The world has been etched by capitalism by such a long time that it had made its way through the apocalypse. One of the many most pleasant businesses you can make in this era of course was bounty hunting. Since the New Fellows opened new varieties of commodity, United Alluvium had to accept their new cultures, and even markets just so that war did not start from one corner of the planet.
As an entrepreneur, bounty hunting lets you set your own values and targets. A person’s price can range from the amount of goods one stole from someone, especially from Corvids, or to the anger mob bosses’ have in for their ass. Unfortunately for Sealant, two galaxies had in it for her ass, and for the energy cell locked on her lead engrave finger tips.
It had been an hour since she tapped the last of her tears when the arm started to ache. When she tried feeling the droidsprig with her free hand, she was sure the coat it had covered was wet. And she was beginning to boil. Sealant figured it wasn’t long for another fever to strike and with the coming of dawn, she knew she didn’t have enough time.
She was sure their masked companion had left their camp. It was too quiet. She made note to be vigilant for the companion when she caught the white of an emaciated skull stitched on his short cloak. United Alluvium loved their titles. Bounty hunters were private workers but such bands were required so that they are not tried for murder when a target is eliminated. For Sealant on the other hand, it was fair warning.
Partly light was passing through her tent’s entrance. On a sitting position, making a glance at her droidsprig, she was both devastated and warry to find the attachment. Danio had specifically made the temporary humerus, and the twisting ulna and radius out of lead. So were her digits, the mer gifting her perfect five rather than the regular four since, as he had offered, “A small relief compared to the entire limb leaving her body for good.” Whatever is swimming inside that mer’s brain, Sealant could never name.
But the energy cell was stuck. How she wanted that vile, encapsulated in its own battery, cell removed from her robotic arm. It was long as her hand, cylinder in shape, and glowing green with volatile radium gas. It was the lead canning, said the mer, that would protect her from mutating into the unbreathing. Regardless, not being able to move her fingers will put the uranium in her hand, literally and figuratively. But despite the lack of expense she had for the attachment, Sealant’s plans crumpled when no movement came from the pain she was making. The droidsprig did not feel like her arm, nor had it work when just trying to move her fingers only called for blood to trail down its frame.
Nausea was kicking in when she heard the Hawker returning. The Hawker, Coursier was a familiar man. Many of her trusted traders actually. So, she was just about reaching her tent’s flaps, the droidsprig heavy on her right shoulder, when she saw the bounty hunter drop from the sky in perfect and effortless form. With the day’s entrance illuminating his march towards her tent. Sealant realized her situation was fucked up.
The bounty hunter was huge, and long. He could have been nearing two meters tall when he travelled their distance in seconds. Additionally, his built muscles lined his overall, almost bursting from the tension of his movements. He still had his rifle ready and with the mask and goggles on, he powered like a mutant on a human’s body. As he came closer, so did Sealant’s own fear.
But she had no choice but to strive forward with whatever Alluvium has spawned from its decaying world. She needs to take the bounty hunter down before he realized whatever price Forthland marked her head. Scratching the remnants of her passed Corvid life, Sealant angled to the side of the entrance and prepared herself with a fighting stance. When a long, covered arm stroke out the flaps, Sealant grabbed the limb and pulled with all of her remaining strength.
They both could have laughed with the ridiculous way she hanged from his arm. But their moment of equal surprise was short lived when a growl was heard from outside.
Like a droid reacting mechanically to danger, the giant bounty hunter shook her off to the ground, told her to “Stay,” and immediately left the tent.
Paranoia was it own living organism in every people in the apocalypse. When you hear the growling of a broken throat, you did not go after it and learn to hide and run. But whatever Sealant was doing, shooting out from her crouch, going through her cot with unyielding positivity that Frisk packed her revolver, she gave a huge berth when she remembered to check her dirty coat and took out her best friend. She was also positive it was fully loaded and was brisk enough to follow the bounty hunter outside and join a fight their lives could not impossibly escape.
The unbreathing was smelling the air when it arrived to their sight. Reaching the height of a tree, Coursier knew it was his unbreathing he had left to the pigeons. Himself had just packed the last of his empty crate when the three-legged living virus told its carrier, the bleeding carnage to bundle over clearer to the morning camp.
Used to confronting to danger, Coursier reached inside his puffed jacket and took out a grenade. Looking at the unbreathing, the amgo powering its consciousness had only evolved its cancer cells to lungs. Hence, the rigorous breathing and the absence of eyes and ears. Ironic. The freaks were not called the unbreathing because they did not breathe, Coursier grinned, but because viruses don’t breathe. And this one, for its size and swelling tumors, would be dumb enough to fall into chaos and confusion if were to blow up.
But gunfire reached its hungry mandibles first.
