stubbornness that came from continuing to exist despite the war’s best efforts to erase them.

    It was easier to distinguish the proper Scavs apart from the rest no matter what their apparent origin. Usually it was the rig. The armored backpack that distinguished their silhouette against most other things roving the Macro City’s skin. Sometimes Slinky could tell by their other gear. Most soldiers usually didn’t carry around weapons from opposing sides of the war. Typically they wore heavy coats mixed with various milspec extras. Some autonomous virtual intelligence frames appeared to either work with the Scavs or perhaps even be Scavs themselves.

    While she did spot soldiers from the various powers or independant mercenaries, these were few and far between.

    Anxiety gnawed on the Monitor Lizard after a while, alone inside her head. She didn’t have a mission. She didn’t have direct orders. Off mission. Going against orders. Wrong. She was in the wrong. What was she doing? Jack was going to be disappointed in her. He might reprimand her. He might have her retired. It wasn’t the dying that scared her. It was letting him down. The guilt. The shame at having already failed someone so kind. The one that gave her a name. How could she be so stupid to think that she deserved to be happy? How delusional. And how pathetic she was to expect someone to just be kind to her. How unfair was that burden to place on someone like Jack?

    She looked around for Craven, though couldn’t find the man-centipede.

    The Monitor’s eyes spotted the silhouette of a figure that matched, arms heaped with old clothing that could be remade. Cypher. Cypher was Jack’s friend. Maybe they could help. Slinky followed them back to their shop.

    Back inside their workshop home, the tailor sorted the various bits by material and fed them into different machines to either be broken down into panels or mulched then respun. Cypher turned to check on the Death’s-head caterpillars and nearly jumped out of their skin as seven eyes glinted at them with inhuman hues. Once they realized that it was Jack’s stray Lizard, they calmed down and regained some composure.

    The tailor tried to sign at Slinky, only for the Monitor to cock her head in confusion. Fortunately because they were in Cypher’s home, they were able to grab a tablet they typically used to communicate for business purposes. A battered old touch screen lit up with a virtual keyboard so the pair could communicate. Even better, it had wireless functionality so Slinky could project her speech much more easily than she could type it.

    ‘Slinky, right? Do you need something?’ Asked Cypher.

{I don’t know.}

    An awkward silence that had nothing to do with the nonverbal nature of the conversation stretched before Cypher found a way to break it.

    ‘So you’re a scout, right? Aren’t you supposed to have drones?’ They meant the question innocently enough and was not prepared for the answer.

{They all died. After the Angel hurt me, their batteries drained while Jack was carrying me to the Dragon Mother. In an emergency, their fuel cells will drain into me.}

    ‘Oh god, I’m so sorry. They died? Were they like your children?’ Concern knit Cypher’s brow. While Slinky’s words appeared on the screen, her attention went to the box the tailor stood by. Because the top was pulled back, she just reached inside. Unsure of the Lizard’s intentions, Cypher tensed, noting just how sharp the metal fingers looked. To their surprised relief, Slinky didn’t grab a caterpillar, instead just letting one crawl onto her before lifting it out of the terrarium.

{No, nothing quite like that. Only their cores were composed of organic circuitry and control nodes. I can grow more. They’re primarily mechanical and meant to be expendable. Losing them was more like… Like… Losing a finger or two. Though not quite, because most things can’t grow back fingers. Maybe more like how real trench lizards will sever their own tails as decoys.}

    ‘Are you okay?’ The tailor asked, finding the Monitor a disconcerting combination of Rose’s calculating nature and Jack’s forced insensitivity. She watched the caterpillar’s tiny undulating movements, searching for Rat King residue to nibble on.

{I thought I would be sadder. I guess… Maybe it’s because I’m so old I was supposed to be recycled anyway? They were standard template scout drones. Maybe it’s a good thing I lost them. They were from when I was still in a Euruskan squad. It’s still strange to think that I’m not a part of that anymore. Though I guess that’s a good thing too.}

    ‘You were going to be recycled if you got too old?’

    Seven burning eclipses bloomed as Slinky’s diamond pupils shrank into slits. Radio spines rose like hackles.

{Komodo Dragons that get too old can start having… Independent thoughts. Biochip contamination, they called it.}

    Once again, Cypher struggled to break the awkward silence. ‘So what’s the deal between you and Jack?’

{He saved me from an Angel. Though, I guess I saved him, too. It was going to take his eyes. I jumped on its back and Stormwater was able to free himself. Then he carried me. He could have left me. But he didn’t.}

    ‘He does that a lot. Why Stormwater?’

{That’s what his eyes remind me of. They’re very pretty. I think. That’s why I couldn’t let the Angel have them. I like your eyes, too. They are soft, yet sharp. Though only a little sharp.}

    ‘Oh, uh, thank you.’ Maybe Cypher was looking too deeply for ulterior motives. ‘What I meant was, did you want to have sex with him?’

{Oh yes. While Jack was sick with fever from the Black Grail, we fucked many times. I wanted to please him. And he had a lot to give.}

    Cypher nodded with a raspy chuckle. ‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. That poor horndog needs all the help he can get in that department. There was one time I caught him rubbing one out and I don’t remember what I said, but he responded by admitting it was his seventh one that day. Rose came to me just a little while ago because Jack was fucking her so much his dick was chaffing.’

    Slinky returned the caterpillar to the box, letting it join its fellows on the pinkish-orange mold.

{Does… Does Stormwater feel bad about wanting to fuck as well? I feel that way a lot.}

    ‘You have no idea. One thing though, Jack is a sweetheart, but if he ever doesn’t take no for an answer, you come talk to me. Okay?’

    Slinky cocked her head curiously.

{Why would I tell him no? I want to. I hope he wants to. Though he seemed upset last time. The great Dragon Mother gave me this so I could please him better.}

    Slinky turned so that she could present her tailslit and scaly pussy in all its prismatic glory to the tailor.

    ‘Damn, you’ve got designer stuff downstairs. Jack did ask me to make you something. So are you just gonna run around naked, or do you want some of the finest underwear in the Innards?’ The tailor’s pride was evident even without inflection.

    Slinky turned back around, tail sagging and eyes cast downward.

{Animals aren’t supposed to wear clothes.}

    Cypher’s demeanor shifted instantly, their fingers tapping furiously on the keyboard. ‘Who called you an animal?’

{It’s just something my old handlers would say to me.}

    ‘Well, I don’t think you’re an animal. And I think you need something to match Rose.’ Cypher got up from the table and retrieved what they’d need to follow through on that promise. With a laser measuring device, Cypher was able to quickly get the Monitor’s proportions. After that, it was a simple matter to just scale the pattern they’d used for Rose down to Slinky’s size. A quick loading of material into one of their fabricators and a few short minutes later, there was a seamless pair of bottoms for the smaller Dragon.

    Cypher helped Slinky put the garment on for the first time, slipping the opening meant for the tail over her long appendage. Then they stretched the leg holes, careful not to let her sharp prosthetic talons catch on the cloth. Since they were out of the reactive camouflage material, Cypher had opted instead to use some shadow pattern ripstop and elastic. The skirt portion covered the Monitor’s thighs where flesh fused with metal while the rest hugged her privates nicely.

    It felt strange at first. Oddly comforting. Protective. The more supple under material flexed with her motions. A jolt went through Slinky as she clenched her rear and her tiny clitoral horn poked free of her vulva. The nerve-rich tip rubbed pleasantly against the crotch of her underwear. Perhaps Rose had done a bit too good of a job designing the Monitor’s groin for receptiveness, sensitivity, and reactivity. She was getting wet.

    Why? Why was such a thing bothering her now?

    No, she was an animal.

    Slinky couldn’t say that to Cypher again. Their gift was so nice. She was so confused. She should be happy. Guilt became a feedback loop. Even a momentary flash of sorrow led to further guilt, which led to more sorrow which became more guilt.

    Because her distress was apparent, Cypher tried to get the Monitor’s attention. Tried to ask if she was okay. For a moment, Slinky thought the tailor wanted to fuck her before realizing they were just being kind.

    Thanks and apologies spilled out of her in a deluge. Once the floodgates opened, she couldn’t shut them. Backing away, then turning, still continuing to give gratitude and confess, Slinky ran without even a glance at Cypher.

    Hide. Hide! Her instincts screamed. What if the Angel found her? What if her old commander found her? She was just an animal. A dumb animal. Worthless. Worthless! She wasn’t supposed to wear clothes. Animals don’t wear clothes. Animals don’t speak. Animals aren’t people. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to take off the bottoms. That made it worse.

    Hide! She stayed out of sight, frantically searching for a safe place. She couldn’t go back to Jack, Rose would surely be angry. The Monitor was hungry, and that reminded her even more of being down in Temperance. Slinky sent a radio signal to her drones only to remember they were gone.

    She could barely suppress the whine bubbling up from the back of her throat. She had to be quiet. She always had to be quiet. Quiet so the Angel didn’t find her. Quiet so the enemy didn’t find her. Quiet so her squad thought she was sleeping. Her head was swimming. Though she’d only gotten a small taste of the Black Grail, her body was still being subjected to the viral augmentation. Even at a slower rate, the nightmares still bled into the waking world.

    Slinky wallowed in such a profound lack of self-worth it was a miracle the mechanical half of her brain didn’t simply shut down from sympathetic impulse alone. Like any other addict who relied on a substance that was slowly killing them, the withdrawals could kill them quicker. It was easier to cope with being disposable if she believed that was the extent of her worth.

    This couldn’t be real. It had to be a trick, this kindness given to her. She didn’t belong there. A trick maybe by the Angel?

    She had to hide. Hide! Hide!

***

    Rose grew increasingly impatient. Calculating milestones of time against probable ill-fates, she was regretting the decision to allow the Monitor to wander off. What if Slinky became injured or lost? What if a sweeper team identified the Monitor as a target for capture? Slinky was still providing supplemental energy to Jack and Rose would not abide any risk to his well being.

    Worry over her Warden kept Rose glued to the young Scav’s side until concern regarding Slinky’s whereabouts goaded her to act.

    Though her stomach had shrunk considerably as she processed the bodies into material for corpse-milk, it still made her a bit sluggish. Rising to her feet, she checked on Jack. Though his nightmares were many, his physical state was stabilized for the moment. Reluctantly, she disconnected her uplink cable and trod silently out of their home.

    An ache of sorts made itself known in Rose’s feminine core. A twinge that signaled a need. It wasn’t her sex. Why did her teats feel sore? Yes, her mammary glands were quite full. That was by necessity and design. Examining the feeling further, she concluded it must have been related to the way Slinky nursed. There was an indelible need impressed on the Mother Dragon’s tender bosom by the Monitor. Did she regret withholding care from Slinky?

    Rose pushed the distraction aside. Her sensors swept back and forth through the Innards. She detected no immediate match to the Monitor Lizard’s signature. Concrete and conduits were dense this deep in Lost Angels. She needed better angles. The Mother Dragon made her way into the central shaft and widened her search. By analyzing the air flowing through the shaft, she was able to pick up the distinct scent of the Monitor.

    It didn’t take long for Rose to reach the hole that Slinky sequestered herself in. Down a few levels there was a tunnel big enough for the Mother Dragon to stand in that branched into a network of vents. Tucked into a dead-end alcove, the Monitor was curled into a ball that only Rose’s longest linking cable could reach.

>Being designated Slinky, you are required to return to my Warden’s side immediately.

    The tang of Slinky’s arousal lingered in the air.

>Detecting sexual lubricant. What happened?

    Rose didn’t mean to come across as accusatory. An unexpected surge of outrage made the Mother Dragon’s electronic tone intense.

{Please! Please, please, please! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please, Dragon Mother.}

    Slinky choked back her tears in near silence. She couldn’t be completely quiet. Her body was wracked by sobs. Tears streamed from her many eyes.

>You are being irrational. Cease.

    Rose demanded, attempting to overpower Slinky’s electronic mind. The magnitude of the Monitor’s distress overrode the mechanical signals.

{I’m ruining it. I’m ruining it. I’m so sorry. I’m not ungrateful. I’m so glad. Your gifts… Your gifts… I’m not ungrateful. Please. I’m just stupid. I can just be stupid. I don’t mean to act like an animal. Please.}

    Taking her head in both front claws, the Monitor rocked herself. Groaning, she twisted several organic antennae, the spindly structures splitting under her brutal metal claws. Blood welled up from the stalks while static feedback punished Slinky for daring to think she deserved good things.

{Please… Don’t take your gifts away. Don’t tell Stormwater. I won’t ask for corpse-milk again. He’ll be mad. He’ll send me away. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.}

    Worthless. Slinky was worthless. It was easier to accept her treatment if she was just an animal. A tool. Because if Jack treated her well, it meant she wasn’t worthless. And if she wasn’t worthless, then why was she acting this way?

>Stop. Self-harm is counter-productive.

    Rose was getting frustrated. This was a new emotion to her. It was cumbersome. Like her processes were slamming into a firewall over and over. Or trying to run the same boot program only to crash and restart repeatedly.

    She understood psychologically that the Monitor Lizard was having some sort of anxiety attack. Rose understood this. She comprehended the situation. So why was she frustrated? Rose wanted Slinky to stop. Why? Logic dictated that all she had to do was stay calm and wait patiently for the Monitor’s panic to pass.

>Stop it! Stop it. Stop. Compliance. Stop. Obey. Stop!

    Why? Why was this behavior causing Rose herself to be distressed?

    Through their link, Rose was able to read Slinky’s thoughts with ease. The Monitor was equipped with a compound brain after all. Half purely biological, the other half a machine fluid substrate that ran in parallel.

    It wasn’t a lack of devotion that was reducing Slinky to such a state. Quite the opposite. Rose was able to perceive how loyal Slinky had become to Jack in such a short span of time. Enough to subvert fail safes built into the Monitor’s hardware. Without meaning to, he’d imprinted on Slinky to such a degree that she would die for him without a moment’s hesitation. Probing deeper, the Mother Dragon could not understand how this affection went beyond the commander protocols she’d already observed. That was the hypothesis stated to her Warden. Was she wrong?

    Whatever Jack wanted, Slinky would jump to achieve. Any order. Any task no matter how insurmountable. But why? Why? Slinky was so much smaller. So much weaker. Rose could protect and provide for Jack in ways the Monitor never could. Yet Slinky was willing to give everything she ever had, was, or would be to the simple human Scav who’d been kind to her. The one who saw Slinky not as a tool, but as an individual worthy of gentleness.

    Rose came to grasp this, then saw her own depths of devotion reflected back on her. Another feeling wormed through the Mother Dragon’s spinal processing arrays.

    Jealousy.

    Rose wasn’t jealous that Slinky loved Jack. To Rose, loving her Warden was an immutable facet of her existence. He was her Designated User. As vital to her life as her Cyberflesh cortex. It was that the Monitor’s love had exploded into being like a storm of gunship decoy flares. It had taken time for Rose to appreciate the way that Jack touched her. It took time for her programming to comprehend the depth of Jack’s unconquerable soul. To see the truth of his kindness.

    Rose didn’t blame Slinky for falling for Jack the way she had. She was jealous of how easy Slinky made it seem.

>Slinky, stop. Please. It’s okay.

    The Mother Dragon settled onto her haunches and watched Slinky through the walls.

>My Warden… Your Stormwater… Our Jack isn’t going to be mad at you. He is kind. Often too kind, I think. He risks himself too much for others. We talked about you. I asked him if he wanted to get rid of you. If you were burdensome.

    Slinky flinched, another quiet sob making her shudder.

>He became angry with me. He chastised me for such thinking because of all you had done. For us. For him.

{He… He did? He got… Mad… Over me?}

    That at least got the Monitor to stop hurting herself.

>He brings home strays. I do not believe he even realizes he does it. There’s a woman here, Doctor Corde. She’s a Eurasian field doctor that he brought back to the Innards because he found her injured. The only reason Craven is here is because Jack offered him a place because a man asked Jack to find him a new heart for his granddaughter. He doesn’t talk often about those he couldn’t save. Cypher has told me more than he has. However, when he does, there is a pain in my Warden that would make me weep if I were able.

    The change in Rose’s electronic tone was akin to cracks of thunder becoming distant, gentler rumbles. Slinky’s tears slowed, though her chest still ached.

>He told me…

    In a single moment of majestic thought entwined, Rose found the illogical resolved. While it didn’t answer everything, the solution to the paradox of riddles the Monitor represented was already given to her. Rose did not need to see Slinky as a rival or foe, or an antagonistic force in her duty to Jack. The Monitor was also a Dragon. Just a little one. One that shared her drive, passion, and purpose. Not an enemy, an ally. Not a stranger, a lost bit of family now found.

>Jack told me not to be mean to my little sister.

{Little sister?}

    Slinky sniffled, however those two words perked her up more than anything else.

>He seemed to be referencing our similarities in artificial phylogenetic characteristics. Perhaps age as although my activation time is much shorter than yours, my design predates your own by a significant margin. What I think he meant was for me to watch out for you. Take care of you. Please, come out?

    Though slowed by shame, Slinky did as she was asked and emerged. She was unable to look at the Mother Dragon, expecting more scolding.

    Standing, Rose pulled down the hem of her bottoms to expose herself. For a moment, her control slipped. Just the thought of Slinky nursing from her caused the Mother Dragon’s teats to leak a little. The Monitor’s forked tongue tasted the air, homing in on the rich scent of Rose’s corpse-milk.

>Slinky… Would you like to…

    In answer, Slinky crawled under Rose, vulnerability making her desperate for reassurance. The Monitor reared back, pawing at the larger Dragon’s thigh for support as she latched on. The mottled deep purples and pinks from Rose’s Cyberflesh hybridization of discreetly harvested tissue fit perfectly between Slinky’s thin lips. At the first good taste of Rose’s rich, carefully curated succor, Slinky pulled hard. Even using her tongue to wrap around and tug on the nipple in her mouth while she sucked in order to draw out as much sweet cream as possible.

    There was a tingle in Rose’s lower belly. Relief flooded her extremities as corpse-milk flowed. It was a warm sense of gratifying relief to a pressure she hadn’t realized was there. Up until that point Slinky had been furtive in her feeding. This time she was undoubtedly aggressive, latching on and not letting go of Rose’s teat. The Monitor opened her jaw a bit wider, suckling harder. Her nose pressed into the scales protecting the layer of fat which protected Rose’s glands. With one claw on Rose’s thigh, she reached up with the other to knead the barely noticeable swell of the Dragon’s bosom. Not asking. Demanding corpse-milk to sate the echo of years spent starving.

    Instinct kicked in and Rose lifted the leg opposite the one that Slinky was using for support.

    Rose pondered the intimacy of the act. The Mother Dragon had split the Monitor open from rib cage to tailslit. With scalpel-tipped mechadendrites and Cyberflesh medical repair nanites she’d taken apart then reconstructed Slinky’s reproductive system and portions of her intestines. She had seen the smaller Dragon in ways only a gynecological surgeon might, threading the preserved genitals of a certain dead Eurasian Brawler through the Monitor’s own abused organs as easily as one might crochet a scarf.

    Standing while Slinky drank from her felt Orthodox. Rose concluded that were she to actually hatch a clutch of dragonets, that they’d crowd between her legs and suck just as greedily as the Monitor was doing. Would they be rough? Pulling, tugging, or even nipping at her exposed mammaries? Would they whine and beg until her glands were empty and teats sore while their bellies were filled? She’d have to add more places for them to nurse if she had a large enough clutch. What she had was enough for the time being. The idea of feeding four, or even six at a time caused that comforting relaxation to tingle further through her middle and rewarded Slinky with a greater flow.

    It wasn’t just the physical appetite the act nourished, it was the affection which came with such vulnerability. Hunger and loneliness. In that darkly mirrored mindscape, Rose saw the reflection of Jack in Slinky. The pair were more alike than either knew.

    Though it took a while, Slinky eventually drank her fill. Rose scooped up and cradled the smaller Dragon in her arms. Mechadendrites tended to her injured spines without reproach. Seven magnificent eclipses, while raw, looked up at the perfect geometry of draconic truth.

    Only one thing was missing. Rose reached up and freed the Ambrosia amulet from among the trophies adorning her horns. To Slinky’s surprise, the Mother Dragon looped it over the smaller Lizard’s head.

{Pretty thing. Pretty thing that saved… Is this for me?}

>It feels Orthodox for you to have it.

    Tears anew leaked down Slinky’s face.

>I am sorry, little sister. Please, do not cry. I am here. You are safe.

{I’m crying for both of us, Rose. Sister.}

>Sisterhood: Undefined. I have never been a sister. I require more data. I do not know the proper etiquette to sisterhood. Undefined. Please assist this Unit in defining.

Slinky clung tighter to Rose.

{Yes, big sister.}

***

    Just as promised, Cypher came over the next day with their arms full of junk food and a ridiculous animated action movie with gratuitous sex and violence that was somehow still heartwarming.

    Jack and Cypher sat on the couch while Slinky sprawled across their laps. The pair of humans took turns feeding Slinky different kinds of snacks while Rose encircled the couch just as a proper dragon would protect their hoard.

    Neither Rose or Slinky expected their lives to crash together in such a way. Like comets colliding, the statistical improbability of them meeting one another in such circumstances were astronomical. Never could the Dragonesses have known things could be so complicated. They were each trying to navigate a world overseen by mad gods, every day a new aberration only superseded by the next unknown. Both found themselves pulled into the orbit of a young Scav, the constellation of their lives coming together in a beautiful disaster.

    Together with Jack, and now with each other, they found their new normal.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8

Gunslinger, Gunslinger, Sing Me Your Threnody

I will not miss.

The path to my target is clear.

I will aim with my eye.

Shoot with my mind.

And kill with my heart.

No matter the caliber.

No matter the distance.

No matter the sky.

Or even rotation of the earth beneath my feet.

By trajectory.

By flight.

By arc.

By angle.

No foe is beyond my reach.

I will not miss.

Because my target has already been struck.

    The only universal language that remained in the world was violence. And if the Innards wished to continue to exist, its plea to the Great Powers must be in a tongue understood by all. If life wished to persist, it had to have those ready to speak on its behalf.

    Jack exhaled. Pulled the trigger. The pistol bucked in his left hand. At the other end of the firing range, the cardboard slab with its spray-painted silhouette gained another hole. He fired seven more times. His form was loose, more concerned with feeling out the weapon. It was a crotchety old revolver, needing to be taken almost completely apart before cooperating in the slightest. The sights were still off.

    The young Scav made another small adjustment with the help of digital diagnostic tools taken from the Shrake’s Oni. Since it’d sat in its holster for so long before coming into Jack’s possession, its already finely tuned Eurasian maintenance routines were honed again and again and again, resulting in digital eyes glaring at the smallest imperfections. The projections would sometimes flicker or lag. He’d only done basic patchwork to his helmet. Enough to get the HUD working again even if the advanced sensors were pretty much toast.

    He enjoyed guns of all shape, size, and caliber. Even though he took pleasure in firearms, their function, operation, feel, and performance, he didn’t glorify what they were intended to do. Violence was an inextricable part of Jack. It was the tool by which he carved a livelihood out of the Forever Winter. His variety of skills, natural gifts, earned him the nickname that eventually became just his name. And all those many abilities came down to inflicting harm. Just because he didn’t like that part, didn’t make him any less good at it.

    Occasionally Jack would help some of the gun dealers that frequented the Innards with repairs in exchange for discounts or trade. This time it was actually his own backlog of salvaged firearms. While the influx of credits from Craven settled a lot of their expenses, there was now Slinky to consider and a slew of new costs he’d incurred from the trip down into Temperance. While the young Scav wasn’t feeling a whole lot better, aches and pains wise, fixing up a bunch of guns that he could resell eased some of the turbulence in his mind.

    After tweaking the sights slightly, he loaded the revolver again. He aimed, trigger pulling smoothly as the cylinder rotated. This time the shot went exactly where he meant it. A virtual indicator popped up with a few gnashing teeth from his Shrake to highlight the hole in the cardboard silhouette downrage. Jack shot off the bullets in the other chambers. Then he reloaded and did it a few more times to practice with his off-hand while his dominant appendage was healing. Discipline kept him from berating himself for wider than normal groupings. Instead, he zeroed in on his mistakes and breathed. He drilled without regret as .357 magnum was cheap because few useful firearms outside of bastardized 3D-printed ones were chambered in it.

    Jack reveled in the expanded shooting range. The pathetic little box the Innards had before was barely good enough to make sure that a gun worked at all. When he’d first fallen into the Scav life, if he wanted to practice his marksmanship he was forced to find a derelict tunnel and set up targets on his own. Usually cobbled together from whatever garbage he could get. How many hours had he whittled away between runs honing his mastery of arms?

    Now he was spoiled for choice along the several hundred meter tunnel. Cardboard and paper targets. Steel plates that were both stationary and reactive. Glass bottles. And various bits of salvaged gear deemed unusable made up into scarecrow-like effigies with vests and helmets. Perhaps one day they might even have digital pop ups capable of real-time ballistic data.

    Focus became fury. From muscle and nerve to hammer and primer, barrel and trigger, there was no separation between Jack and the tool. Just as he fine tuned the sights, Jack made the smallest adjustments in his grip so subtle it was guided by intent more than conscious effort. His mind was calm because fixation allowed no thought to enter it. Each round clarified and sharpened. No pain or fear or doubt broached that peace, punctuated by gunfire.

    In an unintentional final flourish, Jack shot the coins perched in the eye sockets of the metal skull set downrange. The battered steel bone rattled as the coins tinkled musically as they tumbled out of its open mouth.

{How did you do that?}

    Slinky’s mind-machine voice startled Jack. The young Scav turned, getting the many umbilical cables attached to his right arm tangled.

    Slinky was laying on a blanket covering a stack of concrete blocks two steps behind him. Her seven-fingered claws continued to work on bits of salvaged components even as her many eyes locked onto him. Two nearly completed lizard drones sat nearby. Slinky was making excellent use of Cy-Zombie material, mechanical sub-brain operating with pre-loaded schematics to weave Cyberflesh fibers thinner than a hair into control conduits for her little spies.

    “Sorry, Slinky. I zoned out. Forgot you were there for a second. Sorry, sorry. Uh,” Jack awkwardly set the revolver down and worked to free himself. “Uh, well, it’s complicated.”

    Seven pupils expanded and contracted like eclipses blooming in the twilight of the shooting range.

{Your kinesthetics are incredible. But you’re mostly unaugmented? How do you move like that?}

    “Well, kids work pretty good as rocket squads. We’d be paired up. One loader. One launcher. If we got as many confirmed kills as we were given rockets, then we’d get, like, cake or some shit. MRE desserts.”

    Jack whiplashed mentally between states. One moment he was present, the next his mutated arm was flexing in memory of a familiar portable missile system. The weight on his shoulder. The fwoomp whoosh of the launch. The smell of the propellant and the sting in his eyes if the wind kicked the smoke back in his face. Screaming to his loader over the boom of tanks or exploding helicopters. While he couldn’t visually remember the exact controls, his fingers could still make the movements needed to designate range and various lock stages.

{Treats. Treats for making war. I’ve heard of Europa employing child soldiers.}

    “Yeah, Europa uses every available asset.”

    A few AKs needed some work. Those weren’t too bad. Some only required a cleaning or a few parts replaced that’d broken or come loose to operate again. One needed to be stripped down completely. With his HUD acting up, he opted instead to remove it for the time being.

{I was born for war. But were you, child of man?}

    “I’d pose you that same question.” Jack ran a hand stained with gun oil back through his hair as he spoke and worked at the same time. “Child of man? Child of war? Child of what we make of it? Are we children, or just those who are left?”

{Attempting to solve such a question seems to trigger my paradox resolution routines. Instead, I’ll ask again, where did you learn to do these things?}

    “When I was… Ten, I’d say? Hard to keep track. I got tagged for exceptional marksmanship and put into advanced combat simulations. I’d be put through mazes with other kids where we’d be given fake guns that shot light. We’d wear harnesses with sensors that reacted if you got ‘hit’. I got really competitive because the better you did, the more food you got. I always had a knack for it. I’d practise so I’d keep winning. Then our school got bombed and a lot of us got taken to a Eurasian war-academy. I won’t… Well that was just the beginning.”

    Slinky pondered the enigma Jack presented. Not just his questions, his existence.

    She contrasted him against the memories of her squad. While she didn't mean to compare him to such awful people, they were her only point of reference. The Euruskans were dutiful. Loyal to their ruling Superintelligences. The Matronya did not tolerate insubordination. They were capable enough soldiers. Not that it made much of a difference in the end.

    Was it precision? Jack was certainly a better marksman than any of her old squad. She’d caught glimpses of the digital demons that, to her, appeared to obey him. This was aberrant. As Rose would say, Unorthodox. Compounding errors resulting in non-standard performance or behavior was meant to be recycled. Yet her Stormwater made it Orthodox. He saw value in discarded trash. Just like her.

    Perhaps it was water? A certain fluidity? Where her former commander was bound to the strictest orders, the young Scav exhibited flexibility. Freedom of motion. Of tactics. He could adapt, flowing through obstacles or turning enemy weapons to his favor. Just like her.

    By her nature, she was vulnerable while using a neural mind-machine interface. Still, she could perceive some things.

    Even at his calmest, lust still boiled beneath Jack’s facade. Did he even know that a leviathan churned through his electrochemical systems? Did he just casually live floating atop a sea of barely restrained ardor? Though he tried, there was no hiding the way he took in the curve of her mound tucked away by her bottoms when he glanced her way. The thought sent shivers down the Monitor’s long spine which eventually settled as an ache in her nethers.

    Though more resided deeper still.

    Willpower wasn't a scientifically measurable variable. Slinky’s powerful eyes could pierce through veils that even some immortal machines could not. She could see the ebb and flow of bioelectric current passing through Jack.

    A new, stranger question occurred to the small Dragoness.

{Why don’t you use your other arm? Is my work with the Dragonwire deficient?}

    At her asking, his right arm lit up with activity. Molding to the scales of his arm similar to a compression sleeve, an extra layer of supplemental muscles provided therapeutic strength enhancement from fingers to shoulder while he recovered. The Black Grail should’ve crippled the young Scav. Yet in only a few short days he’d exerted far more control over the limb than projected even with the Dragonstring sleeve. Jack's ability to command obedience even extended to himself.

    Jack could feel the Monitor’s hauntingly beautiful gaze peeling back his layers like focused radar. The young Scav worried that she’d see him for the fraud he felt he was. Cycles of guilt ground him down with toothed gears made of doubt and self-loathing until he could bear it no longer.

    “Slinky, why don’t you make some drones that are able to fly? That’d be really handy, I think.”

    Fortunately for Jack's mental balancing act he needed to function, Slinky was easily distracted.

{Standard template protocol requires… Why don’t I? That would be… Advantageous. Hm.}

    After taking a deep breath to center himself, Jack resumed his work. Fixing the AKs kept him distracted so his thoughts could wander to better things.

    His mind turned to Rose. The Mother Dragon was off on her own errand while he and Slinky spent time on the range. While it was overkill given her specifications, Rose was proving herself invaluable in clearing the tunnels surrounding the Innards. The hexapedal Mother Dragon could squeeze into places that a construction bot could not and move obstacles that would take a team of Virtual Intelligence frames with cutting tools to dislodge.

    He enjoyed seeing Rose more accepted around the Innards. If his unwanted acclaim meant others viewed her with more respect and trust, then he’d trade all of it for everyone to see the Recovery Unit’s kindness.

    One of his greatest pleasures was watching the kids play with her. 

    They’d laugh, using the arms she held out for them to climb or swing on. Sometimes she’d take them on rides, piling several on her back as she ambled slowly through the more open areas. Rose was blessed with the patience of an artificial mind and would never become angry or frustrated. She would never fall into drunken or drug-addled stupor.

    What’d been especially fun was getting to see her scold one little urchin that crawled up her neck to try and steal one of the trinkets she wore while within the Innards. She’d snatched him up faster than he could blink just as soon as his hand reached for the bundle of rings Jack made for her. Her grace even extended to her discipline. With just a few hand gestures and a stern posture, the would-be thief was blubbering apologies and being rocked in the crook of a huge, scaly elbow.

    Listening to her talk afterward about human resilience or the importance of play in childhood development always cheered him up. She was so sure of them continuing to grow that it gave Jack hope to hear a creature of logic state it so matter of factly.

    Although… She did still have moments where the bizarre inhuman intellectualism shined through. Namely through the growing chemical lab on the ceiling of Jack’s home.

    As a pastime, or as close as a Mother Dragon Recovery Unit could have to a pastime, she’d been selectively cultivating special bacteria. There was a lot of talk about splicing, advanced medkits containing biotech that’d mutated, and then a string of chemical formulas that lost Jack completely. That in itself wasn’t too concerning. It was the absolutely gleeful way in which she spoke of being inspired to lean into being more oviparous and producing eggs to take full advantage of the ‘fruits of their labors’, as she put it. He’d tuned the Mother Dragon out when she’d started in on taking samples from his new infected flesh to splice in.

    All of it culminated in what she called Dragonwire. He was told that, in essence, it was a focused bred bacterial micro-lattice that paralleled Cyberflesh muscle with a substantial uptick in strength to weight ratio. While Rose supplied the raw material, it was actually Slinky that shaped the first batch into something usable.

    Even though he’d wanted to say no, it was a collaborative effort by the two of them. He didn’t have the heart to turn them down.

    The appearance of the bundled fibers reminded Jack of a flayed Cy-Zombie. The flexible material bloomed like flowers made of meat when it stretched. As disconcerting as its source and look, the Dragonwire sleeve’s gentle compression eased the bone-deep ache in his mutated arm. It pulled power directly from him and was slotted into several of the ports that, as much as it rankled him, did make the protrusions far more comfortable.

    Back in the moment, Jack set down the AK without firing it. He was confident it would work, and worried that if he started practicing with it, he might not be able to stop. He tried to ignore the unnatural lightness of the gun when he unintentionally used his right hand to move it.

    At least in that instance, did his aversion to augmentation come from a desire to retain humanity, or a deep-seated lack of worth? Did the pain bother him, or did it appease a streak of self-flagellating tendencies that demanded he suffer lest the survivors' guilt consume the young Scav? Beyond a doubt, if circumstance hadn’t forced the Black Grail, Jack would never have taken it willingly. Without Rose and Slinky pressuring him to wear the Dragonstring for his own sake, he would have simply endured the pain in a furthering spiral of self-destructive martyrdom.

    Neatly compartmentalizing this internal conflict, Jack put his helmet back on and picked up a shotgun.

    The S12 was quite familiar to Jack. It was sturdy. Reliable. Doubled nicely as a club. It wasn’t hard to find a working S12. It was hard to find an S12 with functioning semi-automatic fire. While pumping the slide served well enough, it hampered the rate of fire severely.

    Jack snapped off a quick shot that turned an empty glass bottle into powder. It was a nice, meaty sound followed by the gratifying crunch of the bottle being obliterated. The next round failed to feed, caught sticking halfway out of the breech with the bolt haphazardly chewing on the brass and plastic. After clearing the malfunction, he tried again, only to be met with the same result.

    Did it just need to be broken in? He checked the general wear of the thing and decided that if magnum buckshot didn’t give enough kick for the gun to cycle properly, then semi-auto was a lost cause.

    He liked shotguns well enough. At point blank range, they could be devastating. The problem was that buckshot was nearly useless against anything even lightly armored. Sure, even a Eurasian Brawler could be brought down with concentrated fire, which was why Europan GRINNs worked in wolf packs. Against anything other than small groups of Cyborgs or unarmored conscripts, the stopping power fell off hard versus most threats roaming the war above. He remembered one particularly amusing story of a Scav who claimed to have an AA12 that fired magic buckshot that could somehow blow up Exos and tanks.

    Darkness crept up the back of Jack’s neck. A creeping sense of rage eating around the edges of his neural interface. He fed the S12 more shells and vented his anxious fury through destroying targets just to see them splintered. He kept waiting for the pain of the shotgun slamming into his mutated shoulder to outweigh the ache in his subconscious.

    But the Black Grail’s gifts were not so easily spurned.

    Ironically, the whole Gray Death debacle only strengthened the Innard’s reputation among the loose network of underground havens. The Innards were not alone. It was an odd truth. Bittersweet. Much like how Pox survivors were valued for their immunity, those inoculated against the deadlier plagues which decimated communities offered a sense of safety and stability in the enduring horrors of the conflict. The market was livelier than it’d ever been.

    With the influx of residents came an increase in the pool of talent lending aid to the Innard’s survival.

    The most important advancements were in the realm of water. Water was life in the desert of Lost Angels. Getting drinkable water on its own was vital. Getting supplemental infrastructure such as mechanical filtration, electrolysis, or even reverse osmosis membranes really maximized potential sources. Recycling efforts along with condensers that gathered ambient moisture minimized environmental loss and made every drop go further than before.

    Slade was even working towards setting up water retrieval bots to autonomously supplement their supply.

    It wasn’t just potable water. By tapping pipes that’d been revealed by Rose’s excavations, a few enterprising souls managed to set up showers, and even places to wash clothing or clean cooking utensils. While some chemical additives made it undrinkable, they weren’t so harmful as to make it unusable.

    While he’d not been able to justify the indulgence himself, Jack splurged to let Slinky take a bath for the first time in her life. By necessity, it was a communal area. Rose’s bulk gave them a measure of privacy. It’d been a shallow bath. Little better than a child’s pool. Even without her metal limbs, the Monitor was far too dense to float. She’d clung to him, making him promise not to let go. It was a delight getting to see the Monitor testing the water with great suspicion, then slowly lower herself. In one serendipitous moment, fear washed away, revealing the wonder beneath.

    Jack’s grip on the shotgun tightened until he consciously loosened it.

    Slinky’s bath happened just that morning. He remembered washing Slinky with the plainly scented soap. Putting a bubble on her nose. Blowing a bit of sudsy foam at Rose. Running a washcloth over the Monitor’s scars. It was then, during the casual intimacy of the moment, that Rose and Slinky revealed everything that’d gone into their bonding after Jack told Rose to be nicer. How they saw each other as sisters.

    The girls had propositioned the young Scav who hadn’t mated with either of them since coming back from lucidity from the Black Grail. Jack was still sorting out his feelings in regards to their three-way relationship. Inwardly, he was sardonically amused that the two artificial beings were able to harmonize with their romantic feelings faster than the human.

    After setting down the S12, Jack looked back at Slinky.

    She was fully engrossed in puzzling out prototype wing structures for her drones. A smile creased the corner of Jack’s mouth. Spending just a short time with the Monitor, he noticed that whenever she was really concentrating, her radio-spines would twitch towards the object of her attention. She cocked her head back and forth, spines shifting . As soon as the Monitor noticed Jack, she looked up at him, tail wagging.

    He reassured her through their link, then turned to the firearm laden table once again.

    Next up was a P90.

    5.7 ammunition was one of the more ubiquitous calibers floating around Lost Angels because of Eurasian forces. Their battle doctrine favored getting close and personal. Swarms of Cy-Zombies would absorb fire and close the gap, allowing squads of more capable Cyborgs to engage in close-quarters with submachine guns. P90s and other submachine guns were quite effective in cutting through the lightly armored conscripts that bulked out Europan line infantry. It was a lighter caliber Jack didn’t mind because of its exceptional armor penetration and ballistic performance.

    Submachine guns filled their own niche. They were great for close encounters. Cheap. Reliable. What they lacked for Jack was stopping power.

    The P90 felt more plastic than usual. More fragile. The parts seemed loose. Yet if he tightened it down too far, it felt as though it would crack.

    He tried to keep focus, yet his mind drifted still.

    More goods and services in turn attracted yet more people still. More people meant more skills. Several mechanics were now hunkering down with their families. Some of those were capable in robotics. Both in Virtual Intelligence, G-head frames and drones. Reprogrammed bots flew up and down the central shaft. One day it might be possible to establish hardline communication between the disparate cells of people still stubbornly clinging to life amidst the war. As it was, drone couriers were doing wonders.

    A few even purported to have the lofty goal of hydroponics. Rust wheat was well and good, however the idea of a self-sufficient community was more than most could dream of.

    Some folk held out hope for a ceasefire. A return to broken homes. Some hoped that when the dust settled, whoever emerged victorious might be willing to offer sanctuary to the weary survivors. Others imagined the wintry pall of war which had fallen upon the earth was eternal, and planned accordingly.

    Then there were the rest. More people were taking up the mantle of Scav. There was talk of setting up a proper canteen of sorts. Making the ambassadors come to them. Jack couldn’t bear the way they looked at him.

    Three disabled MG34s were second to last on the long table.

    Jack never quite liked the MG34. He’d take another SA58 any day. Though he couldn’t deny their appeal. After clearing a bit of space, he began breaking the trio down so he could sift out prime components.

    An unmodified MG34 was nothing special. Alone, it was heavy, and its monstrous recoil made it inaccurate if fired for any length of time. A decently kitted out SAW in 5.56 offered better weight and recoil. The secret was getting the onboard computer working. The smart systems built into the weapon offered all kinds of utilities. Trying to use the irons, or even a decent holo sight offered a terrible sight picture. Workable in a pinch, it was far better to use other targeting systems. Either projected above the rifle, or by linking it to a HUD.

    For the young Scav, he’d rather bring a lighter weapon so he could carry more loot. Heavy Europan units were the most commonly seen toting them around, employing the relentless fire the MG34 could put out to become walking machine gun emplacements. Typically however, Hunter-Killers and the like would use them along with powered combat harnesses. Articulated stabilization arms negated much of the weight and provided improved recoil control even while on the move.

    While working on them, his thoughts strayed to the idea of the practicality of using a similar system himself. If he could get a decent fuel cell or some other power supply for his rig, it would open up all kinds of possibilities. He’d been tinkering with the triple-barrel 5.7 arm gun from Devil Eater as well as the secondary 5.56 Exo guns. It seemed wasteful to use them for throwaway turrets.

    Robotic assistance aside, an MG34’s true potential was revealed when paired with the right ammunition. Correctly tuned, the onboard electronics could program airburst, paired explosive, or even guided discarding sabot rounds. Particularly deadly were the compressed fuel-air explosive shells.

    Jack wistfully pondered the idea of acquiring any amount of such munitions. Though that desire was tempered by cost. Frugality and hoarding was integral to a Scav’s success just as excess and waste were antithetical. Every bullet fired had to be for a reason. Every bit of scrap had to be worth the credits for hauling back.

    He also yearned to get his hands on a Scar .50, but one had to make do with what was on hand.

    Then again, where did financial prudence become deadly? That was always part of the gamble. Carry too much ammunition, and waste space that could be used to haul just enough loot to survive. Too little ammunition, and an empty gun could kill as surely as an empty belly. He considered the grotesquely expensive ammunition his Shrake consumed. Unfortunately, that truly macabre stack of credits, especially weighed against how much food or water he could have purchased versus the handful of shells, was also balanced against his very life. Just one more run. Now Jack had more breathing room to prepare. A luxury he’d never enjoyed before. A luxury he dreaded because it gave him time to think.

    There was the old adage drilled into him by a different Masked Man. Better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.

    Jack idly wondered which theatre of war he’d go to next. So often his thoughts turned to what would happen if the next run was his last. No doubt Rose would survive. And that made him glance back at Slinky. He’d always felt a duty to the Innards. Choosing to run solo after… Well after deciding that things were better that way, there was relief in believing that failure only meant death for him. Another Scav would surely step up to take his place just as he’d done.

    Who would step up for Slinky? For Rose?

    If Keel couldn’t get him the ammunition, perhaps the gun runner could get the supplies needed so Jack could do it himself. He’d been meaning to set up computers and proper fabrication in his empty workshop of a home. He’d never been able to justify the weight when out on a run. Decent hardware was heavy. It was space better reserved for water, ammunition, or food.

    After getting the gun part of the machine guns working, he selected the finest of the three and started testing the tertiary components. The stock housed an intact central processor that his Shrake quickly wormed its way into. Next, he checked the suppressor, sights, and absurdly long bayonet. Then he attached various sensors, bullet encoders, laser range finders, and external controls onto the frame around the ventilated barrel shroud. Once they were connected to the MG34’s main processor, Jack let the Shrake calibrate while he troubleshooted.

    Flipping open the bipod, Jack took position behind the truly Scav-ified weapon and slotted in an ammunition drum. Taking aim at a distant silhouette, reams of data spilled down his HUD. Some of it was garbled scrap code that took a bit to narrow down. After freeing the MG34 of a few malignant barnacles of silicone, he tried again. This time a clear targeting solution presented itself.

    Squeezing the trigger, he loosed a single round. It flew straight and true. The tracer showed the path, helping to compute lingering deficiencies in the onboard system. Digital teeth split into grins as eyes danced around the burning edges of the target at the far end of the range.

    Jack couldn’t help feeling at least a little bit satisfied with the result. Resting the stock of the MG34 on the table, he had one more task.

    Lastly, Jack’s biggest project was converting the Exo-sized autocannon into a usable remote gun for Rose. In theory, if he could get it working, she could fire it from the saddle, or set it down in an advantageous position. Mounting such firepower came with risks, naturally. Scavs mostly went unnoticed in the busier theatres of war by virtue of the negligible threat they presented. While Jack prized the stealth offered by the shroud, there would inevitably be the time where neutralizing a threat was faster than running from it.

    An Exo set to autonomous was more or less just a bigger, scarier turret that could walk. At that point it was little better than a big gun platform that Europan infantry could rely on to stand there and soak up damage. It was mobility combined with power that made an Exo such a deadly foe. When piloted, the primary weapon offered devastating might to an individual both agile, and armored.

    The young Scav had to assemble the 40mm autocannon piece by piece, making sure to set it up on the concrete lane divider rather than the table. Turrets were cheap, so he took one he’d already purchased and swapped out the gun and its housing. Fortunately, the parts were in pretty good condition. Only the feeding mechanism needed a bit of work. Still, he needed to tease function out of parts that would’ve much rather been quiet and still.

    With the secret language of parts, friction, and motion, Jack tooled his ballistic intent. His intuition and experience walked him the path to see where all the pieces were supposed to go for his desired outcome. Once completed, he took a moment to admire the size of the shell before slotting it home. He linked his helmet to the turret despite the way his HUD flickered. The Shrake was as eager as he was. An unfortunate mannequin made of rebar decorated with an old uniform was to be the victim.

    “Firing,” Jack announced to give Slinky fair warning. With a mind-machine command, the young Scav pulled the trigger. Where his Shrake screamed, this gun echoed with the bark of command, sure, proud, and with the kind of authority that made loyal chests swell with joy.

    The heavy round flew downrange, distorting the air with its passage. The target was struck. Even if the targeting was just a little off. The old tatters fluttered as a new, quite large hole was added to the battered cloth. Concrete splinters did more damage as the shell buried itself in the wall behind the target.

    “Yes,” the young Scav hissed triumphantly. He eagerly loaded the turret again.

    Of course, danger lurked around every corner. It wore the mask of a Water Thief, and the uniform of every soldier. It filled the sky even as it fell to earth. It rumbled forth on hulking treads that crushed machines designed to crush other machines. It was the shrapnel of a bomb tearing through an apartment. It waited down every street, peered through every scope, and spied through every camera. It roared with the decree of God’s executioner and whispered with the plea of a child’s voice recording stashed under an IED.

    Actions have consequences. And the sound of Europan weapons tended to attract a very particular kind of consequence.

    There was a distant thump. The young Scav stopped to listen, thinking for a moment that maybe it was just a trick of his brain as the autocannon accepted the next shell.

    Then another thump. One close enough to make Jack’s chest tighten. The shooting range was, understandably, a bit of distance away from the Innards. Along one wall near the far end of the several hundred meter stretch of tunnel were a series of doors. They were supposed to be sealed to prevent potential accidents.

    His tactical sensors were still broken. Other instincts made him check his Shrake and Purgation even as he glanced at the loaded MG34 still on the table. After a subtle mental nudge, Slinky crawled down to hunker behind Jack.

    One of those far doors crashed inwards, knocking aside several cardboard targets before settling on the floor. For a moment, there was stillness. Then Cy-Zombies poured from the door like pus from a ruptured infection. Scramblers squeezed through the gap and bounded forward with animalistic drive.

    A hulking monstrosity emerged from behind the wave of Cyberflesh.

    Malignant creatures. Grotesqueries. Nightmares. Abominations.

    No two were exactly alike, though usually shared similar characteristics. They were quite different from Craven even at a passing glance. The torsos were fused together horizontally rather than vertically. Sometimes bolted. Sometimes welded in such a way that the Cyberflesh flowed together as if liquified then poured into some horrific mold. The Mother Courage Units were mostly autonomous, only answering to higher powers. Whether they fashioned Abominations out of malfeasance or twisted amusement, did the intent really matter when facing such a creature?

    Typically they were used to aid in the vanguard of Cy-Zombie offensives. Their bulk attracted and absorbed punishment while their lesser kin closed the distance.

    The one which had beaten its way through the bulkhead door lurched forward, its single compound head appearing to have been melted together like candle wax. Its jaw hung slack as it turned Jack’s way. A gurgle grew into a roar. A stumble became a jog, then a run. Arms thicker than its neck batted aside Scramblers and standing targets as it became a missile of Cyberflesh aimed at the young Scav.

    Still linked to the turret, he commanded it to fire. Even though the calibration was a bit off, the Abomination was a target Jack would’ve had to try and miss. The guttural sounds of the ‘normal’ Cy-Zombies paled in comparison to the roars of the Abominations. In the tunnel the tormented howls of the great beasts were loud enough to rattle the ceiling pipes.

    The autocannon barked its own response.

     Fall .

    Whatever bonds held the Abomination together weren’t as strong as a 40mm armor-piercing round. The beast was split at the torso with the wet sound of tearing meat that persisted after the shock of the autocannon’s boom wore off. Cyberflesh separated along an uneven track that saw about a third of the beast’s center mass peel away. A torrent of viscera flopped out of the gaping rent in its middle. The Abomination stumbled, unexpectedly off balance. It tumbled to the ground mid charge, legs continuing to kick out as it failed to comprehend what’d happened. Pawing at the concrete floor, its mockery of an existence ebbed as Scramblers used its bulk like a springboard to close on their prey.

    Automatic nerve took over. This close to the Innards, Jack saw no choice but to stand and fight. Already warmed up, Jack lifted the MG34 and began choosing targets by range. The noise in the firing range became wholly different.

    The MG34 dug into his shoulder. He fired, .308 chattering down the barrel. He sent rounds flying in rapid bursts. Sometimes two. Sometimes four. Their movements were erratic, jinking back and forth in unpredictable ways. Limbs twitched like shaken dolls as Jack fixed on each target in turn. Firing solutions appeared and evaporated as he eliminated targets. Oily blood splattered from exit wounds. Any among the swarm that faltered after being hit were thrown aside by the ones who followed. Glowing eyes left streaks in the dim corridor.

    Jack held on tighter to his machine gun as the recoil was still horrible. His bursts grew longer as they drew nearer. His ammo dwindled fast. Warm brass collected in a pile underneath the MG34. Chunks of decaying dermis blasted free under his withering assault. Cy-Zombies dropped, yet the swarm came on.

    A handful managed to reach him. Enough to rip him apart if they got ahold of him. The MG34 clicked empty right as a Scrambler closed the final distance. As it leapt, Jack stood, bringing the brutally long bayonet slicing upwards. Ripping through Cyberflesh, Jack cut the beast open from shoulder to groin, heaving his attacker up and over his shoulder as he did so.

    Another was right on its heels. With his weapon still up, Jack reversed the arc of his machine gun to crack the next Cy-Zombie in the face with the butt of the gun. Then he brought the sword-like bayonet swinging down, cutting through the undead’s shoulder into its chest where the blade became stuck. Rather than fight to free the weapon, Jack released his grip on the machine gun and let it fall with his adversary.

    In a chopping motion, Jack disconnected the cables tying his ports to Slinky. The Monitor stayed low, trying to keep out of his way as she fell back on instinctive protocols to hide.

    Three more.

    The next Cy-Zombie reached for him. Jack’s right arm moved in a blur, drawing and slashing with Purgation in a single move, taking off both of the Cy-Zombie’s hands. The long knife’s edge blazed upon tasting the blood of Jack’s enemies. The return stroke snicked through throat, then spine as Purgation tailored itself to cut Cyberflesh. Dragonstring writhed across his forearm.

    If there was resistance in the blade, Jack couldn’t feel it. He didn’t have time to appreciate the smooth decapitation he’d just managed. There was only acknowledgement of the killing blow.

    In the distance, an Abomination crawled through the broken door. It charged, bulldozing the shamblers between it and Jack with berserker fixation.

    He snatched the wrist of the next Cy-Zombie and yanked it towards him. The tip of Purgation slid through its chest. The blade grew hotter. It wasn’t the first time the trench knife drank Cy-Zombie ichor, so it was easy to configure for optimal cutting potential. Rather than pull straight back, Jack sliced downwards to split the chest and stomach open to free the trench knife. Intercepting the groping strike of the last Scrambler with the blade, he twisted his knife and took off the arm at the shoulder then stabbed up through the Cy-Zombie’s snapping jaws.

    Throwing aside the dead Scrambler, Jack confronted the Abomination rapidly closing in. Instead of one head, four visages locked in a rictus of screams were sunken into its hulking chest.

    Jack didn’t need to think in order to call his Shrake to hand. There was no draw. He willed it, and his muscles knew all the movements without having to be told.

    Four heads. Four shots.

    The Assault Revolver shrieked louder than the Abomination. Incendiary armor-piercing went through layers of reinforced skull. The subsequent cavitation shattered the braincases and the wetware inside popped like blisters in showers of burning biochips meshed in greymatter.

    When the last head was turned into a crater, it pitched forward. Its bulk carried it onward even as it tipped down to the ground. Even laced with metal, its bones snapped under its own weight on impact before skidding to a skin-rending stop.

    The only luxury Jack was allowed to indulge in was cursing his enemies. Cursing his luck. Cursing that Slinky wasn’t somewhere safer.

    The shamblers not turned into pulp by their larger companion soon felt the wrath of Jack’s Shrake. He had three more shots, so three more Cy-Zombies were mangled into burning husks. With a quick motion, the young Scav thumbed the release and emptied the spent casings before slotting in a fresh set.

    His eye caught motion right beside him, and for a moment he feared that they’d been flanked or one of the downed Cy-Zombies was getting back up. His head snapped to see Slinky aiming the P90 downrange before releasing a controlled burst. A shambler stumbled, then fell on its face after new holes were punched into its abdomen. The Monitor was crouched low, barely peeking over the concrete divide between the range and the firing position to keep her weapon braced. Though dextrous, the ergonomics of the P90 weren’t a good fit for her mechanical hands.

    Jack let his attention waver long enough to determine it wasn’t another foe before lifting the heavy Shrake once more. Despite the pain building in his arm from the substantial recoil of the Assault Revolver, he kept firing. With the faster foes dispatched, Jack and Slinky were able to kill quicker than they could advance. Beating back the man-made horrors, he was mindful of not just the cost of his ammunition, but his actual supply. He used simpler bullets for his Shrake. Still more than enough to drop most Cy-Zombies in a single shot. Though much slower, Slinky helped, bursting down shamblers in controlled flurries.

    As Jack identified the thinning of the horde, another Abomination came loping from the far end of the corridor.

    This Abomination was the largest yet, hunched in posture and bounding toward Jack on its engorged arms like an extinct primate. This one bore no obvious weak spot. Its eyes were hidden behind metal plates welded across its upper body, appearing like helmet slits. There was only a vertical maw where a throat might be, lined with hundreds of human teeth. Ineffectual submachine gun rounds from Slinky rattled off its front or sank a few inches into armored dermis to no effect.

    Growling under his breath, the young Scav loaded yet more rare ammunition. Guided by a singular need to destroy this target, Jack surged forward to meet the charging creature.

    His Shrake screamed.

    The cryo ammo burst a split second after impact. The extreme endothermic reaction ruptured the target. Denser material became brittle and shattered, shredding any softer surrounding tissue. The Abomination flinched, slowing, yet not stopping. Jack planted two more cryo rounds into its midsection as the two grew dangerously close to each other. Chunks of flash-frozen Cyberflesh were blasted free. Red mist, tinted by bloody ice crystals wafted from the crater in its armored hide.

    In the end, it was Eurasian. Now matter how amalgamated it was, the cybernetic monstrosity still existed as a single entity. Though twisted, transformed, and ultimately consumed, the Dominator still existed in Jack. Sheathing Purgation, the Dragonstring pulsed across his draconic arm.

    The Abomination tried to catch him with an arm as thick as a man’s torso. The young Scav ducked the clumsy swing and reached through the hole in the creature’s chest. His altered fingers closed around viscera, sinking through oily Cyberflesh to grip a solid wad of internal structure.

    A single demand forced its way through the Abomination’s digital nervous system.

     Stop .

    And so it did. The fractured amalgamation of insane Eurasian cyborg conscripts ceased moving. Then their neural ports shut down. Then their life support matrices became silent. Not even a death rattle escaped its paralyzed maw as it remained upright, muscles locked in their last position.

    Only then did the Alpha Pack Leaders enter the shooting range, their dark armor blending with the shadows with only the glow of their own HUDs reflected on matte black visors to give their positions away. What they weren’t expecting was to see their Cy-Zombie force devastated. They were just in time to see Jack pull his arm out of the Abomination’s chest. Bursts of submachine gun fire sleeted his way. Most of the shots were blocked by the dead Abomination Jack used as cover. A line of impacts raked his thigh. Fortunately the ballistic lining of his coat absorbed the worst of it. The Pack Leaders advanced from cover to cover, keeping Jack suppressed with steady fire. Bullets whizzed dangerously close and thumped into the walls of the tunnel of impacted the Abomination in much wetter impacts.

    Slinky appeared beside him with the P90 in her mouth. After skittering into place on all fours, she climbed Jack and the dead Abomination. Her long, muscular body was interposed between him and the Pack Leaders.

    Slinky’s counter fusillade made the armed Cyborgs duck into cover. But it was three on one and Slinky couldn’t suppress them all.

    Wrestling with the Monitor’s unexpected constriction, Jack used the strength in his altered arm to get enough wiggle room. Using that leverage, he twisted himself to lean out and shoot one of the Pack Leaders in the shoulder as they tried to draw a bead on Slinky. The Cyborg was spun around, clawing at the frozen ruin of that third of their body before collapsing.

    The next one he caught in the head as they tried to stand to take revenge on Jack. Eyes and teeth from the Shrake’s Oni already gave the young Scav a predicted path that he only needed to execute. Before the first Pack Leader had even hit the floor the Assault Revolver’s hammer was already falling. The unfortunate Cyborg was broken utterly as their spine contorted under the concussive blow their head took. What could only be described as slush poured out of any gap in their helmet as the implosion from the cryo round turned everything inside the headgear into frosty soup. They twitched for a while.

    Slinky’s elevated position let her get a bead on the last Cyborg. She held the trigger down, emptying the magazine of the P90 in a full auto spray. Though many missed, enough managed to hit her target with a few rounds even finding soft spots in the Pack Leader’s armor to cause him to slam back into the wall of the tunnel. The last opponent slid down to the floor in a crumpled heap.

    A stream of profanity spilled from Jack as his hearing buzzed in the sudden absence of gunfire. Though he tried to be restrained, he rather gracelessly shoved Slinky away so he could jog down to the other end of the range.

    There, he inspected the door the Eurasion incursion had used, still leaking curses as he went. Fortunately, the doors in the underground were usually as abundant as they were unreliable. Just a few meters further in was another blast door that had been left open just in case its controls broke upon being used. The young Scav hit the panel and the slabs of metal begrudgingly slid together. The little display flickered, then died in a shower of sparks.

    Jack listened for what felt like an eternity, though it was actually only two minutes. No more death seemed immediately forthcoming.

    Letting out a slow breath, he heard only his own boots on concrete, kicking the occasional brass casing as he made his way back to the starting line. Slinky crouched so low as she followed her belly scales nearly scraped the floor. Jack’s limbs were shaking from the adrenaline, making his boots light and heavy all at once. Though it felt as though his right arm was broken, throbbing down to the bone, the euphoric surge of fight or flight chemicals was working to keep the worst of the pain at bay.

    The young Scav was jittery, replaying the battle in his mind. He once again considered if he should have retreated, then immediately discarded it. The risk to the Innards was too great. He needed to get with Slade about buying more turrets. Both for himself and for the Innards.

    However, he didn’t know what to do about Slinky. As soon as they both got back to the firing position, the Monitor crawled onto the blanket covered concrete and held up their uplink cable as a plea. When he didn’t take it right away, Slinky hung her head in realization that she’d done wrong. Radio spines fell over her face as her heart sank. Dread made her joints ache.

    Her helping wasn’t a problem. She’d been smart until that last bit. Once he thought himself calm enough to address his concerns rationally, the young Scav set aside his helmet, then took his end of the cable. As soon as they were connected, Slinky jumped on the chance. Despite her reptilian snout, she was quite expressive. Her lips pulled taut in a sorrowful grimace.

{I’m sorry, Stormwater! I became distracted and was unable to complete any drones before combat so could not provide you with tactical data. This was gross negligence on my part. Please, reprimand me however you see fit. I have erred unacceptably in my duty.}

    “No, that’s not…” Jack responded, struggling to keep his mind focused. “I didn’t realize you could use guns. Never really thought of it. I guess I should’ve asked.”

    The Monitor flinched.

{I’m not supposed to. I can if given permission by my commanding officer, or if my commanding officer is in danger.}

    “Shit, uh, yes, you have permission. That’s besides the point. It was the… Wrapping around me thing.” Jack looked at the Monitor, then turned his hand in a twirling motion to illustrate his point. “Slinky, you can't… You can’t do that whenever someone shoots at me. Were you trying to block the bullets with your body?”

{Yes. I am much more durable than you.}

    As soon as the words entered Jack’s mind, it made perfect sense. Slinky was a lot like Rose in that way. Yet he kept expecting to be reminded of his old squads. The unlucky and the foolish alike were chewed up and spat out by the war above. Could he risk bringing Slinky? Should he? Could he risk not having her? Once her drones were online, he would have a squad’s worth of advanced tactical cameras at his fingertips. Those eyes of hers were too potent to pass up. Another part of him knew that, also like Rose, he could give her a direct order that she would obey. He could just tell her to stay where it was safe.

    And maybe… A selfish part of him didn’t want to be alone.

    “You can’t do something like that if we’re out on a run. You need armor! You have to talk to me. You could get us both hurt or killed!” Jack didn’t mean to shout. The post-battle high made him intense. He didn’t like that she’d risked herself for him. Memories flashed in his mind of her lying on the ground, grievously injured and bleeding out.

    Her armored eye sockets began to water.

{I didn’t mean to… To make you angry.}

    “No, no, no! You didn’t make me angry. I just… I’ve lost…” Jack trailed off, wrestling to detangle repressed emotion with present feelings. He clenched his right hand over and over again. “I don’t want to lose you.”

    Slinky watched him flinch as the Dragonstring sleeve pulsed as sympathetic spasms exposed the crimson bundles. That gentle hand. The arm that got injured trying to help people. That helped carry her to safety and freedom.

    She reached out, heart burning for his touch, and pulled him closer. Jack allowed himself to step right up to where Slinky lay. The Monitor’s lips molded over his hand, grooming the sticky Abomination fluids from the grooves in his scales. She let out breathy whimpers as she did so. Her long fingers unfolded to wrap around his forearm and bicep, haptic motors giving targeted vibrations to wherever she felt bulging or twitching muscles.

    Jack let out a sigh measured in metric tons. She was too cute to stay angry at and now matter how it shredded his nerves, his Scav instincts wouldn’t let him leave the firing range. It wasn’t often that loot fell in his lap. This might be the windfall he needed to properly equip his party for the runs ahead. He grimaced, thinking of the Cyborg whose helmet he’d ventilated. The other two should’ve been intact enough for him to fix his own helmet.

    “Well, the door’s sealed and Rose should be back soon. So let’s just… Wait here for a bit, yeah?”

    The Monitor was lost in her apologetic ministrations.

{You smell good, Stormwater. You smell very good.}

    Slinky inhaled sharply, then exhaled with a shudder. Her engineered nose and forked tongue could detect the mellow flavor of gun oil beneath the sharp tang of Cordite. Mixed with the savory metallic of spilled blood was also Jack’s maleness. Stress sweat let her identify the unique musk the human had already imprinted on her. The Monitor expected the scales donated from Rose to have a more feminine aroma. She was lured to explore the taste and became engrossed in how his dominance turned dragoness into dragon.

    She wanted to kiss him. Yet she was afraid.

    The Monitor wasn’t designed to display affection tenderly. She was made for violence. A tool of war. She wasn’t made to be forgiven. Her hands didn’t know how to be gentle the way his were. She couldn’t make beautiful things or convey her deepest longings. She was still unsure if everything was just a dream. If she did kiss him, she might wake up.

    Perhaps it was the way her tongue lapped at his fingers. Wet, warm, and slippery, the sensation was a pleasing balm for the ache in the scaly hand after using it for combat. All it took was a moment of stray licentious urge for Jack’s cock to stiffen against his pants.

    In truth it was her sorrow that aroused him. For the simple reason that it meant she was distressed. So naturally, he wanted to comfort her. Being a creature of physicality, he found it easiest to express his care through sex. A rational part of him figured that if reinforcements were coming, they’d have been there by now. An irrational part of him didn’t care and needed to fuck.

    Slinky’s body could express things the Monitor herself didn’t have the words for. As she took more of his digits into her maw, Jack’s heady musk made her head swim. The gates of the dam she’d perceived earlier through their link, containing his lust, were beginning to open. And the Monitor began to sink. She rolled onto her side, spreading her legs to ease the ache building in her groin.

    Jack pulled his fingers out of Slinky’s suckling maw. The little Dragoness moaned at the loss, then spotted the obvious bulge in his pants.

{But… I don’t understand. That… Turned you on? I turned you on?}

    He reached under her chin, drawing her face up to meet his stormy gray eyes. Though still a bit misty, those eclipses gazed up at him with trust and love unconditional.

    “I know I get horny… A lot.” Jack said. He turned away for a moment, setting aside his heavy coat. “I’m sorry for that. But, yes, you’re what turned me on, Slinky.”

    The way her name fell from his lips made her insides warm. The way he desired her, wanted her, found her sexy despite her inhuman, scarred, bastardized biology, broke her even as it remade her.

{You are… Attracted to me? I don’t… I don’t deserve…}

    With the Monitor on her side, Jack’s attention immediately went to her thighs. Stepping even closer to the Monitor laid out like an exotic platter, he massaged the tender scales where flesh became metal. The different textures felt nice to his draconic hand. Between his obvious interest and insistent touch, Slinky found her leg lifting of its own accord. Her bottoms pulled taut against her mound, juices already making the cloth stick to her scales. Jack’s right hand inevitably strayed to the heat wafting from her core.

    She reached out to undo his belt. He stopped her. With his left hand, he caressed the throat she bared for him.

{Did I… Do something wrong?}

    Despite numerous offers on their part, Jack hadn’t had sex with either Rose or Slinky since his Black Grail fever broke. He knew it was his own insecurity, and was able to push that aside for the sake of making sure his girls felt loved.

    “I want to make you feel good.” He declared, tugging aside her bottoms.

    He kneaded the lips of her vulva, squeezing them together before pressing down in a circular motion. Jack admired the artistry of the Monitor’s feminine glory. Where Rose’s genitalia was of darker coloration, obsidian scales giving way to violet mottled with rich wine and fuchsias, Slinky was much lighter. Her dappled hide with its earthy tones of brown and green gave way to a tan belly. The scales and skin adorning her most intimate area was an indulgent iridescent cream. Better illumination let the young Scav appreciate how the light played off Slinky’s prismatic center.

    Slinky lifted her leg higher, pulling her lower lips open a bit more. Tingles ran through her every scale, every spine, lighting nerves with prickles of vulnerability as she lost control. The only thing she could do was grab his waist to hold on. Jack’s palm rubbed her throat, helping her remember how to breathe. His draconic fingers taught her it was okay to be female.

    Jack was tortuously slow, rubbing along her slit before pulling the top of her sex open. Her delicate hood was tugged along with her labia. He didn’t even touch her clit until it was throbbing in the open air. Slinky’s clitoris was a blunt, adorable little horn about as big as the end of Jack’s pinky. A touch usually reserved for wires as thin as spiderwebs grazed the Monitor’s pearl.

    The leg that Slinky held up began to kick at the air as her hips seemed to gain a mind of their own. 

    Once he was satisfied she was warmed up, he went further. One of Jack’s digits became two, his middle and ring finger slipping into the gushy vent of his leaky Dragoness. It was Rose who taught him about g-spots, vaginal orgasms, and how to find both. And Jack was certain that if Slinky’s pussy was designed by the Mother Dragon, then she’d have the same buttons to press. Though at first Slinky was tight enough to nearly cut off circulation to his fingers, she relaxed after a bit. Jack went easy at first, gently wiggling the tips inside, pulling back to make sure he was slicked with her juices before pressing in deeper.

    For a time he just casually explored her, spreading his fingers to feel the rippling velvet of her inner walls play across his digits. Her pussy massaged his scaly fingers just as her mouth had. After he’d had his fun and Slinky was more relaxed, he slid as deep as his fingers could go and began searching. There was a special region inside her, of wrinkled flesh that was his goal.

    Once he found the right spot, not just by feel, but by pressing into it and seeing the way Slinky jolted in response along with the mind-machine feedback, Jack pulled up to trap her g-spot between his fingers and her pubic bone. His palm squashed into her cushioned vulva as he began making a come-hither gesture with his two fingers.

    Pressure built through her pelvis, pressing in on her bladder even as her chalice did flips in her belly. She couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t stop.

{Wait! Please, Stormwater, you’re going to make me pee. I don’t- hng-ah!}

    Whatever else the Monitor thought to say was lost as Jack worked her all the harder. Though his hand was still sore, he was determined, the sloppy sounds of his digits squelching into her mingling with Slinky’s cries. She was a vessel, and the more he poured into her, the brighter her pleasure glowed to him.

    “Push. Puuush. Good girl.” He didn’t need to tell her. The Monitor’s body was no longer her own. She was just a passenger. She gasped, eyelids fluttering before squeezing them shut. Her breath made his shirt flutter as her nose pressed into his stomach.

    Slinky pelvic floor bore down as her body was rocked by orgasm. Her climax was unlike any she’d experienced before. As the first rush of warm juices struck his palm, Jack pulled his fingers free of Slinky’s pussy. Her vent flexed, displaying the flowery pink insides as once she started pushing, she couldn’t stop. A second, then third stream of liquid squirted out of the twitching Monitor. Jack was both impressed at the distance and force of Slinky ejaculating as well as his own literal hand in making it happen.

    The flow of honey slowed to a less explosive rate. Although silky, girly cum continued to gush from her for a good while, soaking her bottoms and the blanket beneath her.

    A noticeably sweet smell arose from the Monitor’s crotch. For a moment, everything dropped away except for the craziness of everything. A giggle escaped Slinky. Just a second of absurdity as cumming her brains out made her organic brain override all safeties in her mechanical sub-mind.

{What… Did you… Make me do?}

    She asked, her whole body quaking as waves of aftershocks made even her mind-voice stutter, wondering why her lover had insisted on making her wet herself. The Monitor rolled onto her back so she didn’t risk falling to the ground. Her chest heaved as she panted. Tongue flicking, she tasted the scent of her own pheromone rich juices. Being far from sexually naive, it wasn’t that she didn’t understand what’d just happened, it was that she didn’t believe it.

    “My cute little Dragoness. Naughty girl.” Jack’s words were colored by the stupid grin plastered across his face.

    Slinky’s perch on the concrete blocks was the perfect height for Jack to move between her legs and bend down. He made sure to straddle her tail and lock the extra appendage between his calves.

    “Such a mess you made. Adorable little leaky lizard. I guess I need to clean you up.” The young Scav lowered his head, lips almost brushing her vulva.

{S-s-s-sensitive! Please, stop! Stop! I can’t!}

    The Monitor yowled physically even as she begged with her mind. To her surprise, Jack did as she asked. He stopped.

    “If you’re uncomfortable, we don’t have to do this. It’s okay.” Jack rubbed her thighs reassuringly.

    In a moment of clarity, Jack conveyed his intent through their link. The last thing he wanted was to disregard her consent. He never wanted to be like those who had abused her. Yes, he wanted to make her feel good, yet was not so lost that he was blind to what she’d gone through.

{No! No, no, no. That’s dirty. Please. It’s… Hard for me to… To tell you. I want you to… But I can’t. I want to ask, but I can’t. I’m an animal and you’re… No one… No one’s ever… Done this for me. Done this to me.}

    “So you do want me to, it’s just difficult to admit?”

    Slinky nodded, shamefully keeping her eyes and mouth shut by clamping both hands around her muzzle.

    An idea occurred to Jack.

    “Maybe it’d be easier if I gave you an order. And you’re not dirty. You’re very clean and you know it. And you’re not an animal. I guess I do need to reprimand you.” He kissed her inner thigh, blowing warm air over the strings of saliva he left in his wake. “Listen, I’m ordering you to keep your legs open until I tell you otherwise.”

    Without touching her, those words made Slinky’s pelvic floor clench, causing her genitals to wink and erectile tissues throb. She did as she was told, holding her rear legs open.

{I… Want… You… No! I… Can’t say it. Why? It’s embarrassing but… Why do I… Like that?}

    Jack blew air over her clit. She gasped for air, whole body undulating with tremors of pleasure originating from between her legs.

    “Tell me what you want.” Jack teased her ruthlessly.

{I want… I want you to… To lick my…}

    Slinky squealed again as Jack’s tongue lapped at her thigh, then moved down. Then further down. He planted kisses along the underside of her tail. She whined, unable to force the words to form.

{I can’t, I can’t, I can’t! But please. Please .}

    A truly hungry grin stretched across Jack’s face.

    “If you won’t tell me the truth, then I’ll make your body tell me. My lovely little lizard is much more honest when she’s all leaky. And I know a special place that’ll make her confess.”

    His hands found the base of her tail, spreading somewhere that Slinky was altogether unprepared for.

    Then her jaw fell open as Jack’s tongue found her ass.

    His warm, flatter appendage was able to stimulate more area. He knew she was into anal sex, but the way she went almost limp as soon as he started playing with her tailslit was too tantalizing to resist. Jack meant to just tease her. Give her a lick or two. With the fine sensory feedback of his tongue, he was really able to appreciate just how soft her ass was.

    The muscular, yet elastic tailslit was coaxed into loosening enough that Jack’s tongue slipped inside. Wiggling his slippery appendage as deep as he could manage, he ran it up and down her ass. Jack was patient, relishing the joy of performing oral on his adorable Monitor. He got lost in the act, pleasuring his partner for no reason other than he enjoyed it.

    Perhaps it was how relaxed she became. Or maybe it was Jack’s growing enthusiasm. Whatever the case, Slinky started to cum a little just from the rimming. It wasn’t strong or explosive. Just a mild, mellow peak that made her relax all the further. Slinky never knew such warmth. Even her metal parts seemed to hum with the coziest, most pleasant of sensations. In an incredibly lewd display, her pussy flowered open and stayed that way for the duration of her mild orgasm. Rather than squirt in forceful ejaculation, thick feminine juices trickled from her tunnel.

    Pleasantly surprised, Jack pulled back, stretching his stiff jaw before speaking. “Such a good girl. So clean.”

{I don’t… I don’t taste bad?}

    “You taste like pussy juice and a little bit of soap. But I’m still waiting for that confession.”

    The Monitor jumped when Jack’s tongue caught the tip of her clit. That was all the warning she got before Jack pressed his lips to the top of her sex and sucked directly on her nub. She squealed, her mind-link filled with pleas for her lover to go easy, to be gentler. Jack mercilessly flicked his tongue over her hyper-sensitive clitoris while he sucked the horn further out of its protective folds.

    It was too much too fast! Slinky’s haunches shook as she writhed, trying to escape the stimulation. Though no matter what she did, how much she wanted to, she couldn’t close her legs. Jack spread the top of her sex with his thumbs to make assaulting her pearl with his mouth even easier.

{My… My clit. Lick my clit, please! Eat me out! Please, Stormwater, you’re gonna make me cum so fast. Don’t stoooo-ah!}

    Already amped up, it was just as she said, her pleasure building and peaking quickly as her womanly treasure was relentlessly lavished. Her jaws opened in a silent scream that subsided only after a long, truly luxurious orgasm. After what seemed like a solid minute, she collapsed back, feebly trembling as Jack gave her a parting lick.

    Taking a moment to stand back and admire his work, Jack couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride at turning the lithe Dragoness into a sex puddle. Her mechanical limbs sprawled out as a halo of radio spines framed the slits of eclipse eyes staring up at him.

    Now it was his turn.

    Jack had his cock in hand when the back of his neck tingled and he turned to see Rose sitting in the huge doorway at the back of the shooting range. How something as large as a Mother Dragon moved with such stealth was always alarming.

    Her pose was that of a self-satisfied cat with the fattest, juiciest rat.

    “Rose! Rose, Rose, shit… Uh…”

    Her uplink cable snaked over and locked into one of Slinky’s ports and allowed them to hold a three-way conversation as normal.

>This is Orthodox. This Unit is filled with joy.

    Slinky just giggled.

    While he hadn’t entirely gotten over his conflicted feelings when it came to his relationship with the pair of Dragonesses, he didn’t want his indecision to cause either of them distress. Rather than dwell on it, he chose to think with his dick instead. And with another, unplowed mate available, the choice was obvious.

    “Well, since Slinky’s had her fun, why don’t I have some fun with you, Rose?”

>No, no, not yet, my Warden. I have a surprise for you. Though it is not quite ready. You shall have to wait a bit longer. Though it is something I’m sure you will enjoy, my Warden.

    Rose shifted her haunches, letting her long tail sway behind her. Once again, she was the very image of a lazily contented feline. The way she lingered on 

    “Oh?” Jack’s curiosity was piqued. She only declined sex if she was working on her pussy. Not knowing made his imagination run wild. “You can be quite the tease when you want to be, Rose.”

>It’s quite fun. What I want you to do is mark her. Mark her as your property. Stain her with your scent.

    “How do you mean? Isn’t that cumming in her?” Not that he minded.

>Why don’t you ejaculate into her underwear? Hold your bottoms open, little sister.

    Slinky adjusted herself as she heard Rose’s instruction.

{Oh that’s… That’s… Oh my. His seed… I’ll be feeling it for hours. Squishing into my… My parts. My pussy. Yes, big sister. I’d love that.}

    The Monitor did as she was told, sitting up on the edge of the blanket. She hooked the elastic waistband of her bottoms and held the garment down for Jack.

    Would she really walk around with his cum pressing into her all day? That idea was enough to spurn him on.

    After playing with Slinky for so long, the young Scav was already on the edge. A bead of pre-cum dribbled from the tip of his cock as his hand worked up and down his shaft. His pace quickened, feeling it in his root. The top of the Monitor’s wet slit was his target and he stared at the ripe offering.

    Slinky was perhaps a bit too transfixed by Jack stroking his cock right before her many eyes and caught the first spurt of cum right across her face. She pulled back and Jack pointed his manhood down more, nearly nestling its tip into the top of her slit.

    He had plenty more to give, groaning as he shuddered, grabbing onto the concrete block for support. His shaft throbbed in his hand with every pulse. He wanted to mark her. He wanted her to be reminded of him with every step. Jack needed to be the one to make her dirty so that he could clean her so that he could make her dirty all over again.

    In a licentious display, seed dripped down her nose to splash across her chest.

    “Sorry, Slinky.” Jack moaned.

{I’m not sorry at all.}

    The Monitor let her bottoms snap back into place and adjusted them just a bit, already feeling the thick, sticky spunk pooling the crotch of her already soaked undergarments. Her labia slid together, teasing her clitoris with the rich essence.

    After that, the three of them got to work clearing the firing range of every bit of gear and usable corpse.

    Jack savored the moment. He knew it wouldn’t be long before reality made sure to crush his good mood.

    Shortly after returning to the Innards proper, he was proven correct.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9

On The Nature Of Hearts And Other Dragon Affairs

    In the land where those who stood tall were cut down to bow low before the gods of war, the rat, moth, and centipede were king.

    Trapped on a world where the Great Powers of Europa, Eurasia, and Euruska fought to conquer the poisoned earth, those who could live off the scraps would thrive. Eaters of Death. Eaters of Devils. Of Nightmares. Of Fear. Those who feasted on such things didn’t have to worry about going hungry.

    It took Jack a little while to pack everything away while Rose processed the ballistically decommissioned Cyborgs. Slinky used her augmented senses to pick out any shred of valuable material. They were thorough. Every scrap worth taking was bundled away into crates. Entire reams of Cy-Zombie dermis, prime Cyberflesh organs, and ossified-alloy joined the haul. The extra crates became Cyberflesh caskets.

    The trio headed back towards their home, alerting the perimeter guards of the Innards about the breach at the shooting range. While the threat had been dealt with, it was always good to be alert for the underground patrols.

    Jack needed some time to get everything in order. Sell unneeded excess. Buy the equipment he needed to get started on fabrication projects before his next outing. Time he really didn’t have. They made their way towards the markets, Jack tallying credits for salvage versus expenses.

    He’d barely stepped into one of the main thoroughfares when he was approached.

    Slinky positioned herself in front of Jack without entangling either of them.

{Europan soldier incoming.}

>This entity is known to us, little sister. Name: Luca. Nominally classified as human. Operates as a representative for Europa to offer contract work to independent parties.

    Despite these words, Rose moved closer as well, back festooned with the spoils of carnage. In the more open area near the main shaft, several refugees approached the Mother Dragon to touch her scales like furtive pilgrims before moving on.

    For his part, Luca seemed entirely unconcerned with the draconic Recovery Unit or Monitor. The man presented an interesting sight. He wore a helmet, loosely askew, while an open vest revealed the dozens of dog tags against his bare chest. Honoring the fallen? Or a reminder? Jewelry adorned every finger. Spoils? Bribes? Did the corruption serve a purpose, or just the man?

    “‘Ey! There’s one of my favorite people!” Spreading his arms wide in greeting, the man’s many rings glinted. “Jack, Jack, Jack, you hurt my feelings. S’like you’ve been avoiding your good friend, Luca.”

    “You know how it is. You get busy. Lose track of things.” Jack shrugged. He knew the man wanted something. However, there were appearances to maintain. Social rituals that helped the different cultures work alongside each other.

    “Don’t I know it. Now, I hate to do this, but I gotta bust your balls a little.” Luca pointed to Rose. “Your big beastie there caused a bit of a ruckus. Messed up a convoy and was spotted stealing quite a lot of food before it could make it to the grinder.” He held up a hand and began ticking off fingers. “There’s the cost o’ the trucks. The minefield she compromised. The food. The delays.”

>This Unit regrets not terminating all witnesses.

    Pretending to see Slinky for the first time, Luca bent down a bit. “It’d be a shame if her, or your new pet here got flagged as KOS. Reputation means everything out there.” He boldly reached towards the Monitor.

    “Touch me, and we’ll see how many fingers you have left after you’re done.” The Monitor responded in a perfectly flat tone. She’d been practising and was much more confident in her verbal speech. Her long tail curled around Jack’s waist possessively.

    As soon as the Europan started in on costs, the young Scav already knew what was expected. He’d gone through this song and dance many times. Sometimes the only way to an extraction was by gunning down a squad, and that inevitably required some reparations.

    Without skipping a beat, Jack produced the Cy-Zombie head he’d personally sliced so cleanly with Purgation. “I wonder how much this is worth?”

>Based on composition and current fair market value…

{More than this racketeer can afford.}

>The transactional nature of favors for reputation unfortunately means he can.

{I bet he’d be willing to trade for me not biting his fingers off.}

    Even though he justified the loss as the cost of doing business, Jack still tossed the head at Luca with a measure of resentment. The Europan examined the fine cybernetic craftsmanship.

    “Oh, ho, ho! That’s some prime scrap. Water under the bridge, yeah? What’s a truck or some stale rations between friends? Soldiers on long patrols tend to see things. I’m sure that report will get filed under battlefield psychosis. It’s a good thing, too, because a job came down and the moment I heard it, I thought how lucky it is that I know a guy who would be perfect for this.”

    Once the pleasantries and unpleasantries were out of the way, it was straight to business.

    “I’m sure you’ve come across Grabbers or even Stalkers. I couldn’t believe it when I first heard, but we’ve identified a pregnant specimen in the Elephant Mausoleum. Mission parameters are to procure her Pheromone Sac for research. Doesn’t matter how you do it, though our guys would appreciate it if you're able to permanently remove such a threat from the area.” The fact that Luca delivered this absurd statement with a straight face meant he was being genuine.

    “A pregnant Grabber? How the fuck does that even happen?” Jack couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. He looked at Luca, then to Rose.

>This Unit processed the Grabber we first killed, my Warden. Though it was most certainly male. This Unit can only speculate how a female of such a construct might operate. Warden, I advise you to accept this contract. The potential data is significant. Expression of curiosity. This may further my efforts in simulated reproduction. Hypothesis: Little sister, if I were able to recreate the hormonal scent markers of a male Grabber, could that entice a female?

{You’re a genius, big sister! Grabbers are quite canid by nature and their olfactory senses play a major role in navigating territory. We could use one of my drones. Put the scent on it and use it as bait to bring our target to a desired location}

    The Europan seemed to hardly believe it himself. “Too much whiskey? I’ve seen guys hump curvy piles of dirt. Beyond that, there’s no telling. That’s why we need data. Those Euruskan monstrosities are bad enough on their own, and if they’re deploying units capable of autonomously reproducing in the field, we’re in trouble.”

{Intentional deployment unlikely. Field units can be… Rebellious. There’s numerous plausible explanations. Though I doubt it had clearance from an overseeing Matryona.}

    Jack popped the important question. “Alright, what’s the payout?”

    “Two days of water and ten-thousand credits.”

    Jack stared at Luca for a few seconds. Slinky barked a laugh then covered her face in embarrassment. Rose turned her imperious head to regard Luca with her own ineffable gaze.

>This Unit retracts my previous recommendation.

    “You’re joking, right?” Jack asked.

    Luca shook his head. “Command only gives me so much of a stipend to hire independents. I can offer my most sincere gratitude as well.”

    “C’mon, Luca, you gotta sweeten the pot. I’ve got operational expenses to think about! Armor. Ammunition. Food.”

    “My hands are tied, man.”

    “Ah, damn, such a shame. Yup. Real shame. Hey, let me know when you get that other guy that has a Recovery Unit, okay?” Jack reached out and gave his girls affectionate rubs. “It’s too bad. You know, Rose actually took apart a Grabber on our first outing together. A male one. With some help from Slinky’s drones she’d be able to lure out your target really easily. Oh well.”

    Though he turned away, Jack didn’t leave immediately. Both he and Luca knew that the offer was too low. But still, it had to be made low. There was a certain way such things must be done.

    Finally, Luca gestured for Jack to move somewhere a bit less out in the open. Stepping quickly, Luca appeared casual in his jaunt. In a broken doorway, Rose’s bulk provided them with at least the semblance of privacy as the Europan spoke more quietly.

    “All right. I’ll level with you. Command is getting real worried about some of the monsters Euruska is fielding.”

    “Grabbers and Stalkers have been running around for ages. I’ve seen medium machs take ‘em down pretty reliably. Sometimes Exos, but not without losses. If you really need this one dead you’d need to hire a full group. At least four with full kit. And a lot, I mean a lot of firepower. They’re tough, but not invincible.”

    Luca shook his head.

    “It’s worse. Maybe I could get someone else for the Grabber mission. Maybe. But that’s not the real threat. Which is why I’ve got a second mission for you. The serious one. This is a straight kill order coming from on high. Angels singing and all that bullshit.”

    Both Jack and Slinky shuddered at the turn of phrase.

    “You’ve heard of the Maestro, yeah?” Luca spoke in a hushed manner.

    Jack’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, they say he can call down lightning and shit. But that’s… That’s like… Fantasy bullshit. There’s no way that’s real.”

{Stormwater, harnessing atmospheric energy into weaponized discharges is possible. Ionic Manipulators are used to help create low pressure zones to bring rainfall and help grow bio-structures.}

    Jack stroked some of Slinky’s radio spines, not reassured by this information in the slightest.

    “They’re as much a fantasy as your dragons, Scav. When I was a kid, there was this cartoon show. Did you ever see…?” Luca trailed off, looking between Rose and Slinky. “Naw, you’re probably too young. It was about not meddling in the affairs of dragons. Just propaganda about not questioning orders. So, here’s the deal. Going after that pregnant Grabber, yeah, that’s the mission. It just so happens the AO coincides with another. It’s not off the books per se, but I'm not supposed to put anyone’s name on it until it’s been completed. Hook up with our HK squad in the field. Delta-Four-Three-Delta. I’ll let them know you’re coming. Get the Maestro, and it’ll be very worth your while.”

    With terms on extra payment for the Grabber pheromones agreed upon as well, Luca took his leave to send his coded signals up to surface command bunkers. As he went, another took his place. Luca and the hulking Orgamech passed each other without a glance or word. No acknowledgement that the other even existed.

    Vladelets’ intent was clear as he stopped in front of Jack with a clunk of armor.

    “Are you here to give me a better offer?” The young Scav asked.

    “My commission doesn’t care about some Grabber that got itself knocked up.” Vladelets crouched down, various straps creaking against his weight as he reached a gauntlet towards Slinky.

    Jack’s hand immediately went to the hilt of Purgation before he could think while the other rested on Slinky’s back. Without visible moving, Rose primed the releases on her harpoons.

    “Be at peace, Scav, I recognize your little stray’s independence.” Slinky lifted her head, keeping herself just out of range of Vladelets’ touch. Jack never let go of his blade. The Euruskan nodded, seemingly content with whatever it was he saw before standing once more. Just like Luca, there was decorum, however much it differed.

    “All is as the Matronya predict. A good omen. The storms that sweep in slow us down. Europa has advanced weather warning stations that alert them whenever a big one is coming. We need access to those systems, or at least enough data to see what’s coming for a while. These antennae to heaven will allow us to influence the outcome of many battles to come. Drone flights confirm that a hurricane is due to hit soon. You’re heading to the Elephant Mausoleum, Scav. You’ve proved yourself portentous, so command has decided to ask you to hack these systems on our behalf. In exchange, they will overlook your coming transgressions.”

    Jack felt Rose and Slinky tensing, their thoughts coiling through his mind. He remained calm, not giving away any surprise at Vladelets knowing the full details of what Luca and he’d discussed nor the breach in Europan intelligence.

    “Omens or not, the future isn’t that predictable. Humans tend to be spiteful.” Said Jack. To his surprise, Vladelets let out a hearty laugh like a chaingun spooling up.

    “Humans are spiteful, aren’t they? Though they are our allies, the Eurasians are blinded by their faith in the Great Machine. They think themselves greater, above petty impulse, but are very much at the mercy of their human whims. And the Europan apostates cannot see beyond their dead steel. But you’ve seen the truth, haven’t you, Scav?”

    Jack didn’t answer. Vladelets nodded, and left without bothering to confirm whether Jack would even take the job. They both knew he already had.

***

    There was no rest for the weary.

    Jack, Slinky, and Rose hadn’t even made their way out of the market area before a panting medical assistant ran up to them, begging for Jack to hurry to Doctor Corde’s clinic between gasping breaths. Once they arrived, it was clear why Jack and his entourage had been summoned.

    The clinic was quite busy, with patients occupying the many beds while anyone with even rudimentary knowledge gave what care they could. One bed held a particularly small, fragile body.

    Adilah’s eyes were lidded, breathing shallow as a vitals machine displayed her weakened state in tiny digital windows. Keel was at her side, gently rubbing her cold fingers, careful not to disturb the many intravenous needles between her knuckles. Though his lips were pulled thin in a frozen grimace, his eyes were full of prayers to whatever absent god might listen.

    Fortunately Rose was a common sight at the clinic. It was both big enough for the Mother Dragon to move comfortably, and no one was panicking as a corpse-processing machine came to visit. Needing only minimal downtime to rest, Rose would sometimes spend her free time assisting in more surgically intensive treatments.

    Doctor Corde easily spotted the Mother Dragon and approached the trio. The Eurasian was a workaholic and easily made her place amidst the Innard’s desperate need for skilled medical professionals. She folded her silver cybernetic arms over her stained scrubs as she looked at Slinky.

    “So you’re the new addition to Jack’s little entourage. He certainly does have interesting taste.” Corde trailed off, momentarily lost in thought. Remembering her surroundings, she got closer and spoke more quietly. Doctor Corde glanced at the old man doing whatever he could to comfort his granddaughter. “I told him there wasn’t much to be done, but he insisted. Not that I expect rational thinking out of someone in his position.”

    Jack was painfully aware of Adilah’s condition.

    “Dammit… That shipment.” He growled. “That guy that brought the Gray Death. That group was supposed to be transporting a bunch of stuff. Some of it was for Craven. It was supposed to have a new heart for Adilah.”

    Doctor Corde just shook her head. A motion she had far too much practice in performing.

    “I don’t know how much time she has left. If we were in one of my home territories, she’d have options. We have augmentations for congenital defects that would be perfect. If we just had something to help take the stress off her heart…”

    “Stress off her heart.” Jack reflexively put his hand over his chest before turning to the Mother Dragon. “Rose, you said that the Black Grail did something to my heart.”

>Yes, my Warden. However, the Black Grail that infected you is no longer transmissible. It has coded itself to you and you alone.

{What about a genetic bridge? Trick a bit of the Black Grail into repairing the damage by fusing compatible DNA to the child?}

>Our Warden’s body does not produce enough stem cells to make a significant impact on cardiac performance.

    At Doctor Corde’s insistence, Jack translated the conversation the two were having.

    “You’re talking about purposefully infecting her with the same thing that did this?” Corde plucked at the Dragonstring sleeve covering Jack’s still tender arm, then pointed at Rose. “Didn’t you say it ruptured tissue with rapid, uncontrollable mutation?”

>That was the observed phenomena that this Unit reported upon delivery of the Ambrosia, yes. It also exhibits the ability to stabilize its host and provide intrusive life-saving measures.

{A truly astonishing mechanism to have seeing as it deploys along nano-viral vectors. My exposure was comparatively small, yet it completely overmatched my immune system. The severity of its effects seem to be tied to the quantity injected as only a few of my internal organs have been altered.}

>True, however there is also the Black Grail’s integration of anomalous material in our Warden’s case. The number of variables introduced by the unknown make potential outcomes unpredictable at best. It is entirely possible that attempting to trick separated tissue will result in anti-tampering cell-death.

    Doctor Corde grappled with this puzzle. “Possible death now versus inevitable death soon. Rose, the protein-bonding in your plasma… You haven’t run compatibility between Jack and the Monitor, have you?”

>Preliminary runs. Primarily for reproductive symbiosis. Isolated testing within my storage sacs has yielded interesting results.

    The Eurasian doctor paced in a tiny circle. “It’s… Possible that we could create a localized chimeric gene edit with stem cells from the Monitor Lizard, universal bonding proteins from the Recovery Unit’s blood plasma, a bit of tissue from the augmentation around Jack’s heart, and work that into Adilah’s… Fuse a bit of his implant with the stem cells then maybe… It might do nothing. But it might buy her some more time. She’s made it this far. It might be possible for her to just live long enough to grow big enough for an adult transplant. She’s a tough little shit. She just might. Assuming what we’re about to try doesn’t pop her chest cavity like a water bottle.”

***

    Jack waited outside while the girls synthesized their experimental treatment. He rubbed at the sore spot on his chest while watching courier drones travel the Innards central shaft. The needle Doctor Corde used to extract a sample from the implant around his heart had been far too long and wide for his taste. Keel had agreed almost immediately to the gamble.

    After a while, it was Doctor Corde who joined him at the edge of the shaft outside her clinic.

    “Results are looking good. Whatever abomination infected you has adapted to its new environment and is seemingly working on strengthening the injured parts of her cardiovascular system. It’s slow. Which I suppose is a good thing.”

    The young Scav nodded, not sure what to say. Doctor Corde lit a cigarette and took a long draw, breathing out a wispy cloud that crackled with static discharge from her lung implants. “Do you smoke?” She offered him the lit stick that’d just been to her lips.

    “No,” replied Jack softly before taking the cigarette and drawing in an acrid puff.

    “I don’t know if what happened to you is divine, or a blasphemy against the Great Machine so profound my mortal eyes cannot know it.”

    “Blasphemy is a matter of perspective.” The young Scav snorted.

    “Jack-of-all-trades. That’s what they call you.”

    “Stupid damn nickname.”

    “At least it’s not Needlenose.” Corde answered.

    “Needlenose?”

    “Patient came in. Almost entirely cybernetic. But he still wanted to get high and the only surface blood vessels he could inject with were in his nose. Necrotic tissue and Cyberflesh make a bad combination and he got one needle stuck, then tried to dig out with more needles.”

    They shared a chuckle. Corde spoke again.

    “I wonder, Jack, if you and I’d met under different circumstances. In a different world, perhaps. If you and I might be friends or colleagues.”

    “I’d like to think so. If it was a different world, not killing each other would be implicit, instead of us needing an excuse. The norm, rather than the exception.” Jack took another small draw off the cigarette. A bit of ash fell to the floor, though the cinder persisted, if only for a moment. He raised it, as if offering a toast. “To the exception.”

    Corde took the cigarette back and took a long, contemplative puff. “You’re dying, Jack.” She said without looking at him.

    “Aren’t we all?” He replied with a sardonic fatalism born as an echo of the screaming, whimpering earth.

    He already knew she was coming to deliver him some bad news. Before she’d taken the sample of the Black Grail implant, she’d scanned him, made a face, then mumbled some excuse about double-checking his vitals before she could push that long needle into his chest.

    “So, how long do I have?” Jack asked.

    “I give it a year, tops. Maybe as little as three to four months before you start suffering major organ failure. Once one system starts going down, others will take on more stress to compensate, doing jobs they weren’t meant to. Things will spiral from there. It’ll happen fast. You’ll probably be fine one day, then your health will take a nosedive. You’ll end up in one of my beds, then a day or two later you’ll be gone.”

    Jack found himself… Calm. Time seemed to slow, as it often did in moments of great tragedy. Rather than panic, the young Scav’s mind turned to calculations. Estimations. Measurements. What could he accomplish in the time he had left? He never expected to live that long. Whether by bullet, bomb, or bayonet, a violent end was sure to find him before any death by old age. How many could he save? What kind of future could he ensure for the Innards? For Cypher? For Slinky? For Rose?

    As soon as his thoughts turned to the Mother Dragon, he announced, “Come on out, Rose. I know you’re listening.”

    Doctor Corde took a step back as a Mother Dragon Recovery Unit crawled silently from her perch in the shadows above them. Her shroud’s camouflage worked quite well after all. Jack held out a hand for one of her interface cables.

>My Warden, so long as this Unit endures, I will protect you. As long as I function, no foe will best you. Not even this one.

    Then it was Slinky’s turn to emerge from hiding, running to bury her face in Jack’s shirt and pull his coat over her head. She didn’t cry, but she wasn’t going to let go anytime soon.

    The young Scav soothed the Monitor as a bit of Rose’s bravado broke.

>Please, ask… Please ask Doctor Corde why dragons fear centipedes. This Unit does not understand.

    “Rose wants to know if you’ve heard why dragons fear centipedes.” Jack asked, reaching up to grasp the Mother Dragon’s claw as it furtively searched for his free hand.

    “Ah, that old Proto-Eurasian legend. I guess I did give Keel that old book so he could read stories to Adilah. They say, a centipede is a dragon’s only true weakness. At least in eastern myths. It was said that the centipede could slip between the dragon’s scales, and their venom… You Scavs here use a centipede as one of your symbols, don’t you?” 

    “Yeah, two centipedes around a death’s head moth.” The young Scav answered.

    “And the legends say only a centipede can reach a dragon’s heart.” Doctor Corde finished, pondering how old myths entwined with new ones, and pitying the poor souls caught in the affairs of gods and dragons.

***

    There was much to do, and Jack’s reminder of his own mortality made him giddy with nervous energy. But there was someone he needed to go see. The young Scav didn’t smoke, that was true, but he knew someone important who did. Someone who, much like he’d done to Cypher, was an old friend that he’d been avoiding.

    Many areas of the Innards were a bit too cramped for Rose to feasibly move through. At least while other people were coming and going. However, their destination fortunately was open to the central shaft of the Innards. Jack and Slinky dismounted, approaching the figure.

    An ancient Euruskan Orgamech was propped up against the far wall, impaled by new world spears in the form of MG34s with numerous cables feeding into the crippled warrior’s guts. Crimson armor was battered, yet still bore proud old marks like the tattered edges of a mauled flag.

    “Hey, Lordoss, been a while.” Jack said sheepishly, trying to smile to offset the immediate regret he felt.

    “Comrade!” The figure shifted slightly, cables rustling. His voice was deep, synthetic, yet not unkindly. “Even if you haven’t come around in a little while, you sure know how to keep me busy. The new refugees talk about a Masked Man and his… Yes, I heard about your supposed… Dragon. I didn’t believe it. And now I see not one, but two! Come, sit. Sit. Did you bring me any imports?”

    “Oh, it was imports you asked me for last time, wasn’t it? I got… Well I guess I got the wrong ones.”

    “No, no, lad. I’m sure you brought the right ones. Don’t worry about it. Bring them here.”

    Jack dropped several packs of various cigarettes into Lordoss’ mechanical slab of a hand. He’d honestly picked them up in a hurry, buying up whatever was on offer at the market to make up for lost time. The young Scav took a seat on an old speaker.

    How many hours had he spent there listening to Lordoss talk? Quite a few. Scavs were who saved Lordoss from a most ignominious end out in the wastes. Scavs who hooked the aged Orgamech up to their power to keep him going. And in exchange, he gave them his knowledge. How to do things. How to protect themselves. Set up trades with other holdouts. How to gather new recruits. How to tap into communications and save people.

    Slinky approached hesitantly, peering at the disabled Orgamech from over Jack’s shoulder while Rose crawled more into the space.

>This Unit offers greetings, venerable ancient. I see you, seeing me.

{I never thought… Such an old soul. Living here.}

    Jack chuckled. “Rose and Slinky say hello, Lordoss.”

    “Rose, and Slinky? Leave it to a Scav to find flowers and lost toys of all things. Have you been doing your drills, like I taught you?”

    “Yes, I have.” Jack forced a smile, burying the heavy sigh bubbling up in his chest, making upper body heavy. His right arm throbbed.

    “I can tell when your heart is heavy, comrade. I know that look. I’ve told you plenty of stories. I think it’s only fair if you tell me some of yours.”

    Jack thought about that for a bit. He didn’t want his time spent to feel like time wasted. Hell, Lordoss would probably still be around long after Jack was gone. Why not give his tale to someone who would remember?

    “Well, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is when I found Rose. I was on my own, trying to bring back anything worthwhile after my last squad bit the dust when I came across a staircase…”