Chapter Forty-Seven

Alexis

While moseying down the sidewalk, Alexis hears a loud vehicle around the corner screech to a stop and then someone shouting. “If I ever see your kind anywhere near us again, ya fucking rat, I’ll kill ya!” A door slams and then it barrels off again, leaving a shit load of smoke behind. When the air clears a little, she can see that someone is curled on the curb, ranting about something.

“God damn hell! Almost broke my wrist, ya asshole! Geezus! I can’t do this shit anymore. Fuck this and fuck leadership, I’m done!”

Migo shakes his head in wonderment. They’re the ones who asked for his damn help in the first place. Their people get slaughtered by robots, and then they hunt him down with the very same ones that they were asked to bring to justice. None of it makes any sense at all and he decides he’s not going to even care anymore. “This kind of shit is why you keep to yourself old man”

She runs over and stands over him, reaching down and offering her hand. “What the hell was that?”

The man recognizes her voice. “Alexis, is that you? What’re you doin’ out here?”

She notices his hands are tied behind his back and is having a hard time, so she helps stand him up.

“I can get up, dammit, do you have to pick me up like a cat? Makes me feel helpless.”

“Why is it that I’m always picking you up off the ground, ya old grump.”

“Seems to be that way doesn’t it?” He can still remember her as a child, and the cries that came from all the other kids that were stupid enough to try picking on her. “I believe that’s how we met, with you picking me up off the ground.”

She can tell his mood is getting better already. He’s always been fond of the past, like most old men. “Yeah, and I can still remember the mark that kid left on your head with that brick!” She chuckles when she thinks about it.

Well over ten years ago, some kid had knocked him out from behind and stolen everything he had on him. It was a very brazen and desperate offense to make. Traders have always had a devoutly protected place in the homeless society and to rob one would mark a person as a pariah for sure. If a zealot had witnessed what happened, they would’ve marked the boy with a knife.

With a swift kick to the kid’s head, she had dropped him like a flaming bag of shit. Instead of dragging him out and declaring him in front of everyone like she could have, but she recognized the hardship he was going through. He was so skinny, so she scolded him well for how bad of a mistake he’d made, but then helped him up too. She took back everything that he had stolen from Migo, but then gave him every last dollar she had.

She had been in the same place herself once, a place that some youngsters never make it through. They just needed someone to be there for them, and she was glad it was her. That was the day Migo introduced her to scavenging and trading and ever since, they’ve both been like peas in a pod and done well for themselves, as well as one can do on the streets anyway.

When they start walking towards the bridge together, she starts to wonder what he was doing out where she found him. “What’ve you gotten yourself into this time Migo, and with a redneck from out of town?”

“Oh, nothin’ you should be messin’ with. These fuckin’ jerks, they get their asses handed to them and then ask for our help. Next thing I know, they've teamed up with the robots that killed that family, and then they’re comin’ after me! Nothing makes any damn sense. I am done with this shit, for good this time.”

“And they dumped you off out here? What’d they do to you? You’re pretty shaken up, I can tell.” A couple of things suddenly snap into place for her. “You’ve been appointed to leadership haven’t you?”

He denies most everything, but it’s too late for that. Everyone back at the bridge knows he was taken. If he goes back alive, they’ll all know he talked. The cat is going to be out of the bag real soon either way. “Fuck! I told them, Alexis, I told them that Marek’s group was looking for them. I told them where they are. They were gonna rip me apart, limb from limb. They were actually going to do it! We have to get the hell out of here, now!”

Migo starts scampering along too quickly for her to talk to him. She lets go of his arm, stops, and looks back to where they came from. “They’re the ones at the mill? I’ve seen ‘em before, I’m sure of it.” She’s only talking to herself, but he still hears her.

“Don’t do it, Alexis! Don’t you do it! I’m begging you, everything’s gonna go sideways out there! These people, these things, they’ve already torn through dozens of people as if they were nothing!” She doesn’t even look back at him and starts running towards the mill. He can’t stop her, and if he doesn’t round up more help, things could get real bad.

Alexis has heard plenty of rumors about assassin robots and the like lately, but she would never have thought any of them to be real. The only person she’s heard that the men out at the mill are supposed to be a pretty serious group. She would’ve never expected Marek to be in with them, but then she realizes she has no idea who he is.

He seemed like a pretty nice and innocent guy and if they’re going to be using that old explosive generator on something, it has got to be really serious. It sounds like she should follow Migo’s advice and stay clear of it, but she just can’t not go. She figures she can at least stay back and see what happens. If they do capture real killer robots, she has to be there for it.

When she reaches the industrial area, where she’d seen someone going in and out a while ago, she looks for signs where their camp could be. Other than the normal ambient equipment chatter, the place is dead quiet and no one is around. There’s no sign of anyone or anything like what Migo was talking about. He didn’t make it sound like they’d be hard to spot.

While slinking around in the shadows, she notices a few tiny colored lights in the dark under a fire escape. They are crisp and out of place, compared to anything else in the area. When she hunches down and scoots a little closer to see what they go to, she lurches backward, falls back on her palms, quickly rolls away to the side.

The thing is some kind of big mean-looking robot dog or something. She can see that it has claws and most of it is black, but the claws are bare metal. When it slowly swivels its head towards her, she scrambles away and crawls between two big steel scrap bins to hide from it.

When she looks back, the robot doesn’t seem to be interested in her at all. It lays its head back down at its feet and casually watches her. She’s seen a runner before, but not like this one and it’s moving all on its own. For some reason, she was expecting humanoids so she holds her breath, wondering if maybe the others have seen her. She covers her mouth and hunkers down, hoping to hell they haven’t. If this is simply their runner, they are at least close. They wouldn’t leave it alone like this for long. She has to get out of there.

After another full minute of silence, she peeks her head out and looks around before sprinting away to the nearest place that looks safe. She got a little scared, but she’s not going to give up so easily. She decides to circle between a few more of the buildings, to see if she can spot anyone else. This time, she’ll be paying a lot more attention.

After finding another good place to stop, she waits and listens to her surroundings again. This time, she does catch onto something that’s out of place. It sounds like a bag rustling in the wind, but it’s steady, repetitious, and coming from something outside.

When she steps out around the corner of the next small buildings, she notices a silhouette moving in the distance. It looks like a person crouched down on their knees. They’re on a narrow sidewalk that’s leading over to a lower-level stairwell. As she carefully creeps closer, she can see that the person is a derelict, like herself. They’re wearing a scrappy black jacket with its hood over their head.

For some reason, they’re scrubbing at the sidewalk with the head of a push broom that’s missing its handle. She couldn’t see it at first until she got closer, but the sidewalk has something spilled on it. A little bit of light is reflecting off of some wet spots on the concrete where they haven’t gotten to yet.

There’s a trail of shiny spots dripped on the ground. When she blocks her eyes from a nearby overhead light with a hand, her eyes adjust enough for her to see a little better. The trail of shiny dark spots follows along the sidewalk, right to where she is standing. In the shadow of the building, she bends down and feels along the ground with her fingers. When she touches something soft, she holds her hand out into the light to see what it is. Her fingertips are glossy red with blood. She immediately jerks her hand back into the darkness and wipes her fingers off on the outside of her cloak. A shiver crawls down her back. Something has already happened, but she’s not about to simply walk over and ask what.

When the person turns away from her, she tip-toes down the sidewalk and around to the other side of the next small out-building. The person crouches back down and starts scrubbing at another spot, having not heard her. As soon as they face way again she sprints over alongside the stairwell that the blood leads to. The man is doing a good job of cleaning up any traces of the blood as there are no signs of it going down to the door. She tries to listen for any more signs of something going on, but by the looks of it, she’s probably missed all the action.

Startling her, the metal door to the stairwell scrapes open. On the other side of the open door, she hears the sound of a lighter strike and then the smell of cigarette smoke. Another man walks up the stairs and out to the one that’s still scrubbing away at the concrete.

“You’re sure taking your sweet ass time doing this.”

“Yeah well, I’m making sure it’s done right, and I’m only like a third of the way done. There won’t be a single spec left and that’s the only way we’ll get to stay here. You get anything out of ‘em yet?”

“The old man seems to be content with giving up his life tonight. You know, I get this feeling that the son of a bitch has played this game before. He thought that if he didn’t say anything at all, the woman wouldn’t have to corroborate anything he says.

“Ah, yeah, makes sense.”

“You should’ve seen him foaming at the mouth when I went and grabbed her by her hair. I din’t even ask her a question. I just wanted him to hear her. What a shame. She’s kind of good lookin’ too if you don’t mind the split lip.”

“Or all the blood. Geez, she got it fucking everywhere! Was she shaking her head like a dog the whole way or something!”

“That fucking kid, Marek, got real upset and went toe to toe with me over it again. You know, some people just don’t have the stomach to do what has to be done. It’s part of being a real man. Whatever. The kid’s sure got a sneaky hook though.” Brent lifts his lip a little, showing off a nasty little split of his own.

“Yikes.”

“Shit, he wouldn’t let me even near her after that. Took three of us to drag him outta that room.”

“How far we gonna take this before we hand them over to Leadership?”

“All the way, baby.” He takes a long drag on his cigarette and half coughs it out with a laugh.

“Whatta ya mean all the way?”

“I ain’t one to waste good meat when it’s on my plate.”

“Dude. Well… it ain’t like she’s one of us, see if I give a fuck.”

“Want any leftovers?”

“Aw! No! Brent, that’s gross!” He scrubs away at another spot and then pauses again. “Well… I don’t know… you bagging your shit? Anyway, I gotta take a piss first.”

Even though it’s getting cold out, Alexis is starting to sweat inside her cloak. She’s so mad she could bite through steel right now. She doesn’t care about the robots or any of that other shit. Nothing gets her more enraged than motherfuckers like these guys. She grabs the heavy leather collar of her cloak with both hands and pulls at it hard in frustration. She’s trying to keep herself thinking straight before she flies off the handle completely.

These guys have been beating a woman in there, and now they’re planning on raping her. The only way that’s going to happen is over her dead body. It doesn’t matter who the woman is or what she’s done. It isn’t going to happen. She’s going to make an example of these two shitholes.

She forces some self-control on herself and slides out of her cloak quietly, and for good measure, she even folds it on the ground neatly. It helps her gain some much-needed focus. Like always, she’s already come prepared for this. Her wrists, knuckles, and ankles are wrapped in strap and taped off for good measure. She’s wearing her heavy grey sports bra, stretchy shorts, and light comp-toe boots. She wears this same attire every time she goes out, and for good reason.

The one scrubbing the sidewalk stands up, saunters off over to a dark corner, and unbuckles his pants. Brent, the one she wants to outright kill, stands there smugly finishing his smoke. When he turns around to head back inside, she is standing right in front of him, like an attack dog. “Who the fuck…!”, before he can finish his words, she slams her fingers into his face, destroying both of his eyes. His mouth flies open to scream, just in time for her knee to smash his teeth back shut. The end of his cigarette flips through the air, having been cut in half.

The sound of his teeth snapping together and shattering alerts the other guy, who is still whizzing his name on the wall. He fumbles with his belt, trying to keep his pants up while he turns around. With Brent already out cold, she charges hard at him. She can feel every muscle in her legs pulling as hard as they can. This is what she lives for.

The guy throws his hands up in the air to surrender, but it’s too late, she’s already in the air. Her boot lands square in his crotch, driving him and his parts into the concrete wall behind him. Before he passes out, she grabs his stupid curly hair and puts her face real close in front of his.

“The next time you think about hurting another woman, I’ll finish this.” She looks down at his hands clutching at his junk. “Doesn’t look like we’ll have that problem anyway though.” She turns away and then kicks him in the side of his head as hard as she can, making it bounce back off the wall. She figures he’s dead, but if not, He’ll at least learn his lesson.

She’s not even close to being finished yet either, not while there’s still a woman inside being held captive. Everyone she finds in there is going to pay the price for what they’ve done, except for Marek. She thought he was cute when she met him, and Migo had good things to say about him. It means a lot to hear of him trying to keep Brent away from the woman and protect her. As long as he stays out of the way, she won’t hurt him.

On her way down the stairwell, one of the men out on the ground wakes up and gurgles out a terrible scream for help. The sound of footsteps comes rushing up behind the closed door in front of her. When it blasts open, she is ready.

By the time the door is halfway open, she is crashing into it with both feet, slamming in shut again. Someone’s wrist gets caught in the frame and is badly crushed. When it opens back up, they’re on their knees holding their arm up to their chest. Some of the skin on it looks to have been peeled back, exposing a broken bone underneath. It doesn’t matter, she has no sympathy for the man, and he’s in her way. She finishes him off with a heel to his chin, knocking him aside.

Once inside, she realizes she’s bitten off way more than she can chew. Ten more men are now facing her down. When the door slams shut behind her, she imagines being hit over the back of the head and then waking up, bound. Tonight is going to be her last and she knows it. If only she had a grenade. She whips her body into her offensive stance, fists in front of her. “You won’t be taking me alive.”