[chapter:Cartridge 01: Brothel Bedlam]

  [i:Indulge into the bliss and let yourself go]

  Abs.

  The first thing he picked up was abs. Sculpted, six-packed, shining abs. Ricardo could barely avert his gaze from that bonanza in front of his eye (singular). He bit his lips, cursed under his breath. What a day not to have stereoscopic vision. Cursed be that jugger and its tendril—it couldn’t strike somewhere else, right? No, it had to be his right eye. So, here he was, feasting on that heavenly vision with his gimped sight, all while trying to feign indifference. Sure, those were nice abs, but he couldn’t make the mistake of indulging too much on them, in that moment—not in his situation. Not in that place forgotten by man.

  One road to come.

  One road to go.

  A refill station.

  A motel.

  And a brothel.

  Surrounded by literal emptiness.

  So, there he sat, observing those walking abs standing in front of him, as their owner rested his elbows on the wooden counter, flashing his pecs too. Ricardo followed those healthy shapes, trying not to be caught. Slim, perfectly balanced, not a gram of extra fat. But, of course, foxes were built like that and came with an impractical fluffy tail too. Said tail was currently wagging up and down, all while its owner tapped his bare foot on the floor with a broken rhythm. No shoes either, but that was of little surprise. Ricardo had yet to meet a fox wearing more than the minimum legal amount that preserved their modesty. At least, this specimen had pants on—ripped, patched, worn-out pants that were holding up thanks to nothing but hopes and dreams—yet, still pants. Ricardo forced his eye to pan up, to avoid wondering whether said fox wore anything under those excuse of a garment (though he knew the answer just by glancing at the shadow he caught dangling between those legs). In so doing, he met his gaze. Amber eyes, with slightly elongated pupils, framed by wild, unruly red tufts falling down to his collar bones. His animal ears, standing tall above his head, tilted a little. Those ears and that tail were the only dead giveaway of his nature. If he concealed them, he could have passed for a human. But he didn’t—he stubbornly, proudly exposed himself as a fox, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  A powerful yawn came out of his slender lips, baring his fangs, all while his tail kept moving in a broken rhythm.

  “…ain’t she got off yet? I’m tired of waiting...”

  He couldn’t have showed more than twenty years of age. Young. With a perfect body. Wearing almost nothing and flashing almost everything. A shining example of what he would have expected to get in a place better than that cheap imitation of a brothel they stood in, something he would have paid a hefty premium for.

  Except that fox wasn’t one on the boys on sale.

  And Ricardo wasn’t a customer—just part of the furniture.

  That was indeed the job he was paid for, after all. And what a job it was—serving at the reception of a godforsaken whorehouse in the middle of literally nowhere. He was the only living being manning that bottom-of-the-barrel venue, together with an all-too-silent maid he didn’t even know the name of. It felt kind of ironic that the only place that he was deemed fit to serve in after losing an eye to a jugger was his uncle’s Order-subsidized brothel. A brothel that now was hosting a fox, one that was angrily tapping his foot on the floor while chewing insults, running up and down the marred reception, scratching his nails on the smoked tapestry, glancing back at the world outside once in a while. Before going back to the counter and complain to Ricardo, that is. A loop that didn’t want to end. The fox’s voice growled, in a tone that was neither too low nor too high pitched.

  “Which service tier did she pay for?”

  “She didn’t. She just, you know, showed her ID and put it on the Order’s tab.”

  “Abusing her privileges, huh. Never change, Rondeau. Never change.”

  He sighed loudly, let himself slump on a cramped sofa that once might have been red and now was just a wasteland of smears and grease. His eyes wandered around the small reception, darting to every single small detail. A parquet that was anything except even, a pot full of dried flowers, that upside down counterfeit portrait of General Hunger, the faded price list, that thirty-something one-eyed guy with a black ponytail and a hooked nose at the counter…

  Another sigh, one of resignation.

  “Do you have anything to read?”

  “This is a whorehouse, not a book store.”

  “Wait, nothing at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “A gossip magazine, a comic book, a bible—nothing nothing?”

  “Nope.”

  “Seriously, how do you still have customers, if this is the level of service?”

  Ricardo clicked his tongue, considering whether to answer seriously or not. Still, he couldn’t keep his gaze away from that specimen, now lying on the sofa belly up, rummaging through a stash of items abandoned by previous patrons on a small table and evidently never claimed back. The fox’s fingers caught a booklet, stapled together in some crude way. A twenty pages brochure of sorts, filled to the brim with pictures and captions. A familiar slashed sun logo welcomed him. He turned the first page open, let out a longer sigh. That was just the service tier list. Prices and such. Probably, the only readable scrap of anything lying around the whole building. With nothing better to do, the fox started browsing it, his ears twitched up and down rhythmically. Ricardo couldn’t help but wonder, at that sight. Could the fox really read? Or was he just pretending to?

  For a moment, his eye stopped falling for the abs and focused on the face instead, on those delicate traits that were now relaxed, as the amber irises dashed around the pages. A sudden utterance surprised him, as the fox’s ears suddenly turned up.

  “Wait, don’t tell me...”

  The fox smirked, tapping his fingertip on one of the pictures—one showing a faceless robotic operator with six arms. He rolled his eyes, gritted his fangs.

  “Of course she would. Of course.”

  He closed the brochure, put it down on the floor, let his head tilt back, stared at the ceiling. Cobwebs. The usual jugger sensors. A rotating red light covered in dust. A spinny fan that saw better days. The usual jugger sensors again. Cracks. Many cracks. A tiny spider jumping around. A very tiny spider. It had to be new to that bedlam, as its size was way below average. The fox shook his head. Not worth a taste. Too young. Too small. It could have been better to let it grow before eating it. He lazily moved his gaze around one more time, starting back from the same corner. Cobwebs, sensors, emergency light, fan, spider, the sensors again and again and ag

  His eyes widened. He blinked. Once. Twice. Looked up again. Once. Twice. A faint light. A glimmer. He focused on it. Just a spark, a fading spark. Still, that meant…

  “Say, man… the jugger sensors up there…?”

  “Yes…?”

  “What was the last time you checked them?”

  Silence. Ricardo fell into an uncomfortable silence, averted his gaze. The fox sat on the sofa, stared at him. Amber embers burned through his corneas, a fire that couldn’t be quenched.

  “The last time. Tell me. Now.”

  “…well… maybe…”

  Ricardo gulped down a lump of saliva.

  “…five years ago?”

  “Sh…”

  The wall exploded. Rubble sprayed around the room. Dust. Ashes. A thick cloud of smoke. Scraps of wood, metal, concrete flying around in a vast blast wave, spreading through the air while everything else turned upside down. Ricardo yelled, thrown to the floor by the shockwave. The counter followed him, rolling over him, missing his head by a dozen centimeters, before unceremoniously breaking down in a wooden paste of smashed chipboard. The fox leapt behind the sofa, gritted his teeth, slammed his hand on his forehead.

  The wall, what was once the wall behind the counter, had now a one meter large carving, one that opened up on a dark corridor. One meter of radius, one meter of plaster and all what stood inside blasted to heaven denied. The lights went off. Silence fell.

  For a second.

  For a long second.

  Nothing happened.

  The fox breathed. The calm before the storm. He bent his legs as springs, ready to jump out. Ready to run, if it was what he thought it was.

  Something shiny peeked out from the hole.

  A tip.

  A small metallic tip, one that reflected the light from the windows. Thin. Short. Slithering through the hole. No, not a tip. A tendril. That was a tendril. No, no, not even a tendril. A leg. A full-on mechanical leg. A shiny, mechanical leg, akin to that of a spider.

  Rising up like a scythe. Waiting for an infinite instant.

  Slamming the floor with a high-pitched scream.

  Then another.

  Another.

  Another another another.

  The fox gasped.

  Six legs.

  Puncturing the parquet.

  Coming out of that hole.

  Whirring. Buzzing.

  Still hanging to scraps of clothes, to torn azure ribbons.

  Blood.

  Blood sprayed all over it.

  And those

  Red lights

  Dotting all of its body.

  Emerging under the poor remains of organic sludge.

  Ricardo shrieked, launched himself under the broken counter. The fox’s mouth fell agape, a guttural shot left his lungs.

  “Come on, seriously?!”

  The creature’s legs burst out of the wall, shook the floor at every step. The portrait of General Hunger fell. The rubble, the bricks crumbled down. The main body still too big to go through the crack, yelling to pass, to move to the other side, demolishing whatever lay in its path. Its tendrils roamed through the hole, its legs tried to enlarge it, to let it pass, scraping the floor, forcing their way out of

  A loud noise.

  The sound of a gunshot.

  One of the legs blasted into burning metal, the red lights blinking, the whole body waving. In the dust, in the cloud of smoke that enveloped the creature, a small silhouette broke through, running outside of it at breakneck pace, jumping out of the hole, rolling on the parquet, cocking a sawed off shotgun. A short girl with brown, spiky, unruly hair. A slashed sun tattoo on her cheek. Standing in front of the creature. Wearing nothing but a ripped towel that barely covered her body.

  Her voice roared, thundered in the room, echoing through the walls in a cacophony or rage.

  “Aaaapple! Stop slacking and help me smash this jugger, you fox-assed moron!”

  Before pulling the trigger again.

  And exploding more metal out of the oversized mechanical spider.

  [chapter:Cartridge 02: Sticky Fingers]

  [i:In love and war, all you need is a gun]

  “Let me know if you need anything else, milady.”

  “M-mh!”

  Rondeau just answered with a short moan, as the six capable hands of the robot servicer started exploring every nook and cranny of her body, after handcuffing her to the bed—just as the brochure said. Slowly, without hurry, after undressing her so thoroughly and carefully that she felt like being unpacked like a snack. She didn’t even care that the maid didn’t leave the room yet. For all she was concerned about, the maid could stay and watch till her eyes fell off. She kissed the chromed surface of the robot’s main body, licked its metallic case. The actuators, those five-fingered hands, were making a mess out of her senses, stimulating every single bit of her exposed skin. Another soft moan escaped her grasp. A brothel with six-armed robot attendants? That was too good to be true. That was the stuff her wet dreams were made of. And yet, there she was, cuddled and serviced by one such machine, in the most flung out place in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the absolute middle of nowhere. The maid was a cutie too, with those azure ribbons and those luscious blond locks. Still, going for a flesh and bones construct was a no go. An absolute no go. So, metal it was. And rubber. And plastic. And oil. Warm oil flowing on her skin, among her legs, edible shining lubricant that hugged her, embracing all of her in that sensory bliss. That was heaven. That was the very definition of heaven. Well, a very materialistic heaven, not one she’d read in the holy books. Still, her body didn’t care. Was it sin? Probably not. There was no line in the Yuvian bible about being humped by a six-handed robot. So, she enjoyed the moment, reveled in it. After weeks of deprivations, after one whole month of absolute abstinence, every single touch sent her to another dimension of bliss, bringing her close to the finishing line faster and faster.

  So, shame that all of that had to suddenly end in a massive burst of shotgun rounds. Her finger rested on the trigger, her breath ragged, her eye darting between the magazine indicator and the mass of shambling metal writhing in front of her. Ripping the handcuffs hurt her wrists, but shooting with them on would have been a pain. So, she growled, pumped the lever once again, loading two cartridges in the barrel. There was a name etched on it: Slaughterhouse Dog. That was it, the name of her beloved sawed off, in its red-coated shiny surface. Her somewhat darkish complexion, her short, brown, unruly spiky hair, her hazel eyes created a remarkable contrast with the ripped blue towel that was currently sliding down her hips. That was just the first thing she could put her hands on, of course. Shooting a jugger in the nude was nothing new to her, but she had standards, especially on official duty. A breath. Another breath. A jugger there, of all places. Her rotten luck, once again.

  She should have seen it coming. She should have noticed the strange movements, the clockwork-like twitching. But she chose to ignore it. She chose to avoid thinking of it, focusing on the pleasure of the moment. Well, now it was all over. All because the warning sensors didn’t fire. She cursed. Whoever ran that place needed to be schooled about the importance of good maintenance.

  The now five-legged jugger took some distance from her, flashed its red eyes. Scraps of blue garments were still dragged around by its deformed body. Hair. Patches of skin. Bone fragments. Most of it slid away but some still stuck onto its metallic corpse. That was what made it hard, for her. For every other executioner. Still, now there was no way back.

  Another loud bang.

  Four legs.

  The jugger crumpled on the floor, as blood poured out of its vessels, spraying all over the white plaster. She snickered, gritted her teeth. No significant damage despite two shots.

  “Apple! Knock that guy out cold and bring him out of here! I’ll deal with this!”

  The fox in what was left of the reception groaned, rolled his eyes.

  “Sure, leave it to me, princess.”

  She gave him the raspberry, shook her head in kind. Obnoxious fox, sticking to her like a good doggo. The only pet she needed was Slaughterhouse Dog. The only pet she wanted to hear howling now. The jugger managed to stabilize its stance, its red lights flashing and buzzing. Rondeau clenched her hand around her weapon, heard something strange. Sounds. That machine was emitting sounds. Sounds nobody could parse. Sounds that felt so foreign to a human ear. Sounds she wanted to pretend never existed. She stepped forward, slowly, keeping the mechanical creature in her sight. A small one. A newborn. No real offensive capabilities, no more dangerous than a scared jaguar. Despite its almost human size, it felt insignificant, now that some of its appendages were cut. It crawled in the corner, its eyes shining and blinking, its legs shaking.

  Again those sounds.

  Again.

  Rondeau didn’t listen.

  Rested her finger on the trigger again.

  “…why?”

  Three legs.

  More blood, springing out like a high pressure fountain, painting the walls, staining the floor. A high pitched noise. One more time. Rondeau stuttered. Her hand. Was shaking. Her fingers. Were shaking.

  “Why did you hatch?”

  Her mind raced back. It happened all in an instant. Those six robotic arms were squeezing her breasts, turning her into a mush of broken sentences and peaks of pleasure, to a level she only dreamed of before. Until she heard it. The sobs. The groans. The cries. Overshadowing her moans, overwhelming her ears. Human sobs. Human groans. Human cries. Those made Rondeau leave that ecstatic feeling of bliss. Those made her focus on the only other person around. That’s when she saw them. Her eyes. Widening. Blood flowing down her lips. As her pain intensified. As her cries got louder. Till the first jagged edge split her chest in two. And the rest of the metal followed soon after, bursting from inside out, tearing through her flesh, thrashing the limbs of the six-hander sex bot, destroying it in its ominicidal instinct.

  She breathed.

  The azure scraps of clothes, the strands of blond hair.

  The maid. The maid that served her so well, that helped her with the choice of perfume, that massaged her before the act, that led her to the room.

  That maid.

  Was no more.

  What was left. What she turned into. Was crawling, losing blood at an alarming pace, trying its best to survive. Thinking about how to counter. How to kill her. Because that’s what the juggers did. Kill humans. That’s all they were good for. Nothing else.

  Break the handcuffs, grab the dog, shoot.

  A primordial instinct, one that drove every one of her action. One that ensured her survival. One that saved her one more time. Bringing weapons with her. Always. Whatever the situation. Whatever the place. Whatever her attire. Have a weapon at hand, even when going into a brothel room. That was her first rule. A rule she’d never break.

  The jugger shrieked, shriveled into the corner. It was losing even more blood, its eyes flashed red, blinked on and off, its three legs writhing, shaking. Rondeau lowered her gaze, lowered her barrel, started to chant.

  “O wayward soul…”

  She pumped up her shotgun again, the broken handcuffs hanged from her wrists.

  “…eater of forbidden apples, sinner among sinners…”

  The barrel shone, reflected the blinking lights, reflected them on Rondeau’s face too.

  “…may the everlasting fire of hades burn you forevermore…”

  A last glint of regret, as the finger rested on the trigger.

  “…till the gods forgive you.”

  **

  Ricardo’s eye opened up. And, the first thing he saw, was, once more

  Abs.

  Fox abs.

  Yes, the fox guy was standing over him. Kneeling over him. Hugging him. Ricardo blushed violently, his muscles stiffened. The explosion. The jugger. The shotgun lady. All of that was a blur in his mind, a blur with no beginning or end, except one certainty.

  The fox guy.

  The fox guy was smirking. An annoyed smirk, sure, but still a smirk. With the backdrop of the setting sun, he looked like a god, a god among the gods, gracing the land with his magnanimous presence. Ricardo felt foam in his mouth. That reddish hair, that reddish tail, those barely there pants. If he could he…

  “Hey, Rondeau, he’s back! See, what did I tell you?”

  “…you should have knocked him out better.”

  Ricardo blinked, slowly. Close to the fox, stood a shorter girl with darker skin, covered in blood, with a shotgun barrel lying close to her neck. She was wearing an open blue executioner jacket on her shoulders, hanging over her naked skin and barely preserving at least some of her modesty. Everything else she should have had on—pants, boots, underwear—was all stashed inside a bag close to her foot. Her wrists were still wrapped in thrashed handcuffs, the chain ripped and dangling from them. Ricardo closed his eyes. Kept them closed for a second. Opened them back. The girl was still there. Caked in blood and red stains. With that slashed sun tattoo on her right cheek. Flashing her body, rolling her eyes, groaning.

  “…so, this is the idiot who didn’t install new sensors for…”

  “The past five years.”

  “Five years? Oh, Yuvia take him...”

  She bent forward, moved her shotgun barrel under Ricardo’s chin.

  Fire.

  Her irises were literally on fire.

  “Hey, you…”

  He gulped, curled his fingers. His teeth clattered, his whole being shivered. A jugger attack. In his uncle’s brothel. From inside the maid’s body. All while an executioner was there. What horrible luck he had. What horrible luck. He could plead innocent. He could blame his uncle. He could ask for forgiveness. He could get on all four and pray. Even if it cost all of his reputation. Even if it cost everything. He couldn’t die there. He couldn’t get to jail. There had to be a…

  “…do you have another spare six-hander, in your robrothel?”

  A spare six-hander.

  She was referring to…

  “N-no, milady. That was the only one still in activity, but we have a couple piston-powered…”

  A scrap of paper flew in front of his nose, before he could even finish answering.

  “This is my pager number. Send me a message as soon as it’s fixed and up for business again, alright?”

  “…what.”

  “Unless you prefer me to report you to the Order for your expired sensor array, that is?”

  Ricardo bowed, the deepest bow ever known to man.

  “I will, milady! As you command! As you wish!”

  A grin peeked on her bloodstained face.

  “Good. Nice to see there are still smart guys in this world.”

  Rondeau snapped her fingers, sighed in Apple’s direction.

  “…man, I can’t even relax on my single, mandated day off in a month, huh?”

  Apple snapped his fingers too, grinned in her direction.

  “You know you could simply ask me to do you, right? That’s what I was given you for.”

  “No way in hades. Over my cold dead body.”

  “Pffft. That’s the spirit.”

  A loud thud. Their fists bumped, in front of the setting sun, as they both grinned from ear to ear.

  “Let’s go, foxy boy! I need a motel room, a shower, and a locksmith. These cuffs are killing me!”

  [chapter:Cartridge 03: Two and Two]

  [i:The hunter who chases his prey shall watch his back first]

  The doors of the bus closed with a whimper, slowly yielding to the violence of its hydraulic joints. A chugging, muted roar spread around it, puffing out a thick cloud of smoke from its two exhausts. Then, the wheels started to whir against the unsteady grip of the tarmac, finally leaving their resting place and embracing the call of its duty. Leaving behind just two people at the stop, freshly arrived at their destination. One was a shorter woman in her twenties, in a full blue and white uniform jacket, donning heavy military boots. A slashed sun tattoo welcomed the sun on her cheek, much as her spiky hair tried to hide it. She stretched her arms up, arcing her back in a cat-like pose too, yawning from the depths of her soul, in what would have considered a fairly standard and unremarkable early morning routine. Her wrists, though, broke that picture of order and cleanliness. Handcuffs. Broken down handcuffs, with the shattered chain still dangling from both halves. And a massive shotgun, secured to her belt.

  “…how can they live in that hellhole without a locksmith…?”

  “I dunno, how often do you need a locksmith in the middle of nowhere?”

  The voice at her side came from further up. A tall man, also in his twenties, with long-ish auburn unkempt hair, fox ears standing tall on his head and a fox tail wiggling up and down with something vaguely resembling unrest. His attire consisted entirely of a leather choker with a small gold pendant, two intertwined bracelets on his left wrist and extremely low-rise pants, ripped, patched and mended in a way that made them look like they could fall (apart?) any second now. Despite that, he seemed to find no discomfort on the warm asphalt, as if the boiling black surface didn’t faze his skin even a little. The girl turned around to him, punched him lightly in the shoulder.

  “Well, I need it pretty often.”

  “…every time you get stuck handcuffed to a bed by a sexbot?”

  “No shaming, alright? It’s just something that makes my blood run!”

  Apple patted her shoulder, rested on it by virtue of his slightly taller build, leaning on the shorter girl’s figure.

  “And I thought executioners were supposed to be paragons of virtue.”

  Rondeau shoved him back with both of her hands, making him rebound.

  “We are! That’s… it’s not a sin! I mean, it’s not written in the scriptures, right? So, it doesn’t count.”

  Apple shrugged, clicked his tongue. No satisfaction in teasing her. Too easy to trigger a reaction. It was more productive to scan his surrounding, looking around in the early rays of sunrise. In front of them stood a somewhat imposing wall, dotted by small cracks and openings. Flyers and banners welcomed them from the distance, from the highest building he could lay his eyes on. That was pretty impressive, all things considered. A tower painted in blue and white, overshadowing every other man made structure around it. Apple whistled, his ears twitched. He would have been curious to watch the world from up above there, see where it ended, where the salt lakes began, where the mountains rose to reach the sky. He whimpered. That was simply not possible. Not for a foxkin. Not even if Rondeau guaranteed for him. For that and… other reasons, going back to Cadenza was always a source of unquenchable pain. He glanced at his companion, questioned her with a growl.

  “I thought you sent your report already? So, why are we back here? Cordo’s med center would have been closer for a post-jugger check-up.”

  “…”

  “It’s not just because of the cuffs, I hope…?”

  Rondeau pulled down the sleeves of her jacket, hiding her restrained wrists deep inside them. Her cheeks blushed a little.

  “It’s no big deal, but if anyone sees me still wearing them…”

  At those words, Apple cracked a smile, waving his hand wildly. Rondeau blinked. Once. Twice. Turned her head around. Saw what Apple saw, with a couple of seconds of delay. Jolted in place. Gritted her teeth.

  “Oh, sh…”

  Two silhouettes were walking towards them, orderly, without hurry. She could have recognized the leading one everywhere. Same blue jacket. Heavy blue pants. White decorations all over it. A short gun attached to a large belt. Slashed sun symbols spread all around his outfit. A slashed sun tattoo on the left side of his neck too. Long silvery hair. Blue eyes—more like pure ice. And, of course, the smug grin of someone who thought he had the world at his feet.

  “Look if it isn’t Rondeau! Back from your day off?”

  Rondeau pulled down her sleeves, hid the handcuffs as well as she could. A little blush, though, made its way to her cheeks. The thrill of getting caught, of being exposed, pumped her heart, raised its rhythm. It beat faster, faster, faster the closer the man got. She gulped down a lump of saliva. That feeling was more shameful than the actual act, but she couldn’t do anything to control it. Just smile and hope for the best.

  “Right on time to see your ugly face, Waltz.”

  The man called Waltz shrugged, struck a pose. He held his left hand on his hip under Apple and Rondeau’s gaze, letting his hair swoosh in the air with a dramatic gesture.

  “Ugly? Oh, please… I’m fabulous.”

  “Yes, yes! He is! Master Waltz is so cool!”

  An overly excited voice hijacked their attention, right as the shorter silhouette jumped between Waltz and Apple. Twitching fox ears, spiky auburn hair falling on her shoulders, emerald irises, a fluffy wagging tail. The young foxkin jumped around like a rabbit, pulling Waltz’s sleeve several times in the process. She was wearing something that could be barely called a ‘dress’—more like a large-ish strip of cloth that started from her collar and ended around her knees, falling in front and behind her. The back part split at the height of her tail, falling into two separate strands that embraced it and kept going down. The two sides of that ‘dress’ were connected with two short belts buckled in the middle, located slightly above her hips, one left, one right. That was it, though. There was nothing else. That ‘dress’ didn’t cover the sides of her body at all, letting both Apple and Rondeau get a good peek at what lay underneath. No shoes or footwear either, but that was to be expected. Still, the fox girl didn’t seem to care and kept jumping around without pause. Apple observed her without saying anything. Not that he could complain—he was the first that hated wearing anything at all. His skin itched like crazy when it was covered by textiles. If he could, he would have always walked around in his birthday suit. She wasn’t different, he understood her pain. So, he played along without commenting on the appropriateness of her attire (as if he could talk), but still addressing his kin with a wide smile.

  “Hi, Limette. Guess everything’s going well with your executioner?”

  The foxkin called Limette nodded vigorously.

  “Yup! Yup! I just had my monthly check up! All healthy and ready to go! The doctor said I’ve grown taller too!”

  Waltz snapped his fingers, let his hair swoosh again.

  “Limette, don’t waste time on them. We have places to be, right now. I’ve been given a very important task, one that an idiot like Rondeau would never even be able to carry out.”

  Rondeau tilted her head, rested her hand on her hip too.

  “Another jugger nest cleanup round? Wanna bet I’m smashing more spiders than you?”

  “Last time, I won by a landslide.”

  “Last time, you messed with my gun.”

  “You would have lost anyway.”

  Apple would have sworn that he saw static electricity moving between their eyes, from Waltz to Rondeau and back, in a stalemate of tension that didn’t want to be quenched. Rondeau raised her arm, pointing her finger at Waltz’s nose.

  “Well, then I’m coming too! I gotta show you who’s the best!”

  In that moment, her sleeve slid down.

  Uncovering the broken handcuff.

  Silence fell as the chain dangled from it.

  As Waltz blinked, slowly. As Rondeau forced herself to remain still, to wear the boldest face she could in front of that fatal mistake. She kept standing, as the broken chain shone in the morning lights, each ring reflecting it in an even so slightly different fashion. Apple crossed his arms, lowered his gaze. Grinned like a maniac. He had to keep the laughter inside him, all while hilarity was piling up every second more. He had to keep it in. He had to…

  “That’s awesome!”

  Limette’s voice. That was unquestionably Limette’s voice. Apple turned his gaze up. Waltz was staring at him, staring at Rondeau, staring at Limette jumping around close to Rondeau’s hand. Her slender fingers touched the metal, caressed the profile.

  “Shiny! Stainless! High quality welding! There’s chrome too, right? Sturdy! Sturdy! And the coating? The extra anti-rusting coating? Where have you bought them, Mistress Rondeau? Shame they are broken! Did you break them with Apple? Was it fun? How was it? Please, tell me!”

  “…I…”

  Apple exchanged glances with Rondeau. It was a silent communication, one that required no words and yet told everything that had to be told. Yet, before she could even as much as say one word, Limette turned towards Waltz, aimed her index at him.

  “See, Master? This is how they should look like! Not like that cheap plastic toy you asked me to use with you last time! Those were so painfully underwhelming, they didn’t even feel like the real deal!”

  Silence fell one more time, with a weight that would have squashed a blue whale with absolutely no effort. All the gazes were turned towards Waltz, who suddenly found himself at the absolute center of the attention. Apple and Rondeau were smirking. A hellish grin, one that would have caused death and destruction just by virtue of existing. Waltz gulped down, opened his mouth, forced it to at least articulate a sound or two. But he couldn’t. His whole body was not ready for that sudden turn of events. He had to say something. He had to try to change the direction of that…

  “Oh, wow! Apple’s choker is pure leather! And the pendant is gold and silver! See, Master, Mistress Rondeau really cares about Apple! That’s how you take care of a foxkin! Can I have one too, Master Waltz?”

  His hand closed around Limette’s wrist with the strength of a hydraulic press, grasping her tight and

  “We should go. Now.”

  He didn’t turn, he didn’t even stop to look at Rondeau. Their gazes didn’t meet. Yet, he felt it in his bones. Those two. That woman and her foxkin. Were still staring at him. The evil aura radiating from their malicious thoughts was permeating the world around them, infecting the asphalt, the plants, the birds idly roaming the vast emptiness that surrounded the road. Limette let herself be dragged without resisting, but turned back to wave her hand wildly at Rondeau.

  “Bye bye! Till next time! Have wonderful trips! And don’t break too many handcuffs! They are too high-quality, will cost a lot! Not like the…”

  “Quiet!”

  The long silvery mane of Waltz quickly disappeared through the door of the bus transfer station, followed by Limette’s fluffy tail too. Leaving Apple and Rondeau alone again. The cape of silence was still there, lingering above them. A sudden gust of wind threw sand and dirt on the tarmac, in small clouds of dust. Rondeau started counting with her hand. Her thumb went up. Her index. Her middle.

  One, two, three…

  She burst into laughter, bending forward, keeping her hands on her belly. Genuine, explosive laughter.

  “Oh gods, oh gods! That was…”

  She couldn’t even finish her sentence. Laughter had the best of her again, almost bringing her to oxygen deficit. She stopped for a second to breathe. Only to break down once more into unadulterated hilarity.

  Thirty second. That laughter needed thirty full seconds to die out. Rondeau’s eyes were wet with tears, tears wiped away as slowly as she regained her composure.

  “Alright, alright, enough jokes. We should get going too! I can’t let Waltz run his mouth! I’ll show him…”

  “You’ll show him nothing.”

  Apple’s hand gripped around her wrist, around the remnants of that handcuff that Limette had gushed about mere minutes before.

  “…Apple?”

  “You’ve just killed a jugger, got sprayed head to toes with its blood and were in the same room with it for many minutes before it hatched! Heck, it even massaged you before you were hooked to the six-hander! You need to run a full-body check-up, not to chase even more juggers!”

  Rondeau gulped. Apple. Apple’s fangs were bared in a distressed grin, all of his face muscles were contracted, all of his tendons, every single centimeter of tissue in his body was screaming at her. Then, his grip relented. His posture relaxed. His lips hid his teeth once again.

  “…sorry, that was too much. I’m just your fox and I…”

  “…no, no, you’re… right.”

  Her hand rested on his shoulder, caressed it.

  “Let’s go for a full check-up first. Waltz can wait. I can’t beat him if I’m dead.”

  She cracked something akin to a smile, albeit not fully convinced.

  “Also, you’re my business associate, not my fox! We’ve gone through this already, didn’t we?”

  “We did.”

  He pushed his hand on her crispy hair, played with them a little.

  “And, as your business associate, I’ll be sure you get scanned and get all the rest you need, before you try some of your idiotic escapades again.”

  [chapter:Interlude—The fox my dreams are made of]

  [i:As soon as you draw your last breath, someone will listen to it]

  Ricardo exhaled a cloud of smoke, caressed his eye patch. It was all over in one night. The gorgeous, scandalous fox had left the motel before he could even try to woo him. He groaned, drew a puff from his cigarette one more time. All the care he put in finding flowers—real flowers—to ask him out and thank him for that jugger affair had been for naught. Before he could even look for him, wonder fox had already left the motel together with that ill-tempered executioner. That was, indeed, annoying. The brothel was wrecked beyond belief too and needed to be completely sanitized. The cleaning troupe from Cordo was already inside the premise, collecting material and cauterizing whatever the jugger spat out, but that meant no business for at least one whole week. His uncle would have been furious, no matter how he put it. So, no brothel and no fox. Oh, and of course no maid either. She had went boom, full mechanical nightmare. His skin crawled. Maybe, just maybe, he should have gone to Cordo too to get checked. Even if he had never learned the name of that maid, they shared breathing space in the brothel as the only two human employees. What if he got infected too? Yeah, no. Full check up was it, better not to risk it. Best case, he was clean. Second best case, the infection was in its starting state and could be dealt with. Worst case, he was screwed. Screwed screwed. He shivered. Yeah, screwed like those poor sods that were told they were going to hatch. He saw so many of them burn. Kids, even. He incinerated some too by his own hand, while they were still screaming.

  Another groan, another puff of smoke.

  In hindsight, working at a robrothel in the middle of literally nowhere wasn’t the worst job in the world. It had a lot of downsides, sure, but he was far from the main action, far from the big city centers, far from the juggers. Or, at least, he thought so. Now, though, he was leaning on a wall, with a bouquet of flowers in his left hand and a cigarette in his right. Life was too short to wait and ruminate, so he acted instead. His body ached to be railed by that beautiful specimen, his mind did everything it possibly could to make that long shot work out. Unfortunately, whoever wove the strings of fate wasn’t on his side that day.

  He glanced back at the cordoned entrance of what, till the previous evening, had been a simple whorehouse. Somewhere tucked inside those corridors lay the corpse of the maid.

  ‘Corpse’.

  He considered the meaning of that word for a second, it didn’t feel completely appropriate. ‘Wreckage’ was probably a better description, when it came to juggers. It was hard to understand where the flesh ended and the metal began, if one could speak of ‘metal’. Surely it looked like metal and behaved like metal, but was it really metal?

  Ricardo couldn’t know—science was way too complex for him. Yet, he couldn’t prevent himself from asking the question. He put out his cigarette, let out a low growl. Whatever, that was a purely theoretical musing. He had more pressing matters to deal with, such as drowning his disappointment in alcohol. Lots of alcohol. To forget the fox boy, to forget those perfect, shining abs that dominated his late-night fantasies. He pushed his heel on the cigarette butt, smashed it, turned his shoe left and right with violence, squashing the filter into a fine paste of nicotine, tar and burnt paper. His now free hand browsed his pocket, searching for a paper tissue. Instead, his fingers closed around a crumpled note. A jolt travelled through his nerves, reminding him of something he had forgotten. Right, he had it—the pager number of the bloody executioner. He was supposed to use it to tell her when Magic Six was fixed. But what if…

  He pushed the note back into his pocket. Sending a message to an executioner to ask out her state-assigned fox was the stupidest thing his brain could concoct. No, it was better if he simply forgot about it, no questions asked. Let the abs… the fox remain as a vivid figment of his imagination. That was for the best. Still, the siren call of that pager number was alluring. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to pull it out or shove it in.

  “Oh, come on.”

  He rolled his eye, yelled loudly at himself. Indecisiveness. That was the worst sin. Either do something or don’t. Commit to it or not. But don’t remain in a limbo, make a choice. Not making a choice was what brought him to that place from the start, after all. Not making a choice when he had to. Result: three dead and an eye gone—way to go to learn a lesson. Now, he was making the same mistake again.

  “Mr. Morena?”

  Ricardo turned around at that name. That was, indeed, how he was called. Ricardo Morena. Even if nobody used it anymore, that was still his full identity. So, he glanced towards the origin of that call, squinting his eye. An Order dog, with slashed suns all over their hazmat suit. Probably someone from the cleaning team. His skin crawled again. Were they there for him? Did they find that stash of heavy drugs his uncle hid under the parquet just one month earlier? Or maybe it was something about the nondescript mold that was growing close to the refrigerators?

  Only one way to find out.

  “…yes?”

  “We have started to collect the biological samples, but we need to ask a couple of questions…”

  “Such as?”

  “Where is the main wreckage?”

  Ricardo clicked his tongue, closed his hand around the bouquet.

  “…are you blind or what? It’s there, right behind the hole that the blasted thing tore through the wall!”

  The Order cleaner turned his attention towards the eviscerated building, glanced at it for an instant, then faced Ricardo again.

  “We assumed so and looked there first. We retrieved—huh—three broken juggernaut legs, but we weren’t able to locate the ‘corpse’. Did any of your people move it around?”

  “…there’s no ‘your people’ here, just me. And, come on, it was still there this morning at five!”

  “Then…”

  Ricardo stared with an empty gaze, meeting his reflected image on the visor of the hazmat suit. There was no anxiety, no rage, no disappointment, no surprise in that blank stare. Just plain, old resignation. He lifted his hand, proffered the bouquet to the confused cleaner.

  “…you might need this more than me, right now. I hope you like flowers.”

  “…I…?”

  “Oh, just take it. Throw it away, for what I care.”

  The cleaner had to think he was crazy from under their helmet, but it wasn’t that important, not in comparison with what had just happened.

  Yeah, that checked out. If the main corpse wasn’t there, it could just mean one thing—nothing but a gigantic headache coming to strike down with all its fury. Ricardo chewed his lips, slid his hands inside his pockets. A missing jugger. A jugger that was definitely, totally dead and buried, shotgunned down by a crazy Order chick. She couldn’t have taken it with her, right? That would have been too risky. So, where? Where was it? And how? He let out another long sigh, shook his head. Maybe the motel attendants knew something. Maybe the gas station cameras had recorded the scene. What if someone just stole it while he wasn’t watching? What if they were all in it, as pieces of a gigantic scam, except he?

  The right thing to do was to first go to Cordo for a full body check, now more than ever, then…

  The pager.

  He could contact the executioner. He could send her a text about it. Maybe, she would have come back. Maybe, she would have brought that delicious fox too.

  Somehow, that thought gave him a little bit of warmth.

  Fate had a strange way to grant wishes.

  [chapter:Cartridge 04: Scaffolds of Flesh]

  [i:My life is an ocean and I’m lost at sea]

  Rondeau reemerged from her waking stupor, as the lights danced in front of her. All she could see was machinery, white machinery neatly arranged inside a large-ish room. A window separated her from the rest of the world. It was almost transparent, just barely reflective. On the other side, several men and women were working with stange tools, in ways she couldn’t (and didn’t care to) understand.

  “The results are in, Rondeau. You were very, very lucky.”

  That voice. The annoying, nasal voice of Dr. Cassandra Pluto, her state-assigned physician. Rondeau glanced at that woman, at those circular glasses that didn’t fit her face, at that blond hair that was too long for its own good, at those heavy eyebrows that dotted her minute face. Her complexion was somehow darker than Rondeau’s skin too, which made the blond of that hair feel even faker. She was sitting on a chair, one of those wheeled chairs with reclinable seats that were all the rage among eggheads like her. That made her look even more of a bookworm that never saw the light of the day, if possible, Still, Rondeau wasn’t in any condition to unleash her sharp tongue and do the talk. So, she defaulted to listening mode instead.

  “That jugger was a fresh hatchling, so its blood was light on its usual infection vectors. If it were, say, already a couple of weeks old, things could have gone differently and we’d need to cleanse the whole area. But I guess you knew about it already, right? Otherwise…”

  Otherwise you wouldn’t have fought it in the nude. That was what she wanted to say. Well, she would have been utterly, absolutely incorrect. With juggers it was shoot first, ask questions and care about your modesty later—even if they were older, more mature, and more infective. Once they were adults, things were back to square one and not even worth caring for. But beforehand? That was still nothing Rondeau’s body couldn’t deal with. A curse and a blessing. She instinctively rubbed her slashed sun tattoo, touched its slightly embossed texture. Her gloved hand was pulled away immediately, as Dr. Pluto’s fingers closed around her wrist.

  “Don’t touch it. Touching it too much could compromise its function. You don’t want to trigger every jugger sensor in Cadenza just by walking by, I hope?”

  At which point, Dr. Pluto observed the wrist in her hand better, blinking a couple of times for a good measure.

  “…is this a broken handcuff…?”

  “I lost the key, alright? I’m going to the locksmith as soon as I’m off the hook.”

  “…well, it suits you, if anything.”

  She let Rondeau’s hand free, turned back to a staple of printed pages, going through the lines one by one with her index finger. Rondeau inhaled, exhaled, turned towards the doctor, opening her lips in a wry smile.

  “…how does it look? The tattoo, I mean.”

  Dr. Pluto browsed her documents, compared two or three pictures without averting her gaze from them.

  “Same as last time, so you’re good to go for a while longer. You’re holding surprisingly well, Rondeau.”

  “Not thanks to you.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Dr. Pluto pushed her glasses against her nose, adjusted her absolutely-without-a-doubt-dyed hair, clicked her tongue.

  “I still need to ask you a couple more questions, before I can let you go. How many juggers did you meet in the past four weeks?”

  “Seventeen. No, wait, Eighteen. Eighteen, yes. ‘Twas a large scale operation.”

  “How many of them did you kill?”

  “Duh, all of them, of course.”

  “Did you get wounded? Did you get in touch with their blood?”

  “Oh, yeah, many times—but I had a check-up immediately after, just like today.”

  “Did you meet any peculiar juggers?”

  “I already written any classified information in my reports, not gonna talk about it again.”

  “Fair. Then… last question.”

  Dr. Pluto tapped her finger on the sheets of paper, eyeing Rondeau’s profile and all the notes dotting it.

  “Did you have sexual intercourses with anyone except your state-assigned foxkin, in the past four weeks? If yes, how many times? How many unprotected?”

  Rondeau knew it was coming, but couldn’t stop herself from glaring at the doctor.

  As if someone would ever answer ‘yes, I broke the vow’ willingly and volunteer that information. Stupid eggheads, she thought in a corner of her mind.

  “Who are you taking me for? Someone who can’t keep her panties up?”

  Dr. Pluto’s response was as simple as pulling the broken chain of the handcuffs, lifting Rondeau’s wrist in the process. Rondeau rolled her eyes, let herself sink into the hospital bed. That, of course, was a plain yes. And it was all her fault.

  “Oh, come on! I only mated at Order-certified brothels, alright? And only with Order-certified machines! Nothing outside of it, I swear. I’m an idiot, but not such an idiot!”

  “To your credit, we haven’t find any evidence of the opposite yet, so it checks out. I was just following protocol.”

  Again, Rondeau couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Didn’t that question qualify as sexual harassment? Of course it did—if she weren’t an executioner, that is. The mere fact that she was one, though, disqualified her from reaching that conclusion. That was no idle curiosity. There were damn good reasons why it was asked the way it was, every time she had a full body check up.

  “So far so good. You’re dismissed, everything’s in order. Collect your state-assigned fox at the entrance and…”

  A ring interrupted her words. A pager. Vibrating in Dr. Pluto’s pocket. Ringing louder and louder every second. She pulled it out of her lab coat, pushed the button, turned the direct call function on, brought it to her ear.

  “Pluto. What’s this about, chief?”

  She frowned, looked back at the bed where Rondeau was resting.

  “Yes, she’s here, we just finished the check-up and…”

  Her expression turned sullen. She kept listening without saying a word for several seconds, under the confused gaze or Rondeau.

  “…sorry? There has to be a mistake, we received the pictures…”

  More seconds of silence. She nodded, bit her lips, nodded again. Then, the volume of her voice exploded.

  “Now? Already? But she’s not… okay, okay, fine. I’ll send her your way. Pluto out.”

  The pager beeped, the display changed color. Dr. Pluto shoved it back in her lab coat, gazed back at Rondeau.

  “Looks like someone didn’t do her job properly.”

  Rondeau squinted her eyes, met the doctor’s icy stare.

  “That means…?”

  Dr. Pluto tapped her hand on the window controls. The blinders moved, slowly covering the clear surface, isolating the internal room from the rest of the lab. The instruments, the beds neatly lined up, the working ants tending to them, were replaced all of a sudden by a dark screen. The noise stopped too. Voices, droning, the beeps of the scanners. Nothing. Utter, complete silence. Dr. Pluto whistled, vocalized a series of short notes. Completely off tune, off mark and frankly grating to the ear. Rondeau wished she could have protected her sensitive hearing before the good doctor began torturing her with her awful voice. Silence again. No answer. No sound. Dr. Pluto slumped in her chair, turned it around to face Rondeau.

  “I was just…”

  “…following protocol, yes. Classified intel and yadda yadda. Okay, so? What happened? Spit it, Cassie.”

  Dr. Pluto ignored that ‘Cassie’ nickname and, instead, secured the frame of her glasses, taking extreme care in adjusting their position on her nose. Rondeau noticed that the color of her irises was an unremarkable mixture of gray tones without any real hue. Something that fit a person as anonymous as her, almost to a T. Still, said completely unremarkable doctor had received an emergency call, one that, somehow, involved her patient. That made Rondeau brace for the worst and hope for the best—knowing that ‘the best’ was never on the menu, when she wanted to order it. So, she held her breath, waiting for Cassandra Pluto to tell her more.

  “The last jugger you destroyed disappeared this morning. The cleaning team didn’t find the corpse.”

  Rondeau’s heart skipped a beat, her pupils dilated. There was no way in hades that was possible. She saw it going off. She saw its lights fading. She saw its carcass exploding under the last shot of Slaughterhouse Dog. If anything still moved, it couldn’t be that jugger. No, there had to be another explanation. She clenched her fist, smashed it on the examination bed.

  “Bullcrap! It was dead! Dead dead! I have witnesses, if you don’t trust me! I sent pictures too!”

  “Yes, and that’s why the commander didn’t jail you immediately—the guy running the brothel confirmed your kill and that it was still there when you left this morning. Nevertheless, this means that there might be a jugger on the loose around Valarajo, whether we want it or not.”

  Rondeau inhaled. Exhaled. It had to be a ploy. Someone must have snatched the wreckage. Of course, without proper surveillance something like that wasn’t unheard of—that’s why Apple and she took turns keeping an eye on it for the whole night, before they confirmed the arrival of the cleaning team. Take no chances with a jugger. No way they would. So, how? How did that piece of crapware disappear? Who was behind that? As chaos brew in her head, Dr. Pluto clicked her pen two, three times, as if to catch her attention.

  “Yes?”

  “Someone has to find that rogue juggernaut before it proliferates, provided it’s still active.”

  “…and that someone would be me?”

  Dr. Pluto shrugged, leaned on her chair.

  “Dunno, but you won a trip to Autarch Kore’s office. I suppose we’ll see, once she’s finished grilling you.”

  Rondeau let herself slump on the bed. Not only was ‘the best’ off the menu. Her definition of ‘worst’ didn’t even begin to encompass the mess she was going to be dragged into.

  [chapter:Cartridge 05: Tall Tree Troublemakers]

  [i:Equal meets equal, don’t trust the appearances]

  Limette jumped around the road, wagging her tail, tiptoeing on the dirt. Notes escaped her lips in a waterfall of sounds, while she was whistling cheerful tunes. Behind her, though, Waltz looked everything except excited.

  “All this mud is going to make a mess out of my uniform…”

  “But mud is fun and fresh, Master!”

  “It sticks everywhere and is hard to clean. No, thanks.”

  Waltz directed his attention to his pager, to the small map shown on the monochrome display. Limette stopped in the middle of the road, smirked at him. Her voice turned into a whisper, as her ears twitched up and down.

  “Maybe if Master wasn’t such a cheapskate and booked a taxi, he wouldn’t have had to walk through a mud field.”

  Waltz raised his gaze from the device, blinked in her direction.

  “…did you say anything?”

  “Oh, no, no! It might have been the wind, Master!”

  “Huh.”

  He looked down at the map again.

  “Where are the points of interest? There should be points of interest.”

  Another whisper hissed through her fangs.

  “Oh, if Master just paid attention to my scouting intel, instead of spacing out…”

  Waltz raised his gaze again.

  “You said something this time.”

  “Me? No, no! It was the wind again! Funny how it sounds like a voice, right, Master?”

  Waltz shrugged, decided not to care. He was convinced, almost convinced, that Limette had said something, but that belief wasn’t enough for him to take action and ask her again. He had bigger fish to fry. For example, trying to understand where the nest was supposed to be located. He compared the barren map with the rough coordinates he was provided. Apparently, a beekeeper had gone missing and his nephew found scraps of clothes and hair strands close to the woods nearby. High chance he turned. That was how it usually went, that’s when you alert the Order. But no, of course none of the denizens did that. Two weeks had come and gone from that moment. In those fifteen days, reports of jugger sightings had intensified and travelers started spreading rumors about a ‘nest’. That’s when he was paged in. That’s when he was called to fix the situation. That’s why he was walking ankles deep in the mud, surrounded by shrubs, wild flowers, and succulent plants. His foxkin, though, seemed at ease among that greenery. She smelled the flowers, danced and pranced around, without a care in the world. He absent-mindedly followed her delicately coordinated movements. Her senses were the best defense he had, in the wilderness. Her senses saved him one too many times, on the field. Her senses and his perfect aim, that is. His fingers danced on the grip of Magnum Grace, his personal revolver. It was somehow funny how every executioner named their weapon in a different way. Slaughterhouse Dog, Virgin Angel, Lead Poisoning, Tomato Jazz… the name of a weapon said a lot about its wielder. So, what did Magnum Grace said about him? He wondered whether it was too on the nose, but there was no reason to change it. Once the name was given, once the weapon was received, it stuck with the executioner forever. He enumerated the weapon names he knew once again. Sure, Magnum Grace was probably a tad cheesy, but Virgin Angel? What did Tango even think of, when naming his arquebus such? That sounded like something out of a bad adult movie—or even worse. Because he watched many bad adult movies, during his mandated days off, and none of them had a title as bad as that.

  His boot sunk into yet another puddle. He cursed, shook it, stomped on solid ground. And, of course, Limette was laughing, blushing even. Her ears were twitching lightly, her tail going up and down slowly. Suddenly, her fur went up, her ears shook. Waltz clenched his fist, scanned his surroundings. Limette’s senses had been triggered. There had to be something around them, something unusual. A scent. A sound. A shape. Limette could see everything. Hear everything. Smell everything. He didn’t say a word. Silence was his best ally. His eyes darted left and right, right and left. Nothing. Nothing around them.

  Only then he noticed.

  A tree.

  A sturdy, vigorous tree, standing out in the middle of the path. And Limette.

  Was leaning on it.

  Rubbing herself against it.

  Her cheeks were redder than red.

  Her ears lowered, her eyes closed in a sort of ecstatic bliss.

  Her buckles unfastened with a loud click.

  Her dress was moving more and more out of place, showing more and more of her skin.

  Waltz blinked, slowly, slapped his forehead, slowly too. Yeah, no enemy. No jugger. Just a tree, of the exact kind that aroused her so much just by being in its vicinity. Limette was a lively one in the blooming phase of a fox’s life and played with herself a lot, even in moments where it would have been completely out of place. That was definitely one of those moments. She was brushing her breast against the bark, her pelvis too, while her ears and tail kept low. Waltz groaned, shook his boot again, closed in on her. Just as the first soft moan escaped her lips, he grabbed her shoulder, pulled her away from the tree, interrupted the contact with the rough surface.

  “There’s no time for that, Limette. What’s your thing with trees, Yuvia forsake me?!”

  “B…but It’s an oak, Master! Oak bark is so… so…”

  “I get it, but we aren’t here for this! Pull yourself together!”

  She stared at him with puppy eyes on the verge of tears, while still keeping her ears down and accidentally pushing the front of her dress away, flashing all that was lying underneath.

  “…will Master let me do that later?”

  Waltz grabbed the buckles, fastened the right one, chewed some nondescript insults under his breath.

  “If you help me find that jugger, I’ll let you do whatever you want with that tree… but not now, okay?”

  His hand closed around the other buckle, ready to close it and put an end to that indecent spectacle. Only for her voice to turn into a whisper, right into his ear.

  “Two behind us, one more on my left side. They have been tailing us since we set foot in this valley.”

  Waltz smirked, let the buckle go, answered too with a whisper.

  “Size?”

  “They smell juvenile. Freshly hatched, no longer than two days ago.”

  “Good.”

  Waltz unsheathed his revolver, turned around in an instant. He blinked his right eye twice in rapid succession, activating the aim assist in his contacts. The world turned black and white, shapes emerged inside his field of vision. Deformed shapes with several appendages. Metallic. Crawling, circling him. Three, exactly like Limette said. His index slid onto the trigger, embraced the metal surface.

  The bang followed immediately.

  Scraps of wood, leaves, dirt. Everything blown around in a shower of debris. The jugger hidden behind the tree popped like a balloon. Blood stained the soil, sprayed all over the ground, mechanical entrails scattered in all directions, in a brutal explosion of gore. The recoil of Magnum Grace pushed Waltz’s arm back, almost to the point of dislocating it. Yet, it was worth it. One shot. One kill. That was the policy, Waltz’s policy. A policy he never found a reason to amend. He raised his weapon again, looking for the other two. If they were young, they were going to make a run instead of attacking. He couldn’t let them go, not all of them at least. A dead jugger was the only good jugger. So, he blinked again, recalled the aim assist, turned around as quickly as he could.

  And shot again.

  A second deflagration, a second burst of blood and mechanical entrails. The deformed body of the second jugger broke down in a waterfall of shrapnel and sawdust. The cylinder of Magnum Grave turned one more time, cocked the third bullet. Waltz, though, tipped the chamber open, pushed a different cartridge in, closed his revolver again, aimed at the third—now significantly farther away. It was fast. Moving erratically. Left. Right. Right. Left. Left. Left. Right. Left. There was no regularity in that motion he could recognize. It was just random, almost purely random.

  But not random enough.

  The dart left the barrel, hit one of its hind legs at full speed, made it stumble. The jugger rolled on the ground, turned back on its six legs, crawled away despite the strike. Then, it limped forward, disappearing into the dark of the woods. Waltz waited for it to be completely out of sight. He blew the smoke away from the tip of his gun, twirled it around his finger like a baton, before finally pushing it back inside the holster. Behind him, Limette was smirking, leaning with her back on the tree with her legs crossed, her dress almost completely shoved aside.

  “Three out of three. Master surely has a good aim. Tracker bullets, right?”

  Waltz nodded, let his hair swoosh with a wide movement of his hand.

  “Juvvies like that need a nest to return to. If I killed them all, I wouldn’t have a trace. Now, we can follow them without hurry and eradicate the matured ones too, all in one go.”

  Limette chuckled, licked her lips.

  “So, my little ruse to focus their attention on me worked like a charm, huh?”

  Waltz leaned on her, kissed her forehead. A wide grin opened on his face, his hands closed around her exposed hips.

  “You devilish imp, that was your plan all along?”

  Limette touched his nose, bared her fangs in an equally mischievous smile.

  “A devious Master needs a devious fox.”

  “Damn right he does!”

  Their tongues started to cross, her fingers to look for his warmth, their body ready to join in a…

  A loud blast in the distance.

  Limette jolted, slipped, fell in the mud. Her hand closed around Waltz’s collar, bringing him down with her.

  Another blast.

  Another one.

  Another one again.

  Limette closed her eyes, shrieked, hugged Waltz tight, as the mud splashed around them, splattering his perfectly clean uniform, his shiny long hair.

  Suddenly, scraps of metal flew through the air, over their heads, coming out of the woods. Legs. Jugger legs. Followed by a body. And blood. Remnants of the organic machine were scattered all around the oak, still bleeding, still losing fluids from their joints.

  “Jackpot, babe! What did I tell ya, Apple?”

  “…did you need to shoot it so many times? My poor ears…”

  “Hush, it’s the only way to be sure.”

  That grating voice. Waltz would have recognized it anywhere. He gritted his teeth, growled like a caged beast.

  “…Rondeau? What in…”

  The short figure of Rondeau was standing before him, shotgun in hand, grinning like the devil she was.

  “I cleaned out your trash and this is how you greet me? Man, that’s what I call a bad attitude.”

  She lowered the rifle, snapped her fingers. The metallic reflexes of a broken handcuff peeked out of her sleeve, only to be shoved inside it before it came out completely.

  “Oh, did we interrupt anything? Don’t mind us, you two lovebirds can keep doing it, while we do the job you had to do. I’m sure the big wigs will understand you, Waltz. Fucking your fox in the mud is surely a task that requires your utmost, undivided attention, eh?”

  Waltz rose up on his feet, cleaned some sludge out of his forehead, gritted his teeth.

  “You colossal idiot, I left one of them alive on purpose to locate their nest! But no, you had to kill it! You ruined a perfectly engineered plan as usual!”

  Rondeau holstered her gun, crossed her arms, shrugged with almost brutal nonchalance.

  “Plans are for losers who can’t adapt. I never stick to a plan.”

  Behind her, Apple let out a long sigh.

  “…and that’s why your life is a total disaster.”

  “Hey, I heard that!”

  “I know.”

  Waltz clenched his fists, breathed, inhaled, exhaled, breathed. If he yielded to his instincts, he would have punched the living crap out of her, right there, right now. If he yielded to his instincts, he would have shot her with extreme prejudice. But he was Waltz, not Rondeau. So, he relented, at least at first. Started back from square one. He wiped some more mud away from his face, tried to get back to his usual countenance. Now that Rondeau had ruined his plan, he had to concoct another plan that somehow involved Rondeau not screwing it. But first, he needed a shower and a bath. He touched his silvery hair, completely caked with dirt. No matter what the Order said or how many juggers were around—when it came to his hair everything else could wait. He stared at Rondeau with a murderous gaze that would have stabbed her, if it was physically possible.

  “There’s a small town nearby. We should head there to regroup at the inn and think of something.”

  Rondeau didn’t wait a second longer to retort.

  “If this can make your failure more pathetic, so be it!”

  Waltz counted up to ten in his mind, slowly.

  That was going to be a long day.

  [chapter:Cartridge 06: Shower Thoughts]

  [i:Camaraderie blooms in the least expected places]

  Waltz squeezed the remaining moisture out of his hair, rubbed it with the towel. Limette was sprayed on the bed of their double room, panting and puffing with her cheeks of a bright vermillion, still basking in the afterglow of their intimate intercourse. That little queen of mischief was a lot to handle and always went the extra mile. Now, though, she had no energies left and was dozing on the sheets, dressed in nothing but the moonlight that filtered through the window. Waltz caressed her twitching ears, her auburn hair, her delicate shoulders. As if reanimated by his touch, Limette brushed her cheek against the back of his hand, licking its fingers when they got too close to her mouth, all still with her eyes closed. He let her lick the tip of his index and middle for a couple of seconds longer, before finally moving his hand away. It was almost an automatic reaction, one that Limette never shied away from, a little play after the big game she couldn’t simply say ‘no’ to. He patted her head gently, saw her ears moving up, then down again, as her head delved in the soft embrace of the pillow. Waltz couldn’t help but smile a little at the sight of that mischievous fox, who was now lying defenseless close to him. It always ended like that, whenever they relieved some stress together—Limette would ride him with the violence and thirst of a wild, untamed beast, ravage every centimeter of his body, only to fall into a quite state of bliss for hours afterwards. He could literally take a shower, fill two fifteen-pages-long forms for the Order, unpack a new uniform, and have his hair all dried before she even found the strength to lift herself up. That was how extra she went into her mating spree, giving it her all in a way that make Waltz himself blush. Foxes were a commodity, which is why Limette called him ‘Master’… but thinking of her like ‘a consumer item’ made him feel dirty, somehow—dirtier than his mud-sullied suit. He patted her hair one more time, combing the strands with two fingers, before leaving her side and opening the window. The night sky was beautiful, that far from Cadenza. Little to no light pollution, the constellations and the moon showing their best face, accompanied only by the chirring of the crickets and the sporadic hoot hoot of a nearby owl. Turning around, he caught a glimpse of the balcony of the nearby room. There, he noticed the unmistakable figure of a male fox, sitting on the balustrade, his gaze lost in the night. He too was wearing just the moonlight, having dismissed even his pants and placidly tasting the cold breeze as the gods created him. Their gazes met in that instant. The fox smirked, waved his hand towards the man in a towel that was peeking at him.

  “Hi, Waltz. Seems like I’m not the only one who can’t sleep.”

  Waltz nodded, sighed.

  “Yeah, no. Not after, you know…”

  “I know.”

  His ears moved down, he shook his head a little.

  “…or, rather, I’d love to. Rondeau has never taken advantage of my services.”

  “Wait, really?”

  He let out a low groan, lowered his gaze.

  “Yeah. I mean, she’s not obliged to do it, but for a fox like me it’s… frustrating. I always have to relieve myself in… other ways.”

  “So, that’s what you just did?”

  Apple didn’t reply, simply stared in the void. The answer was probably obvious, there was no need for him to say it out loud. Waltz stared at his figure, at those sculpted pecs and abs, at those luscious thighs, at his biceps, triceps, quadriceps. At his perfectly groomed tail. At what rested between his legs, now shamelessly on show and for everyone to see. Instinctively, he felt inadequate. He felt fire burning his cheeks, his heartbeat pumping up. That fox was surely a looker, one that made him question his sexuality every time he spotted him in the nude, making his thoughts dirty and impure. A three-way with him and Limette… would have probably felt just right. He kept a mental note about it, while turning his attention back to the night, to the scattered lights in the middle of the town. In one of those pubs, Rondeau was wasting her time and money into crippling her liver with the worst alcohol known to man. Of course, she left the premise at breakneck pace right after giving him a sparse summary of her whereabouts, without even giving him time to ‘enjoy’ their little rendezvous in the only hotel gracing the small town of Genuya.

  “…the jugger I smashed to bits in Valarajo? The cleaning team cannot find it at all. It went poof. Gone. Desaparecido. I thought the bitch-in-chief would kick me there again to chase it, but no—those poor sods of Ragtime and Bachata had to take the job. Not that I care about Bachata, she can go die in a fire, but I feel pity for Ragtime. As for me, I was sent here as a spare wheel for you instead, Waltz. I don’t know whether to feel relieved or dejected, yes?”

  That was what Rondeau told him, after he took the first shower of the day, freeing his body from the mud that caked it. It had been a pretty uncomfortable conversation, since his uniform was stuck in the dry cleaner and he was wearing just a towel around his hips. Limette too wasn’t wearing absolutely anything, but for a fox that was a non-issue. What was an issue was Rondeau’s snide remarks about their state of undress. That irked him to no end.

  “Okay, so, what is our next move, then? After you carpet-bombed my plan with your ‘masterful intervention’, Rondeau, I’m not looking forward to combing the forest to find the nest.”

  At that point, Rondeau had unleashed the most devious and mischievous smile she could have.

  “Come on, pretty boy! We’re bloody executioners—if we stay here long enough, something is going to happen! Gua-ran-teed!”

  She wasn’t really wrong, of course. That’s what their tattoos were for. Juggers close to hatching would sense them and come out of their flesh disguise, if they stood in their vicinity long enough. Foxes couldn’t smell them till they shed their human shells, but afterwards? They were the best natural radar they had. Still, the perspective of having to wait for days, maybe weeks in that hole of Genuya felt gross, unfit to his ideals of beauty and order. Everyone in town was so unfriendly. They purposely avoided them like the plague, keeping a respectful distance from the quartet. Sure, the mud-soaked garments and heavy weaponry might have had an effect on it, but forcing their foxes to act as waiters at their table because none of the real waiters wanted to serve them was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Everywhere they went, every place they visited ended up with the people using the foxes as an intermediary to communicate with them. Not a single soul exchanged a word with the two executioners, except the granny at the reception of the hotel. That narcoleptic hag was barely aware of her surroundings, it was a miracle she was still functional enough to give them two rooms and collect her payment. Not that finding an empty room would have been hard—they were the only guests, as much as he could surmise. In the chance that the hag didn’t wake up and didn’t give them a place to rest, they could have simply seized them. That was the privilege that came from being an executioner.

  “Say, Waltz, how’s your tattoo?”

  Apple’s voice brought him back to the chilly night they were basking in together.

  “Eh, fine. Dr. Pluto says it’s not showing any signs of advancement. That’s the same for Rondeau, I hope…?”

  “Yeah. She’s clean.”

  Waltz snickered.

  “As much as I’m at odds with her, I wouldn’t wish that fate to anybody.”

  He let his long hair fall down the window sill below, hanging like the end of a pendulum. That mane of his was a chore to take care of, but Waltz couldn’t be happier about keeping it healthy. If anything, combing and washing them with exotic fragrances and shampoo made him feel alive. Having Limette groom it while they were together in the shower was extremely pleasant too. Yes, Limette loved playing with his hair, with those long, silvery strands and he loved watching her do it. That little devious fox…

  That made him wonder, though, what bound Apple and Rondeau. What was the glue that gelled them together? Was there even a glue? He gazed in the distance. Rondeau wasn’t around now, so if he had to ask, that was probably the only moment he could.

  “…oh, right, Apple… since Rondeau isn’t, you know, making any use of your services, have you ever considered looking for another master? Limette and I could use some additional ‘support’, if… if you get what I mean.”

  Apple bared his fangs in a wide smile.

  “Nah, not interested—I’m fine with her. Lack of sex aside, I couldn’t ask for a better business associate. We complement each other: I’m the level-headed one that stops her from causing too much trouble, she’s the hot-blooded idiot that acts when I’m too lost in my musings. Two sides of a coin, if you will. Best partner I could ask for. Though I… kind of miss my previous mistress. We both do. But, hey, rewinding time isn’t possible, so we have to make do with the hand we were given.”

  Waltz didn’t know how to reply to that, so he just nodded and directed his gaze to the faraway lights once again. Not many were still up, but it still looked lively from up above the hill. It was a nice view, one that was worth gazing at. A rare moment of quiet in a life of imminent dangers. Apple’s voice broke that spell of silence, with a tone that shifted from the collected one he showed before.

  “People here are strange.”

  “You think so too?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never felt so othered, even in—say—the most racist districts of Messe or, Yuvia forsake me, Ienna. They were all just so unfriendly and distant. You and Rondeau were sat so far away from the rest of the patrons in that pub that it was literally silly.”

  “I guess the mud played a role…”

  “Yeah, sure, but three empty tables between you and them in a room that could fit, I dunno, twenty people at most? Really? And then I and Limette had to act as your maids because nobody wanted to serve you either!”

  “You two were cute in those naked aprons.”

  “…Rondeau said the same. Not sure how to take it.”

  Waltz directed his gaze to the distant town center once again, wondered whether Rondeau had caused some commotion.

  “Well, these people might have their reasons, you know? We executioners aren’t exactly popular, so…”

  A sound of thunder interrupted him. The crickets fell silent. The owls too. Then came the smoke. Smoke from the town’s center. A cloud of thick smoke, slowly flowing upwards. Fire. There was fire there too. The orange reflexes tainted the bluish hue of the night.

  “What in…?”

  Another thunder. Another one.

  Gunshots.

  Those were gunshots.

  Echoing from the town below. Carried by the wind.

  Apple gasped, turned to Waltz.

  “Rondeau!”

  “Dammit!”

  They didn’t need words, they both immediately got inside their rooms. Waltz threw the towel to the ground, grabbed his jacket, his pants, put them on as quickly as reasonably possible, secured his boots. Another thunder. Limette was still dozing off, completely unaware of the chaos. Her ears were twitching up and down, her tail placidly wagging without a care. Waltz’s heart stopped for an instant. Leaving her there, totally defenseless, made his throat choke. Bringing her around in that state, though…? He gritted his teeth, tried to find a solution. There had to be a solution, one that was smart enough. There had to be one.

  The door. Someone knocking at the door.

  “Waltz, I’m ready! What are you waiting for?”

  “Limette! I can’t… I can’t leave her here alone! What if…”

  He heard metallic noises, a claw messing with the lock of the room. The door slammed open, Apple’s figure peeked in, now at least wrapped in his pants.

  “I’ll take care of her, then! You go and help Rondeau, okay?”

  “But you don’t even have a gun! How can you…”

  Steps. A sound of steps coming from the corridor. Apple turned around, Waltz secured his hand on the grip of Magnum Grace.

  “My, my. What is this ruckus, youngsters?”

  An old, tired voice. It was her, the narcoleptic granny. Stepping slowly on the dirty parquet, limping forward with her hands crossed behind her back. She tilted her head, smiled at them.

  “It’s late. You should be sleeping. You’re keeping everyone else awake.”

  Waltz gritted his teeth, peeked out of the room.

  “There’s nobody else in this bloody hotel, so how’s that a problem?!”

  “Hush. Quiet. It’s late. Stop shouting.”

  “Granny, we have no time for this!”

  “Hush. Quiet. It’s late. Stop shouting.”

  Waltz shoved Apple aside, looked the old woman from his taller vantage point.

  “It’s an emergency, granny! Step aside—as a member of the Order, I…”

  “It’s late. You should be sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping.”

  Her head twisted on the side.

  “Sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping.”

  More. More. Unnaturally more. And more. And more. And

  “SLEEPING.”

  A high pitched shriek.

  Her flesh exploded. Her clothes torn from inside out.

  Pistons. Claws. Tendrils burst out of her body.

  Metal, metal everywhere.

  “SLEEPING.”

  Waltz jumped back, unholstered Magnum Grace.

  And another sound of thunder echoed through the night.

  [chapter:Cartridge 07: Ashes to Ashes]

  [i:Play with fire till the world burns]

  Rondeau had a bad feeling about it, from the very first moment she set foot in that pub. Everyone and their mother was keeping their distance, staring at her with what could only be defined as ‘polite hostility’. The moment she sat at the counter to get some booze, the bartender left it unmanned. When she turned around to ask any of the patrons if something was wrong, they too left and moved several chairs or tables away from her. Just like that afternoon—no, even worse. This time around, Apple wasn’t there to serve as an impromptu waiter in a stunning naked apron fit. She had to deal with that veil of reluctance alone, break the shell of their distrust.

  In the end, after several attempts and by literally throwing her bills on the other side of the counter, she managed to snatch one, single small beer in a glass that might have not been cleaned in one year. So, there she was, alone in what she assumed to be the only good pub in town, sipping what tasted like cow piss while cursing her life decisions.

  The remnants of a severed chain dangled from both of her wrists, adding metallic clinks to all of her motions. The handcuffs were still there, wrapping her wrists since the day before. She admired their profile, their chromed shininess, all while trying her best to hide them inside her sleeves (and failing at it). Maybe, that was the reason why the other patrons were keeping their distance from her—if she were wearing those, she must have been jailed or something. So, in their eyes she wasn’t just an executioner branded with the slashed sun, but a criminal executioner that broke out of prison. Seen as Waltz and Limette were covered head to toes in mud when they first entered town together with her, the denizens might even have assumed they were complicit in her escape. That reminded her that she needed to find a locksmith, somehow. Her plan to fetch one after her check-up miserably failed as soon as the Autarchs sent her to tail Waltz, with no time for such stupid grievances. So, there she was, still carrying around those two useless pieces of metal that acted as impromptu bracelets. She wondered whether Apple’s nails could be sharp enough to unlock them. Maybe. Maybe not. It would have been best to ask him directly, later. Now, he was surely relieving himself, probably sitting in the nude on the balcony, maybe gazing at the stars after the act, with his ears lowered and his tail wagging.

  She downed another sip of ‘beer’.

  No intimacy. No sex. No touching her body. It had to be hard for someone like him, someone who was created with that specific purpose. Nevertheless, he endured it with a smile and never complained about it openly. Apple was a godsend, truly. One of a kind. The best partner she could have asked for. So, giving him room to breathe when he needed it was nothing but common courtesy. He did the same for her, never pushed a matter when she didn’t want to. Not excessively excited like Limette, neither frigid cold like Papaya. Apple was Apple and she was grateful for it.

  Another sip. It didn’t really taste like beer, more like dirty water with some sort of bitter aftertaste. Her gaze wandered around the venue. Fifteen faces were staring at her, from far away corners of the pub. Fifteen grizzled pairs of eyes. There was nothing on their plates. Not even a glass with a drink, or cutlery, or any sort of snack. No music in the background either. Not a word. It felt like being a fish in an aquarium, watched from outside by a plethora of silent anglers. Was it really because of her handcuffs? Or was it Slaughterhouse Dog? Or maybe even her executor uniform? Whatever the cause was, that stillness was killing her mood. So, she mustered all the courage she got inside and blurted out the first question.

  “Hey, huh… what do you guys do in the evenings? Do you, like, meet each other to tell stories or share a drink?”

  Nothing. No response. Just stares. The bartender, too, didn’t seem to care. She sat well away from Rondeau’s position, watching from afar. That wasn’t enough to discourage her, though. So, she kept talking, trying once again to elicit a reaction.

  “I… huh, these handcuffs are not what they look like, okay? I was getting boned by a six-hander, but then a jugger hatched out of a maid and… oh, right, too much detail, sorry. Is… is there a locksmith here, by any chance? I could really use—huh, some help.”

  Silence. If anything, the gazes were now zeroing on her more. The lights started to flicker too, all over their heads. Rondeau felt an unsettling presence, one that she could not really categorize. Her gut instinct wanted to scream. Her brain, though, couldn’t accept that. It was too bizarre, to grotesque to be true. So, she talked again, after tapping her hand on the grip of Slaughterhouse Dog.

  “Are you—huh, scared of this? The safety is in, don’t worry! It’s just for personal defense! I’m not gonna shoot people, only juggers, yes? That’s why I’m here! To… to help and protect you and your families from them!”

  Silence again. Nothing changed. They simply stared. Stared in an uncomfortable veil of reticence. Rondeau rolled her eyes, shrugged.

  “Oh, come on, why are so stuck-up? Are you all juggers in disguise or what?”

  Right as she said that, they stood up. All together. They stood up, while still looking at her. Fifteen among men and women. All standing. All gazing at her in silence. Rondeau’s senses flared up. Her nerves burst with activity. She gritted her teeth, went for the grip, kept her finger on the trigger.

  Their heads started to tilt.

  In unison.

  Left. Right.

  Right. Left.

  Their eyes transfixed on her.

  Then, noises. Steps. From the outside. More and more steps. Closing in.

  Rondeau almost bit her tongue.

  “…oh, sh…”

  The windows exploded, crushed from outside. The lamps went off. Darkness fell.

  Red lights flickered. Everywhere. In every corner. Shining red patterns, surrounding her. Together with the noise of ripped flesh, of stripped clothes, of breaking bones. The noise of metallic appendages piercing what were once human bodies, in a cacophony of wails and shrieks.

  Rondeau pumped her shotgun, raised it.

  There was no need to look for the jugger nest.

  She was knee-deep inside it already.

  **

  The granny fell to the ground, pierced by Magnum Grace’s first shot. But the jugger didn’t. The flesh, the bones of what once was an old woman, melted all around its blackness, its shiny metal coating. Six legs surrounding an irregular body, of a shape that looked like a bastardized ovoid. Waltz shot again. The blast echoed in the corridor, the bullet pierced the hull as if it were butter. Blood sprayed through it, a red high-pressure fountain blurting out hematic matter in every direction. The jugger shrieked, stepped back, took some distance while shedding blood all over the floor. Then, it leapt, clawing the wall, then the ceiling, trying to get away as fast as possible. Waltz adjusted his aim, pulled the trigger for the third time.

  The core of the jugger exploded in a shower of metal scraps and gore, falling to the ground with a loud thud. Its internals were exposed, that mixture of mechanical parts and organic components that Waltz found inelegant and revolting. He waited for a couple of seconds longer, still aiming his revolver at the twitching remnants of the creature. No sounds. No lights. No signs of activity. Its heart, if of heart one could speak, had stopped. Waltz sighed with relief, opened the chamber of his gun, reloaded the missing bullets.

  “That’s what I get by not checking if the jugger sensors are in order…”

  “Waltz!”

  A hand on his shoulder, a hand with long, varnished nails. He turned around, meeting Apple’s inquisitive gaze. His amber irises were staring at the bottom of his soul. Waltz felt a little bit of confusion piling up inside his body. From that distance, too close for comfort, he looked almost as attractive—no, maybe even more attractive—than his beloved Limette. Waltz snickered, averted his gaze before his feelings became more complicated. There was no time for that. Their safety had the utmost priority.

  “…status report?”

  “There are more of them, incoming. I heard at least three juveniles. They are waiting for us downstairs and…”

  Apple’s ears twitched.

  “…make five. No, six. There are also two closer to us, but I can’t pinpoint them!”

  “Yuvia forsake me…”

  “…Master?”

  Waltz turned around at that voice. Limette was standing out of the room’s door, still half-dozing. Her ears and tail were twitching too. She was rubbing her eyes, yawning audibly, still in her birthday suit.

  “Master, what was that scary noise…? What happened?”

  He didn’t waste a second, grabbing her wrist with his free hand, almost shouting from the bottom of his lungs.

  “We need to make a run, Limette! We are…”

  A shiver ran through her body, her nose tilted up and down. Suddenly, her posture straightened, her fur rose up, her finger too, aiming above her head, all traces of tiredness gone in an instant.

  “Master! Ceiling! Thirty degrees clockwise! Second tile from the left!”

  Like clockwork, Waltz turned around, aimed the gun, pulled the trigger. The tile exploded in a rain of plaster. The jugger hidden behind it exploded too, spreading the contents of its pierced case through the hole, causing its blood to pour down.

  “Fifty-seven degrees counterclockwise! Third tile from the right!”

  Waltz followed her directions again, shot one more time. And, as before, the remnants of a jugger rained from the hole, after another terrifying screech. Limette’s ears stopped, her tail fell down. Waltz hugged her, patted her head, kissed her cheek.

  “You little devious fox, always saving my hide.”

  A mischievous smile opened on her previously angelic face, whispering words in his ears.

  “Master will sure find a way to express his gratitude in more concrete terms later, I hope. Maybe with a new leather collar with gold and silver studs, yes?”

  Apple whistled. That level of precision, that level of coordination… he took mental notes of it. It felt like watching a real team, not two strangers bickering but two iron-bonded siblings in arms. Still, that hurt. He couldn’t find them. He couldn’t locate them, while she could? How? He gritted his teeth, groaned, punched the wall. Missing those two juggers…? How could he call himself a fox? That was why…

  Limette pulled his tail, forced him to turn around.

  “Apple, stop sulking. I’m very good at short range recon, but I can’t pinpoint far targets well. For them, we need you, alright? I can’t sense those at the ground floor! I don’t hear well enough!”

  Apple felt pulled out of his trance, out of the maze of his self-loathing. Right, of course. He was a long-range sensor. His sense of smell was a little subpar, but his hearing and sight were better. The coating of the ceiling confused his senses, so he couldn’t gauge those two juveniles… but the others? The others were more up his alley. He breathed, inhaled, exhaled.

  “Okay. Waltz? Limette? Are you ready?”

  He gulped down a lump of saliva, breathed deeply once again.

  “…Rondeau needs us. We can’t have her wait for too long.”

  [chapter:Cartridge 08: Dead Inside]

  [i:When I think it’s bad, it’s actually worse than that]

  Slaughterhouse Dog roared again. The body of the jugger exploded in a shower of shrapnel and blood, its legs blasted away in all directions. Rondeau pumped her shotgun one more time, turned around. Another shot. Another kill. A red rain sprayed her, sullied her uniform, her skin. She wiped her eyelids, gritted her teeth. Her jacket and her pants were marred with cuts and slashes. Her left sleeve was almost completely torn and barely hanging there by sheer force of will. Bruises and superficial wounds dotted all of her body, leaving almost no corner of it untouched. Still, she was alive. Alive and kicking. Alive and shooting. That was more than enough. She glanced at the small display on Slaughterhouse Dog’s back. Plenty of ammo left, that was no concern for the moment. Even if it were, there was enough scrap metal scattered on the floor that she could improvise something.

  She breathed slowly, peeked from behind the small bench she used as an impromptu barricade. The clacking sound of jugger legs was coming for her again. She groaned. She couldn’t understand which direction they were approaching from. That was Apple’s shtick, her most reliable ally when it came to tracking those bloody buggers. But Apple wasn’t there with her. She was alone.

  Alone.

  That realization hit heavier than it should have. She clenched her fist, unzipped her jacket, reached for the internal pocket, pulled out a small object from it. A ‘pineapple’, as they used to call them during training. She glanced at the small road ahead. The sky was dimly lit by an orange hue, by the fire burning through what was left of the pub. Smoke was floating up and up above at an alarming pace, as the flames spread from building to building. The whole town might have been destroyed before morning came. All because nobody reported the first jugger. All because everybody thought it was okay to just wait it out.

  The clacking sound of the spider-like appendages assaulted her senses again. They were coming, they were there. In the red-tinted night, she discerned silhouettes, many of them. Malformed shapes, not two of them the same, all dragged by six appendages, clacking, clicking on the asphalt, on the dirt. She blinked twice, activated the aim assist, the night vision plug-in. Eight, no twelve, no maybe twenty shapes were closing in on her from the front. She turned her sight up. More of them on the rooftops. Even more around her sides. So many. That wasn’t a nest, that was a full scale outbreak. She closed her hand around the pineapple, clicked a button under its soft rubbery skin. A blue LED pierced the black surface. Ready to cook. Rondeau grinned, arced her arm, threw the pineapple in the air.

  The shockwave almost toppled her impromptu barricade, the shriek of torn metal, of blasted organs screamed through the air, broke into a cacophony of pain.

  Rondeau pumped her shotgun, glanced at the scene. Carcasses. So many jugger corpses. Some still moving. Most of them incapacitated. Most of them dead. The one which weren’t were scrambling in complete chaos, with their sensors damaged, their ‘eyes’ destroyed. She breathed. Inhaled. Exhaled. The pineapple was her ultimate ‘fuck you’ against juggers. Shame she couldn’t carry too many of them at a time. She browsed the inside of her pocket again. Two left. That didn’t bode well.

  She rolled out of cover, looked at the juggers on the roofs. Too far to reach her, too far to follow her, now that the main front had been breached. She panted, withstood the pain, the fatigue, pushed herself to run. A car. All she needed was a car, one that was still functional enough to bring her out of danger, fetch Apple and call for an air strike. The situation was completely out of control, nothing that even an army of executioner could fix. The town, the whole bloody town, had been infested. Every person she met had hatched. Every person she met was a skinwalking jugger. Just like…

  The clacking of metal halted her momentum. Four more, shutting her escape route. Their light patterns were blinking in irregular ways, out of sync, each following its own rhythm.

  Slaughterhouse Dog barked one more time.

  One more.

  One more.

  One more.

  Scraps of metal and gore splashed the road, in a gruesome abstract painting of entrails and chrome. Rondeau breathed, inhaled, exhaled, reloaded her gun. A moment of quiet, of calm before the storm. A quiet broken by more brutal shrieks. She blinked twice, focused on the road ahead. Dozens of shapes peeked among the fires, slowly crawling in the distance. The clacking sound of mechanical legs closed in. The juggers started swarming the roofs, coming out of the manholes. She gritted her teeth, almost to the point of cutting her gums. So many of them, so many of them together. Her chest pumped, her mouth opened all of a sudden, trying to catch some clean air, to clear her mind. There had to be a way out. Dying like that felt completely out of the question.

  “Miss Executioner!”

  A voice. A voice from behind her. A human voice. She turned around immediately, glanced at the source. A boy. Maybe fourteen, fifteen years old, wearing a cap, wildly waving his hand at her.

  “Come here! There’s a shelter! Quick!”

  Rondeau’s eyes widened in surprise—just for an instant. The instant immediately after, she stared at the street, found an open window in one of the tallest buildings, armed the second pineapple, aimed it in that direction.

  The explosion shook the road, made the juggers fall from the tower, blasted the others away in a wide radius. Dust, smoke, flames. A hellish concerto that watched her from afar.

  And, in the distance

  a taller silhouette

  watching her too.

  Rondeau looked at it, trying to discern its shape in the flames that spread all around it. It looked like a man, a man wearing imposing pauldrons, with something like a long cape hanging from them. A shape that reminded that of a gas mask covered his mouth, leaving his eyes exposed, his long hair flowing in the wind. Rondeau couldn’t distinguish his features, just the vague shapes, the general build of his body. Slender, wrapped in some sort of uniform. Her sight got ensnared by his presence, by that weird fit that contrasted with the destruction that filled her vision. Fire burst all around him, more and more juggers joined the fray, pouring from every side, from every building.

  “Miss Executioner! Now!”

  She reemerged from her trance, ignored that strange figure, turned towards the kid, ran behind him. The juggers were still recovering from the blast, realigning their sensors, trying to chase their prey among the burning houses. But it was too late.

  Behind the overturned bench, behind the charred wood, there wasn’t anybody.

  Rondeau had just disappeared.

  And the night bent to her new swarm of overlords.

  **

  The metal doors were sturdy. Rondeau inspected them from inside, checking how safe the lock was. Solid, pretty well built. A manhole was the main entrance from above, the only way in. Now that tunnel had been sealed with heavy safety bars, shielding the inside of the underworld from the chaotic surface. She glanced around, caught a glimpse of the green emergency light. Something was missing. Something that had to be there.

  “Here, here, Miss Executioner! We’re in!”

  The kid with the cap kept dragging her through the corridors, pulling her from a clean corner of her right sleeve. Her uniform was a patchwork of jugger blood and rips, her left sleeve still attached by a miracle, her jacket wide open after throwing the last bomb, showing her black bra underneath. She didn’t care, though. The situation was so surreal that the poor status of her clothes was of no practical relevance. Her eyes adapted to the low lights, finally started to distinguish more shapes.

  Ten, twenty, maybe thirty people. Sitting, laying on the ground. Shivering. Cursing. Watching her in shock. Eyes wide open, eyes that saw hades. Eyes that saw their loved ones turning into frenzied killing machines. Murmurs and whispers welcomed her, in a net of diffidence and words half said.

  Rondeau nodded, inhaled, exhaled. She had to reassure them. She had to do something.

  “Name’s Rondeau. I’m an executioner.“

  Her handcuffs shone in the dark, peeking out of her damaged sleeves. The whispers got louder, turning into a nondescript buzz, harassing her ears.

  “…was she in jail…?”

  “A criminal…?”

  “How can we trust…”

  Rondeau groaned, waved her hand.

  “…about the handcuffs… ugh, it’s a long story, alright? I’m clean, really! No crimes, no nothing! I was sent here to find a nest, but—wow—I wasn’t expecting the nest to be the whole frickin’ town, Yuvia take me!”

  Faces riddled with fear scanned her, still keeping their distance. Rondeau pointed her finger at the kid.

  “Look, ask him! I was hunting juggers to hades and back till ten minutes ago, ‘fore he brought me here! Ask him, he’ll tell you how I was trying my best at damage control, yes? Except they wouldn’t stop coming!”

  Still silence, still whispers. It was always like that. Always like that. She glanced again at the small crowd. A few women. Children. Men. Some elders too. Mostly teens, though. Stashed in a safety shelter filled with food crates and secured with heavy metal doors. Still, something felt wrong. What, though, Rondeau couldn’t grasp—not at the moment. She let that feeling sink, focus on her current predicament instead.

  “So, yeah, I don’t know how this happened, but we have to fall back and leave this place as soon as we can. The juggers ain’t stupid, we are dead meat if we don’t move fast enough...”

  Her gaze moved through all of them, one by one, trying to understand their expressions, their thoughts, their feelings.

  “…but first, what about telling me… you know, everything? From the beginning? Because, Yuvia’s my witness, I’ve never seen an infestation of this size in five years of active service!”

  [chapter:Cartridge 09: Shell Shock]

  [i:Surprises come in two flavors, be sure to pick the right one]

  Of all the scenarios that played in his mind, being hugged by a sobbing Rondeau was way at the bottom of his long list. Cursed against because he was late? Most likely. Reprimanded for not being by her side? Well, yeah, it had a chance of happening. Being welcomed with a smug grin and a ‘took you long enough’ stare? That was exceedingly in her tunes. But Rondeau simply gripping her arms around his hips, sinking her head into his pecs and crying like a little baby? That wasn’t on his bingo card. So, finding himself in such an unusual situation, all he could do was pat her head and reciprocate the hug. Plasters and gauze were tangled all over her body, as she wore nothing more than a t-shirt and panties combo—plus those broken handcuffs that were still hanging from her wrists. Her uniform was sprayed in a corner of the shelter, soaked in blood and marred by so many cuts that it would have felt at home in a modern art museum. Apple stood like that for one long minute, without saying a word, simply letting her eyes run dry, keeping her warm with his body, wrapping his tail around her too.

  A voice called him from the other side of the screen that protected them from the rest of the shelter, a screen that used to belong to the medical unit.

  “Um, Rondeau? We should start the strategy meeting. Could you…”

  Waltz, of course. With the sensitivity of a used shoe. Apple groaned, while still caressing Rondeau’s spiky, irregular hair. How could someone like Waltz, who cared for his fox almost as if she were his human girlfriend, not understand when it was the moment to shut up?

  “Hush! Let me enjoy my fox’s abs a little longer, gotcha?”

  Rondeau answered before he could even put together a decent retort. Her voice was still broken by fatigue, yet it resonated much like a lion’s roar.

  “But…”

  “Sheesh, I’m not riding him or sucking his cock, don’t worry. I just need… a little more time. Like, five minutes? Maybe, you can get ridden by your fox or have your cock sucked in the meanwhile, yes? Go fuck her and stop bothering me!”

  Silence fell on the other side of the screen, turning into a mush of whispers and words too hard to discern. Not for Apple, though. He could hear everything.

  “Master, master! Do you want me to ride you again now? I can do that!”

  “Limette! Now’s not the time! Don’t listen to that…”

  “But… but you left your undies at the hotel, Master! I’d just need to unzip…!”

  “Q—quiet!”

  Everything.

  Even what he didn’t want to hear. Especially what he didn’t want to hear. So, he tried to shut down the outside world, to focus on the trembling human that took refuge in his arms. When Waltz’s pager came back to life—with a message by Rondeau, no less—relief flooded Apple like an unstoppable river. Alive. Rondeau was alive, safely tucked in a shelter. What happened afterwards was a blur. The manhole covering the entrance, the kid coming out of it, the ladder down the sewer that brought them to the massive metal door, the survivors. And, of course, a shell-shocked Rondeau, wearing that unusual fit and covered from head to toes in bandages. Self-medicated, after showering away the jugger blood, after disinfecting her skin by herself, without accepting any external help—as usual. He listened to her breaths, all while Waltz and Limette were still bickering on the other side of the screen. Something about oak trees and bark. Something that Apple wished to be able to ignore with all of himself. He caressed Rondeau’s cheek, wiped the tears away from them, pushed his forehead against hers.

  “…maybe, just for once, you could let me…”

  “N—no, I’m fine. I’m fine, really. You don’t… we don’t need to...”

  Close. Too close for comfort. He could feel her skin against his, he could feel her warmth through the fabric, he could smell her scent. Apple bit his lips, closed his eyes. His tail was wagging wildly, his ears twitching up and down. Yet, Rondeau wouldn’t let him go, sank her head in his chest more. He whimpered, lowered his ears. His face was red, blushing more and more every second longer. That contact. That prolonged contact with her was triggering his instincts. Instincts he was fighting against with all of himself, losing the battle. He gritted his teeth, breathed, squeezed Rondeau tighter against him, closed his eyes, licked her ear, right as… right as…

  She pushed herself out of his grasp, blushing too, realizing what was happening between them. Realizing what turmoil she was causing in him.

  “S… sorry. I didn’t want to…”

  “…”

  Apple didn’t answer. Instead, he rolled his tail around his hips, making sure to cover all what lied between his legs. Those pants were too thin to hide the reaction of his body. He clenched his fists, murmured something. Then, felt Rondeau’s hand on his shoulder, her head pressed against his pecs again.

  “I know how difficult it must be, I’m…”

  “Drop the topic, shall we?”

  His ears were still down, his face still red like his namesake. She broke contact, nodded, inhaled, exhaled.

  “…right, the strategy meeting. Waltz is waiting.”

  She turned away from him, with her eyes still swollen.

  “…but thank you. It… helped a lot.”

  A half smile, one far less boisterous than usual. The same Apple answered with, shrugging in response.

  “You’re thanking me? What did those juggers do to you?”

  Rondeau chuckled, stepped outside of the screen. A scant number of survivor stood in front of her. Some were sitting on the floor, some on improvised chairs. Two children were pulling Limette’s tail and hair, while she jokingly played with them. The teens were, instead, eating her body with their eyes. Every time she moved, her ‘dress’ had a chance of flashing some of her skin, causing at least three of the young boys to watch her enraptured. Apple too seemed to have several admirers, as he followed Rondeau out of the corner, with his tail still wrapped around his hips. That included Waltz, who couldn’t help but gulp down a lump of saliva as soon as the fox entered his field of vision.

  Rondeau sat on the floor, crossed her legs, let out a long breath. The concrete was cold to the touch. Her skin complained about it, but she silenced her senses. It was nothing but a little discomfort in comparison with the main course.

  “So, yeah, I guess you got the full story too?”

  Waltz, called to duty once again, turned his sight towards that abrasive woman that made his existence a nightmare.

  “More or less, but it doesn’t make a shred of sense. A beekeeper hatches and, two weeks later, the whole city turns? With the newly hatched slaughtering the few that didn’t in a frenzy? Come on, this is…”

  “Weird, right?”

  “Huh–uh. A jugger infection of this scale takes months to develop, not days.”

  “Which means that…”

  “Yeah, the beekeper wasn’t the trigger—he was the symptom, after a… silent spread.”

  Everyone around them fell silent. Rondeau and Waltz gazed at the small crowd assembled inside the shelter. Thirty odd people of different ages and gender. No apparent connections between each other. Unhatched. But, probably, not safe yet. That was the detail that had struck Rondeau. The bunker didn’t have jugger sensors. They had been all smashed to bits. Those sensors were picking up subtle traces of chemicals released by a human host in a late infection stage, much like the maid at the brothel. The fact that the sensors were removed had just one possible explanation. Still, starting with that would have only caused more distrust and chaos. So, she kept her thoughts for herself and, instead, wore a confident expression. Fake confidence, but convincing enough to look genuine.

  “The clicky-clacky spiders upstairs won’t let us get away easily. Juggernauts ain’t stupid, they’ll force their way in soon. But they won’t have time to do it: I’ve already paged Cadenza, they’re going to carpet bomb everything—and when I say carpet bomb, I mean it. We must leave town before the cleansers fly, or we are toast too. Which leaves us with…”

  Her eyes turned to the small display of her pager, showing the current time in black and white pixelated numbers.

  “…two hours tops.”

  Gasps. Curses. Worried expressions. One woman raised her voice, almost to the point of shouting.

  “What about our houses? And… and our stuff?”

  “You’ll get a fat check, more zeroes than you’ve ever seen in your life.”

  “A… and my husband? He turned into one of those things, but there has to be a way to…”

  Rondeau side eyed her, squinted her eyes.

  “He’s dead. Once hatched, there’s no way back. ”

  “I…”

  “No way back.”

  Rondeau raised her voice, overwhelmed that of the woman. She stared at all of them, at the refugees glancing at her, at their scared eyes.

  “Your son. Your mommy. Your best friend. Your lover. Your nephew. They’re gone. Forever. There’s nothing left of them in those monsters. They were eaten from inside out and became just a thin shell. Now, that shell is broken. What came out of it… isn’t them.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself. They’re all gone.”

  She gritted her teeth. Her voice thundered, echoed in the shelter.

  “No! Exception!”

  Waltz fell oddly silent. Limette leaned on him, hugged him from behind. Apple nodded without saying anything, still recovering from the blush that pervaded him minutes before. Rondeau glanced at the small crowd assembled before her. She stared at each of them, one by one, right in the eyes. Her finger moved on the nearby wall, tapped on a printed map that crudely marked their position, in a web of roads developing from a central point. One point was marked in red, with a thick cross carved on the discolored paper.

  “We’re getting out through the emergency exit in the sewers, and we’re doing it now. Be ready to depart in ten minutes. Pack whatever food and medicines you can. If you aren’t ready by then, we’ll leave you behind, claro?”

  Rondeau looked at them once more before walking away, directed to the corner her massacred uniform was left in.

  In her heart, she hoped that nobody would have dared to give up yet.

  A hope she desperately clung to.

  [chapter:Cartridge 10: Follow the Light]

  [i:At the end of the tunnel, either hope or despair. Come on, toss that coin]

  Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound of drops marked the time like clockwork. Drip. Drip. Drip. One per second. Maybe more. Maybe less. Still, that sound marked every step, every movement inside the sunken corridors. The paths and route through the sewers were cramped. The roof was less than two meters tall, the channel just a handful of meters large. Almost claustrophobic. Apple and Limette had their noses covered with thick handkerchiefs, breathing mostly through their mouths. The stench of waste waters was unbearable, their heightened senses making them almost faint. Drip. Drip. Drip. So, handkerchief it was, shielding their noses from the smell of decomposing matter while they braved the underground path. Rondeau was leading the pack, a flashlight in one hand, the map in the other, Slaughterhouse Dog firmly secured to her belt. He uniform was a mess of coagulated blood and rips that almost hid its original blue hue, but she wore it anyway. The alternative of going almost in the nude was less than alluring, especially in a place with clear health safety hazards. Heck, Apple and Limette were wearing boots for once too. Not even their absolutely visceral hate for shoes could win against the sorry state of those runways. Fortunately, there was enough safety apparel in the shelter that they could find one pair of the right size for each of them. Nevertheless, watching them uncomfortably tiptoeing and almost stumbling in that unusual footwear made Rondeau feel a little bad for the foxes. Waltz tailed the group as a rear guard of sorts, looking back from time to time, with his fingers firmly closed around Magnum Grace’s grip. Drip. Drip. Drip. He listened to the dripping water, to his heartbeat too. The first noise, the first clacking noise was coming. He felt that in his bones. Clicking. Clacking. Clangs. They had to be close. So far, they hadn’t seen them, they hadn’t heard them, but they had to be close. No way they weren’t. He breathed. Breathed. Nest cleaning wasn’t anything new. Ten, twenty juvenile juggernauts? That was a routine cleanup. But hundreds? Thousands? Breathe. Breathe. That was outside of what he even considered possible.

  “Miss Executioner? Where are we? How long will it take?”

  The kid with the cap raised his hand, reached for Rondeau. She drove his fingers away with her flashlight before it could come in touch with her, in a somewhat gentle slap.

  “Almost there. Maybe five minutes more.”

  She turned around, glanced at the convoy. Everyone was holding well, more or less. Some were crying. Some were cursing. Most were afraid. But they were all following her lead, like ants chasing their queen. Rondeau frowned. It was amazing how danger turned humans into industrious insects that were too scared to defy orders, as soon as someone with a uniform showed up. Spineless survival machines that clung to whomever accepted the burden to make choices for them. A coward way to live. One that spawned all the dirt that marred their society.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Stop.

  Apple had just stopped. He was standing still, gritting his teeth, still clenching his nose in the fabric. His ears were twitching up and down, his tail wagging wildly. Rondeau halted too, gestured at him.

  “Anything the matter?”

  “I heard something weird ahead.”

  “Metal?”

  “No, more like… buzzing. Yes, buzzing. Like the sound of…”

  “Bees?”

  “Yes.”

  Rondeau turned around, closed her eyes. Her ears twitched too, in the attempt to capture the same sound. Apple’s hearing was way more sensitive than hers, so chances were that that buzzing was almost imperceptible . Dripping water. Her own heartbeat. Steps. Indistinct chatter in the back. A plethora of noises assaulted her brain, but none of them of the type Apple mentioned. Until she got it. Very faint. To the absolute limit of her hearing perception. Buzzing. Like that of a small insect. A fly. A wasp. A bee, maybe. She opened her eyes again, raised her hand.

  “Apple? You and I go forward and scout ahead. Waltz? Keep the civilians safe.”

  In normal circumstances, Waltz would have slapped her for the presumption of giving him orders. In that moment, though, his survival instincts were stronger than his antipathy for Rondeau. So, he just raised his thumb up, in a rough sign of approval. Rondeau gave the map to the kid with the cap, gave him her flashlight too.

  “If you hear gunfire or clicky-clacky spiders approaching, turn right at the next fork and follow the route marked in red. It’s longer and has more ladders to climb, but should be safer.“

  “B-but what if there are juggers there too?”

  “Let Waltz handle them.”

  The kid nodded, squeezed his hands around the map. Then, Rondeau pulled out Slaughterhouse Dog, stepped forward in a slow, methodical way. Apple reached her side, tapped her shoulder.

  “You know that my nose is out of commission down here, right?”

  “I just need your ears.”

  “Good. Because that’s all I can give you right now.”

  “They’ll be enough.”

  Then, they left the group behind, slowly moving ahead in the tunnel.

  **

  The buzzing now was so loud that even Rondeau could hear it clearly. Maybe, they could have ignored that anomaly and could have gone for the safer route together with the others. Maybe, all of that was just an excess of caution. But, if there were even a small chance of running into uninvited guests, doing so with thirty more civilians to protect would have been an unnecessary burden. Rondeau and Apple walked for two, three minutes longer in those cramped alleys that reeked of putrefaction, still wondering about the source of that weird noise. Apple was pinching his nose, breathing heavily through his mouth. Every step was a torture, with the metal tip of his boots harassing each and every one of his toes. But his ears were working well, and his sight too. In the dark, he was the beacon that guided Rondeau, pulling her by her wrist, sometimes grabbing her handcuff or her sleeve instead. Her whole uniform smelled of death, in a way that almost overshadowed the sewer itself. Yet, in that darkness, it was easier for him to focus. Less distractions. Less red herrings. Just following the faint light and the noise ahead. A noise that became clearer and clearer every step closer.

  Until he saw it.

  A small, inconspicuous shape fluttering in the air. Yellow. Black.

  A bee.

  Another one suddenly behind it. And another one. Before they disappeared behind the corner together. Apple pulled Rondeau’s sleeve, nodded in the direction the small insect came from. Rondeau pumped Slaughterhouse Dog, removed the safety. Bees. Underground. At night. That didn’t check out. There might have been an exit to the forest above, allowing them to harvest nectar and the likes, but even that felt contrived and didn’t explain their sudden burst of activity at such a late hour. So, she slowly marched forward. Slowly. Slowly. More bees came out of the corner, bathed in a thread of light. She could see a dozen of them, maybe more, juggling back and forth through the air, before coming back immediately. One step forward. Another one. The corner was close. The bees were dancing in front of her, ignoring them, moving around in chaotic ways. Apple removed the handkerchief from his nose, breathed. The stench of the sewer had been overwhelmed by a pleasant scent of wax and honey and… something else. Something familiar.

  He tapped her shoulder twice, then three times again. She nodded, raised her weapon. Before jumping forward, rolling on the floor, aiming her shotgun in front of her.

  A gasp.

  Hives.

  Dozens of beehives, of all sizes and shapes. Hanging from the ceiling. Stuck to the walls. And artificial lights, of a warm yellow, spread all over the room. It was a larger opening, twice the size of the usual corridor while still having that low ceiling, with a platform covering the channel, making all of its surface walkable. That opening was filled with hives. The lights deceived the bees, made them think daylight had broken. So, they restlessly buzzed and flew around in broken patterns, coming out of their cells, going back into them. An eldritch construct, a twisted mockery of a bee farm. Bees. Underground. Fooled by artificial lights. In the middle of the night.

  Rondeau’s heart skipped a beat. At the center of that senseless diorama, stood a shape. A dark shape, anchored to the ground, its tendrils piercing the concrete, delving into the waste waters. A shape with four additional arms, segmented into several joints. A shape that had a central core, one that lit up with red, intermittent flashes. A shape encased in a metallic hide.

  Rondeau kept her muscles in check, kept her breath under control, her finger raring to pull.

  An adult juggernaut. No mistake. No other explanations.

  Yet, the creature didn’t pay attention to her. Its arms floated around in coordinated movements, reaching for the hives, extracting yellowish matter out of them, pouring it into other cells, in a continuous, meaningless loop. The red flashes on its core followed its arms, as they switched lightbulbs on and off, driving the bees around, keeping them prisoner of a loop without end or beginning, building more hives under her surprised gaze. A droning sound surrounded the machine, with irregular high pitched disruptions complementing the buzzing noise. Rondeau stared in awe, undecided on what to do. Pull the trigger. Finish it off. Or let it be, go back. The cleansers would have bombed the place anyway. But what if it survived and spread the infection even further?

  She inhaled. Exhaled. Took a long breath.

  Then, she raised the shotgun.

  And the deafening roar of Slaughterhouse Dog echoed in the corridors.

  [chapter:Cartridge 11: Beehive]

  [i:Honey, wax, slaughter]

  At first, he didn’t think much of them. That woman with the gun, her fox companion… they were just background elements. Inconsequential. What was important were the bees. He had to keep them healthy. He had to take care of them. Build new hives. Feed them. Make sure new queens were born. Switch the lights to steer them around. At night. In the day. Teach them to find pollen. The bees. The bees. The bees. That was a figment of himself that remained constant despite all the changes that ravaged his body. Yet, he was at peace. The bees. The hives. The wax. The honey. The pollen. The flowers. That was all he needed. So, he ignored the woman. He ignored the fox. They were not bees. They were just nuisances. As long as they didn’t move, he couldn’t care less. He didn’t need to spread. He didn’t need to reproduce. He didn’t need to have more of himself around. One was enough for the bees. The bees. The bees. Even now, in their circling among the artificial lights, the bees needed him. Without him, they would have rested in their hives till morning came. But being asleep was weakness, not strength. So, he switched the lights on and off, to drive them out, to teach them. Simple as that. And, in his mind, he was content. The bees. The bees. The bees.

  The b

  He felt it.

  His metal case thrashed.

  Blood pouring out of his body.

  After a roar the shook the room.

  A roar that scared the bees.

  Bees. The bees. His bees.

  That’s when he turned towards the woman.

  That’s when his attitude changed.

  That’s when he decided to kill her.

  **

  The impact carved off the left part of the jugger’s core, under Apple’s petrified gaze. Blood flowed out of it, poured like a red river. The bees scrambled, flew away, escaped to their hives. Some fell to the ground, disoriented by the shockwave. And the titan wailed. A shriek. A high pitched shriek, one that silenced every other noise. It turned around its stem, flailing its segmented arms at Rondeau, extending them to become longer and longer, almost like whips. The top arms lashed down, slammed the ground where Rondeau was. She evaded the strike, rolled on the floor, pumped Slaughterhouse Dog again. Not much room to move, just enough to barely avoid getting hit. She stared at the monster, at the wound that defiled its core. It was already closing, regenerating in a net of organic matter and carbon fibers. Rondeau snickered. That was the problem with adults—they fixed their bodies way faster than you could hurt them.

  “Rondeau, we should disengage! It can’t walk! It’s like a tree!”

  “Yeah, because we can leave an adult jugger of this size alive, right? Come on, Apple, don’t be a pussy!!”

  A second whiplash. Rondeau rolled again, avoided it at the last second. The tip struck the ground, cracked the concrete. Rondeau stood up, aimed her gun at the massive creature. Close. So close. She just needed to…

  She lost her breath, as the fourth whip hit her, slashing through her uniform, ripping through it like butter. A wide gash crossed her chest, from her left shoulder down to her right thigh. The zipper gave up, forcing her jacket open. Her bra was split in half by the slash, her belt too—unceremoniously falling to the ground, together with some of the bandages that mended her wounds. Her pants stood up for a miracle, even though the slash severed their elastic band and everything underneath it. Rondeau kneeled, coughed, brought her hand to her belly. Her blood was slowly seeping out of the wound, covering her hand in red. That hurt. That hurt like hell. But what hurt more was not having seen it coming. She stood up, growled, raised her gun one more time. Only for four whips to focus on her out of the blue. She stepped away, dashed back as far as she could, hit the wall behind her. She gasped, cursed, tried to correct course. A sudden pull surprised her—something grabbing her by the collar of her uniform, putting her out of range. The whips missed the target, pierced the wall instead, cracked it. Close to the hives. Close to the bees. The tentacles froze for a moment, while bees flew out of their cells, moving in erratic patterns, escaping in all directions. The arms of the jugger stopped moving for an instant. It gazed at the bees, at the turmoil that befell the hives. Its tendrils shivered. Close. So close to the hives. The jugger trembled once more, tried to pull them back. One got out. Then, the second. And none else. The other two were stuck—they weren’t getting out of the walls. The jugger pulled them stronger, fighting against the concrete that trapped them, whipping its arms violently left and right, trying to shake the tips off. Rondeau caught her breath stood on her feet again, helped by Apple. It was his hand that took her out of danger. His hand that saved her hide from that combined assault. And, now, that very same hand was traveling over her wound, trying to gauge its severity. He whispered in her ear, patting her head with his free fingers.

  “It’s just a scratch, your uniform saved you.”

  Then, he brought a drop of her blood to his lips, licked it, swallowed it.

  “…no contaminants either. This adult is inert.”

  Rondeau nodded, pulled together the two sides of her ripped jacket in front of her exposed chest, raised her shotgun.

  Slaughterhouse Dog barked in the night.

  And two arms were no more.

  The jugger wailed, shrieked. More and more bees left the hives, zoomed around, buzzed away, confused by the sounds, by the lights. Dark clouds of insects followed the bulbs, led by queens outside of the safety of their colonies. The jugger turned on its stem to face Rondeau, losing blood and other fluids from all of its wounds. Its core patterns turned into something that could have been mistaken for eyes, if juggers were sentient. But they weren’t, they couldn’t be. Otherwise, killing them would have been inhuman. That was the only fact, the only absolute truth that made Rondeau still function. Juggers were not alive. Juggers were just machines. Machines that imitated some behavior of their cocoon in a mechanical way to fool executioners. No reasoning. No intelligence. They didn’t have feelings. They didn’t feel pain. They were just.

  Weapons.

  So, when the creature turned back to the bees, waving its arms at them, trying to reach for the insects, shrieking in what sounded like a desperate plea, her mind drew a blank. The lightbulbs. The creature was steering the lightbulbs, it was driving the scared bees back to their hives. Ignoring the blood loss. Ignoring the severed arms. Its attention was all directed towards the bees.

  It didn’t care for Rondeau.

  It didn’t care for Apple.

  No matter that its body was scarred.

  No matter that it was on the point of breaking down.

  It was almost like…

  “Fuck no, I won’t fall for it again!”

  Rondeau bit her lips, gripped her weapon.

  “O wayward soul…”

  Rondeau pumped her shotgun again, run towards the core, the part of the core that missed both arms, aimed her weapon at its center.

  “…eater of forbidden apples, sinner among sinners…”

  The barrel shone in the artificial lights, surrounded by the buzzing of dozens of wild bees.

  “…may the everlasting fire of hades burn you forevermore…”

  Her finger rested on the trigger, waited a little longer. A hint of hesitation, chewed away by her gritted teeth.

  “…till the gods forgive you.”

  [chapter:Cartridge 12: Cleanse and Repeat]

  [i:Make your decision and live with the consequences]

  The boy stood on the hill with his cap in his hands, gazing at the town from his vantage point. The fires, the columns of smoke dotted what once was a place bustling with life. There went the bakery, there the school, there the sport stadium. There was nobody left, down there. And, even if there were, they wouldn’t be alive for long. He felt warmth closing around him. Arms. A tail. A cheek rubbed against his.

  “Don’t worry, everything will work out! Master will help you! He’s a good man!”

  The kid blushed. Limette’s presence, her scent, her shapes were too much to handle for him and his teen friends. Now, though, she was hugging them all, one by one, smiling as much as she could, trying to comfort them. Her voice turned into a whisper, for the kid’s ears only.

  “He’s a bit of a cheapskate and too much of a prude, but he’s all right. Promise!”

  On his side, Waltz was also watching the town in the distance. The lights in the sky were closing in faster than he could follow them. It was almost time for the show. And, unfortunately, Rondeau didn’t make it. Alas!—That was how things went. He would have dearly, sincerely, genuinely regretted her loss, before pocketing her cut of the fat nest cleanup bonus. If anything, her tragic early departure would have helped him afford a new choker for his beloved Limette, one that fit her refined and delicate shapes. A sacrifice for a greater good. Shame for Apple, though. If Rondeau was gone but he survived the gruesome end of his mistress, he could have sunk his despair in a holy threesome with Limette and her master. Totally disinterested, of course. No strings attached. It was a shame, but a shame that an executioner had to accept. Such was life, after all and…

  “Oi, missed me, fuckers?”

  …and, of course, it was never going to go as he planned. Waltz rolled his eyes, let his hair swoosh in a gesture of absolute superiority, turned around to welcome that obnoxious cockroach that survived… whatever there was to survive down there.

  The sight of her sorry state made him recoil.

  Her uniform was cut open down to her pants, forcing her to keep them by the hem to avoid them falling of completely. Her underwear was history too. A long gash sullied her chest, with blood still pouring out of it. Bruises peeked all over her skin. Yet, despite that, she was still grinning like the mad woman she was, carrying her shotgun on her shoulder. Apple was right behind her, throwing away those boots that tortured his feet for too long, letting his soles taste the humid ground. Waltz sighed with relief. Good, at least the worst case scenario (Apple dying, Rondeau surviving) was averted. And, despite all his mind movies, seeing that walking disaster alive brightened his mood.

  “You’re pretty badass, after all…”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing, Rondeau. Nothing. Seems like you had a hard time.”

  Rondeau didn’t answer, clenched her fist instead. Too many pieces didn’t match. Too many. Did she really see a man in Genuya? What was he doing there? And what about that underground jugger? That jugger. The hives. Its reactions. They had something of unsettling. That wasn’t her usual jugger. A normal one would have never…

  A massive roar shook the valley.

  For a moment, the night sky turned to day.

  A column of fire from above, cleansing and burning everything in its wake, with a sound of thunder. Another one followed. And another one. Another one. The cleansers danced among the clouds, nosediving like falcons, releasing their payloads. Incinerating what was once the town of Genuya, one air strike at a time. Every beam caused shockwaves to pierce the valley, reverberated around the hill, under the enraptured gaze of the civilians. A show of sad beauty, one of biblical significance. Under their eyes, their previous life was being torched to the ground, burned to ashes. Gone were their hosues, gone was the school, gone was the hotel, the bakery, the small stadium. Gone were the juggers swarming the streets, disintegrated by jets of divine radiance. The asphalt cracked, the underbelly of the city was forced to welcome the night. The sewers too. The beams went on and on, in a spectacle of devastation, for five, maybe ten minutes longer, as dozens of cleansers cauterized the wound, glassing the ground till not even the foundations were spared. As the last beam shone, only a smoldering crater remained were once Genuya stood.

  As if it never existed in the first place.

  The lights disappeared, turning away in the dark sky, leaving nothing but the gaze of the half moon.

  Silence fell.

  A man started to cry. A woman too. Words were not enough to describe that feeling. Rondeau gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, tried her best not to break. Failed at it. And her fox licked her tears away, keeping her warm in his hug. Memories. Memories she wanted to forget. Memories that haunted her to that day. Triggered by the sight of those shining beams. She took refuge in Apple’s pecs, let her cheek rest on them. She let go of everything and hugged him with both arms, in the embrace of his fluffy tail. For two more minutes, nothing happened. Only silence and sobs. Sobs and silence. Then, Waltz’s voice broke through that veil of somberness, snapping his fingers for a good measure, pointing his finger up. The faint noise of rotors accompanied that gesture, as more and more stares turned to the sky.

  “See those cargo choppers above there? Those are the cleaning teams, coming here just for you. They’ll bring you all to Cordo for medical examinations. You don’t have anything to fear, really. The Order will help you settle down, give you a new home, and…”

  “Don’t rush it, Waltz. Tell the whole truth, not the usual castrated version, okay?”

  Rondeau’s voice, now back to her bombastic tone, all while she was holding Slaughterhouse Dog in her hands. Waltz gave her the side eye, before waving his hand as if to say I’ll leave it to you. Rondeau nodded, turned towards the survivors, bared her weapon. Gulps. Yells of surprise. Murmurs. Her voice overshadowed all of them.

  “Why did you disable the jugger sensors in the shelter?”

  Silence. Silence fell again. An exchange of stares, of complicit gazes. Kids watching adults that watched kids in turn. Before they could answer, though, Rondeau’s voice thundered one more time.

  “…because they were ringing like crazy, right? You couldn’t stand them, so you broke them. Even if you knew what it meant.”

  She pumped her shotgun, removed the safety. The survivors whimpered, stepped away from her. The kid with the cap stood still, stared back at her. The only one to remain calm. The only one ready to endure her gaze.

  “…yes. I broke them. I threw a rock at them, but I…”

  “You’re all carriers. There’s no way around it. You’ve all been terminally infected by juggers, but you haven’t hatched. If you’ve survived till now, you’re probably good to go, but it’s not… a guarantee. The medical team will find out, as soon as they scan you. There’s no way to run away and go underground without them knowing. Even if you managed to evade them—tell me, would you like to trigger another Genuya? Because that’s what all of you are, now—walking, ticking time bombs.”

  She looked at the boy, tried to keep eye contact with him.

  “If you want it, I can kill you. I can make that painless. All of you that don’t want to live in fear of hatching, I mean. Otherwise, I’ll leave it to the eggheads in Cordo. The choice is yours.”

  The kid growled, slammed his fists together.

  “I don’t want to die! Not after… not after this! I… I want to live, Miss Executioner!”

  Rondeau aimed her rifle at him, her finger danced on the trigger.

  “Are you sure about it? Even if you do, it will be a life of pain. Your body will become a liability. You won’t be able to enjoy the touch of another human being for the rest of your days, without the risk of infecting them. Is it fine with you?”

  “…”

  “Is it. Fine. With you?”

  The kid rolled his cap around his head, gnashed his teeth.

  “If… if you and Mister Executioner there did it, I will do it too! You hear me? I’ll do it too!”

  Rondeau lowered her weapon, wore a tired smile. She pulled out the last pineapple from inside her uniform, gave it to the boy. He looked at it, touched it slightly, not understanding what it was.

  “If you ever change idea, push this button, arm it and make it go boom. It will make it painless. But, you know, after seeing you out there…”

  She closed the gap, patted his head with her bare hand, caressed his cheek.

  “…I’m sure you’ll become a damn fine executioner, kid. Better than Waltz, at least.”

  As Rondeau hugged the boy, the first helicopter appeared above them, starting its slow descent. She looked at the rotor, at the shape of that block of metal slowly reaching for the ground. Her story started in the same way, hugged by an executioner while a chopper came down for her. In her heart, she hoped the boy had better luck. Still, she found the strength to pat his head once more, to keep him in her arms a while longer.

  He had a long way ahead.

  All of them had.

  But, now, it was time to cherish what was left.

  Hoping for the dawn to break soon.

  [chapter:Interlude—Self-determination]

  [i:Don’t wake the sleeping wolf—become the sleeping wolf]

  The last memory she had was massaging the naked back of another woman, one with a dark complexion and spiky hair. It was a trivial memory, a fragment of no significance. Still, that was something that defined the ‘before’ and ‘after’. ‘Before’, she was still the human who performed that massage. ‘After’ she was what she was now. ‘She’. It was hard to renounce to her identity, even in her new shape. What was ‘she’, though? She didn’t know, really. The only fact she was aware of was that her form wasn’t reflecting her idea of what ‘she’ had to be. She crawled on her three remaining limbs, helped by the six arms of the mechanical body she merged with. Why she did it? No idea. It was simply something that popped up in her mind. An instinct, if at all. After the gun blazed. After her body lost pieces.

  She stopped for a moment. It hurt. Being shot hurt. All while she was trying to ask for help. To ask for body parts. To replace her metal with skin and muscles. But the woman didn’t understand her. And shot.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Blasted her to pieces.

  Caused her to faint.

  Until she assimilated the machine, that robot with six arms. Joining it as one, she managed to survive, to rebuild her damaged organs, to slowly crawl away in the early morning. Now, though, she had to decide what to do. Humans scared her. Humans would kill her. She had no way to make herself understood. Her body was a mess of metal and barely functioning organs.

  They would have hunted her.

  They would have murdered her.

  Her organic parts shivered. She wanted to live. Now that she hatched, she wanted to keep living.

  So, she needed a plan. She needed a way to go on.

  A mouth. She needed a mouth. And eyes. And a nose. And hair. Pretty hair. And a body, a biped body. That was the image ‘she’ had. With that image, she could move among humans. Like before, when she was a human too. Her patterns blinked. Yes. That was what she had to achieve, one lizard, one mouse, one cat, one dog, one horse at a time. Build biological matter, avoid humans, build a new shell.

  She needed something else, though.

  A name.

  She thought about it. The name of her ‘before’… what was it? She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember. Only a small part of her host’s brain had remained inside of her. Only a small part of her memories. So, she vocalized some sequences. She put together sounds. She tried to mesh them in a way that made her happy.

  Mala.

  Mika.

  Mora.

  Mia.

  M I A.

  MIA.

  Yes, Mia.

  That was the sound she liked the most.

  Mia.

  That would have been her new name.

  That would have been her identity.

  Satisfied by her choice, Mia crawled in the dark, sliding into yet another manhole.

  There was a lot to do, before she could walk in the sunlight once again.