RULE #26

Shrimp-hounds are blind, not deaf! Widejaws are deaf, not blind! Learn the fucking difference!

~ The Scavenger’s Handbook

The nearest junction was only ten meters from where they had entered, which was as good as Grey could have hoped for. With the service tunnel wide enough for people to walk side by side, they could maw down anyone who entered while Maité finished setting up the detonation trigger for the charges. On their part, the Skins weren’t that eager to follow after a dozen of them were killed before they reached the ankle-deep water that covered floor.

“Ready!” The Axion girl shouted over the buzz of discharging laser weapons.

“Do it, now!” Grey pulled Elisa from the edge and pressed himself against the wall. He could only pray that the tunnel would not collapse.

The explosion was deafening. A thick cloud of dust and debris engulfed each side of the junction and for a moment Grey thought that they were done for. He could hear Cake coughing violently, an expected outcome since she was the only one without a proper mask. The good news was that she was the only he could hear doing so and without any screams of pain, that meant that the plan had worked.

“Joshua,” Grey spoke load without shouting.

“I’m here…” The boy answered from the other side of the cloud. It would be a while before it settled. “What was that? You said we were going to hold them off here!”

“Have your people rest for a bit and tend to any wounds they might have.” Grey ignored the question, and accusation for that matter, and pulled Cake by the straps of her bag. “We are going to scout ahead. Meet us at the third junction from here in half an hour. Oh, and boy, don’t stay here too long. The Skins are smart enough to know how to dig.”

Once the two of them were sufficiently away from the tourists, Grey slammed the girl into the wall. Before she could kick him, he punched her in the side of the stomach, forcing her to double down. She was far too predictable because of her anger. When it took over her, all she knew did was lash out at the nearest target. Cake’s had darted for the machete at her belt, which resulted in Grey stomping on her shoulder with the heel of his boot.

“Why?” He asked, keeping his voice level.

After all, this was not a violent outburst, it was a lesson she had to learn. By the look of it, this was going to take some time. Her answer came in a string of profanities and animalistic snarls. Well, if that’s how she wanted to act, Grey would oblige her. He pushed the girl on her back with his foot and pressed his knee against her chest.

“I ask you again. Why?” He caught her fist as she tried to hit him.

She had grown stronger, he had to give her that. However, Cake was a kid, that played around in the safer Sectors surrounding Véi Dron, and Grey was a veteran Scavenger, who had scraped by the skin of his teeth enough times to stop counting them. There was a gaping chasm separating him and the other real Scavengers from the gangs roaming the safe zone. Sure, she could be a real pain in their ass, but out here it did not count for much.

This trip was supposed to be a test, to see if he could trust her when going on runs. He was not a young man anymore and, although he could manage for another ten years if lucky, he understood that there had to be someone to watch his back. For God’s sake, he would turn forty in two months and he had bet everything on Cake. More than anything, he felt disappointment.

If only Grey had been there when she grew up, perhaps he could have prevented her from becoming this. Yes, he knew that the people around Leeroy’s bar shunned her and kept the girl at arm’s length. She was ten when he brought her to the settlement, yet he had expected that Cake had the mental fortitude to cope with all the shit that came her way. Grey was an idiot, there was no denying that, and by the time he realised his mistake of trusting others to take care of her, it was too late. He always trusted the wrong people at the wrong time and Cake was the latest example.

“Are you going to answer my question?” He demanded, still keeping his voice level. Getting all angry and emotional was not going to change anything at this point. She spat at him, which earned her a slap across the face. This seemed to do the trick. Cake blinked a few times and tears gathered on her eyes.

“It’s not fair,” she cried out, her mind having reached its breaking point. “It’s just not fair… Even you ignored me in the end.”

“What are you talking about?” Grey had expected some excuse or poorly constructed reason that justified her action, not this.

“I get it, they are human and I’m a fucking mutant,” Cake shook as she spoke while fighting back the tears. “It’s natural you’d pay more attention to your kind…”

“Cake, did you hit your head or something?” The anger he felt at what she had done evaporated with that statement, replaced by worry. He was missing something, a vital piece of information, and because of it, he felt guilty about how he had attacked her a moment ago.

“From the moment we prepared to set off, you’ve paid them more attention than you have me in the last year.” She desperately tried to wipe her eyes and failed miserably. “No matter how many mistakes you made, you did not punish them. Grey, you forgave them and instead punish me for trying to teach them the way you taught me…”

Grey moved his knee and pulled the girl into a sitting position so that he could embrace her. She was jealous and although he knew that the murder of the tourist as a result of her violent nature, he could not forgive himself for missing such an obvious thing. Was she that starved for connecting with someone that paying attention to anyone else only fuelled her savagery? Shit, Grey had really underestimated the damage being alone, amongst people, had caused her. Unable to find the words with which to comfort her, he embraced her harder. In the end, this was his fault, just like Barracuda, just like Cantina and just like Leeroy, just like Scarlet, just like everyone he had cared about. Because of him, they ended up broken or dead.

Putting his thoughts in some order, Grey whispered in her ear as she sobbed. “I’m sorry Cake. I don’t hate you, actually, you are one of the most important people to me.”

Gently he pushed her away and wiped the tears under her eyes with his thumbs. She was no longer a child, he realised when he looked at her face. She hadn’t been one for a very long time. However, there was no one around to teach how to behave otherwise.

“Listen to me,” Grey said as softly as he could, knowing that he was not good connecting with others. “Those kids, I don’t care about them, that’s why ignore them. By the end of this, most of them will be dead anyway and those that do survive will return to their floating city.”

He picked the machete from the floor and examined the well-kept blade. “They don’t need to learn anything, because, in a few days, they would be gone.”

“But you,” Grey tested the sharp edge with the tip of his finger, “will stay down here, among the ruins. Just like me and you will have to know how to survive Cake.”

“Do you remember what happened on the first one after I met you?” He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and pressed the machete at the exposed skin of his forearm drawing a thin line of blood between the many scars there. The girl shook her head with worry on her face, her unsettling eyes fixed on the blade.

“When I told you to stop eating and go to sleep, what did you do? You tried to stab me with the lid of the tin can. Every time I corrected you, you lashed out.” He took her arm and dragged the sharp edge on the grime-covered white skin. “Even as a child your skin was harder than mine. Almost as hard as getting through to you. Yes, you are a mutant and there is nothing wrong with that. You are not like the others, Cake, you never will be, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I care about you too much, to let you get yourself killed over a stupid mistake.”

She stared at the red line on his arm and the dark line of dirt on her own. Her mouth moved until finally, she managed to whisper. “I’m sorry, Grey. I…”

Whatever else the girl wanted to say was cut short by a loud scream from the junction where the tourists were. It was followed by shouting and more screaming. Without wasting time, the two of them picked their things and ran towards the commotion. A minute later they nearly collided with one of the Axion brats, his suit covered in fresh blood.

“What is going on?” Grey demanded from the panicked teen.

“We got attacked by some bug or something like that…”

“Is it a spider?” Cake asked and let go of her rifle and pulled her handgun.

“No. It has fur and teeth and our weapons aren’t working…” The kid was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

“Shrimp-hounds!” Grey and Cake exclaimed at the same time. “Didn’t you check?” He asked the girl.

“I told them to scout ahead!” She holstered the gun and took out her machete before going into a sprint.

“Shit.” Grey cursed. Here she was acting on impulse again, the damned things always hunted in pairs.

Quickly he replaced the clip on his rifle with the one painted red, which he kept in the inner pocket of his jacket. Only armour-piercing rounds could go through the thick chitinous plates under the predator’s fury coat. When things went down the drain, they did it fast. Grey turned on the flashlight fixed on the shoulder straps of his backpack, right now, he needed as much light as he could get in the dark tunnel. Having prepared as best he could, he sprinted after Cake.

The scene that greeted him was pure chaos. Elisa was missing her left wrist, two more of the Axion brats were dead in the stale water and several others had minor wounds, scratches mostly. All the screaming and shouting only enraged the two shrimp-hounds. As the name suggested the damned things resembled shrimps, albeit rather large ones. Almost the size of a grown man standing on all fours, Short greenish fur covered their bodies and their heads, resembled those of dogs, with thick red chitin plates covering the everything but the snouts, rendering them utterly blind. However, their hearing was not to be underestimated. The sharp claws on their six legs and the blade-like fins on their tails were their main weapon, and as Elisa had learned, they could bite through bone if allowed to get close enough.

Cake was atop one of them, hacking and slashing at the joints of its legs. Considering how dangerous the shrimp-hounds were, her actions resembled those of a lunatic. However, this was the best place one could be, since the mutated freaks of nature could not roll. At the same time, Joshua and Heather were using their weapons as clubs fighting off the other one. His choice was clear, the girl could take care of herself for now, but the tourists were as good as dead. Grey switched his rifle to semi-automatic and fired a five-shot burst at the creature. The AP rounds pierced the plates around the thing’s neck eliciting a pained gurgle as it turned in his direction.

By doing so, the shrimp-hound exposed its vulnerable chest-sack, where most of its vital organs were located. Many an idiot had fallen for this move and charge at the hound, only to be pierced by its front legs, just because they thought they could save a few bullets. Grey had a rule about that and only one chance before the creature retracted the sack back into its body. He took the shot without hesitation, the rounds bursting the oily membrane and spilling the shrimp-hound’s foul-smelling organs in the shallow water.

“Cake! I can’t take the shot!” Grey shouted.

“One second!” She screamed back at him and shoved her machete between the thing’s plates causing it to stand up on its hind legs. By doing so, it crashed the girl into the wall, but at the same time exposing its belly, allowing Grey to pepper it with two consecutive bursts.

“Roll!” He commanded and without thinking about it, Cake followed the instruction. Just in time too, to avoid getting stepped upon by the shrimp-hound. The creature was bleeding badly but was not yet dead and Grey had only another five bullets in his magazine. He had to make them count.

“Everyone shut the fuck up!” He bellowed at the top of his lungs and pulled out his handgun. The moment relative silence engulfed them, he fired twice into the ceiling above him, drawing the thing’s attention to him.

Dropping the gun, he pressed the butt of his rifle to his shoulder and shouted again. “Over here! Come and get me, you piece of shit!” Once the shrimp-hound turned in his direction, he added as loud as he could.

“Cake, it’s right above you!” The girl stabbed the thing in what had to be its ass, pushing the blade deep with both hands.

Grey held his breath and squeezed the trigger. One last burst across its belly, when it twisted to one side. Shit, the thing was still standing and one of its legs found Cake’s shoulder drawing out a painful scream. What he did next went against every rule he followed and was perhaps the stupidest, most idiotic, thing he had done since he was a kid. Grey charged at the thing, snacking one of the tourist’s guns from their hands as he passed by. With all his might, he swung the weapon at the shrimp-hound’s head, breaking the valuable piece of tech in two on impact. But it was enough to stop it from taking a bite from Cake.

Before his right hand could move too far to the side, he reached for the high-calibre revolver strapped to the back of his vest. Awkwardly he shoved it into the creature’s gaping mouth and fired wildly. Grey felt the sharp teeth rend the flesh around his wrist as the shrimp-hound pulled him down. The damned thing was dead before they hit the water. With some effort, he pulled out his arm and examined the wound. It wasn’t looking great but it could have been worse. The leather jacket and two layers of clothing underneath had spared him a lot of the damage. He did not know why the shrimp-hound hadn’t snapped its jaw shut, but he was not going to question his luck.

“Cake!” Grey rushed to the trashing girl’s side and pulled her out of the water. The claw had made a thumb-sized hole just above her left collarbone. With a shaking hand, he retrieved a small metal box from a pocket on his cargo pants and pushed the girl against the wall. “Stop squirming.”

He placed the container on her lap and revealed the tightly packed first-aid kid there. Grey positioned his left forearm in Cake’s mouth and shoved the entire roll of bandage inside the wound to stop the bleeding. She bit hard at the leather jacket, but no sound escaped her mouth. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he helped her to her feet and began dragging her through the tunnel.

“Move,” he grunted. “The wrest of you, grab what you can and get moving damn you! Leave the bodies, we need to get out of here.” Grey stopped long enough to pick up Cake’s machete and rifle and the gun he had dropped. The Axion brats would either follow him, or they could stay here and die when the rest of the pack came scuttering by. Where there were two shrimp-hounds, there was always more to follow. And their group had just invited them to dinner.

It did not take much for Grey to get the door open and exit the damn tunnel. They had been walking at a steady pace for several hours, navigating the dark corridors of the service tunnel, looking for the exit leading to the Park. The only clue they had was how deeper the water got and once it reached knee level, he knew they were close. Through it all, Grey hoped that they were not heading in the direction of the shrimp-hounds’ den.

Once the door opened, the red-light of the emergency lamp on the frame was replaced by the blinding glow of the early morning sun. The dome above the Park had collapsed a long time ago allowing the vegetation to claim the area, turning it into a swampy jungle. It would be another three or four centuries, but eventually, the Sector would be flooded from the torrential rains that bathed the mega-city every month.

Grey submerged the particle monitor around his wrist in the greenish water. Immediately the indicators spiked stopping shy of the red zone. The needed to find dry land and fast or risk exposing themselves to dangerous levels of toxins and radiation.

“We can rest on that hill.” He pointed at the elevated land to their left. “Don’t spread out and stay in line. Keep two meters apart. There is no telling what is underneath here and how deep the water gets.

Covering the hundred meters or so, took them longer than he would have liked. However, Grey was happy to be out of the swampy water when they did reach the flat hill. There was a reason this place was called the Park. It was the only sector without a number and the local fauna wasn’t as dangerous as that in the ruins proper. Hell, at some places, you could make out cobbled paths and benches. Even the buildings were not larger than two stories high and with plenty of space in-between. And despite the dangerous water, the air was the cleanest Grey had ever seen. For the first time in years, the indicators of the particle monitor were in the green.

Removing his gas mask, he greedily inhaled of the crispy morning air. Not even the smell of rotting vegetation was enough to stop him from smiling. Yes, this was the safest they could be for a while. The shrimp-hounds would not leave the tunnel, at least not during the day and all they had to fear were the widejaws and Wardens. But those could be spotted from a long distance until they reached the thicket. Few of the Park’s deadly creatures ventured this close to the walls, separating the Sectors.

“Welcome to the Park, folks,” Grey spoke as he turned to the haggard group following him. They looked awful, wounded and battered with dark circles around their eyes. The mega-city had taken its toll on them. “Tend to the wounded and get some sleep.”

He turned to Cake, but before he could say anything, Joshua came stomping to his side.

“We need to have a word Scavenger.” The teenager demanded; his face twisted by anger.

“It can wait.”

“No, it cannot.” The boy pointed at his people and continued, the accusation in his voice growing. “We lost good people and precious time because you failed to do your job as a guide! You did not warn us about those creatures in the tunnels and so far, have led us further away from the path we agreed upon.”

“I’ll assume that’s the fatigue talking, Master Sergeant,” Grey said coldly and stood up, stepping closer to the Axion brat. “I warned you, you were not properly prepared. You might be Axion’s soldiers, but down here, the ruins will chew you and spit you out.”

“Who said anything about soldiers?” Suddenly Joshua was on the defensive again. Worry finding its way in his eyes.

“Really? You are still going to play this game? After all the warnings I gave you, you still think I’m a blind fool.” Grey stepped closer. “The folks at Véi Dron might buy into that tourist bull-sheet, but not me. My father was a Corporal and my mum a Master Sergeant, like yourself. Not that such titles mean anything anymore, but back where I come from, they meant a lot to them and the people around them.”

“I…” As soon as Joshua opened his mouth, Grey cut him off.

“You will shut up.” He switched to the cold controlled voice his father had used when scolding him. “I don’t care why Axion has sent you or what you are looking for because it’s not God damned medical supplies. To me, you are a means to an end. But if your lies and deceptions put me or Cake in danger, I will fucking kill you. Every. One. Of. You. Do you understand?”

The Master Sergeant stood as stiff as a board. Joshua had not expected that and his training clearly prevented him from adapting to the new situation. Nonetheless, the boy nodded and turned around. They clearly needed Grey to get them into Sector 7 and after that… Well, the Scavenger would worry about that when the time came.

“Cake came here and let me have a look at your wound.” Grey waved to the girl who had been standing behind Joshua, with her finger on the trigger of the rifle in her hands.