As it turned out, the weapons they drew were not in fact melee weapons, but were actually pipe guns formed of cheap materials. I didn’t even get a shot off before I had to duck behind cover again. Several shots flew over my head. Thankfully, I had the higher ground so it was easier for me to land shots on them than for them to land shots on me. Unfortunately, they had the numbers advantage by quite a significant margin.
Their bullets would dent and plink off the rusty ship’s hull. I kept my head down regardless. They may have had numbers, but I had Scout. With a few quick taps on my forearm, I pulled her out of Recon and into Combat. She shrieked and hurtled down into the attackers.
I couldn’t really see from my hiding position, but I didn’t need to. A heavy thump was followed by a deep wheeze and wet coughs. The bullets stopped ricocheting off of my cover and started to fire elsewhere, presumably at the metal bird that was tearing into the gang.
“Call it off! Call it--” the leader was interrupted mid-plea by a grating screech and a sharp whoosh of air, followed by several gunshots and screams in pain. I covered my ears and balled up behind the metal plate that covered me. I shuddered with every agonizing scream.
Eventually, the sounds of rampant gunfire and blood-curdling shrieks stopped. It took a while, but the only sound that could be heard was the soft breeze over the surrounding dunes. A heavily blood-covered Scout flitted up onto the deck that I laid prone on, eyes just as red as her bladed feathers and steel talons. Her beak was slightly dented inwards, but her chest had a small perforation in it. She looked at me pleadingly with those crimson LEDs, begging for me to give her something else to kill. I couldn’t meet her gaze. I tapped my forearm a couple times and her eyes shifted from an evil red to a soft blue, but the coat of blood wouldn’t clean itself. She hopped over to my side and tried curling into my arms, clearly sensing some anguish from me. Whether the forearm implant was feeding her information about my cortisol levels or if she could genuinely see that I wasn’t well, I will never really know. I’ll hope for the latter, but I’ll assume the former. I pushed her away and leaned over the side of the boat. My mouth became bitter as bile rose from my chest. I retched.
“Are you okay, daddy?”
I looked back at Scout. Her head was tilted sideways. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and took out my water.
“Come here, baby. Let me clean you off.” She hopped over to me as I downed some water for myself and poured some more onto a loose rag in my pocket. I tapped my forearm again and locked her into place, shutting off her internal engines. The soft blue lights faded to black. I scrubbed her down thoroughly, but some of the marks wouldn’t come off so easily. My baby was stained with blood. I scoffed at the irony of it all. Well, irony? Maybe poetic justice is a better term for it. In any case, Scout was filthy with discolorations on her plating.
Below me, some metal pounded faintly with some muffled yelling. I cradled my forehead with my hands, sighed, and picked up Scout with the rag as I made my way down to the crate that the stranger was hiding in.
The latch was firmly stuck in place over the storage container door, and it took a couple tries and some scratches with a knife to slide the rusty lever over the equally rough patches of metal that locked it into place. He came out of the door swinging his fists rapidly before realizing that I was the only one around.
“So you’re tellin’ me that your bird killed ‘em all, then?”
I nodded, emphatically raising the bloody Scout. He squinted at it.
“Huh. Well, there goes all my friends.”
“What is it with you? I can’t figure you out, uh…”
“Call me Danny.”
“Okay, Danny. Why are you so casual about it all?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Are you aware of the fact that armageddon came and went? You seem to have this carefree demeanor, and quite frankly, I don’t like it.”
Danny creased the side of his lip and frowned. “What’s not to like? You are asking me why I act the way I do, but why are you so serious all the time? Like you got a stick up your--”
“Don’t deflect the question, Danny.” He sighed, and sat down on the floor with his back against the wall.
“The one time I’m being serious, and you think I’m deflecting. What do you think I do to keep going out here? I mean, you seem pretty smart. Don’t know what half the words you use mean, if that’s any indicator. You should be able to figure out me pretty easily.”
“Well, I’m not, and I haven’t.”
“Agree to disagree, then. Come and sit down, man.”
I glared at him, sighed, and pulled up a loose can near the storage container.
“Well, alright then. So, what’s your name, then?”
“Just call me Ben.” He smiled.
“Ben! What a solid name. I like it.” He flourished his hands in the air, sweeping across an imaginary rainbow. “Ben and Danny, partners in crime.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Danny. I don’t know you.”
“But didn’t we just figure out that you do?”
“...no, we most certainly did not ascertain that. I mean, I learned that you like deflecting--”
“I do not!”
“--and you are pretty shit at hiding in safe spots.”
“Yeah, okay, I agree with the last one, but not the deflecting thing!”
“If you don’t deflect, why haven’t you answered my question?”
“Uh… what was your question again?”
I sighed in exasperation. He laughed a little while longer at my frustration before sobering up.
“Look, Ben, I know that you care about surviving. Why you do, I don’t know. Yet. But, to answer your question, I don’t care about surviving. Look outside that hatch and point to the nearest city. Even if you call Rockjaw a city, it’s still miles and miles away. As far as I’m concerned, humanity had its chance, and we blew it. Now we simply wait the days out till every single resource is used up completely out in this hell, and then we die. Might as well get some fun, right?”
***