Godclads

Chapter 4-5 …Is Never a Milk-Run

Why Scalpers? Heh. Name’s leftover from a bad habit I picked up during my days serving in the Skaldglas. Was posted in Nu-Scarrowbur during the war, but spent most of my time beneath the plates, fighting the ghouls.

There is a certain…desperation that fills you when you fight the ghouls. A thrill. It’s like you looking down the throat of death unchained, and you just have to keep feeding the Big Nothing. Explosives. Guns. Drones. Golems. Flechettes. Knives. Kill the monsters however you can, but you gotta go for the brain.

“If the head’s intact, the ghoul ain’t dead,” was the saying.

Guess I took that too close to heart.

-Mem-Log of Vincentine “Ripperjack” Javvers, Head of the Scalpers Syndicate

4-5

…Is Never a Milk-Run

His body surged. His armor caught up nearly an eternity later. The neural connectors in his back came afire with heat as Avo hissed in pain. His body wasn’t feeling the strain with the rig moving on his behest, but something was wrong with the connection. It felt like his nerve centers were being cooked along his spine, flashing pulses of pain and hurt surging through his skull.

But even in the haze of confusion, he still struck before the target could retreat. He zoomed up the side of the building, a wild hand reaching out for her. He tried to grab her. He ended up slamming a palm into her nose instead. A spurt of blood escaped through the gaps in his armored fingers. He felt the ridge of cartilage that was her nose sink below her carving face, her teeth cracking free like scattering pellets. Carried by the sheer force of the blow, she met the ceiling back-first in a thunderous impact.

A loud crash of shattering titles and rattling metal made Avo wonder if he killed her outright. The lack of flowing Essence or a ghost drifting into him meant otherwise.

Avo stopped tensing his organ. The sudden tidal wave of pain that shot through his body nearly made him lose his grip. He buried his fingers tighter through the surface of the projectors. The Celerostylus really didn’t like interfacing with the armor. Another problem that should have been resolved earlier.

Taught him to trust Chambers or Janand to ensure his in-field efficiency. He expected they would ensure his functionality if nothing else. But it should have taken little foresight to see them bringing about his death through raw incompetence alone.

He should have insisted on examining his own kit. The same rules between equipment and phantasmics applied here.

Across the commlink, he heard Chambers roaring with laughter. “Jaus’ fucking corpse, he swatted that poor girl! You see that shit Janard?”

The bastard tech was laughing at that too. Reminded Avo all his new coworkers were part of an amoral snuff industry.

Peeking over the open window, Avo saw a bent metal doorframe directly across from him. A smear of blood ran along the cracked ceiling, with the recently made jutting edges still clinging to flaps of skull tissue. The girl he just hit lay next to a folded door, confirming her survival in wet sputtering breaths.

She must’ve had laced bones seeing that her neck didn't snap in half from the hit. Avo doubted any flat could take a blow like that and come out alive. More than surprise, he felt the rage of shame bubbling inside him, building with Chambers’ choked chortles.

Milk run. Milk run didn’t mean Avo could let himself be this sloppy. Walton had trained him to be better, to focus more on the task than being smitten with a new tool. With him treating his new armor like a toy, the distraction cost him his focus, and in turn, his resulting incompetence made him inflict harm on the choiceless when it could have been avoided.

Well, before he had enough cause, anyway. He would gladly kill and eat her if she granted him proper cause.

Crawling into the room, he tore the window loose from its hinges and forced his way in. Around him was a bathroom of some kind, vast in its design.

A square-shaped bathtub filled with stale water sloshed about to his right. Dead flies danced along the bobbing waters, rising up and down like freckles upon the face of the turgid waters. A bent showerhead swung back and forth above him. To his right, five gold facets protruding over a large grime-coated sink added a dim note of ambiance to the room, playing soft dripping drums.

The girl moaned in pain. Avo clanked his teeth out of habit.

The beast wanted to finish her off. Open her throat and drink from her. Avo resisted. He had done enough to her. More than he knew she deserved anyway. Her thoughtstuff indicated that she was still conscious, but concussed past the nine hells with how her surface thoughts were popping before they could even congeal.

Something moved through the walls. Avo looked up. Three signatures of thoughtstuff filtered into the room past the door. None of them were warded. Gangers were equipped even worse than the Syndicate's goons down here.

The Nightmantis’ audio-detection functions narrowed in on several sources of sound. The walls weren’t thick, but there was a steady undercurrent of volume he needed to work through.

The Chambers’ marker pulsed beyond the bent door, lighting the entirety of the room. It was here. The biomods. The package. He just needed to–

“Ta-zzzie?” the electro-modded voice toned. Whoever was speaking sounded like an electric guitar of some kind shredding faint approximations of syllables into existence. “Co—oonnnnnnsangg! You al-Right!”

Avo cringed at the sudden spike in volume pulsing out from the speaker through the busted door.

“Oh good,” Chamber said. “It’s Shred. Snatch him. He’ll tell you where the biomod is. Save you the trouble of tearing through the room."

Avo squeezed out a hiss of frustration. “Know him?”

“Yeah. Pretty fucking annoying guy. Had a voice modular implanted in his throat. Crazy into the Nautcore–”

“Useful details, not hobbies,” Avo said, interrupting.

“I sold the package to him, okay? He’s the guy who should have it.”

This important, but previously unmentioned detail brought blessings of headaches and tidings of building fury. It was like applying for a job under a chem-addicted Guilder in the Undercroft; the details and duties he had to fill under Conflux were seemingly dependent on the whims and moods of whatever handler he had at the time.

“Chambers,” Avo said, barely containing his snarl, “Snatch-and-grab is fixed-position retrieval. No harm. Just take. This isn't snatch-and-grab. This is repossession.”

Chambers scoffed. “Why’s this shit matter? Look, if it makes you feel better, you are still technically snatching it back from them.”

"Also forgot to tell me that you sold it to them. You had the mods in the first place."

The enforcer chuckled. “Well…”

Avo took a breath. It didn’t help. He was going to pluck out one of Chambers’ eyes later and eat it later. That would calm him down.

“Let’s just say I made a mistake,” Chambers continued. “Might’ve undervalued what I had.”

“And…you want it back?”

“Hells fucking yeah I want it back. Heard Mirrorhead was offering bonuses for any new aug earlier in the week. Offering fucking triple what I sold it for. Tried buying it back ‘legally’ but that ganger-fuck Shred said someone else already placed an order for it. So, naturally, I decided to seal three deals with one run. You test your little dress. I get my stuff back without paying. The boss gets some new product.”

Avo ground his teeth together. Taught him to agree to favors. Taught him to let someone else plan one of his dives. This could have all been avoided if he just said no. Why didn't he say no?

Maybe it was exhaustion from the sheer amount of torment he went through the day before. Maybe it was the fact that Chambers was just so affable, and Avo thought he found someone he could turn to his advantage in this incomprehensible organization of unscrupulous degenerates.

“T-AAASSIII!” Shred said, voice rising to a shredding note. “Op-eennnnn the doooooorrr. Put the nee–dlee dow-nnnn. Buy-ers-are-a-commm-iinnnggg.”

Shred began kicking the door in frustration. A piece of metal burst off the hinges. Activating his Whisper, Avo fed his awareness through the wall like a needle to scry at what he was facing.

He found himself staring an executive suite turned drug den. Used elixirs and half-filled syringes littered the place. Gaudy skins harvested from chimeric bioforms hung from the walls like nailed carpets. A massive grav-bed hummed at the end of the room, the gold frame shining despite the filth.

There were but three people in the room. Two had minimal combat augs and looked to be light of arms as well. One sat upon the couch, focused on a holovision playing an old frontier piece. The last one’s considerable bulk and lack of chrome made Avo guess they were Scaarthian, albeit under seven feet tall and still young enough to be male.

Good. Meant they were far younger than Rantula. Avo didn’t want to deal with someone that had her strength even in a rig. The fact that he was facing a juvenile boded well.

Threat assessment: Minimal. Avo seized the initiative.

With a tug, he listened to the servomotors in his rig whistle as he pried the door free. Before him, Shred stumbled back, eyes widening in shock. Reflexively, the ganger went for the pistol tucked at his waist. Casually, Avo jabbed him in the ribs. The chorus of snaps ran deep and loud. Shred went down gasping for air.

Wild gunshots roared. Impacts skipped off Avo’s armor from the left. A ganger-youth covered in hap-tats and lined with horns aimed a wrist-grown bio-gun at him, the cartilaginous barrel smoking, the sacs of skin behind it alight with biochemical combustions.

Speckles of blue dotted Avo’s rig-integrity menu. Low caliber impact. Small arms. No danger. He could have probably taken those shots even outside the rig.

Instinctively, Avo almost activated his reflexes again before the ebbing pain reminded him not to. Didn’t matter. Didn’t need it.

The bio-gun barked twice more and puffed. Empty. The juv took a step back, but too late. Avo brought his arm down like a hammer. The ganger's collarbone split in half, folding beneath the weight of the blow. The ganger tumbled back with a choked cry, crashing against the couch and finally alerting the Scaarthian, who was too distracted by the climatic sequence playing on the holovision.

The large alt-human stood, turning to greet Avo with a broadening grin. Inside, the beast chuffed with curiosity. Did this one think he could take someone in a rig? The other two were too soft to be of amusement, but perhaps this one…

The Scaarthian ducked. Avo reached over to grab him, but then something blurred upward in an arc. A flashing blow sent Avo sliding back. A spill of blue ran down his right arm in the integrity menu as a guitar shattered against his right pauldron. Without pause, the Scaarthian pushed, slamming his forehead into the center mass of Avo’s armor.

The strike was heavy. Outside of the rig, it would have doubtlessly broken Avo's bones. Inside, he barely heard the thud.

Eyes lined with ritualized scars running from a sigil-like orb at his forehead, the Scaarthian brayed a bellow of joyous violence as he brought the broken neck of the guitar to bear like a club, working against the titanium plating of the rig.

He swung. Avo shifted back, the lag leaving a beat too slow and the blow an inch too close. A line of blue was scored across the rig. Three nothing. Avo frowned. The rig was making him slow and careless. The mounting frustration inside him made him want to shoot the last ganger with his cannon.

Ethics, meanwhile, plucked at his aim. He needed to finish this properly; without killing them. He was already committing a wrong by invading their home.

The gangers were just defending their goods, after all. Not their fault he had been hoodwinked by Chambers into a literal home invasion in a snatch-and-grab turned dishonorable repo-op.

Shuffling back, Avo jabbed the Scaarthian twice as he overextended. Satisfying shivers of force washed deep through the rig. The Scaarthian’s cheek broke, and jaw snapped. He slipped on a rolling bottle, tripping. Avo caught him by a flap of ear and pulled. The Scaarthian yelped, stumbling forward.

Eye-first into an armored elbow.

The pain of having one’s eyeball popped would have put most people down. But this one was a hard-blooded brawler and fought on as if divorced from pain. The Scaarthian batted Avo’s hand aside and drove into him. In a feat of gene-blessed strength, the ganger pushed, arms wrapped around the legs of the rig. Like a tree being chopped, Avo felt the impossible strength in his adversary's muscles swell, raw flesh overcoming wailing servos.

For a moment, he managed the inconceivable: lifting the rig off the carpet. That triumph lasted until Avo shoved a pointed thumb right into the Scaarthian’s ear, shredding the flesh inside and hooking out to cripple his equilibrium.

This finally earned a cry from the Scaarthian as he toppled forward. Both of their masses plunged back and crashed through the walls, Avo stumbling, the ganger toppling. They were back in the bathroom again, the fight going from dirty carpets to filth-stained tiles.

Groaning, the last ganger spat broken teeth and held the tattered sinews of his inner ear in place. Glaring up defiantly at Avo, the Scaarthian grinned, expression feral and warlike, caked beneath a mask of blood. “C-come on, soft-hands. Give me some pain worth feeling.”

“Jaus, fucking Scaarthians, cosang,” Chambers said. It sounded like he was eating something. A snack. Once again, Avo found himself serving as entertainment. “My advice... just shoot him.”

Inside the armor, Avo was licking his lips as well. The Scaarthian had proven to be prey worth eating, but prey that was still too unethical to claim. The beast coiled, writhing against its restraints. Avo swallowed his saliva.

“Sorry about the leg,” Avo said.

The Scaarthian frowned in confusion.

And before the ganger could rise from his knees, Avo shifted to the side and stomped down. A bladed leg bit through an Achilles tendon. The Scaarthian winced but didn’t cry out. Not even when Avo took the other leg from him as well. Immediately, before even hitting the ground, the ganger clawed out, trying to bring Avo down with him, anything to keep the fight going.

Avo nodded. Another time, another life, the old war gods of the Skuldvast would have proudly poured great blessings upon this one.

Right now though, the ganger was just a stubborn brawler in a foul bathroom. One that was eating away at too much of Avo’s self-control and time.

Reaching down, he slammed a final punch into the previously exposed tissue of their inner ear. The Scaarthian roared, voice carrying more fury than pain as he toppled, balance fleeing his body. It took three more heavy punches before the bruiser was finally incapacitated. Still, he was broken, not beaten, and took to pawing in circles, muttering slurred demurs at Avo.

“Fuckin’--fuckin’ half-strand fucker coward,’ the Scaarthian growled, worming near-blindly on the ground. His body was done. HIs will wasn't.

Tearing his focus away from the oozing wounds left on the ganger before the beast’s urges overwhelmed him, Avo was about cross back into the room when Chambers’ chirped in.

“Wait, hold on,” Chambers said. “Zoom your optics in closer on his face. Wanna get a profile.”

“Why?”

“Thinking of poaching him later. Tough godsdamned bastard.”

For once, Avo thought Chambers to be making a wise decision. Wise for a messed up bunch of thugs and criminals anyway. Recruiting good hitters couldn’t be easy. This one would be persistent, if nothing else.

Crossing back into the main suite, Avo found Shred crawling on his hands and knees, trying to make it to the doors. Puddles of puke lined the path behind the flailing ganger, likely a direct outcome of being punched in the chest by someone wearing an exo-rig.

As Avo approached, Shred rolled, pulling out a cheap switchblade. Avo hummed with amusement before swatting the weapon free from the ganger’s hands. It darted against the holovision and snapped in half. The frontier piece kept playing–scenes of Scaarthian raiders charging Kosgan gun lines unfolded in a most cinematic portrayal of slaughter.

“Motherfuc–” Shred said. Avo grabbed him by the back of the neck, the ganger’s curse trailing off to a riffing yelp. The man was a near-flat. Wiry, if not for the bulging vocal amplifier built around his throat. He wore a leather jacket under a leather coat and had too many belts.

“Shred?” Avo asked, trying to confirm if he hit the right guy, or if the one with the broken collarbone was his man somehow.

“Ye–ah! I’m Shrrrr—eed! Wha-t! The fu-uck do you wan-ant, half-str--ra-ra-rand!”

Avo tapped his voice aug, causing Shred to choke. “Talk normal. Or I’ll remove it. Communicate by notes afterward.”

Shred coughed and nodded in the first hints of obvious fear. “Alright, alright.”

“Biomod,” Avo said. “Where?”

Shred blinked. “Did Chambers send you?”

Chambers suddenly cut in. “Avo don’t–”

Avo grunted. The response was so vague that Shred just looked at him, confused.

“On second thought, I don’t know why I was worried.”

“Biomod. Where?” Avo’s voice a sibilant hiss.

Frankly, this could’ve all been much neater if he just used his Whisper. They didn’t have any wards, and digging through their thoughtstuff using a Ghost-Link was probably easier than any interrogation he could conduct. But cracking their minds was much the same as killing them in Avo’s opinion. Leave them catatonic for the rest of their lives at the least.

Walton probably wouldn’t appreciate Avo using the art this way. Avo frowned. Father probably wouldn’t have appreciated any bit of this endeavor.

There was always some grey to dives, but Avo had done his best to avoid hurting the choiceless when he could. Right here, right now felt like a betrayal of those ideals. One born of deception, but functionally, the outcome was the same.

Ganger though these men might have been, they didn’t ask for this invasion. Nor did the girl in the bathroom ask to be struck across the face.

Chambers had much to answer for when this was done. As would all of Conflux. But he needed to survive long enough to turn the tables.

“Al-alright, consang, stay zero,” Shred said, holding his hands up. “It’s right over–”

A loud knock hammered against the front doors of the suite before Shred could answer.

“Hey, Shred! I brought them Scalpers up with me.” the person behind the door laughed. “You ready to cut a deal?”