“Stryme where are you!”

“A few meters off the wall!” He shouted.

“ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!” I snarled in disbelief.

“I shit you not Cypher.” He said dryly.

If I didn’t know better, the bastard was fucking smiling, but I didn’t have time to care. I had to survive.

Fatigue ravaged my body despite the firefight only being for a few minutes. My lungs were empty despite how much I inhaled keeping my breathing smooth and simple.

I darted past three rows of huts on either side, smelling death as it poured into my nose like a hook with bait meant to catch fish.

A line dropped from the Sceleratus wall and a man grabbed onto it. I bit my tongue, forcing my frustration away and watched as Stryme made his way up the wall, clear as day despite it being night. Bastard, I thought bitterly.

The three-hundred distance popped up on My HUD, making me feel as though it was three hundred miles. I cut the distance down thirty seconds but already heard the roving trucks growling behind me ready to run me down.

Lights slowly began to creep past me, and I felt as though the exhaust from the trucks was breathing down my neck. “ELTESSA TALK TO ME!”

“TRUCKS HEADING INTO THE CAMP, HOW FAR ARE YOU!”

“A hundred meters!” I shouted back.

“Where?”

“BETWEEN THE TWO EXPLOSIONS!”

I twisted the first crown of the grenade, tossing it to my right. It flew 60 yards and then crashed into an abandoned hut.

The explosion rang out, and I looked back, checking to see if it drew the truck's attention. Five trucks swerved off, their initial path, whilst the remainder continued on their set path, giving me enough time to twist the final grenade crown I had in hand.

I threw the second grenade flat, watching it sieve through the air like a snake. It curled snapping through eight huts and detonated eighty meters from my initial throw.

The explosion reverberated around the air, puffing sand around it like a mushroom, small but big enough to draw attention. I hope.

My feet continuously pounded as I drew closer to the Sceleratus Wall. I knew I couldn’t get there before being intercepted, so the grenades were my best chance at distracting them as best as I could.

Bullets rained down from the Wall, making the world seem as though the stars had descended from the sky.

Embers of copper and silver pulsed into existence above me, then shot right past me, hitting the huts, stones and trucks a-like, filling with relief. Guess they’re within range I mused.

“CYPHER! MAKE IT QUICK, THEY’RE WITHIN RANGE” Eltessa shouted.

“NO SHIT!”

A line dropped from the top of the wall, and I dashed forward hearing the world of bullets rein in on me as I grabbed it in two seconds.

I planted my feet on the wall and before I knew it, I shot up the wall ears roaring from the wind flapping my ears, as if they were wind.

The spikes sat at the top of the wall but split open once I was five meters from them. Two hands pulled me by my hands, with one releasing my cybernetic hand upon realising what it was. “THE MAN'S A MONSTER!”

My weight pulled me and the other man down. His bald head beamed from the moonlights as I barely held onto him, my body feeling as though I was about to slip from my hands. “Cypher!” Stryme shouted. “SOMEONE HOLD MY LEGS!”

Stryme appeared from the spike opening, hands outstretched. I grit my teeth, feeling my body slowly drain from the man’s hand.

A bead of sweat from his bald head hit me in the eye, forcing it shut, the second I opened it. Stryme had already grabbed it. The two men began hoisting me up, sweat pouring from my eyes. I wouldn’t want to lift me either I thought.

Stryme and the man pulled me over the wall and then dropped me like a brick. I hit smacked the ground upon arrival and exhaled deeply, feeling my lungs empty themselves without my permission. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” The bald man said.

My eyes drifted to the right, watching as Stryme sat back on the wall, breathing heavily as if his chest had been lacking oxygen. “You’re welcome Cypher.” He added.

My eyes finally closed, and I felt as though all the pent-up frustration I had from travelling through the waste was finally dissipating.

The knot in my chest untangled a bit and the surging pain at my right side, quelled a bit, but only for a second. “You look like shit Cypher,” Eltessa said dryly.

“I feel like shit,” I said heaving for oxygen

I turned left, looking up and noticing that she was already amongst the group that ‘welcomed’ me to Sceleratus. Eltessa wore fatigues in the form of weathered jeans and a brown top. Her face looked withered as if she’d aged in the last few months.

The bags around her eyes almost drooped to her cheekbones whilst her lips cracked from severe dryness. “Holy shit,” I said stiffly.”Fuck happened to you?” I croaked.

Eltessa’s lips drew to a line and raised her hand and slowly began massaging her temples. “What else could it be Cypher? It’s the fucking Waste!”

“True, You look horrible.”

“Fuck You,” She growled.

“Gonna have to pass on the offer, I’m a married man.”

The crease of her dry lips spread, showing her still-white teeth. She bit her bottom lip and then shook her head profusely.

I’d expected her to have the same demeanour she had when I first met her when Mr Black rescued me from The Mangol. Instead, a hint of warmth could be seen in her eyes, it was unexpected but very satisfying. Hopefully, a stick isn’t up her ass like Stryme’s.

“Whatever Cypher, but we don’t have time for rest. I need you to get inside”

“I know,” I said, laughing dryly.

Bullets began to rain out all around me, as the men that were manning the wall eyes were filled with purpose. I could tell some of them never held a gun in their life, whilst others lived by it. I guess this is what’s expected from a make-shift militia, I mused.

The wind rustled across my neck, tickling it in the process. I closed my eyes for a second and felt the cold wind trickle down my back. However, I was fuming like like a boiling furnace on the inside.

I finally made it into the walls of Sceleratus, but barely. Now I have to find a way to retrieve the Ortho-Interpretive Processor, better known as the hedgehog.

Sceleratus from the inside looked the same as when Mr Black showed me from the holo display, but a whole lot livelier, for obvious reasons.

Both men and women on the defence wall eyes widened as I walked by. Their eyes held a hint of anger, resentment and downright disgust when they saw me, but that was due to my cybernetics. I guess things never truly changed I noted, remembering how people within the Waste scorn Cybernetic enhancements.

A lot of settlements didn’t care for cybernetics like some, but they were some who truly hated to see man and machine melded together in a cybernetic fashion. “Is this a Nartinis village?

“No?” Eltessa answered, confused by my question. “Why the hell do you think Nartin exiles would be here?”

“The suspecting gazes I’m getting make me feel that way,” I grunted.

Eltessa laughed and shook her head, then smacked her tongue against the top of her mouth. “Not everyone that hates the cybernetically enhanced follows the Nartin doctrine Cypher, you know that?”

“Could’ve fooled me.” I scoffed.

“Isn’t your friend Jix a Nartin?”

“He isn’t, he’s a Thelian.”

“Nartin…Thelian, it’s all the same.” Eltessa said, “They both despise cybernetics.”

“Not true.” I said, “Thelians despise using cybernetics as aesthetics. They are many Thelians who hate to see people using their cybernetics for aesthetic purposes and not for practicality.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Eltessa said.

“Probably is.” I answer, “But Jix is my friend, so shit doesn’t compute when it comes to his beliefs, for me at least.”

“Fair enough.”

Despite how nonchalant both of us were, a battle still raged to our left, which showed true grit in the face of adversity.

The Doasians still tried to charge forward in their attempt to creep into the Sceleratus defence line, but the mini-guns planted on the walls stopped them without much effort.

Eight lines of gunfire in the form of dragonfly bullets spat from the minigun razing across the desert leaving sparks of fire in its wake. “Well that’s handy,” I said aloud.

“For now,” Eltessa said bitterly, showing a scowling face.

She turned right, heading down a flight of stairs, before I followed I looked right, passing a partition and finally getting to see an up-close shot of Sceleratus.

Sceleratus was six thousand square feet, with twelve buildings all stationed to the left of the base. On the right side, were three of the biggest buildings. No, not buildings, hangars. But where is the hangar? I asked myself.

If I didn’t believe this wasn’t a black site before, it was certainly cemented now. The cement paving, the constant smell of gunpowder mixed in with the sweat, blood and tears of the people who’d now taken over, it was pretty obvious.

“Are you coming?” Eltessa shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

My lips curled into a frown, and I nodded. “Yeah…just taking in the forgotten scent.”

“Hurry your ass up Cypher, we have three days till help arrives.”

“Right.”