Several hundreds of miles away, in the back of a less than reputable establishment, in a booth that was made of black pleather, a Mech was in the process of melting down. As far as he was concerned, the booth he was sitting in was worth more than he was. Contained within a black box, their LED eyes were bugging out in more ways than one. Pure strawberry red flitting along a dark background. The side panels of his head were abuzz as an evergreen line turned into mountains and valleys on his temples. Any remaining part of his CPU that wasn’t in a panic spiral was busy trying to ensure that he didn’t melt something crucial in the midst of his bout of self-depreciation. How could it get like this?
To start, the idea of a lack of worth wasn’t the thing that hurt most. No… No, what hurt was the turn around. For a brief decade, he was part of the main focus, part of something important and now he was reduced to sitting in the back part of a grease fire waiting to happen. In his mind, he would rather have been scrapped long ago, or hell, just let some chop shop strip him for parts. Anything was better than being repurposed. He was useful, he was only a few generations removed from the current set, there had to be a niche he could fill. He had enough memory for the agricultural sector, he never disliked fruits. Or secretarial work, a bit of a bore but nothing There was that co-op a few klicks under that sent out a radio transmission for help, he could definitely….
Radio. He was only supplied with Radio. Pathetic.
Mechanoids such as Reimos were of the utmost importance to the Impetus Committee. They were the ones who assigned purpose, who divined meaning and purpose and value out of the puzzle pieces of life. There was a purpose for each Mechanoid’s existence, there was a process, there were assignments and customizations and an order to things. Weaponry, Communications, subunits to divide tasks and thinking. Lasers and Flares and Rockets and the doodads that seemed to pass by Shoa’s formation. To be repurposed was a fate worse than anything. Sending you out into the wilds to be set upon by rust and fight in battles that the Committee doesn’t dare to publish or to work awful shifts at some mining company in order to fuel the desire for resources. Horrid, just horrid. As the idea of him getting shelled took up space in his electric mind, he slumped over in his pity booth.
Shoa had to face the facts. He was old. Not in experience or age, he certainly lacked both of those in comparison to his fellow units. A better comparison would be to call him obsolete. The very thought of the word made his metallic frame shudder. A product of a long-disbanded experiment that produced no meaningful results till units like him didn’t even need to be a part of it. Others of his type were already assigned to outposts out in the infinite frontier and were more than likely getting shelled to bits. Even on the microscopic chance he could get through all the red tape and forms and parley, ultimately, he wouldn’t be able to justify or afford the upgrades needed to stave him off from his impending reassignment. In a matter of days, he would get a beep in his head, and that would be it. Through the air sensors in front of him, the particulates of indeterminate beef and other meat products wafted through the air. If he was going to have a breakdown, he wanted it to be in a better place than a 2 Star Slop Shop that couldn’t regulate its own grease traps. He was a Mechanoid after all. Three stars or better for a total shutdown of rational thought processes. There was roughly a week left on this untamed mess of a planet, he at least had the courtesy to his future self to plan his meltdown properly. As he lifted his soon to be scrapped corpse out of the pleather booth, the only thing to catch his eye was an advertisement printed in thick letters, with the calligraphy of a 5-year-old flesh thing. An advertisement for a government position though…
To put it simply, Rhys was not satisfied with the idea of living. The common agreement was that to live was to break your back on the rocks while some tophat wearing bastard got to roll in it. What was “it”? Not important and ultimately not the point. Her life was to push past menial labor. To live was to thrive and to thrive was to get that metaphorical top hat and to metaphorically roll in “it”. One of the biggest obstacles to this conceptual life is the fact that most, but not all people, start with a life that can barely be considered living. And at that current moment, that aspect of life had become all too familiar to the woman.
Due to some… less than trustworthy investments involving a Mirepod Chimera, a busted-up fighting ring, and gladiatorial combat, collections had been taken and now Rhys found her shack as empty as her wallet. Her black hair was put to the side as she sat on the wooden floor with a malformed glass mug of indeterminate origin and indeterminate liquid. While all was squared up with her debtors through a combination of shouting matches and threats of stabbery, that had left her in a left than favorable position. A woman with hair as dark as the soil outside her window and skin tanned through a mixture of the sun’s rays and some long-forgotten combination of genealogy was now left with a shack, a cup and a bag buried in the middle of the woods as the value attached to her name.
“Good things come, and good things go.” She lifted her mug in a toast to no one in particular. “Could’ve lasted a bit longer that time at least,” she mused. A swig of the drink made her long-term reasoning a bit shorter in exchange for temporary bliss.
This wasn’t the first time that Rhys found herself at seemingly rock bottom. If anything, the experience was more familiar than the high points of life. Month after month, she had found a way to live on this side of the rocks. Whether that be through the simplistic means of scrounging up whatever was left over from failed explorations, to just straight up robbing an outlaw (or being in the right place when said outlaw was shot down by proper authorities), what needed to be done would be done. In all honesty, she didn’t want to dumpster dive, but her usual spots had started putting an insane amount of pesticides on it, and she wasn’t gonna try eating around it again. At this point, there was only one thing left to do.
“God damn it,” she muttered as she lifted herself off the uneven floorboards. A few paces out and upwards led her outside of her humble dwelling into the woods where she resided. A few more paces led her to a secluded area, serene in the lights falling through the trees, leaving its mark on an unsuspecting pile of leaves. As she bent down to get closer to that pile, the small glint of metal reflected off the sunlight. Each leaf pushed aside to reveal a beat-up bag, tagged and taped and roped together with years of hardship aged into it, the hilt of a metallic baseball bat sticking out of it. With the tenderness and hollowed silence of a squire holding his master’s sword, A paint as dark as the night and a logo as striking as the impact. With the end of the bat, painted as if dipped and slashed in Silver, only the name brand escaped her lips.
“Belluci.”
In that one moment, there was only her, the feeling of her hands on the grip, and a bag lying on her foot filled with a collection of knick knacks. The soft wind blew and took her out of her stupor. She went back to her aged bag, pulling out a variety of sharp objects, blunt objects and what appeared to be a small variety of shiny coins and gems. An emergency pack of sorts, set beside a solid red box. A chief lesson was to always leave a small portion aside unless you wanted to lose everything in the eventual robbery or grand disaster.
“Hasn’t been the first time that I’ve had to leave home. Once I leave, flip a coin. Heads for labor, tales for scheming.”
As she picked a coin out of the bag, she felt its rough texture and uneven engraving. Professionally made yet barely identifiable as trading tender.
One quick movement for the set up.
Another for the flip,
And one more instant for the wind to blow and send the thing off to the distance.
“Motherfucker!”
As the glint of light reflected off the cheap red metal, falling down through the evergreen, Rhys followed like a bat out of hell, carrying her bag of trinkets with her. Clinking down the rocks and trees followed by a woman somewhere around 5’9 navigating the trees and moving swiftly through as if she were the wind herself. Racing down with ferocity unmatched and desperation fueling her actions, she found herself jumping down through the forest with only the glint of a bouncing coin to guide her every move. Each pounce and movement down through the trees followed by an audible…
“C’mon, stop bouncing, you copper little shit!”
While each exclamation was different in its own unique articulation, it followed that same formula of cursing the coin. This pursuit continued until finally near the bottom of the forest, she was able to pounce upon the rogue currency in a heap.
“Finally,”, she gasped. “Swear to god, I’m not starting a new life losing valuables like that.” Rhys furiously stuffed her coin into her knapsack. As she looked up, she found herself at the edge of the tree line, with the arbor decorated with posters of differing colorations but the same message. As she moved closer to inspect it, the poster itself was just… just great. Whoever made this knew how to advertise. Might as well try to apply. Always gotta respect the branding.
As both Shoa and Rhys took their respective passages towards Waning Rock, the tides of carriages and walking bodies also seeking a new opportunity in life, the same thought defined all their visions of the future.
"Might as well try."
