‘Fuck. What kind of villain sounds that clueless?’

  I fight off a grimace at my tone. Glad I’d decided early on not to be a streamer. This is exactly the sort of thing that would get clipped and spread around for a few hours. Giving me a brief and embarrassing life as a meme before the endless churn of content produces something newer, and maybe funnier. The best of the creations always ready to come back any time I did something that drew attention.

  I do my best not to think about the already existing recording that is unlikely to ever leave me. Focusing on trying to project confidence as I peer down the street for any sign of more people coming out of the small jungle around us. An overgrown hedge almost twice again my height being the most likely spot they could’ve hidden in. Although, how exactly they’d managed to hide inside the spiky looking thing, I have no idea.

  I keep my right hand in my Pocket, wrapping my fingers around the handle of my ice-axe as I wait for an answer that doesn’t seem to be coming. Smile slipping away as I get ready to scare off the local in case they’re mad about me breaking their bucket. I don’t take the weapon out just yet though. Hopefully, I can either get some answers or just be on my way without this turning into another problem.

  After everything else that’s happened today, it’s pretty easy to keep my expectations low as I examine the figure more closely. Resisting the urge to try and walk past them when they are so clearly blocking my way. If nothing else, they should’ve been able to figure out that I’m a supe from how hard I kicked the bucket and the mask hiding my face. Likely, seeing it when I turned around was the reason for their sudden stop.

  Their head only comes up to my elbows with how badly hunched over they are. Left arm stuffed into a pocket while the right is clutched tight to their chest and looks to end at the elbow. The edge of a basic prosthetic mount just peeking out from under the folds of a motley green coat.

  The heavy looking thing covered in twigs and leaves that must’ve helped camouflage them from sight. The foliage is woven into the many ugly stitches that form a patchwork of dull material across what might once have been an expensive coat. The corners of its hood hanging down and obscuring all but the chin of what I think is a woman’s deeply wrinkled face.

  “Oh? A hero? Are you, ah, here for the fruit, my dear?”

  “No, I’m a-”

  I cut myself off before I can admit to being a villain. Teeth clacking together just in time for me to avoid scaring the apparently French woman with a surprisingly thick accent. Whatever information she might be able to give me is unlikely to be quite as forthcoming for someone she thinks is about to rob her. Especially when I’ve already broken her bucket and spilled a small fortune of fruit across the floor.

  I lick my lips and hold back a wince as I resist the urge to start picking up the oranges as they roll by. Cringing internally as the woman’s hood tracks the broken bucket where it rolls into the road to be carried off by the stream forming there. I make a mental note to bring her a new one when I come back for some fruit of my own.

  “I’m sorry about the bucket, miss. I can bring you a new one at the weekend. Right now though, I’m looking for a place called The Moose’s Heart. Have you heard of it?”

  “I can’t hear you very well, Ms hero. Could you please ah, come over here?” Her voice is strong despite its halting thickness. Easily heard over the rain and occasional crack of thunder from behind me. Her own feet staying planted at the sidewalks centre as I move closer with a. frown. Doing my best to avoid the puddles of warm water and grasping roots while reevaluating my initial guess of her age. From the deeply wrinkled skin I can just see peeking out from the hood, I’d thought her to be at least pre-alignment, maybe older. Only the strength and clarity of her voice had prompted me to reconsider.

  Now though, as I step close enough to see the parchment yellow skin of her chin and notice how she’s not fidgeting, but shaking like a leaf even in this terribly hot weather, I push the guess a lot higher. My guilt over ruining what must have been at least an hour of hard one-handed work rising alongside the volume of my voice.

  “I said, ha-”

  I barely see the glint of light off metal in time to avoid getting stabbed. A flash of well-timed lighting saving me from an embarrassing death as it draws my attention to the spike that is the woman’s right forearm.

  “Fuck!”

  I almost slip on the rain slick slabs as I throw myself backwards. Flinch fuelled jump more a stumble as I hurry to make distance after my near dodge. Eyes going wide as I feel all the world narrowing to a single point. The same one that has just slashed a line across the front of my coat, missing the skin beneath by less than an inch.

  I tear the axe from my Pocket as I move. Slamming it into her arm with an uncoordinated swing as she steps in for a backstroke. Form awful and stance non-existent but still hitting with enough force to throw the shorter woman away from me. She rocks back on her feet, throwing out her other, normal looking, hand to help balance herself as she staggers away to the far side of the pavement. Her hunched back bumping into the hedge she’d come from as a low staccato rumble, like the sound of a car with a broken gearbox, comes from under her coat.

  “What are-?!”

  The wind catches her hood as she regains her balance, throwing it back and cutting off my demand. I can’t see very well through the rain and the ever lowering dark but I’m quite certain a person’s face isn’t meant to be that long. The confusion at what I’m looking at is soon swept away by a wave of panic, adrenaline rushing through every limb. The rush of thunder above not quite enough to hide the ratcheting crank of her legs as she lowers herself almost a foot closer to the ground.

  My eyes have just enough time to widen before a thwack splits the air and shoots her towards me. Thoughts of mind controlling fruit or monsters wearing a person’s shape brought to a screeching stop as I suddenly find a set of gleaming white teeth splitting open not an inch from my eyes.

  I duck. Saliva spattering my hair in syrupy strands as the clack of teeth closing over my head turns the rush of adrenaline into a flood. My free hand lashing out madly as I fall, striking something hard and unyielding in my attacker’s chest with the distinctive gong of hollow metal. The noise reaching my ears alongside a snarl of rage as the force of the blow sends a painful vibration up my arm and into my chest.

  I fight through it, throwing my weight behind the punch with a shout that’s more a scream. Just barely managing to push her back enough that I can avoid another stab of the arm-spike without tripping over my own feet. The sound of the blade cutting through the air not a foot from my chest pulling my eyes up from the floor. Thoughts restarting with a silent curse at myself for looking away from my own punch.

  I watch as she stumbles back again from the force of my blow. Not as far this time. Hand stinging where it impacted the metal under her coat while she hunches down even lower than her humped back had previously demanded. Curling herself over where I struck like some old beast nursing a wound it remembers having shrugged off in its youth. The rising click-rumble coming from under the bunched-up coat setting my already racing heart to try and burst from my chest. Legs shaking uncontrollably while I strain my ears for more of the ratchet clanks that will indicate another jump.

  “Ha-hah! I told you she’d dodge. Pay up! Pay up!”

  The same voice as before comes from the curled over shape, the rage it inspires helping me to breathe slower while I try to make out more detail through the pounding rain. The words now pitched far lower and bearing an infuriating smugness they hadn’t held before. The same voice certainly, but, from content and tone, not that belonging to the thing before me.

  I grit my teeth at the realisation, pushing aside my confusion over what’s going on. Focusing instead on trying to remember everything Jason’s ever told me about being in a fight. Unfortunately, after he’d spent a whole afternoon attempting to get me to stop closing my eyes whenever I punched, his professional advice had been to avoid them.

  That doesn’t look very likely to happen now. Another flash of lightning far above revealing the thing’s augments as they unfurl to a more upright posture. The rain continuing to fall in a sheet that does nothing to obscure the horror of what used to be a person now standing at shoulder height before me.

  All my plans to rush them are pushed from my head at what the brief light reveals. Heart skipping a beat and legs freezing in instinctive terror as I watch thick ropes of saliva drip down from between the protruding ceramic of her teeth. The parchment thin skin of her cheeks now cracked and bleeding where they’ve peeled all the back to her ears. Pulled apart to let the entirety of her jaw extend out almost a foot from her face. Every inch of the newly formed snout’s interior lined with perfectly white human canines that shine in the reflected light. Especially so when compared to the black synth-muscle that covers her skinless jaw bones.

  I glance up from the monstrous cyberware to the face above it, the old woman’s nose scrunched almost to her forehead while her cataract covered eyes twitch madly in their inflamed sockets. For all the inhumanity of her mouth, the ‘ware above is somehow worse. The left side of her head is covered in a fuzz of pink tech-hair with what looks like a Doberman’s cuffed ear drooping at the side. The other half bare and with the ear removed so that a box of ugly steel could be grafted directly into her partially exposed skull. A small speaker looks to have been added later and draws my attention to where a line of dull metal connects the box to the base of her spine.

  “Come on! Why’s she hesitate? I’ve never paid a cheat, stub.”

  The voice’s return shocks me out of my horror. The words flushing out the fear with a rush of heady rage that has me eyes focusing on the speaker that they’re coming from.

  “Hey! I can hear you! Turn off your pet psycho already. I’m-”

  I don’t get any further before she’s moving again. Spring legs ratcheting back in a single deafening motion before they rocketing her forward with another thwack of released tension. Her snout peeling open and arms spread wide. Panicked, I swipe out with the axe to try and intercept the blade before it can gut me. Missing with the pick but managing to catch her spiked arm with the hook on its other side. Pure luck letting me cut short the jump that would’ve landed her on top of me. Her feet crack against the pavement as she lands, water thrown up in a wave that splashes against my legs. The warmth of it having me flinch even before her teeth snap closed on the front of my chest.

  I scream, not realising she’s only caught the coat until no pain follows the closing jaws. I don’t have time to celebrate, nor regret my lack of fighting instinct, before the psycho’s free hand comes around to claw into my back. Fingers digging deep into the muscle of my side as she turns her failed jump into a bull rush that easily tips me over thanks to her vastly superior weight.

  I let out a wheeze of mixed shock and agony as she impacts my chest in a footballer’s tackle. Not having the chance to appreciate how this puts her jaw at my side, and so unable to bite me, before getting a firsthand experience of what ‘hit like a truck’ actually feels like. My ribs scream, painkillers overcome as a crack tells me they’ve been re-broken for the second time today. My lurching stomach almost an afterthought compared to the now unfortunately familiar pain. That is, until I realise that I’ve closed my eyes again and my stomach is the only thing letting me know that I’m falling.

  “Ahh! Come on, girl! You ca-!”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  My hips land on the curb’s edge just before my shoulders splash into the stream filling the road behind me. Cutting off the annoyed voice as my head is dunked under the current just as I try to pull in a breath. Warm, filthy water rushing into my mouth and nose to leave me sputtering as I struggle to rise against the weight pressing down on me.

  Fighting to get my still dry legs back under me, I tear savagely at the arm gripping my side. Gripping the aged synth-skin tight enough to rip it away in strips and clumps. Each pinch revealing more of the cold steel beneath. The motors and servos of her joints audibly whirring with the strain of holding me in place.

  I give up on the arm with a scream. Feeling, through the shift of weight, as she tries to pull back for a bite. Her clicking snout leaving a trail of hot saliva across my coat before I grab at to the box on the side of her head. Holding her in place to stop the snout from being able to do more than drool and snap where it’s held sideways against me.

  The axe somehow still hooked around the spike of her other arm and giving me some leverage as I try to buck off what feels like a small car pressing down on my screaming ribs. My hand covers the speaker as I finally get a firm grip, muffling the voice now alternating between shouting encouragement and arguing with someone else.

  Their words fuel an already growing rage that has me squeezing the box with all the strength I have. Snarling and snorting out dirt filled water as my world becomes nothing but brief flashes of light and sound. The latest rolling crash of thunder dying away just in time for me to hear the peal of steel on steel as the spike of the psycho’s arm slides free of the axe’s hook.

  I act without thinking. Knowing myself well enough to not even attempt a blind grab for her wrist. Instead, I drop the axe. Pulling the hand back into my Pocket through my sleeve and gripping tight to the handle of a revolver. Letting myself be pushed back under the water to increase my distance from the already descending spike. Buying myself just enough time to slip the fingers of my other hand into my Pocket and pull out the barrel of the revolver I’m already gripping.

  The shot is smothered by a crash of thunder.

  I barely feel the kick thanks to my strength and the distracting presence of what must be several hundred pounds of limp psycho collapsing onto my tender chest. The spike that had been about to ventilate my side instead splashing harmlessly into the stream beneath me. While the steel fingered grip still digging into my back making my attempt to throw her off far harder than it should be.

  Although, I can barely feel the pinching fingers through the wave of frozen fire crashing through me. Releasing my now numb grip on the revolver to let it burst out from the sleeve that had been pressed up against the side of the psycho’s head. Left hand fumbling the catch as the fingers feel like they’re about to turn black from the ice filling them.

  “Oh. Oh, fuck.” My voice comes out shaky through the mad clattering of my teeth. Mind still trying to put together what I just did, and how, even as the only thoughts filling my mind are ones of getting far, far away from here. I hold in the rising panic, making my hands stop shaking long enough that I can get them under the psycho’s front. Rolling her off me to the left and just tearing my coat apart rather than trying to pull it free of her rictus grip.

  Her fingers still feel like they’re taking a pound of flesh with the as I surge to my feet. Pulling down great lungsful of air as I try to rub some feeling back into my arms. The glacial cold from preventing the revolver from leaving my Pocket now sunk into my bones and making me shake like a leaf even in this terribly hot weather.

  I pause, then can’t help but snort at the irony.

  Thoughts not really getting past the poor joke as I stagger towards the psycho’s body while doing my best to resist a fit of hysterical giggles. Pulling my blue mac back on before the rain can get my jacket more than mildly soaked. A note of annoyance slipping past the clouded place that is my mind at having something else that I now need to buy a replacement for.

  Thoughts of cost and shopping trips are swept away as I look down at what once might’ve been an attractive woman. Pressing a hand into my side to try and reset my ribs, again, while resisting the call to swallow more painkillers. The ones I took on the way here are still working at least as already the raw agony is fading to something more bearable. That, or I’m just getting used to it.

  I huff away the thought and force myself to breathe deep and slow. Pulling my eyes away from where the heavily repaired coat is now hugging a figure that is unlikely to be natural. The stick and leaf threaded thing still obscuring most of the woman’s now limp body. Its ragged ends hanging over her legs but only partially hiding the inverted crescents that have replaced everything beneath the knee.

  I try not to look at her head. I really do.

  The woman’s snout is still extended and, with the help of the low light and the coat hiding her eyes, warps her face into something only vaguely recognisable as human. The hand gripping my ruined mac bangs repeatedly against the side of her face. Her shoulders on the edge of the curb and so bobbing her head into the running stream at the roads edge. The coat bunched in such a way as to cover the box bolted onto her skull. The speaker and its now quiet voice hidden by the shiny red plastic. With the darkness of the storm, and the dirt filling the water, I can’t make out just how much blood is staining the already crimson material.

  Hesitating, my thoughts floating but actions urged on by a morbid curiosity, I lean down to pull the coat aside. Pocketing the revolver and axe that I’d dropped before pulling her hand away with a tug that almost unbalances me. Subconsciously, I’d been expecting far more resistance.

  I swallow down bile while straining my eyes against the dark. Trying to make some sense out of the psycho’s already warped head where it’s bobbing up and down in the growing stream. I narrow my eyes as I step closer again, crouching down for a better look. The bullet seems to have struck the box before anything else. Boring a hole through the ugly thing and throwing out scraps of metal and wiring that are faintly sparking as water runs across them.

  ‘Where’s the blood?’

  I just have time to start worrying before a full body twitch from the not as dead as a I thought woman sends me stumbling back. Cloudy thoughts banished as I jump away with the heat of adrenaline returning some steadiness to my limbs. Almost tripping as her bladed feet kick out and narrowly miss my ankles. A burst of static comes from the box in the side of her head as I move back. More twitches going through her as I catch my balance just beyond her reach. A frozen hand wrapped around the grip of a revolver as I struggle to get a shaking finger onto the trigger.

  “-o way! I haven’t lost just because your merdique ‘ware is broken. Losing a signal is not the same as death.” The unknown speaker from before returns after a harsh crash of static filled whines. The distorted voice giving me something to focus on and reminding me that I’m not out of the woods just yet.

  “Hey! The fuck is this?!”

  “Oh! There’s the Ms hero. I told you. If your little box is working then something must be going on in that brain. Thus, as always, I win.”

  “Hey! Fucking listen to me!”

  They don’t though. The voices gloating, and then one-sided argument, cutting in and out as static screeches leave me hearing only every few words. The last of my shock over possibly killing someone, even if they were a psycho, swept away by the anger of being ignored by whoever was somehow controlling them. Someone who sounds to have been betting on how the fight would turn out. I set my teeth as I resist the urge to shoot the box again. Knowing that I’d almost certainly miss with how much the woman is moving.

  The psycho’s twitching becoming more focused with each passing second as a series of odd grunts begin coming from her throat. More of her coat thrown aside as she shifts her head to try and escape the intermittent waterboarding. The movement draws my eyes to her neck where a too-tight dog collar has worn a permanent scab into the baggy skin. A star shaped tag etched with the word ‘Samantha’ jingles back and forth in time with her movements.

  I recoil at the sight of it. Bile rising up in my throat as the name somehow makes this all so much worse. Another shiver having me back away further as memories of school mandated PSAs on the recently emerging new scare invade my head. For our grandparents it had been drugs and alcohol. Before the world ended anyway. Our parent’s generation had been too busy finding their place in Throne’s early days for things like the satanic panic. Not when there were actual monsters running about. But for the children of the twenty forties’, psychosis and madness are the new great scare. Whether from upgrade mania, meta-drugs or weirder things that all strangely lead to the same kind of crazy.

  In truth, I’d never really taken it seriously before now. Not even fully believed it was more than Corpo fearmongering and cultural hysteria. At worst, a problem for the first circle. Where ‘ware and meta-materials are far easier to get your hands on and the people are more willing to swap pieces of themselves for chrome.

  A rising keen from the psycho startles me from thoughts of how to report her presence without giving away my own. The noise disturbingly human despite being filtered through her snout. Something in its cutting tone setting off an instinctive terror deep in the ancestral recesses of my brain. The noise only growing in pitch and volume as I look around frantically for any sign of who she might be calling for.

  The thought to use the revolver in my hand to stop her from getting up, or possibly calling for help, only flits across my mind for an instant before I dismiss it. Killing someone might be inevitable for the path I’ve chosen, and I thought I’d made my peace with that, but I don’t want to start here. Not like this. I breathe out, long and slow as Saman- the psycho continues trying to get her head out of the water. This isn’t what I came here for and…

  ‘I just don’t want to.’

  I keep backing away until I’m far enough to feel safe turning my back on the psycho. Glancing towards the bus station and orange tree behind her as I weigh the chances of this being a trap from the start. It seems like low odds given how unlikely this was to work. There had been no guarantee I’d approach the psycho and she’d even seemed to run away at first. Plus, the only reason I’d struggled with her is my complete lack of fighting ability. If the fence wanted to ambush me for the rest of the jewellery, something he might not even get by killing me, then someone with a rifle would be far more likely to succeed.

  The rationalising helps to calm me down further as I come to a stop. Not quite ready to turn around and commit to either of the options before me. Torn between checking for the pub I’d been told of, or listening to my first instinct and just getting the fuck out of here. It’s the reminder that I really don’t have any options beyond this, and that the next bus stop is almost a mile away, that convinces me.

  Mind made up, I spin around at once to start jogging away. Glancing about as I go to make sure that no one else, and no-thing else, has been drawn to the sounds of fighting or the high, now babbling, keen leaving the psycho’s throat.

  The noise grows louder as I move, cutting through the roll of thunder above and making me antsy as I keep glancing around for whoever was talking through the speaker. A clack of steel on stone having me look back to where the woman is getting more and more worked up. Her teeth gnashing together as her arms skate across the slabs without finding any grip. An increasingly violent trembling leaving her a twitching mess that is slowly edging closer to slipping off the road entirely.

  The sight of her acting like a rabid animal kills any satisfaction I might’ve felt at beating her. Even for a psycho, not having the patience or intelligence to stand up marks her as amongst the most degenerated. Although, destroying that skull-clamp probably hasn’t improved her condition.

  I stay quiet as I move, the sounds of her struggles slowly muffled by rain and distance. Or, possibly by those struggles coming to a stop. Whether from falling into the stream, or managing to stand up, I can’t tell. I just focus on not tripping on the broken sidewalk while trusting in the storm and my small size to hide me.

  I force myself not to look back again as I get to the end of the street, stepping out into the road while holding my lightly screaming ribs. Hunching over to try and stop the rain from getting down the collar of my mac and almost slipping when my foot sploshes down into the stream flowing along the curb. Far deeper here than I’d expected.

  Glancing down while throwing out my arms to catch my balance. The feel of a powerful drag on my foot drawing my eye towards where the stream is disappearing into a storm drain just behind my heel. The roots half filling it, and the large amount of dirt being carried by the water, telling me that this neighbourhood is likely to be flooded if the storm doesn’t stop soon. Another flash of lightning arriving just in time to let me know how unlikely that is.

  I hurry across the road towards the cul-de-sac proper. Not wanting to be any closer to Throne’s sewer system than I absolutely have to be. Whatever I think about the people choosing to live in this overgrown suburb, and I think a lot after meeting one of them, the madmen who live underground are worse. Running into one of the various gangs or… things that call Throne’s sewers home would only be a step above meeting an actual monster. Except the monster would be less likely to eat me.

  I put thoughts of sewer dragons from my mind as I step up onto the curving sidewalk of the cul-de-sac. Ignoring the redwood at the centre of the plaza to instead search for the sign I’d been told to find behind it. My eyes roving over the lawns to the left of me and the derelict houses beyond.

  The open space is even more overgrown than the rest of this street. The lawns covered with ferns and flowers that are currently hiding their buds away from the rain as well as what looks like a sporadic line of young rubber trees just starting to rise up past the greenery around them. The rich emerald of the leaves interspersed with the vibrant pinks and purples of those few petals still peeking out. Blending together and drawing my eye away from anything else that might be amongst them.

  Not that finding a monster among the shrubbery, or anywhere around here, was ever very likely. There are, from what I saw from the bus window, at least some sane people still living in this neighbourhood and even the most harmless of monsters would make this place uninhabitable. Plus, the council would send someone out immediately to deal with any hint of a breach in the containment wall. I try not to think too hard about how the only person I’ve seen since getting off the bus has been a psycho whose presence is also going unreported.

  My attempts at picking out detail get easier as I get closer and soon my eyes spot what I’ve been searching for. Tension bleeding out of me at the physical proof that at least some part of what the fence told me is true. Hurrying again as I tread quickly but carefully over the broken ground to stand before a slab of black basalt planted just to the right of the first of four houses that have fully burnt down.

  I run a hand over the stone just as the fence’s note had told me. The dry chill of its surface having me shiver in discomfort as I feel not a speck of rain on its top. I grit my teeth again and ignore it, muttering a promise to beat the man black and blue if this does turn out to be a trap. More of a trap. I’m already going to be having some words with him regarding the skull-clamped psycho if we ever do get to meet.

  I stuff my now dry hand back into a pocket after feeling each of the many ridges carved into the slabs top. Paying no more mind to the hunk of stone or the concrete path beside it that leads off deeper into the combined yards of the overgrown suburb. Continuing at my fast pace until I can walk up the driveway of the third of the burned down houses. Keeping my eyes locked on what’s left of the front porch where a singed rocking chair is slowly moving in the wind.

  I squint my eyes as I get within a few steps of the rotten looking wood. Holding my still oddly dry hand out ahead of me and wondering if I’m about to get rushed by another psycho. Trying to spot some sign of what I’d been told to expect and hoping more than anything that this hasn’t all been nothing. If I have to walk to the next bus stop with nothing to show for coming here but a ruined coat and one less bullet, then the fence might not survive me getting my hands on him.

  ‘I just need some way of luring out the cheating piece of-’

  “Bonsoir, Ms hero. You put on a wonderful show!”

  I startle back to attention at the shout, eyes whipping away from the suddenly full rocking chair to where an aggressively androgynous figure is now standing on the restored porch. The fluorescent light coming from behind them silhouetting their sleek form and leaving me certain of only two things: they are wearing a screen over the top half of their face and this is the same voice that had been speaking to me through the skull-clamps speaker.

  Only the presence of a mask and the, somewhat impractical, looking costume underneath keeps me from shooting them right there. One hand already gripped around a revolver hard enough to risk cracking the guard as I watch them raise a glass towards me. A little hop seeing them seated on the wooden railing as they lean against a pillar and let a few drops of rain land in their fizzing glass.

  My reply to the grinning toast is cut off as I glance at where the raindrop fell from. Blinding rage briefly forgotten as I fully take in the house now before me. The burned down husk of collapsed beams and half-exposed foundation barely higher than my waist has been replaced with a three-story ranch style mansion. The original build looking to have been extended and repaired until little of the faux-woodwork remains. My eyes pausing at where the porch’s rotten eave has been replaced with another basalt slab wedged into the wood. Unlike the last, this one has three words carved across it in dark red… paint?

  ‘The Moose’s Heart.’

  should be three days from now on the 27th (Maybe earlier but we'll see) (will be tomorrow on the 28th, sorry everyone).

  thanks for reading!